To Hell and Back

by P. A. Bechko

  Berglund was turning it all over in his mind. To have survived in the desert all this time, there had to have been some changes in Amanda. Plenty of them. And there’d been the man with her, the man she’d broke jail with. The man named Hollander. Fresh in from ram-rodding a trail drive he had claimed. Such a man would know the land. No doubt it had been he who had engineered the jailbreak. But what had brought them back to Phoenix?

  The answers which occurred to him, Berglund didn’t care for. If they had a brain between them, there was only one thing that could have brought them back to Phoenix, risking their necks to the hangman. They had to know what had happened in the bank that day and he was no less sure they had to have some proof.

  Laura Chambly had been a friend of Amanda’s. If they were hiding out in her little frame house tonight, they undoubtedly planned on having Laura contact the sheriff for them in the morning. That meant he had to move before the day arrived.

  He handed Rubin a five dollar gold piece then opened the door and ushered him out. On the doorstep he hesitated only a moment to cement his informant’s continued cooperation.

  “Thank you, Rubin, you’ve been a big help. There’ll be more from where that came from when we capture them and they’re brought to justice.”

  A silly smile creased the drunk’s face when he tightened his fist around the piece of gold Berglund had given him. Why he didn’t even have to bite it to be sure it was real. He dipped his head in a deferential nod, slapped his grubby hat on his head, and disappeared into the darkness. By the time the sun rose, Rubin decided as he hurried along, heading back to his ramshackle hut on the edge of town, he’d be a hero. The whole town would know it was he who turned in the two outlaws, spotted them when they rode back into town.

  He hurried on. When the trouble started he didn’t intend to be on the street. It was with a little guilt he recalled that, in his eagerness, he had not mentioned he had seen the woman wearing a gun.

  Oh, hell, he decided, that didn’t matter none! Humming tunelessly to himself he walked along the dark street. John Berglund would keep him in whiskey the rest of his life.

  * * *

  Berglund watched Rubin move off down the street with disgust. He closed the door insuring his privacy, then cursed roundly under his breath. He had to act swiftly. The arrival of that pair in town could only mean trouble for him. But, whatever they believed they could accomplish, they hadn’t brazenly ridden in the light of day. That gave him reason to believe he could still head off whatever disaster they were planning.

  Clarissa Berglund, clad in her night clothes of sweeping white gown and burgundy robe, stood at the top of the stairs, her smile fixed, as if carved in stone, as she’d already heard more than she cared to. Her eyes were hard, their level stare coolly directed at John.

  Her husband felt the weight of her gaze and glanced up.

  “Trouble on the other side of town. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  He tossed out the conciliatory words like penny candy to a child, then turned, completely dismissing her from his thoughts as he threw off the chamois jacket and donned a more sober darkly tailored jacket against the night chill.

  Then he strapped on his gun with a few deft movements, thinking of Amanda Cleary and Laura Chambly as he did. As different as night and day those two. Laura had been a possession once. She still was, if it came down to it. Laura, timid and shy, was afraid to cause trouble. Berglund had spotted her when she’d arrived in Phoenix. He’d thought her a pretty little thing and he’d been bored with the whores over the saloon. It had been a simple matter to coerce her into becoming his mistress by subtly threatening to use his influence to cost her her job at the school and have no recommendation elsewhere. It had been enough, and theirs had become a steady, and satisfying relationship. He had been discreet to protect her reputation in the eyes of the school board.

  The little school teacher had never been feisty like Amanda, who could be, by turns, oblique, infuriating, and so desirable it made his teeth hurt. Laura had held little interest for him once he’d focused on Amanda.

  He’d wanted Amanda from the first, had made it plain to her, even, in his opinion, humbled himself for her. But she had wanted none of it. Would have no part of him except as boss at the bank. As she’d put it very plainly; he was a married man.

