Last Stage to Hell Junction Read online

  Though she recognized him at once, Willa was struck by how different he looked. He wore a fringed buckskin jacket that looked dusty and well-worn, dark green santeen shirt, brown canvas trousers, red bandanna tied around his neck, and scuffed-up work boots. In fact, the only item of apparel she recognized was the .44 Colt in its low-slung, tied-down holster.

  Wilmer Wiley came rushing out from somewhere and got behind the check-in counter.

  “Yes, sir,” rasped the pudgy little man in wire-framed glasses, tugging his vest on, smiling obsequiously. “May I help you? Might I assume you know the nature of this establishment? And its rates?”

  “I do,” Caleb said.

  From the stairs, a scowling Hargrave said, “Now wait one damn minute!” He came quickly down, like a swashbuckler who forgot his sword; of course, he hadn’t forgotten his holstered revolver.

  Meanwhile, the woman, dark hair brushing her shoulders, was leaning over the rail, smiling at the handsome stranger, some of her charms threatening to spill out.

  Hargrave stood before Caleb—they were about the same height—and said, “My apologies for interrupting, my good man. But I’m afraid I have bought out the hotel for my party. I’m sure you’ll find suitable lodging elsewhere.”

  “I’ve ridden some while . . . my good man,” Caleb said, looking at Hargrave through dangerous slits. “I’m tired and I know who this shebang caters to. And I’m it.”

  Hearing this fuss, Reese Randabaugh emerged from the Wileys’ quarters with a frowning Vera Wiley right behind. Randy heard the hullabaloo, too, in the dining room, and rushed out past Willa and the others to get in on it.

  Hargrave’s hand was hovering over his holstered weapon. But so was Caleb’s. They were staring at each other.

  Reese yelled, “We got this whole place sewed up, mister!”

  And Randy, moving around the edges like he was trying to hem everybody else in, said, “He’s right, bud! Right now, we own this here place!”

  “Wrong!” Vera Wiley screeched.

  All the men winced, but Willa and Rita only smiled.

  Pushing past the older Randabaugh, Mrs. Wiley got back behind the check-in counter and stood next to her husband, putting a hand on his shoulder, the first sign of affection between them.

  Firmly, not at all screechily, the hatchet-faced woman said, “The Hale Junction Inn is a haven for poor outcast souls . . . them what can pay the freight, that is. Do you have one hundred dollars for a night’s stay, wayfarer? Meals is included.”

  Caleb, still facing Hargrave, nodded. He dug in his left pocket and came back with a handful of coins, dropping them one at a time on the counter, five clinks. Even from where she sat, Willa could see the gold of them.

  So could the Wileys.

  “Double eagles,” Rita whispered.

  Twenty dollars each.

  An eyebrow raised, Hargrave said, “I apologize for asking, but it’s a necessary intrusion. Where did you get that kind of money, sir?”

  “I made a withdrawal from the bank in Roswell,” Caleb said, his smile a sideways thing that showed only a knife’s edge of teeth.

  “Posse on your trail?”

  “No. I shook them. Led them on a merry chase, as Shakespeare said.”

  Hargrave frowned. “But he didn’t say that.”

  “Somebody must have. Anyway, I heard it before.... Landlord, I could stand to eat. You did say meals came with my hundred dollars.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  When he walked by Willa, Rita, and Parker in the parlor of the lobby, Caleb York gave them a glance, but nothing more. And to his pleasure and relief, none of them reacted to that glance or his presence in any way at all.

  Sitting just inside the open doors of the dining room, the two Randabaugh brothers—that’s who York assumed they were, at least, based on prisoner Crawley’s descriptions—were playing two-handed poker for kitchen matches that appeared to represent actual money they expected to be receiving for their kidnapping efforts.

  Reese, in a blue army shirt, and his brother Randy, in a homemade gray shirt with sleeve garters, were separated by perhaps eight years, though they shared the same straw-colored hair and close-set eyes that made them look dumb as a post. The major difference was the younger one looked even dumber, and the older one had blue eyes, the other brown.

