Clay Nash 17 Read online

  The Home of Great Western Fiction!

  Moss Dooley’s gang hit the stage just within the shadows of Hangman’s Spur. Men died, the coach crashed … and its cargo of fifty thousand dollars vanished. Only trouble was, no one knew just where it had gone!

  The job of tracking it down – and trying to prove the innocence of the prime suspect – went to Clay Nash, Wells Fargo’s top troubleshooter. But every lead he followed ended up going nowhere.

  The only fact that remained constant throughout the whole investigation was Hangman’s Spur, a towering mountain range with a bad reputation.

  Clay decided the secret would be found somewhere up on those rocky slopes … but that was when the killing really began in earnest!

  CLAY NASH 17: RIDE THE STAGE TO HANGMAN’S SPUR

  By Brett Waring

  First Published by The Cleveland Publishing Pty Ltd

  Copyright © Cleveland Publishing Co. Pty Ltd, New South Wales, Australia

  First Digital Edition: September 2019

  Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information or storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

  This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book

  Series Editor: Ben Bridges

  Text © Piccadilly Publishing

  Published by Arrangement with The Cleveland Publishing Pty Ltd.

  One – Guns at the Spur

  The Concord stagecoach swayed as it came up over the rise and the shotgun guard snatched at the rail on the end of his seat. The iron wheel rims hit a rut and the whole vehicle jolted, lurching violently.

  The guard, a young hombre named Matt Cassidy, on his first long run for Wells Fargo, jammed his hat tighter on his head and looked at the tobacco-chewing driver as the man maniacally lashed at the running team with his bullwhip, standing in the seat. No wonder he was nicknamed ‘Loco’ Larrabee, he thought.

  From down in the body of the coach he heard the cussing of the three male passengers, recognizing the high falsetto of the thin man who had given his name as ‘Danby’.

  “Call yourself a driver!” Danby piped, head stuck out of the offside window, shaking a long-fingered fist.

  The one who went by the name of Ralls, a hard-eyed hombre who looked like he had been around some and who wore faded range garb and a black-and-white cow skin vest, yelled out the other window ... “Goddamn it, you stupid son of a bitch! You just smashed my hipflask of whisky! You drive more carefully or by hell, when we get to Spanish Creek I’ll rip your lousy arm off and beat you over the head with it!”

  The third passenger, a cattle buyer named Case Ritchie, said nothing, although Cassidy had no doubt that he, too, had been flung out of his seat by the ride. He looked sideways again at Loco Larrabee to see what effect the passengers’ tirades had had on him.

  The man chewed rhythmically at his tobacco, lashed again with the bullwhip and hazed the team to greater efforts.

  Cassidy tightened his grip on the seat rail, glanced down at his Ithaca shotgun, making sure the safety was on and the hammers were down snugly. He didn’t want to be flung all over the seat in a wild ride with a shotgun that was likely to go off when he couldn’t control the direction in which the barrels were pointing.

  “What’s the goddamn rush?” bawled Ralls again. “By hell, feller, I’ve a mind to climb out of this here window and come up there right now and kick you off the stage! Slow down, cuss you!”

  Loco chewed frantically, cracked the whip again. Matt Cassidy frowned and braced his boots against the floorboards.

  “Yeah, Loco, what is the hurry?” he shouted into the wind. “We’re ahead of time.”

  Loco eased back in his seat, coiled his whip expertly in his lap. He leaned over the side and spat a long brown stream of tobacco juice, chuckling when he heard someone curse as the wind blew it in the window.

  “Aw, well, it’s like this, kid,” he said. “It’s a rugged ol’ trail down to Spanish Creek and most of the way I’m easin’ round narrow bends, snakin’ between rocks, walkin’ the team across streambeds and generally crawlin’. When I hit a straight stretch, I like to bust loose a little.” He spat again and grinned. “Good for the hosses!”

  “But not the passengers,” Cassidy pointed out.

  Loco merely gave him a crooked grin, and a ponderous wink.

  “Don’t worry, son, we’ll hit the depot in Spanish Crick right on asked. I won’t be a minute early, nor one late. You just set back and relax, enjoy the scenery.”

