Last Stage to Hell Junction Read online

  She turned, eyes flaring. “Testigos? And you did not leave them sangría? There on la carretera?” She shook the mane of black hair and stalked off, heading back up the stairs, muttering, “Hombre tonto,” her footsteps quick but heavy.

  “My apologies,” Hargrave said, bowing yet again, and returned to the Wiley quarters.

  Willa said, “She’s a danger. Could be the death of us.”

  “Or the life,” Rita said with a smile, arms folded. “She’s not an ally, but she may be useful.”

  Willa couldn’t see how.

  Parker had been watching all this with a new alertness. The women deposited themselves on a two-seater red-and-black brocade sofa nearby. Both watched the businessman with keen interest. Several glances affirmed that they shared a sense that a new attitude had worked its way through his despair.

  “We’ll find a way out of this,” he said. “I give you my pledge.”

  That heartened Willa.

  But she’d rather Caleb York were making that promise.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Getting to the relay station at Brentwood Junction took Caleb York under twenty minutes, but he had to ride hard.

  He’d been pushing the black-maned, dappled-gray gelding all day, and figured it would be best to leave the animal here. He would pay Irvin Fosler, who ran the station, for the use of a fresh horse for the journey to Las Vegas, hoping to make it there by mid-evening, before the late train to Denver pulled out.

  That was how he figured Ned Clutter—that was the name Crawley had given him for the Hargrave gang’s ransom messenger—would get himself to the Mile High City and Raymond Parker’s business partners.

  Slowing the gelding to a trot, York neared the humble array of gray, weathered buildings—barn, corral, main station—and paused at the wooden-fenced enclosure where a dozen of the compact stallions called Morgan horses were milling, mostly black, a few bay or chestnut.

  At the relay station building, an unpainted shabby structure with a sagging plank porch, York dismounted and hitched his gelding at the leather-glazed post next to a saddled horse tied there. His slitted eyes regarded the animal’s roan coat with suspicion.

  At the jail, when York questioned Crawley, the prisoner had given him a description of Ned Clutter that had been on the vague side—small, not fat, not thin, with a thick black mustache, claiming no recollection of what the man had been wearing. But Crawley did say Clutter rode a roan.

  Could this steed be the gang’s ransom messenger’s?

  It was mid-afternoon now. If Clutter had stopped to eat and have a few beers, he might still be here. Short of knocking on a ranch house door, Brentwood Junction was one of the few opportunities for sustenance on the way to Las Vegas.

  York nodded to himself, then took off his badge and tucked it away in the breast pocket of his black shirt.

  When he went through the saloon-style batwing doors into the low-ceilinged space—modest bar at the left, scattering of dining tables at the right, the sort of unpainted, unprepossessing premises typical of a relay station—York tossed a polite smile at the little man seated at the counter, hovering over a plate of mostly eaten beans and stew.

  This man who might have been Clutter frowned a tad, then gave a noncommittal nod to York and went back to wiping a torn tortilla through the remains of a serving of the spicy beef stew on offer here.

  In back of the counter was short, lean, bandito-mustached Fosler—an Irishman with a Mexican missus—clad as usual in a bartender’s black bow tie and a white shirt with apron. His smile, upon seeing York enter the shabby establishment, was a nervous one, perhaps because once upon a time the sheriff (before he wore a badge) had shot some people dead in here. Including the former sheriff, as it happened, a corrupt bastard who called for killing.

  York gave Fosler a tiny, squinty head shake and quickly touched where his badge usually lived. The man who was possibly Clutter had his back to York now, and the relay station man got the message.

  York ambled to the counter and sat, putting a stool between himself and the other patron, who had half of a big mug of beer left. There were only four stools.

  With an easy smile, taking off his hat and putting it on the counter to his left, York said to the relay station man, “Got a ration of that tasty stew of Maria’s left, Irwin? Or did my friend here get the last of it?”

  Fosler’s smile was pitiful. “There’s always some for you . . . good sir.”

