Last Stage to Hell Junction

Chapter Seven

By late afternoon, Caleb York had already had a hell of a day — starting with an ambushed stagecoach bearing the two women in the sheriff’s life and a key figure in the future of Trinidad, who was also a good friend, which gave the foul deed a personal slant.

Going from there, York had shot one of the outlaws dead at the relay station, tricked another of the gang into giving up key information, and learned that the very city fathers who paid his monthly wages were aware of the sanctuary for badmen known as the Hale Junction Inn.

Make that Hell Junction Inn.

As he sat behind his heavy wood desk in his office in the adobe jailhouse — the miscreant in his custody having nothing else worthwhile to share, it seemed — York pondered what to do next. He knew where the ghost town was — the directions were simple enough, thanks to those city fathers complying, and the ride was one he could make in under an hour.

“But what the hell do I do now?” he muttered aloud.

In anticipation of his nightly rounds, Deputy Jonathan Tulley was at the wood-burning stove, brewing up a fresh batch of what he claimed was coffee. He assumed the sheriff’s question was meant for him.

“You could round up a posse,” Tulley offered, leaving the coffeepot bubbling and taking a seat at his scarred-up table. He began to gesture wildly. “Rush the damn place! Surround that hotel and—”

“Get the hostages killed,” York finished flatly. “But I have to do something, because some damn fool killed the messenger, which means the ransom won’t get paid.”

Tulley frowned and blinked at him. “Well, you killed the messenger, Caleb.”

“I knew what damn fool I meant, Tulley.”

With a sound that was part grunt and part sigh, York got to his feet and walked back to the four-cell block. Burrell Crawley was sitting on his cot with his head in his hands, whimpering, the latest dose of laudanum fading some, apparently. York shook the bars, like he was the angry prisoner, and Crawley looked up from his cot, startled, black eyebrows climbing the forehead of the narrow, pockmarked face.

Louder than need be, York said, “How much did Hargrave plan to ask for Parker’s return?”

Crawley’s expression was that of a kid about to bust out crying. “He never said, Sheriff! Swear on my mama’s grave. Didn’t you go lookin’ for Ned Clutter? He’s the one could tell you!”

“Not now he can’t.”

“Why, Sheriff?”

“I killed him.”

The prisoner’s eyes widened; he didn’t seem to know whether to be confused or scared out of his mind. Some of both seemed the end result.

“K-killed him... why would you do that? Thought you wanted to talk to him...”

York flipped a hand. “He drew down on me and I shot him. Out at the relay station, where I caught up with him. That leaves you.”

“Leaves me to what?”

“Tell me what ransom Hargrave seeks.”

“I swear, I don’t know!”

York frowned at the prisoner. “You were in on a kidnapping, and you don’t know what the ransom demand was?”

The prisoner got off the cot and came over, shaking his head, keeping some space between himself, the bars, and York on the other side.

Crawley said, “I know what Hargrave promised me — two thousand dollars. That’s enough for me to go straight! Buy a little ranch or somethin’.”

The only place Crawley was likely to go straight to was Hell.

York asked, “What were the other men promised?”

“We never talked about that. Weren’t nobody’s business but our own.”

York summoned a smile. “No reason to hold back now, Burrell. The more you cooperate, the easier it’ll go on you when this is over.” The smile turned nasty. “If any of those hostages is killed, you’ll swing for it as sure as if you squeezed the trigger yourself.”

Crawley was gripping the bars now, his light blue eyes welling up. “I swear to God, I’d tell you more if I knew more! I wish I’d never met that dadblamed Blaine Hargrave!”

The prisoner returned to his cot and resumed sitting with his head in his hands. York left him there blubbering.

Settling himself on the edge of his desk, the sheriff was so desperate he started talking over the situation with Tulley.

“Suppose,” he said to his deputy, “I ride out there myself and offer to broker the ransom with Parker’s business associates.”

“What would you break?”

“No, I mean I’d be the intermediary. The middleman. Take the ransom messenger’s place.”

