A thought worked to form, then, “You winged me on . . . on purpose?”

  “I did.”

  Trammel shook his head. “What for, Sheriff? I’da killed me in your place. It ain’t like you ain’t a killer yourself. The Preacherman said you was one right dangerous son of a . . . buck.”

  York shrugged. “Maybe I wanted you alive.”

  Trammel made a face. “Why would you want a no-good drifter like me to keep breathin’?”

  “Possibly to answer a question or two.”

  The prisoner’s big eyes went half lidded, like a stage curtain that couldn’t come all the way down.

  York went on. “Possibly, I might trade you your freedom for some answers.”

  The curtains on the eyes came down farther, leaving only a pair of skeptical slits. “I’m listenin’.”

  “Good. Because I’m asking. Who was your target in town?”

  Trammel’s lips flapped with escaping air. “You know the answer to that one already, Sheriff. You was! But not no more. With the Preacherman gone, I sure as hell ain’t gonna go up against you.”

  “Not even bushwhacking me from around a building or crouched down in back of a barrel?”

  “No, sir! You let me go, I’m gone. Nothing left but my dust.”

  York nodded thoughtfully. “Okay, then. Last question. Who hired the Preacherman? Who wants me dead?”

  The prisoner swallowed. “That kinda sounds like two questions.”

  “No. It’s just one.”

  Trammel shook his head and gave up a rumpled, somewhat toothless grin. “Sheriff, that ain’t the way things worked with the Preacherman. He never told us where the money come from. He was kinda like . . . protectin’ the client.... That’s what he called them types, the client.... And, hell, he didn’t tell us jack about who the target was till a day or two afore.”

  “Why?”

  Trammel shrugged. “I dunno. Said somethin’ a time or two about . . . well, about idiots always runnin’ at the mouth.”

  “Meaning you and Landrum.”

  “Meanin’ us two. He was always funnin’ like that.”

  “Yeah,” York said. “I noticed his sense of humor. And I believe you when you say he wanted to protect his clients. That you would not be privy to that piece of information. In most cases.”

  The slits returned. “What do you mean, Sheriff . . . ‘in most cases’?”

  York dug out the telegram from his breast pocket. “Can you read, Lafe?”

  His stubbly chin came up defensively. “I had near two year of schoolin’. Enough to make out what I need to.”

  York held up the telegram, and Trammel pushed his face between the bars and read, moving his lips. Slowly.

  Then the prisoner said, “The Kansas State Pen, huh? Warden hisself.”

  York gave the man a slow, easy grin. “You want another crack at my question, Lafe? Since I think we both know the answer.”

  Trammel sighed, nodded, and talked.

  * * *

  In his usual Earp brothers black, York tied up the gray gelding at the hitching post in front of the Bar-O ranch house. Mid-morning now, things were quiet, all the hands out in the continuing preparation for even colder weather than today’s, which was plenty nippy and unusually overcast for New Mexico.

  He went up the short flight of stairs to the porch, spurs ajangle. Toward the far end, down from the fancy carved front door, he began examining the rough bark-and-all overhang posts. What he had in mind was a piece of overdue detective work, based upon his reflections on the nature of George Cullen’s head wound.

  And there it was.

  On the second post from the end, at a height perhaps a head shorter than Cullen, perfect for if the man had been shoved back and knocked hard into it, leaving a smear of what had now long since dried and gone crusty maroon . . .

  Blood.

  Almost certainly human. Short of a bird flying straight into it, how might this post have come in contact with any other kind?

  The front door opened, and York turned to see Burt O’Malley step out and regard him quizzically. The fiftyish Bar-O cofounder wore the same apparel he’d shown up in—blue shirt, brown vest, red bandana. Hatless, though. He again wore Levi’s, and his hip bore no holstered weapon. The oblong face with its dark blue eyes, trim salt-and-pepper beard, and easygoing smile seemed friendly as ever.

  “Caleb? If you’re here to see Willa, she went out for a ride. She’s been doing that purt’ near every morning since her pa died.”

