Last Stage to Hell Junction

Chapter Fifteen

Gun in hand, not sure of what or who he’d find, York checked the hotel, top to bottom, though as far as he knew those presenting any real problem were nicely deceased. But he was in particular looking to see what had become of the Wileys, who were surely still breathing.

Their well-appointed living quarters, in which York had previously not set foot, evidenced signs of a quick departure — dresser drawers open and empty or nearly so, a wardrobe with perhaps a third of the clothing missing and the rest in disarray. It would seem they had used the melee to provide cover for a back-door escape.

That made sense, as now that the sheriff of Trinidad County knew of the Hell Junction Inn’s existence, its value to the outlaw world would be nil. York had already determined to shut the place down.

The colored servant, Mahalia, he found in her room off the kitchen, where she sat on the edge of the cot, looking entirely self-composed. She was neatly dressed in a dark blue calico winter day dress that must have been what she wore to church.

Maybe that was why York instinctively took off his hat when he spoke to her. “Are you all right, miss?”

“You a lawman.”

“I am.”

“You gon’ take me to the pokey?”

He went over and sat next to her, his hat in his hands and in his lap. His smile was gentle. “I’d sooner throw you a dinner in your honor at a real hotel,” he said.

“I killed a man.”

“Not much of one. You saved my life.”

Her eyes were big and dark and locking on his. “You saved me last night.”

That embarrassed him. “Do you have something you could gather your things in?”

“Pillow case?”

“The Wileys seem to have vacated their quarters.”

“I heard them scurry. Thought they might collect me. They didn’t.”

“Why don’t you go over to their quarters and see if they left behind a carpetbag or such? If they did, fill it and come out front and wait.”

She nodded. He patted her shoulder, and went out.

The hotel was otherwise empty. He collected his own things, including his saddlebags, then walked over to the livery. He noticed two horses that had been stabled there were gone — probably the Wileys’ own animals. But two of four horses that had been the outlaws’, hitched in front of the hotel, were also gone. The couple had likely commandeered them as pack animals to take as many of their belongings as they could quickly assemble.

However you cut it, the innkeepers had skedaddled — guests who were running out on their bill. York didn’t much care. He’d put a stop to their business of providing a hideout with clean sheets and indoor privies for the likes of the Hargrave bunch, and that was good enough for him.

Tulley’s mule, Gert, had a stall. So that made four animals to lead back to Trinidad. If that servant girl could drive a buckboard, he could ride along on his gelding with Gert behind him and two horses behind the wagon. That would spare him a trip back to this place. He would see.

For now the hardest part of this damn day lay ahead: gathering the dead. He could have left them to feed the critters and take their own good time turning to skeletons. But he felt he owed it to the men he’d killed — and the woman — to haul them back to civilization.

Anyway, he was pretty sure he had wanted posters on Bemis and the Randabaughs, and there were places outside the territory where Hargrave was worth at least a thousand, dead or alive. Corpses could be shipped, after all. Worth a try. A sheriff depended on such rewards to supplement his somewhat meager pay.

And so Caleb York began dragging the bodies from where they fell, the blood fresh enough to leave snail-like trails. He reunited the Hargrave gang, piling the bodies like cordwood in the back of the buckboard, having to stack Hargrave himself on top of Clutter’s wicker coffin, which crunched some from that.

The worst was the woman.

Well, not the worst — the headless Randy Randabaugh was not pleasant to view, though York didn’t mind not seeing that stupid face with its close-set eyes again. But the woman? Caleb York had never killed a woman before, and felt a mite bad about it.

He rested her, facedown, on top of Hargrave, face up, figuring that’s how they’d want it, though the nasty exit wound on the top of her head made him twitch a frown. He covered their final embrace with the tarp. Piling them up like that had invited a war party of flies that he’d been batting away at, getting bit a few times.

Nasty work. Nastier than killing them.

The back of the buckboard was stacked so high with the dead that he wouldn’t bother stopping on the road to add Broken Knife to his collection. He didn’t know of any warrants out on the Apache, and anyway, many people in this part of the world still didn’t value Indians much alive, let alone dead.

But York knew Broken Knife had been the toughest, hardest man he’d fought today, and he respected that.

Mahalia watched much of this from the porch, standing with a small carpetbag in her two hands, held primly in front of her. If she was troubled or sickened by the sight of him hauling dead bodies and loading them up in a wagon like bags of grain, she did not show it.

When he was done, York was sweating and worn out. Dealing with dead men was harder than handling living ones. He fanned his face with the battered gray Stetson and looked up at her from the bottom of the stairs.

“You ever drive a buckboard, miss?”

“I done it for the Wileys afore.”

He snugged on the Stetson. “Good. If you have a hanky you can tear, you might stuff some strips up your nostrils. That’ll cut the stench. Some of these freshly dead soiled themselves dyin’, and there’s one from yesterday going ripe already.”

“I’ll do that. Sheriff York?”

“Yes, miss?”

“You really not taking me to jail?”

“No, miss.”

“Where are you takin’ me?”

“The town of Trinidad will pay for a ticket on the stage to Las Vegas, and a train ticket from there to anywhere you like.”

“They do that?”

“When you save the sheriff’s life, they do. But I think Miss Filley — Rita — can find something for you at the Victory Saloon. She’ll help you with a room, too. Or Miss Cullen might have something at her ranch.”

She licked her lips. “You’re awful good to me, sir. How can I repay you?”

She was a lovely thing, but he already had one woman too many. So he simply said, “Just help me get the dead back to town. I know an undertaker who is going to be a real happy man today.”

Despite the weighted-down load, the girl did well with the buckboard. York rode alongside her, with a mule tied behind him and two horses trailing the load of corpses. When they got to the narrow road out of Hale Junction, he would move up and lead the way.

For now, they rode out of the ghost town, buckboard rumbling, York and his gelding loping along. The Main Street was so like Trinidad, with only the faded façades and blistered paint and weathered wood to say the municipality was no more. He wondered if maybe he shouldn’t burn this place down — the hotel anyway. One lit match would do the trick.

But it just didn’t seem right, somehow.

Not right at all, burning down a ghost town when it just acquired so many new residents.