Seven Days to Hell Read online

Getting an idea of how large a sum it was, Costaine quickly folded it in half and stuffed it in one of his front pants pockets before Sam could change his mind and ask for some of it back.

  Sam stepped around him and entered the café, Costaine’s voice—but not Costaine—following him:

  “Where do you think you’re going? You’re banned from the Sunrise for life, you hear? Banned!”

  The customers in the café looked at Sam Heller as if they’d seen an open grave, then quickly looked away.

  Sam determinedly stalked down the center aisle, his long-legged stride taking him swiftly toward the rear of the building. He straight-armed open a swinging door and entered the kitchen, the door swinging shut behind him.

  The space was hot and steamy, confined by tall shelves filled with pots and pans and other cooking utensils. A cook stopped scolding a white-clad helper, both frozen in place as Sam circled around them.

  Chubb Driscoll and Vic Terrill, Spud Barker’s battered and discredited bodyguards, stood around the back door, waiting and watching for Sam so they could ambush him when he went to his horse.

  Terrill stood at the back door, gun in hand. The door was open a few inches and he was peering outside, keeping close watch. Chubb Driscoll was posted at the rear window, holding a shotgun whose barrel rested on the windowsill.

  Terrill and Driscoll were so caught up in their surveillance that they were unaware of Sam Heller’s presence until he was almost upon them. Sam could have gunned them down right then but he didn’t want to shoot them in the back . . . that would have been bad form.

  “Over here!” Sam shouted, leveling the mule’s leg on the two.

  Terrill and Driscoll jumped straight up, then fell all over themselves in their haste to react.

  Terrill’s nerve snapped. He tried to run. He flung open the back door and stood framed in the doorway as Sam levered him with Winchester rounds, ventilating him. Terrill staggered outside and fell facedown.

  Chubb Driscoll wrestled with the shotgun whose barrel was sticking through the open window. It was an unwieldy spot and posture and Sam reckoned he could have made a sandwich in the time it took Driscoll to step back, haul the shotgun out of the window, and start to swing it around.

  Far enough. Sam put the blast on Driscoll. Driscoll rose up on tiptoes as if somehow that would lessen the impact of the slugs ripping into him.

  Muscular reflex—a twitch of the death nerve—caused Driscoll to jerk the shotgun’s trigger, loosing a blast that blew a watermelon-sized hole in the back wall.

  Driscoll hit the floor so hard he bounced. Not much but it was a true bounce.

  Where did Driscoll get the shotgun? Sam wondered. From Costaine? If Sam had known that, he wouldn’t have been so quick to pay off on the busted window.

  Or maybe not Costaine. Sam couldn’t see the proud, feisty little restaurateur knowingly allowing his kitchen to be used as a shooting platform for a couple of ambushers. The shotgun could have been laying around the kitchen, ready to hand. Texans never liked to be too far from a weapon, not even when they were rustling up some chow.

  The question of the shotgun’s source must go unanswered. Sam considered his account with the Sunrise Café as marked Paid in Full and the ledger closed.

  A bin full of apples on a countertop caught his eye. He stuffed a couple of them in his vest pockets, a reward for Dusty. The horse’s unease about the kitchen had set off alarm bells in Sam’s head, tipping him to the presence of the vengeful bushwhackers.

  Sam paused for a last look. Chubb Driscoll sure had a lot of blood in him, Sam decided, and it looked like he was spilling a goodly part of it on the kitchen floor.

  Sam hoped they could get the mess cleaned up in time for the noonday rush lunch crowd.

  He exited by the back door.

  FIVE

  A hunted man, like all men, must eat, drink, and rest.

  Young Bill Longley was eating and—mostly—drinking in a saloon in Mineral Wells, Texas.

  It’s midday of the same day Sam Heller hit Weatherford. Bill had skipped Weatherford, detouring around it entirely. Judging by the reception committee waiting for him on the road east of town, he was not likely to find a welcome in that town.

  A gang of strangers was massed on the road. They seemed ready to welcome him with open arms. Unfortunately they were holding guns and knives at the time.