Tulley’s eyes disappeared into slits, and he pointed a stubby finger at York’s chest. “Wearin’ that badge?”

“Yes. Representing Trinidad. I mean, they likely know I’m sheriff here. Why not wear the badge?”

Tulley shrugged elaborately. “Well... mebbe ’cause it’d get a bullet in it afore you stepped offen your horse.”

His deputy had a point.

York said, “I could ride out there and sneak into that hotel and do my best to get the women and Parker to safety through the back or out a window...”

Tulley held up a hand with its fingers splayed. “Our guest in cell number two says they is five of ’em in that hotel hideaway. Also a female, half-breed Mex, who is meaner than the menfolk, accordin’ to Crawley.”

York nodded. Shook his head. “And that doesn’t count the couple running the place. No, if I sneaked in there, I might be more harm than help. If the shooting starts, who can say who’d be killed?”

“Might even be Caleb York.”

“Might.” He narrowed his eyes, trying to see a way. “Still, after dark... most everybody sleeping... I might be dealing with one or two of the bastards at a time. Pick ’em off. Better than a posse, anyway. Better than walking right in and trying to parlay.”

Tulley was shaking his head. “They is all bad ideas, Sheriff.”

He scratched his bearded cheek. “Sometimes you have to go with the least-worst bet. Throwing in my cards is not an option.”

Tulley was studying him. Really looking at him funny.

“What?” York asked.

Nodding to himself, the deputy got quickly to his feet and raised a finger like a buyer at a horse auction. “Might have me an i-dee.”

An idea from Jonathan Tulley? Stranger things had happened.

The former desert rat scurried over and plucked a wanted poster off the wall behind his table, one of many such circulars, only a few of which bore the faces of the outlaws sought. Many had mostly writing. One of the illustrated posters was Tulley’s selection.

He came over eagerly, like a child with a good report card. “Take a look at this, Sheriff.”

The face on the wanted poster was a drawing, not a photograph, and might have been anybody with a well-trimmed beard and a lean hard look.

Seemed the man was Bret McCory, who was wanted for a train robbery in Oklahoma and a stagecoach holdup in Arizona. Colorado wanted him for the back-shooting murder of a marshal. No one wanted him in New Mexico. The poster had been sent to county sheriffs like York as a courtesy and warning.

Despite the murder, McCory didn’t bring a “Wanted Dead or Alive” reward, but a reward “on arrest and conviction.” The prize — $500 — was on the modest side, and it said, “Immediately Contact Nearest U.S. Marshal’s Office.”

Tulley’s grin shone through his white beard like a picket fence in a snowbank. “Why don’t Bret McCory check into that there Hell Junction hotel? He’s a bandit, ain’t he? That’s who they caters to, don’t they?”

York winced, shook his head skeptically. “Tulley, I’m fairly well known in the Southwest...”

“Sure you are, by way of drawin’s on dime novels and such. Never seen no photographs. When you rode into Trinidad, not all that long ago, did anybody say, ‘Well, look who it is! The famous Caleb York!’ ”

“No,” he admitted. In fact, he had stayed a stranger in town for some while before revealing his identity. “What do you think, Tulley? With this winter beard of mine, could I pass for an outlaw called McCory?”

“Only risk I see,” Tulley said, “is if one of Hargrave’s bunch ever rode with McCory. But he ain’t been heard of in New Mexico, or we’d a knowed about it.”

York studied the poster, then tossed it on his desk and strode back to the cell block again. Crawley was sleeping. York kicked the bars and scared him awake.

“Crawley! Another question for you.”

The prisoner glanced back wide-eyed and rolled off the cot onto his feet. He stumbled over to the bars and clutched them again.

“Try my best to help, Sheriff.”

Butter wouldn’t melt.

“Is one of Hargrave’s men called McCory? Bert or Bret or some such?”

Frowning, Crawley said, “Heard tell of a Bret McCory. He killed a marshal in Colorado. Never met the man.”

“How long have you been riding with the Hargrave gang?”

