Last Stage to Hell Junction Read online

  That actually wasn’t the worst idea Caleb York had ever heard.

  “I believe,” York said, “that damned Indian never sleeps. Or if he does, he’s got pebbles scattered in his brain that start crunching when anybody approaches.”

  Tulley’s face fell. “Hell, Caleb. Thought I had somethin’ there.”

  “They are murderous kidnappers, my friend, and I would lose no sleep shooting them in theirs. But we are still just two men, and those outlaws will be spread out in three or more beds in three or more rooms, and that doesn’t count the Apache on the porch. No, Deputy Tulley, we will have to find a more civilized way to send these sinners to Hell.”

  Tulley shrugged. “Anyways, we wouldn’t want to kill that Mexie woman of Hargrave’s. ’Taint right, killin’ a woman in her sleep, all helpless and dreamin’ like.”

  Again York put his hand on Tulley’s shoulder. “Deputy, that woman is the first one I’d shoot.”

  Hearing that, Tulley’s eyes went wide and his face seemed to turn as white as his beard. Or maybe it was just the moonlight.

  Getting to his feet, York said, “I’m going to finally get the lay of the damn land over there—pinpoint who is in what room, see what kind of back way out we have. There’s also a colored girl, a servant, who might be an ally. Might. We’ll see.”

  “Shore is a lot of womenfolk over there.”

  “Yes. All very beautiful, and each in her own way . . . dangerous. Now, after I get a fix on the geography of that hotel, I will stroll back outside and roll myself a smoke. Just kind of take in the air.”

  Tulley grinned. “That be the signal, right?”

  “Right. It’s a signal that means two things—first, that I’ve found a back way out of that place. And second, that it’s time for you to go over to the livery and hitch up that stagecoach.”

  Tulley’s nods came quick. “And be ready to roll, should things go haywire, shootin’ and screamin’ and such.”

  “Shooting and screaming and such, yes. But with luck we won’t need the coach.”

  Tulley squinted one eye. “But we’ll need them horses, iffen your escape goes as quiet-like as you wish.”

  “Yes, but unhitching those animals won’t take long, and we need the option of you picking us up and creating a commotion, should, yes, the shooting and screaming start.”

  Tulley had kept nodding through all of that. He was raring.

  “If you don’t see me signal you,” York said, “just sit tight, like I said. Tight and alert. You follow?”

  “I foller.”

  “Deputy,” York said, sighing the word, “four good friends of ours are counting on us. We have to stay sharp, and we have to be ready . . . for anything. And remember—we’re here to free prisoners—not to take any.”

  That knife-blade grin came again. “Which is your way of sayin’, kill them sons of bitches.”

  “Your eloquence is worthy of the Bard, Jonathan Tulley.”

  “Of who?”

  “Not important,” York said, gave his friend a smile, and went out, crunching pebbles.

  * * *

  The Apache on the porch continued his apparent sleep as York returned, having collected his saddlebags at the livery, where he’d entered from the rear and then exited out the front. Now he was coming up the hotel steps and across to the front doors with the usual creaking of wood beneath his boots.

  The Indian did not stir.

  York went in and was greeted by Mahalia, who flew from a chair near the check-in desk, apparently having been waiting for him. The lovely colored girl in the white turban dangled a key before him. Part of him wished it were hers.

  But it proved to be his—1B.

  “You be in the first room to the right,” she said, gesturing toward the open stairs. Her apron was gone and the maid’s uniform fit her trimly, hugging supple curves. She was very pretty, a mix of Africa and Europe, her complexion like milk chocolate.

  Nice smile, too, as she said, “Two doors at the top is the inside privies. One for gentlemans and the other for ladies.”

  “This must have been quite a place in its prime,” York said, taking the key from her with his right hand, his saddlebags slung over his left arm. “Separate baths. Indoor plumbing yet.”

  She nodded. “From a well outside, yes. I worked here back in them days. You could get a heated tub of firewood-warm water for fifty cents.”

  “That’s not available now, I take it.”

  Her eyes widened a little. “I could do that for you, if you like. No charge.”

