Last Stage to Hell Junction Read online

  “Currently my best Shakespearean selections are from the Scottish play, my dear,” he said. “Could it be I have found my Lady Macbeth at last?”

  She began traveling with him. They did so in style, on stagecoaches and trains. She loved his voice, the rich way those fancy words rolled up out of his lovely, masculine chest. It was nice finding a man who could drink hard and never get mean, and could make love while drunk as well as sober. Perhaps better.

  When that heckler in an audience in Abilene had called her man “a spic-loving ham” from the audience, she was proud that he’d stepped down from the stage, taken the offender’s own gun from its holster, and shot him in the face, turning that ugliness into a mask of running red. No one ever stood up for her honor like that before.

  Later she heard that the dead man had lost a bunch of money to Blaine the evening before, and was going around saying the actor was a cheat, which took nothing away from what he’d done to defend her honor.

  That of course was when their life as outlaws began, and it had been an exciting one, and most profitable. Blaine was gathering money for their future (“The world’s mine oyster,” he would say) and assured her their life as desperados was only temporary. Another year or two. He would open his own theater somewhere he was wanted only for his “thespian gifts” and not for his “peccadilloes,” a word she loved the sound of and figured must mean “robberies.”

  They fought frequently, but it almost always stopped at yelling. He only slapped her now and then, much less than she did him, and while he’d raised a fist to her from time to time, he never struck her a blow. Always the cause of the battles was his wandering ways. She felt certain he loved her, but she knew his appetites were keen and ever-present. Yet she also knew when the look in his eye, for some wench or another, was serious and when it meant mere flirtation.

  Their fighting was not all bad. It seemed to excite them both, and if she swore at him in Spanish, things got heated, in a good way.

  Right now, in their spacious if dingy room on the second floor of the Inn, she was in bed smoking a cigarette she’d rolled herself. Blaine was next to her, smoking a cheroot. Their smoke mingled. Pillows were propped behind them. A small table on his side of the bed was home to a bottle of tequila and two glasses.

  He poured a glass for her and then himself. The covers—rather threadbare, as was common in this hotel, whose upkeep was not in step with its rates—were gathered at both their waists. She had full, nicely rounded breasts that still perked, and she liked to keep them exposed in private, to further remind him what she had. And what he had.

  How she loved his chest, with its black hairy nest for her fingers to wind in. He was so refined, with his fancy talk and continental flair; but was most of all a man.

  Smoke streamed from her nostrils. She sipped tequila. “You will keep your hands off that blonde one, cariño, or someone will die.”

  He paused in his own drinking to turn toward her and give her a crinkly smile, as if his mustache were tickling him. “Someone? Would you murder her or me, my love?”

  “She would die,” Juanita said, matter-of-factly, and her right hand drifted to his chest and her fingers entwined themselves in the curls, then yanked a little. “I might spare you.”

  “That’s a relief to hear you say.”

  Her hands drifted south and entwined themselves in other curls. “Of course, even spared, you might lose something precious to you.”

  Half of his upper lip curled, making a smirk out of the smile. Or perhaps a sneer. “If you refer to your sweet self, my dear, that would be tragic indeed. I would never find another leading lady so gifted.”

  She patted the part of him that had recently joined them. “Just keep your hands off la perra. Or your next performance will be in a tragedy.”

  He stroked her cheek. “You concern yourself for no reason, my love. I merely wish to calm the woman. To make her easier to handle.”

  “You better not handle her at all.”

  He laughed, sipped tequila, then rested the glass back on the little bedside table. “We need to keep both those wenches at bay. When the ransom is paid, and Mr. Parker on his way back to his luxurious life, we’ll dispose of both females.”

  She frowned, not following. “Dispose of in what way? Not set them free, you mean?”

  One eyebrow arched. “Free them from their earthly woes. ‘So wise so young, they say do never live long.’ ”

  Now she followed. “Kill them.”

  “That’s the standard interpretation.”

  Warmth flowed through her. Not passion—that was spent. Love. Sheer love for this man.

