Clay Nash 2 Read online

  He wasn’t sure if his hat was blown off his head by the blast or whether a bullet whipped it off, but he dropped flat as his Stetson spun to the ground a few feet away and the powder went up with a dull boom, throwing brush and wood in all directions. But much of the wood stayed in the buckboard and it was afire from the blast. A wreath of thick gray smoke shrouded the buckboard and the front of the shack as Nash leapt up, ears ringing, and ran for the buckboard and its blazing load. He got his shoulder against the tailgate, wincing at the heat, dug in his boots and thrust hard with leg and shoulder muscles straining. The buckboard rammed into the front of the shack with a jolt, and more blazing wood spilled off and fell against the wall and door.

  He heard men cursing inside and knew they would be making a dash for the rear door. Nash dived under the buckboard, rolled between the wheels and slammed his boots against the flimsy shack door. It kicked open and Nash rolled into the shack, rifle coming up in his hands as he bounced to one knee. A man swung towards him and a six-gun roared almost in his face. Nash’s rifle exploded with a muffled sound when the muzzle pressed into a body as he pulled trigger. The outlaw’s body was flung back three feet and Nash lunged to the left, did a fast somersault as other guns exploded all around him and came up swinging the rifle hard. The hexagonal barrel smashed into the middle of Tyler Cade’s face and the man dropped like a pole axed steer, nose broken, blood spraying.

  Alex Bryant fired his six-gun and the lead nicked Nash’s left ear lobe and he felt warm blood on his neck as he slammed the rifle barrel down instinctively and felt it jar as it broke Bryant’s wrist. The man screamed as the gun dropped from his hand and Nash clipped him with the rifle butt alongside the head. Bryant went down, half-conscious, moaning.

  The whole front wall of the shack was ablaze now and Nash grabbed Bryant’s collar and dragged him out through the back door. Dumping him on the ground, he ran back in, hauled the dazed Tyler Cade upright and shoved him roughly through the doorway. The heat was intense now and there was no one else left alive, so Nash ran from the blazing shack and saw both road-agents sitting up dazedly, nursing their bloodied heads.

  Cade looked up, spitting a broken tooth. “You better finish it, Nash!” he grated breathlessly. “I’ll get you if you don’t!”

  Clay Nash looked at him soberly and coldly.

  “You don’t get off that easy, Cade,” he told the outlaw. “There’s a trial and a noose waiting for you ... Wells Fargo like to see the men who rob its stages get as much publicity as possible before they die. It tends to make others think twice about doing the same thing.”

  Cade glared malevolently, holding a dirty kerchief to his broken nose. “I’ll square with you some way, Nash! If I have to, I’ll beat the hangman to do it!”

  Chapter Two – Tough Assignment

  That year, James Hume, Chief of Detectives for the Wells Fargo Express Company, was using Fort Laramie, Wyoming as his headquarters. He had decided on Fort Laramie as it was equipped with a large penitentiary for holding prisoners awaiting trial, and there was a massive gallows that could drop four men at once into eternity, and a public hanging was always a deterrent in Hume’s opinion.

  But, just now, he was cursing his choice of Fort Laramie as it meant that he was out of touch with Clay Nash while the agent was on the trail down from Montana with his prisoners, Tyler Cade and Alex Bryant. The latest word he had was that Nash and his prisoners had boarded the train at Powder River and should arrive in Fort Laramie tomorrow morning. It was good that Nash had apprehended Cade and Bryant and that he would be available to get to work on the Blackwood stage hold-up. It was one of the worst in the history of Wells Fargo, with the guard dead, two passengers dead, also, and Roarin’ Dick Magee’s life hanging by a thread in the army infirmary. Also, the woman who had been thrown down the mountainside had broken ribs and internal injuries and, by all accounts, the middle-aged storekeeper looked about ready to have a heart attack, brought on by the violence and stress of the hold-up.

  The gang was a new one to Hume: two white men and a Negro and one of those white men with only three fingers. They were certainly callous operators and the one who blew that heavy brass padlock off the Express chest knew what he was about. With the loss of over thirty thousand dollars, it was one of the biggest robberies the company had ever had to pay out on. There wasn’t a lot to go on. The surviving passengers had been so panic-stricken that they had all virtually given different descriptions of the bandits.

