York’s jaw clenched. “Did he get tough with you?”

  She gave him half a smile. “No. He wanted to, but Hollis stepped in and shut it down. Apologized to me. Took off his hat to do it. Real gentleman, if not quite a preacher.”

  “Interesting.”

  “You make something of that?”

  “Maybe he’s turned over a new leaf. Maybe he’s not the bad man his reputation says he is.”

  “You mean, the way your reputation is undeserved? How you never hurt a soul? Never pulled that gun, never—”

  “That’ll do.”

  She leaned back. Folded her arms over the generous bosom. Cocked her head. Narrowed her eyes. “How many men have you killed, Caleb York?”

  “I don’t exactly know. Lost count at some point.”

  “How did you get that bad reputation?”

  “I never killed for money, no matter what they ever said about me. I never killed a man who didn’t draw down on me first. . . .” He knew that wasn’t quite true, and amended, “Or who didn’t need killing so’s somebody could be rescued, say.”

  Hub Wainwright, the head bartender, came over to personally deliver a mixed drink to Rita. He was a big, skimpily mustached man who did his own bouncing. He leaned down for a private word.

  “Miz Filley,” he said, “I’m keepin’ an eye out. No trouble so far.”

  “Thank you, Hub.”

  “I’ll wade right in, need be.”

  “I know you will, Hub. Thanks.”

  Hub went back to the bar, like a bear heading for its cave, but without hibernation in mind.

  She sipped the drink—a Sazerac. One of the fancy drinks that were popular because their rotgut base was so unpalatable. “So . . . you never saw the Preacherman?”

  “No.”

  “Not even on a circular?”

  York shook his head. “He’s never been wanted for anything. He’s careful about his kills.”

  With just a tiny toss of her head, Rita indicated the poker table over by the stairs. “That’s him in the middle there, facing us. And on either side of him are his disciples.”

  Moving his chair a little, York got a good view of the men, all of whom studied cards in hand. Two of the players were scruffy, like if you hit them with a carpet beater, dust clouds would rise; they sat on either side of the man York figured they’d ridden in with.

  The wiry saddle tramp at left had the missing front teeth Rita had reported, a week’s growth of beard, and pop eyes that gave him a demented look. He wore a frayed work shirt, canvas pants, and a bandana that hadn’t been washed any more recently than he had.

  Similarly garbed, the guy at right was stocky and rough bearded, with shaggy brown hair and a piggy look. His fingernails were black with dirt, though York couldn’t imagine this character ever working hard enough to get them that way. Digging somebody’s grave he robbed, maybe.

  The man who had to be Alver Hollis was dressed in preacher black, not unlike York—a black suit and hat, white shirt with a loose ribbon-style bow tie. Of average size, Hollis had an oval face with hooded light blue eyes, a narrow hook nose, a well-trimmed black beard, and a somber expression.

  York shifted his gaze back to the lovely saloon owner. “Doesn’t seem to be a need to make my presence felt. They’re not causing any ruckus that I can see.”

  “So you’d be all right with them staying around town for a few days?”

  He frowned at her. “What makes you think they’re not just passin’ through?”

  “I spoke to Yancy when they took a break about an hour ago to help themselves to our grub.”

  She meant Yancy Cole, the house dealer, who right now was tossing cards to the Preacherman and his two followers, as well as to a cowboy and clerk. His back to York and Rita, Cole was a self-styled Southern gentleman right off a riverboat—white round-brimmed, black-banded hat, gray suit, ruffled shirt.

  She leaned close. “They made inquiries about the big game Friday night. That same one you’re signed up for.”

  The house was putting on a draw-poker tournament, with a one-hundred-dollar buy-in—three tables, six players to a table, and, eventually, only one winner, who would take home two thousand dollars. Entrants from as far away as Las Vegas and Clovis were on board. York indeed had put his name on the list of players, intending to leave his badge and gun behind.

  Suddenly, he wasn’t so sure about the latter.

  “All three signed up for the game?” he asked her.

  She nodded. “The one with the toothless grin is Lafe Trammel. The pudgy one is Wilbur Landrum. And Hollis signed in using his own name. Preacherman doesn’t seem to be playin’ any games in town except poker.”