  “A wise decision!” she said. “Dead witnesses are best.” She leaned close, their breaths on each other’s face. Quietly, but with some urgency, she said, “But why just the woman? Why not ‘dispose’ of the banker, too? Once we have the money. . . .”

  He kissed her. Sweetly. Tenderly.

  Then, their faces still close, noses nearly touching, he said, “Turning Parker loose . . . keeping our part of the bargain . . . that paves the way for the deed to be done again. If we slay him, my querida, people will not be inclined in future to pay a ransom for the return of a hostage.”

  She basked in this wisdom, then finished her tequila and passed him the glass, which he set next to his. She drew on her cigarette and exhaled smoke, which drifted wraith-like.

  Nodding to herself, she said, “So you will wait till the banker has been delivered before killing esas brujas.”

  His handsome face settled into thoughtfulness. “Perhaps. Perhaps killing them in front of him would serve a useful purpose.”

  With no idea what that purpose might be, she said, “Bueno idea. Fine idea.”

  Seeming to sense her lack of understanding, he said, “It may prove helpful to let our male guest know of what we are capable. This may convince him to not come after us, or else face similar butchery.”

  A knock at the door interrupted.

  “What?” Blaine called out, irritably.

  “I’m back,” came Reese’s voice. “With a doc.”

  “Hmmm,” Blaine said, more to himself than her. “That took less time than I imagined.”

  Her man got out of bed, wearing only long-john bottoms. He opened the door, and Reese stepped into the room. Annoyed, Juanita halfheartedly covered her breasts.

  The narrow-eyed fool told Blaine about running into the doctor from Trinidad at the Brentwood Junction relay station, and how he got the doc to come along by telling him a cowboy with a broken leg needed attending.

  Blaine listened to all that, then went over and started getting the rest of his clothes on, saying, “I’ll be down momentarily.”

  But Reese, a shapeless cowboy hat in his hands, was lingering like a bad smell. “Listen, Blaine, I don’t know what you decided about them two females, but gettin’ rid of them might be a mistake. A bad one.”

  Had the dunderhead been listening at the door?

  Blaine went over to him. “Is that so? And do you have a reason for forming this opinion?”

  “Ain’t no ’pinion. The doc and me had supper at the relay station, jawed some. Ol’ boy tol’ me all about how there was this stagecoach waylaid just down the road a piece. How this important businessman got himself grabbed, and two women passengers, as well.”

  “Is that so.”

  Reese leaned close to Blaine. “Do you know who those two women is?”

  Blaine gestured dismissively. “No. They were simply along for the ride. They still are.”

  “That blonde woman is a big rancher,” Reese said, eyes narrowing.

  “That woman is?”

  Reese nodded. “Her name is Cullen and her pappy died not long ago and left the damn whole spread to her. Biggest in the county. One of the biggest anywheres around here.”

  “Interesting.”

  “The other one, the dark-eyed lady? She runs the Victory Saloon. Hell, she owns the place! That’s the only saloon in Trinidad, and one of
the biggest, fanciest around. Gamblin’ and girls and everything.”

  Blaine was nodding slowly.

  “Seems to me,” Reese said, smiling like a greedy child, “after we get Parker’s ransom? We can collect on the womenfolk, too. They is surely worth more alive than dead, Blaine.”

  She hated the way Reese called his better “Blaine.” There was something unsettling about it. Like the way he’d watched Blaine walk over in his drawers. Was the older Randabaugh some kind of Nancy boy?

  As if catering to that, Blaine put a hand on Reese’s shoulder. “You did well.”

  Reese grinned, then his expression turned serious again. He gestured toward the hall. “Best come down and talk to the doc. Ol’ feller’s pretty upset.”

  “Oh, is he now?”

  “He seen the banker and the two women sittin’ in the parlor and he figured out right away there weren’t no cowboy with a busted leg waitin’. He’s in lookin’ at Ben right now.”

  “Go back down,” Blaine said, with a flip of a wave. “I’ll join you shortly.”

  Reese went out, closing the door behind him.

