Last Stage to Hell Junction Read online

  “Yeah. I know. I just don’t cotton to women being taken that way.”

  Hargrave put a hand on York’s shoulder, squeezed in a gentle, friendly manner. With his other hand, the actor gestured vaguely to the world beyond the ghost-town hotel.

  “Somewhere out there,” Hargrave said, “this Caleb York is gathering the dogs of war against us. We must be ready. United.” He shrugged, glanced at Randy, who was still unconscious, then whispered in York’s ear: “But when all is said and done, only you and I need still be standing.”

  The doctor’s voice came in before he did, as the plump little man made his way across the kitchen. “What’s happened here?”

  Doc Miller, in trousers and an unbuttoned shirt, Gladstone bag in hand, lumbered in, frowning as he paused to take in the pile of bones and flesh in long-johns slumped against the wall. He knelt and began his examination.

  “I kicked him in the ribs, doctor,” York said, helpfully. “On his left. Broke a couple, pretty sure.”

  “We can tape him up,” Miller muttered. He glanced back with a scowl. “Are you people battering each other now?”

  “The youth,” Hargrave said, “was peckish but not for pie. He approached the cook, tried to serve himself a piece of a different sort, and Mr. McCory here took issue.”

  “You did this?” the doctor asked, as York knelt next to him.

  “I did. In my defense, they stopped me. I was going to kill him. Rapists get on my bad side. Should’ve kicked him where he deserved it.”

  “Ah. A gentleman at heart.”

  Another voice came from the doorway: Broken Knife’s.

  “What?” the Indian asked, frowning at the crumpled, still unconscious Randy.

  Hargrave walked him into the kitchen and explained what had gone on.

  Meanwhile, York whispered to the doctor, filling him in on what was now his plan. A new plan, and perhaps not much of one at that. But the best he could come up with at short notice.

  Hargrave was shooing Broken Knife back to his post on the porch when York came out of the little room and joined the outlaw leader in the kitchen.

  “I should get back upstairs,” York said. “Our guests seem to have slept through the merriment. But for all we know they could have taken advantage of the commotion to sneak out.”

  Hargrave only smiled. “I hardly think so. Still, go up and check, then stay on watch. With young Randabaugh out of action at present, I will assume the kitchen post myself.”

  “Seems prudent. All right with you if I stretch out on my bed, with the door open, should there be any mischief worth hearing?”

  The actor shrugged. “Why not? Nap a little if you like. You asleep is worth ten wide-awake Randabaughs.”

  Soon York was upstairs, meeting first with Parker and then with the women. In both cases he explained that the inhabitants of the hotel were too awake, their hosts too alert, for York and the hostages to stage the escape as planned. Hargrave himself was on guard in the kitchen, a more formidable barrier than the boy would have been; and dawn was creeping up on them.

  York used the same words with the women that he had with Parker.

  “I have a plan,” he said. “It’s not without hazard, I admit. And I’m open to suggestion. It will be dangerous, but I will put myself in a position to protect you. All of you.”

  Then he told them what he wanted them to do.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  York slept on top of the bed covers for almost two hours, in the Bret McCory wardrobe he’d arrived in, except for the fringed buckskin jacket, which he slung over a chair. Otherwise, even his boots stayed on, his .44 on the pillow next to his, the cold steel asleep on the softness of feathers—but ready to be woken, if need be.

  But nothing disturbed his light slumber, and when York rose at 6:30 a.m., he used the nearby room marked GENTLEMEN, which had a sink with running water. Imagine—a ghost town hotel with such amenities. He splashed his face, dried it off with a towel, stuck his mouth under the spigot to wash the sleep from his mouth, and then looked at his bearded self in the mirror. Snugged on his battered gray Stetson. Nodded at his reflection.

  He was ready.

  A knock at 2B roused Parker quickly—perhaps the man hadn’t slept at all, and though his face in the crack of the door seemed alert, the eyes were bloodshot. He too wore the same clothes as the day before.

  “Got that ransom message ready?” York asked him.

  “I do.” Parker fetched it and handed it to the lawman, who looked it over.