  That awkward substitute for “sheriff” didn’t seem to register on the small mustached man who was reaching for his beer. His hat was off, too, a derby resting on the stool at the right; his pale yellow hair was curly. The potential ransom deliverer wore a gray shirt with black sleeve garters and light brown duck trousers. He had a Colt Single Action Army .45 holstered on his right hip, not tied down, but always a formidable weapon.

  “Fix me up a plate,” York said to Fosler, “and a beer.”

  The relay station man got busy getting that together.

  York turned to his fellow customer: “That your roan out there?”

  The curly-haired little man with the big gun wiped foam from his mustache and frowned. “Yeah. What is it to you?”

  The man’s voice was reedy, kind of high-pitched, not suited for threats.

  York held up his hands, palms out, grinned. “Nothin’ at all to me, friend. Just a handsome animal is all. Where you headed?”

  “Is that your business . . . ‘friend’?”

  York shrugged. “Not unless you’re headed to Las Vegas, too.”

  The little man swung around on the stool and frowned at the questioner. “What if I am?”

  York offered another shrug. “Long ride like that, thought you might like some company. Headed that way myself.”

  “Not agin it,” the little man admitted with his own shrug, talking as he chewed the last of his tortilla. “But you’ll have to catch up with me. I already et and I ain’t waitin’ around for some stranger to do the same.”

  “Fair enough.”

  The little man pushed his empty plate forward, only a few gulps of beer remaining to maybe keep him here a while, and said, “What’s your business in Las Vegas?”

  “Well, we got that in common.”

  “How’s that?”

  York gave him just half a smile this time. “It’s my business.”

  Fosler, not any more skittish than a virgin at her first dance, spilled some stew as he put down the plate of it and beans and tortillas in front of York, who began to eat the stew, using his left hand. Keeping his right hand free in certain situations was a practice a gunfighter like York had long since taken up.

  “Irwin,” York said, calling the proprietor over with a curled finger. “I’d be obliged if I could leave my gelding here and borrow one of your Morgans. I been riding a while and could use a fresh mount. By this time tomorrow, I can swap you back. Be an eagle in it for you.”

  “Sure, be glad to . . .” The “sheriff” seemed to catch right behind the bartender’s teeth. “. . . sir.”

  York dug out the gold coin, which was worth ten dollars, and—again, using his left hand—tossed it on the counter, where it rang and settled.

  Fosler grabbed up the coin in a greedy fist, then backed away with a smile that was half again too big, saying, “Excuse me, gents. My cook, Maria—I think she needs some help.”

  She hadn’t called out for any, but neither customer questioned their skinny host. Maria was Fosler’s wife or anyway his woman, and was anything but skinny.

  The little man sent his eyebrows up and down, saying, “He’s a jumpy one.”

  “Ain’t he though? If you want another beer, I’ll call him back out here. I could eat fast and you could drink it slow, and maybe we could ride out together. Name’s Cal Wilson.”

  York did not offer a hand to shake.

  Nor did the little man, who said, “John Smith.”

  York grinned. “No kiddin’. I bet they give you a hell of a time when you check in to a hotel
. Of course, it would depend on the hotel.”

  The little man said nothing, shrugged. “I’ll take that beer.”

  “My treat.”

  York called out for Fosler, who emerged from the back with narrowed eyes; he was polishing a glass that was not likely to have been washed.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Give my fellow traveler here,” York said, “another beer.”

  Fosler said, “Yes, sir.”

  The bartender produced another warm mug and set it on the counter, then gestured toward the rear, making a plaintive face.

  “You go help Maria,” York said, waving him back. “I’ll holler if we need anything.”

  York got back to eating, using his left hand as before, and worked at putting the food and the accompanying beer away quickly. But John Smith was impatient nonetheless, and dug out a watch to check the time.

  The watch was a gold one, and York recognized it—a timepiece engraved to Raymond L. Parker by the late George Cullen. He couldn’t see that inscription from where he sat; just that frilly writing rode the lid, but the fancy timepiece was unmistakable.

  And it was clearly the kind of proof that Ned Clutter might provide Raymond Parker’s associates of their friend and partner indeed being in outlaw hands.