  Blaine finished getting dressed, including strapping on (and tying down) his sidearm, then went to the door, paused to blow her a kiss, and strode out.

  She washed up some, using the basin and pitcher and towels on the beat-up dresser, and then sat on the bed, brooding.

  Juanita didn’t give a damn how much the women were worth. But if that flaxen-haired hussy went after her man, there would be hell to pay.

  * * *

  After supper, Willa and Rita returned to the lobby and their two-seater sofa; Raymond Parker resumed his place in the big leather chair, as well. The trio had more privacy now, Randy Randabaugh a good distance away in the dining room, seated at a cleared table, playing solitaire. The windowed double doors were standing open so he could keep an eye on the captives. They could see him, too, cheating at the game.

  Not long ago, Randy’s older brother had burst in through the front, accompanying Doc Miller, of all people. The doctor was hauled in bodily, his Gladstone bag in hand, and he looked worried and confused, like someone rudely woken from a deep sleep.

  But when he’d seen Willa and Rita installed in the parlor area, his expression became blank, a blankness that paradoxically said he knew at once where he was and what was going on. Reese hustled the portly little physician into the private quarters of the Wileys, where the wounded Hargrave gang member was being seen to.

  Shortly thereafter Reese had rushed up the stairs, was gone for just a few minutes, then returned and disappeared back into the Wiley living quarters. The two women exchanged glances, then turned to Parker, their eyes asking him a thousand questions.

  “I hope,” Parker said, calm and steady now, keeping his voice low, “that the good doctor will be able to save his patient. I would not like to contemplate what might happen to him otherwise.”

  Rita said softly, “I’m not sure you’re right, Mr. Parker. I’m inclined to think the great Blaine Hargrave would just as soon have one less reason to slice up the pie.”

  Parker’s eyebrows flicked up and down. “A valid point.”

  Speak of the devil, Hargrave came quickly down those stairs and ducked inside the Wiley quarters. The quick movement seemed something from a French farce.

  Glances between the hostages were again exchanged, but this time no words were spoken.

  In a half an hour or so—though it felt much longer to Willa—Hargrave returned, dragging a frazzled-looking, askew-haired Miller along like an oversize child. The doctor’s jacket was off, and his white shirt was splotched red; his string tie hung loose, like a dead snake, and he’d left his Gladstone bag behind, presumably near the wounded outlaw’s bedside in the sickroom.

  “All right, physician,” Hargrave said, standing facing Miller, hovering over him in the middle of the outer lobby. “I heard what you told your patient. But what is your real prognosis?”

  “I told him no lies,” Doc Miller said, raising a palm as if taking the stand in court. “As you saw, I dug the bullet out successfully, with little fuss or excess damage to your . . . associate. He lost some blood, and he’s weak, and I would not advise moving him tonight. Tomorrow, some time, or the day after, he may again be mobile. Certainly in a few days he’ll still have some discomfort, but otherwise be right as rain.”

  “He passed out on you,” Hargrave reminded the doctor.

  Miller raised his other palm. “Yes, but that was the laudanum taking effect. I gave him a good dosage. He should sleep soundly and for a good long while.”

  “Do you feel he needs further doctoring?”

  Willa could well imagine what was going through Doc Miller’s mind. Hargrave was not about to release his latest guest, much less have him escorted back to Trinidad.

  Rita whispered, “Doc’s best bet is to stick around and stay needed. Otherwise the healer will most likely catch something incurable.”

  Miller, as if he’d overheard that, said, “If there’s an available bed here for me, I perhaps should stay the night. If I am wrong about the patient’s expected quick recovery . . . should he take a turn for the worse during the night, say . . . it might be prudent for me to be on hand to give aid.”

  Hargrave thought about that. Then, vaguely irritated, he said, “We’ll find a bed for you.”

  The actor gestured toward the lobby’s adjacent area. “Make yourself comfortable, Doctor. You almost certainly know my other guests, who are from your environs. You’ve eaten?”

