Last Stage to Hell Junction

Murphy

Can You Give Me Three? An Introduction

Max Allan Collins

As a mystery writer lucky enough to become close friends with his hero—in my case, Mickey Spillane—I could never have imagined that the day would come when I’d be entrusted with his famous detective Mike Hammer and a number of other projects unrealized by the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master in his lifetime.

In 2006, Mickey called me and asked me if I would finish his latest—and projected as his last—Mike Hammer novel, The Goliath Bone. He was nearing the end of a draft, rather rushing through it to try to make a final deadline: he had pancreatic cancer and knew the end was near. I of course said I’d complete the book for him, but hoped it wouldn’t be necessary.

This would be the last time we spoke, and I think we both knew it.

I said, I love you, Mickey.

And he said, I love you, buddy.

So began a great, bittersweet chapter in my writing life. In the few days remaining, Mickey instructed his wife Jane to gather up everything in his three offices at his South Carolina home and turn the manuscripts over to me.

Max will know what to do, he said.

Over the dozen years that followed, I have completed (thus far) ten Mike Hammer novels, enough Hammer short stories to fill a collection, and two non-Hammer crime novels. For the centenary of Mickey’s birth (2018), I edited his final completed novel, The Last Stand, and undertook to complete the very first Mike Hammer novel, Killing Town (begun in 1945, before I, The Jury).

And what does this have to do with a western called Last Stage to Hell Junction? Or a series of western novels about a legendary figure of Mickey’s creation, called Caleb York?

Plenty, actually. While those books mentioned above may have been contemporary (if 1945, in the latter novel’s case, might be called that), they were very much westerns. The Last Stand is a modern-day western about a flier downed in the desert and befriended by an American Indian. Killing Town has Mike Hammer, fresh from the war, coming to a corrupt city where one powerful man owns everything, and Hammer? He’s a stranger in town. With a .45.

Mickey viewed Mike Hammer—and, for that matter, his other heroes—as a modern-day western hero. He often said that Hammer wore the black hat, but he did the right thing. In 1961, TV Guide asked Spillane to comment on the increasing violence seen on television, and he responded by saying that impending violence led to suspense and constant wall-to-wall carnage resulted in boredom. With Gunsmoke, he said, the action was about to happen every second and you knew it and wondered how it was going to come about. And if kids wanted to emulate a hero, they got a good one in Marshal Dillon. And brother, Mickey said, you still don’t mess around with Old Matt.

Privately, Mickey claimed to have had a creative hand in Have Gun—Will Travel, the popular 1957–1963 CBS TV series that starred Richard Boone. Mickey said he had pitched a Hammer Out West series, and certainly Paladin was a private eye of sorts. And one of Mickey’s best pals in Hollywood was ex-cop (and future Star Trek creator) Gene Roddenberry, who was one of the chief writers on Have Gun. Asked if he’d ever pursued legal ramifications, Mickey just shrugged it off, saying, That’s Hollywood for you.

(A rodeo performer also claimed to have created the character of Paladin, right down to the business cards and the man-in-black persona. Some sources say Paladin’s TV creators began the concept as a modern-day New York private eye—sound familiar?).

Going through stacks of unpublished, unfinished material from Mickey’s multiple home offices, I also found three screenplays, among them The Saga of Cali York. I’d heard Mickey talk about this numerous times—a project that he considered a major missed opportunity, rare for a man with few regrets. He had written the screenplay for his friend John Wayne.

In previous Caleb York introductions, I’ve gone into some detail about the friendship between Spillane and Wayne. But for our purposes here, let’s just say it was a genuine meeting of two major pop-cultural figures in the early 1950s. Mickey starred in a film for his pal Duke, Ring of Fear (1954), and did a major, uncredited rewrite of its script, bailing Wayne out of a jam.

I thought the York screenplay was terrific. But it was clearly not Mike Hammer, and it wasn’t even a mystery, although the western yarn Mickey had spun had its crime elements. I put it aside with, Maybe someday.