  “Better have a chat with the fellas,” York said as he rose easily from the table.

  Rita, still seated, said, “Try not to shoot too many customers, will you?”

  York ignored that and ambled over to the poker table. As he went, eyes from all around the room followed him. He positioned himself just behind Cole, who gave him a backward glance and a smile as he shuffled. The Preacherman and his mangy choirboys were frowning at the newcomer.

  “I’ll just take a moment of your time, gents,” York said, “since you’re between hands.”

  Staying seated, the rabble on either side of Hollis scooted their chairs back and glared up at the sheriff. The Preacherman, though, stayed calm, his sky-blue eyes blinking lazily, his big rough hands linked prayerfully before him on the green felt. Chips piled on either side of the folded hands said he was doing well tonight. The idiots riding with him had skimpy stacks.

  York said conversationally, “I understand you fellas are in town for the big game Friday night.”

  “What of it?” Trammel demanded, his upper lip folded up over the row of yellow teeth missing their central pair.

  Somewhat belatedly, porky Landrum blurted, “Yeah, what the hell business is it of yours?”

  Hollis, however, said nothing. Something like the start of a smile was forming, however, in that dark, well-trimmed beard.

  York said, “Well, I’m the sheriff, and it’s my business to protect this community. Mr. Hollis here has a name associated with homicidal violence. You two fellas seem to be ridin’ with him. So I’m gonna have to insist that after that game—sometime Saturday?—you three ride on.”

  Trammel jumped to his feet. He was taller than York, which was saying something, but skinny and narrow shouldered. His hand wasn’t near his holstered weapon, worn low because of his long arms, but he came over slowly to face York, eyes bulging, nostrils flaring.

  “You got a hell of a nerve,” Trammel yelled in a thin, raspy voice, “roustin’ us for no damn reason, York!”

  So they knew who he was. No surprise.

  Trammel said, “We ain’t done nothin’ but ride in peaceable and drop some money in this goddamn slop chute!”

  The skinny cowpoke was standing close enough that York could smell the nasty bouquet of beer and cold cuts on the man’s breath.

  “We could start,” York said, his tone friendly, “with our town ordinance against public profanity. But more pertinent is, if you cannot show gainful employment or cannot show that you have some particular legal purpose to be in our town . . . you have to move on.”

  Trammel took a swing at York, who ducked under it and swung back, burying his left fist in his attacker’s belly, doubling him over. York put his right fist so hard into the pop-eyed fool’s face that its features seemed to collapse. Trammel backpedaled, blinking, trying to keep his balance, then bumped into the staircase post behind him, which startled him and sent him forward reflexively and right into another right hand courtesy of Caleb York.

  The taller man went down like a pile of kindling, and every bit as conscious.

  The cowboy and clerk who’d been sharing the table with the Hollis party had disappeared like mist. The dealer was shuffling cards lazily, while the porky Landrum was on his feet, but not doing anything about anything. Meanwhile, the Preacherman sat, angled to take in the action, arms folded, his expression mildly amused.

  Suddenly Tulley was there, scrambling around the fallen varmint, bending over to collect the man’s gun, a .45, grinning up at his boss like the two of them had just defeated Santa Anna.

  “Hey!” Landrum shouted at Tulley. “Give him his gun back! What are you doin’ takin’ that, you old fool!”

  “This is my deputy,” York said, “Jonathan Tulley. Tomorrow either he or I will be at our office, at the livery stable end of town, and Mr. Trammel can collect his weapon. He’s lucky not to be spending the night in jail. Now sit down, Mr. Landrum, and maybe you can still play some cards, if your pal wakes up in the mood.”

  So far Hollis hadn’t said anything.

  But now York addressed him. “Mr. Hollis, as I said, you and your friends are welcome in Trinidad as entrants in the poker tournament. If you don’t have business in town after, I will expect you to head somewhere that you do.”

  Hollis counted a handful of chips. Then, finally, he spoke, in a deep, resonant voice worthy of the circuit preacher he was said once to have been. “You hit my friend Lafe here so hard,” he said, without apparent malice, “you might have knocked his front teeth out if somebody hadn’t already beat you to it.”

