Last Stage to Hell Junction Read online

“I have!”

  “And where am I always on Friday night?”

  “. . . Playin’ poker with your friends, like.”

  “Yes. Now go have a sarsaparilla. Tell Hub to put it on my bill.”

  York didn’t have to turn to see his deputy smile—it was in the man’s voice. “Thank ye, Sheriff!”

  This same scene had been enacted, more or less in the same fashion, the last five or six Fridays.

  The difference was the sound of Tulley clomping over to the bar did not follow the exchange.

  Now York did glance from the aces to his ace deputy. “Something else?”

  “Mind if I go with coffee, Sheriff? Mite nippy out there.”

  York interrupted his concentration to grin. “Sure. Have cream and sugar, too, if you like.”

  “Thank ye, Sheriff!”

  Now the deputy clomped.

  “Sorry, gents,” York said to his fellow cardplayers.

  But the mayor, sitting across from him, was looking past York. Hardy, a slight fellow, had slicked-back, pomaded black hair and a matching handlebar mustache that overpowered his narrow face. He pointed past York, who turned to look.

  Rita Filley, the proprietress, was seated at a table halfway between here and the bar. She was motioning for York’s attention.

  His sigh started at the toes of his well-tooled boots.

  “Play without me, boys,” he said, and tossed in his three aces with a growl.

  Raven-haired Rita gestured for him to sit; she looked typically lovely in a dark blue satin gown, her full breasts spilling some, the rest of her almost too slender for them. Almost. She had a beer waiting for him—she was having coffee. The resemblance between her and Tulley ended there.

  The heart-shaped face with the big brown eyes, gently upturned nose, and lush, red-rouged lips wore a pleasant, lightly smiling expression. But he could see through it.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, pulling out a chair and sitting.

  “You really don’t know?”

  “Rita, I’m in the middle of a game. I just walked away from three aces.”

  “I would think the sheriff would be more attuned to trouble.”

  “I’m not sheriff at the moment. What trouble?”

  She nodded toward the dance floor at the end of the big room. A sort of aisle between the chuck-a-luck and roulette stations gave them a look directly that way. The honky-tonk piano was barely audible over the sound of well-oiled cowhands and the bark of the dealers and croupiers. But York could make it out: a lively version of “Clementine.”

  He could also see what the trouble was. Molly, a pretty little blonde in green-and-white satin, was being pawed and generally manhandled by a tall character who was weaving in a way that had nothing to do with dancing and everything to do with John Barleycorn.

  “She’s one of the newer ones,” Rita said.

  “I know. She was never a part of the upstairs festivities.”

  “Never. She’s a nice girl. Good girl, considering.”

  “Considering?”

  “Considering she works here. I think you can see why this isn’t a job for Hub.”

  Hub Wainwright was a bartender but also Rita’s chief bouncer—a very tough man.

  But the too-friendly dance partner was a breed apart, a breed York recognized all too well. The man wore a tan silk shirt and darker brown trousers tucked in his boots—they looked new. His hair was black and curly and better-barbered than either the sheriff or his deputy. This was not somebody who did ranch work. The low-slung, tied-down Colt Single Action Army .45 in a hand-tooled, silver-buckled holster was almost certainly how he made his living.

  “Signal her,” York said. “At the end of the song, she sits down. If he gets rough, let me know—I’ll step in.”

  York rose, ready to get back to his cards.

  Rita touched his hand as it was pushing the chair back in place. There had been something between them once. Or twice.

  Her eyes begged him. “Look at Ben Lucas—young hand from the Bar-O?”

  That was Willa Cullen’s spread.

  “I don’t see him,” York said.

  Her head bobbed toward the right. “He’s against the wall.”

  York casually moved out to where he could see that Lucas was halfway out of his chair, his expression tortured, his hand already closer to his holstered weapon than might be deemed wise.

  Rita was at York’s side suddenly, holding onto his arm. “Ben is sweet on that child. Something might happen. Something terrible might happen.”

  “Ben is no gunfighter.”

  “But we both know that man in brown silk is.”

  York drew in a deep breath, let it out, nodded.