  “No. Thank you, though, Mahalia. Do they treat you right?”

  “The guests?”

  “The Wileys.”

  Her chin crinkled. “They works me pretty hard. But they pays me. Not much, but it’s better than the plantation life my people knowed. I’m savin’ up for another life.”

  “Good for you. Hide your treasure well.”

  “Sir?”

  “Your ‘guests’ would steal the pennies from a dead man’s eyes.”

  “That sure true, sir. That sure true.”

  He drew closer to her and quietly asked, “Are the women upstairs, and the older well-to-do gent—are they locked in their rooms?”

  She nodded.

  “Mahalia, could you spare a hairpin?”

  “Sir?”

  He dug in his pocket and brought back a gold eagle, then pressed the coin in her hand.

  With another surreptitious look left and right, Mahalia plucked a pin from under her white turban. She gave the metal pin to York, who glanced at its two flexible prongs, one straight, the other ridged.

  Just what he needed. All he needed now was a little information. . .

  Very softly he asked her, “Which rooms are the unwilling guests in?”

  He wasn’t sure she would know what he meant, but she immediately did, her response barely audible. “The gentleman is in room 2B, he next to you. The ladies, they shares a room next door to his—3B.”

  “Where does Hargrave and his woman sleep? And those Randabaugh boys?”

  She told him.

  “What about that doctor?”

  “Don’t know. Never saw him come out from bein’ in with the sick man.”

  He nodded slowly. Then: “And where do you sleep?”

  Mahalia’s eyes widened.

  He grinned at her. “Nothing untoward. I just want to get a handle on my surroundings.”

  Nodding, she said, “I’m off the kitchen.” Her expression said perhaps she wouldn’t have minded something untoward from him. “I can show you around some.”

  “Please.”

  The living quarters of the Wileys were off-limits, of course, but off the dining room, behind the front lobby, was the good-size kitchen, still redolent of tonight’s good fare. Mahalia had a small bedroom—with little more than a cot and one tiny dresser—just off to one side. It had a door. The back exit was from the kitchen, directly at the rear of the building.

  York asked, “Does anyone stand guard out there?”

  Mahalia shook her head.

  York opened the back door, which was unlocked. No porch awaited, just a few wooden steps. This was a street across which were the untended yards of dead houses, with another street of abandoned residences behind them, and woods beyond.

  “That Indian,” York said, “does he come around checking in back, from time to time?”

  She shook her head again, but added, “Not that I ever seen.”

  He reached in his pocket for another gold eagle. Pressed it into the warmth of her palm. Her expression, smiling some, was warm, too.

  “Sleep sound tonight,” he told her. “Don’t open your door unless someone comes pounding. Really pounding. Understood?”

  “Understood, mister.”

  “These guests of yours . . . the willing ones . . . are very bad people. Even for the likes of this place. Stay well out of anything that might occur. Got that?”

  “Gots it.”

  He gave her a smile and a
nod.

  She gave him a shy smile and a nod back, then slipped into her little bedroom, began to shut the door, hesitated, smiled again, not shyly, and shut herself in.

  You have enough women in your life already, Caleb York, he told himself.

  At the top of the stairs were the doors marked GENTLEMEN and LADIES. Over to the left, on a chair leaned back in the corner, sat Randy Randabaugh, on guard but sleeping. Revolver in hand in his lap.

  York unlocked 1B with his key and found a room that rivaled his own back at the Trinidad House. The bedclothes were a tad threadbare, the wallpaper getting faded, but otherwise this might have been any hotel in a town that was alive and well.

  He tossed his saddlebags on the bed and returned to the hall.

  Knocking gently on the door of 2B, he said, “Mr. Parker,” softly, “Bret McCory. Sit tight.”

  York got the double-pronged hairpin from his pocket and pulled the pin apart, straightening it some. In the keyhole of 2B, he stuck the straight end in about a third of an inch, and applied enough pressure to bend the end of the pin into a hook. Then he placed the closed end of the pin about an inch into the keyhole and applied pressure downward until he had bent the pin ninety degrees.