  York glanced down to where the slumbering Trammel was on his side, with a pool of bloody spittle on the wood floor beside his lips, a small yellow object, like a kernel of corn, floating in it

  “I believe this time he may have lost one of his lowers,” York said. “Mr. Hollis, you understand my terms? Welcome till Saturday morning, and then you face my displeasure.”

  “I do, sir. But might I add, ‘Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers.’ Hebrews thirteen, two.”

  “‘Woe to those who scheme iniquity,’” York said. “Somewhere in the Bible. Look it up.”

  He tipped his hat to the Preacherman, then sent Tulley off to the jailhouse to lock up the confiscated handgun, after which he headed over to the table of free food.

  Despite Trammel’s bad breath, York had built up an appetite.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  After supper, Willa and George Cullen—their houseguest, Burt O’Malley, riding alongside the buckboard on a borrowed horse—headed into Trinidad to pick up some supplies.

  Normally, this kind of thing was done by sunlight, and, in fact, the sun was still around, though dying brilliantly over the mountains in a blaze of purple and orange. But Newt Harris of the Mercantile had asked her father to come in early evening and load up their considerable order of supplies so he might have a private word.

  On the way, Papa grumbled about the imposition, complaining that this would likely be another attempt to make him see eye to eye with the rest of the Citizens Committee on the subject of the Las Vegas spur. She kept her opinions to herself, not yet letting the old man know she was, for once in her life, not on his side.

  She did say, “Well, Mr. Harris has been a good friend for as long as I can remember. You owe him the courtesy of a listen, no matter what the subject.”

  Papa’s nonverbal response was somewhere between a growl and a groan.

  Normally, Willa—in a blue-and-black plaid shirt and jeans and work boots, hair back in a ponytail—would have been prepared to pitch in on the loading. But she was glad Uncle Burt had volunteered to come along, because she wanted to be at her papa’s side when he and Mr. Harris spoke. She would not be excluded, because everyone in and around Trinidad knew that she ran the ranch as much as or more than her daddy these days.

  Waiting on the boardwalk to one side of the entrance to Harris Mercantile were sacks of flour, sugar, beans, and rice, as well as small barrels of bacon packed inside bran, eggs packed in cornmeal, a tin of lard, a carton of Arbuckles’ coffee, and a jug of molasses. Overseeing these was Lem, Harris’s broad-shouldered, tow-haired, overalls-clad boy of twenty or so, whose greatest skill was fetching and carrying.

  She parked the buckboard in front of the stairs up to the storefront and helped her father down. In his weather-beaten broad-brimmed tan hat, canvas jacket, gray flannel shirt, and Levi’s, Papa might have been there to help load, as well; but this apparel, so much like what most of his hands wore—if a mite more expensive—reflected his attitude that he was just another working man at the Bar-O.

  O’Malley hitched his horse, then came over to Willa, Boss of the Plains hat in hand. Just before father and daughter started up the steps, Uncle Burt gave her a look that said he’d handle things out here. She nodded at the big man, whose rumpled smile was a comforting thing, and took her father’s arm and went up to the boardwalk, where Newt Harris was emerging from his store.

  The heavyset, blond, mustached merchant was again in a medium-brown suit with a string tie, sending a message of serious business that would have clashed with her papa’s attire, if he could have seen it. With a smile that tried a little too hard, Harris held open one of the twin doors to the store for them to enter.

  They did.

  Their host closed the door behind them. A single hanging kerosene lamp gave the store an eerie feel, not that the light during the day in here was anything but dim, either, the lack of side windows contributing to a dark interior. Long, merchandise-cluttered counters—candy jars, tobacco, stacked clothing—were on either side, and the walls were lined with shelves of household items and bins of foodstuffs. Hanging from the ceiling were coiled ropes, buggy whips, horse harnesses, and pails, throwing odd shadows.

  In the midst of this looming commerce, which, of course, her father could not see, Harris and his two guests stood rather awkwardly. From outside came the creaks, whumps, and squeaks of sacked goods being hauled down and loaded up into the waiting buckboard.

