Clay Nash 14 Read online

  “That’s a damn lie!” Cameron snapped. “And what’s more, sir, you know it.”

  Randy Shaw’s temper rose swiftly and he wasn’t quick enough this time to cover up.

  “Who the hell are you calling a liar, you son of a bitch!” he snapped, realizing instantly that he had overstepped the mark when Mrs. Cameron’s hand went swiftly to her mouth and she stepped back with a gasp. He swallowed. “My apologies, ma’am. I—uh—didn’t mean to offend.”

  Cameron shoved Shaw roughly, sending the manager stumbling back against the wall. “By Godfrey, sir, I’ll have no man cussin’ in my wife’s presence!”

  Shaw clenched his fists down at his side. “I said I was sorry, and you’re the one offending, mister. No call for you to get personal about this.”

  “By hell there is!” thundered Cameron. “Just who in blazes do you think you are? You give us the roughest damn ride this side of a half-broken bronco, then cuss me out in front of my wife when I complain!”

  Shaw sighed. “Look, Mr. Cameron, why don’t you take it up with head office? Write them a letter. I’ll gladly refund you the remainder of your fare, even arrange for the private hire of a buckboard to Green River Station if you want.”

  Cameron’s eyes slitted. “You yellerbelly! Tryin’ to back down, huh?”

  “What in the hell?” the exasperated Shaw demanded. “You seem to be deliberately coming after me! You’re prodding for trouble, ain’t you?”

  Cameron’s lips drew back across his teeth in a tight, thin line, baring a cold smile as his right hand swept back his coat tails, freeing the butt of his holstered Colt. At the same time ‘Mrs. Cameron’ stepped well back, moving agilely in contrast to her previous stiff manner.

  Shaw felt the blood drain out of his face, even as he frowned in puzzlement. He was right. Cameron was deliberately pushing him into going for his gun. Yet he had never set eyes on either the man or the woman before. What in hell were they after? Downing him would get them nothing. If they were after the money in the safe inside they would still have to get past the clerks and stage guards and drivers. What was this all about...?

  “You insulted my wife and I don’t aim to stand by and let any man do that!”

  Cameron was talking loudly, sounding offended, and Shaw was aware that there were people down in the street now, looking up at the loading platform, attracted by the raised voices. It seemed that Cameron wanted an audience, witnesses to the fact that he was defending his wife’s sensibilities.

  “I want an apology out of you, and pronto!” Cameron demanded.

  “Listen, I don’t know what the devil you’re on about,” started Shaw but he knew it was too late.

  Cameron cut in before he could finish. “If that’s how you want it, then—draw!”

  Shaw had no choice but to go for his gun. He didn’t have a chance. Even as Cameron’s Colt came up, blazing, the thought formed in Shaw’s brain that the man was a professional and had been sent on this stage run for no other purpose than to kill him, Randy Shaw, rising and ambitious manager of a Wells Fargo passenger and freight depot.

  It was his last conscious thought before Cameron’s bullet drove into his heart.

  The poker game in the smoke-shrouded back room of the Wolf Dog Saloon off the main drag of Virginia City had been going for four hours and Mitch Parrish knew his run of luck was going the usual way.

  Down.

  He had done okay for a spell, as he often had in the past but, as usually happened, the luck turned against him. This time had been different only in the period it had taken to turn sour.

  For three of those four hours, he had been on a winning streak, and now he was dropping money as fast as he pushed it into the pot in the center of the green baize table. The cloth was burned from cigarettes and cigars, stained with spilled drinks and one, stiff, brown splotch was said to be the blood of a man who had been caught cheating and been given the usual cheat’s swift and rough justice.

  That patch was right in front of Parrish’s seat and, being superstitious like all serious gamblers, he had moved as soon as his luck had started to change. It made no difference, of course. He still lost hand after hand until now all he had with him was riding on the turn of a card.

  He was tempted to hold up the game while he took time out to run home and grab some of the money he and Lucy had been putting away towards their own small ranch, but he knew the others mightn’t stand for it. The locals likely would, as they knew he would eventually get back with more money after arguing with his wife, but this tough stranger who was betting strongly against him had already shown his impatience and he might cause trouble if there was a delay.

  Not that Mitch Parrish was afraid of the man. He was, after all, one of Wells Fargo’s elite Investigator Force, trained by Jim Hume and Clay Nash, and he could handle a gun as well as any man. But he was married now, and had been these past six months, and he was slowly learning to dodge unnecessary trouble. He had Lucy to think of as well as himself these days. So far it had not intruded into his job, but likely it would eventually and he would have to quit Wells Fargo for his own and the company’s good.

