“But if you do,” he said, “I will kill you. You get just this one pass.”
York rose from his crouch, dusted his knees off, and waited for his deputy to bring the doctor. The boy was a whimpering pile of bony humanity who’d likely never had a worse day.
Or a better one.
Chapter Two
Willa Cullen, the only female at the meeting of the Trinidad Citizens Committee, was in attendance at the sufferance of the men, who knew her blind father — however he might resent or even deny it — required her aid. She had, for example, driven the buckboard into town from the ranch this morning.
The young woman — she had just turned twenty-three — was a familiar tomboy sight in Trinidad, attired today, as she so often was, in a red-and-black plaid shirt and denims and stirrup-friendly boots, her golden hair up and braided in back in a fashion that, like her lovely features and tall, shapely frame, suggested her late mother’s Swedish heritage. So did her cornflower-blue eyes in their long-lashed setting.
Seated with her in a semicircular arrangement of chairs at the back of Harris Mercantile was a group of citizens who included both local merchants and ranchers, their attire sharply distinguishing which was which. One of the latter, seated beside her, was the rather shrunken figure of her father, George Cullen.
The old man’s eyes were white with lack of sight; his flesh was gray from too much time indoors; his once powerful rawboned face was a sunken-cheeked memory of its former self; and his sunken chest, the same. He wore a now too-large gray shirt and a black-string affair that Willa had tied for him, and new-looking black trousers that, like their owner, didn’t get outside much these days.
A blind rancher didn’t ride herd on men or cattle; he delegated such responsibilities — in Cullen’s case to Whit Murphy, the trusted foreman of the Bar-O. Even now Murphy was seeing to things out at the spread.
A wood-burning stove, with a modest, fragrant fire in its belly, separated the meeting from the front of the store, with its high shelves, scurrying clerks, and eavesdropping customers. Standing toward the rear of the meeting place, a notebook and pencil in hand, was Oscar Penniman, the editor and owner of the Trinidad Enterprise, the town’s newly minted weekly newspaper. The small, slender newspaperman wore a sack coat, matching vest, trousers, and intense concentration on his narrow mustached face.
A table on a slightly elevated platform faced the attendees. There sat the Citizens Committee members in attire usually reserved for Sunday, with Mayor Hardy in the higher-backed chair at the center, where the circuit court judge would sit when a trial came to town.
Hardy’s qualifications were limited largely to his good grooming — he was, after all, the town barber. A short, slight, otherwise unprepossessing individual, the mayor had slicked-back, pomaded black hair and a matching handlebar mustache, impressive if oversize for such a narrow face.
At Hardy’s right was their host: heavyset, blond, less impressively mustached Newt Harris, fifty-some, in the medium brown suit and dark brown string tie he wore on such occasions. At the mayor’s left was apothecary Clem Davis, a bug-eyed scarecrow of a man; and next to him, hardware-store owner Clarence Mathers, his muttonchops so massive, the lack of hair on top could be forgiven.
The mayor was the only elected official here — the Citizens Committee, which served as Hardy’s town council, was appointed by him.
Seated next to Harris was a solidly built man in his distinguished forties, wearing a dark frock coat with a low-cut vest, light tan trousers, and a small bow tie sporting the pointed ends so fashionable in bigger cities. His hair was short and slicked down; his beard neatly trimmed; his nose hawkish; his wide-set eyes a dark, alert blue.
Willa had not met this individual, but she knew very well who he was. She also knew that the man’s presence itself was offensive to her father, who was breathing hard, like a dog getting ready to bark.
Familiar footsteps in back of her, with an equally familiar jangle of spurs, told her a latecomer had made the meeting. She glanced just barely behind her at Caleb York, who took a position between the stove and the arrangement of chairs, standing with his hat in hand hanging loose at his side. He caught her eyes, nodded to her, and she flushed and turned away.
Willa and the sheriff had once been, as the gossips put it, an item. That state of things had shifted when York announced his plans to leave Trinidad for a Pinkerton job in San Diego, knowing good and well that she was not about to follow him — the Bar-O and her father were Willa Cullen’s world.
That unhappy situation had turned to something tragic when she became engaged to a man York later killed. Killed in the line of duty, for good cause, but when a former beau shot dead a current fiancé, the aftermath was bound to be awkward.
Mayor Hardy banged the gavel a few times and in his reedy tenor said, “Meeting will come to order. Our sole business today is to welcome and grant an audience to Mr. Grover Prescott...” The barber’s small mouth smiled under the big mustache as he nodded toward their hawkish-faced guest. “Of the Santa Fe Railroad.”
Chair feet scraped the floor as those in attendance shifted and settled.
Hardy continued. “Mr. Prescott has come all the way from Albuquerque to speak to us about what he calls a singular opportunity for our God-fearing community — an opportunity that could bring prosperity and change to our little corner of the world... Mr. Prescott?”
Greeted by cautious applause, the railroad man stood and came down around to the area between the audience and the Citizens Committee, the same space where lawyers for the defense and prosecution would plead their cases. Like one of those lawyers, he would prowl the area and make eye contact with the members of this jury.
Of course, making eye contact with Willa’s father was out of the question.
“I guess I don’t have to tell you good people,” Prescott said, his voice deep and politician smooth, “that Las Vegas, your neighbor here in New Mexico, has gone from a bump in the road to a booming community rivaling Tucson, El Paso, and even Denver. They have gas- and waterworks, a telephone company, and six trains that stop daily! Your once-modest neighbor is in the midst of an unprecedented era of prosperity, dozens of new businesses springing up and flourishing, now that the Santa Fe has transformed Las Vegas into a cattle railhead. It’s fair to say that Las Vegas, like no other New Mexico town, has changed dramatically in the past few years, and for the better.”
“Not entirely for the better,” a male voice behind her said. That familiar, mid-range, mellow voice that seemed so unconcerned about anything at all.
Prescott, his rhythm thrown, turned toward the tall man standing at the rear of the seated group.
“Sir,” the railroad agent said, a surface friendliness not entirely hiding his irritation, “I will be happy to answer questions... after I’ve completed my presentation.”
“Well, I don’t have a question, sir. It’s more a comment.”
All eyes were on York now. And Prescott had surely noticed the silver badge on the man’s gray shirt, half covered by his black coat.
Prescott, cornered, said, “Well, go ahead, Sheriff. You are the sheriff, I take it?”
“I am.”
“Well, be my guest. Speak.”
If anyone was expecting York to come around and join Prescott up front, they were disappointed. He maintained his position at the rear, his head cocked at a lazy angle.
“Those new businesses in Las Vegas that have cropped up,” York said, “include dozens of saloons and gambling halls and houses of ill repute. Murderers, thieves, shootists, swindlers, soiled doves, and tramps have all helped swell that population you mentioned. And their tourist trade has included in recent years, I believe, such luminaries as Doc Holliday, Jesse James, and Billy the Kid.”