  “I have. At the relay station.” He breathed deep, exhaled the same way. “But I am rather thirsty, sir.”

  “Coffee? Or something stronger?”

  “Something stronger.”

  “They have whiskey and wine on offer.”

  “Wine would be soothing.”

  Hargrave’s smile was perhaps not his most convincing performance. “Well, we must have you soothed, Doctor. I’ll see to it.”

  Miller came in, exchanged wide-eyed looks with his friends, plucked a chair from along a wall, and sat himself near Parker, but angled so that the two women were also well in view.

  Very quietly, the doctor told them of encountering Reese Randabaugh at the Brentwood Junction relay station, where the outlaw had lied to him about a cowboy with a busted leg.

  “As soon as I realized we were heading into Hell Junction,” Miller said, “I knew I’d been played a fool.”

  Willa asked, “You knew of Hell Junction?”

  “Heard tell of it. My first visit, however. And I hope my last.”

  Parker said, “You may get that wish in a way you wouldn’t relish.”

  “I may indeed.” He was speaking so softly that Willa could barely hear him now. But she did hear him.

  Every word.

  Concisely, Miller told them that he’d been picking up the dead body of one Ned Clutter, the ransom messenger who, as it happened, Caleb York had killed this afternoon. That Clutter’s corpse was in fact snugged in a wicker coffin right outside the hotel in Miller’s buckboard, under a tarp.

  Willa said, “Well, surely they don’t know—”

  “They don’t,” the doctor said. “And if they ever do, I would likely be in even worse trouble than I am right now. So, I fear, would we all.”

  Parker, just as softly, said, “That means the ransom is not on its way.”

  “That’s right,” Miller said. “And our sheriff is beside himself for putting you . . . now, us . . . in that untenable position.” He shrugged. “But apparently this Clutter drew down on him and our sheriff’s well-honed instincts kicked in.”

  Rita said, “I don’t mean to throw a damper on this lovely reunion, but as soon as Hamlet and the rest of his troupe realize no money’s on the way . . . and that Caleb York knows about them . . . they are likely to drop the curtain and steal away.”

  Willa said, “Well, wouldn’t you like to see these creatures disappear on us?”

  Parker said, “Miss Cullen, witho
ut ransom money, we are no longer hostages.”

  “Exactly.”

  “But we are witnesses.”

  “And dead men, as they say,” Rita said, “tell no tales. Women, too.”

  Willa felt as though she’d been struck a blow in the pit of her stomach.

  “Hey!” Randy called, frowning over his cards. “You people over there—stop your talkin’! You’re gonna get yourselves in trouble!”

  Rita said, “I would hate for that to happen,” loud enough for even Randy to hear.

  The four guests of the Hargrave Gang followed the young lout’s directive. They did not speak. They all sat with their eyes and their thoughts moving.

  The colored girl came in and offered them wine from an unlabeled bottle on a tarnished silver tray with crystal glasses, two of which were chipped.

  “It’s a port,” Mahalia said, with an accent that had some Texas in it. “Very sweet. Nice. You should like it.”

  They all accepted healthy glasses, thanked the girl, who nodded, smiled, left the bottle on a nearby table, and departed. She seemed sweet and nice, too. Certainly the wine was.

  Hargrave’s woman, Juanita, in her peasant dress, came down the stairs in no hurry, flashed them a dirty look, then entered the Wileys’ quarters. A few minutes later she and Hargrave exited, and started back up the stairs, with her leading the way, tugging on his hand.

  “Second dessert helping, maybe,” Rita said softly with a smirk.

  But when the front lobby doors opened, and a tall, trimly bearded figure stepped inside, shutting himself in, Hargrave and his woman froze on the stairs. Both were frowning.

  Neither Willa nor Rita reacted in any noticeable way, although Willa’s right hand and Rita’s left found each other, tucked between them where they sat, and squeezed. Both the doctor and the businessman barely glanced at the new arrival.

  All four hostages had done very well, as the man who approached the check-in desk and slammed his palm onto the reception bell, three times—ding ding ding—was Caleb York.