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

so out to the Circle G, where he again found the corral empty and the handful of frame buildings showing no sign of life. The cowhands were somewhere—still out on the range dealing with stinking dead cattle and skinny live ones, maybe.

Or possibly beyond that stand of firs in back of the ranch house, on the banks of Sugar Creek, armed and ready....

As York tied the dappled gray gelding up at the hitching rail, the Hammond woman’s portly bookkeeper—his gray suit about the same color as his handlebar mustache—came down the two steps from the low-riding porch.

“Mr. Byers,” York said.

“Sheriff,” Byers said pleasantly, though his eyes crinkled suspiciously. “The mistress is out on the patio. If you’ll wait here, I’ll announce you.”

Seemed to be no question that he’d be received.

Soon York—hat in hand, .44 on his hip—was again being shown through the house, with its framed western landscapes, dark Spanish furnishings, and colorful Mexican carpets. French doors in the living room opened onto a flagstone courtyard with a small gurgling fountain at its center, potted plants hugging the walls on the periphery, and a eucalyptus tree providing shade in one corner.

Beneath that tree, in an oak and saddle-leather armchair with a footstool she wasn’t using, sat Victoria Hammond, reading a book, its cover the same brown as the chair, its title The Portrait of a Lady.

Byers deposited York there, then nodded and was gone.

As York approached, his hostess smiled, dog-eared the corner of the page she was on, and closed the volume. “Are you familiar with Henry James, Sheriff York?”

Victoria Hammond wore a white high-collar, button-down blouse and long black skirt—half of her, at least, was still in mourning.

“Never met the man,” York said.

“I refer to the author.” She put the book down on a small table at her right hand. “Perhaps you’re not a reader.”

She gestured to the footstool for him to sit, and he did, pulling it around to one side, though of course that still put her over him. The big dark eyes were trained down on him, as if the teacher were hoping against hope to get a good response from a slow student.

“Not a bookworm, no,” York admitted. “And I’m more an H. Rider Haggard man myself. Robert Louis Stevenson comes up with some good tales. You familiar with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?”

She seemed amused. “I can’t say that I am.”

“Well, it’s a pretty good yarn. Don’t read it ’fore bedtime, though.”

Her eyebrows rose a bit. “Could I offer you something to drink?”

“Got a mite dry riding out here. Some water, maybe?”

“I’m partial to lemonade. Would you like a glass?”

His last glass of that stuff had been at Willa’s.

“Kind of you,” he said.

A pretty young Mexican señorita in red-trimmed white appeared magically and Victoria said, “Dos limonada,” and the serving girl nodded and disappeared.

Victoria Hammond’s luminous, almost ebony eyes were still appraising him, her arms folded beneath the generous shelf of her breasts. “What brings you by the Circle G this afternoon, Sheriff?”

He sat there awkwardly, knees in the air, hat between his legs. “Well, first, my apologies for not attending your son’s services. I thought under the circumstances, it . . . uh, wouldn’t be appropriate.”

She waved that off. “Nor are apologies necessary, Caleb. Instinctively, you knew that paying respects under, as you say, such circumstances might have provided more pain than succor. I appreciate your sensitivity.”

He risked only a corner of a smile. “That’s not something I’m often accused of, Mrs. Hammond.”

Her smile took no such precaution. “Please. I’ve taken the liberty of calling you by your Christian name. Mine is Victoria.”

The servant girl brought two clear glass cups with handles in which ice chips floated in pale yellow liquid. He thanked the girl, which the hostess did not, and sipped. Nicely tart. Like Willa’s.

Victoria’s chin lifted slightly. “So, Caleb—is this a social call? Are we to be friends now? I’m sure there are those who would find that unlikely. Or perhaps . . . as you say, not appropriate.”

On the footstool, he felt like a supplicant child. “I’m afraid it’s official, uh, Victoria. Or on the fringes of such, anyway.”

“How so?”

He jumped right in. “My deputy overheard some cowboys—not from the Circle G—saying both you and Willa Cullen have hired on men with guns.”

She sipped the cool liquid. Smiled. The smile was tart, too. “Don’t most men in this part of the world have guns? With so many dangerous . . . creatures afoot, even a female of the species might be well served to know her way around a firearm. Which, frankly, I do.”

“I’m not surprised. Nor do I think it unwise. But what I’m talking about, Victoria, are hired guns. Killers.”

She nodded toward the firearm at his side, which as he perched on the stool was only staying in its holster because the weapon was strapped in.

“You wear a gun, Caleb,” she said. “You have killed. In fact, you’re famous for it.”

“I’m not proud of the fact.” He shook his head. “But I’ve never been one of these shootists for hire.”

Both dark eyebrows went up. “Why, was it a hobby for you?”

He chuckled, knowing he was being mocked, if gently. “No, ma’am. I was paid by Wells Fargo. Now I’m paid by taxpayers like yourself. And the township of Trinidad.”

“Ah. Then, you are a hired gun.”

“But not a gun who hires out to just anyone.”

“I don’t care to think of myself as just anyone, Caleb. She sat forward, casting her dark gaze down on him as if lining up a shot. “But you are definitely . . . shall we say . . . on target? When you point out that I am a taxpayer, that is. And, of course, those taxes pay you to uphold the law. Am I not right?”

“That’s right.”

She gestured gracefully with an open hand. “And I have hired some men known for their skill and their daring with pistols and rifles. Many were once soldiers. As, I believe, you were, once upon a time.”

“I