Max Collins - The Legend of Caleb York

But with a watering hole like the Victory, who needed another option?

The sheriff pushed through the batwing doors into the impressive saloon with its ornately decorated tin ceiling and gas lamp chandeliers, its long, well-polished carved oak bar at left with mirrors and bottles of rye and bourbon behind, towels hanging down for brushing beer out of mustaches, and gleaming brass foot rail with an array of spittoons. The contrast was sharp between the high-class bar’s bow-tied, white-shirt-sporting bartenders and the dusty cowboys in frayed bandanas, faded work shirts, and seat-patched Levi’s who leaned there.

Though there were tables for drinking men at right as you came in, most of the big space was a casino, filled to capacity tonight with already liquored-up cowhands freely losing their money at dice, faro, red dog, twenty-one, and poker. Busy, too, were the roulette, chuck-a-luck, and wheel-of-fortune stations. At the far end of the saloon — whose walls bore such rustic decorative touches as saddles, spurs, and steer horns, riding the fancy gold-and-black wallpaper — rose a small stage with a piano and a fiddle player, near which a modest dance floor was crowded with cowboys doing awkward steps with the patient silk-and-satin saloon gals who were plying their own trade.

Gauge and Lola owned the joint, fifty-fifty, and it was a sweet damn moneymaker. Imagine running half-a-dozen spreads, on which several hundred men worked for you, only to fleece them out of their wages month in, month out. But this was chickenfeed compared to where Gauge was heading.

Once he’d taken over all the surrounding ranches, and could establish one big spread, he would stick a badge on somebody else’s shirt, Rhomer maybe or some other fool he could control, and become the land baron he was born to be.

Despite the music and raucous laughter, maybe half of the patrons had noticed Gauge come in. They would squint at him, frown a little, and look away. These were better men than the lily-livered townspeople, but they feared him, too. A badge with a fast gun to back it remained the ideal way to keep the peace... and people in their place.

Among those who’d spotted Gauge was Lola, who threaded around tables and wheels toward him, nodding and speaking and smiling to cowboys as she went. She approached Gauge with a smile — he knew she wouldn’t stay mad at him long — and they found a table in the corner, away from the merriment.

“Looks like a decent night,” Gauge said, “considering.”

“Not bad,” she admitted. “We’ve been busier. What do you mean, ‘considering’?”

“That Meadow kid gettin’ planted this morning,” he said with a shrug. “Might put a damper on any Bar-O boys stoppin’ by for fun and games.”

She frowned and glanced around. “I don’t see any Bar-O boys, at that.” Then her dark eyes were on him. “But that kind usually likes a good time after one of their own gets a send-off. A little drink, a little lovin’, can make death seem far away.”

“You got a point.”

She was studying him now. “Why aren’t they here, really ?”

A bartender delivered Gauge a beer that the sheriff hadn’t needed to order.

“Could be,” Gauge said, after a sip that required sleeving foam off his upper lip, “they got their hands full out at the Bar-O this evening.”

Lola glanced around again. “Some of your bunch aren’t here, either. No Rhomer. None of your other... deputies.”

“Could be they was busy tonight.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “Something you want to share with me, Harry?”

“It’s nothing to do with the Victory, other than maybe we’re short a few patrons. Don’t worry your sweet, little head.”

“I’ll try not to strain myself.”

He leaned in, put a hand on a lace-gloved one of hers. “You put your girls onto that matter of mine?”

“Yes.”

“You check back with them yet?”

“I have. The girls say no new faces to speak of.”

He frowned. “ ‘To speak of’?”

“The Larson spread’s been hiring on hands. For roundup, I guess.” She nodded toward the bar. “Those three down at this end are takin’ in the Victory for the first time.”

“Do tell.”

“Of course, there’s only one that might pique your interest.”

Which cowboy she meant was obvious — he stood out for a couple of reasons. He was a good six feet, and most cowboys, like the two bookending him, were smaller men. Ranchers tended to hire smaller hands to make it easier on the horses. The bigger cowboy didn’t look familiar, and yet he did. He was a type Harry Gauge knew very well.

The man had a hard edge to him while lacking the dark, leathery look of those who worked under the sun on horseback day upon day. About thirty, with barbered brown hair, he had a rugged, scarred face and a well-tended mustache that belied his cowboy apparel. And the smile he was giving Pearl, one of Lola’s girls, had a confident nastiness to it.

Gauge said, “Get her over here.”

Lola turned toward the girl, quickly caught her eye and waved her over. She came right over and sat with them, rightly nervous to be honored with an audience with the sheriff.

Gauge said to her, “Enlighten me.”

Pearl, a skinny brunette whose prettiness was getting blurred by too much laudanum, said, “He’s working for Ben Larson.”

“That much I know.”

“Says he’s from Cheyenne. I already talked to some of the other Bar-L fellas, and nobody knows anything about him but his name.”

“And what would that be?”

“Smith.”

Funny as that was, he neither smiled nor laughed. “How long has Smith been working for Larson?”

“Oh, just signed on today.”

“Just today?”

“Late afternoon. Rode in looking for work, Larson took him on. The boys say Smith told them he’s never worked as a cowhand before, but he’s lookin’ to ‘turn over a new leaf.’ ”

“What kind of ‘new leaf’?”

Pearl narrowed her eyes; they were the same dark blue as her satin gown. “One feller said he asked Smith what his trade had been, you know, before? And Smith just said, ‘Workin’ one side of the law or the other.’ ”

“Pearl honey,” Gauge said, “go back to the cowboy who told you that and send him over here. No fuss. On the quiet.”

Pearl nodded and was getting up, but the sheriff stopped her by the elbow.

He added, “Then go back and keep that Smith cowboy company.”

“Take him upstairs?”

“No. Stay there at the bar. If he wants to go upstairs, tell him you have to wait for a room. Lay on the charm.”

Pearl smiled slyly and nodded. Then she went off to find the Bar-L hand who had told her about Smith.

Vaguely suspicious, Lola said, “Okay, your wheels are turning. I can hear ’em, Harry, and they could use some grease.”

“Why? You think you know what I’m thinkin’?”

She gave him a slow nod. “You think that big, tall cowboy is Banion, or somebody like him.”

Gauge said nothing.

She leaned in. “Maybe you been hanging around that dope Rhomer too long. How could Banion get here today?”

“Might not be Banion. Like you said, might be somebody like him.”

She smirked. “Old Man Cullen sends a wire this morning, and Banion is getting a job at Larson’s by late afternoon?”

He looked at her hard. “Maybe Cullen’s partner in Denver knew somebody in the area. You can send a wire damn near anywhere these days. We’re only thirty miles from Ellis. A man on a good mount, leaving late morning, could make that. And the Swenson spread is on the northeast, on the way to Ellis.”

She was shaking her head, dark curls bouncing. “And you think Banion or some other top gunhand was just sittin’ in some saloon in Ellis, waiting for a wire to come in, requesting his services?”