  York nodded at the page, then grinned as he folded it in thirds. “I like that extra five thousand for Doc Miller’s end. Something about the hundred-and-five-thousand-dollar figure that makes it feel real.”

  “It does at that. Don’t go running off with all that money now, Caleb.”

  “The name is Bret. Ready for what’s ahead?”

  “I will be.”

  “The women are your responsibility, here on out.”

  “We will be ready.”

  York’s eyebrows went up. “Can’t give you exactly when. But there’ll be no mistaking when it’s time for action.”

  Parker’s expression grew grave. “Let’s try to live through this . . . Bret.”

  “That’s my intent.” He tipped his hat to the businessman, who shut the door as York headed around and down the stairs.

  Going directly to the kitchen, York found Hargrave seated at its small wooden table, where he was finishing off a plate of scrambled eggs and bacon. The cook this morning was not Mahalia, but Juanita, in another low-necked peasant dress, the black curls brushing mostly bare shoulders. She was at the stove cooking right now, the smell of bacon grease hanging heavy.

  Hargrave said, “Good morning, Bret. We’re allowing that poor child to sleep in—the girl the Randabaugh boy sought to ravage, I mean.”

  “White of you,” York said with a nod.

  Hargrave seemed spirited enough, but York figured the actor hadn’t slept any more than he had—if that. The black clothes—vest, jacket, trousers, so similar to what York usually wore himself—looked rumpled, the ruffled white shirt (not York’s style) limp and wilted.

  “Sit! Eat!” Hargrave demanded good-naturedly. “You have a long ride ahead, before you get to Las Vegas and a train with a dining car.”

  York sat and Juanita flounced over, ready with a plate of eggs and bacon for him, providing a nice view as she leaned in serving. Silverware was already waiting. So was a pitcher of hot coffee with metal cups. York poured himself some.

  Hargrave was addressing his face with a napkin. York passed him the folded ransom message Parker had written. The actor read it, smiling wide. Somehow the mustache made that smile seem bigger and even more roguish.

  “It would appear that the last act of our modest production,” Hargrave said, “will end happily. And with the proceeds, I will no longer have to play the role of brigand.”

  “Why, what lies ahead for you?” York asked, keeping to himself his own ideas on that subject.

  Hargrave wadded the napkin and dropped it on the table. Leaned back in his chair. “ ‘All the world’s a stage,’ the Bard says, but I intend to build a little world of my own, and become master of my own fate. A place where the dramatics in which I indulge will bring fame and fortune, not infamy and pursuit.”

  Between bites, York said, “That note is what you were after?”

  “You read it. You do read, I trust?”

  “Enough to get by. Seems fine to me. Parker’s addressed it to a specific individual at his bank. His vice president. He put the address right there at the top, like a proper letter.”

  Hargrave was nodding. “An address that you should have no great difficulty finding. Have you been to Denver before?”

  “I have. I know my way around some.”

  “Excellent. Here.”

  The actor handed the ransom note back to York, who tucked it in a pocket of the buckskin jacket.

  The table could seat four. Juanita brought her
own plate over and joined them; she began eating everything with a spoon. Her table manners were terrible, but the ferociousness of her approach somehow seemed consistent with her lustful nature. She would make a good woman for the right man. Unfortunately the man she had chosen was a wrong one.

  “You need to make this transaction quickly,” Hargrave said. “But don’t make the mistake of expecting it to go smoothly. If they hand the money right over to you, they are fools.”

  “I doubt they’re fools.”

  “As do I. So have this vice president accompany you with the money on the first train back to Las Vegas. He will no doubt insist on bringing along a bodyguard, a Pinkerton most likely. At Las Vegas, put them both on horses. Bring them to the rocky place at the bottom of the road to Hell Junction, where the pathways split off. Have them wait there. Ride in to town and I’ll ride back out with you, with Mr. Parker in tow.”

  York nodded.

  “Now,” Hargrave said, “I’m afraid I’m going to disappoint you.”

  “Oh?”