A few years ago, at a Bouchercon (the mystery fan convention), my wife, Barb, and I were having breakfast with Michaela Hamilton, our editor for the cozy Trash ’n’ Treasures mysteries, each of which has the word Antiques in the title (Antiques Wanted has a western theme).

I was aware that Kensington was a major publisher of westerns and said offhandedly, What if I told you I had an unproduced screenplay Mickey Spillane wrote for John Wayne?

I knew Michaela was a Spillane fan, and figured she’d get a kick out of that.

She sat up and said, Can you give me three?

I choked on my orange juice. Well . . . there’s only one screenplay.

We would want at least three. Could you develop three novels from the screenplay?

The rest is history, albeit western-tinged. Mickey had created a rich backstory for Caleb (I dropped the Cali nickname) and a rather complete world in fictional Trinidad, New Mexico, populated by a fun, diverse cast of characters. With notes from him, as well as several variant versions of the screenplay, I set out to write not just a novelization of Mickey’s screenplay, but two sequels.

And now here we are at Caleb York: Book Four.

With the exception of the novelization of the film version of Maverick, and a novel about old Wyatt Earp meeting young Al Capone (Black Hats), I had never pursued my love of westerns in my prose. I have read a lot of nonfiction about the West, enjoyed a smattering of western fiction, and been a hardcore fan of western movies and TV shows since my childhood. But writing a western would be something new.

So how do I prepare for a Caleb York novel?

Obviously I read a lot of historical material. Though I’m writing about the mythic West, I want an underpinning of reality. But for a month or so before I begin writing, and during the writing itself, my wife (also a western movie fan) and I mount a film festival in our living room. We are the only attendees.

For The Legend of Caleb York, we watched John Wayne movies, of course. For The Big Showdown, we viewed every western Randolph Scott ever made. For The Bloody Spur, we screened Joel McCrea’s westerns. And for Last Stage to Hell Junction, we saddled up with a genuine American hero, Audie Murphy, who kindly provided our opening quotation.

You are free to cast Caleb York with any of these western stalwarts. Your budget will allow Clint Eastwood, as well—or James Garner or Gary Cooper or Burt Lancaster or . . .

Yourself.

Who’s stopping you, amigo?

CHAPTER ONE

Friday night at the Victory Saloon in Trinidad, New Mexico, was a pleasant sort of chaos, payday always generating festive affairs at the tavern. Before Sheriff Caleb York cracked down, the whole town had been under more or less friendly siege every such weekend, merchants boarding up their windows and seldom leaving the safety of their domiciles.

These days, the sheriff—tin star tucked in a shirt pocket—could take the evening off. Right now he was sitting at a round, green-felt-topped table with a quartet of merchants, all of whom sat on the Citizens Committee, as well as at this table’s weekend poker games.

The Victory remained the only watering hole in town, in part because Trinidad, with its population of three hundred or so, didn’t require any more; but with all the ranches in the area, and for thirsty travelers on their way to Las Vegas, New Mexico, the Victory presented a palace where the customer was king.

From the towering embossed-steel ceiling hovered kerosene-lamp chandeliers, their flicker dancing off the gold-and-black-brocaded walls, saddles and spurs riding there as if deposited by bucking broncos. Those flames high above also reflected off the endless, highly polished oaken bar, in back of which ruled a quartet in white shirts and black bow ties.

Behind these bartenders—bottles of bourbon and rye lined up like soldiers ready to do their duty—mirrors made the chamber seem even bigger. Dusty cowhands hugged the bar, where towels dangled for patrons to wipe foam off mustaches; elbows rested on the counter supporting hefty mugs of beer, while one boot per customer hooked on a brass footrail punctuated by occasional spittoons.

Though tables for drinking men were clustered to the right as you pushed through the batwing doors, most of the cavernous enclosure was a casino, bustling with already well-juiced cowhands getting rid of their paychecks at dice, roulette, chuck-a-luck, and wheel-of-fortune stations. At the far end of the chamber, on a little platform, a piano player was providing lively rinky-tink noise for a tiny dance floor crowded with pairs of rough-hewn cowboys and silk-and-satin dance-hall gals, males and females paired off for some herky-jerky cavorting.

