Max Collins - The Legend of Caleb York

She was trembling now, with rage, and... something else. Fear? Not of Rhomer, but that... that he might be right... ?

She pointed at the door. “Get out! Get out of here now. ”

Rhomer got to his feet, in no hurry. He came toward her in an easy lope. “Don’t cry, honey. No need to cry. Vint here still thinks you’re sweet. Hell, I don’t mind takin’ Harry’s sloppy seconds. He can have that sage hen Cullen gal.”

He undid his gun belt and tossed it on the chair he’d vacated near the window on the street. As he turned back to her, grinning horribly, she was right there to slap him, hard, and it rang out like a gunshot.

Rhomer grunted and returned the slap, but twice as hard, and she cried out. Then he slapped her again, even harder, and started in clawing at her, trying to rip off what little she wore, but dealing with a corset was beyond his intelligence and she pummeled his chest with hard, tiny fists and bit him on the ear, hard, tearing at his flesh, spitting out a bloody lobe.

He screamed and let go of her, scarlet trailing down one cheek, and yelled, “You witch !”

He pushed her onto the bed and was coming at her with grimacing hatred and his right fist was high when the door splintered open and someone came in fast.

The stranger.

Bareheaded, no sidearm, he grabbed Rhomer from behind, by the shoulders, and flung him across into the dresser, where the deputy hit hard, the mirror shaking, drawers rattling, pitcher in its basin careening.

She sat up on the bed, breathing hard, her mouth bleeding — the stranger must have heard the struggle! And came to help his neighbor out.

Rhomer’s right hand went to his side — forgetting for a moment that his gun in its belt was over on that chair — and then grabbed the pitcher from the dresser top and hurled it at the stranger, who ducked, and so did she, as it flew into the wall behind her and crashed into chunky fragments.

The deputy raised his fists and with a sneering smile came slowly toward the man who’d interrupted his fun.

“About time,” Rhomer said, “somebody taught you to mind your own damn business.”

The stranger, his own balled hands at the ready, was smiling, but his eyes weren’t. “Please try.”

In the cramped space of the hotel room, there was little for the two men to do but stand there and slug it out, though Rhomer landed few blows. The stranger kept rocking him back, taking only a handful of hits on his arms and his body, just glancing blows.

Then Rhomer brought around a looping right hand that could have done real damage, but the other man ducked it and brought up a right hand that caught the deputy on the chin, sending him, already bleeding from his ragged ear, stumbling back.

Not even breathing hard, the stranger said, “Maybe it’s time I taught you not to burden a lady with unwanted attentions.”

Lola felt tears come. The physical punishment Rhomer had dealt out to her hadn’t made her cry. She was used to that kind of thing, much as she hated it. But her unlikely savior’s oddly formal defense of her... her virtue... had sent tears streaming.

The stranger was delivering a flurry of punches to Rhomer’s body, his chest, his belly, his sides, and the deputy seemed to be staying on his feet only by the force of those blows, bloody spittle flying.

Then in one last desperate move, Rhomer shoved the stranger away, and scrambled after the gun belt on the chair near the window. As the deputy bent over for it, the stranger came up behind him and kicked him in the backside and through the glass shatteringly, shards flying, wooden pane frames cracking.

From below came a loud whump.

Lola rushed to her rescuer’s side as they both looked out the window.

Rhomer was plastered down there on the hotel’s wooden awning, on his belly, breathing hard, but out.

“Little boy’s had a busy day.” The stranger turned to her, touched her face gently near where her mouth bled. “Are you all right?”

She nodded. Something shaky in her voice, she said, “You really think saving my virtue was worth the risk?”

He grinned. The only blood on him was Rhomer’s. “Anytime. And I’m not about to stand by and see a woman get manhandled.”

“But you couldn’t see it.”

He shrugged, nodding toward the wall they shared. “I could hear it. Anyway, how’s a man to get any sleep with all that racket?”

“You joke.” She nodded toward the window. “Rhomer will kill you for sure now.”

“Well, he’ll try. Are you going to the sheriff about this? That deputy isn’t about to.”

She shook her head. “I’ll find Rhomer tomorrow, give him his gun, and tell him I’ll keep my mouth shut if he does the same.”

He jerked a thumb at the shattered window. “Why not let those two bums shoot it out?”

“I have my reasons. My secrets.”

He gave her half a grin this time. “Don’t we all? You better have that desk clerk give you another room for tonight.”

She put a hand in his hair, then brought it back. “We could always share yours.”

“Lovely thought. But this little man has had a busy day, too.”

He broke away from her to take another glance out the window, and she came along. Rhomer was still down on the awning, sleeping off his drunk and his beating. A plump, little man on a horse came riding along Main Street, in no hurry, a Gladstone bag tucked on the saddle before him.

“Isn’t that Doc Miller?” he asked her.

“That’s him. Why? You want to get Rhomer a doctor?”

“Not hardly.”

Then he kissed her on the forehead and left her there.

In the moonlight, the expanse of range looked like the aftermath of a terrible battle, the kind where there are few if any survivors, corpses strewn everywhere. Only this was a war where the casualties were cattle.

Harry Gauge and his grizzled foreman Gil Willart stood over one such victim, whose exposed fleshy underside bore telltale blisters.

“Cowpox, all right,” Gauge said with a sigh and a shake of the head. His hat was in his hand as if out of respect for the dead steer.

Willart shot a stream of tobacco sideways into the night. “What now, boss?”

The moon was painting the grotesque landscape an unreal off-white. It was cool out, almost cold, and a breeze made a hoarse, spooky whisper.

Gauge pointed to the east. “Drag these damn carcasses over to the ravine and start a slide and cover ’em up.”

“We can do that. But the men won’t take to handlin’ such dead critters as these.”

He frowned at the foreman. “They’re already wearin’ gloves, ain’t they? They’ll be fine. Tell ’em I’ll pay double wages.”

Willart nodded. “That should do it. What about the main herd?”

Gauge gestured toward the landscape of death. “These were too far gone to follow the graze. The others should last long enough to get themselves sold.”

The foreman nodded, then raised his eyebrows skeptically. “Even our survivors are pretty scrawny, up against the Bar-O herd. As it stands, boss, Cullen’s likely to get the lion’s share of buyer dollars.”

The sheriff gave his man a surly grin. “Not after tonight. Get started cleanin’ up this mess... Hey, Tenny! ”

The foreman went off, just as Joe Tenny, a cowboy who had run with Gauge in outlaw days, ambled over. He had shaggy eyebrows that met in the middle and a lazy smile with a droopy, thick mustache shaped like the smile’s upside-down twin.

“Y’know,” Tenny said, “I was thinkin’ maybe we oughter have ourselves a bar-be-cue. Or maybe you got a better idea?”

“Funny feller.” Gauge nodded vaguely north. “Listen, you know those foothills near the Sangre de Cristo?”