  He was going through his files on ‘Wanted’ men the next morning when Clay Nash, beard-stubbled, grimed and weary, came into his office and gave a tired grin as he dropped into the chair on the other side of Hume’s desk.

  “Cade and Bryant are locked up waitin’ for trial,” he said, taking off his hat and wiping a forearm across his forehead. “Ran into Judge Glenn at the prison. He figures he’ll be able to have the preliminary hearin’ next week.”

  “Could be you’ll be a long ways from here by then,” Hume said and smiled faintly as Nash frowned, squinting his gray eyes a little. “Cade and Bryant’ll just have to sweat it out till you get back.”

  Nash sighed. “From where?”

  “From wherever your assignment takes you ... You’ve heard about the Blackwood stage?”

  Nash frowned. “Caught a drift of someone sayin’ a stage had been robbed, up in Montana. Was it ours then? The Blackwood-Meredith Springs stage?”

  “It was,” Hume answered grimly and proceeded to fill in the details for Nash. Concluding, he held up a half-dozen ‘Criminal Operation’ cards, as he termed them, and let them slide through his fingers. “New gang, Clay, with the possible exception of the Negro. I think he could be Missouri Jed Aimes ...” He tapped a seventh card set to one side. “He’s the right color and size and knows about blasting powder. But Missouri Aimes is s’posed to be in Yuma Prison on the rock pile. I’ve sent a telegraph to check ... But this young hombre with the straw-colored hair is a new one on me.”

  “Deadly, too, by the sounds of things,” Nash said, face sober and a lot of the tiredness gone now as he leaned forward to take the cigar Hume offered him. They lit up and exhaling, Nash asked: “What’s the latest on Roarin’ Dick?”

  Hume compressed his lips and shook his head slowly. “Wouldn’t take any bets on him pulling through, Clay.”

  “Hell, that’s tough. I like old Dick. He blooded me—ran me in—on my first stint as shotgun guard.”

  Hume nodded. He figured if anyone could get these Blackwood outlaws in a hurry, it was Nash. And, because of the cold-blooded nature of the hold-up it was essential that the company did apprehend the bandits just as fast as possible. Officers of the law were already moving on it and, while Hume knew the hard-bitten badge-toters of the north would do their damnedest to run the killers down, Hume wanted a Wells Fargo man in there, one he could count on to the limit, and one who wouldn’t be afraid to cut a few legal corners if he had to, or square-up to outlaw guns when the chips were down.

  Such a man was Clay Nash, top of the top-notchers, and Hume was mighty glad he was here now to get started on this Blackwood hold-up and bring three killers to account.

  Roarin’ Dick Magee looked like a corpse, his head on the clean pillow-case and the spotless white infirmary sheets drawn up to his chin, thought Nash as he looked down at his old friend. He clasped the bony hand, astonished that Magee’s grip was so weak. This was the hand that had wielded hundreds of whips across the backs of the teams he had cussed the length and breadth of the frontier, but now it seemed to have barely any power at all. His skin was waxy, features sunken, and his eyes were deep black lusterless pools. But when he recognized Nash, a glow came to those dark orbs and the leathery old mouth twitched in an attempt at a smile.

  “Doggone! That really you, Clay?” he rasped. “Or am I dreamin’ again?”

  “It’s me, old-timer,” Nash said with a smile. “How’s it comin’?”

  The thin shoulders shrugged under the sheets. “Been better, I re
ckon. You on that Blackwood job?”

  Nash nodded. “Thought I’d look in on you before I set out, see if you want anything.”

  Magee grunted. “I reckon it’ll be a tough assignment, pard. They won’t hesitate to kill. They won’t leave no one alive they think could give a clue about ’em. That’s why I played possum. Couldn’t move much, but I looked around plenty.”

  Nash stiffened. “You spot somethin’ that might help, old-timer?”