  When John Smith tucked the watch away in a pocket, York drew his .44 in an eye blink and said, “You’re under arrest, Mr. Smith. But my name isn’t Wilson and yours isn’t Smith.”

  An awful grin appeared under the dark mustache and dark eyes glittered. “I was wondering why that son of a bitch was ‘sir-ing’ you. You’d be Caleb York.”

  “I would be.”

  “Heard you turned lawman somewhere in these parts. Saw your picture once. Beard kind of threw me.”

  “Cold weather’s comin’ on,” York said, his spurs jangling as he stepped down. The two men were only maybe three feet apart. “Now slide off that stool nice and easy, and keep your hands up, palms outward, waist high.”

  Clutter nodded, started to move slowly off his roost, then grabbed his plate and swung it into York’s wrist, the edge of the thing landing hard, and snapping into pieces.

  The impact and sharp pain that went with it was enough to open York’s fingers and send the .44 tumbling from his grip. As he dove after the weapon, the man with Parker’s gold watch drew down on the sheriff and shot twice, the roar of the gun rattling everything in the room not nailed down. Bullets chewed up dirty wood flooring as York rolled toward his fallen revolver. When the .44 was again in his hand, York fired toward Clutter, body shots, not head shots, not wanting to kill the man, preferring to have him alive and talking.

  But that wouldn’t be happening, as one of York’s three bullets angled up through Clutter’s throat while the other two went through him like Indian arrows, going in small but coming out bloody, splashing a wall in back of the counter that the relay man would finally have to get around to cleaning. The .45 pitched from limp fingers and clunked to a stop.

  Clutter slid down the stool behind him, knocking it over flat on the filthy floor like a second victim. The little man’s eyes were very big and he was gasping and making a terrible sound, like a drowning man, only it was his own blood he was drowning in, reddish froth coloring his mouth and mustache a smeary, bubbly scarlet.

  “Goddamnit!” York said, getting up.

  Cordite scorched the air as the sheriff walked over in the vain hope that Clutter might have survived; but when he got there and knelt to the man, he saw the dark eyes cloud over with nothingness.

  Fosler and his plump wife peered out from the kitchen doorway, her head over his, totem-pole style.

  “Is it over, Sheriff?” Fosler asked, his voice small after the thunder of gunfire in the small space.

  “Yes,” York said.

  “Who . . . who was he?” Fosler came out, and glanced sideways with a frown at the red, gloppy splotches dripping down his already grimy wall.

  “His name was Ned Clutter. He was one of the Hargrave bunch.”

  From the kitchen doorway, Maria said, “I hear of them. Bad men.”

  “Bad men,” York agreed, and stood. “One less of ’em now.”

  Fosler was shaking his head. “Could you wait to settle up with my customers, Sheriff, till they settle up with me?”

  “Not my intent.” He holstered his gun. “I was just trying to stop him.”

  “You did that, all right. You . . . you still need that horse, Caleb York?”

  “No.” He was pinning his badge back on now. “The one favor this dead bastard did me was spare me a long ride to Las Vegas.”

  York told the relay station man that he would be going back to Trinidad and would send Doc Miller out to collect the corpse.

  And York, on the gelding, headed out to do just that, knowing he’d succeeded in intercepting the ransom messenger, but not knowing how, or even if, that was any help to Raymond Parker.

  Or Willa Cullen.

  Or Rita Filley.

  * * *

  By late afternoon, York was back in his office behind his desk, sitting up. His feet were on the floor, his gun still strapped to his hip, though he’d untied the weapon. Wouldn’t do for it to fall on the floor and discharge. That would be all he needed on this damn day.

  He had already dispatched Doc Miller to make a trip to the relay station, which exasperated the physician, who had put in a long hard day himself.

  “Judas priest, Caleb,” Doc had said, as the sheriff helped him up onto the buckboard, “my dead patients are beginning to outnumber the living ones.”

  “Good ammunition,” York said, with a salute of a wave, “for me making your case with the Citizens Committee. You deserve a salary and the official coroner title.”