  He reached in his breast pocket and got out the badge. Pinned it on the pocket. “See what I can do.”

  She gave him a smile that said she could just kiss him for this. Not that he’d have minded.

  But he—hell, even Rita—had taken too much time talking it over. Because Ben was clambering out of his chair, just as the man in the brown silk shirt was grabbing the girl’s behind in two hands.

  “You mangy son of a bitch!”

  Ben was almost on top of them when the man in brown shoved Molly aside, pulled his gun, and fired. The thunder of it was soon eclipsed by the girl’s scream and then a rumble of voices around the room seemed like the threat of the storm the thunder had promised.

  “Doc!” York called, but the heavy-set, white-haired little physician was already on his way.

  Then York was standing four feet or so away from the shooter, whose gun was still in hand, smoke curling lazily from the barrel, the smell of it scorching the air.

  “You just hold it right there, Sheriff,” the gunny said, that .45 steady and trained right on York’s chest—he’d had way too much to drink, yes, but killing a kid over a dance-hall girl can sober a man up fast.

  His face was narrow and pockmarked, the eyebrows heavy and black, the eyes a light blue and his features otherwise regular, near handsome. He may have been used to having his way with girls like Molly. Not that it cut any slack with York, whose hand rested on the butt of his .44 in his own low-riding holster, though unlike the gunman’s, it wasn’t tied down.

  Doc was crouched over Ben Lucas, a red splotch soaking a red-and-black plaid shirtfront, head hanging loose. He was a tow-headed boy who would never be a man. Or so Doc indicated, with a shake of the head.

  York’s nod told Doc to move away, which he did.

  A queasy smile and obsequious manner came over the shooter, though he kept that gun aimed right at York. “Now this was self-defense, Sheriff. Surely that’s plain. You need to know I’m a respectable businessman.”

  “What business would that be?”

  “Why, I’m a wholesale drummer—take my catalogues store to store. Name’s Burrell Crawley. This is just an unfortunate misunderstanding.”

  The only item this character sold was a .45 caliber.

  York said, “Damn unfortunate for this youngster.”

  The respectable façade dropped and a snarling desperation came out. “He rushed me and went for his gun! Everybody here saw it! Just ask that little girl I was dancin’ with.”

  “Molly?” York asked, not looking away from Crawley, whose gun was still trained on him. “Is that right? Speak up, girl.”

  “I . . . I . . . guess so . . .”

  The supposed salesman almost yelled as he said, “Anybody else here see it different?”

  If anyone had, they were keeping it to themselves.

  “The circuit judge will be through here next week,” York said, hand still on the butt of his holstered gun, finger slipping onto the trigger. “May be that a witness or two will testify in your defense. Maybe others will have their own story to tell. Until then, you’ll be my guest.”

  Crawley smiled, the slight mustache emphasizing it. “Not damn likely,” he said.

  “You know who I am?”

  “I do. You’re Caleb York. And I’ll war
rant you’re faster than me. But my gun is already out.”

  With a tilt of his holstered gun, York fired, blowing a hole in the toe of the gunny’s boot. The wounded man howled and did another dance, even more awkward than before, as York slapped the .45 from his hand.

  Between moans and whimpers and yelps, the gunny cursed York with obscenities, the like and variety of which were rarely heard even in a saloon.

  York slapped him. “You’re in mixed company.”

  Crawley lost his balance and fell hard, rattling the dance floor, winding up beside the man he’d shot, getting soaked some in the blood he’d spilled.

  “Bastard!” he swore up at York.

  York kicked him in the side and said, “Some of you boys sit him in a chair.”

  A couple of cowhands did that while York collected the .45 he’d slapped away. At least that hadn’t gone off. Doc was already over, kneeling at the gunfighter’s feet, lifting the left one to remove the shot-up boot and reveal a blood-soaked stocking and a mess of gore where a couple of toes should be.

  York checked on Molly, who Rita was already comforting at a table well away from the dance floor. Tulley appeared at his side, looking eager as a puppy after a bone.

  “Need me, Sheriff?”

  “Questionable, your timing.”

