She ignored that. “How much can you own, Harry? How much land can one man handle? How damn big do you expect to get?”
“Bigger than the biggest. I came up hard, you know that. Now nobody runs Harry Gauge anymore. Now I run things.”
“I guess when you’re that big, nobody can say no to you.”
“That’s right.”
Her wet red smile was faintly teasing. “What about the Bar-O? They aren’t like these other little spreads you forced out and swallowed up. They’ll fight you.”
“Let them try. There were people in this town that tried to fight me before. What happened to them? All I had to do was look at them hard and they fell apart. Sometimes I sweetened it with a little dough. But they’re all of them soft. They can’t handle the idea of maybe dying on their own front steps.”
“Suppose they get together. It’s happened in other towns.”
“I’ll see that they don’t.” He shook his head. “Nothing in Trinidad gets by Harry Gauge.”
She frowned and worry lines touched her forehead. Sitting forward, to reveal not her charms but her concern, she said, “Harry, the talk around town... it’s like everybody’s just waiting for something to happen.”
He shrugged, nodded toward the WANTED poster. “Cullen’s wire to his old partner got ’em all stirred up.”
She was shaking her head, just a little, dark gypsyish curls flouncing. “Ten thousand dollars is a hell of a bounty, my friend. And you can bet Cullen isn’t paying this Banion character or anybody else up front.”
“What’s your point?”
She shrugged. “You figure you can take Banion.”
He returned the shrug. “I already took down two men who outdrew him.”
“Sure... but Banion lived through both tries. So fine, so you come out on top of a showdown with big, bad Wes Banion. Do I have to tell you what happens next?”
“Can I stop you?”
Her expression was grave. “You have a reputation, Harry. How many men have come looking for you, these past few years, to build a rep of his own?”
“Enough.”
“Well, Harry honey, it’s gonna be an army of ’em with Old Man Cullen’s ten thousand in the game.”
“Plenty of room on Boot Hill.”
“Not really. You’ve filled most of it already. That mesquite tree can only shade so much. Of course, they’d make room for you.”
What he grunted was almost a laugh. “Banion will go down just like Caleb York went down.”
“They say York was back-shot.”
“If that’s what it takes. Dead is dead.”
“Yes, and if a legend like Caleb York can die, so can the biggest man in Trinidad, if he isn’t careful.”
“What are you sayin’, Lola?”
She flew to her feet and leaned her hands on the desk. “I’m saying maybe it’s time to cash out. How rich do you have to be? Do you know how well we could live over the border on gringo dollars? I don’t want to be a damn madam the rest of my life, helping soiled doves duck babies and disease. And do you want to spend your days looking back over your shoulder, jumping at shadows?”
“I don’t jump at nothing or nobody.”
She gestured around them. “Harry, you’re sitting in your office in the dark, reading a poster over and over about a man that’s coming to kill you. Face it — the great Harry Gauge is scared.”
He slapped her.
The sound rang out like a gunshot, and she clenched one hand into a hard, little quivering fist as her other fingers went to a mouth where the red now wasn’t just rouge.
Her voice trembled not with fear but rage. “Someday, Harry. Someday you’ll do that once too often...”
“Shut up. Go do your job. Get your girls to find out from these payday-rich cowhands if anybody new has signed on lately. Could even be on one of my own spreads and I wouldn’t know it. A smart man might hide in plain sight like that. Now... get out.”
She’d found a handkerchief somewhere and was rubbing the blood off her mouth. That made him feel a little bad and he got her coat and helped her into it.
Her voice trembled again, but it wasn’t rage and it wasn’t hurt. More like hurt feelings.
“I won’t have you hitting me,” she said, sounding like a kid.
“Won’t happen again, sugar,” he said, making himself smile as he held the door open for her.
She paused, glancing back. “A gentleman would walk me down there.”
He grinned. “You’re a big girl, and I’m no gentleman. Sheriff don’t need to make an entrance just yet. I’ll be down there. I’ll be down.”
She nodded and went out onto the porch and down the steps into the street, where a full moon was climbing to paint the dusty town ivory. He watched her go, admiring the sway of her hips, until she got to where the boardwalk started.
Then he went back in his office and got the bottle out of the bottom desk drawer. That had been one good idea she had.
Under that same moon but a little higher now, on the porch of the Bar-O ranch house, Willa Cullen stood with her father as foreman Whit Murphy, already on horseback at the head of a party of ten mounted cowhands, waited for his final instructions.
Both father and daughter remained in the attire they’d worn to Boot Hill this morning, and Papa was back in his wide-brimmed black hat.
Willa, almost whispering, said, “Papa... are you sure...?”
“That I know what I’m doing?” The old man laughed hollowly. “Do you think Harry Gauge is going to wait for Banion to show up? I know our sheriff’s kind too well. He’ll try hitting us from every angle he can think of. Soften us up.”
“You said it yourself,” she said, still very quiet, “our men aren’t gunfighters.”
“No, but they don’t have to be. Most fought for one side or the other, not so long ago, in a conflict bigger than this. And this is war, too.”
Then Papa strode down the steps with the confidence of a sighted man and positioned himself just in front of the mounted foreman.
“Whit, my boy,” he said. “You straight on what to do?”
“We’re set,” he said. His hat was off in respect to Willa and her father. “Bulk of the cattle are on the north end, have been since dark, and the trenches are dug. Carmen took the crew out with the water wagons two hours ago.”
“Good.” Papa took off his hat and lifted his unseeing eyes to the sky, turning his face toward the breeze, which was not considerable. “Long as this wind doesn’t pick up, we should make out fine.”
Whit leaned down and spoke directly to Papa, soft enough that Willa barely heard: “You think it’s wise to just leave five men here, Mr. Cullen?”
“Gauge’s first move won’t be against the house.”
“Can we be sure of that, sir?”
“Nothing’s sure in this life but death. Just do it my way, son, and we’ll see how we come out.”
“Yes, sir.” Whit put his hat back on, turned to his men and said, “Okay — let’s move on out!”
The other cowhands waited for Whit to bring his horse around and take the head position. Then they went out, two by two, in an even gait that built into pounding hooves when the riders had disappeared into the night.
Willa came down and joined her father, slipping an arm in his. “How can you be so sure, Papa, that Gauge will do what you think he will?”
“Because when I was his age,” her father said, “and not such a nice fella myself... it’s exactly what I would have done.” He sighed. “Anyway, we can’t pin all our hopes on this Banion.”
Frowning, she said, “Well, you’re putting all your money on him.”