  Parrish glanced up now from the cards he held and saw the man watching him closely, hard-eyed, cold, deadly. He said his name was Callan but Parrish somehow figured it was a lie. Not that he had anything concrete to go on, it was just a hunch and Clay Nash had long ago taught him to play all his hunches, on and off duty; that way he might stay alive a little longer.

  Callan was pale and cadaver-lean, with a hairline moustache and hooded eyes. He looked so much like a slimy, four-flushing gambler that Parrish had immediately decided the man simply couldn’t be. Looking that way, he just had to be the exact opposite. But Callan was a deft man with the cards. He dealt slickly and expertly, stacked and shuffled with the speed of the professional and seemed to know the odds even before a man raised or dropped out.

  He wore no visible guns but Parrish figured there would be a gun in a shoulder holster beneath that well-cut frockcoat.

  Right now, Callan’s black eyes were resting on Mitch Parrish’s boyish face.

  “Well, it’s down to just you and me, Parrish,” he said in his soft voice, the words carrying surprisingly easily through the general din of the saloon bar beyond the alcove. “How many cards you want?”

  “Just the one.” Parrish’s mouth was dry. The pasteboard flicked across the baize in a blur, landing face down in front of him. As he reached for it, hesitating before picking it up, Callan muttered,

  “Dealer buys three.”

  Three cards flicked onto the baize in front of him and the three he had discarded lay close by in an untidy heap. Callan put down the rest of the pack, picked up his three cards one by one.

  Parrish picked up his own card and had a hard time keeping a straight face as he saw it was a king. That gave him a full house, a pair of kings and three nines. He hoped his face hadn’t given anything away. His hands were shaking a little. There was a good chance he would win that pot and it was a beauty, five hundred dollars at least, for there had been a lot of raising and seeing before the others had dropped out. He had only hung on through desperation, knowing he had to play out this last hand, bluff his way through if necessary, otherwise he would be broke.

  But the bluff wouldn’t be necessary now, not with a full house.

  Callan dropped some silver coins onto the untidy pile of paper money and silver and gold coins in the center of the table. He flicked his bleak gaze across the table at Parrish.

  “I’ll see you, Callan.”

  “Straight,” said Callan, laying down his fanned-out cards, ace as low card, running in a straight through deuce, trey, four and five, all of the diamond suit.

  Parrish’s smile widened as he laid down his full house.

  “Full on nines. My pot, I reckon.” He half lifted out of his chair reaching for the pile of money.

  “Hold it.”

  Parrish froze at the coldness in Callan’s steel-edged voice and
the other players on the sideline stiffened, sensing trouble.

  “What is it, Callan?” asked the houseman, Lafarge. “In this part of the country a full house beats a straight flush.”

  “No argument with that.”

  “What then, for hell’s sake?” demanded Parrish.

  Callan reached for his discard pile and flicked the cards over one by one. All eyes at the table watched silently. First he revealed a nine of clubs, then a seven of hearts and, finally—a nine of hearts.

  Parrish stiffened, hearing the sharp, indrawn breaths of the men around him. Chairs scraped back as they gave themselves room to get to their feet. Callan’s deadly eyes bored into Parrish’s face.

  “I figure that makes five nines in the pack,” Callan said flatly, “and I ain’t touched that discard pile. Everyone here knows that.”

  All eyes were on Parrish now. He felt sweat pricking his face. “You were dealing, Callan,” he said hoarsely.

  Callan’s eyes slitted even further. “What’s that mean, mister?”

  The other men hastily left the table, pressing back against the walls. Lafarge, the houseman, lifted a placating hand, but he was well back out of the line of fire when he said,

  “Ease up now, gents. Let’s settle this calmly.”

  Callan didn’t appear to hear him. He continued to look hard at Parrish.

  “That was a new pack. I broke the seal myself. There was no way an extra nine could’ve gotten in there. And it’s the nine of hearts—see? You’ve got one in your so-called full house.”

  Parrish stood slowly now and the gamblers around the walls pressed back hard, one man slipping out through the curtained doorway.

  “I played the cards I was dealt, Callan. You dealt me three nines, a king and a two that I discarded. You dealt me another king. They were the only cards I touched. If you say different, you’re a goddamn liar!”

  Callan’s face remained bleak and cold. “I say different.”

  “Then you’re a lousy liar!” Parrish was shouting now and a murmur of sound rippled through the barroom outside the alcove. Callan’s chair scraping back was loud in the quiet.