  Cassidy smiled to himself as the Concord raced on across the flats towards the distant jumble of rocks known as Hangman’s Spur, rising against the hot sky. Relax? he thought. Not with Loco handling the reins. If he relaxed his grip on the seat rails, he figured he would end up on the trail rolling in the dust.

  He settled himself as well as he could on the hard plank with its minimal padding, but couldn’t get comfortable.

  Likely Matt Cassidy would have been even more ill at ease if he had known he was sitting on fifty thousand dollars.

  Moss Dooley had a reputation that stretched clear across New Mexico and down into Arizona to the border.

  He was a road agent and bank robber, a gunslinger who hired out to whoever paid the most and he didn’t much mind changing horses in mid-stream, either, if the pay was better. He was a man in his mid-forties, hard-faced, hard-muscled and without too many scruples.

  He pushed his hat back from his head now and wiped a bandanna across his sweating face. Dooley hawked and spat, and leaned his elbows on the basalt boulder in front of him, getting the battered old brass-and-leather telescope up to his eye. He focused on a spiral of dust out there on the flats, studied it unhurriedly for a spell and then closed up the ’scope, turned and leaned his shoulders against the rock while he twisted up a cigarette.

  When it was smoking, he walked to the edge of a small ledge and dropped down into the clearing amongst the rocks below. There were half a dozen men sitting around, a couple sharing a small hip-flask sized bottle of redeye, the others lounging in the heat, cramped up against the rocks for the meager shade they offered, for the sun was climbing fast towards its zenith. They looked at Dooley expectantly.

  “Comin’ across the flats,” he announced. “Guess that Loco Larrabee’s at the reins, hurtlin’ along like a rocket.”

  “Hell! It would be him!” growled a man called Munsden. “He can drive one of them Concords clear up a cliff wall! Gonna be hard to stop, Moss.”

  “We’ll stop ’em,” Dooley said confidently. “He’ll have to slow when he takes the swing around the Spur here. That’s when we ride out and hit him. Try to nail him before he gets to the down trail on the far side above the river. I don’t want that coach goin’ over the edge. I want it stopped where we can get at it fast and vamoose, fade back to our hole-in-the-wall.”

  A redhead name of Poley Schreck frowned. “What’s the hurry, Moss?” he queried. “I figured the idea was to wipe out everyone aboard the stage so’s we could take our time.”

  “Was,” admitted Moss Dooley. “But Clay Nash is in Spanish Crick now. Must be some reason for him turnin’ up there at this time. Sure as hell ain’t no coincidence, you can bet on that. So we wipe out all tracks—and that takes time. We want to make it back to the hills and be damn sure we lose Nash. He can track like an Injun.”

  Schreck swore. “Clay Nash! Judas priest, just our luck to have Wells Fargo’s top detective on the spot! You s’pose he’s been tipped-off?”
/>   Dooley shrugged. “More likely playin’ a hunch.”

  “Why din’ they put him aboard the stage then, to ride shotgun?” asked Munsden. “It’d make better sense.”

  “Hell, who knows what Jim Hume has in mind when he does anythin’?” Dooley growled, eager to get moving now. “Nash is in town, that’s all we need to know. We hit the stage, grab what we want and then vamoose, wipin’ out our tracks as we go. Now, let’s move!”

  The men got to their feet and followed Dooley down the narrow trail to where their horses were tethered. Before mounting, they took out their guns and checked them.

  Clay Nash was a tall man, an even six feet, wide-shouldered, with the classic narrow waist and hips of the born gunfighter. He walked with an easy grace, a loose-limbed kind of stroll that belied the latent gun speed in his right arm. He gave the appearance of being a lazy man, in no hurry to get about his business, his mind occupied with his own thoughts.

  But Nash missed nothing that went on around him. His eyes were alert and restless in their sockets, watching the street of Spanish Creek as he walked down the boardwalk towards the law office. His Colt was holstered mid-way between his hip and knee on his right thigh, a rawhide toe thong dangling from the base, not now tied around the leg. The Colt’s butt had the polished, burnished look that only cedar gets from much use, like rubbing against the oily palm of a man’s hand. For Nash practiced daily with his six-gun: both speed and accuracy.