  The eastern tenderfoot, alone in the isolated desert town, had surprised him. She had made him look the fool. She had accepted his threat of firing her and making it impossible for her to get another job in this town or another, with unflappable calm. He could still remember those deep, dusky green eyes staring at him and her softly spoken words informing him simply that he should do what he felt he had to do.

  His fury had been boundless, but he hadn’t fired her then, he still wanted her. Wanted her more than ever in fact. He’d been contemplating another approach when she’d been swept up in the bank robbery that had gotten young, stupid, Eddie killed. The robbery, planned for quite some time had conspired with circumstance to give Berglund exactly what he’d needed.

  The banker clapped his neatly creased and expensive black felt hat on his head and stepped outside. There were a couple of men in town who owed him favors and would ask no questions. He’d round them up first and get over to Laura’s place. When it was over, Laura wouldn’t be hard to intimidate into silence.

  He glanced toward the faint glow of lamplight filtering from behind Laura Chambly’s firmly pulled shades. Shadows moved about inside. Rubin hadn’t misled him. Something was going on over there. Laura did not normally stay up until such an hour.

  He stepped off his porch, and with long strides, headed for the saloon.

  Chapter 20

  “Are you both crazy?” Laura repeated, “You were convicted of bank robbery and murder. If they find you here you’ll hang! Probably tonight!” She put her hand over her mouth and sank into a chair. “I don’t even want to think about it. What are you doing here?”

  “Imposing on a friendship.”

  Amanda rested a hand on the other young woman’s shoulder.

  “I’m sorry, Laura. We had to come somewhere. All the men who took part in the bank robbery are dead, except Berglund. He’s our last chance to prove we didn’t have anything to do with it. We’re going to bluff him into admitting he organized the whole thing. When we do we’re going to need a witness.”

  Laura’s eyes widened, lighting her small, heart-shaped face with a look that bordered on terror.

  “Me? Why John would never—I mean why did you pick me?” Laura looked rapidly from Amanda to Hollander.

  “You don’t have to be in sight when we get him to confess.”

  “Confess to what? Amanda, he said he saw you working with the bank robbers at the trial! John is a very respected man! No one will believe you—or me!”

  “Laura . . .”

  “And there’d be a trial if anyone did believe you. I’d have to testify then, in front of the whole town!” she wailed.

  Hollander’s eyes narrowed. “Amanda believed you’re a friend.”

  A profound silence settled over the room, backdrop to the distant, muffled tinkling of the saloon’s piano and Laura’s frantic breathing.

  She clutched the front halves of her dressing gown self-consciously, holding it tightly closed across her. “I . . .” she began, looking away from Amanda. “You never knew about John Berglund and me.”

  Her cheeks reddened and she didn’t dare look in Hollander’s direction.

  “We—that is, he threatened me. My job here, my teaching everywhere else. My life, really. He would have destroyed me. I finally did what he wanted. He came to me often.” Her hand fluttered away from the soft, expensive material of her gown, then returned in a white-knuckled clench. “You didn’t, Amanda. You had too much pride.” She choked out the words. “And look what he’s done to you! I never told you. I should have! You never knew.”

  Amanda firmly took Laura’s small, white, trembling hands in her own rough, sun-darkened
hands . “I knew, Laura. I knew.”

  Hollander swore. “If you knew Berglund had her under his thumb why did we come here?”

  “Because I believed Laura, more than most, would have a reason to want to see Berglund face justice!” Amanda snapped. “Now shut up!”

  She turned back to Laura.

  “If we can bluff him into admitting he planned the robbery, that he was responsible, got his cut, we’ll both be free.”

  Hollander frowned. “She looks plenty scared to me.”

  Amanda knew he was right, but she wasn’t one to harp on the obvious. The fear the other young woman radiated into the tiny lamp-lit room was almost palpable.

  “We can help each other,” Amanda said softly.

  For a moment, the school teacher brightened, glancing from Amanda to Hollander, and back to Amanda. An instant later she huddled beneath the burden of her uncertainty. “What if it doesn’t work? I don’t know . . .” Her hands dropped to her lap and, eyes downcast, she nervously stared at them.