  “Mebbe. The Negro and the three-fingered feller you won’t have much trouble findin’: But the other hombre’s the tough one, the straw-haired man with the itchy trigger finger. I figure he’s got somethin’ wrong with one of his feet. His boot, left one I think, has a big bump on the instep, up near the big toe, and he walks with a kind of limp. Not much, but it’s there when you look at it from ground-level like I was doin’. I’d say he had some sort of deformed toe on one foot ...”

  By now, Roarin’ Dick Magee was breathing hard and his thin chest was heaving with the effort. The army medic moved quietly into the ambit of Nash’s vision and, catching his eye, shook his head briefly. Nash nodded slightly, getting the message, and he gave Magee’s hand one more squeeze and placed it back gently on top of the sheet. He smiled down at the sick old man.

  “Thanks, old-timer. You’ve been a big help. I’ll be heading out on the trail now. Want to see you up and around, maybe on a driving seat again, by the time I get back, you hear?”

  Magee tried a faint smile. “’Luck, boy!” he rasped. Nash flicked him a salute and started for the door. The medic walked across and stepped outside the room with the big agent, closing the door behind them.

  “What’re his chances. Doc?” Nash asked, face grim.

  “Not good,” the medic said candidly. “Bullet’s close to his spine, and I can’t get to it. Your boss, Jim Hume, is bringing in a San Francisco surgeon to see if he can help.”

  “And what if this surgeon can’t operate?”

  The medic looked at Nash levelly. “Then I’m afraid your friend will never walk again. He’ll have to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair.”

  “Might just as well give him a gun and let him shoot himself, Doc, if that’s how things work out. Roarin’ Dick Magee wouldn’t want to live for long in a wheelchair.”

  The medic sighed. “Sorry, Nash. Figured you’d want to know the truth.”

  Nash nodded curtly, a big, slab-shouldered man, towering above the slim, dapper medic in his neat uniform.

  “I’m obliged, Doc.” Nash gestured to the door. “If there’s anythin’ he needs, just ask.”

  The medic nodded, smiling slowly. “Mr. Hume has already told me to do whatever is necessary.”

  “Fine. Now, I hear you’ve got two, three of the other passengers still patients here. I’d like to have a word with ’em.”

  ~*~

  It was full dark when Nash returned to the hotel room Hume had booked for him. He had a tub and hot water sent up and soaked some of the grime and weariness from his body. Afterwards, he ordered a big meal and had just finished eating it when Hume arrived, holding two yellow forms that Nash immediately recognized as telegraphs.

  “Well,” Hume said without preamble, “it was Missouri Jed Aimes all right. He busted out of Yuma three and a half weeks ago with another hard hombre, name of Con Stuart or Three-fingered Con Stuart.”

  He looked up at Nash to see his reaction.

  “Fine! That puts names to two of ’em and we can get faces from the records and get out Wanted dodgers. But the third man’s the mystery one.”

  “Well, we know he’s young, straw-haired—and a killer!”

  Nash frowned slightly. “Something in the way you said that. We already know he’s a killer, Jim.”

  Hume waved the second yellow form. “Wire from the sheriff of Blackwood County. They’ve been scourin’ the hills, more in hope than anything else, and they came across a cave in a desolate canyon, found two men inside.” He paused for effect. “One was a Negro and the other had two fingers missin’.”

  Nash gave an exclamation.

  “They were both dead. Shot in the back of their heads, hands tied behind them.”

  Clay Nash whistled softly. “Our man’s not only a killer, he’s greedy! Didn’t like sharin’ the booty, huh?”

  “Clay, you’d better jump the ten o’clock train for Blackwood. And I don’t have to tell you to walk on eggshells. This yellow-haired man is deadly.”

  Nash nodded grimly, seeing in his mind the thin, waxy features of Roarin’ Dick Magee against the clean pillowcase, his eyes sunken and lusterless. He didn’t want to be around to see the look in those eyes if someone had to tell Magee he would never walk again.

  But it might make things just a little better for Magee if he could come back and say the straw-haired man who’d done the shooting was either dead or gallows-bound.

  He figured it would be worth taking a few risks to be able to do that.

  ~*~

  When Clay Nash stepped down from the train in Blackwood, he went straight to the sheriff, who seemed glad to see him.