  Now he had his lock pick, and he used it.

  “Try your door, Mr. Parker,” York whispered.

  Parker opened the door a crack, eyes narrowing at the sight of York standing there alone, and let his friend in. The businessman was still in his white shirt and trousers and shoes, divested only of his tie, vest, and coat. The man was, York was pleased to see, ready to travel.

  “We can make it out of here,” York said, skipping any preliminaries, “through the kitchen. Door opens onto the back. No porch. No guard.”

  Parker nodded, listening as York explained the plan to sneak over to the livery, where Tulley would be readying horses.

  “Have you an extra gun?” Parker asked.

  “I do, in my saddlebags, and I’ll get it to you when we make our move.” York did not want Parker armed now in case one of the outlaws checked on him, and got things started prematurely.

  Parker was trembling in excitement, but also fear. “How soon do we go?”

  “Damn soon.” York bobbed his head toward the door. “The younger Randabaugh is on guard right now, in the hall. I’ll take him out and then we’ll just go down and out through the kitchen. Should be no fuss.”

  Parker frowned. “If you shoot that fool—”

  “I’ll pistol-whip him good. Likely kill him, which is fine by me.”

  “What of Willa? And Miss Filley?”

  York gestured toward the door. “I’m going to fill them in now. I’ll leave your door unlocked. But stay put.”

  Back in the hall, he knocked softly on 3B.

  Rita’s voice, irritated, said, “What is it?”

  “Bret McCory,” York whispered. “Hold on a minute.”

  Again he used his makeshift lock pick, glancing over at the slumbering Randy from time to time. Some rustling—of clothes, not cattle—came from within as he worked.

  “Try your door,” he said quietly.

  Rita opened it halfway and York slipped in.

  The two women had been sharing a big brass bed, which was enough to give a man ideas. The two females had been provided their luggage and both had availed themselves of dressing gowns—Willa in powder blue, Rita in black-trimmed scarlet. Fitting in several ways, the colors telling a story, the gowns tied tight at the waist. The women’s lovely faces, free of face paint, echoed each other with bright, brilliant smiles.

  But it was Willa who threw herself into York’s arms, hugging him tight. Over her shoulder, he gave a smirking Rita a shrugging expression, then held Willa out away from him.

  “Very soon,” he said, “I’m getting you out of here.”

  He told them how.

  “When?” Rita asked.

  He jerked a thumb at the door. “I just need to signal Tulley, across the way.”

  Willa asked, “Is everyone accounted for?”

  “I think Doc Miller is within the living quarters of the innkeepers, as best I can tell. Randy is asleep in the hall, but he may be a light sleeper. And he’s armed, of course. Hargrave and his woman are across the stairwell. The Randabaugh brothers share a room over there, as well. The Wileys and the wounded man are downstairs.”

  “And that Indian?” Rita asked. “Still on the porch?”

  “Still on the porch. He’s asleep too, but I think a bug passing wind could wake him. Excuse the crudity.”

  Willa smiled a little. “You’re excused this once.”

  He raised his hands, palms high, as if somebody was sticking him up. “Just stay calm and alert. We’re going out quietly, but things could get noisy.”

  They nodded. Willa hugged him again. Behind her, Rita blew him a smirky kiss.

  Then York went downstairs, where all was quiet. Front lobby, parlor, dining room, kitchen with Mahalia’s bedroom door closed—nobody, and nothing.

  Satisfied, he went quietly out the front doors. The Apache seemed to slumber.

  Good, he thought. Let’s keep it that way.

  York went down the porch stairs and stood near where the buckboard and the trotter were hitched up, and he got out the makings for a smoke, made one and lighted up, sucked in smoke, let smoke out. In nice full view of where Tulley could take him in from the perch above the empty general store.

  Then the Indian was next to him.

  The little Apache, the rifle held in one tight grip, only came to York’s shoulders, but the man’s dark-eyed look stood tall. “You go out earlier.”

  “So what?”

  The silence of the night made a buzzing nearby seem louder than it was.

  The Indian clutched York’s arm and squinted at him, as if trying to bring the bigger man into focus. “Why you gone so long?”

