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

red he left behind when his legs gave up and deposited him on his back on the grass did indeed affirm it, as did the gray-green soup of brains his head sank into, as if he were reclaiming them.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Aided by moonlight, Caleb York helped his deputies round up the seven survivors of the shoot-out at Sugar Creek, disarming them, herding them into a hands-up group near the Circle G’s horse barn behind which the water tower loomed.

Rope was cut in strips, each captive made to get on horseback and have his wrists bound to the saddle horn, as the little posse prepared to convey the prisoners back to Trinidad.

Tulley looked unhappy.

York asked him why.

“Where’s Jonathan P. Tulley gonna sleep tonight?” he pondered aloud.

With a nod toward the prisoners on horseback, York said, “Sit up with them till I can spell you, then you can borrow my hotel room.”

Tulley beamed. “The good Lord broke the mold makin’ ye, Caleb York.”

“Didn’t he, though.”

The bookkeeper, Byers, in the derby and cutaway jacket he’d worn when York first encountered him, hustled out of the ranch house with a carpetbag in hand. He waddled up to York, who was supervising, and said, “Two things, Sheriff.”

“Which are?”

“The mistress requests an audience in the library.”

“When I get around to it.”

The bookkeeper’s head tilted sideways. “And I was wondering . . . might I collect my personal steed and make my way elsewhere?”

York grinned, laughed once. “Be my guest, Mr. Byers.”

The gray-mustached former factotum tipped his derby and was heading into the horse barn when York said, “And Mr. Byers?”

The stout little fellow turned to face the sheriff. “Yes, sir?”

“Perhaps you might be more prudent in selecting your next employer.”

“Excellent advice, sir.” He gave a little bow. “And good evening. Or is it morning now?”

“Not really keeping track. Might I suggest the Trinidad House for the night, rather than setting out for parts unknown at such an hour?”

“More first-rate advice.”

And Byers slipped into the barn.

Fifteen minutes or so later, York saw the little three-deputy-and-seven-prisoner caravan off and then the sheriff was alone in the Circle G compound.

Only the rush of water filtering back through the pines remained to keep him company, the songbirds apparently out of tunes to share, small creatures and their predators alike sleeping between encounters, the breeze dying down enough to leave leaves and brush alone. Even the bookkeeper was gone. No sign of the pretty little serving girl, either. Perhaps she slept. Perhaps she’d slipped away less openly than Byers.

At any rate, when York entered the house, the emptiness was emphasized by a darkness only mildly alleviated by the moon creeping in windows. Still, he had no problem making his way to the library, where he opened the heavy door to find Victoria Hammond pacing slowly on the chamber’s midroom Oriental carpet. She halted, hearing him come in, her eyes going to him, where he stood framed in the doorway.

The woman was always a rather remarkable sight for a man’s eyes to take in and his mind to assess. But tonight Victoria Hammond made a picture so striking he would never forget it.

All that ebony hair was down and bouncing on her shoulders, nothing pinned up or back, giving her a look as wild as any animal. She had applied face paint as bold as any bordello wench’s, yet she looked beautiful and somehow not at all cheap. Her clothing was such that he’d never seen a woman wearing anything like it, not even on a theater stage—a black silk shirt under a black leather vest, black gaucho trousers, pointed-toe boots with heels so high she would easily reach his eyes.

And on her right hip, worn as low as any man-killer’s, was an elaborately tooled holster, tan against the black apparel, with a pearl-gripped Colt .45 revolver, perfectly positioned for her slender fingers to touch the handle, if her arm hung loose and natural.

Which it did.

“Caleb,” she said.

“Mrs. Hammond.”

He stepped in, shut the door behind him.

She gestured toward the love seat. “Shall we sit?”

“I think not.”

The would-be cattle baroness turned sideways, folded her arms, looking away from him. The sitting area, overseen by her husband’s standing portrait, was at her back.

She said, “I lost another son tonight.”

“Condolences,” he said.

Still not looking at him, she asked, flatly, “Do you intend to arrest me?”

“I do.” York strolled over, got in front of and faced her, the desk at his back, the woman maybe six feet from him, her husband staring over her shoulder. “You shot Willa Cullen.”

Her chin came up. Her eyes were steady and half-lidded. “. . . I did. That woman killed my son Pierce. It’s a mother’s right, settling such a score. A lioness would do the same.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I killed your William. Were you settling up for that when you sent Clay Colman to kill me at the graveyard? And to ambush me at night in town?”

She shook her head and all that dark hair came along for the ride. “That was Colman’s own doing. I knew nothing of it, any of it. He had a personal grudge, I hear.”

“You heard right.”

A shrug. The dark eyes remained steady. “I instructed my ramrod to work with you. I was unaware of the actions he took on his own. I told him you were on our side of this.” Another shrug. “At the time, I thought you were.”

York frowned. “Your side? The law’s side. I’m a peace officer, woman.”

With a regal smile, she said, “You didn’t sow much peace tonight, did you, Sheriff?”

He huffed a laugh. “Did you give me much choice? As for you impulsively trying to settle up with Willa, you may be relieved to hear she may recover.”

Her eyelashes fluttered just a bit, as she digested this news. “Uh, well. That’s a relief to learn. Of course.”

“So I heard from her lips that you shot her. Which confirms that you knew about the raid on the Bar-O. That you sent those attackers in to burn and murder.”

Her