  Harris reached his hand out and found her father’s and shook it a bit too eagerly; Papa released his grasp almost at once.

  “I appreciate your business, George,” the merchant said with forced cheer, “and your willingness to stop by for a chat.”

  “If this is about that goddamned spur,” her father said, in a rare instance of taking the Lord’s name in vain, “you are wastin’ your breath, Newt Harris. We have contrary opinions, and let us leave it at that.”

  “George, please. Hear us out.”

  “Us? Why, is there more than one of you?”

  From the rear of the store came figures forming out of the darkness. It gave Willa a start, but she quickly felt foolish, realizing this was only the rest of the Citizens Committee—their barber/mayor Hardy, druggist Clem Davis, hardware-store owner Clarence Mathers, and undertaker Casper Perkins. The latter, a small bald man with a top hat for added height and a black frock coat for suitable dignity, hadn’t been present at yesterday’s more official and public meeting of the Citizens Committee. Perhaps he’d been busy with a client.

  All the men, in a rehearsed manner that unnerved Willa almost as much as their appearance from the gloom, gave their names and said hello to her father, their fellow member. Each removed his hat as a symbol of respect, which, of course, Papa couldn’t see.

  Then, perhaps because the premises were his, Harris took the lead, even though the mayor was present.

  “George,” he said, his tone formal yet friendly, “we’ve gathered tonight to ask you, to beg you, to listen to reason. Trinidad needs the Santa Fe branchline. Needs it to grow. Needs it, frankly, not to die.”

  Papa said nothing.

  Harris had run out of words already, so the mayor stepped in. “George, if Ellis or one of these other nearby communities gets the Las Vegas spur, our businesses will suffer and maybe wither away. We will indeed die. Trinidad will be just another ghost town.”

  Willa almost smiled at the word ghost, considering the strange angles and contours created on the faces of these businessmen thanks to that one hanging lantern. That the town undertaker was among them only added to the effect.

  But her father, again, said nothing. His face, out of the kerosene-created shadows, was impassive, like something carved out of wood. Like the cigar-store Indian she’d once seen in a Denver hotel lobby.

  The druggist spoke up. “You depend on my business when your cows and cowboys get sick, not to mention any family needs. George, if I’m out of business, think of the inconvenience to you! It’s miles to the nearest apothecary!”

  Papa said nothing.

  The hardware man gave it a try. “You count on me for supplies, from screws to clavos, from hinges to gate handles. If Trinidad dries up and blows away, you’ll be riding mile upon mile to fill them kind of needs!”

  Papa said nothing.

  She could hardly wait to hear what the undertaker had to offer, but he remained as silent as Papa. As silent as his customers.

  Harris spoke again. “We hope to reason with you, George, to talk this out, talk it through . . . but so far you don’t seem to want to give our side of it a fair look. If we can’t appeal to your friendship, your sense of community, if not your own convenience, having a decent little town like Trinidad in your backyard, a town you helped establish, then maybe . . . just maybe . . . we can appeal to your pocketbook.”

  And from the darkness at the rear of the store came one last materializing ghost: a distinguished, wide-shouldered one in big city togs, with the eyes and beak of a hawk, and a beard barbered better than their mayor could ever have managed—Grover Prescott of the Santa Fe Railroad.

  The Citizens Committee members parted like the Red Sea for their financial Moses, who stood facing their one solemn, stone-faced, obstinate member.

  “Mr. Cullen,” Prescott said in that politician’s deep timbre, “my apologies for organizing this meeting and bringing you into it in a somewhat deceptive fashion. But my entreaties to meet with you at your ranch have met with no response. So I have leaned upon these good men of your community, your friends, your fellow committee members, to provide me with an opportunity to make you an offer.”

  Papa said nothing.

  “Sir,” Prescott continued, “I have spoken with the independent ranchers, who, with their smaller spreads, do not approach the acreage you yourself control. But together they could provide the Santa Fe with the necessary right-of-way. . . .” Prescott chuckled. “Granted, that passage will have rather more twists and turns than a branchline might ideally have.”