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

modest waiting room, Jonathan P. Tulley—York’s deputy—was pacing like an expectant father, albeit one with a double-barreled baby in his arms already.

The bony, bandy-legged Tulley—reformed drunkard; desert rat turned deputy—was damn near resplendent in store-bought duds—flannel shirt, woolen pants, and jaunty red suspenders, the wispy head of white hair and matching beard trimmed now, with only the shapeless canvas thing that passed for a hat an echo of his prior position as town character.

“Caleb York!” the deputy blurted, coming to a sudden stop. “There be mischief afoot!”

“Mischief,” a lower-pitched, calmer voice intoned from the doorway of the surgery, “is, I’m afraid, a gross understatement.”

Portly little Doc Miller came in, wiping his hands with a red-splotched rag, like a bartender cleaning up after a sloppy customer. The physician was in his rolled-up shirtsleeves, his string tie loose and limp, brown suit typically rumpled, his eyes weary behind the wire-framed glasses.

York said, his voice soft but with an edge, “What’s happened to this girl?”

The sheriff stood just inside the door off the landing, with Rita at his right and Tulley having fallen in at his left, as all three faced the physician with expressions that expected the worst. They were not disappointed.

“She has been beaten to within an inch of her life,” the doctor said. “Not a medical term, perhaps, but an accurate one. And that’s not the worst of it.”

Rita said, eyes glimmering with tears, voice filled with rage, “He attacked her! Violated her!”

Tulley was frowning. “Punishing her like that was sinful. But she lay with men for money, did she not? Ye can’t say she was ruined, can ye?”

“Rape,” York said, “is rape. Doc, has she said who did this?”

The physician’s eyebrows rose above his glasses. “She has. The Hammond boy.”

“William Hammond,” York said.

It was not a question.

Hammond was the son of Victoria Hammond, widow of Andrew Hammond, a Colorado cattle baron who had died a year or so ago. His wife had, through intermediaries, been buying up the small spreads that had suffered so terribly in the Big Die-Up, and was now ensconced in the ranch house of the biggest of the smaller ranches, the Circle G.

The Hammond woman had only moved in last week and York had not yet met her. In fact, he’d had it in mind to ride out there this week, in part because of a nasty episode several nights ago involving her son, who had threatened a Bar-O cowboy with a pistol at the Victory, in an argument over one of Rita’s girls.

The saloon owner had pulled in Deputy Tulley, on his night rounds, to help a bouncer of hers eject the young man—who was perhaps twenty—and give the troublemaker a choice between a night in a cell or riding home without further incident. The boy had been arrogant and sneering (Tulley had reported to the sheriff), but accepted the latter option.

“He’s a handsome boy,” Rita was saying, “but a mean drunk.”

Tulley said, “I was doin’ my nightly rounds and Miss Rita came out of the Victory with an arm around that poor bloodied chile, walkin’ her along as best she could.”

Rita interjected, “She came looking for me. Needing help. Looking like stumbling death.”

Tulley went on: “I helped get that poor soul to the doc’s, up the stairs and within, and stood guard here while I sent Miss Rita for ye. Done the best I could, Caleb York.”

“You did fine, Tulley,” York said. He turned to Doc Miller. “Can I see her?”

The doc thought for a moment, then nodded. “I’ve given her laudanum, so she may drift off soon . . . at least I hope she will. Come with me, Caleb. . . . Rita, Tulley, stay out here, would you?”

York followed the physician through the private quarters beyond—sitting room, small kitchen, past the open doorway of the physician’s bedroom and on to a spare room with a metal bed and a dresser with a basin and pitcher.

In a white hospital-style gown, Conchita was under a sheet, head sunk into a plump feather pillow. York knew her to be a pretty girl of perhaps eighteen, but that prettiness was lost under the welter of bruises and contusions, her eyes so puffy and swollen, only slits remained through which she might see. Her arms were outside the covers, exposed by short sleeves and just as heavily bruised, the impressions of strong, brutal hands left behind. Her right forearm lay at an impossible angle, as if an invisible hinge had been broken within her.

Doc nodded toward the terrible arm. “I haven’t set that yet. That’s next.”

“Any other broken bones?”

“Some ribs. We’ll bind her. She’s lucky he didn’t break more bones. She’s lucky he didn’t kill her.”

“I would not call this girl lucky, Doc.”

Doc’s eyebrows went up. “Well . . . perhaps not. But she’s lucky you’re sheriff, because not all lawmen in this part of the world would take her part in this.”

“But you figure I will.”

“I know you will.”

York approached the girl’s bedside.

“Conchita,” York said, leaning in, his voice a near whisper, “can you tell me the name of the one who did this?”

York already knew, of course, but he needed to hear it from her.

The girl’s lips were fat with swelling, like some terrible fruit gone too ripe. “I . . . I should not have . . . said.”

“No. You should say. You must.”

“I was . . . crazy with pain.... I should . . . not have . . . said.”

“Was it William Hammond, Conchita?”

“I . . . tell the doctor . . . when he ask . . . .Don’t know . . . what I was saying.... I did not mean to say . . . The pain, it spoke for me.”

“Was it the Hammond boy?”

The eye slits managed to widen. “He will . . . kill me.”

“No. He won’t. Conchita, do you know who I am?”

“You . . . you’re the sheriff.”

“I’m Caleb York. Do you know who Caleb York is?”

“He . . . you . . .