Clay Nash 3 Read online

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  CONTENTS

  About the Book

  Copyright

  One – Yuma

  Two – The Impossible Robbery

  Three – The Avengers

  Four – Tombstone Trail

  Five – Madame Mustang

  Six – Left for Dead

  Seven – Dakota on the Prod

  Eight – Hunt the Man Down

  Nine – Canyon Country

  Ten – One Last Try

  More on Brett Waring

  LONG TRAIL TO YUMA

  Folks looked upon Clint Christian as a kind of Robin Hood—the kind of outlaw who robbed from the rich and gave to the poor. They couldn’t have been more wrong. Christian was a cold-hearted killer who was sacrifice anything—and anyone—to get what he wanted.

  When he pulled off a seemingly impossibly robbery and left a pile of bodies behind him, Wells Fargo detective Clay Nash figured to be the one who brought Christian to book. One of the victims had been a friend of Clay’s, and that made it personal.

  But Clay’s boss, Jim Hume, wanted Christian brought in alive, to hang for his crimes. And to guarantee just that, he partnered Clay with Dakota Haines, a shotgun-wielding range detective who was willing to play even dirtier than the man they were out to catch.

  One – Yuma

  It was Clay Nash’s first time in Yuma and he was surprised that it wasn’t bigger. Somehow he had figured the town had to be as big as Tombstone or Dallas or Abilene but, though it rated a main street with several side streets, it was disappointing to him. The only consolation was that he was not staying long there.

  He was on assignment as an undercover agent of Wells Fargo and Company and a man didn’t delay any longer than necessary when on the trail of road agents who had tried to relieve the company of its express boxes.

  Right now he was on the trail of the meanest outlaw of them all, Black Bart, the self-styled ‘Po-8’, the poetic road agent who had a habit of leaving behind sardonic and appropriate verses at the scenes of his crimes. He had become the biggest thorn in the side of James Hume, Chief of Detectives for Wells Fargo, and Hume had sworn to get the man, even if he had to trail the outlaw to the ends of the earth. He had heard that Black Bart had headed towards Yuma after pulling his latest job to the north and Hume had immediately called in Nash, his ace undercover investigator, and assigned him to the case.

  “Get down there fast, Clay,” Hume had said, pacing his office restlessly, stirred by the possibility that he might have a positive lead to the elusive bandit. “Follow up that lead as far as it’ll go. You’ve got an open commission on this. Expenses, deals with outlaws, bounty posting, the lot. You’ve got full authority to do whatever’s necessary to nail that son of a bitch. And I want his head on a plate with an apple in his mouth, sitting right there, on my desk!”

  Bart had cost Wells Fargo hundreds of thousands of dollars and, despite the best detectives in the Union being set after him, the posting of fat rewards, the outlaw had managed to stay free. And he kept up his record of striking at Wells Fargo stages, at various points in the country. His latest method of thumbing his nose at Hume and his operatives was to leave biting little verses behind after successfully pulling off a robbery. It was frustrating to Hume, a man with a first-class record with Pinkertons, not to be able to lay his hands on a man who didn’t even use a horse in his escapades, not even during his getaway.

  Black Bart wasn’t particularly violent, but he was surely thorough and knew how to cover his tracks.

  “Where will you be operating from, Jim?” Nash asked his boss, knowing that Hume moved his headquarters all over the country, according to the intensity of hold-ups involving Wells Fargo.

  “I’ll be going to Tucson for a spell,” Hume replied. “If you need any kind of help or back-up, or more money, you wire me right away, Clay. All stops out on this one. It’s the hottest lead we’ve had so far.”

  Nash nodded. He couldn’t get fired-up over this like Hume. There had been so many ‘sightings’ and ‘leads’ to do with Black Bart and they had all petered out. It wasn’t likely that this would prove to be any different and it was one hell of a long ride down to Yuma.

