O’Malley grinned back. “I can handle that, Sheriff.”

  York got up, then swiveled back. “Oh, one last thing . . .”

  “Yeah?”

  “Everything okay between you and Parker? Seems a mite . . . stiff, you ask me.”

  O’Malley sighed. “I was never that thick with Raymond. It was always George I was close to. We always rubbed each other wrong, Parker and me. I was probably part of why he went off on his own all them years ago.”

  “He should thank you, as well as he’s done.”

  O’Malley chuckled. “You’re right, Sheriff. You are so very right. But I won’t waste time waitin’ for a check to arrive.”

  Before leaving, York knocked on the front door, and on the second knock, Willa answered.

  “Caleb,” she said.

  “Willa,” he said.

  Awkward silence.

  Then from Willa: “Thank you for coming.”

  That was the kind of ridiculous thing people said to each other in such circumstances. As if he would under any conditions not attend the funeral of the great man who was her father. Or not stand at her side at that event.

  “I wanted to know,” he said, “if there was anything I could do.”

  Another ridiculous remark in such a situation.

  “There is something,” she said. She stuck her head out the door, noticed down the porch O’Malley sitting and smoking, and curled a finger at York to come inside.

  They sat together on the hearth, the warmth of a small crackling fire at their backs. She found his hand. It was warm, too.

  “Forgive me for asking,” she said. “I know I probably don’t really need to, but . . .”

  “I’ll find the one who did it, Willa. Make no mistake of that.”

  Neither was looking at the other.

  “I know,” she said. “I know you will, and I know that you are a genuine detective, if nothing else. But you’re also . . . You are a killer of men, Caleb York. No doubt of that.”

  “No doubt.”

  “I want your promise that you will not just find whoever did this terrible thing, but that you will kill that person, or persons. Even if you have to take off your badge to do it.”

  “You have my word.” He was looking at her now, though her eyes were aimed straight ahead. “Your father’s murderer will pay the ultimate price. Not a rope. But my gun.”

  Now she looked at him.

  She squeezed his hand very hard. Then she kissed him the same way. The fire at their backs was hot, but not that hot.

  Swallowing for breath, York placed a finger on her ripe lips. “You must promise me something now.”

  “Anything.”

  “You must follow your heart and your mind in this matter. You have people all around you jockeying to ‘help’ you, all with their own self-interests at the root. You will have all the city fathers, from the mayor on down, trying to manipulate you. Even those who mean well, like Whit and your uncle Burt, see things from their own perch. This railroad agent, Prescott, will wave money in your face that would tempt a saint. But hold fast to whatever you think is best.”

  Now she was looking at him, while he stared straight ahead.

  She said, “You told me you agree that selling the right of passage makes sense.”

  He nodded. “That’s my opinion. My self-interest is that I’ll get a raise and a house out of it, and I’ll have a town growing around me that will enhance my financial position. My position, period. Any credence you give to my views, keep that in mind.”

  Her sigh was punctuated by crackling flames. “Until somebody killed Daddy over it, I intended to sell. Now . . . I find myself wanting to respect his views.”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “He’s gone. And when he was here, he was of another time, almost of another place. The future’s upon us, and there’s no escaping it. You must make this decision yourself. All this advice will be whirling around your head, but it all boils down to selling a right-of-way to the railroad or, frankly, selling the Bar-O entirely.”

  “Two simple courses of action.”

  “Two simple courses of action . . . Getting a little warm, don’t you think?”

  They shared grins and stood up, the backs of their clothing hot enough to smoke.

  Facing the fire now, Willa at his side, York said, “You could use a portrait of your papa over the mantel here. I know a good artist in Dodge City. Are there any photographs of the old boy he might work from?”

  She nodded. “Yes. And I’d love that.”

  “Round me your favorite tintypes of your papa, and I’ll take care of it. My treat.” His eyes moved to either side of the mantel. “Those rifles are something to see.”

