Микки Спиллейн - Last Stage to Hell Junction

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.

Few who encountered Juanita MacGregor were aware that her Spanish was so limited.

The twenty-four-year-old woman had been raised in a home where her late father had insisted that her Mexican mother speak English. When Papa was at work, her mother had used a mix of broken English and Spanish, which her daughter picked up. But the girl never became truly proficient.

Papa had a small but profitable business in Sante Fe as a wainwright, making and repairing wagons and carts. They had a little frame house in a mixed part of town, where white men could have dark wives and not get grief.