  “Come take a look at this, Burt.”

  The big man loped down and had a gander where York was pointing.

  York asked, “What’s that look like to you?”

  “Can’t say. Some kind of dirt. Food spill from the other day, when half the world was out here, could be.”

  “Blood maybe?”

  O’Malley shrugged. “Maybe.”

  The two men were only a couple of feet apart.

  York said, “I told you that you were seen arguing with the old man out here. That it got physical. Maybe you grabbed him and knocked his head against that post—hard enough to really make your point. An accident, possibly. . . or possibly not an accident.”

  O’Malley smiled in strained patience. “Don’t talk nonsense. Anyhow, that argument was the night before and wasn’t even really an argument a’tall. Nothin’ that came to blows.”

  “So you said.”

  “I was just trying to make the old boy see that maybe he should give a little more thought to taking advantage of that spur goin’ in, since if he didn’t cooperate, it would go in without him all the same.”

  York raised an eyebrow. “If he didn’t go along with it, that branchline would still go in, all right . . . but the cost to the Santa Fe would be much higher, having to skirt this spread and hopscotch through the small independent ranchers.”

  O’Malley shrugged. “Exactly right. That’s why George could’ve got even more money out of the railroad than they was offerin’. Come on now, Caleb . . . Sheriff . . . you can’t be serious that I’d ever harm that man. I owed him plenty. And besides that, I loved that stubborn old soul.”

  “You may have loved him once upon a time . . . only maybe all those years behind bars changed you. It can do that to a man. And at your age, an opportunity to, well, make a killing? That don’t come along every day.”

  The friendliness was out of O’Malley’s face now, but only a weariness had taken its place—not the rage York had expected.

  “Let’s get in out of the cold,” the big man said with a sigh that was visible in the late-autumn air. “There’s a fire going. Let’s sit and talk this out like civilized men.”

  York didn’t have a hell of a lot to go on where the Cullen murder was concerned. That dried maroon smear. The potential testimony of the foreman, Whit Murphy, who really hadn’t seen much. But on another matter, he had plenty.

  “All right,” York said. “Let’s go inside.”

  The fire was going, providing a nice warmth to the long, narrow room, which would have seemed cozy under other circumstances. Each man took one of the rough-wood chairs that long ago George Cullen had fashioned.

  O’Malley said, “There’s coffee on the stove.”

  “No thanks.”

  “Maybe somethin’ stronger?”

  “Too early.”

  “Mind if I get something for myself, Sheriff?”

  “I do. Just stay put. I don’t mind getting in out of the cold, but I have no intention of letting you go off and arm yourself.”

  “You’re still suspicious.”

  “More than just suspicious.”

  York removed the folded telegram from his breast pocket and handed it over, then watched as O’Malley opened it up and read. His face fell as he did; then a smile formed, but not that easygoing one that all who’d encountered him of late had come to know.

  York said, his voice quiet and businesslike, “The warden at the Kansas State Pen at Lansing confirms that you shared a cell with Lafe Trammel for two years. He was released a few months before you.”

  “This doesn’t prove a damn thing.”

  “Not about George Cullen’s murder. But it suggests that you were the one who hired Alver Hollis to come to Trinidad and blow a hole or two through this hide of mine.”

  The smile settled on one side of O’Malley’s face. “And why would I do that?”

  “I admit that took me a while. That’s the kind of thing that can keep a man up at night, thinkin’. I mean, what threat did I pose to you?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Then it came to me. You were sent here by agents of the Santa Fe Railroad. They had done their research and learned that one of the original three owners of the Bar-O was serving a sentence for manslaughter. They looked you up and got you out and signed you on. Your job was to come to the Bar-O and get back in the old man’s good graces. That fight you had with that big lug Lem, sticking up for Cullen, that was a nice touch.”

  The half smile lingered. “Let’s say that’s so, Sheriff . . . for the sake of argument. How does that make you somebody I’d want dead?”