  Amanda looked helplessly at Hollander who shrugged. “If she won’t help, we either have to risk it in front of the whole town, or ride. Now.”

  “Laura?”

  “I’m sorry. John Berglund scares me to death,” she whispered. Then, more strongly, “I just can’t do it.”

  “A wise choice,” Berglund said from the front door as he stepped quickly through it, closing it behind his entrance, pocketing his key.

  The muzzle of his gun, ugly and black, covered them all. At the rear of Laura’s tiny house glass shattered, the noise of it coming nearly simultaneously with the banker’s entrance and a gun poked in through the back window.

  Laura gained her feet and almost jumped across the room, putting distance between herself and her old friend as the color washed rapidly from her cheeks leaving her ashen. Her hands, small and slender, were noticeably trembling. She simply didn’t know what to do with them, finally settling on clutching again at her night clothes to still them as she knotted the fine fabric.

  Amanda froze, eyes focused on the muzzle of Berglund’s gun which seemed to her to grow larger and blacker by the second. Hollander, his back to the door, his face closed, it nonetheless conveyed in stark lines how much trouble they were in.

  “Go open the back door and let my friends in, Laura,” Berglund said to her in patient, sugared tones.

  Laura nearly leapt to do Berglund’s bidding, pulling herself together enough to hurry, on stiff legs, to the rear door and unlatch it.

  A couple of the town’s local toughs hovered on the back step awaiting their boss’s orders. A couple of shiftless wonders who hung out mostly in the Saloon or in front of the General Store most of the time when they weren’t out doing some kind of odd job to buy themselves more whiskey or tobacco.

  “You’ve changed since we last saw each other,” Berglund said to Amanda as if they were old friends reuniting after a long separation.

  “Experience is a hard teacher.”

  “Experience has nothing to do with the desert sun and its been kind to you. I do think darker skin becomes you.” He motioned to the gun hung low on her hip. “What’s that for little Pistolera?” he asked, making no effort to mask his amusement at seeing it there.

  “Equalizer,” Amanda said evenly. “You’d be surprised what it can do. Holster yours and I’ll show you,” she crooned her offer as Berglund’s men stepped in and to either side of the back door.

  Laura hovered near them like a wraith. Not speaking, she was continually gripping the fine lawn of her nightgown, wrinkling it in odd patches, mute.

  “Ooooeee!” the taller, darker of the pair exclaimed with unfettered glee, “I wouldn’t mind seeing that.”

  Berglund’s lips turned down in a sour expression. He stared hard at the woman he’d thought he’d known and damned if he was able to tell whether or not she was bluffing. He held his gun and hers was holstered. He was not a risk-taker. Still, it piqued his curiosity.

  “Shut up, Amanda,” Hollander said softly, using that unique command tone Amanda had come to accept under certain circumstances.

  “You’ve mellowed too,” Berglund observed. “I don’t remember you being the type to take that off a man before.”

  Amanda didn’t answer. Her eyes gleamed with a predator’s glint.

  “We’ve been together a while now,” Hollander said easily. “I reckon I just have some special privileges.”

  “I’ll bet you do,” Berglund sneered.

  That brought Amanda’s chin up a bit and the look in her green eyes flattened.

  “She was faster than your man Ben,” Hollander apprised him in a murmur gritty as sand whipped against stone. “And he drew first.”

  Berglund’s startled expression betrayed everything. How could they have tracked and killed him? They had been running for their lives when they’d lit out of Phoenix, a posse hot on their trail.

  “The thin lanky one died in a canyon a good way south of here,” Hollander continued, laconically throwing in a lie, “his pard tried me.” He paused, drawing a deep breath. “We caught up with Rafael down in Santa Cruz. You’re the last one Berglund.”

  “You’ll never get the chance to prove anything, even if you could, which I doubt. Hell, what do you expect me to do, crack and confess everything? You think I’m stupid enough to believe you have all that money right here with you tucked in your saddlebags outside?”

