Shoot-Out at Sugar Creek (A Caleb York Western Book 6) - Mickey Spillane (classic novels .TXT) 📗

Byers and the help slept in the west wing of the house, and Victoria slept in the east wing. The guest room was just down the hall from her. The ramrod knew the way, but also knew he had to wait to be invited.

“Midnight . . . Victoria,” he said.

She rested a hand on his shoulder. “Three ways to kill Caleb York. Think of them as . . . sweet nothings.”

CHAPTER FIVE

The day after he and Willa Cullen enjoyed a wonderful afternoon together that had ended at an unfortunate impasse, Caleb York strolled into the hotel dining room, where he hung his hat on a wall peg and glanced around.

He’d been asked to meet with his friend and business partner, Raymond L. Parker, and Trinidad’s mayor, Jasper P. Hardy. They had requested the confab for what purpose York did not know. But the sheriff was first to arrive.

The dining room at the Trinidad House Hotel, where York kept a room at the city’s expense, had its usual noontime crowd of shop owners, businessmen traveling through, and a rancher or two. Clerks and other hired workers dined at the café, while ranch hands in town for whatever reason often partook of the Victory Saloon’s free lunch, where an array of salted items kept them thirsty. The hotel dining room’s patronage, on the other hand, was as close to elite as this town of three hundred or so in the middle of nowhere could manage.

While York did not regard himself as one of the prosperous class, he did view himself as a professional man. His black coat and trousers and string tie represented the unofficial uniform. Still, even after all these months, he did not feel at home in the Trinidad House dining room, with its dark wood, fancy chairs, linen tablecloths, fine place settings, and cut-glass chandeliers.

Nonetheless, he selected his regular table by the window. He told himself this was to enable him to keep an eye on things on the street; but he also meant to be seen by the successful men who dined here regularly. Since he’d had the surprise—a pleasant one, but a surprise just the same—of being handsomely remembered in George Cullen’s will, Caleb York had come to see Trinidad as more than just a bump in the road he’d stumbled over last year.

His sheriff post had been thrust upon him, after he somewhat inadvertently “cleaned up the town” of crooked Sheriff Harry Gauge and his bunch. In the process he’d got his head turned by Willa Cullen, and York and her father George became cronies. Suddenly the detective job waiting for him in San Diego with the Pinkertons seemed to recede in the distance, as if he were perhaps riding off in the wrong direction.

York had insisted that he was only filling the sheriff slot temporarily, but the town fathers had kept throwing money and perquisites at him. The Citizens Committee, who he worked for, seemed to view as a boon to the community the very reputation as a gunfighter that York himself considered a burden.

Coffee was delivered to him automatically, and he sipped the wonderful stuff—any opportunity to sample something other than the bilge his deputy concocted was seized upon. Shortly, Raymond Parker breezed through the handsome lobby into this impressive dining room in what was otherwise a very average hotel.

The tall, white-haired, white-mustached banker, in his early fifties, wore his prosperity as casually and confidently as York did his .44 (not strapped down at the moment, its holstered nose pointed at the parquet floor). Parker’s double-breasted gray trimmed-black Newmarket coat, lighter gray waistcoat, and darker gray trousers were set off by the almost absurdly Western touch of a broad-brimmed gray Stetson.

But Parker had a right to wear that hat. No Eastern dude, he had been George Cullen’s partner—they had established the Bar-O together—and sold out due to problems with their late third partner, Burt O’Malley, the “O” in Bar-O. Parker had yearned for the big city anyway, and the money he took out of the ranch soon found its way into budding businesses all across the Southwest. Today the man owned restaurants, hotels, and several banks, including Trinidad’s.

York rose. The two men shook hands, exchanged smiles and greetings. Parker had been in town a little over a week, but this was the first time the two had sat down together.

“The mayor will join us,” Parker said, “in a quarter of an hour. I thought, beforehand, it would be best if you and I took a few minutes alone.”

A waiter in black livery and an apron arrived just then and York told him to return when the third member of their party arrived.

York eyed his friend with care. “Raymond, is there a problem? With construction, perhaps?”

The banker’s smile was knowing. “No. Not in any major way. The winter has postponed things a bit, is all.”

He lighted up a plump cigar with a safety match, then waved it out. That was no nickel smoke, either—one of those Cubans that set you back two bits.

Parker went on: “The land is too damn soggy for proper building to begin—not a typical problem in this part of the world. But construction will start soon.”

“Good.”

George Cullen had left York half an acre of land at the east end of town, to the rear of the livery stable. Cullen had apparently left York the bequest out of appreciation for the stranger’s town taming. And perhaps also to encourage him to stay around Trinidad and marry daughter Willa.

Now Parker was funding a train station on that parcel, with a spur between Trinidad and Las Vegas, New Mexico, coming courtesy of the Santa Fe Railroad.

Parker leaned forward; he kept his voice down. “What I want to discuss, Caleb, briefly . . . is your options.”

“I’m listening,” York said.

The banker gestured with the cigar between his fingers. “You’re in an enviable position, my friend. I needn’t remind you that we are equal partners who will be receiving handsome monthly fees from