  York drifted by, not acknowledging them, taking a table at the far end of the dining room near a serving board. He set his hat and his .44 on the table, to the left and right of him respectively. He’d barely settled when an attractive colored girl of twenty or so, wearing servant’s black, her hoop earrings swinging, came through the kitchen’s push-style door with a plate of food.

  She was the kind of mulatto gal some called high yellow, and gave Willa and Rita a run for the money as to who was the most beautiful female under this roof. Of course he had also noticed the pretty Mexican-looking girl leaning over the banister with her bosom on display and black gypsy hair brushing her shoulders. This Hell Junction Inn had no shortage of beautiful women.

  Or of dangerous outlaws.

  The plate of chow the colored girl bore looked good to York—stew and pork ’n’ beans and buttered biscuits. She avoided his eyes as she put down the food before him.

  York said, “Thank you, miss.”

  She looked up at him, surprised to be spoken to in such a manner. Her eyes were big and a bottomless brown. Very softly, in a musical way, she said, “You’re most welcome, sir.”

  He held her eyes with his. “And what’s your name?”

  “Mahalia,” she said, softly respectful, but risking a tiny, barely readable smile.

  “Mahalia,” he said, as if it were the first bite he was tasting, and it was delicious. “Lovely name.”

  She liked that. “We have wine and beer. Also coffee.”

  “Just a glass of water will do me for now. Maybe something stronger after. Thank you, Mahalia.”

  She nodded and went off, no more graceful than a fawn gliding through a forest.

  From the table where the brothers were playing cards, Reese called out, “You like talkin’ to niggers, mister?”

  York turned and looked at the older Randabaugh. “Only people I dislike talking to are fools.” Then he turned back to his plate, leaving the son of a bitch to think about whether or not he’d been insulted.

  After that, York ate in relative silence, with no conversation coming from the parlor or from the two louts playing poker, but for the occasional, “Deal!” or “Damnit!” Yes, those matches were money.

  The stew, beans, and biscuits were fine, and when York was done, the high-yellow gal brought him a plate with a piece of apple pie on it. She smiled less shyly now.

  “You bake this, Mahalia?”

  “Had a hand in it.”

  He took a bite. “Maybe that’s why it’s so sweet.”

  She smiled openly at that and damn near flounced off.

  Caleb York, he said to himself, you are still a devil with the ladies.

  He was amused knowing Rita and Willa would have witnessed this, even at a distance, and been given something else to think about for a minute or so besides their captivity.

  He pushed his now empty pie plate aside, wondering what his next move should be, when the outlaw leader himself saved York the trouble, the actor’s ambling stride announcing him with a flourish as he came across the room to York’s table.

  Hargrave was a handsome devil himself, a mustached rogue all in black, and was sending York a smile that spoke confidence while his tense eyes conveyed suspicion. He was carrying a bottle of wine in one hand and two glass goblets by their stems in the other.

  The outlaw actor stood by the empty chair to York’s left; he raised the wine bottle to shoulder level. “As the Bard says, ‘Good company, good wine, good welcome, can make good people.’ ”

  Good people. Right.

  “ ‘The wine was red wine.’ That’s Dickens.” York gestured for him to sit. “Join me. Pour us a glass.”

&n
bsp; Hargrave nodded in a half bow, a typically theatrical gesture. He was wearing his sidearm, its holster tie loose. The man sat, poured generously.

  The two raised their glasses in a silent toast, then sipped and set the goblets sloshing down.

  “You may have noticed,” Hargrave said, “that the innkeeper did not ask you to sign the guest register.”

  York shrugged. “From what I hear about this establishment, that’s no surprise. If there were names in that register, they’d likely be Smith or Jones.”

  Hargrave sipped wine. “Well-reasoned. And yet every alias has, lurking behind it, a real name.”

  “Real names don’t matter much in the West. How many ‘real’ names did Billy the Kid go by?” York gulped some wine. “I hear Wild Bill’s real Christian name was James. But nobody ever called him Wild Jim that I recall.”

  The actor’s gaze was unblinking. “My name is Hargrave. Does that mean anything to you, sir?”