  “Well, ye seemed to be runnin’ the show.”

  “When Doc’s through with that rabble, get a couple of these cowboys to help you haul him over to the jail.”

  Tulley nodded and scurried off to recruit some help.

  York returned to the poker table and the little group resumed play, minus the doc. The sheriff had won two hands and lost one when Doc Miller came over, not to rejoin the play but to report on his new patient.

  Leaning in, Miller said, “He lost two toes, but he’ll live. Won’t never dance worth a damn again.”

  “He didn’t dance worth a damn before. Tulley and some fellas are going to haul him over to the jail. Finish anything up that needs it over there, would you?”

  Doc went off to do that.

  “Now,” York said, “maybe we can play cards.”

  * * *

  Two hours and a few minutes later, York—having won almost one hundred dollars from the city fathers—stopped by the jail to see how Tulley and the prisoner were doing. Since Doc Miller had returned to the game half an hour before, York already had a pretty good idea the prisoner was well in hand.

  Tulley was at his little scarred-up table with a wall of wanted posters behind him, wood crackling in the potbelly stove nearby. He was having some of his own coffee now, which was a comedown from the Victory.

  “Our guest sleeping?” York asked.

  Tulley shook his head. “Jest listen fer yerself—he’s a moanin’ and a groanin’. But I don’t think he’s feelin’ much pain.”

  “Then why is he moaning and groaning?”

  Tulley grinned; it was a yellow thing but had more teeth in it than you might expect. “Go on back ’n’ see. But he’s a mite discombobulated on laudanum that the doc done give him.”

  York shrugged and headed back into the little cell block.

  Crawley was on his back on the chain-slung cot against the cell’s rear wall. His britches were off, and his long johns were tugged up around his left ankle, the toe area of his left foot bandaged, red coming through. Seeing York through the bars, Crawley sat up.

  “Sheriff! Sheriff, we have to . . . have to work this thing out!”

  “We will work it out just fine. Like I said, the circuit court judge will—”

  Crawley actually got himself off the cot and hopped and hobbled over, cringing when he put any weight on the left foot, but then he was holding onto the bars right in front of York, his face contorted. He looked like a kid about to cry.

  “I got to be on the morning stage! People are countin’ on me. Already bought my ticket this afternoon! You check my things that chumpy deputy of yours took offa me and see if I didn’t. What I got to do is damn important!”

  “You killed a man, Mr. Crawley. That’s damn important.”

  He was shaking his head, face contorted with worry. “You don’t understand, York. I got someplace to be, and it sure as hell ain’t Trinidad.”

  “That kid you killed isn’t going anywhere, and neither are you.”

  The prisoner pressed his face between the bars and whispered, “Look, man. I told that Wiggins feller at the livery stable he can have my horse for two hundred dollars.”

  “That’s a lot of horse flesh.”

  “We’re talking about a cavalry-type horse, Sheriff, fifteen hands, a thousand pounds, five years old, well-broken. You can have it yourself, or take the dollars!”

  “Does sound like the horse is worth that much.”

  “It is! It is!”

  “That boy’s life was worth more.”

  And the sheriff left the killer there to rattle the bars until all that was left for him to do was to hobble back to his bunk.

  But Caleb York couldn’t help but wonder . . .

  . . . what was so important about taking the morning stage?

  CHAPTER TWO

  That Caleb York had come to see the stage off pleased Willa Cullen no end.

  The twenty-three-year-old young woman sported a brand-new, catalogue-ordered, dark-blue dress with a gathered waist and white lace trim at the neckline and elbow-length sleeves—with a matching jacket to take the edge off a chilly February morning.

  Yellow hair braided up in back, she was a tallish Viking of a girl with an hourglass figure, who—despite delicately pretty features and long-lashed, cornflower-blue eyes—looked just about perfect for childbearing or helping with crops. But she was not married and her ranch—and it was her ranch now, since her father’s death a month ago—was strictly cattle. That spread, the Bar-O, was the biggest in the surrounding area.

