Max Collins - The Legend of Caleb York

“Ask the Indians.”

She whipped around to face him, eyes flashing, nostrils flaring. “You low-down, nasty... I ought to...”

“Let me.”

He put an arm around her waist and drew her to him and kissed her, long and a little rough, yet something about it struck her as very... sweet.

Then he was up on his horse, tipping his hat to her again, before riding off.

And she was standing there with her fingers on her lips, still not knowing what to think, thoughts and emotions fighting for control of her, neither winning.

Just as the stranger was riding into town — heading for the livery stable and the stall that awaited the dappled gelding — he noticed a shopkeeper, claw hammer in hand, out after dark taking down the boards from his store windows.

“For the sheriff keeping such a quiet town,” he said to the shopkeeper with a grin, “you folks have to go to a whole lot of trouble.”

“Sure do, mister,” the shopkeeper said, a small, skinny man with a trim mustache. He gave up a defeated, little smile. “Every payday, it gets good and rowdy in this town.”

The man was in a half-unbuttoned threadbare shirt tucked into his paint-stained pants, obviously his fix-’er-up clothes. He added another board to the pile flush against the outer wall of his establishment.

The stranger asked, “Is it worth the trouble?”

“Too much invested to move,” he said, pausing between yanking nails. He heaved a disgusted sigh. “Once a month, same darn thing — payday and hooraw. Harry Gauge waits till the cowboys’ money is gone, and the town’s half-wrecked, before quieting it down again.”

A churn of wheels, rattle of reins, and clopping of hooves announced a wagon rolling into town. An older rancher at the reins, it pulled up alongside where the shopkeeper was at work and just behind the mounted stranger. Something in the open back of his wagon was covered with a tarp — from the shape, might be a body.

The rancher said, “Hey, Warren — remind me where the doc’s office is, would you?”

The shopkeeper shook his head. “Why bother, Burl? He’s out with the Haywood baby, or least he was.”

The rancher sighed and shrugged. He had a full, well-trimmed gray beard and had seen more in his time than most had forgot. “Well, hell... not that Doc Miller could’ve done this feller any good, anyways.”

The shopkeeper came closer, tapping his palm lightly with the hammerhead. “Who you got back there?”

“Old Swenson. Dead as they come.”

“Shame! What the hell happened?”

The rancher shrugged again. “Found him out near the relay station. Looks like he was drunk. Anyways, smells like he was drunk. Fell off his horse, maybe. Hit his head on a rock, likely.”

The stranger was climbing down off his horse. “You mind if I take a look?”

The rancher frowned. “Don’t know as it’s your business, mister.”

“Do you know that it isn’t?”

The rancher thought about that, and — perhaps realizing that this was the man who’d shot down four of Harry Gauge’s roughneck deputies today — said, “Have at, mister.”

“Thanks.”

The stranger got up into the wagon and flipped back the tarp. He knelt near the body. Warren, the shopkeeper, folded his fingers over the far-side edge of the wagon and peeked in, like a kid over a fence.

The corpse was on its belly, slack face to one side, mouth open as if seeking the air it could no longer inhale; the wound was well-exposed. This was a man in his fifties or older, weathered and wrinkled and gray. And out of his misery.

The stranger said, “If it was a rock, sure had a funny damn shape to it.”

The rancher, still seated on the buckboard, glanced back and said, with just a hint of impatience, “How’s that?”

“Looks more like a gun butt.”

The rancher made a dismissive face. “Naw! Who’d want to kill Old Swenson? Ever since he sold out the Running C to the sheriff, he’s been a real drunkard. Bigger even than ol’ Tulley.”

“That so?”

“Sure as hell is. Once he fell in the Purgatory and nearly drowned hisself.” He spit chaw. “Nice old feller, though.”

Scratching his head, Warren said, “Well, he did have some money, Burl — maybe not a lot, ’cause he wound up sellin’ out cheap to Harry Gauge, they say. But a grubstake, anyway. Somebody mighta pistol-whipped and robbed him.”

“Possible,” the rancher said, clearly not caring. “People been killed for fifty cents. Less.”

The stranger asked, “What about his horse? The one you think might have thrown him?”

Rancher Burl gestured vaguely. “I left it tied up out at the relay station. I didn’t check his saddlebags for money or nothin’. I’ll leave that to the sheriff. Mind coverin’ him up again?”

The stranger did so, hopped down.

The rancher said, “With the doc away, I’ll go wake up the undertaker. Maybe stop and see if anybody’s in at the sheriff’s office, first. Damn, it’s a pain in the butt bein’ a Good Samaritan like this...”

The wagon rolled off, and the shopkeeper shrugged. He and his hammer went back to work unboarding his windows.

The stranger stood in the street and watched the wagon go.

The storekeeper, noticing the dude’s presence, asked over his shoulder, “Something on your mind, mister?”

“Just thinking that the sheriff might be easier to convince than I was,” he said, “that Old Swenson fell off his horse.”

Then he nodded good night to the shopkeeper and got back on the black-maned gelding and rode down to the livery stable.

Ten minutes later, he walked into the hotel, sweeping off his hat. The bell over the door woke the desk clerk, a weak-chinned character with pince-nez and scant hair, in a brown-and-gold vest with a white shirt and black bow tie. He’d been slumped, sleeping on an elbow over a copy of Beadle’s Dime Library — The Legend of Caleb York by Ned Buntline.

The stranger chuckled at the sight of the cheap publication, and was amused as well by the startled blinking look the wakened clerk gave him. This was one of the faces from the crowd who’d gathered earlier — twice, actually. This morning after the shooting in front of the sheriff’s office, and tonight after the bushwhackers had been dealt with.

“Pretty lively out there last night,” the stranger said. “Like that every payday, I hear.”

“Afraid so, mister. Couldn’t have accommodated you then, but I’m pleased to say I’m able to now.”

“Well, that’s fine. Something on the Main Street side?”

“Certainly.” The clerk reached for his register, opened it, and turned the book around for his customer. “It was, uh, a little lively out there today as well.”

“Could call it that.” He looked up from the register. “Does the sheriff check this book on a regular basis?”

“Yes, sir. He or one of his deputies. Likes to keep track of people staying in town.”

The stranger cocked his head. “When does he do that? Check the register, I mean.”

“Oh, sometime in the evening.”

“Has the sheriff or any deputy of his done so yet tonight?”

The clerk shook his head. “No, sir. But somebody should be around, oh, most any time now. Why?”

“No reason. Just curious by nature.” The stranger grinned at the clerk, leaned an elbow on the register. “Now, just for fun — what name do you suppose might shake our sheriff up the most?”

The clerk’s eyebrows climbed his endless forehead. “Well, uh... of course, we’d prefer your real name, sir. Not that we stand on ceremony.”

“No, really, be a sport — what name might spook him some?”

The clerk tugged at his collar. “Well, uh... I assume you’ve heard the, uh, talk around town... speculation that, uh, you are, uh... Mr. Wesley Banion. If you, uh, are Mr. Wesley Banion.”