  York nodded and nodded some more. “Certainly does. Famously trod the boards, did you not?”

  Hargrave lowered his head and gestured with a little wave, in yet another near bow. “I did indeed. ‘A poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. . . .’”

  “ ‘It is a tale told by an idiot,” York said, finishing the quotation, “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.’ ”

  Hargrave’s smile turned contemplative as he studied this dusty stranger. “So . . . you have in your lifetime read more than just the sentimental twaddle of Boz, hmmm?”

  York grinned at him. “I also like Jules Verne, but not enough to quote him. Wild yarns, though. You ever consider a journey to the center of the earth?”

  Hargrave shook his head.

  “We’re all due such a journey,” York noted, and had a sip of wine, “only not that far down.”

  The actor studied the newcomer as if York’s face were covered in lines that needed memorizing. “You know my name, sir, but you haven’t shared yours.”

  York served up another grin. “Didn’t your ‘Bard’ say ‘What’s in a name?’ Though as long and hard as I’ve been ridin’, I doubt I smell as sweet as a rose.”

  The actor wasn’t smiling now. “You have hidden depths, sir.”

  “Everyone in this place is hidin’ something . . . sir. Including themselves.”

  Hargrave filled his chest with air, then let it out as he spoke: “I take it you’ve heard of my subsequent post-thespian endeavors? And of my associates?”

  York flipped a hand. “You started out on one kind of poster, now you’re on another.” He raised a forefinger. “Me, I could only claim one variety.”

  Hargrave’s eyes narrowed. “You make noises like a bounty hunter. Are you a bounty hunter, sir?”

  York’s eyes narrowed back at him. “Did you sit with me to hurl insults? Sir?”

  The actor raised a palm. Shook his head, once. “No,” he said. “But as I am not a stranger to you, it seems only equitable that you not be a stranger to me.”

  York pretended to think about that.

  Then: “Name’s McCory.”

  “. . . Bret McCory, isn’t it?”

  York nodded.

  Hargrave gave up half a smile. “You don’t ride with a cast of characters, I understand.”

  “That’s correct. I general do jobs solo . . . but if I need some backup, there’s always one saddle tramp or another, in need of a dollar.”

  The actor’s expression was languid, but his eyes were hard. “You hit that Roswell bank alone?”

  “No. I had a friend.” York patted the .44 on the table.

  Hargrave’s smile grew. “Such a friend one can depend on. Other friends less so, but I’m afraid I have rather . . . grandiose notions that make a touring company desirable. For the kind of productions I mount.”

  “You hold up trains. That takes men.”

  “It does.”

  “So do banks.”

  Hargrave’s eyebrows flicked up and down. “Larger ones than Roswell, with a sizable retinue of guards, yes. No reflection on your accomplishment, sir.”

  “You also take down stagecoaches, I believe. And that takes more than a man or two.”

  “It does.” Hargrave frowned to himself, drew a breath; he was thinking. Then he leaned slowly forward and said, in a stage whisper, “You may have noticed several guests in the parlor who do not appear typical of the lodgers regularly housed herein.”

  York threw a glance in that direction. “I saw’em. They don’t seem like fugitives of anything except maybe a Sunday service.”

  The half smile returned. “They did not check in at this hotel of their own volition. They are my guests—if unwilling ones.”

  York frowned in thought. “Hostages, you mean?”

  “I do.”

  Wiggling a finger toward the parlor, York said, “That old boy in the fancy duds looks like money at that. What those women are wearing don’t come cheap, either. Those are big city bought. Can’t get them kinda goods from a catalogue.”

  “I would agree.”

  York pretended to think about it, then said, “Ransom, then.”

  Head back, eyes hooded, the handsome outlaw said, “Yes. Have you any ethical objection to abduction for profit?”

  “I have no ethical objections to profit at all that spring to mind.”

  His smile broadened. “I can tell you, frankly, that there is potentially a great deal of profit to be made in this enterprise.”

  York squinted at him. “You’ve delivered the ransom demand to the old boy’s people?”

  Hargrave nodded. “I already dispatched one of my men.”