  She had watched as heavy-set, bristle-bearded Gus Gullett, the shotgun guard, had loaded her luggage up into the boot at the rear of the stage. Then when she turned back toward the hotel, where out front the stage was waiting for its passengers, she’d drawn in an unbidden breath upon seeing the sheriff on the boardwalk above. Though it was only a handful of steps up from the street, he fairly loomed.

  She felt irritated at herself for that giddy girlish reaction.

  Yet could any woman blame her? Caleb York stood tall, broad-shouldered but lean, his jaw near jutting, his temples touched with gray but his hair, including that close-trimmed beard he’d taken to wearing of late, was otherwise a rich reddish brown. His face was a contradictory thing, sharp bones home to pleasant, even easygoing features, his eyes as light blue as denim that had seen too many washdays.

  Caleb’s general appearance was contradictory as well. That low-slung revolver, tied down on his thigh, said gunfighter; but his black attire—hat and coat and cotton pants and boots—said professional man. Going on a year ago, when Caleb York rode into town a nameless stranger, many had taken him for a dude. Men beaten senseless and others who fell dead under his gunfire learned otherwise.

  Events had stranded Caleb, who’d been on his way to San Diego and a job with Pinkerton’s, and during his unintended stay, Willa and Caleb had become something of a . . . couple. She’d been well aware he had taken on the sheriff’s job “only temporary”—the position had been vacated when its previous corrupt occupant had become one of those men who fell under Caleb’s gunfire. Yet the rancher’s daughter felt they’d grown close enough for him to change his mind and stay around.

  Before long, though, she and Caleb broke apart like cheap china when he insisted he was heading for that San Diego job after his fill-in sheriffing was done.

  Only now Caleb appeared to be settling into that post, the Trinidad city fathers having lavished him with money and perquisites enough to convince him to stay on. But Willa and this man she still loved—though she would not admit that to anyone, herself included—had no real reason not to fit the broken pieces of their relationship back together.
>
  Other than her pride.

  And maybe his.

  Her immediate thought upon seeing him this morning was that he had come to see her off. She was only going to nearby Las Vegas, New Mexico, to catch the train to Denver; it wasn’t like she was leaving for good—a few weeks at the most. But him saying good-bye would mean something.

  Then from out of the hotel, carrying a carpetbag, emerged Raymond L. Parker. The tall, white-haired, white-mustached businessman, about fifty, looked typically distinguished in his double-breasted, gray-trimmed-black Newmarket coat, lighter gray waistcoat, and darker gray trousers. That’s what he’d worn to Willa’s father’s funeral, she recalled, though with a white top hat and not today’s western touch of an uncreased, broad-brimmed gray Stetson.

  Raymond Parker had been partner to George Cullen, her late father, in establishing the Bar-O. But Parker had cashed out after a time, looking for big-city challenges that he’d handily met. Mr. Parker had established businesses all across the Southwest—Kansas City, Omaha, Denver—owning restaurants, hotels, and even several banks, including the one here in Trinidad, where lately he’d been spending a good deal of time, during which he and Caleb had become good friends.

  And that seemed to be who Caleb had come to see off. They were smiling and chatting.

  Willa heard the approach of heavy footsteps and turned to witness a slender yet full-bosomed woman of perhaps twenty-five making her way toward the stage. Those heavy footfalls were not this young woman’s, of course—they belonged to Deputy Tulley, who was making his bandy-legged way along sand-covered Main Street, hauling two carpetbags.

  He was following after the lovely, dark-haired Rita Filley, proprietress of the Victory Saloon. She was attired in what struck Willa as just about what a saloon-owning female would consider appropriate travel wear—a yellow-gold dress with a floral brocade bodice, puffed sleeves, fitted waist, crinkled satin underskirt, ruffled overskirt, with touches of black fringe, silk flowers, and feathers.

  Willa didn’t know whether to be horrified, amused, or pitying. But annoyed said it best, Willa knowing this creature would be accompanying her on the Las Vegas run. In Miss Cullen’s defense, it must be said that she was not generally a snob. But Willa had heard the rumors that Caleb York occasionally called on Miss Filley in her upstairs suite of rooms.