  The only bright spot in the whole thing was that Pop Moran lived in Yuma and Clay had an open invitation to look him up any time he was down that way. Moran was another Wells Fargo agent/guard, a middle-aged man and the proud father of nine children ranging from late teens to less than a year. His prolific breeding was the cause of many jokes amongst the other Wells Fargo men but Pop took it all in his stride with an amiable grin and a shrug of his shoulders. He was a likeable cuss and Nash hadn’t seen him since they had worked together almost a year ago on the Cash Matthews case down in Texas, Nash’s first assignment as an undercover gun.

  He was looking forward to seeing the good-humored agent again and he stopped at the Wells Fargo depot on Yucca Street to pick up another message from Hume, saying that the sighting of Black Bart in the Yuma area was positive. Then Clay asked the way to Moran’s house. He was told it was on the north side of town, a quarter-acre block with a huge rambling log-and-adobe house, still incomplete.

  “Guess Pop don’t take enough time off from increasin’ his brood to get around to finishin’ it!” the depot agent told Nash with a laugh.

  Nash chuckled, got explicit directions, and headed out to the north edge of town.

  The place was easy to find. It seemed to have been sliced in two by the blow from some giant axe, but half of it was missing, leaving the remainder standing starkly, the walls and eaves and roof ending in a blank clapboard wall that rose from ground level clear up to the top of the second floor. The rest of the house was mainly complete, though a few windows had shutters over them in place of glass and some planks jutted out jaggedly, waiting to be sawn off flush with their fellows. The ground was littered with piles of weathered lumber and broken toys and tools rusting away. There were patches of weeds and the place had a look of neglect ... except for the tribe of wildly yelling and whooping kids that seemed to come running from every corner when Nash showed up.

  The kids didn’t come too close but regarded Nash with open curiosity as he dismounted and gingerly started up the three propped-up steps to the porch. Before he reached the pine-plank door, it opened and he blinked as he stared into the smiling, blue-eyed face of a beautiful girl about nineteen. Her face was framed by blonde hair falling free and, though her gingham dress was old and faded, it was clean and neatly pressed.

  “Hello,” she greeted him brightly. “I’m Maggie Moran. And you just have to be Clay Nash.”

  Nash’s surprise must have shown on his face for she laughed and held out a hand to him, leading him inside.

  “Pa’s described you often enough when he’s told us of your exploits. I am right, aren’t I?”

  “Yes’m,” Nash said quietly as she led him into a cluttered parlor. “I hope your pa’s home and not out on assignment?”

  “He’s home. Ma’s just trying to talk him into clearing some of the weeds from the front walk. He’ll be glad to see you. It’ll get him out of the job very nicely!”

  Nash smiled and followed through into the kitchen where Pop Moran was sipping coffee from a chipped cup at a deal table, and a tiny woman no more than five feet tall and about ninety pounds in weight, stood beside his chair, holding a wooden spoon threateningly above his head.

  Moran jumped out of his chair when he saw Nash and the small woman, flustered, hid the spoon behind her back and pushed a wisp of hair out of her eyes with her other hand.

  “Well, I’ll be dogged! Clay, you old sonuver!” roared Moran, gripping hands with Nash. “Great to see you, man! Great! See you’ve met my eldest gal, now come and meet the little woma
n. Sarah, this is Clay Nash.”

  “Don’t think this gets you out of that chore, Moran,” the small woman told Pop. “It only delays it.” She smiled warmly at Nash. “Don’t mind us, we’re always feudin’ about somethin’.”

  Moran sighed heavily and nodded. “Usually means we’re gonna have another addition to the family when she starts in on me about fixin’ things around the house.”

  Maggie turned from the stove where she was preparing a fresh pot of coffee. “Is that right, Mama?”

  The little woman nodded slowly. “Seems that way. Moran Number Ten ought to be here end of fall, near as I can judge.”

  Maggie’s face sobered as she looked at her father. “Oh, Pa! You know we can barely manage now!”

  “Hell, don’t blame me!” Moran said indignantly. “It ain’t all my fault.” He cleared his throat. “Clay, you’re welcome in this house for as long as you like to stay, but right now I figure we could be more pleasured if we went to the saloon and had a yarn over a couple of cold beers.”