  On the left was a 50-70 Gov’t Sharps rifle, and on the right a Winchester Model 1866, each cradled in mortar-mounted, upturned deer-hoof gun racks.

  She said, “Papa came west with a horse and that Sharps rifle. Buffalo hunting laid the groundwork for what became the Bar-O. Our distinguished guest from Denver was at his side through all of it.”

  Raymond Parker had hidden depths.

  “Are they loaded?” York asked.

  “Oh, my, yes. To me and everybody else, they were decoration. For Papa, they were protection. You never knew when another Indian uprising was on the horizon.”

  They both laughed a little at that; then she walked him out, hand in hand until they reached the porch, when her fingers slipped away. Apparently, she wasn’t ready to advertise her feelings for him, with O’Malley on the porch and the cook staff and cowboys cleaning up the tables and disassembling them to be stacked in a buckboard for return to Missionary Baptist.

  She did walk him to the dappled gelding at a hitch post near the barn.

  He was about to get up onto the saddle when she said, very softly, “Do you think I’m terrible?”

  He thought she was wonderful.

  “No,” he said.

  “I mean . . . asking you to kill somebody in cold blood.”

  “There’ll be nothing cold about it.” He swung up onto the horse, then looked down at her with the faintest of smiles. “And it won’t be murder, exactly. The one I kill will have his fair chance. He’ll go for his gun before I do mine. I’ll arrange that.”

  That much he had in common with the Preacherman.

  He waved as he rode out, and she waved back and smiled. Still no sign of tears.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  When Caleb York got to the café just before eight the next morning, it took him a couple of blinks to recognize Raymond Parker.

  The distinguished city clothes were gone, and in their stead were a dark gray sateen shirt with arm garters and a cowhide vest, a yellow knotted bandana at the throat and, resting on the table beside him, an uncreased broad-brimmed hat, which took the place of the cemetery’s white stovepipe.

  Suddenly York could see the frontiersman who lived within the big-city businessman, the onetime partner of George Cullen who’d helped carve out the Bar-O. Parker had mentioned that he’d bought a horse at Brentwood Junction and ridden into Trinidad . . . and the man wouldn’t have done that dressed in a newmarket coat, a double-breasted waistcoat, and fancy trousers.

  A smile blossomed under the well-trimmed white mustache, and the tall figure at the small table by the window in the unpretentious café got to his feet and offered his hand. Again, the sheriff clasped hands with the visitor, and confident firmness sent its message to both.

  York, in his usual black, removed his hat and hung it on a hook by the door nearby. He sat across from the businessman, a white enamel coffeepot and two matching cups already waiting. The café, as usual, was bustling. They served a good breakfast at about half the price of the hotel, and as long as you didn’t prefer linen to checkered tablecloths, this was your place.

  “How clear is your morning, Sheriff York?” Parker’s voice was a husky mid-range growl as firm and confident as that handshake.

  “Clear enough,” York said with a shrug.

  “Good. There’s some business we need to attend to later.”

  Business again. What business does a man with holdings in Denver and Kansas City have in Trinidad, New Mexico?

  A waiter in an apron came over and got their order—griddle cakes for Parker, eggs and bacon and grits for York.

  As they waited, Parker offered York a tailor-made cigarette from a silver case, a hint that the Denverite was no longer a man who spent much time in the saddle. York refused with a smile, and Parker lit up.

  “We met on a buffalo hunt, George Cullen and I,” Parker said, sighing smoke, as if he were answering a question York hadn’t asked. “It was the start of both our fortunes, but looking back, I sometimes wonder. Was it our original sin?”

  “Not many buffalo left,” York said as he poured himself coffee. Parker already had some.

  “Less than a hundred of the animals, I hear. We hunted them for their skins and left the rest of the beasts behind to rot.” He shook his head. “Such easy pickings—kill one of the animals and the rest would gather around. Kill one, kill a whole herd.”

  “Why was the meat left to waste?”

