Max Collins - The Legend of Caleb York

Rhomer, scratched face still bleeding, let out a deep sigh and his eyelids went to half-mast as his hands went up all the way. Maxwell already had hands raised.

Keeping his eyes on both men, York angled over to Cullen sitting on the floor, cradling the head of a dead friend in his lap. The old man’s upper leg was soaked red.

“How bad?” York asked him, half-kneeling.

“Not bad. Think the bleeding’s stopped.” The sightless man stroked the dead man’s hair. “Lou caught a bad one, though.” Then the milky eyes widened. “What about my daughter...? Is Willa all right?”

“Should be fine,” York said. “She’s with your men out looking for the herd.”

Cullen sighed in relief. Then he nodded toward something he couldn’t see, but where his blind man’s well-tuned hearing told him it was.

“You need to help her,” the rancher said, pointing.

Back there, tucked between the end of the bar and the wall, lay what had once been a beautiful woman. She was breathing, heavy and irregular, but nothing else indicated she might be alive. Her clothing was torn, ripped to tatters, and her flesh was patched purple with bruising, her face a mass of welts and cuts and swollen tissue, her eyes all but disappearing into puffy bulges slitted only ever so slightly. Her right arm hung at an impossible angle, loose as a broken shutter.

He went to her.

In his concern, he did not see Rhomer and Maxwell exchange glances, getting ready to find their moment...

He asked, “Rhomer do this to you?”

She managed a nod.

York stood, startling the two men, ending whatever impromptu move they might have been planning. He pointed the shotgun at Rhomer, who stood perhaps eight feet away. Maxwell was several feet beyond and to Rhomer’s left. Not far from the doors.

Gesturing with the shotgun, York indicated the gun belt on the bar. Rhomer narrowed his eyes, as if to say, You mean... get it? Put it on?

And York nodded.

The deputy had to think about that for a moment, but then, very slowly, he did it. Right down to strapping down the holster to his leg.

“Back up a little,” York said casually, still training the shotgun on him.

Rhomer did so, hand hovering over the holstered .44.

York bent at the knees, set the shotgun down, and rose, his hand above the butt of his .44. He and Rhomer were now facing each other in classic showdown stance.

Drunk enough not to be afraid, Rhomer grinned and said, “Before we end this, mister... who the hell are you, anyway?”

“The man who’s going to kill you,” York said.

Rhomer’s hand was on the butt of the .44, but the weapon was only an inch out of its holster when the sound of another .44 filled the small room like cannon fire, shaking glass, rattling chairs.

The deputy rocked on his feet, trying to maintain his balance, then glanced down and looked at the hole in his badge and the stream of red trickling out and down.

“Hell,” he said.

Then he collapsed in a pile.

“And welcome to it,” York said.

Maxwell had his hands up. “Don’t shoot! I didn’t touch her! I swear !”

“Toss the gun to one side — gentle. Don’t want it going off.”

Maxwell complied.

“Now get on the floor. Like you’re taking a nap. Do it.”

Maxwell did it.

“Stay right there.”

Cowering, Maxwell nodded his head.

Gun in hand, York returned to Lola, knelt near her. “How bad is it?”

Her mouth made something awful that might be a smile. “Can’t... can’t you see?”

“What I see might could heal. How bad?”

Tiny head shake. “ All bad, stranger. He’s killed me. I’m torn up inside.”

He started to rise. “I’ll get the doctor.”

She reached for his arm, gripped as best she could, bringing him back down. “Don’t... don’t bother. It’s too late. I... I can feel it.”

That was when Harry Gauge burst in, grinning big, the barrel of his .44 dimpling the neck of a terrified Willa Cullen.

York, kneeling at the side of the battered Lola, looked up at the crazed, grinning face of the big blond sheriff, who stood poised just inside the doors with a squirming Willa blocking much of him, his left hand holding on to a shoulder of hers, his right pressing the snout of that. 44 into the side of her throat.

York’s eyes went to Willa’s.

She was terrified, breathing hard, but she did not look otherwise harmed — her straw-yellow hair, in a ponytail earlier, was disarrayed and down brushing her shoulders now, and there was a smudge or bruise on a cheek. So Gauge hadn’t roughed her up much.

York would kill him, anyway.

The bug-eyed Maxwell was getting up, retrieving his gun, saying, “That’s what I call the nick of time, Harry.” Then he positioned himself near the end of the bar and trained his revolver on York, who was still bending down near the shattered dance-hall queen.

The blind old man on the floor had finally abandoned his dead helper, pushing the corpse off to one side; though with his shot-up leg, Cullen himself wasn’t going anywhere.

Rather pitifully, the old man demanded, “What the hell is going on, Gauge? What the hell are you up to?”

York said, in a near-soothing voice, “He’s got your daughter, Mr. Cullen. She’s his prisoner. Try to stay calm. I’ll handle it.”

That made Gauge laugh. “ Will you now? Big words.”

“Papa,” Willa called, “I’m all right!”

Of course, she sounded anything but.

Moving her a few steps into the dreary space, Gauge glanced at his dead deputy and said, “I see you took care of Rhomer for me, stranger. Well, poor Vint was what you call a weak link — probably best I’m rid of the fool.”

“You’re welcome,” York said.

Gauge grunted a laugh. “All right, stranger... just toss that gun away from you — easy does it. If it hits the floor and fires, I’ll fire, too.”

York did as he was told, the weapon skittering past chairs under a table, well out of reach now.

Gauge nodded toward the twelve-gauge on the floor. “Now that shotgun? Kick it over that way, too, gentle. Where nobody can get hurt with it. No tricks, now.”

This York also did, though the bigger weapon went a shorter distance, maybe four feet.

Then he began to get to his feet.

But Gauge shook his head and said, “No, no, no, stay right down there. You’re just fine right where you are.” He gave Maxwell a quick look. “Go over and search him. Careful — he’s got a knife on him. Slit a bunch of throats outside.” He laughed again. “Didn’t know you had it in you, dude.”

“I’d rather it was in you,” York said pleasantly.

Maxwell went over and patted York down, finding the Bowie knife in a sheath stuck into his pants in back. The big-bladed weapon got tossed off under the tables, as well. Gauge’s man found shotgun shells in York’s pockets, and these Maxwell also tossed.

The flunky glanced back to Gauge for further orders.

Gauge — holding on to the girl, who was squirming even more now, or, anyway, as much as she dared with the cold nose of a gun in her neck — said, “Good job, Maxwell. Now soften him up some. Just for fun. Maybe start by showin’ him how you took care of ol’ Swenson.”

Maxwell grinned and pistol-whipped York, who fell onto his side, the inside of his head exploding with pain, eyes squeezed shut so as not to miss any of the Fourth of July fireworks in his skull.

But he wasn’t unconscious, and was all too aware that Willa was pulling forward and screaming, “ No!... Please don’t ! Leave him alone !”

Above him, Maxwell was saying, “This S.O.B.’s got a harder head than old Swenson.”