York nodded. “You mention this to anybody? Willa maybe?”
Murphy’s eyes flared. “No, sir! And I ain’t about to say nothin’ to that O’Malley feller, neither.”
“No?”
“No! What if he’s a murderer?”
York couldn’t argue with that. He dug a half eagle out of his pocket and tossed it to Murphy.
“Have another go at the cards,” York said, “on me. Just don’t accuse that Preacherman of cheating.”
“Even if he is?”
“Especially if he is.”
Murphy ambled over there, half a beer in hand, and filled the seat he’d vacated not long ago.
York was just sitting there, mulling the conversation with Murphy, when Rita settled in next to him. She was wearing a blue-and-black satin number that cupped her full breasts lovingly; her dark hair was up in a mass of curls; her full lips were rouged red, her cheeks touched red, too.
“Fascinating character to talk to?” she asked. “Whit Murphy?”
“He knows a thing or two.”
“About this murder of yours?”
York frowned at her. “It’s all over town, is it?”
“You surprised? You went around questioning every city father this morning.” She shook her head, and the curls bounced; so did her bosom, a little. “Terrible thing. That George Cullen was the bedrock of this community.”
“He didn’t see it that way. He was all about the Bar-O. If the old man’d had the vision his daughter has, then maybe—”
Big brown eyes got bigger. “The daughter, huh? You and Willa kiss and make up, did you?”
“Not really.”
That made Rita smile. She and York had gotten friendly in recent months. He’d become quite familiar with her fancy remodeled quarters upstairs.
She flicked the tin star on his chest. “Why don’t you take that off and have a little fun?”
“I don’t cotton to the company.”
“I hope you mean the Preacherman, and not yours truly.” She shrugged. “Preacherman’s been behaving himself.”
“He’ll kill somebody before he’s through. Right at that table.”
“You really think so?”
“He’s a hired gun, Rita, with a built-in cover story. Please keep that pretty head of yours out of the line of fire when he’s around.”
She frowned. “You think he killed George Cullen?”
“No. Not his style.”
“So we have two killers in town.”
“No,” York said. He held up three fingers.
“Who’s the other one...? Oh. You.”
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to.
“Would you like to come upstairs, Caleb?”
Very much, he would have liked to come upstairs. But somehow, right now, with Willa back in his life... for how long, and in what way, he couldn’t say... he was better off letting Rita down easy.
“Honey,” he said, “I am working. Maybe tomorrow.”
“I’ll be here,” she said.
Chapter Eleven
Half a mile out of town, the rough-hewn sign by the roadside said TRINIDAD CEMETERY, but locals called it Boot Hill, inaccurate though that might be for such a flat, scrubby patch of dusty earth overseen by a single stubborn mesquite tree and disrupted by frequent wooden crosses and occasional tombstones. In the distance, the steep cliffs of buttes, with grooves carved vertically by erosion, made long, sorrowful faces as citizens from the nearby town and its environs made their way in buggies and on horseback.
The cemetery’s residents lay close enough together to make graveside services awkward: when a sizable crowd like this morning’s was in attendance, mourners had no choice but to gather in lanes between the previously buried. The morning was cold but still, no wind stirring at all, as if the earth were as dead as the man this group of several hundred in Sunday best was seeing off.
Caleb York had attended several such services at Boot Hill, but never one so well attended by such a variety of citizens. All the Citizens Committee members, standing together, with wives and families — but for the widowers and bachelors — were along one side of the grave. Other respectable townsfolk had assembled to the rear on that same side, while opposite were cowhands from the Bar-O — Whit Murphy right in front — and other spreads, including rival ranchers; they too were in attire reserved for church, weddings and, of course, funerals. Hats were respectfully in hand.
Toward the back, in apparel considerably less gaudy than their working clothes, were Rita Filley, her girls, and the bartending staff. Now and then the young women would receive sharp, reproving glances from wives, while the husbands wouldn’t look in that direction at all. The contingent from the Victory paid no heed to either slight.
At the foot of the grave, in which was Undertaker Perkins’s finest mahogany, brass-fitted casket, stood Willa Cullen, between Burt O’Malley and a tall, distinguished-looking gentleman in his fifties, whom York did not know. The well-barbered, white-haired, white-mustached stranger looked like money in his double-breasted, gray, trimmed-black newmarket coat, double-breasted lighter gray waistcoat, and darker gray trousers, white top hat in hand.
Furthermore, the gent had his arm through Willa’s, who was in a long-sleeved silk mourning dress under a matching black parasol. A relative, perhaps? York couldn’t recall her mentioning anyone who might fit the bill.
Reading words over the deceased, lanky, mutton-chopped Reverend Caldwell from Missionary Baptist was standing just to one side of the temporary wooden marker, which would be replaced by a tombstone, expected within the month from Denver by way of Las Vegas. Toward the rear, under the mesquite, like a vulture and a couple of crows who’d fallen from it, lurked the undertaker in his black stovepipe hat with two Mexican grave diggers with shovels ready to fill in the hole when respects had been paid.
“Blessed are those who mourn,” the reverend was saying, reading from the Good Book, “for they will be comforted.”
The Scripture reading served only to remind York of one person not in attendance: the Preacherman. But then, Alver Hollis had never met George Cullen... had he?
Moving through the crowd as inconspicuously as possible, York made his way to Willa. He came up behind the girl and slipped between her and O’Malley, giving the man a nod. She glanced up at York and smiled just a little. He would have liked to hold her hand, but she was clutching that parasol, and, anyway, things hadn’t entirely warmed up between them.
So he settled on just touching her shoulder briefly and giving it a gentle squeeze.
He recalled what Whit Murphy had said last evening at the Victory — she was not crying and showed no signs of having been. No redness, no watery setting for the dark blue eyes. Just a lovely, stoic expression.
Glancing around at the attendees, his gaze drifting across the assembled Citizens Committee, York couldn’t help but think how hypocritical some of them were, mourning — or pretending to — the death of the man who had stood in the way of their potential prosperity. As his eyes took their grim inventory, he noticed how glum Rita’s expression was, her own eyes taking inventory, as well, noting his presence at Willa’s side.
When the service was over, and Willa had tossed in a black-lace-gloved handful of dirt, she turned slowly to look around at the crowd and announce strongly, “We’ll be serving lunch at the Bar-O. I hope you all will be able to join us and share happy memories of my father.”
This was no surprise — an after-funeral meal from the grieving family was quite common, particularly among those better off. So was good-natured gossip and yarn spinning about the departed.