Max Collins - The Legend of Caleb York

York’s eyes made themselves open and he saw Willa really fighting now, much more than squirming, really pulling away from Gauge, who finally just shoved her off him.

“Shut up!” Gauge growled at her. “Get over there!”

She fell, sliding on the floor and almost bumping into her father, who sensed her presence, reaching for her, taking her in his arms.

But she was looking toward the groggy York, hair at the back of his head damp with blood, and started scrambling toward him.

“Willa,” her father said, grabbing her by an arm, stopping her with considerable force for his age and condition, saying, “stay away from him!”

“Let me go, Papa! Let me go !”

But he didn’t, and York lifted his head — a feat no harder than clearing a boulder from a mountain path — and managed to raise a hand and weakly gesture for her to stay back. Stay back.

She did, chin crinkling, trembling all over, but not crying. Not letting herself do it. Warmth for her spread through York, part of it pride, part something else.

With another awful grin splitting his face, Gauge said to Cullen, “You are showin’ some damn good sense, old man. Might be that we can do some business, after all.”

Maxwell was working York over, fists to the body, occasional kicks to the side and legs — more of that “softening up” his boss had requested.

York’s head would not stop spinning. He was fighting to retain consciousness.

“That’s enough !” Gauge yelled. “Hell, man! Leave somethin’ for me.”

His head throbbing with pain, his breath ragged and heavy, York sat on the floor, in loose Indian style, Lola behind him a ways and to his right. He could hear her harsh, irregular breathing, whimpering mixed in.

Maxwell, spurs jangling, grinned cockily as he went over to Gauge’s side. Then his expression turned curious. “Boss, what about that stage? I thought you went off to catch up with it.”

Gauge waved that off. “It’ll be here in half an hour or so. Gives us time to get things ready.”

“Get ready how, boss?”

Gauge ignored the question, instead nodding over to where the old man and his daughter sat side by side on the floor, the corpse of their fallen ranch hand just behind them now.

“Before I could get to the stage,” Gauge said, gesturing, “I ran into this little lady. Figured bringin’ her back here was the thing to do.”

“It surely was, Harry. And are you damn lucky you did!”

“Yeah?”

Maxwell nodded vigorously. “Turns out her old man over there signed the herd, hell, the whole damn spread over to this little girl of his. That’s why.” He pointed toward Willa. “She’s the only one you can get a signed paper from. All the old man’s good for is convincin’ her to sign.”

Gauge was grinning down at the Cullens. “Maxwell, where brains is concerned, you are a real step up from our late compadre Vint.”

Pleased with himself, Maxwell stroked his droopy, dark mustache. “Mighty nice of you to say, boss. Think maybe with Rhomer gone, you might consider takin’ on a new partner...?”

“Well, you’re my number two man today.”

That put a big smile on Maxwell’s face, the man not putting together that only the two of them were still standing.

Gun in hand, Gauge ambled nearer to Willa and her father, who remained huddled on the floor against the shoved-askew table and chairs. He loomed over them.

“Of course, when it comes to partners,” Gauge said, with a little smile, “I think Miss Cullen here knows who I really have in mind.”

Chin up, eyes cold, she said, “I won’t sign a thing over to you. Not a damned thing.”

“Such foul language from so sweet a girl. Sure about that, sugar?” He aimed his .44 past her, at her papa’s head. “I suppose, in a way, it’s kind of a blessin’ that your daddy won’t be able to see it comin’...”

She hugged her father protectively, trying to shield his body with hers.

Gauge chuckled, then sat down at the table that father and daughter were leaned against. He set down his. 44 close to him and, from an inside pocket of his vest, brought out a paper and a pencil.

“I’d prefer ink,” Gauge said, slightly disappointed. “And eventually we’ll go to the bank and put together some real pretty documents. For now, though, this’ll just have to do... Come on, honey. Sit with me.”

He gestured to the chair beside him.

Willa scowled up at him, but her father nodded to her and, her face ashen, she rose and took the chair at the table. Gauge pushed the document and the writing implement toward her.

“Go ahead,” he said, friendly, reasonable. “Read it over. You’ll see I’ve arranged for you to keep the house. I won’t move in there till you ask me to.”

She looked at him, agape. “And you really think I will ?”

“That blind old man on the floor? He was a real man, once upon a time. The kind of hard, ruthless frontier sort that can carve something out of nothing.” Gauge shrugged. “Not too many of ’em left these days, and, well, hell, he’s well past it.”

Her eyes were wild. “If you think after forcing me to sign this, I would ever—”

“I think when this husk of a man that your father has turned into finally dies... and I won’t harm a white hair on his head, if you sign this... you’ll look around and see what I’ve done. What I’ve accomplished. You’ll want your land back. Your life back. And I will be waitin’, Willa... to give it to you.”

She shook her head, astounded by him. “You really think anybody would believe I signed this of my own free will?”

“Well, first of all, you won’t say otherwise. Because if you do, this old man will die hard and long and slow. I would imagine, in his time, he’s done things to deserve that kind of death. So I won’t feel too bad about it.”

Her eyebrows climbed. “Can you really believe what you’re saying?”

His manner became matter-of-fact. “ Everyone’s gonna believe what I’m sayin’. Look around, Miss Willa. See poor old Deputy Rhomer over there? He’s gonna take the blame for all the bad things that happened today. He done me a favor, really, ’cause it’s gonna look better this way.”

“Better.”

“Oh yes. See, he tried to take it all, take your herd and everything... even Lola over there. Look at her. She used to be a real beauty. An animal, that Rhomer.”

Maxwell said, “I can be a witness, boss. I’ll say it any way you want it.”

The mustached gunhand was over by the bar, where he was training a revolver on the groggy man down at the other end. York remained slumped and reeling on the floor with Lola’s barely conscious form not far away.

Gauge said, “I appreciate that, Maxwell. May come in handy. You could say how I arrived just in time to save the necks of our good friends, the Cullens here. I mean, after all — I am the sheriff.”

Willa was shaking her head, amazed at Gauge’s audacity. “And you think I will back up your story?”

“I would prefer it that you did.” He picked up the .44 and aimed it down at her father on the floor. “But if need be, I will tell a sadder story — how I didn’t get here till after Rhomer killed your daddy, and you.”

“You... you wouldn’t have your signature.”

“Well, that’s right. You’d both be dead. I’d have to go ridin’ over to your ranch and find some examples of how you sign your name, and put somethin’ like it on this document. You think I can’t convince the Trinidad bank to back me up?”

She sat, frowned, mulling it.

Then she said, “And you’ll let us go? You’ll leave my father and me be? We’ll have our house?”