  I’ve already “dispatched” one of your men, too, York thought.

  Then York said, quietly, “What about the women?”

  Hargrave opened a hand and gave a little wave to the new comer. “There is a role you might play, if you are willing to join with me and my merry brood in the last act of our modest melodrama.”

  “I’m listening. Make your talk less fancy.”

  “Are you well known in Trinidad?”

  “Never set foot.”

  “Do you realize you’re within easy riding distance?”

  “That so? And why the hell would I want to ride there?”

  Hargrave leaned in. “To deliver a ransom demand for the two women. The fair one owns the biggest ranch in this part of the world. The dark-eyed wench runs the Victory Saloon, the largest drinking and gambling emporium around, I am told.”

  York frowned thoughtfully. “Who would I take the demands to?”

  The actor sat back, made a throwaway gesture. “I haven’t the slightest notion. Finding that out would be part of your job. Go over and make the acquaintance of those ladies and pretend to befriend them. Find out who in Trinidad cares about them—enough so to pay handsomely to see them remain among the living.”

  Now York leaned forward. “If somebody does pay, will these folks ‘remain’ that way?”

  “What do you think?”

  York made a clicking sound in his cheek. “I think butchering them two females would be a downright shame. A waste by men of what God so carefully crafted.” He grunted. “It better pay damn good.”

  “I assure you it will. Go in there and befriend the unfortunates. As the Bard says, ‘Friendship is a constant in all things.’ ”

  York finished his wine in several gulps, lifted the empty glass, and said, “ ‘Wine is constant proof that God loves us and loves to see us happy’ . . . Benjamin Franklin.”

  He set down the glass, got up, and ignored the frowns of Reese and Randy Randabaugh, as he drifted past the brothers into the parlor.

  Again, the captives betrayed no expression of either concern or recognition as York approached and took the chair facing them, unaware he was filling a seat earlier taken by Randy Randabaugh.

  Speaking very softly, York said, “The name you will hear me being called is Bret McCory. You probably already realize I am using an outl
aw’s identity to infiltrate this nest of thieves.”

  Parker, answering equally softly (as would the women in the conversation to come), said, “Can you be sure none of them know this McCory by sight? That none of them ever worked with him?”

  “No.”

  All three hostages pulled air in. All three let it out, as coordinated as if planned.

  “But,” York said, “Hargrave knows of, but doesn’t know personally, this fellow outlaw . . . unless he’s a much better actor than I take him for.”

  Briefly York explained he’d been asked by Hargrave to “befriend” them. To pretend to sympathize with their plight and worm out of them the names of anyone in Trinidad who might pay a ransom for one or both of them.

  Rita said, “So he knows who we are now.”

  “Not a bad thing,” York said. “If you’re worth money, it will help keep you alive.”

  Willa said, “Yes, but for how long?”

  “Long enough for me to derail this runaway train. Anyway, we have a moment now where we can talk out in the open like this . . . softly, softly.”

  Parker asked, “Are there others with you?”

  “Only my deputy, who is installed in a second-floor window across this ghost-town street. For when I . . . we . . . need him.”

  Willa asked, “No posse?”

  “No posse. My judgment was, working this from the inside was a better strategy than bringing in harmed men on horseback and turning this into a siege. My goal is to get you people out of here, alive and undamaged.”

  “That will take killing,” Parker said.

  “It will. But we four should survive.”

  Willa made a face. “With the help of that old desert rat of yours?”

  York’s voice was firm: “Don’t be unkind, Miss Cullen.”

  That lifted Willa’s chin and widened her eyes—not at the term “unkind,” but on hearing York call her “Miss Cullen.”

  Her expression told him that his remark had offended her, so he said, “You are ‘Miss Cullen’ to me here, and Raymond is ‘Mr. Parker,’ and Rita is ‘Miss Filley.’ ”

  She nodded, jerked back to reality.

  York went on, addressing them all but looking at Willa. “Think back. You’ve seen Deputy Tulley reform into a man who can handle himself. You’ve seen him and his scattergun in action. In the streets of Trinidad.”