  Bill saw them before they saw him. He didn’t know who they were, but he knew trouble when he saw it. During his relatively short span of time on earth Bill Longley had already seen—and made—more trouble than most men know in a lifetime. More recently in Moraine County on the Texas Gulf Coast a not-so-small private army had done their level best to kill him.

  So Bill was already walking soft and peeking around corners before showing himself by the time he came on Weatherford, Texas.

  He’d swung wide to the north where there was more cover, a run of tree-covered hollows and rises.

  The Vard gang (for so they were, though unknown to Bill) moved to intercept him, but they’d been too late, save for a couple riders who got too close to him. Too close for them, that is. They found out the hard way that Bill Longley was made for trouble and armed for it, too. He shot two of them out of the saddle making his breakout run.

  Bill managed to shake pursuit in the brush. He rode west the long way around Weatherford town and continued his trek. A native Texan, he’d never been in this part of the state before, but he had a keen sense of direction and was able to strike the Hangtree Trail with little difficulty. There wasn’t much else out here in this great emptiness.

  Besides, the trail stretched directly west out of Weatherford town across the plains. When he hit the trail the town was far distant, out of sight and there was no sign of his pursuers.

  Bill rode west, frequently looking back for signs of the gang. The sky was yellow-white, the air still, dead. Not a breath of a breeze. Seemed like heavy weather coming in.

  A couple of times he glimpsed a pale brown smudge on the eastern horizon that might have been a dust cloud kicked up by a pack of riders, but he kept outdistancing it and after some hard riding the smudge dropped from sight.

  Noon was nearing as Bill Longley came on Mineral Wells in Palo Pinto County west of Weatherford. Mineral Wells lay midway between Weatherford town and Hangtree.

  A flyspeck on the map, Mineral Wells was a loose handful of ramshackle wooden buildings set in the middle of a wide, open flat.

  It owed its existence, such as it was, to a rock-bound spring whose mineral-rich waters were thought to have curative powers. They were bottled and marketed in this and neighboring counties.

  In postwar Texas times were hard, doctors were few, and not many folks had the money to pay medical bills, so homegrown remedies were popular. Mineral Wells’ water had a reputation for being “good for what ails you,” allowing the small business to develop. A barnlike structure where the waters were bottled and stored stood beside the spring.

  The town proper lay along the trail a hundred yards farther west. It was a one-street town, with a saloon, a general store, and several other shaky establishments. A quiet little place, out in the middle of nowhere, where not much happened apart from just plain folks struggling hard to keep going and make the necessities.

  And then young Bill Longley came riding in.

  He pulled his horse up, coming to a halt at what passed for the town’s main drag.

  If he hadn’t stopped short he’d have been out of town almost as soon as he’d entered it. Here was a place too small to have its own lawmen. That was all to the good so far as Bill Longley was concerned.

  Not much of a town, no, but the saloon drew his gaze like a magnet. Bill eyed it, smacking dry, sun-cracked lips.

  He looked back the way he came, along the trail that stretched east to Weatherford in the next county. It was empty, not a soul to be seen in that direction under the big sky. No dust cloud in the distance to indicate approaching riders.

  Bill stepped down f
rom the saddle, leading his horse by the reins to a watering trough that fronted the street.

  He walked with the stiff, slightly bowlegged gait of one who’s been on horseback for many hours . . . days.

  The trough was filled with plain everyday creek water. Nobody was giving away free mineral water to the horses. Or anybody else.

  Bill’s horse, a big quick bay with plenty of bottom, was powerfully thirsty. He let the animal have a decent-sized drink but not too much, he didn’t want to slow it down by overwatering it. He had to pull up hard on the halter to get the horse’s head out of the trough.

  The bay looked at him reproachfully with big brown eyes. Bill shrugged, looking sheepish.

  “Sorry,” he said, “but it’s for your own good. Mine, too.” He fastened the horse’s reins to a hitching post in front of the saloon.

  The saloon was a single-story wooden box. It was a warm day, and the front door was wide open, the doorway opening on an inviting cool dimness. The scent of meat cooking on a fire and raw whiskey fumes wafted out of the place, tingling in Bill’s nostrils. His stomach rumbled.