To one side of the tables where patrons sat drinking, and before the casino asserted itself, were a pair of gaming tables. House dealer Yancy Cole, a former riverboat gambler who still dressed in that manner, had a faro game going. The other table of York and four local city fathers was provided as a courtesy with no house dealer, or cut of the winnings going to the Victory. The pair of tables was positioned near the stairway that led up to the second-floor quarters of Rita Filley, owner and manager of the Victory.

Under the prior owners, one of whom was Rita’s late sister Lola, the upstairs had been a brothel. But the sheriff had convinced Rita to restrict her girls to encouraging, by way of dancing and flirting, the purchase of drinks.

That wasn’t to say that every fallen angel had gotten herself up, or that each soiled dove was, strictly speaking, clean now—but any girls with customers of their own serviced them elsewhere. A particular rooming house was home to nothing but girls who worked at the Victory—not exactly a brothel, as not all the girls entertained male friends, and no madam was on the premises.

Caleb York knew human beings were flawed animals, and that certain things found intolerable by some needed to be tolerated by the rest.

Right now York was looking at three aces—also a deuce of clubs and a ten of diamonds, but those he would discard on the draw. Very good hand, particularly in this company, who were not as card-smart as the sheriff, who himself had a bit of a riverboat gambler look to him.

Like the Earp brothers, Bat Masterson, and other law officers of the 1880s, York dressed as a professional man—black coat, black pants snugged in black hand-tooled boots, shirt a light gray, string tie black. Even seated here, he kept on the black hat with a cavalry pinch and gray-knotted kerchief at his neck.

He wore his Colt Single Action Army .44 low on his right side, and usually kept it tied down—at the card table, though, he let it hang loose. A weapon falling to the floor and discharging could be taken the wrong way.

Big but lean, rawboned, firm-jawed, his hair reddish brown, York wore a full-face beard, though in the past he’d either been mustached or clean-shaven. He was squinting at his cards with those seldom-blinking, washed-out blue eyes, but truth be told, that squint was his normal expression.

As Friday-night rowdy as the Victory was, Trinidad had been fairly peaceable, the big trouble lately a rabid dog he’d had to shoot—a canine one, for a change. January in New Mexico had been just cold enough—down around ten degrees some nights, edging no higher than forty degrees by day—to keep things quiet. That was how Sheriff Caleb York liked it; it was the winter chill that encouraged his beard, though he had the town barber keep it trimmed back.

After eight months or so in Trinidad, York was a well-established part of the little community. He’d rolled into town a stranger, on his way west to take a job with the Pinkertons in San Diego. He had been enjoying an anonymity from the false impression the world had that celebrated shootist Caleb York had met his match, gunned down in the street some months back.

With the age of forty looming, he’d decided being a live nobody was better than being a dead somebody.

And, anyway, he disliked his reputation as a notorious gunfighter. Yes, he’d taken down more badmen than most, in street fights, rural shoot-outs, and lowdown ambushes he’d survived. But that had been in his former and very legal role as a detective for Wells Fargo. He couldn’t help it if the dime novelists like Ned Buntline had turned him into a damned storybook hero—a legend! Didn’t people know that the definition of a legend was something that wasn’t real?

Yet a pretty gal named Willa Cullen and the fine old rancher who had been her father, the late George Cullen, had managed to get him embroiled in taking down Trinidad’s corrupt sheriff, Harry Gauge. And now, instead of working in the big city for the Pinks, he had allowed himself to be seduced by a pretty face and a Citizens Committee into taking over for that now-deceased crooked lawman.

As it happened, his romance with Willa had gone cold—though he sensed signs of rekindling—but that Citizens Committee had not only matched Pinkerton’s offer, but thrown in some incidentals to boot. Thanks to the mayor’s political connections, he was county sheriff, as well as the town’s lawman, filling a marshal’s role unofficially

And now the Santa Fe was about to bring a spur to Trinidad that would surely make the town boom, which made staying on as sheriff a profitable prospect.