“Nigh on two year. Pretty much from the start of it. Afore that, Mr. Hargrave was play actin’.” Crawley frowned. “Me sayin’ I rode with him, that don’t constitute a confession of past sins, do it?”

“Not as far as I’m concerned, Burrell. Your best hope for a future that doesn’t include a rope is to tell me everything and anything you know about this current crime.”

Crawley grinned. “And of course I ain’t guilty of that, ’cause I been in Trinidad.”

Murdering some poor cowhand.

“Never heard tell,” York said, “of this McCory among the others in your bunch?”

“No, sir. Why?”

“You asking the questions now?”

Crawley shook his head. “Surely not.”

York changed the subject: “You had supper, Burrell?”

“No. I ain’t et all day. I was all doped on that happy juice the doc give me.”

“We’ll fix you up.”

The jail had an arrangement with the café.

York returned to his office, got behind his desk, and Tulley came over, delivering a fresh cup of coffee. York had a sip; it was hot and... well, it was hot.

York said, quietly, to his deputy, “I want you to go with me on this little jaunt. Won’t take much effort to find a deserted building across the way from that hotel. We can situate you and your shotgun in a window where you can take it all in.”

“Like the sound, Sheriff. Like the sound.”

“In the meantime, go over to the café and let them know we have a prisoner who’ll be needing meals, starting with right now. Then go over to Harris Mercantile. Newt’s likely closed, but pound on the second-floor door, up those stairs alongside the building. Tell him we need his older son to fill in as a deputy, as we’ll be leaving Mr. Crawley behind. And have Newt round up some road vittles for you — jerky, pilot bread, hardtack. Take a water jug. This expedition may take a day or two. Also plenty of ammunition for that scattergun of yours. Box of cartridges for me, as well .44 caliber.”

Tulley had been nodding all through that.

“Then go over to my hotel room,” York said. “The desk man knows to give you the key. Get my carpetbag out of the wardrobe. There’s a gray Stetson, kind of beat up, on the upper shelf. Bring that, too.”

Tulley was efficient, running all those errands in under half an hour, including delivering Lem Harris — a strapping boy who was dumb as a post but tough as the jerky his pappy sold. York gave the boy a deputy badge and simple instructions and entrusted him with a loaded rifle from the rack on the wall.

“I’ll get Gert loaded up,” Tulley said, meaning his mule, and headed out with his arms full of a sack of things from the mercantile.

York put the carpetbag on the desk, next to the Stetson his deputy brought him, and selected from the bottom desk drawer some spare clothes fit for riding the range — buckskin jacket, green santeen shirt, canvas trousers, old boots. His professional black apparel would not do. He was Bret McCory now.

Just another outlaw.

The shadows were long as Dr. Albert Miller rode in his rickety one-horse buckboard along the narrow rutted road out of Trinidad. The going was rougher even than usual for the doctor and his Missouri Fox Trotter, what with the muddy patches left by the brief but torrential rain of earlier that day. With the rain passed, it was cool for New Mexico and would be downright cold by the time he’d make it back from the Brentwood Junction relay station with Sheriff Caleb York’s latest addition to Boot Hill.

Not that those the sheriff dispatched from this life didn’t deserve the trip — York, to the doctor’s way of thinking, was himself a surgeon of sorts, highly skilled at removing damaged or diseased parts infecting the community. The doc was on his way to pick up the remains of just the kind of unwanted man in Trinidad who, paradoxically enough, was also likely a wanted one.

Ned Clutter, the sheriff had said, the dead man’s name was — one of those involved in this hijacking of the stagecoach bearing Raymond Parker, Willa Cullen, and Rita Filley. The doctor dearly hoped he would not meet any of those three good people in his capacity as Trinidad’s unofficial coroner.

On his way to the relay station, the doctor made a brief stop at the Trinidad cemetery. He always took this small side trip, when he traveled that road, whether to visit a patient or collect a corpse. His wife, Mildred, was buried here in the shade of the lone mesquite tree, far too gentle a soul to inhabit a place the residents called Boot Hill.

