Микки Спиллейн - Last Stage to Hell Junction

Parker drew back in, away from the window. He reached under his suitcoat and from somewhere withdrew a small pearl-handled, silver-hued revolver.

The Filley woman whispered, “You really think that little bordello gun will do the trick?”

Parker’s voice was harsh but soft. “I have five shots and there’s only four of them, assuming that boy is their Judas goat. Stay here and stay down.”

Parker bolted from the coach and started firing.

Willa heard but could not see what happened, which was Parker’s gunshot hitting the miner, who fell from his horse, while the boy’s apparent brother was aiming at Parker only to have Hargrave push his arm down and spit, “Would you slay our fortune?”

On saying this, Hargrave spurred his horse and charged Parker, who fired several more times but hit nothing or no one, busy backing up, a man on horseback bearing down on him; it knocked him over, the gun flying.

This of course Willa could not see; she could only sense the stage-managed chaos all around her. She, like Rita Filley, was crouched on the floor — neither one cowering, just following Parker’s directions.

Nor could she see the action atop the stage, with old Gus Gullett shoving that treacherous boy from his perch, prompting both Gus and Bratcher to grab up their shotguns. But before they could fire, Hargrave put a bullet in the stage driver’s brains, a share of which departed Bratcher’s head and filled the crown of his hat, which tumbled off his head and lay atop some luggage like a terrible bowl of soup.

At the same time, the boy, down on the rutted road now, pulled a revolver from under his shirt behind him and drilled three bullets into old Gus Gullett, two in his torso and one that traveled through his open mouth, shattering teeth the old boy couldn’t spare on its way up and in and through his brain. Willa heard all that and later saw the results, and also heard the rattle-inducing rearing and the whinnying whining of the horses reacting to the shots.

The boy was settling the horses.

“Well done, lad,” Hargrave said. He pulled his black steed to a quick stop, then stepped down as easily as a man who’d reached the bottom of a stairway.

This Willa did see, because with the shooting apparently over, she had no desire to add confusion and ignorance to her already sorry state, and was again at the window.

Parker, on the ground, appeared unconscious, his hair, his clothes, askew, his limbs as well. Hargrave, a graceful, elegant scoundrel, knelt over the businessman and looked him over.

“He sleeps, perchance to dream... Reese, see how friend Bemis is doing. He’s not yet among the dead, but if he doesn’t stop that caterwauling, I might make him so.”

The miner indeed was whimpering and occasionally yelling in pain, somewhere out of Willa’s sight.

The outlaw actor, still bent over the businessman, searched his victim. He checked the man’s pockets, examined a wallet, removed the folding cash from it, and tucked it away somewhere. Then he removed a gold watch from a chain on Parker’s vest. He opened the timepiece. Willa could see from her window that the inside lid of the watch was engraved.

“This will do nicely,” Hargrave said.

The outlaw actor got to his feet and whistled loudly — it was a shrill thing that cut the morning like a knife through soft butter. Then he called out, in his deeply resonant voice: “Ned!”

From Boot Hill, behind the mesquite, came another individual on horseback, leading a horse. He was in no hurry, just clip-clopping toward them. The new rider stopped his horse beside Hargrave, who handed the pocket watch up to his cohort.

“That will be all you need, friend Clutter,” Hargrave said.

“Should do the trick all right,” Ned Clutter said, a small, unremarkable-looking man in a homemade dark flannel shirt and duck trousers and a derby. He studied the watch with its open lid, which he then snapped shut, and pocketed the piece.

Clutter looked around, seeing what Willa couldn’t from her vantage point. “Got right ugly, didn’t it?”

“Are you surprised?” Hargrave asked. “Did you imagine that was fireworks you heard?”

“No. I just didn’t think there’d be any killing.”

“It’s that no-good blackguard Crawley’s fault. He wasn’t on the coach.”

“Why?”

“Not a clue. Had he been, he would have handled those passengers, including the illustrious Mr. Parker, who as it transpired was carrying a hideaway gun. One of those little spur-trigger affairs, probably just a twenty-two.”

“Seems like it put a hole enough in Bemis to get his attention.”

The miner was still whimpering, interspersed with the occasional holler.

“If he doesn’t quiet down,” Hargrave said, “I’ll get his attention all right. Now, get going. As the natives say, skedaddle!”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Hargrave.”

And the rider rode off, leaving the second horse behind, which the boy they’d “rescued” was climbing up on.

Meanwhile Parker was coming around, moaning, moving his head slowly. Hargrave got the dazed man to his feet, then walked him the few paces back to the coach and opened the door.

“Woman,” Hargrave addressed Willa. “Help him. He took rather a bad fall.”

Willa guided Parker back inside the coach and settled him where he’d been seated before.

“Thank you, child,” Hargrave said, closing the door, with a smile as handsome as the face it was set in — devilish handsome, damn him.

“I saw you,” Willa said from her window.

He seemed amused as he looked up at her, leaning a forearm against the coach. “What did you see, child?”

“Your Hamlet — in Denver. Three years ago, I think.”

“Did you like my performance?”

“Then or today?” she asked.

He laughed uproariously. She couldn’t tell if it was real or not. If he was acting, it was too much. If he wasn’t, he was crazier than that Dane he played.

The Filley woman squeezed in nearer Willa to look out the window at the highwayman.

The saloon woman snapped, “Why are you doing this? There’s no Wells Fargo strongbox on this stage. There’s nothing of value, unless you like to dress up in women’s clothing!”

“Back in the Bard’s day, I might have. But not now.”

Willa asked, “Are the driver and his guard all right?”

“No. They were foolish, and now have breathed their last.”

The two women drew back from the window.

Hargrave peeked in. “As for what we’re doing, we are indeed robbing the stage. But the item of value onboard is that disheveled character seated across from you — Raymond L. Parker.”

Parker, looking like an unmade bed, had said nothing since he’d been hauled back onto the stage. He was awake but still dazed.

The saloon woman demanded, “And what of us?”

“You continue breathing at my sufferance. And with my forbearance. It remains to see if you will annoy or amuse me. As Will Shakespeare says, ‘The quality of mercy is not strained’ — nor is my patience , should you strain that.”

He swept off his hat and bowed to them, an arch display of theatrics that did not amuse Willa.

“Ladies,” he said, tugging his hat back on.

Then he walked toward the front of the coach. “ Reese! Get those carcasses down and dump them on the roadside. And clean that seat up, else you’ll get gore all over yourself.”

“Them women — they’re witnesses, Blaine.”

Hearing this, Rita clutched Willa’s arm, and Willa grasped the hand at her sleeve.

Hargrave was saying, “You’d leave two dead females on the road, you blinking idiot, to bring out all the law in the Southwest? Now get about your business. Randy! ”