  He smirked humorlessly. “As much as I dislike witnesses myself, the breathing variety, that is, we simply must turn Mr. Parker over to his people. Otherwise, we would discourage payment in future such transactions, and who knows? I may need to make a guest out of some other rich bastard in the future.”

  Juanita paused in her gobbling to ask, “What about your theater? Why would you need to go back to una vida peligrosa?”

  He looked at her patiently. “Most likely, querida, I will not have to. But the business of show has its ups and downs. We cannot rule out the need to raise capital in the future.”

  She frowned, confused. “Que es capital?”

  “Money, child. ‘If money go before, all ways do lie open.’”

  “I like money,” she said reasonably. “But killing? I do not like so much. I am a good Catholic girl.”

  “Yes, you are, my sweet. Finish your food before it gets cold.”

  “Bard says this?”

  “No, Hargrave does.”

  She shrugged, hunkered back over the plate and shoveled eggs into her.

  York said, “All of this thieving is to build your own theater? Did I get that right?”

  Hargrave nodded, pushed his plate aside, then drank some coffee.

  York frowned. “How can the notorious leader of the Hargrave gang be out in the open like that? You don’t think Caleb York would track you down?”

  “Not to Canada,” he said, smiled tight, and drank some more coffee. “Perhaps you might find that part of the world to your liking, as well, Bret. A theater needs more than one man to run it.”

  And that was all the actor had to say on the subject.

  York rose from the table. “I’ll go up and get your guests and stick them in the parlor. All right? With me gone, someone else will have to look after them.”

  Hargrave shrugged. “Fetch them down for breakfast. A well-fed guest is a happy guest.”

  * * *

  When York exited the hotel, the Indian was again sitting cross-legged by the double doors. The little Apache with the red turban and blue jacket had a way of glaring without putting any expression on his face. He did that now, but York ignored him and his glare.

  In a few minutes, York returned, walking the gelding—all saddled-up and ready—back to the Inn. The outlaws’ horses were hitched to the left. The buckboard with dead Ned Clutter in back in his wicker coffin was still tied up at the right, horse and all. The trotter had been denied the hay and the comforts of the livery stable. The sun was warmer today, so the flies were thicker.

  Hargrave was waiting at the foot of the handful of steps up to the hotel porch.

  York told him, “I’ll get back here as fast as I can. If I’m not back in two days, you may want to find somewhere else to be. Some other state, maybe.”

  The actor’s rueful laugh was barely audible. “You’re probably right. By then Caleb York might find us, if we wear out our welcome here in Hell Junction.”

  “He might.”

  The outlaw held out his hand.

  York took it, shook it.

  “I’m full of fancy talk, Bret,” Hargrave said, his smile vaguely embarrassed. “But as the Bard says, ‘Words are easy, like the wind—faithful friends are hard to find.’ ”

  Harder than you think, York thought, as he smiled back at the man, nodded, and climbed up onto the horse.

  The ride out of Hell Junction was up a slope between two rocky hillsides, the one at his left rising and building into the mountain that once had given up enough silver to encourage the growth of a town, then been stingy enough to snuff it out. When the slope crested and leveled, before its gradual descent to the rocky area where yesterday York had faced three roads into these hills and mountains, he had a wooded area off to his right, beyond which was another rocky hill.

  He had left town at a fast pace, but soon slowed the gelding to a gentle trot, having no intention of getting very far out of the ghost town before making his way back, to cut behind Main Street in back of the livery stable and the general store and the rest of the dead buildings. He sensed something and paused. Looked behind him and listened.

  A pony was coming.

  The hoofbeats told him as much, their lightness and how closely spaced they were. His smile had knowingness but little else in it, as he eased off the hard dirt road through the brush and into the trees, pulling up enough on the gelding’s reins to stop the animal, which he then walked into the woods aways. He tied it up on a small but sturdy tree.

  He listened sharp.

  The pony was still coming.

  Which meant Hargrave had sent someone to quietly shadow him. The outlaw actor may have considered McCory a friend, but that did not mean Hargrave trusted him entirely. York, who already knew who’d been sent, made his way through the trees and brush, leaves whispering as he pushed back through to his left, to a spot where some rocks edged the road. There he crouched and waited, .44 in hand.

