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

his features finely carved, set off by a horseshoe mustache; he wore a faded blue army shirt, a bright red-and-white bandanna knotted at his neck, chaps over denim pants, boots with spurs, and a waist-slung bandolier with a .38 Colt Lightning revolver.

Holding his sombrero in both hands, a frowning Jackson asked, “Might I have a word, sir?” It was “suh,” as the black man had brought his Mississippi accent along when he came West.

“Certainly, Mr. Jackson. Have you a problem?”

Dark eyes in deep sockets went tight. “It’s Miz Cullen has the problem. They’s some rough fellers gathered at Sugar Creek. They is heeled to the hilt, Sheriff.”

“The creek runs through Circle G land.”

“That it does. But they’s always been an understandin’ that the river and the creek was fair game for any herd.”

“That was the understanding with the previous owners.”

Jackson nodded, but his frown remained. “That understandin’ went two ways. If the creek was dry any given year, they was welcome to water their cows in the Purgatory, where it run through Bar-O range.”

“Right. But the creek isn’t dry this year. And the Purgatory’s fouled.”

Jackson let out a grunt of a sigh. “Nobody knows that better than I, Sheriff. We’ve maybe a third of our boys draggin’ dead stinkin’ steers outta that river. Pilin’ ’em, burnin’ ’em. Jobs don’t come much worse. We’re doin’ our best to clear the Purg, and by next season those waters should be runnin’ nice and clean and clear again. But that’s a long ways off.”

York pushed his hat back. “That understanding you spoke of, Mr. Jackson—as far as I know, there’s nothing on paper. I would like to help, but the law seems to be with Victoria Hammond.”

Eyebrows rose. “A thing like this can get out of hand, Sheriff. I was in the thick of things down Lincoln County way, some while back. Shootin’ lasted for years and many a life was lost.”

The Lincoln County War between rival cattle barons raged from ’78 through ’81. Among other things, it had made a name for both Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett.

“The best solution,” York said, “is for Miss Cullen and Mrs. Hammond to come to mutually agreeable terms.”

Hell, York thought. I’m already sounding like a citified official.

Jackson said acidly, “The only terms that female hell spawn might agree to is Miz Cullen sellin’ out. Sheriff . . . you and Miz Cullen have friendly relations.”

York decided the man meant nothing scurrilous about that.

The foreman’s earnestness was almost painful to hear. “Could you tell the Hammond woman that if her rough boys go shootin’ freely at the Cullen cowhands . . . or shoot their steers if they start to watering ’em . . . that you’ll throw their backsides behind bars?” He jerked a thumb at the jailhouse. “Or send them straight to hell, with that storied pistol of yorn, which is fine with me.”

“I thought you wanted to avoid trouble. Or are you just fine with me having trouble?”

“Meaning no disrespect, it’s what you’re paid for, Sheriff. These ain’t cowpunchers of the normal variety. These is that rabble what wears the rattlesnake hatband.”

The riffraff remainder of the Arizona rustlers, the Cowboys.

Jackson was frowning again, desperation coming into his voice . . . and an edge. “Talk sense with that witch out to the Circle G, Sheriff. Elseways, I will have to enlist gunhands myself to match them bastards bullet for bullet.”

York raised a cautionary palm. “Easy now, Mr. Jackson. This jail can hold all sorts.”

“Oh, we won’t draw first blood, Sheriff. We won’t have to.” He slammed the sombrero on. It drooped in front, from being tugged to keep out the sun riding herd. “I hoped you was good enough friends with Miz Cullen to try and head this thing off. Don’t look that way.”

And the foreman strode off, steaming, spurs jangling.

CHAPTER SIX

Several days later, two sessions of highly unusual job interviews were held in the same meeting room at the rear of the Imperial Saloon in Las Vegas, New Mexico. Unbeknownst to the two men considering candidates for their respective female boss’s employ, the first session was conducted at ten in the morning, the other at two in the afternoon, for the convenience of their host, Vicente Silva.

In Las Vegas, pop. 4000, men desiring entertainment in the form of gambling, drinking, and painted ladies had numerous choices; but the Imperial on the plaza limited itself to the first two of those options—men desiring loose women would have to look elsewhere.

Owner Silva was, after all, a well-respected, upright entrepreneur who gave to his church and to charity, and a gracious, impressive presence at the Imperial. His attire impeccable, his beard well trimmed, this handsome, mannerly, intelligent man welcomed silver and copper miners, cattle and sheep ranchers, beef and wool buyers, merchants, and bankers to the most popular drinking establishment in San Miguel County.

From the endless mahogany bar in the saloon itself to the second-floor casino, the Imperial was both well appointed and accommodating, the tall, solidly built host as affable as he was prosperous. What the respectable citizens of Las Vegas did not know (but which certain less respectable ones did) was that Silva was the head of the Forty Bandits, who specialized in murder, thievery, and rustling, as well as driving out settlers through arson, violence, and fence cutting, in an effort to restore common pastures.

But even members of his gang were unaware that their imposing boss had been a criminal since he was twenty; that back in Wyoming, he had run off with a railroad laborer’s wife, leaving in his wake her murdered husband, buried with chest slashed and head cut off.

So Silva was neither offended nor surprised when Clay Colman ambled into the Imperial to ask the proprietor if he could spare some top gunhands from the White Caps, as Silva’s gang was also known—men with nerve and killing ways.

Colman had ridden with the Bandits himself for a while, a few years back. Now the sometime rustler was ramrod