Микки Спиллейн - Last Stage to Hell Junction

Bemis — the burly, bushy-bearded individual in a plaid jacket who at the holdup had struck Willa as resembling a miner — looked pale and seemed sluggish, either from pain or the doctor’s pills. He was saying little. Of course, their leader held center stage, doing most of the talking.

“I anticipate,” the actor was saying, “that Mr. McCory will be back with our due rewards no later than late tomorrow afternoon. He will have with him a business associate of Mr. Parker’s, who will make the exchange. It’s highly likely that this business associate will be accompanied by a Pink or some other bodyguard. But that’s of no matter.”

Reese had been squinting skeptically at his boss through all of that. “It isn’t ?”

Hargrave shook his head. “I have no intention of allowing this exchange to be anything but a peaceful one.”

The older Randabaugh leaned forward, hands pressed against the linen-covered table top, halfway out of his seat. “You’re going to let him go ?”

The outlaw leader flipped a hand. “I’m going to set all of them free. It’s simply good business.”

Juanita was on her feet and swearing at him in Spanish, teeth bared, eyes flaring, spittle flying.

Reese glanced in the direction of the hostages in the parlor and got up, closing the doors on them.

Willa did not hear the ensuing conversation, though the animated expressions of all concerned — but for the composed, self-contained Hargrave — spoke volumes.

What she’d have heard would have chilled her.

Juanita said, “These are witnesses! There were killings! Their testimonio will hang us!”

Hargrave gestured graciously for his paramour to sit back down. She didn’t. She just folded her arms on the shelf of her bosom and glared at her man.

Who said, “We will be long gone, querida , in a place where we can’t be touched. Do not worry your pretty self.”

Her teeth were bared, her head back. “You are sweet on that perra rubia ! You lust for her!”

He didn’t allow himself to be drawn into her storm. “I am not, and I do not. I am kind to her only to keep her calm and manageable.”

“Never mind that blonde bitch,” Reese said, accidentally translating Juanita’s epithet. “What I want to know is, why do you trust a damn stranger like this McCory? What’s to keep him from takin’ the ransom money and hightailin’?”

“That won’t happen,” Hargrave said, waving that off. “Parker’s people won’t hand across that kind of money anywhere but the exchange. And we will be in the rocks watching as that takes place.”

Looking as if he were on the verge of passing out, Bemis said, “I don’t like it. I get damn near shot to death, and some outsider is part of the gang now? Trusted with gettin’ our damn money for us? All due respect, Mr. Hargrave, this don’t seem right a tall.”

Hargrave patted the air with a palm. “No need for these qualms, gentlemen. I have dispatched our friend Broken Knife to shadow Mr. McCory, to make certain he does our bidding.”

The conversation ended there, because Hargrave and the others heard what Willa now heard, though a few seconds after she did: the jangle of stagecoach ribbons and the hoofbeats of its horses .

But then she’d been waiting for that. So had Parker, Rita, and Doc.

The gang had done them a favor, congregating in the dining room like that. Had the outlaws been in the parlor, the hostages would have had to wait until the fuss started and hope to slip out the back way, with the outlaws’ attention drawn elsewhere.

But this arrangement allowed Willa and the others — Doc Miller in the lead, closest to the double doors onto the street — to make their escape as the horses and the vehicle they bore came to a sudden whinnying halt. Jonathan Tulley, up in the box, shotgun in his lap, had yanked the brake lever with one hand and with the other pulled the reins to a stop. Within seconds, the captives were outside, on the porch, then clambering down the steps and up into the waiting stagecoach, Parker holding the door for them as first Willa, then Rita, piled in, followed quickly by Doc Miller and Parker himself.

Willa glimpsed Caleb York at the rear of the coach, behind his dappled-gray, black-maned gelding tied onto the boot. He flashed her a tight smile, but his eyes were on the hotel, whose broken-out but boarded-up windows allowed slots for weapons from within to be wielded.

Then, with the former hostages barely in their seats, the coach took off, Tulley yelling, “Yee-haw! Yee-haw!”

And the jangle of reins and hoofbeats of horses picked up again, almost as if they had never stopped, and the stagecoach, the gelding tied behind it, charged down Main Street, leaving behind a dust cloud...

... and Caleb York.

Blaine Hargrave was the first one out of the dining room and into the parlor, fast on his feet but not enough so to get there before the front doors, with their fancy stained-glass windows, swung themselves shut behind the fleeing hostages.

And by the time Hargrave got to a front window in the parlor, his knees on a sofa still warm from Willa Cullen’s backside, he saw only the stagecoach rumbling off and the cloud of dust that subsumed a male figure that, of all people, appeared to be Bret McCory.

Reese rushed to the two-seater sofa, and his knees found the warmth Rita Finney had left behind. He was at the window, too, muttering, “ McCory? What the hell...?”

Then, as the dust dissipated, no one was there.

Hargrave called out: “What have you done , man? Et tu , Bret?”

Young Randy was behind them, a .45 in hand. “Who et what?”

Hargrave spat, “Take a window, man!”

Reese did, shoving aside the chair that had been Parker’s to get at it.

“The name’s Caleb York!” came the familiar voice from somewhere in or across the street. “Never saw this Bret McCory in my life — and neither have you!”

Juanita was leaning in beside Hargrave, putting a hand on his shoulder. “How can I help, querida ?”

“Seems someone in our little play was a better actor than I,” he told her with a rueful smile. “I’ve been upstaged.”

“What can I do? ”

Then he looked hard at her and said, “You can start by going upstairs and getting your thirty-eight.”

She nodded and ran off through the lobby and up the stairs.

Bemis, looking barely able to stay conscious, stood in the parlor waiting for directions.

From outside thundered that voice again: “I’m sheriff of Trinidad County, and you’re all under arrest! Throw out your weapons and come out with your hands empty and high!”

Hargrave said, “There’s only one of him and five of us. So we wait him out. In the meantime, Broken Knife will sneak up on him like a good little redskin and get rid of the white eyes.”

As if he’d heard that, York yelled: “Get out here now, or I will cut you down like I did your Indian scout! Your choice. ”

Hargrave could see no target, and no shots had been leveled their way; nothing provided help in figuring the sheriff’s position...

Still on his knees on the sofa, the outlaw leader said, “All right, everyone. We can’t get to the horses, either out front or in the stable. We have no choice but to go out the back way and come around and flank the bastard.”

Bemis said, “I ain’t much on runnin’ and gunnin’ at present. How about I take a high winder?”

“Do that,” Hargrave said, nodding as he got off the couch and onto his feet. “Reese, you and your brother go out by the kitchen. You go left, Reese, and Randy, go right. Head down behind a building or two and squeeze our friend between you.”