He’d seen that she got a nice stone marker, with the words BELOVED WIFE AND MOTHER and 1835–1880. She’d died much too young, Millie had, and for several years after her passing, he had wedded himself to another: demon rum. His children came to visit from the East when he stopped answering their letters, and got him straightened around.

He felt lucky he hadn’t lost his practice during those dark years. But he’d done his drinking evenings and into the night — the hours he’d once spent with Millie — and he had not fallen so far that he’d neglected the living in his care.

But what a bitter pill it was to swallow, his wife — less than fifty years of age! — dying in her sleep with no malady to be treated or symptoms to serve as a warning. The only solace, though not a small one, was that she had not suffered. In this hard country, suffering often accompanied death. And it always accompanied life.

True, she’d been slight of frame and prone to every cold or minor ailment that could be visited upon a person. Her body was frail but her spirit was strong, and she had raised a son and a daughter with love and dedication. She had endured the life of a doctor’s wife, the terrible hours, the need for her husband to put others above her, their children, and himself.

And she had done it with good humor and loving ways.

As he stood with his hat in his hands, staring at the gravestone, he did not speak to her, as some did. Miller was, in his way, a man of science and he did not believe she was there in the ground. Only her bones. But this was still a place where he could visit the thought of her.

The pear-shaped little doctor in the rumpled brown shirt with a black string tie climbed up on the buckboard, got himself settled, shook the reins, and resumed his journey. A breeze riffled his thinning white hair. In the back of the buckboard rode a lidded wicker coffin, waiting to be filled. Also tagging along was his Gladstone bag, not that this “patient” would have any need of the services it implied. But Doc Miller didn’t go anywhere without the tools of his trade. You never knew when someone might need you.

The doctor slowed the trotter as he neared the relay station’s cluster of shabby gray, weathereded structures — a barn with a stable, a corral where a dozen horses milled, and the main building itself, the latter with a hitching rail and an overhang roof shading its porch.

Doc Miller left the buckboard and the trotter parallel to the building. On the saggy porch a man in a derby was seated on a barrel, leaning back against the wall, small enough that his feet didn’t reach the floor. He had a thick black mustache and his gray shirt bore black sleeve garters and several food stains, chili maybe, and the duck trousers were a light brown. His eyes were unblinking and Doc Miller — carrying his Gladstone bag for no reason but a habitual protectiveness of the valuable case — was starting up the handful of spongy steps before he realized this was the dead man he’d come here to haul.

Normally, gathered flies would have told the tale, but it was too cold out for that. As he headed for the saloon-style doors, Doc Miller glanced at his future passenger and realized those stains were blood, not chili. Pushing through the batwings, he found Irvin Fosler working with a bucket and mop, cursing to himself as he cleaned the floor near the bar.

Fosler, typically in a bartender’s bow tie, white shirt, and apron over black trousers, had his own elaborate mustache. The relay man’s plump wife, Maria, in a colorful peasant dress, also had a bucket — that this establishment owned two buckets for cleaning purposes seemed remarkable to the doctor — and was scrubbing the wall behind the counter. It looked fairly clean, though Doc Miller could guess what the mess had been.

Caleb York did not suffer fools.

“That’s an unusual display out front, Mr. Fosler,” Miller said. “You might at least hang a ‘Good Eats’ sign around the poor devil’s neck.”

Fosler spat tobacco juice on the floor, then mopped it up. “You can have him. Do you know how many men Caleb York has shot down in this here establishment?”

“I’m not really keeping track.”

Fosler paused, thinking, obviously not sure himself. “Well, too damn many. You need my help loadin’ this one up?”

“Please. He’s a small fellow, but I have a bad back and no physician to attend me.”

Fosler nodded, then looked at his work appraisingly. He seemed satisfied, and indeed only a faint pink tinge on the planking remained to suggest the blood that had been spilled there.

Maria was also finished at her work and she now turned to smile at their new customer.

“I have stew,” she said. “I have beans and tortillas as well, señor doctor.”

“Fix me up a generous serving, señora. And coffee.”

“Sí, señor doctor.”