  “Name’s Carson,” the lawman said, gripping briefly with Nash. “Glad you got here. I’ve been in trouble for trailin’ those hold-up hombres over into the next county.”

  “Wells Fargo has Union-wide jurisdiction,” Nash said. “Leastways, that’s what our warrants say and they were issued by the United States Chief Justice, so I reckon I can thumb my nose at the sheriff over the county line. Guess if there’s any tracks at all that’s where I’ll find ’em, huh?”

  “Oh, there are tracks, all right,” Carson replied. “Found one or two. I had an Injun with me, best tracker north of the Canadian River. But the tracks petered out mighty fast.” He shook his head slowly. “That yeller-headed hombre knew what he was about. Rode out of that canyon after killin’ his pards, straight up onto the only patch of lava for fifty miles around. He’s got twenty thousand square miles of country ahead where he could come out. It’d take an army to search for his getaway tracks and he likely covered ’em anyway.”

  “Sounds like he might be local enough to know the country pretty well,” Nash opined. “Well, if you’ve got a good map of the area, you can show me where you lost his tracks and what lies beyond.”

  “Glad to,” Carson said, going to his desk and taking out a rolled Ordinance Survey map from one of the pigeonholes. He spread it out, Nash holding down one corner. The lawman looked up at the big Wells Fargo man. “Mighty dangerous takin’ on this hombre alone, Nash. He don’t mind backshootin’ and you’ll be ridin’ into the best bushwhack country around.”

  Nash merely nodded and began studying the map. He moved his shoulders slightly under his denim shirt. There was a sudden itching right between his shoulder blades as Carson’s gnarled finger traced the trail he and his posse had followed out onto the lava flats.

  Chapter Three – Full Circle

  Beyond the lava flats, as Sheriff Carson had pointed out, lay a vast stretch of country where the straw-haired man could have lost himself. Much of it was up in the rugged hills where the gold strike had been made and Nash had figured to try there first. It was a good chance that the straw-haired man had been an unsuccessful miner who had figured on a sure way of getting himself some gold by staging the robbery. He went to call on the local banker.

  But the banker wasn’t much help. There were several straw-haired men whom he could recall, but some were crowding forty, others in their thirties, some in their teens ... all ages had the El Dorado dream, it seemed. There were a couple of Negroes, but they were still on the diggings and neither was as massive as the one who had been involved in the robbery, anyway. He did not recall any three-fingered men and, when Nash got the same answers, with variations, from the storekeeper, the assayer and the liveryman, he reckoned he could dismiss any ideas of the gang having first worked the diggings. It began to look as if they had got together for the express purpose of robbing the coach. Which meant that somewhere along the
line they had known each other or had some mutual acquaintance who could put them in touch.

  He rode back to the diggings’ telegraph shack and sent Hume a wire, asking if the straw-haired man might have served time in Yuma while Missouri Aimes and Three fingered Con Stuart were there. It was possible that the authorities might yet be able to put a name and face to their suspect.

  Meanwhile, he had the chore of tracing the killer’s movements after leaving that death canyon. Camped out by a roaring mountain stream, huddled over a fire with a sheepskin jacket laced tightly up to his throat, Nash spread out Carson’s Ordinance map awkwardly with his gloved hands. He studied it for a long time, building up the fire twice for more light. There sure was a lot of wide-open country around, but he figured the killer wouldn’t want to go too far away from towns, with all that gold burning a hole in his pocket. There were no real towns out there, a couple of mean settlements was all, and a few ranches. He decided to check these out.

  He was two days reaching the first ranch and they had no information for him there. He rode on and the next place he came to was deserted, way back in the timbered hills, a pretty little quarter-section with a log cabin on a knoll overlooking a small lake which was fed by a mountain stream. These were fine-looking pastures. There only seemed to be a dozen or so cattle and, around the back, he found a lonely grave with a small white picket fence around it, faded flowers in an old coffee can planted in the earth. The name on the wooden headboard was ‘J. Gant’. He had been ‘A Beloved Husband’, had died, ‘aged twenty-six years’ only a month ago. Nash looked more closely at the spread now and could detect signs of neglect, things that a widow woman wouldn’t be able to manage alone. There was no sign of life.