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

rare instance when I pull on a man and don’t mean to put him down.”

“And this wasn’t one of those rare instances.”

“No. I meant to kill him.” He shook his head, just a little. “We’re talking about decisions made in a moment. In a piece of a moment.”

She looked at him for a while. Then: “How many men have you killed, Caleb?”

“I don’t keep track.”

“I believe that’s a lie. I believe you do.”

He hedged: “I was in the war. You don’t know how many of your bullets take a life in battle.”

“You fought for the North.”

“I did.”

“Who did you fight for today?”

“Willa . . .”

She could feel the red rising up her throat. “That rabble the Hammond witch hired on, they’re mostly Arizona trash. They fought for the South, if they fought at all. My boys, those that were in the war, fought for the North.”

He was shaking his head, slowly. “That’s no way to look at it, Willa. . . .”

“What made you switch sides, Caleb?”

“I did not switch sides.”

“What made you take sides . . . against me?”

And then she did something that she hated herself for, right then and later too: she lost control and the rage came boiling out, her cheeks hot, her eyes brimming.

She bit off the words: “Against me!”

“. . . That’s not how I look at it.”

She could not stop her chin from trembling. “What else would you call it? You’d side with that Hammond woman? Over me?”

He raised a hand. “You hired gunmen, Willa. And sent your men onto your neighbor’s ground to take what wasn’t yours. And to burn powder if need be doing it.”

“To defend what’s mine! This ranch! What my father built!”

He took a deep breath. Let it out. “I work for the county. The law isn’t on your side in this . . . and I am the law. That’s what they pay me for, to enforce it. So in that sense I suppose I am . . . on the opposite side. I have encouraged Victoria Hammond to engage her lawyer to talk to yours and work this out in a peaceable way.”

Her eyebrows climbed. “You talked to her?”

“I talked to her.”

“And now you’ve killed for her!”

He shook his head, once. “I shot a man of questionable character who you hired to carry a gun for you, Willa. Who while on the property of the neighbor you are squabbling with . . .”

“Squabbling!”

“. . . fired his gun in the direction of that neighbor’s hired men, and might easily’ve incited wholesale slaughter if I didn’t wade in.”

Her upper lip curled. “You waded in by killing him.”

A single nod. “I did.”

His expression was as cold as her cheeks felt hot.

“You need to handle this in a peaceful way,” he told her. “A legal way. Or else I have to quit my job and be just another gun you hired on. Maybe you’d rather I took that San Diego position with Pinkerton’s. They wrote me just last month—I’m still wanted.”

Her smile had little to do with the usual reasons for smiling. “You should be happy somebody still wants you. Go! Quit! Run off to your precious San Diego and big-city ways! See if I care.” The childishness of those last words embarrassed her, and she looked away.

He leaned in and put a hand on her shoulder, his voice softening. “I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to leave Trinidad and I sure as hell don’t want to leave you.”

She swallowed. She couldn’t look at him. Tears were flowing now and she hated herself for them. Hated herself!

“The world’s changing, Willa. You have a chance to sell the Bar-O after that cripplin’ winter made a shambles of it.”

“Sell! She’s offering pennies!”

“Just hold on. Think about it. I’m going to be making right handsome money and they’re even giving me that house. I’m not just county sheriff now, I’m town marshal. You don’t need to fight this war. You love this place. I’m partial to it myself. But your father is gone. The cattle business is a mess. You’ve been after me for . . . how long? To put roots down in Trinidad. To marry you and settle here. Well, I’m willing to.”

That snapped her out of it. No tears, but plenty of rage, a rage turned cold now.

She shoved him away, hard, and he stumbled back into the stone hearth. On her feet, she said, “Don’t do me any damn favors, Caleb York!”

Hands came up in surrender. “That came out poorly. . . .”

“No, it was exactly what you think, exactly what you feel. But there’s a favor you can do me—get the hell out!”

He swallowed, nodded, stuffed his hat on his head, and rounded the seating area, then walked quickly across the room, his spurs chasing him, and out the door. She almost ran, following him.

From the top of the steps, she saw him get up on the gray horse.

“At least I know where you stand!” she yelled.

Then, after he was gone, she said softly, “At least I know where you stand,” and headed back inside, in no hurry.

* * *

Raven-haired Rita Filley, the queen of the Victory Saloon—her full-breasted, otherwise slender shape nicely accommodated by a blue-and-gray satin gown—surveyed her kingdom.

Her saloon was Trinidad’s golden eyesore, though when the Sante Fe spur came in that would undoubtedly change. For now, the Victory served the town’s population of three-hundred-some just fine, with plenty of trade coming from cowhands and others affiliated with the ranches in San Miguel County. And as for the railroad spur, she was confident her establishment, one of the finest of its kind in the Southwest, would fare well with whatever competition might come.

Running the biggest, fanciest watering hole in a boom town wouldn’t be bad at all.

From the towering embossed steel ceiling with its kerosene-lamp chandeliers to gold-and-black brocaded walls ridden decoratively by saddles and spurs, the Victory was a palace of gambling and drink. Witness the gleaming oaken bar with its bow-tie-sporting