  Hollander shook his head.

  “Not all of it. Your boys had been busy spending some of it when we caught up to them. But we got back the chunk that belongs to my boss back in Texas and maybe a little to give back to your depositors.”

  “And how do you decide which part of the money you recovered?”

  “Simple. I do the recovering. I decide what I got back.”

  Berglund shook his head.

  “I’m not letting you bluff me. Now keep your hands clear of your guns and get outside.” He flicked his gun toward the back door.

  Hollander started to walk and for all the grace Amanda knew him to possess, he moved like a lumbering bear. “Sure is a shame,” he growled the words out as he came alongside Berglund’s two henchmen.

  He looked first one, then the other straight in the eye.

  “Were a man to take me at my word, I might be persuaded to distribute the recovered money differently.”

  Hollander saw their eyes flick toward Berglund with suspicion, but more importantly, he saw greed spark to life in the farthest depths of their dark, dull eyes.

  “Yep,” Hollander rambled on as they came to the open door, “we’ve got all that money right in our saddlebags.”

  Berglund caught the look in his men’s eyes, straightened and gave a derisive snort.

  “If the money’s there, it won’t be doing either of you any good.”

  Herding Hollander and Amanda before him into the night’s darkness, Berglund, for the first time since he’d entered the house, focused his full attention on Laura. “You lock this door after us, and keep your nose inside. You and I’ll be having us a little talk later.”

  In silent terror, Laura nodded in silence, then closed the door as they descended the steps and finally leaned against the rough, wooden portal a moment after she slipped the latch in place. Her breath caught in her throat with a hitch. She heard the voices outside, muffled now, and moving away. The unevenness of the planks dug into her back and sharp bits caught on the fine cotton of her dressing gown.

  “Now what?” Amanda asked as she edged a little beyond where Berglund had stopped them, reaching for the cover of the shadows.

  Berglund laughed. It was a cold and bitter sound.

  “You’re still in possession of your weapons. You’re both going to make a break for it, and be killed in the fracas. As for the money,” Berglund shrugged, “if there is any in the saddlebags as your partner claims, I’ll give it to my friends here for their help. You see, I really am a generous man.”

  Amanda’s hand had been easing nearer t
o her gun in the darkness of the shadows, but with guns already pointing at her from all sides, she doubted she would make it. Thoughts flowed through her mind in a rapid-fire sequence. Had Berglund noticed? Was he just giving her more rope to hang herself? She was aware of Hollander near her, of his effort to put as much distance between himself and her as he could. She knew how his mind worked. A scattered target was better than a grouped one and he’d be counting on them going for him first. Despite their earlier boasts about her abilities, he would be considered the real threat.

  They stood unmoving surrounded by the banker and his two gunnys. Berglund smiled benignly at Amanda and Hollander.

  “Any time you’re ready.”

  Amanda’s heart was beating triple time in her chest and she couldn’t help grinding her teeth. Perhaps Berglund had taken no notice of her subtle moves, leaving her with at least a particle of a chance that she could at least take him with her when the lead started flying.

  Seconds dragged by and Hollander was wound tight as new cat gut on a fiddle. Berglund would kill them both if he could, but the man was relishing making them squirm before he pulled the trigger.

  By all that was holy, they’d played out their hand. Someone tipped Berglund. There was no other way for him to have gotten there so fast, but that didn’t excuse their stupidity in not keeping a watch on the street.

  Idiocy no longer mattered. Nor did blame. Now they were left with only one way out and that was to fight, or the slimy scum before them would gun them both down where they stood. Between them, Hollander guessed he and Amanda had a snowflake’s chance in hell of coming out of this alive, but there was nothing for it but to try.

  The palm of his hand was itching to feel the cool butt of his six-gun. They were starting out uneven, but he knew deep down he was going to take out Berglund. His mind would accept no other conclusion. Even if he went down, he was going to take Berglund with him. If they couldn’t succeed, neither would that damned banker.