Микки Спиллейн - Last Stage to Hell Junction

“Might be. After you hitch those Morgans up to the coach, you can scout around for saddles and such. We need to be ready, a couple of ways.”

Tulley’s eyes were tight. “How outnumbered is we?”

“Well, there’s Blaine and the two Randabaugh brothers...”

“Is they the idjits?”

York nodded. “The wounded man, Bemis, may be up to joining the fray. The Apache, of course. Hargrave’s woman is a hellfire Mexican gal. She’ll wade in with the men, all right, bullet for bullet. The innkeeper, Wiley, has a business to protect, and his wife looks like she’d sooner kill you than look at you.”

“But the menfolk only numbers five or mebbe six. That ain’t no regiment, Caleb. And we’s a two-man army, you ask me.”

York put a hand on his deputy’s shoulder. “You’re not wrong, Jonathan Tulley.”

The old boy grinned, and his eyes popped. “Got me an i-dee , Caleb!”

He grinned back. “The name’s Bret McCory — which was also your ‘i-dee’ — but let’s hear it.”

Tulley’s gaze was glittering. “Why not wait till all them outlaws is asleep, and you and me just go in and shoot ’em in their beds!”

That actually wasn’t the worst idea Caleb York had ever heard.

“I believe,” York said, “that damned Indian never sleeps. Or if he does, he’s got pebbles scattered in his brain that start crunching when anybody approaches.”

Tulley’s face fell. “Hell, Caleb. Thought I had somethin’ there.”

“They are murderous kidnappers, my friend, and I would lose no sleep shooting them in theirs. But we are still just two men, and those outlaws will be spread out in three or more beds in three or more rooms, and that doesn’t count the Apache on the porch. No, Deputy Tulley, we will have to find a more civilized way to send these sinners to Hell.”

Tulley shrugged. “Anyways, we wouldn’t want to kill that Mexie woman of Hargrave’s. ’Taint right, killin’ a woman in her sleep, all helpless and dreamin’ like.”

Again York put his hand on Tulley’s shoulder. “Deputy, that woman is the first one I’d shoot.”

Hearing that, Tulley’s eyes went wide and his face seemed to turn as white as his beard. Or maybe it was just the moonlight.

Getting to his feet, York said, “I’m going to finally get the lay of the damn land over there — pinpoint who is in what room, see what kind of back way out we have. There’s also a colored girl, a servant, who might be an ally. Might. We’ll see.”

“Shore is a lot of womenfolk over there.”

“Yes. All very beautiful, and each in her own way... dangerous. Now, after I get a fix on the geography of that hotel, I will stroll back outside and roll myself a smoke. Just kind of take in the air.”

Tulley grinned. “That be the signal , right?”

“Right. It’s a signal that means two things — first, that I’ve found a back way out of that place. And second, that it’s time for you to go over to the livery and hitch up that stagecoach.”

Tulley’s nods came quick. “And be ready to roll, should things go haywire, shootin’ and screamin’ and such.”

“Shooting and screaming and such, yes. But with luck we won’t need the coach.”

Tulley squinted one eye. “But we’ll need them horses, iffen your escape goes as quiet-like as you wish.”

“Yes, but unhitching those animals won’t take long, and we need the option of you picking us up and creating a commotion, should, yes, the shooting and screaming start.”

Tulley had kept nodding through all of that. He was raring.

“If you don’t see me signal you,” York said, “just sit tight, like I said. Tight and alert. You follow?”

“I foller.”

“Deputy,” York said, sighing the word, “four good friends of ours are counting on us. We have to stay sharp, and we have to be ready... for anything. And remember — we’re here to free prisoners — not to take any.”

That knife-blade grin came again. “Which is your way of sayin’, kill them sons of bitches.”

“Your eloquence is worthy of the Bard, Jonathan Tulley.”

“Of who?”

“Not important,” York said, gave his friend a smile, and went out, crunching pebbles.

The Apache on the porch continued his apparent sleep as York returned, having collected his saddlebags at the livery, where he’d entered from the rear and then exited out the front. Now he was coming up the hotel steps and across to the front doors with the usual creaking of wood beneath his boots.

The Indian did not stir.

York went in and was greeted by Mahalia, who flew from a chair near the check-in desk, apparently having been waiting for him. The lovely colored girl in the white turban dangled a key before him. Part of him wished it were hers.

But it proved to be his — 1B.

“You be in the first room to the right,” she said, gesturing toward the open stairs. Her apron was gone and the maid’s uniform fit her trimly, hugging supple curves. She was very pretty, a mix of Africa and Europe, her complexion like milk chocolate.

Nice smile, too, as she said, “Two doors at the top is the inside privies. One for gentlemans and the other for ladies.”

“This must have been quite a place in its prime,” York said, taking the key from her with his right hand, his saddlebags slung over his left arm. “Separate baths. Indoor plumbing yet.”

She nodded. “From a well outside, yes. I worked here back in them days. You could get a heated tub of firewood-warm water for fifty cents.”

“That’s not available now, I take it.”

Her eyes widened a little. “I could do that for you, if you like. No charge.”

“No. Thank you, though, Mahalia. Do they treat you right?”

“The guests?”

“The Wileys.”

Her chin crinkled. “They works me pretty hard. But they pays me. Not much, but it’s better than the plantation life my people knowed. I’m savin’ up for another life.”

“Good for you. Hide your treasure well.”

“Sir?”

“Your ‘guests’ would steal the pennies from a dead man’s eyes.”

“That sure true, sir. That sure true.”

He drew closer to her and quietly asked, “Are the women upstairs, and the older well-to-do gent — are they locked in their rooms?”

She nodded.

“Mahalia, could you spare a hairpin?”

“Sir?”

He dug in his pocket and brought back a gold eagle, then pressed the coin in her hand.

With another surreptitious look left and right, Mahalia plucked a pin from under her white turban. She gave the metal pin to York, who glanced at its two flexible prongs, one straight, the other ridged.

Just what he needed. All he needed now was a little information...

Very softly he asked her, “Which rooms are the unwilling guests in?”

He wasn’t sure she would know what he meant, but she immediately did, her response barely audible. “The gentleman is in room 2B, he next to you. The ladies, they shares a room next door to his — 3B.”

“Where does Hargrave and his woman sleep? And those Randabaugh boys?”

She told him.

“What about that doctor?”

“Don’t know. Never saw him come out from bein’ in with the sick man.”

He nodded slowly. Then: “And where do you sleep?”

Mahalia’s eyes widened.

He grinned at her. “Nothing untoward. I just want to get a handle on my surroundings.”

Nodding, she said, “I’m off the kitchen.” Her expression said perhaps she wouldn’t have minded something untoward from him. “I can show you around some.”

“Please.”

The living quarters of the Wileys were off-limits, of course, but off the dining room, behind the front lobby, was the good-size kitchen, still redolent of tonight’s good fare. Mahalia had a small bedroom — with little more than a cot and one tiny dresser — just off to one side. It had a door. The back exit was from the kitchen, directly at the rear of the building.