  “Like I said, the Santa Fe folks had done their research. Their man Prescott in particular was thick with the local Citizens Committee. Prescott learned that I was close to both George and Willa Cullen.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning the assumption was that I would back up whatever position George Cullen took—which, of course, was against the spur. The other assumption was that I might bring Willa Cullen around to her father’s way of thinking, when certain locals knew she was otherwise leaning in favor of the spur. And what if Willa and I were to wed? I’d be the new man on the Bar-O, and where would that leave you and your plans? Removing me from the equation—and this, I believe, was your idea, because Prescott and the Santa Fe would likely stop short of murder—would put you, Uncle Burt, the prodigal returned, in an ideal position to agree with Willa and bring her father around.”

  “What, and if he didn’t, then I’d murder him? Absurd.”

  “It’s true I can’t, right now, anyway, think of how I’d prove that. Hell of it is, I was pretty much in favor of that branchline coming in myself. So all your efforts to have me removed were pointless. Anyway, I have an ace in the hole. An ugly, scruffy ace, but an ace, nonetheless.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “Not what, Burt. Who. Damnedest thing . . . You know who can read some? You’d never guess it. Lafe Trammel! He read that same telegram you did, and admitted that he was the one who put you and the Preacherman together. That you were the client, and I was the target.”

  O’Malley’s grin was gone.

  York went on. “So I guess, for now, I’ll just have to settle for attempted murder on your part. Much as I’d like to put your neck in a noose, I’ll have to settle for another nice long prison sentence. You know, New Mexico’s building its own prison now, and maybe you’ll be in line for a spanking new cell. Kind of fittingly, it’s in Santa Fe.”

  The two men just sat there for a while, reflections of orange and blue flames lazily licking at their faces. Finally, O’Malley swung his face toward York, and his smile was back, and this time it was damn near satanic.

  “See where you get with this fairy tale, York. You have a saddle tramp who’s dumber than a cactus, and I’ll have the Santa Fe Railroad and all its money and influence behind me.”

  York shook his head. “I don’t think so. I don’t think they’ll claim you, not after the things you pulled in their name. When I met with Prescott, he was already backing away from you.”

  “Is this true?”

  The voice came from just behind York. Willa! She must have come in the back way, maybe after dropping off Daisy at the barn rather than hitching her out front.

  O’Malley’s face, with the flame reflections dripping down, might have been made of melting wax. But his expression betrayed no anger or fear, rather . . . York tried to read it. Disappointment?

  And a sudden realization came to York: what O’Malley had wanted all along was to regain his life here at the Bar-O, his place in this world. He probably had felt affection for George Cullen, and for Willa, too, a father-daughter feeling denied a man who had spent too much of his life in a prison cell.

  Half out of his chair, O’Malley asked softly, “How much did you hear, child?”

  “I heard everything from the moment the two of you sat down!”

  “Surely, you don’t believe—”

  She stalked over to him, her fists balled, her body quivering with rage. “I believe every word of it. Caleb York has the instincts not just of a friend of this family, but of a detective, and he—”

  But then O’Malley was on his feet, and he grabbed her around the waist and swung the girl in front of him, facing York, a human shield.

  York was on his feet, too, and his hand was inches away from the holstered .44 when O’Malley reached behind him and took down the old Sharps buffalo gun from its deer-hoof rack, then aimed it alongside Willa, its barrel a long accusatory finger pointed right at York.

  “This is no decorative item,” O’Malley reminded him, grinning like a prisoner getting the best of a guard. “I know the old man kept it loaded.”

  “There’s not enough of her for you to hide behind,” York said. “You put that gun down now, or I’ll put a bullet in you before you can use it. Just toss it on that chair!”

  “No. You need a head shot, and I ain’t givin’ you one.”

  And indeed O’Malley was ducked down enough for Willa to cover all but a sliver of his face.

  “Here’s how this is going to go,” O’Malley said, his voice matter of fact and as cold as that day out there. “I’m walking your precious Willa to the door, and then she and I will go out together. When I get to my horse, I’ll let her go. I’m fond of her. I won’t kill her if I don’t have to.”