At the table with him were four of Trinidad’s most respected citizens: Dr. Albert Miller, druggist Clem Davis, mercantile store owner Newt Harris, and Mayor Jasper Hardy, the barber who kept York’s beard at bay. Doc Miller, perhaps York’s best friend in town, was dealing the cards, and was about to go around the table learning who wanted how many new ones.

But before that could happen, a figure who would have been unrecognizable a few months before, came hustling over to the table, saying, "Sheriff! There ye be!"

Skinny, bowlegged Jonathan Tulley, who had once been the town’s bedraggled drunken sot, was now York’s deputy. The old desert rat had sobered up, but his attire—baggy canvas pants and a dirty BVD top—had for months remained much the same, as had his reputation as town character.

Now, encouraged by the sheriff to clean himself up into a real deputy, Tulley sported clothes both store-bought and clean—dark flannel shirt, red suspenders, gray woolen pants, and work boots. His thinning white hair and once-bushy beard indicated he, too, was frequenting the mayor’s tonsorial parlor.

He still had the habit of waving his shotgun in one hand, like an attacking Indian brave, but these things took time, York knew.

What’s wrong, Tulley? York asked, his eyes still on the three aces.

The disappointment in the deputy’s voice was obvious. Why, not a dang thing! I jest been lookin’ for you to report in, after my mid-evenin’ patrol.

Report then.

Uh . . . what I said before.

Remind me what you said before.

Not a dang thing is goin’ on. It’s quiet as Boot Hill out there. Quieter!

Good. You say you’ve been looking for me?

I have!

And where am I always on Friday night?

. . . Playin’ poker with your friends, like.

Yes. Now go have a sarsaparilla. Tell Hub to put it on my bill.

York didn’t have to turn to see his deputy smile—it was in the man’s voice. Thank ye, Sheriff!

This same scene had been enacted, more or less in the same fashion, the last five or six Fridays.

The difference was the sound of Tulley clomping over to the bar did not follow the exchange.

Now York did glance from the aces to his ace deputy. Something else?

Mind if I go with coffee, Sheriff? Mite nippy out there.

York interrupted his concentration to grin. Sure. Have cream and sugar, too, if you like.

Thank ye, Sheriff!

Now the deputy clomped.

Sorry, gents, York said to his fellow cardplayers.

But the mayor, sitting across from him, was looking past York. Hardy, a slight fellow, had slicked-back, pomaded black hair and a matching handlebar mustache that overpowered his narrow face. He pointed past York, who turned to look.

Rita Filley, the proprietress, was seated at a table halfway between here and the bar. She was motioning for York’s attention.

His sigh started at the toes of his well-tooled boots.

Play without me, boys, he said, and tossed in his three aces with a growl.

Raven-haired Rita gestured for him to sit; she looked typically lovely in a dark blue satin gown, her full breasts spilling some, the rest of her almost too slender for them. Almost. She had a beer waiting for him—she was having coffee. The resemblance between her and Tulley ended there.

The heart-shaped face with the big brown eyes, gently upturned nose, and lush, red-rouged lips wore a pleasant, lightly smiling expression. But he could see through it.

What’s wrong? he asked, pulling out a chair and sitting.

You really don’t know?

Rita, I’m in the middle of a game. I just walked away from three aces.

I would think the sheriff would be more attuned to trouble.

I’m not sheriff at the moment. What trouble?

She nodded toward the dance floor at the end of the big room. A sort of aisle between the chuck-a-luck and roulette stations gave them a look directly that way. The honky-tonk piano was barely audible over the sound of well-oiled cowhands and the bark of the dealers and croupiers. But York could make it out: a lively version of Clementine.

He could also see what the trouble was. Molly, a pretty little blonde in green-and-white satin, was being pawed and generally manhandled by a tall character who was weaving in a way that had nothing to do with dancing and everything to do with John Barleycorn.

She’s one of the newer ones, Rita said.

I know. She was never a part of the upstairs festivities.

Never. She’s a nice girl. Good girl, considering.

Considering?

Considering she works here. I think you can see why this isn’t a job for Hub.

Hub Wainwright was a bartender but also