Last Stage to Hell Junction Read online

  “You listen to me, Deputy Tulley. I have more on my mind than sorting through your sorry list of complaints. I’m dealing with a missing stagecoach and its passengers.”

  Tulley’s voice turned hopeful. “Ye need me at yore side, Sheriff? I can back you up and show them city fathers what Jonathan Tulley is made of.”

  “No, Deputy. You need to hold down the fort. I’ll be gone a good long while, trying to track that stage. Somebody has to be in charge, and I guess you’re it. If you don’t make a mockery out of this office while I’m gone, maybe . . . maybe I’ll put in a good word for you.”

  The hope in Tulley’s voice grew shrill. “And git me that raise, Sheriff?”

  “Hell no! Recommend that they keep you on. Half of them already’d like to see the back of you.”

  A scrape obviously made by a chair’s feet preceded footsteps on the plank floor, followed by the slam of a door.

  Silence.

  Then came stomping and Tulley’s grumbling: “Dang showboat. Big man. Big gunfighter! Tellin’ me what to do and what not to. Sweep out this, sleep in this here cell, stay offen that bottle! Hell with him. Hell with him, anyways!”

  Crawley got to his feet, wincing at pressure on his left one, but hobbling over to the bars and hanging on, leaning half his face out as much as possible.

  He watched as Tulley stumbled from the office into that first cell—with a bottle in hand.

  “Consarned son of a bitch,” the deputy muttered.

  Crawley could see Tulley next door through the connecting bars, as the skinny, bandy-legged old boy sat down hard on the cot, making its chains creak. The bottle was raised and gulps followed. Then Tulley, who was in a long-john top and suspendered trousers, wiped his white-bearded face with a BVD sleeve.

  “Big man,” the deputy muttered, making a face. “Big man! Someday I’ll show that full-of-hisself blowhard. Someday Jonathan Tulley’ll make him pay for such ill treatment.”

  “Hey,” Crawley said.

  Tulley didn’t react.

  “Hey!” No reason to whisper: York had gone out.

  Tulley looked up and blinked. “You talkin’ to me, saddle tramp?”

  “No need for that kind of talk. I’m a bigger victim of that puffed-up sheriff than you are, Deputy.”

  “I doubt that. I sincere doubt that.”

  “Bastard shot off two of my toes, didn’t he?”

  Tulley pawed the air. “You’ll learn to walk with the loss, ’fore you know it. Me, I got to put up with dressin’ downs and shamin’ and lack of respec’ every damn day of my miserable life.”

  “Maybe you need a new start.”

  Tulley snorted. “Now how’s that gonna happen, you toe-shy fool? This town don’t see a deputy when they see Jonathan Tulley comin’. They see the town drunk. They see a old desert rat who just follers that damn Caleb York around like a dog lookin’ fer scraps, sayin’ yessir, nossir. Damnit all, nohow.”

  Crawley widened his eyes. “Then go to some other town, where they don’t know you. Jonathan . . . all right I call you by your Christian name?”

  “Shore.” Tulley frowned. “Maybe next time it’ll be me catchin’ the nex’ stage out, leavin’ this ungrateful populace in the dust.”

  “That’s exactly how you can make a new start, Jonathan. You go find some new town to be a new man in. That’s one of the best things about the West. You just move on and start in fresh, somewheres.”

  The old boy’s brow wrinkled. “How can I do that on forty a month?”

  That seemed like pretty good money for this old reprobate to be making, but Crawley said, “Is that all? I had no idea you was bein’ so taken advantage of.” Crawley pretended to think up an idea. “Listen. I know somethin’ that would benefit us both.”

  “You do?”

  “Come over here. Let’s chin a bit.”

  Tulley seemed to think about it some, then left his cell and came around to face Crawley through the bars.

  “Speak your piece,” Tulley said.

  “Think maybe you could make a start with a two-hundred-dollar stake?”

  Tulley’s eyes widened. “Who couldn’t?”

  “That character Wiggins at the livery said he’d give me two hundred for my horse. You let me go and that money is yorn.”

  Tulley’s brow tensed in thought, making his eyes pop some. “But what’ll you ride, iffen you sell yore horse? How can you get away from Caleb York on foot missin’ toes?”