  Parker let out more smoke, shrugged, his expression somber. “The government was paying us. They wanted to get rid of the food source for those poor damn Indians. That was something we didn’t think about at the time. And by the time it ever did occur to us, we’d kind of built up a grudge against the red man. Encounter a few hostiles and you aren’t filled with much sympathy. Anyway, we were young bucks and sought adventure and profit, and I won’t lie to you and say I’ve spent much time feeling guilty about it. Men get caught up in a life and they live it, and then, one day, it’s over. As it was for George Cullen.”

  York cocked his head. “I knew him only in his later years, but he was as honest and brave an individual as I have ever met.”

  “Here’s to George Cullen,” Parker said.

  They toasted coffee cups.

  Their breakfasts came, and they ate, with intermittent conversation limited to mostly how good the grub was and the weather and such like.

  “So here we are,” Parker said, “all these years later, and the red natives are consigned to reservations and the scrap heap of history, and we are left to try to build something on what we did, whether it was right or wrong.”

  “Civilization, you mean.”

  “Civilization, exactly. If we are going to push out a whole goddamned people and take their place, don’t we have a responsibility to at least make the best of it? If we wind up bigger savages, how can we justify it . . . ? These griddle cakes are first rate.”

  “You should try the grits.”

  He shuddered. “Must be a Southern cook back there.”

  “I’m trying to read between the lines, Mr. Parker, and I’m thinking you believe your old partner was wrong to buck the railroad.”

  “Oh, he was wrong, all right.” Parker grunted something like a laugh. “He could have a hard head, George Cullen. It’s a good thing his daughter has a more level one. My understanding is she’s in favor of the branchline.”

  “She is, and she isn’t.”

  Parker frowned, pushing aside a plate where one last bite of griddle cake swam alone in syrup. “Mind explaining that?”

  “She was for the spur. Then, after somebody killed her daddy over it, she didn’t care to give the murderer his way. Or, I should say, right-of-way.”

  “Ah. And where do you stand?”

  York flipped a hand. “Nominally, I’m with the branchline contingent. They’ve promised me a raise and a house and general prosperity, to go along with Trinidad turnin’ into another Las Vegas.”

  Parker’s eyes narrowed; those eyebrows were as pure white as the mustache. “Let’s back up to that word ‘nominally. ’”

  York shrugged. “I like Willa. I’ll support her in whichever way she goes in this. If I lose this job, I have another waiting.”

  “In San Diego. With the Pinkertons. For excellent pay.”

  “That’s right.”

  The white eyebrows lifted. “Kind of hard to ‘like’ a gal from that distance.”

  “I’m kind of taking it a day at a time. We’ve had a bump or two in the road, Willa and me.”

  “Such as you killing her fiancé?”

  “You heard about that? Yeah.” York poured himself more coffee. “But into each life a little rain must fall. Anyway, my job right now is to find her father’s killer.”

  “Getting anywhere?”

  “No shortage of suspects when the victim was standin’ in the way of a whole town getting rich.”

  Parker let out a lazy wreath of cigarette smoke. “Any particular suspect getting your attention?”

  “Maybe one. What can you tell me about your other old partner? Burt O’Malley?”

  Parker’s expression shifted, as if his bellyful of griddle cakes was suddenly giving him indigestion. “I did not share George Cullen’s enthusiasm for that man.”

  York sipped coffee. “He seems decent enough. Affable. Concerned about Willa. Broke up about the old man. All his reactions are the right ones.”

  “And that bothers you some? Because maybe they seem a little too right?”

  “Not sure. When George Cullen was alive, O’Malley sided with him against the spur. Now he’s talkin’ otherwise. And he’s encouraging Willa to let him buy into the Bar-O with the money her daddy put away for him during his imprisonment. That George Cullen would do such a generous thing—for a partner who killed a man—says something good about both of them . . . doesn’t it?”

  Parker didn’t answer right away. He dropped his spent cigarette to the floor and ground it out with his boot heel.

