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

York sucked in breath, let it out as a sigh, and guided the gelding north.

Awkward though it surely would be, talking to Willa was a duty that best not be shirked. On the way, he imagined what he’d say to her and got nowhere, encouraging his horse to just lope along. As he rode at an easy trot into the Bar-O grounds with its corral, grain crib, water tower, cook’s shack, bunkhouse, and ranch house—the only signs of life were the yellow glow of lamplight in a few windows of the latter two.

So York didn’t see her at first, sitting in the dark on the porch in a chair her father had fashioned. Not till his horse was hitched and he’d gone up the steps and was standing with fist poised to pound on the door.

“I’m here,” Willa said quietly.

She was in denims and a green-and-black plaid shirt and her bare feet. Usually, with her yellow hair braided up, she brought to mind a young Viking woman, waiting for her warrior husband’s return from his plunder. Tonight she looked small. Like a girl. Waiting for nobody at all.

He walked over to her, footsteps echoing on the wooden planking, spurs singing a melancholy tune. Positioning himself before her, he took the liberty of leaning back against the porch railing. He took his hat off, brushed back his hair. A lamp in the window behind her put half of her in darkness.

The half of her in light was enough to let him see the handgun in her lap—a .22 Colt Open Top Model revolver, pearl handled, with fancy engraving. Her father had given it to her for her eighteenth birthday, York knew. Capable of seven deadly shots.

He said, “I’ve spoken to Victoria Hammond again.”

“Have you.” Her voice was soft, uninflected, her blue eyes fixed on him, rarely blinking.

“She’s agreed to pull her men off the banks of the creek,” he said, nodding in that direction. “Just a handful are keeping watch now at two campfires.”

Her voice still soft, she said, “More than a dozen men were on the shore and above, on the grassy patch by the pines, this afternoon.”

He held up a palm. “I just came from the Circle G. She’s agreed not to let this thing get any further out of hand.”

“Has she.”

The front door opened and someone stepped out. For a moment York didn’t know who it was, but then he realized it was her foreman, Bill Jackson. He wore no hat, but was in a gray sparkly sateen shirt and brown duck trousers, wearing no sidearm. Looked like he’d been making himself at home.

At least he wasn’t barefoot, too.

Jackson frowned—not threateningly, but a frown. “What’s this about?”

What was he now? The man of the damn house?

Half turning, York said to him, “I’ve convinced the Hammond woman to back off at Sugar Creek.”

Jackson spoke as he came over to plant himself with York to his left and the seated Willa to his right.

“How did you manage that?” he asked the sheriff.

Patiently, York said, “I told her what I’m about to tell the two of you. That I am prepared to put a posse together to shut down both sides in this squabble. To charge anybody who starts shooting, and anybody who shoots back, with assault or worse. And throw their tails in jail.”

Jackson’s laugh was curt. “You’re the only one here who’s fired a shot so far.”

“I know, and I’ll shoot again, if I have to.” He sent his eyes to Willa, whose oval face, glowing in the near dark, was as unmoving as a carved ivory cameo. “You and the Hammond woman need to let your lawyers work this thing out.”

Jackson grunted a nonlaugh. “And in the meantime let our cattle die of thirst?”

“Our” cattle?

“Those steers’ll die all the sooner,” York said tightly, “if they’re stampeded in the middle of a gun battle. Or if it’s just men fighting it out, this time it won’t be dead cows floating and fouling the water.” He looked at her, hard. “You two women need to stop feuding and turn your lawyers loose . . . and tell them to negotiate fast and fair.” Her eyes tightened, but her voice remained neutral. “You’d have me sell to that witch?”

He gave his head a single shake. “That’s not my concern in this.”

“It isn’t?”

“No. Keeping the peace is.”

Jackson gestured to the .44 at York’s right hip. “And that’s the peacekeeper you use to do that with, correct?”

York shrugged. “Sometimes that’s what it takes.”

The foreman lurched forward and got his face right in York’s. “How much is Victoria Hammond paying you, exactly, Sheriff?”

“Not a red cent.”

Jackson’s breath was hot on York’s face. “Maybe it isn’t with money. Maybe it’s something else.”

York shoved him, and Jackson came back with a roundhouse swing that the sheriff ducked, coming up with a solid right fist that rocked the foreman, lifting the man’s chin and staggering him back. The two were poised with fists clenched, ready to make much more of it when Willa said, firm, not a scream, “Stop, you two!”

They stopped.

York felt embarrassed, and it was clear so did Jackson.

“Bill,” she said, on her feet now, “go inside. Please.”

The foreman looked at her, then at York, and back at her. “Are you . . . sure?”

She nodded. “I’m quite sure.” She pointed to the door. “Go.”

Clearly not liking being treated like a child, Jackson sighed, glowered at York, then shuffled over and went inside, having at least enough dignity left not to slam the door.

York and Willa were standing on the porch now, facing each other.

Nodding toward the ranch house, York said, “So, Jackson lives here now?”

She frowned, disgusted. “He’s in the guest room. He insisted.”

“Oh, he did, did he?”

“He felt I might be in danger. He said he wanted to post a man in the house with a gun to protect me.”

“He wasn’t wearing one. Anyway, you have a gun.”

“I do,” she said, lifting the little weapon in her palm. “And