  It was his dedication to this practice that had kept him alive to his thirty-second year. His face was narrow, a trifle wolfish, his blue eyes a startling contrast to the deep-tan mahogany of the weathered skin. His wide mouth had a suggestion of a permanent uplift at the corners. So, although Nash looked tough as they come, his was a face that promised a deal of pleasantness too.

  He stomped up the steps onto the law office porch and opened the door of the small cubbyhole used by the local sheriff.

  The man at the cluttered desk behind the rail that separated the office, was in his fifties, thickening about the middle, balding on top, and with nicotine staining his drooping moustache. The badge on his vest was tarnished but the gun he wore on his hip, when he stood, gleamed with a fresh coating of oil. He nodded at Nash.

  “What can I do for you?”

  “Name’s Clay Nash. Wells Fargo,” the tall man said, holding out his right hand.

  The sheriff gripped briefly with him, eyes narrowing slightly, as he nodded curtly.

  “Wes McGinnis.” He frowned a little, looked at Nash quizzically. “Somethin’ wrong?”

  “Nope. Leastways, not yet there ain’t.”

  McGinnis gestured casually to a chair and sat down as Nash seated himself, hitching the straight back a mite closer to the desk.

  “Somethin’ I’m missin’?” asked the lawman. “I mean, you got a hot reputation, Nash, top gun for Jim Hume of the Wells Fargo detectives. You ain’t in town for the climate, I’d bet.”

  Nash smiled faintly. “No, you’re right there. Sheriff, like I said, no trouble. Yet. But I’m here to alert you in case.”

  McGinnis sat back, linked his hands behind his head and nodded for Nash to continue.

  “The stage comin’ down from Sesame Ridge is kind of special this run,” Nash told him slowly. “We’re trying out a new delivery technique, hoping to stall off any road agents who might have ideas of holdin’ up the stages for the strongboxes.”

  The sheriff snorted. “Hell, they all got them ideas.”

  “Sure,” Nash agreed. “And word always seems to get out when the strongboxes are stuffed with gold dust or bulging at the seams with cash money. A stagecoach is pretty vulnerable, Sheriff. No matter how many shotgun guards you have, they can still be picked off from ambush, sittin’ way up there in the open with the driver. If the guards manage to keep the bandits at bay, all they have to do is shoot the lead hosses in the team and crash the coach. Then they move in and take what they want.”

  Wes McGinnis looked a mite bored: these things he knew. They were common knowledge.

  “So this time,” Nash continued, “we’re trying something else. A bunch of ranchers from around Spanish Creek are forming a Cattlemen’s’ Association. You know about it?”

  McGinnis nodded slowly. “I’ve heard.”

  “Right. They’re being backed by the banks in Sesame Ridge. To the tune of fifty thousand dollars.”

  The sheriff sat forward in his chair, whistling softly, eyes narrowing as he looked at Nash’s sober face. He gestured vaguely to the door.

  “On the stage that’s comin’ down now?”

  Nash nodded. “Yeah. But in a special compartment built under the driver’s seat. We’ve still got the usual strongbox, with the normal amount of valuables in it, but this extra cash’s in the hidden compartment. We’ve kept it as quiet as we can ...”

  “As you can—?” queried McGinnis.

  “Sure. Someone has to know. We’ve got records to keep. Clerks have to have knowledge of it, can’t be avoided. Some of the bank clerks, too. But not the driver or shotgun guard.”

  “Yeah. Guess you’re right. Unavoidable for the others to know.”

  “It’s a kind of experiment. If it works on this run, we’ll likely use it on others.”

  The sheriff frowned. “But how do you get it on board without the driver and shotgun knowin’ about it?”

  “Done at night, after the stage has all been prepared to roll. It was necessary to have one of the maintenance crew in on it, ’cause he had to build-in the compartment, but mostly it’s been kept to less than ten people who know about the shipment.”

  “And what brings you here then?”