  “Don’t I just,” Miller said, shook the reins and got his horse’s attention, and man and beast rumbled out of town, both making unhappy noises.

  Deputy Tulley was seated in a chair by the scarred table that was as close to a desk as he was ever likely to have. Like the faces on the wanted posters pinned up on the wall in back of him, Tulley was staring at the sheriff, the old desert rat leaning forward with an alertness that came with staying on the wagon for some months now.

  The deputy said, “Does sound like ye got yourself in a fine fix, Sheriff.”

  “I’m a trigger-happy fool. Do I have to kill everybody who takes a potshot at me?”

  “Strikes me as a pretty fair policy. But that there Hargrave bunch’ll start wonderin’ in a day or two why their man ain’t come back with that ransom money.”

  “Doesn’t work that way, Tulley,” York said. He took a swig of his deputy-made coffee from a tin cup; it dated to this morning, at which time it could have curled the bark off a tree. The brew had not mellowed with age.

  “How would they have worked it?”

  York raised an eyebrow. “Likely a drop would be set up. Some agreed-to place where the money could be exchanged for the prisoner. Somewhere that provided high lookout perches, so the law could be spotted if Parker’s people didn’t follow orders.”

  “A canyon, maybe.”

  “A canyon, yes. They’re up in the hills, or even the mountains. Our prisoner told us the bunch was holed up in some ghost town.... How is our prisoner?”

  “Oh, he sleeps deeper than that feller you shot today. The doc stopped by. Got him loaded to the gills with laudanum. Losin’ toes is pretty miserable, I reckon.”

  “Losing your life is worse. Son of a bitch is lucky I didn’t kill him.”

  “Shore is,” Tulley said. “Trigger-happy fool that ye be.”

  York grinned and laughed, and so did Tulley.

  “You lived half your life in those hills and mountains,” York reminded his deputy.

  “Oh, more’n half. Why?”

  “You must know every ghost town in those hills and valleys and mountainsides.”

  “Purt’ near,” Tulley allowed.

  “How many do you know of?”

  Tulley leaned back in his chair
and got to thinking. “Oh . . . offhand . . . I reckon I know of mebbe half a dozen.”

  “Close to Trinidad?”

  “Close enough, in most cases.”

  “Close together? So that we could go from one to another and shake the trees for those bastards?”

  Tulley shook his head. “No, Caleb York, I fear that ain’t practical. They is here and there and everywhere. Got no real fix on where any of ’em is located at. I just know they’s up there, somewheres. Oh, we could do what you say but might be at it for days. And days. Be a real chore.”

  York sighed. “In the meantime, Raymond Parker and those two women are in the hands of Hargrave and his outlaw rabble.”

  “Outlaw rabble,” Tulley pointed out, “does not have respect for the gentler sex. If I was a beautiful woman, in cruel hands like that? Why, I’d sooner slit my throat than give up my honor to ruffians of that nature.”

  Tulley meant well, but the sheriff did not care to picture a female version of the reformed desert rat, particularly being compromised. And the old boy did not seem to have any real idea where any of the ghost towns were located.

  “Tulley, hold down the fort,” he said, getting to his feet. He grabbed his jacket off the wall peg, but left his holster tie-down loose. He’d be sitting again soon. The sun hadn’t set yet, but the game would be going by now.

  “Poker, Sheriff?”

  “Poker, Deputy.”

  “T’get yore mind off unpleasantness?”

  “Actually, no. I think there’s a good possibility I may learn something.”

  “About poker?”

  “Hardly. About something else entirely.”

  Climbing into his jacket as he began his walk to the Victory several blocks down, York let the coolness of the evening soothe him, enjoying the look of the little main street at dusk. Lamps in the upstairs windows of living quarters were glowing yellow eyes in the faces of businesses, all of which were shuttered, except of course for the saloon.

  Not hard to imagine Trinidad turning ghost town itself. Probably would have, if Willa Cullen hadn’t gone against her late father’s wishes and agreed to sell the right-of-way to the Santa Fe Railroad for their spur to Las Vegas. Willa had a mind of her own. She was a strong girl. A strong woman.