  “You let me out of this cell and I’ll steal some other horse.”

  Really what Crawley intended was to hightail it to the livery and take his own damn two-hundred-dollar horse for a nice long ride, making an even bigger fool out of Jonathan Tulley.

  “I want it writ down,” Tulley said. “I ain’t no idjit. Ye can writ some, can’t ye?”

  “I can read and write. Bring me something to scribble on.”

  Tulley scurried out and came back with a pencil and a piece of paper torn off an old wanted poster. Quickly Crawley wrote out a bill of sale and handed it to Tulley.

  “That’s a fine animal, Jonathan,” Crawley said. “You might think of keeping it and just head out for parts unknown. Smart feller like you could whip up a grubstake soon enough.”

  Tulley blinked at him stupidly. “Do I have to choose which, right this here second?”

  “No! Think it over. By all means. But let me out of here! If York is off trying to track some missing stage, that’ll give me a chance to slip away and for you to get that horse. Time’s a wastin’, Deputy Tully. Former Deputy Tulley.”

  Tulley grinned, said, “Be back in two shakes,” and soon returned with a ring of keys. He selected one and used it, opening the cell door for the prisoner, who was seated on the edge of the cot putting on his boots. The right boot went on fine, but putting on the left one, with a foot all swelled up and missing toes, was damned painful.

  Still, he hobbled out, following Tulley, who was curling a finger and leading him to the side door at the end of the small cell block. That door did not require a key, and Tulley opened it and gestured graciously for the prisoner to exit.

  The door closed behind him as Crawley stepped into an afternoon that had lost its coolness and gone humid. Even so, a breath of fresh air felt good after that stuffy cell, and he was just about to hustle as best he could over to the livery when a voice called to him.

  Well, not exactly “called”—more casual than that was how Caleb York, leaning against the jailhouse adobe wall, said, “You wouldn’t be escaping now, would you, Burrell?”

  Crawley froze.

  “Hate to have to shoot you down,” the sheriff said. “Unless, of course, instead of escaping, you were looking to find me.”

  Wincing, Crawley raised his hands and slowly turned, saying, “And why would I do that, Sheriff?”

  “Well, maybe you want to tell me what the hell the gang you run with wants with a stagecoach?”

  * * *

  Caleb York holstered his .44 and took the prisoner by the arm and hauled him back through the side door, which a grinning Tulley held open for him. Crawley, being moved along brisk by the sheriff, was yelping now and then because of his sore foot, but that stopped when York slammed the man’s behind down on the cot. Tulley was watching this with a giggling grin.

  “I do right, Sheriff?” the deputy asked.

  “You did fine, Tulley,” York said, and handed his .44 off to him. “Now go put your shirt on. You look undignified in just the BVD top. And don’t forget your bottle of sarsaparilla in the next-door cell.”

  Tulley, chuckling maniacally, hustled off.

  Crawley was sitting slumped, eyes on the floor. He knew he’d been buffaloed.

  “Could have shot you, escaping,” York said, looming over the prisoner, arms folded.

  Crawley nodded.

  “Still could,” York said. “Or I could beat it out of you, what you know.”

  Crawley shrugged.

  “I’d just as soon give you a thrashing
as not,” the sheriff said easily. “Two good men were shot down dead on the road to the Brentwood relay station.”

  Crawley’s head came up, alarm coloring the light blue eyes in the narrow, pockmarked face. “Two men . . . dead?”

  “Two men dead, but don’t worry. You can only be hanged once.”

  “I didn’t do it! I was right here in this cell! You know that!”

  “You were meant to be part of it. Are you denying the plan was for you to be on that stage, and make sure Raymond Parker didn’t cause any trouble? No, Mr. Crawley, you are as guilty of those two killings as you are of gunning down that cowboy last night.”

  His dark eyebrows met as if they too were in desperate thought. “What if . . . what if people didn’t know I was part of that gang? What if when the circuit judge comes I was to plead guilty to manslaughter where that cowboy’s concerned?”

  “Those are a couple of interesting ‘what if’s.’ ”

  The prisoner looked like he might cry. “What do you want from me, Sheriff?”

  “Mr. Crawley—I want it all.”