  Nash said, “Sure, Pop. But I’d like to have some of that coffee I can smell brewin’. Best I’ve smelt in a coon’s age!”

  He smiled at the women and Mrs. Moran chuckled. “You’d have Irish ancestors, somewheres, I’ll allow.”

  “My mother’s parents were Irish,” Nash admitted.

  “And they kissed the Blarney Stone, I’ve no doubt ... Go on, the pair of you. But don’t come back here for supper drunk, you hear?”

  Pop Moran got to his feet and kissed the small woman lightly on the forehead. “You always was an easy-goin’ woman, Mother.”

  She smiled faintly. “With you for a husband, I have to be.” She gestured at the grubby young faces appearing at the windows and in the doorways as the kids gathered to stare at Nash.

  Maggie handed Nash his hat and looked up into his eyes. “I hope you’ll come back for supper, Mr. Nash, maybe stay over. We’ll find a bed, won’t we, Ma?”

  “If Mr. Nash wants to stay, he’s welcome,” Mrs. Moran said, looking closely at Maggie as the girl beamed.

  Nash nodded awkwardly, muttered a ‘thank you’ and went out slowly with Moran. They were besieged by the kids on the way down the weed-grown walk and Moran bellowed at them good-naturedly as they went out the gate and headed back towards town.

  “What have you been tellin’ Maggie, Pop?” Nash demanded, and the older man raised his eyebrows quizzically. “She’s kind of actin’ like I’m someone special. It’s embarrassin’.”

  Moran grinned. “Guess I’ve been tellin’ her about your exploits. Maggie’s at an impressionable age. Guess she’s got what they call hero-worship.”

  Nash grunted, still feeling uneasy. Moran punched him lightly on the shoulder as they came to a saloon and turned towards the batwings.

  “If it’s any consolation, until she got interested in your doin’s, Clint Christian was a kind of hero to her.”

  Nash paused with a hand reaching out for the batwings. “Christian?”

  Moran smiled at his surprise.

  “Yeah, the outlaw. Kinda soberin’, ain’t it? But he’s a romantic character to a lot of folk around these parts. Had a brush with the law, a crooked sheriff, who killed his brother and father. That’s what drove him to the owlhoot trail in the first place. He’s sure a mean one now, but plenty of people look on him as a hero still, like some goddamn Robin Hood.”

  Nash nodded as they went in and headed for the bar. “Like Black Bart, eh? Because he thumbs his nose at Wells Fargo with his stupid little verses, folk seem to think there’s somethin’ smart about him. That is, until he steals somethin’ that belongs to them!”

  Moran nodded and ordered two beers. He lowered his voice as he turned to Nash. “You here because of the sightin’ of Black Bart in this neck of the woods?”

  Nash nodded.

  “You’re wastin’ your time—and Hume’s,” Moran said. “It ain’t Bart. Just someone tryin’ to copy his ways.”

  Nash frowned, sipping his beer. “You sure?”

  “It’s what I figure. This is too far out of Bart’s territory. I know. I was held up by him once, when I was a guard. He sticks to his own neck of the woods. Same as Clint Christian ... Well, drink up. I’m on duty come midnight and it’s been a long time since we had a powwow.”

  Nash ordered another round and Moran glanced about at the other drinkers, lowered his voice.

  “Ridin’ guard on the express van on the Tucson train,” he said quietly. “Carryin’ gold and more than a hundred thousand dollars in cash.”

  Nash whistled. “Some freight!”

  Moran nodded, a trace of worry in his eyes. “It’s for a new bank. They’re closin’ the branch here and transferrin’ the money by that train. Wells Fargo are takin’ it on and I’m in charge of the guards. S’posed to be on the quiet but most of the town knows. Can’t keep these things secret.” He drained his second glass. “Time for another?”

  “I’ll have a whisky this time.”

  Nash nodded noticing how tense Pop Moran was under the surface. He seemed to be really worried about this job on the train.

  Moran said, “I’d like to go over my security arrangements with you, Clay. See what you think of ’em.”

  “We’ll take our drinks to a back table, where we won’t be disturbed.”