Outside, Doc Miller got the wicker coffin out of the back of the buckboard and rather awkwardly carried it up the stairs. He and the relay-station man removed the late Ned Clutter’s derby and placed him in the wicker basket more gently than necessary, and Doc Miller closed the lid over him. Fosler considered the derby, then put it on. The two impromptu pallbearers conveyed Clutter down the stairs and into the back of the buckboard, where the doc draped a tarpaulin over the wicker casket.

Back inside, Doc Miller sat at one of the tables and allowed himself to be served up by the smiling, rather pretty Maria, who seemed pleased with how her man looked in his new hat. The stew was hot and good, and the beans and tortillas made it a feast. The coffee was hot and good; strong, too — just what the doctor ordered.

He’d barely begun the meal, however, when a sturdy sort of thirty-some strode in. He was blond, slender in a wiry way, with close-set blue eyes, and had a rough look about him. Wore a faded-blue button-flap army shirt, denims, and muddy boots, and had on a rather shapeless gray cowboy hat, which he removed, as if there were some reason to be polite.

Fosler, his mop and bucket stowed, his new derby too, was behind the bar.

“You got food, mister?” the man asked the relay man.

“We do,” Fosler said, and told him what.

“Get me some, and a beer. Is it cold?”

“No. But the food is hot. Beer’s warm.”

“Give me some anyway.”

The doctor took all this in while seeming not to.

The young man did not take a seat at the counter, and when he approached Doc Miller, the medico thought perhaps the newcomer meant to join him.

But the new arrival just stood there, hat in hand, and asked, “What is that in back of your buggy?”

“It’s a dead man in a wicker coffin.”

The young man frowned, confused. “People get buried in them, do they?”

“No. It’s strictly for transport. Coffins for burying are wood. Why don’t you sit, sir, and join me?”

The young man smiled a little, apparently liking the “sir.”

He said, “That there poke?” And pointed to the Gladstone bag sitting on the chair next to Dr. Miller.

“What about it, son?”

“Is you a sawbones?”

“I’m a doctor.”

The young man grinned. “Good!” He pulled out a chair without a Gladstone bag on it and joined the doctor. “I was sent to look for a doc. Figured I’d have to ride all the way to Las Vegas to find one.”

“We’re closer to Trinidad.”

“Oh, is that so? I ain’t familiar. You from there?”

“Trinidad? Yes. Why do you need a doctor, son?”

He thought about that. “Uh, friend of mine got hisself hurt. He’s a cowboy, like me, and he got tossed from his horse. Spurred him a mite too often, I reckon. His leg looks to be busted.”

“Oh dear. Well, perhaps I can help.”

“It’s a bit of a ride. Not terrible far, but... a bit.”

Dr. Miller touched a napkin to his lips and pushed his empty plate away. “Well, as long as it isn’t too far, it shouldn’t take me long to attend to your friend. We’ll work up a makeshift splint for him, and give him something for his discomfort.”

“His pain, you mean.”

“Yes. But, as we discussed, I’m hauling a body and I must get it back to Trinidad soon, before it begins getting ripe. You can understand.”

The young man’s eyes widened and he nodded several times. “Oh, I can. You ever smell a dead cow that’s gone ripe?”

“I have indeed.”

“Well, it’s too late for barbecue then, that’s for damn sure.”

“Yes, it is.”

Maria served the young man a plate of stew and beans with tortillas. Fosler brought over the mug of beer. The young man dug out some coins and paid up.

“A second helping, Maria,” Dr. Miller said, “while I wait.”

“Sí, señor doctor.”

Between gulping down bites, the young man said, “Lucky I stopped here for some chow, on my way to Las Vegas. I ran off lookin’ for a doc without takin’ time for supper. That’s just the kind of friend I am.”

The doctor’s second helping arrived. “Glad you stopped here myself. This stew is mighty fine.”

The young man grinned. “A feller has to eat.”

Outside, in his wicker coffin, Ned Clutter — whom Randy Randabaugh had no notion was the corpse waiting for a side trip to Trinidad — wasn’t hungry at all.