  Crawley spilled his guts.

  He was indeed supposed to be the inside man when the stage hijacking took place, set to pull a gun on the other passengers and keep them in check. The target was, as York had deduced, Raymond L. Parker, for whom his Denver business partners would surely pay a hefty ransom.

  York sat next to Crawley on the cot. “How will the ransom demand be made?”

  “One of the gang, Ned Clutter, has a fairly smooth way about him. He’ll go on to Denver and deliver the demand, posin’ as a party whose own wife was on the stage, and now a hostage herself. A drop’ll be arranged and Clutter would bring the cash back to where the gang is waiting.”

  “How much?”

  “Fifty thousand.”

  A king’s ransom, York thought.

  “Where?”

  “Some ghost town in the hills,” Crawley said, shrugging. “I’m not from these parts. That’s all I know.”

  “There’s something you do know.”

  “No, honest to God, York—that’s everything!”

  “It isn’t. You haven’t said who you’re riding with.”

  The dark eyebrows went up. “Oh. Well . . . the Hargrave bunch. You know them?”

  He knew of them. And this wasn’t good news. The former actor and his followers had left a trail of bloody corpses behind them, innocent witnesses made permanently mute.

  York asked, “What does this Clutter look like?”

  Crawley told him. “Do we have a deal, Sheriff?”

  “A deal?”

  “You back me on the manslaughter charge. Forget my part in rustling that stagecoach. Okay?”

  York stood. “If I get Raymond Parker back, and the two women traveling with him . . . and if I live through the effort? I’ll consider it.”

  Crawley moaned at the unfairness of that. Or maybe it was just his mangled foot.

  Caleb York wasted no more time with the worthless gunhand. He collected his .44 from Tulley and headed out. The rain may have washed away the outlaws’ tracks, but he had a lead: Ned Clutter would likely be planning to take the last train out from Las Vegas.

  York might still have time to catch him there.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Willa Cullen knew now that the woman seated next to her in the coach was no longer an adversary.

  Rita Filley seemed to feel the same, as one sharp, wide-eyed glance between them made their new position, their mutual plight, clear. Rita’s hand found Willa’s and squeezed, and the two women stayed clasped for some time, like childhood friends supporting each other as they walked through a particularly scary forest.

  A rumbling sky and a sudden darkness, as if sundown had come half a day early, further made fear their companion. Just as swiftly, a coldness came upon them, God or maybe Mother Nature reminding them that, even in New Mexico, winter was here.

  The stolen stagecoach, driven by an outlaw with Hargrave leading the way on horseback, rumbled along its winding upward way, joggling and frequently jolting them. Across from Willa was a still unconscious Raymond Parker, slumped in the corner between wall and window; opposite the other woman was the young blond outlaw called Randy, whose apparent brother was up top, driving with the wounded man slumped next to him.

  The lad’s revolver was limp in his grasp, dangling between his legs, and that unnerving grin had taken on an unsettling, lascivious aspect. His eyes looked them up and down, again and again, a starving man regarding a banquet.

  “I’m Randy,” he said, as they bounced with the stagecoach as it rolled over rocks.

  The two women exchanged glances, affirming that each already knew this boy was randy, but Rita said, almost friendly, “My name is Rita. This is Willa.”

  He grinned. It was a yellow thing that might have been attractive had its hue not been so sweet-corn-colored and its bearer not had such greedy, close-set eyes, light brown but with some yellow in them, too.

  “Ain’t no reason,” he said, “why we cain’t be friendly.” Neither woman said anything, though the sky expressed its opinion by way of a growl of thunder.

  “Hope we get there,” the boy said, “’fore this rain comes down.”

  Willa, quietly, said, “Where are we headed, Randy?”

  “Next stop’s Hell Junction,” he said.

  Rita frowned, as if that meant something to her, or perhaps it was just the implication of the word “hell.” Willa thought there was something familiar about the name, but couldn’t place what.

  “You seem like a nice young man,” Willa lied to the boy. “I’m not without means. Perhaps you could help us out of this.”

  “Lady, I’m who got you in it!” He was grinning, shaking his head. “Now, I ain’t gonna be mean to you or nothin’, but don’t go thinkin’ I can help you. My big brother would give me a whuppin’ and Mr. Hargrave would like as not shoot me down. No, we three got to settle for bein’ friendly is all.”