  Broken Knife, on a small pinto, its coat patchy with brown and white, was making his steady way in his task of secret chaperone. Suddenly the Apache in the cavalry jacket frowned and pulled up on his reins, stopping the pony. Both rider and horse went still as a statue.

  The Apache’s back was to York, who hid perhaps ten feet away. The little man’s head was raised, as his ears took in every sound. York made none. Then the Indian’s eyes traveled to the right, landing where York had left the road.

  The Apache hopped off of the pony. From a sheath on his right hip he drew a big nasty-looking Bowie knife—the blade was long, nine inches anyway, and a good two inches wide; the wooden handle, walnut likely, had no guard. Crouching, making himself even smaller, the Apache held the Bowie tight in his sideways fist and crept toward the brush and the trees beyond.

  York would have preferred to shoot the Indian and end this now. But they were still close enough to town that a shot might carry. Maybe he could take the Apache prisoner and leave him tied up in the woods, and slap the pony’s rump and hope it headed for somewhere else.

  York came out from behind the rock and, with less than ten feet separating them, told the Apache’s back, “Drop the knife, amigo. Hands up.”

  The little man moved quicker than York had ever seen a human do, whipping around and throwing the blade at him, its whir carving the air.

  But York was fast himself, batting the Bowie away with the .44 barrel, the steel of gun and knife clanging, and then the Indian was barreling toward him, like a charging animal, which is what he was, really, and when Broken Knife was almost on top of him, York slapped him alongside the face with the .44 barrel, hard.

  The Indian, cheek slashed and bleeding, went down on the hard road surface, but was automatically pushing back up. Damnit, York didn’t want a gunshot ripping a hole in the morning, though ripping a hole in this savage he wouldn’t have minded. That hesitation on York’s part was just enough for the Indian to tackle him, taking him down, and York’s wrist hit a stone and the .4
4 went flying.

  Then the Indian was on top of him, holding him down with a knee on the chest, the little man’s hands gripped as if in frantic prayer, lifting them high over his head to bring down on York’s face, a blow that the lawman knew would send the bones of his nose crashing into his brain and bringing on permanent darkness.

  But in that fraction of a second, steel winked sunshine at him and from the corner of his eye he saw the Bowie knife waiting for someone to use it.

  York did, grabbing the knife and shoving its blade deep into the little Apache’s side. The attacker straightened and his eyes opened wide with the knowledge that death was coming.

  Withdrawing the blade, York bucked the smaller man off.

  Wounded and hurting, Broken Knife nonetheless was getting to his feet when York said to himself, We’re not having that, and slipped behind the Apache and slit his throat, blood spraying the road and its rocky edge a glittering red, sunlight dancing on the scarlet wetness.

  The geyser only lasted a few seconds, just long enough for the Apache’s heart to stop pumping and its owner to flop face forward onto the dirt.

  York dragged the carcass off the road into the brush. Nothing could be done about the bloody roadside, but none of the outlaws were likely to see it, between now and what York had ahead of him.

  The pinto, which wore a blanket, not a saddle, was stirring but not going anywhere. York slapped its backside, saying, “Yah! Yah!” and off it went, heading away from Hell Junction.

  Lucky pinto.

  He collected the .44, checked it over, finding nothing jarred or dented that might compromise the action. Finding the buckskin jacket confining, he pitched it into the woods, not caring that Parker’s ransom note went with it. Then he pushed through brush to the gelding and untied it. He climbed on and guided the animal to the road. The blood soaked in the dirt already was looking more black than red.

  Heading back to Hell Junction at a trot, York worked at calming himself, slowing his breathing. Even Caleb York could get worked up and winded, dancing with a damn Indian wielding an Arkansas toothpick.

  York was calm by the time he reached the dead city’s outskirts, and he guided the gelding off the road and brought it and himself up behind the buildings. He cut over to the street that bordered Main and headed for the livery stable. Once there, he dismounted and walked the gelding to the barn-style rear doors.