Hellfire Canyon

by Max McCoy

Genres: Westerns

Synopsis

MaxMcCoy has made a name for himself among fans of Old West tales by penning novels that sizzle with the heat of flying lead and lightning-fast gunslingers.

Hellfire Canyon features Alf Brolin, a tall drink of water who guns down innocent victims with the same carelessness with which he quotes classic literature. Federal trooper Zach Thomas, however, lacks any appreciation for Brolin’s airs and means to see the outlaw put six feet in the ground.

Release date: November 20, 2014

Publisher: Pinnacle Books

Print pages: 256

Sample

Seventy years pass.

As I write these lines, I am sitting at a window table in the House of Lords Bar on the principal thoroughfare of Joplin, a bloody-knuckled mining town in the southwest corner of Missouri. A glass of whiskey is at my elbow. In my left coat pocket is a .45-caliber Colt automatic, a brutish weapon compared to the elegant simplicity of the cap-and-ball revolvers of my youth, but a handgun that has no equal in pure man-stopping power. Such have become the tools in my line of work.

Outside, the street hums with commerce—horses and wagons and motor cars and the electric trolleys that unite the outlying mining camps with the fledgling metropolis. It is late afternoon and scattered on the sidewalks are the miners, the long-faced men upon whose backs this wealth is built, lunch pails swinging at the ends of lanky arms.

I have never cared much for Joplin, or any center of commerce for that matter, preferring instead the solitude of the deep Ozarks of my childhood.

But I have been summoned here to meet a scribbler for one of the local newspapers, and since consideration is promised, I am happy enough to drown the bitterness with whiskey, watch the thoroughfare, and record my thoughts while awaiting the appointed hour. The reporter, one Frank Donovan, wants the story of my life.

Of course, Donovan will want to know about Alf Bolin.

And I won’t tell the truth.

Instead, I will spin the tale that is expected—that I was forced by circumstances at the tender age of thirteen to become the youngest member of the Bolin gang. I will say Bolin was a monster who killed without remorse, that he was an illiterate woodsman with an animal’s cunning for the chase and the kill, and that while I was lucky enough to escape with my hide intact, the ordeal set my feet firmly on the path of crime. My only saving grace, I will plead, is that for all my dash and daring, for all of the crimes committed since those dark days in the wilderness, I have never shed innocent blood.

And it will all be lies.

When I finally met Jacob Gamble, the outlaw fiddler, it was in the House of Lords not half a block from the newspaper office. He was sitting at a table near the window of the bar, sipping whiskey and writing in a neat hand in a ledger book.

Instead of introducing myself right away, I went to the bar, exchanged a few words with the tavern owner, Joe Dorizzi, and gave him a package to keep. Then I lingered at the bar and nursed a cold glass of beer while studying my subject from a safe distance. It was a habit developed in my years of interviewing princes and paupers, and it usually paid off. People’s behavior speaks volumes about their approach to the world, and a little observation allows me to tailor my approach to the job at hand.

I knew it was Gamble because he was unmistakably the man I had studied in old photographs—a patch over his right eye, tall and rail-thin, possessed of an almost feminine grace, and with a visage that reminded me of the statue of Moses at the church of St. Peter in Chains at Rome. In other words, he resembled a man whose face radiated with a secret light after meeting with God and living to tell of it. About the only things that were missing were the horns that Michelangelo had placed on the top of the patriarch’s head.

The stub of a pencil was clutched in Gamble’s left hand, and on the tabletop was a pocketknife that he periodically used to trim the lead to a fine point. He was wearing black, and even though he was in his eighties, he had a full head of long blond hair that had gone gray only at the temples. Every so often, he would peer out the window onto the hubbub of Main Street, and the afternoon light reflected in his one good eye, which was clear and blue.

Soon, he grew restless and glanced at his pocket watch, and I decided it was time to end my study and get on with it. I finished my beer, straightened my clothes, and walked with purpose to the table.

“Frankie Donovan,” I said.

Gamble smiled.

“A girl reporter,” he said. “You didn’t say that in your letter.”

“Frank Donovan is my byline,” I said. “I don’t want to be thought of as just a ‘girl reporter.’ Besides, would it have mattered if I had identified myself as a woman?”

“Yes,” he said. “I would have answered much sooner.”

Gamble placed the pencil in the ledger and closed it, closed the pocketknife and placed it in his vest pocket, and stood. His chair scraped on the wooden floor as it was forced backward by the strength of his calves.

I held out my hand, but instead of shaking it, he took it gently in his left hand and brought it to his lips. The kiss was brief enough to remain within the bounds of good taste, but just long enough to be sincere.

“Charming,” he said.

I felt myself blush.

Then he moved to pull a chair out for me, but I insisted on doing it myself.

“As you wish,” he said, but waited until I had taken my seat before returning to his.

“Why do you dress in men’s clothing?”

“Because it is a man’s world.”

“And you aim to be a part of it?”

“Something like that,” I said.

“Then let us behave as men,” Gamble said. He drained his whiskey, lifted the glass, and beckoned for another. “You said you wanted to know the story of my life. I gather that the only reason you are interested in me is because of the talking picture.”

“It has created a sensation.”

I indicated to the bartender that I would have a whiskey as well.