  Willa thought she sensed something different about Parker—was their businessman friend playing possum? Perhaps waiting for the right moment . . . ?

  Willa asked, “What’s your brother’s name, Randy?”

  “Reese. We’s the Randabaugh boys.” He grinned embarrassedly. “Don’t want you thinkin’ he whups me all the time or some such. Only if I needs it. Nobody’s better to me in the whole wide world. Hostiles killed our folks when we was young ’uns. He raised me hisself. Raised me right.”

  Obviously.

  The Filley woman, picking up on Willa working on the boy, said, “If you ever decide to get out of the outlaw life, I could use a strapping young man like you at my saloon.”

  His eyes and grin went wide. “You work at a saloon? You prettier than most saloon gals.”

  “I own a saloon. I bet you’d make a fine bartender. I’m always on the lookout for smart young men who can handle themselves.”

  His grin had “aw shucks” in it. “Might kind of you to offer, but I kinder like ridin’ with Reese, and this job is gonna pay real high, wide, and—”

  Parker lurched for the boy, grabbing at the gun that had seemed so loose in that dangling hand, only now the hand became a fist and the gun’s snout got jabbed in the businessman’s belly.

  Hard.

  With the back of his free hand, Randy slapped Parker, like a child who sassed.

  Then he shoved the dignified man—who was a rumpled mess now, a trickle of red trailing down his cheek—back to his corner.

  Rita said, “I was right about you.” She was smiling at the boy. “You can handle yourself.”

  The boy grinned. “That I can, ma’am. That I can.”

  Willa admired the Filley woman for that, the remark distracting the boy and calming him down.

  A few moments later the sky let loose and the rain came so hard you could barely hear the hoofbeats. Parker just sat there, no longer slumped, but glazed and dejected, his eyes now meeting those of the women, as if he were ashamed of his fa
ilure.

  Perhaps he was.

  Parker came out of it only enough to shutter his window, as did the women and their escort.

  The hammering rain did not last long—perhaps twenty minutes—but when the shutters opened, the air stayed humid, as if the sky wanted to be able to change its mind at a second’s notice. The coach was on a downward slope now, heading into a little valley between rocky hillsides.

  Willa watched out her window and saw something she’d long known about but never seen: one of the many ghost towns scattered around New Mexico territory, mining camps turned bustling hamlets whose buildings were now abandoned like the dreams of getting rich quick they’d been built on. A sign at the outskirts told much of the story. The first word of HALE JUNCTION, neatly lettered, had been replaced by a free-hand jagged scrawl of red that said, HELL. A neatly lettered POP. 280 had its number crossed out half a dozen times, until the final designation (also in ragged red) was 3.

  The Filley woman said, “Silver mine went bust.”

  Willa asked, “How do you know that?”

  Her dark-eyed, dark-haired sister captive seemed to have to think before answering that. “Not much gold in these parts.... Anyway, people in Trinidad have mentioned it.”

  That answer seemed somewhat on the mysterious side, but Willa didn’t follow up.

  The woman said, “There’s other ghost towns in these hills—coal and copper, too. If the vein isn’t rich, the town dies, and everybody moves on, sometimes overnight.”

  Willa felt vaguely embarrassed that this relative newcomer seemed to know more about the area than she did. Of course, a woman who worked in a saloon could pick up plenty from her male clientele.

  The land flattened out and the coach was soon rumbling over crushed rock down a main street where the rain showed no signs of having touched the little town. The storm seemed to have missed it, or perhaps this was not a town at all, but a mirage.

  The buildings were gray and weathered, their façades paint-blistered, windows broken out or boarded up; still, it wasn’t hard to imagine townsfolk like Trinidad’s strolling these boardwalks, over which signs read GOOD EATS, HALE JCT LUMBER, HALE JCT LAUNDRY, ASSAY OFFICE, U.S. POST OFFICE, PALACE THEATER, BUCKHORN SALOON, LIVERY STABLE. At the far end was a dead church, its bell tower minus a bell, either scavenged or taken along to the next community. The bell was also missing from atop what had likely been a one-room schoolhouse.