  “You think you can get that far?”

  Willa was breathing hard, her eyes and nostrils flaring.

  “I do,” said the man with the rifle. “Because you’re going to unbuckle that gun belt and let it fall. Do it. Now!”

  Grimacing, York undid the belt and let it drop to the floor with a nasty, clanking thud.

  “Step out of it,” O’Malley instructed.

  York did.

  “Kick it away. Well away!”

  York did that, too.

  O’Malley started backing toward the door, with Willa still between him and the unarmed York, her captor’s arm up from around her waist and now across her breasts to grip a shoulder and better drag her.

  “Now, just stay put, Sheriff York. You’ll have her back soon enough.”

  York figured his best play was to let them get out the door, then to grab his gun and throw himself through the front window onto the porch. He was calculating how to get to his gun quickly and back again when Willa bit down hard on the hand of the arm at her shoulder and at the same time brought her right boot heel down on O’Malley’s right foot, like a child in a tantrum.

  The big man yowled and let loose of her enough that she squirmed away and threw herself on the floor a good six feet from him. York went for the holstered gun on the floor, got it, came up with the chair he’d been in, which provided some cover, and then the world exploded.

  O’Malley stood there with the barrel of the old 50-70 Gov’t Sharps peeled back like the skin of a banana, somehow still holding on to the thing, though his right arm and hand were a bloody mess, bone and scorched sinew showing, with flecks of black, sizzling powder spattering the man’s face, his mouth open in a silent scream, his eyes wide with pain and surprise. And in his chest were bright orange shards of blowback metal, like the petals of some terrible flower. And when he toppled and hit the floor facedown, those shards of metal were driven even deeper.

  Willa was screaming, scrambling to her feet, then backing away, as York approached O’Malley’s body, knelt, and looked for a pulse in the man’s neck. None was to be found.

  York got to his feet and went over and turned Willa away from the grotesque corpse.

  Hugging him, she gazed up with wet eyes, her lips trembling. “What . . . what caused it to backfire?”

  “I don’t know,” York admitted. “Must have been twenty years ago or more since your father loaded that weapon. Dirt clog, insect nest, black powder gone bad . . . Who can say? But a lot more backfired for Burt O’Malley today than just that old Sharps.”

  Yet York could not help but wonder if in some way George Cullen had stepped in to settle things with his old partner.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The following Saturday afternoon at the Grange Hall—a recently built redbrick building that sat on its own half acre past the church on the road to the cemetery—almost everyone in town and many from the surrounding area were gathered for a meeting. News had gone out by way of the Enterprise newspaper, posted circulars, and word of mouth. For those few who had missed it, notices in every store window in Trinidad, all closed for the meeting, announced the event: TOWN MEETING–SANTA FE SPUR.

  This afternoon the building’s unostentatious interior—pale green walls, pounded tin ceiling, varnished wood floor, modest stage—was brimming with citizens and ranch folk, with children on hand, as well, even babes in arms, whose occasional squalling was at odds with the generally buoyant mood of the crowd. Many of the townspeople were dressed as if for church, and even the cowhands were in relatively clean attire. The unspoken rule here was no guns, and a table near the door made a temporary home to a collection of rifles and gun belts.

  On the stage, with a podium central, were seated the members of the Citizens Committee, in dark suits and bright expressions. Among them were Willa Cullen, in a simple navy-and-white calico dress, her yellow hair piled high, and Santa Fe Railroad representative Grover Prescott, impressive in a gray frock coat and a dark, low-cut vest, with a small big-city bow tie. Next to Prescott was a similarly dressed, similarly eminent-looking Raymond L. Parker.

  Caleb York, in his customary black with dudish touches, had been invited, indeed urged, to take a seat onstage but had demurred. It would be enough to sit in the front row and come up and speak his peace. This whole thing was something of an embarrassment to him. Nothing on this earth scared him much, but public speaking challenged that notion.