  Bill Longley wore two guns, both big-caliber six-shooters. He hitched up his gunbelt and stepped inside. Bill was in his late teens, tall, rangy, with a long sharp-featured face, black hair, dark eyes, and a wispy mustache and chin whiskers. Those hard dark eyes of his were as bold and direct as two gun muzzles pointed directly at the beholder.

  He’d been doing some hard riding and it showed. Lines of fatigue were carved in his face. He was powdered with trail dust from head to toe. He smelled of man-sweat and horse.

  Harry Hoke, owner and proprietor of the saloon, was balding and big eared. He stood behind a bar made of a couple of wooden planks supported by an upright hogshead barrel at either end.

  Two men, locals, stood on the other side of the bar drinking their lunch. They glanced over their shoulders to see who had entered.

  When they saw Bill they quickly looked away, finding renewed interest in the contents of their cups.

  They knew a maverick when they saw one. Bill’s youth had nothing to do with it. Young guns were often the most dangerous, being long on nerve and short on pity.

  Harry Hoke nodded at Bill, acknowledging his presence with a ready grin. Rowdy youth or not, Hoke needed the business.

  Bill stepped up to the bar, standing sideways so he half-faced the entrance and could keep an eye on it.

  Now, there were places in Texas where the name of Bill Longley was not unknown. He was blooded, he’d killed his man, more than one, raising plenty of hell along the way.

  But Texas is vast and its bad sons legion. Mineral Wells didn’t know Bill Longley from Adam. Yet.

  Harry Hoke and his two customers knew the type, though.

  “What’ll it be?” the barkeep asked.

  Bill fished a gold coin out of the breast pocket of his shirt, slapping it down on the bar where it rang with a musical chime. “Bottle of whiskey.”

  “Coming right up, sir,” Harry Hoke said, his smile widening. That gold coin rated a “sir” and then some more.

  The yellow gold was a spot of brightness in the saloon’s dingy gloom. It erased what few last doubts, if any, that the three locals might have had about Bill. No honest youth and damned few grown men in these parts carried that much cash money in their pockets. In gold, no less.

  Harry Hoke made haste to fetch a bottle down from a back shelf, setting it on the bar along with a wooden tumbler cup.

  Bill reached for them, licking his lips. “Any chance I can get something to eat?”

  “I can grill you a side of beef on the cook stove,” the barkeep said.

  Bill nodded. “Don’t overcook it, I like it with the blood dripping. And make it quick.”

  “Coming right up,” Hoke said cheerily.

  “I’m in kind of a hurry,” Bill added.

  On the dodge, Hoke said to himself, as he hastened to comply. Not before scooping up the gold coin and pocketing it, though.

  Bill toted bottle and cup to a corner table. He took a gun from his holster and laid it on the tabletop before he sat down facing the door.

  Bill held the bottle up to a shaft of sunlight slanting in through a crack between the wallboards. Red whiskey, with a nice bead on it. He knew his whiskey. Like many badmen on the frontier—like many men—he was well on the way toward being a confirmed alcoholic.

  A tremor of eagerness went through his hands as, breathing hard, he pulled the cork.

  He frowned, disturbed at his reaction. That wasn’t so good. A gunman needs steady hands.

  Bill took a deep breath, let it out, setting the bottle down. He held his hands out in front of him. Steady, by God! Not a quiver. That was more like it.

  Bill filled the cup to the brim, lifted it to his mouth, and tossed it back, drinking deep, draining it to the last. It hit like a mule kick. Bill gave an all over shudder, like a dog throwing off water.

  Liquid fire blossomed in his belly, spreading through him, filling him with welcoming warmth.

  He refilled the cup, sipping it, drinking it slowly.

  On the far side of the room, on a cast-iron stove, Bill’s steak was sizzling on the grill. Harry Hoke hovered over it, tending it with a long-handled two-pronged fork. He paused, crossing the floor to set down some items at Bill’s table: a basket of bread, knife and fork, oversized red-and-white-checked napkin that was none too clean.

  Bill barely took notice.

  “You want that steak rare, ain’t that right, friend?”

  “What I said,” Bill told the barkeep.

  “That’s what you git,” Hoke said, whisking back to the stove.