  “Just to be on hand to make sure it arrives. No reason to think it won’t, but there’s a lot ridin’ on this. It was Jim Hume’s idea, so he’s personally responsible. The banks were none too happy: wanted no passengers, ten shotgun guards, all that kind of stuff. But Hume figured that’d only draw attention to the fact that somethin’ special was being shipped.”

  McGinnis sighed and leaned his forearms on the desk. “Appreciate your confidence, Nash. What can I do?”

  Nash looked at him soberly. “Just in case—and I sure as hell hope you aren’t needed—could you be ready to ride? Maybe have a small posse alerted so no time’s wasted?”

  The sheriff scrubbed a hand around his jowls. “Hmmmm ... Yeah, well, what I can do is deputize a bunch of fellers I call from time to time, like when I need a posse, and have ’em on standby. But county usually pays ’em a couple dollars a day standby money, five bucks a day when they’re ridin’. And grub. Wells Fargo willin’ to put up the dinero for that?”

  “I’m authorized to make a pay-out if necessary.”

  “It’s necessary,” McGinnis said unsmilingly. “County don’t have any funds to waste.”

  “All right. Tell me what you need and I’ll arrange it through our depot... I don’t figure we’ll need to ride, but I’ll feel better if things are ready to roll. Just in case.”

  McGinnis reached for a battered Sugarloaf hat on a wall peg and jammed it on his head. He came out through a small gate in the rail.

  “Let’s go then.”

  Nash followed him out of the office, glancing at the wall clock as he went.

  If the stage was on time, it should start to show its spiral of dust out on the flats this side of the hills within the next couple of hours.

  And with Loco Larrabee in the driving seat, he had no doubt that the stage would be right on schedule.

  About that, Nash was wrong. Mightily so.

  The Sesame Ridge stage was not going to arrive in Spanish Creek on time—or ever ...

  Loco Larrabee swung the Concord along the trail that lifted up onto the rise of Hangman’s Spur, the big jutting pile of rocks that stuck out from the line of the hills like a knot on a massive tree branch.

  The passengers had long since ceased to complain about the jolting and jarring, having realized it was futile. Matt Cassidy still clung tightly to t
he seat rail with one hand and somehow managed to balance the heavy shotgun with the other, keeping it mostly suspended in mid-air to avoid excessive jarring. It wouldn’t be the first Ithaca that had exploded prematurely because of hammer rebound, and he didn’t want a leg or a foot blown off or, worse, he didn’t want to blast Loco to ribbons.

  Now that they were across the flats and approaching the rise around the Spur, Loco stood in the seat, shaking out the coils of the bullwhip, swinging it back over his shoulder to lash at the team’s rumps, figuring to urge them on up the slope and around the Spur for the long down-run to the flats that eventually swept away to Spanish Creek.

  He paused with the whip trailing behind him, spilling in untidy coils on the rooftop.

  Cassidy frowned as he glanced at the tobacco-chewing driver.

  “What’s the matter, Loco? Arm froze?” he asked lightly, but, even as he uttered the words he knew something more serious was wrong.

  Loco’s eyes had pinched down and he had gone a shade or two paler, and he sat down slowly on his seat, the whip still not flicking at the laboring team.

  “We’re for it!” he said huskily.

  “What? What’re you talkin’ about?”

  Cassidy was alert now, looking around. Then he followed the direction of Loco’s pointing finger as he swung the whip finally and flicked dust from the rumps of the rear team horses.

  Riders were thundering down out of the shadow of Hangman’s Spur.

  Six or seven mounted men, scattering as soon as they hit the flats, spreading out, sweeping in towards the stage in a wide arc, guns going to their shoulders. Cassidy saw the ragged puffs of smoke and an instant later heard the wind-whipping cracking of the guns. Lead howled overhead. There was a soft thud from somewhere in the coach bodywork and one of the passengers yelled.

  Cassidy unshipped his shotgun and leaned over the side, calling down: “Road agents! Six or seven of ’em comin’ in like a cavalry troop! Gents, if you want to save your hides and your valuables, I suggest you get your guns out and workin’! Pronto!”