  “Just getting a feel for this place,” York said. “I don’t like surprises. And I don’t like people putting their hands on me.”

  Then he shook the Indian’s arm off.

  The buzzing was building.

  The Apache looked past York at the buckboard, where flies were gathering over the tarp-draped wicker coffin, like locusts looking to strip a field of its crops. The night was cool but not cold enough, it seemed, to keep the flies away.

  The Indian strode past York and went over to the buckboard, where he leaned in, grabbed the tarp, and flipped it away. Then the hard little man in the blue cavalry coat climbed up there, as insects scattered, and opened the lid on the wicker coffin.

  Looked in.

  Standing high in back of the buckboard, Broken Knife looked down at York, who felt oddly small suddenly, and said, “No like surprises, too.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Raymond L. Parker lay on his bed in room 2B at the Hale Junction Inn, in his shirt and trousers and even his shoes, his coat, vest, and tie draped over a chair nearby.

  After Caleb York’s instructions to stay alert and wait for their escape, Parker intended to be ready to check out of this establishment in short order. Elbows winged, propped up on two pillows, he was very much awake and even revitalized, despite this long and eventful day.

  A man such as Parker, who wielded considerable power and controlled a good deal more of his destiny than the average man, was not suited to the helplessness of this situation. On the other hand, knowing Caleb York was here, worming his way into the good graces of these badmen, was one hell of a relief.

  Parker did wish York had left him that spare weapon, but he knew the gunfighter-turned-lawman well enough to realize York too was an individual who liked to control his situation, particularly when it included the possible violent ramifications of this one.

  As if putting a startling period at the end of that thought, a gunshot rang out, loud as a clap of thunder, but coming from below, not above.

  Much like waking from a nightmare, Parker jerked upright. Then he bolted from his bed and rushed into the hallway. Down to his lef
t, the two women in their dressing gowns were emerging from their rooms, clearly shaken.

  And over in his corner, Randy Randabaugh—rudely awakened by the gunshot—had sprung to his feet, his revolver aimed at the hostages, moving back and forth as if trying to pick out a target in a shooting gallery.

  From a room across the way, the Mexican girl—a black silk robe hugging her voluptuous figure, her dark eyes wide and wild—burst from the room she shared with Hargrave. But there was no sign of the actor.

  The woman bared her teeth and pointed across the stairwell at the prisoners. “What are they doing out of their rooms? Qué tonta eres!”

  “I dunno, Miss Juanita,” Randy said, lowering his eyes. “They musta heard that shot. Didn’t you hear it?”

  “Of course I heard it, you imbecile.”

  Hargrave’s loud voice came up the stairwell, angry, shouting what must have been yet another Shakespearean quote: “Of all the infections that the sun sucks up!”

  Juanita gestured impatiently over at the hostages. “March them downstairs! Apúrate! We need to see what the hell is going on.”

  Taking the woman’s orders, the boy frowned at his charges and said, “Git downstairs! Right now!” The frown made his close-set eyes seem even more so.

  Parker led the women down—this was one instance where “ladies first” seemed not to apply—and the young lout with the gun followed them, the gypsy-looking girl trailing after, muttering, “Qué demonios . . .”

  What the businessman and the others saw, as they descended into the front lobby, was a dramatic tableau worthy of any stage production Blaine Hargrave might once have mounted.

  The actor outlaw, in bright red long-johns and bare feet, was shaking Dr. Miller by his coat front, grasping the cloth in one fist, while in his other was a smoking revolver, pointed at the floor where a scorched hole in the carpet had been ripped by a bullet fired in anger. The plump little physician’s glasses were askew, his wispy hair a fright wig.

  Looking on with his back to the front doors, the Indian called Broken Knife stood, arms folded and expression stony. Leaning back against the check-in desk, Caleb York watched as if almost bored, hands on hips, casual but with his right hand near his holstered weapon. Between the Indian and the sheriff, just this side of the parlor, paced Reese Randabaugh, in his trousers and a white long-johns top, also taking in the scene, but seeming anything but bored.