  Bill sat brooding, turning his situation over in his mind. Turning the whiskey tumbler around in his hand. He’d raced halfway across Texas in recent days at a breakneck pace on a desperate mission against overwhelming odds.

  He was nearly within reach of his goal. “No stopping me now,” he muttered under his breath.

  The thought that he had stopped himself never occurred to him. He craved food and drink and that’s the way it was.

  Harry Hoke brought Bill’s steak to the table. Bill moved cup and bottle to make room for the plate—moved them, but not too far away. Hoke set it down.

  The two men at the bar gulped down their drinks and went out.

  “So long, boys,” Hoke called to their retreating backs.

  The steak was a thick slab of meat whose edges overhung the plate. A slice down the middle revealed a red center, juicy and dripping.

  “Rare enough?” Hoke asked.

  Bill nodded yes, holding a knife in one hand and fork in the other. The gun was to the right of the plate, ready to hand.

  “Anything else you want, just sing out,” Harry Hoke said. Bill waved him away. Harry Hoke went to the bar and began wiping it down with a dirty wet towel.

  The aroma of hot roasted meat dripping with blood juices rose up into Bill’s face, causing his belly to twist up in knots. He’d forgotten how hungry he was. It had been a long time since he’d eaten a real sit-down meal.

  He tore into the steak with knife and fork, carving big chunks out of it and wolfing them down. A third of it was gone before he slowed down, the keen edge of his hunger blunted but not yet satisfied.

  He washed down the meat with a long, long drink of whiskey.

  Noise and motion on the far side of the saloon jolted Bill, and the gun was in his fist quick as winking before he saw that the intruder was some woman entering by the side door on the north side of the shack.

  She was heavyset and as old as his mother. Except that his mother was a nice lady and not a whiskey-crib whore. Nothing there worth a second glance, he thought.

  The newcomer went to the bar, her walk unsteady. She’d already gotten a start on the day’s drinking. She leaned on the bar, resting both meaty forearms on the countertop.

  “You’re up early, Lurline,” the barkeep said.

  Lurline was the saloon’s in-house whore. She pli
ed her trade in a crib in a shack that slumped against the rear of the saloon. Harry Hoke rented it to her in return for half her earnings; they weren’t much.

  “Gimme a drink, Harry.”

  “You buying, Lurline?”

  She called him a dirty name. He chuckled, the gold coin in his pocket buoying up what passed for his good nature.

  “Just one,” he said, “a small one.”

  He poured her a shot of raw brown whiskey, not the good red stuff he’d sold to Bill. Lurline tossed it back with practiced skill. She set down the shot glass and caught sight of Bill, her small round red eyes glinting in a puffy face framed by a rat’s nest of dun-gray hair.

  “Hmm, things are picking up around here,” she drawled.

  “Don’t bother the gentleman, Lurline,” Harry Hoke said tightly, his smile gone.

  “No bother ay-tall.” Lurline pushed herself off the bar and hip-swayed her way to Bill’s table. She faltered a step when she saw the pistol on the table. There was only one chair at the table and Bill was occupying it.

  Lurline stood, hands on hips, looking down at him as she swayed more than slightly. That irked Bill because she was blocking his view of the door.

  “Buy me a drink, handsome,” Lurline demanded.

  Bill got a good look at her. He took another drink, a stiff one. His Southern gentleman’s code required him to be polite to women, effort though it sometimes might be. “I’m not looking for company, ma’am,” he said.

  “Buy me a drink anyway,” she said.

  “Hey, barkeep!” Bill called.

  Harry Hoke came over, not happy. “Don’t bother the man, Lurline.”

  “Set her up one on me,” Bill said.

  “That’s more like it,” Lurline said, giving Hoke a sassy so-there look.

  “Drink it at the bar,” Bill told her.

  “Huh! You ain’t very friendly, sonny.”

  “I said, I’m not looking for company, ma’am.” Bill gave her a hard look with those gunsight eyes of his. If she’d been less hungover the sight would have chilled her to the bone, but as it was it didn’t register.

  Harry Hoke took hold of Lurline’s upper arm, fingers digging into flabby flesh. “Say thank you to the gentleman and come get your drink, Lurline.”