“Have you seen it?” he asked.

“I was at the premiere two nights ago, a block from here at the Orpheum. It was entertaining enough. But I’m curious about how much of the story is true.”

“Does it matter?” Gamble asked.

“Of course it matters,” I said. “Readers are mad for anything connected to Hollywood, and a local angle is guaranteed sales at the newsstand. It was shot locally, you know—Granby is just a few miles from here.”

“I know where Granby is,” Gamble said as the Irish waiter brought a tray with two straight whiskeys. The waiter placed the drinks on the table, removed Gamble’s empty glass, and waited patiently.

“This one is on my partner,” Gamble said.

“Of course,” I said, and fumbled in my pocket for a silver dollar and placed it on the tray.

“Keep the change,” Gamble said.

The waiter nodded his thanks, then vanished.

Gamble raised his drink.

“Here’s to the end of Prohibition,” he said.

“So, did you see the picture?” I asked.

“The actor who plays me in the film—what’s his name?”

“Tyrone Power.”

“Never heard of him.”

“He’s new.”

“Well, he’s too old to be playing me,” Gamble said. “He must be twenty. So is the actor who plays Bolin. But I liked his performance somewhat better.”

“John Huston,” I said. “He’s thirty. He was born not far from here, in the town of Nevada. He also wrote the script.”

“He didn’t ask my advice.”

“He thought you were dead.”

“Well, should have known better than to call it Hellfire Canyon,” Gamble said. “There are no canyons in the Ozarks—hollers, yes, but canyon is a Western word.”

“The movie is a Western,” I said. “It was probably named by the studio, to attract the largest audience. Besides, Hellfire Holler sounds like a comedy, doesn’t it?”

“There was nothing funny about Murder Rock.”

“I rather like their title,” I said. “It suggests a place where one’s very soul is in peril. Good and evil. And that reminds me.”

From my jacket pocket I withdrew the ledger pages that Gamble had sent. I unfolded them and placed them on the table between us.

“Is there more?”

“Yes,” he said.

“So what happens next?”

Gamble smiled.

“This is a neat bit of fiction,” I said.

“It is not a storybook,” Gamble said defensively. “I put it down as I remember it. Of course, seventy years have passed, and some of the names and dates escape me now. But the entire account is true.”

I nodded toward the pages.

“Do you always write in ledger books?”

“It is a habit I developed long ago,” he said. “Ledger pages are lined, and were always much easier to obtain than the blank kind that folks use for letters home.”

“This episode,” I said, tapping the pages. “It is peculiar. You don’t explain what brought you to Murder Rock, or who you wanted to kill, or even whether you pulled the trigger on the poor corporal.”

Gamble shrugged.

“It was all I felt like sending.”

I did not hide my frustration.

“Let us understand one another,” I said. “I’m not some little girl begging for a story at my grand-father’s knee. I am a professional in need of a story for tomorrow’s paper, and if you are unwilling, you should stop wasting my time.”

“Your newspaper,” Gamble said, “does not have the space to publish my story.”

“Try me,” I said. “I’m very good at summary.”

“You mentioned consideration in your letter,” Gamble said.

“I have something in mind,” I said. “But I will make my offer only after I’ve heard your story. If you find the offer unacceptable, then I agree to print not a word of our conversation.”

“Do you play poker, Miss Donovan?”

“From time to time,” I said. “From what I’ve read about you, Mr. Gamble, you don’t seem like the kind of man to shy away from a risk.”

“Nor do you,” Gamble said. “You’ve been admiring the line of my jacket.”

“I recognize the outline of a heater when I see one.”

Gamble laughed.

“Heater,” he said. “Now, who came up with that bit of slang? These gangsters nowadays, they are spoiled. Thompsons. Guns that spray bullets as if from a fire hose.”

“Was it so very different when Bolin and his guerrillas carried braces of six-guns?” I asked. “The typical soldier carried a rifle that could fire perhaps three shots a minute, with expert reloading. You could accurately place a dozen shots in the same amount of time.”

“Your point,” Gamble said.

“Why do you still feel a need to carry a gun?”

“My enemies are legion,” he said.

Before I could ask what enemies, he changed the subject.

“You know, I have disliked the bobbed hair that women have adopted since the last decade,” Gamble said. “But, Miss Donovan, it suits you.”

“It is a practical matter,” I said. “Short hair is easier to care for.”

“If people think I am dead,” he asked, “how did you find me?”

“I have a friend at the penitentiary at Jefferson City,” I said. “He sent me the addresses they had on file when they locked you up. I wrote to all of them.”

“Ah,” Gamble said.

“Will you tell me your story?”

“Do you have the time?”

“I understand the bar stays open quite late,” I said.

“You must promise that you won’t publish until I have left the state,” he said. “A couple of days should put extradition behind me.”

“And don’t worry,” I said. “I won’t tell where you live.”

“You don’t know where I live,” he said. “That letter was forwarded.”

I took a pencil and a sheaf of blank pages from my pocket. The papers were folded twice, lengthwise, which gave six clean panels per sheet on which to write. I took a few shorthand notes about some of the things that Gamble had already told me.

Then I sensed that Gamble’s mood had changed.

“It’s important for you to relax,” I said. “Lots of folks get nervo. . .