Caleb walked over to the second of the dead men, the one who’d been hauled by his horse a ways. One of the man’s boots was gone, probably still in its stirrup, on a horse headed nowhere. He was on his back with his arms and legs going every which way. His masked face was to his left, and his torso bore two big gaping wounds, chest and stomach, scorched black and shiny red with glimpses of innards. Ranch girl Willa knew that exit wounds always looked worse than entry ones, and this crook had got two from Caleb in the back.
She asked him, “Ever shot a man in the back before?”
“Sure. That’s how you stop somebody running away.”
Caleb knelt over the corpse. Willa was fine just standing nearby. Didn’t want to get in his way, after all. He turned the dead man’s face toward him and tugged down the dark blue handkerchief mask, revealing a mustache over an open mouth showing off terrible, sporadic teeth. The dead man’s face was frozen in surprise and... something else, what?
Disappointment.
Glancing up at her, Caleb said, “How about this one?”
“Another of Harry Gauge’s bunch. Worked in town some and did wear a badge.”
Brushing off the knees of his black trousers as he rose, Caleb said, “Len Cormack. He was working one of the spreads Gauge took over. The Running C. What do you make of it?”
“Even dead,” she said, with a shudder, “Harry Gauge is bedeviling this town.”
Caleb shook his head. “No, he just left a bunch of rabble behind in his wake. The kind of excuse for a man who can’t earn an honest day’s wage.” He noticed something behind him and turned. “Perkins!”
The undertaker — who at the sound of gunfire could get into his black coat and black top hat so fast he might have willed it — was having his own look at the corpses. Right now this exclamation point of a man was goggling at the one with the top of his head shot off.
Caleb went over to him.
“Mr. Perkins,” Caleb said sternly, “your first order of business is to get Ben Wade off the street and into your funeral parlor. The dead lowlifes can wait.”
Perkins nodded. “You mind if I clean up them other two, and put ’em in my window? Good for business.”
“I don’t care what you do, after you done right by Ben. This one here, you’d best find his hat and the rest of his head.”
“I was just thinkin’ that, Sheriff.”
“Just the temporary sheriff, Jacob.”
“Everything’s temporary in this life, Mr. York.”
A group of men had gathered in the street, well-dressed, older; they included the bank president who’d just been robbed and other members of the Trinidad Citizens Committee. Normally, a gavel called such a meeting to order. Today it had been gunshots.
Seeing the men murmuring among themselves, their concern clear, Caleb called, “I’ve put this badge on for now — any objections?”
The city fathers glanced at each other and began exchanging head shakes that amounted to glum approval. After some low-voiced muttering, they almost shoved the mayor forward.
Jasper Hardy, the town’s barber, had gained his leadership position primarily because he was the best-groomed man in Trinidad. Small, about forty, with slicked-back black hair and a handlebar mustache worthy of a picture frame, the mayor approached Caleb with halting, tentative steps.
“Mr. York... Sheriff York... would you like us to raise a posse?”
“No, sir. Thank you. Only one man escaped and only one man will pursue. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to fetch my gun belt.”
“Certainly.”
Willa waited while Caleb headed back to the hotel, where his carpetbag remained. As she stood there in the street, she heard a familiar voice call out, “Miz Cullen! Where’s Sheriff York got hisself off to? There’s a bank robber needs catchin’.”
She turned to see the supposedly reformed town drunk, Jonathan Tulley, leading Caleb’s beautiful black-maned, dappled gray gelding by its reins. On the steed’s back, a black well-tooled saddle awaited its rider.
“He’s just gone to get his gun belt,” she said. “He’s going after the scoundrel, all right.”
“Good! You know, he give me that Remington coach gun of his, the other day... but I’m givin’ it back.” Tulley gestured to the double-barreled twelve-gauge shotgun already in its scabbard.
“I know he’ll appreciate that, Jonathan.”
Caleb was coming out of the hotel, taking the steps down to the street two at a time, buckling on his gun belt, leaving the holster tie-down loose. For now.
Seeing the saddled-up gelding waiting, Caleb grinned and he came over and patted Tulley on the shoulder, and no dust rose for a change. The old boy really had turned a new leaf, she noted — no liquor smell on him, either.
Tulley said to Caleb, “Fixed you up some jerky and a full canteen, Sheriff.”
“Appreciated.”
Blue eyes sparkled in the leathery bearded face. “You want me to ride along with you, Sheriff? Well, mebbe not ‘along’ — me and Gert can’t keep pace. But we could bring up the rear.”
Gert was Tulley’s mule, who’d been with him going back to when his prospecting petered out.
“No thanks, amigo. Keep an eye on the town for me.”
“Will do, Sheriff! Will do.”
Before he mounted the gelding, Caleb gave Willa’s hand a squeeze and her eyes told him to take care. His nod said he would, but in truth she was not much worried for this man. Yes, there was always danger, and if that robber had any sense, he’d be waiting in high rocks with a rifle to bushwhack Caleb York, because facing this man down could only end badly for the one doing it.
Caleb was barely in the saddle when bank president Thomas Carter strode up and planted himself before man-and-steed, much as Sheriff Wade had done with the fleeing bandit. In a dark gray suit and an embroidered waistcoat, the big-framed banker made an imposing figure, his hair dark but speckled with white, mustache, too, his chin firm if resting on a second one.
“Mr. York... Caleb... Sheriff... I’m offering you ten percent of anything you recover. This town is depending on you, sir.”
Caleb pulled back on the reins, his horse ready to go. “Mr. Carter, with this star on my shirt, even temporary, any reward is improper. But you can do me one favor.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Pay for Ben Wade’s burial.”
Men in the street parted like the Red Sea to let Caleb on his gelding pound by, heading for the livery and making the same left turn the outlaw had.
The undertaker and an assistant were getting Ben Wade into a wicker basket, while the townspeople were slowly scattering and getting back to whatever they’d been doing. Perhaps Willa should, too.
Harmon, the plump, white-bearded Bar-O cook, had ridden in with her on a buckboard to get some supplies from Harris Mercantile, which he was likely doing right now, unless he’d got caught up in the rubbernecking.
So when heavyset, blond, mustached Newt Harris approached her, a man in his fifties in a medium brown suit and dark brown string tie, she figured he was going to tell her the buckboard was loaded, and he was due some payment.
But it was something else.
“The Citizens Committee is holding a meeting,” he said, hat in hands, and nodded toward his store. The rear of the place was where the group usually got together. It was also where the circuit judge sat, as well, when the town had one of its rare trials.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Harris,” she said, “but my father didn’t come into town with me today.”
George Cullen was a member of the committee.
“Miss Cullen,” he said, with an oddly shy smile, “it’s not your father we wish to talk to. And we don’t need him for a quorum. Everybody else is present. Would you please come?”