  He frowned as he watched Pop Moran impatiently waiting for the drinks. He had never seen the man so jumpy.

  ~*~

  Clint Christian wasn’t a big man but he was deadly. He was a man, who, once committed, followed through at whatever cost on whatever project he decided to launch himself. He was a dapper dresser, usually wearing flowered vest over a white shirt with black string tie and brown whipcord trousers tucked into the tops of polished, tooled-leather half boots. His gun rig was always oiled and buffed and he wore his single Colt Frontier Model .44 in a basket weave, double-loop holster with a braided thong of contrasting rawhide for tying down the base to his thigh. He wore a buff-colored Stetson with a concha-studded hatband.

  Some men had made the mistake of figuring him for a tinhorn or a dude and most of them were resting at peace under a marker on some windy Boot Hill. Those who had lived to talk about it, figured themselves lucky and helped enhance Christian’s reputation throughout the frontier. He kept his red hair neat and trimmed and he favored brown buckskin gloves when he was riding, to save his hands. He was as unpredictable as quicksilver.

  Like Black Bart, he seemed to delight in deliberately courting danger and thumbing his nose at the law. He had been known to ride in on some remote town, lock up the local law, and take over for days at a time with his men, whooping it up, spending big, throwing his money around to townsfolk, buying candy for the kids, closing the schools, keeping the saloons open twenty-four hours a day. And then, one morning, the townspeople would awaken to a silent, hushed town and they would know that Christian and his bunch had moved on, as suddenly as they had appeared.

  He didn’t always leave a favorable impression on these towns. His men got drunk and there were fights and the occasional killing. He gunned men down himself at times, his own or townsmen, whoever happened to be the target for his black rage when it gripped him. But, generally, Clint Christian was spoken of in reverent tones by frontier folk and the daring of his deeds sometimes overshadowed the fact that he left dead men behind.

  Christian should have been a rich man by now, with all the money he had stolen, but he spent it as fast as he got it and when it was gone, he would go out and steal more.

  He had a birthday coming up soon and he was surprised, when he counted up the years, to find that he was nearing forty. He sat up in his bed at the realization and looked down at the naked shoulders of the sleeping Oriental girl at his side. He rubbed a hand lightly over his clean-shaven jaw and frowned. Forty! It was time to get out of this game, he figured. Time to take a trip some place like New Orleans or ’Frisco or New York or Boston ... or all those places. Hell, why not? But a trip like that would take a lot o
f money.

  The thought had kept him awake the rest of that night until, finally, he had figured how he could raise the cash. He would make one last big raid that would have people talking from one end of the country to the other about Clint Christian, the daring outlaw. Around Yuma there had been a persistent rumor for weeks that a train with a special express car attached was going to transfer the money from the defunct Arizona National Bank at Yuma to Tucson, together with the gold that had accumulated in the vaults over the years. With loot like that he could travel the world, to Paris, London, the Orient.

  The only problem was how to pull off a robbery on a train like that. The express car was steel-lined and he had heard that there were special chutes built into the floor, with wide-mouth funnels at right angles, pointing outwards along each edge. These were to enable the guards to fire their shotguns from inside without having to expose themselves at the loopholes. A man simply discharged his shotgun down into the chute hole in the floor and the buckshot ricocheted out through the baffled funnels in a wide spread, knocking down anyone trying to approach the car along the sides. There were other chutes in the roof and the doors were steel-lined and barred.

  A man couldn’t even burn or blast the Wells Fargo men out of an armored express van like that. How in hell was he going to get at it?

  Then, for no good reason, he suddenly thought of the Mishawka tribe of the Comanche Indians he had grown up with. That was on the outskirts of the old asbestos-mining town where his father had worked ... until that crooked lawman had cut him down. Christian’s face sobered then and he felt the beginnings of one of his black moods coming upon him, as memories came flooding back.

  Abruptly, the mood left him and his face straightened to show a kind of wonder that gave way to a slow smile.

  The Mishawkas had given him the answer to his problem!

  Two – The Impossible Robbery