  Then he said, “Ever wonder why I ceased being a part of the Bar-O, despite the depth of friendship between George Cullen and myself?”

  “I have at that,” York admitted. “But what business is it of mine?”

  “In a murder investigation,” Parker said, “possibly very much your business. That man O’Malley killed . . . Have you heard the story? His version of the story?”

  York said he had. That a rich man’s son had forced himself on a woman both he and O’Malley loved. That the ruined woman had hanged herself the night before she and O’Malley were to be wed.

  Parker gave up an elaborate shrug. “It may have happened that way. But at the trial there were those who said O’Malley’s woman and the rich boy were together because they wanted to be. That she intended to throw Burt over, and her suicide may have been something else. Something Burt himself did.”

  Parker let York think about that for a while.

  York did, then said, “And you thought his version of what happened was a lie.”

  It wasn’t exactly a question.

  Another, more casual shrug came from Parker. “I didn’t know then, and I don’t know now. But one thing I do know—Burt O’Malley was damn well aware that this Leon Packett character who he shot did not have a gun on him. Even if it was in a way justified, and Burt’s story about the tragedy that befell his loyal bride-to-be was not of his own invention, it was still murder. Cold blooded and well considered.”

  “George Cullen believed him.”

  “He did. And when George told me he wanted us to bank O’Malley’s share of Bar-O earnings during the man’s incarceration, I wanted none of it. I gave George the opportunity to buy me out. I’d been thinking about it a long time, anyway.”

  “Oh?”

  Parker nodded. “O’Malley always struck me as one of those smilers who slapped you on the back till it was time to slide a blade in. Anyway, I wanted a different kind of life—the big-city variety. You get older, and the dust and manure and the long damn days on a ranch can get to you. Plus, the future was calling. And I have no regrets to this day, leaving it all behind.”

  York had only eaten half of his breakfast; what was left was cold, and he pushed the plate away. “You have only your suspicions.”

  He nodded. “Only my suspicions. Or . . . mostly only my suspicions.”

  “What else, then?”

  Parker leaned in. “When he was released from prison, Burt O’Malley first came to see me—not to George Cullen, but to me. We had never really had a falling-out, O’Malley and myself, and I don’t suppose he even knew the role he’d played in my decision to sell out my interests in the Bar-O. So it wasn’t an unnatural thing, coming to see me . . . for a loan.”

  “That’s why he came to you? A loan?”

  Another nod. “Burt told me that he felt bad for George, now a blind old man with no sons to carry on. You and I know that Willa is as strong as any son, but Burt had no way of knowing that, at least not till I told him. And plenty of men would dismiss a daughter’s claim, anyway. What he wanted was a loan to put with the money George had put away for him . . . so that he could buy into the Bar-O to such a degree that when George Cullen passed, the ranch would be mostly his.”

  “You turned O’Malley down.”

  “Not at first. I did give it some thought. A week went by, and Burt came around and told me about the proposed spur and the windfall it would represent to the Bar-O. He offered to cut me in for twenty percent of his share of the Bar-O if I would just back him in his play. That’s how he put it—his play.”

  “Nothing illegal about any of that.”

  “No. But I sent him packing. And, obviously, he returned to the Bar-O, anyway, with the money that had been put away for him, and proceeded to cozy up to the old man and the daughter.”

  York was frowning. “How did a jailbird come to know of that branchline?”

  “That Prescott character looked him up. Wouldn’t be surprised if the Santa Fe Ring didn’t pull some strings to get O’Malley sprung from the Kansas State Pen early.”

  York thought about that.

  Then he asked, “You think O’Malley’s capable of killing Cullen?”

  “I do,” came the unhesitating answer. “But ‘capable’ doesn’t mean he did it. In a way, without my backing, it doesn’t make sense for him to have done so. After all, he wasn’t able to buy into the Bar-O.”

  “I think he might be able to buy in, at that.”