  “You better eat them words, Parrish.”

  Parrish’s face was flushed. “Like hell!” You’re not only a liar, but a four-flusher, too!”

  That was it. The gamblers crushed through the curtained doorway, milling with the barroom customers who were trying to see what was going on.

  Callan’s left hand suddenly streaked up and across his body, taking Parrish unawares. The man had given no sign earlier that he was left-handed; he had dealt and drank with his right, lit his cigars with his right hand. Parrish was thrown by the sudden swift movement of the left hand and hesitated one fateful second.

  His hand slapped his gun butt and the gun was lifted only half clear of leather when Callan shot him with the small, short-barreled Colt Police Special he drew from the holster in his right armpit. He shot Parrish four times, twice in the chest, twice in the head, the last time as the man lay sprawled across the table, his blood staining the green baize. The table jarred with the impact of the lead passing clear through Parrish’s skull and some coins and bills spilled to the floor.

  Callan kept hold of his smoking gun as he knelt and scooped up the money with his right hand, stuffing it into his coat pocket.

  As he stood up again and began raking in the pot money from the table, he raked his cold eyes around the group of staring men in the alcove.

  “My pot, I believe.”

  No one gave him any arguments.

  Chapter Two – Compadre

  Denver’s streets were bustling with traffic when Clay Nash put his dust-streaked palomino across the line of traffic, ignoring the cusses of wagon drivers and dodging the ambling pedestrians.

  He rode expertly, using knees to guide the horse safely through and into the side street where the livery was. At the big double doors, he was met by the old stable hand, Pegleg Joe. The man hobbled out on his wooden leg and lurched as he grabbed the palomino’s reins, fighting for balance.

  “Howdy, Mr. Nash. You’re back kinda early, ain’t you?”

  “Grain and groom him, Peggy,” Nash snapped, unshipping his rifle scabbard and bedroll. “Might be I’ll be needin’ him again right soon.”

  Nash, tall, lean, wide-shouldered and narrow hipped, swung away from the livery even as he was speaking and the stable hand frowned, but threw the Wells Fargo investigator a brief salute.

  “He’ll be ready to go when you are, Mr. Nash!” he called.

  Nash didn’t answer nor make acknowledgement in any way. Shouldering his bedroll, holding his rifle in its plain burnished-leather scabbard in his right hand, Nash hurried down the street, crossed over, and went up the outside stairway that led to Jim Hume’s offices above the Wells Fargo main depot for Denver.

  Within a minute, he was dumping his bedroll and rifle in a corner of the small office, thumbing back his dust-spattered hat and walking towards the cluttered desk where the squat, blocky form of Jim Hume sat, pen in hand, frowning at his top operative.

  “What’d you do? Fly?” Hume asked.

  “Took some short cuts,” Nash answered briefly. He leaned on the edge of Hume’s desk, cool gray eyes looking down into the square face of his boss. “How’d it happen, Jim? Mitch was no four-flusher.”

  Jim Hume sighed and ran a hand lightly over his balding head, smoothing down the few thin strands of hair that remained. “Well, it sure looked like he tried to pull somethin’. I’ve had Morg and Jack look into it. Six different men are willing to swear Mitch was desperate, on a losin’ streak, and he suddenly came up with a full house, but his three nines made one too many in the pack.”

  Nash, his face hard, sat down in a chair, hooked a heel over one knee and began to build a cigarette from tobacco and papers taken from his shirt pocket.

  “Mitch Parrish wasn’t even a serious gambler last time I saw him. He liked a game of cards but that was all.”

  “Seems he’s been doin’ some gambling. Not just in Virginia City where he lived, but most everywhere he went. Lucy, his wife, was supposed to have a steadying influence on him.”

  “So she did. Mitch steadied way down after he met Lucy. He was devoted to her. I’ve only seen him—or her—once since the wedding, but they were happy and making out fine for money. Not rich, of course, but saving steadily. They wanted a small ranch.”

  Hume nodded. “Which seems to have motivated him to try getting some money the easy way.”

  “Mitch was too smart to think he could pick it up by gambling.”

  “Not according to reports. The bug bit him bad. Marriage nearly busted up a month ago over it.”

  Nash paused as he licked the paper cylinder, then whistled softly, twisting up the cigarette into shape. “Never knew that. But Mitch wouldn’t be loco enough to try to cheat.”

  “Fellers he played cards with say different.”

  Hume’s gaze held Nash’s and the detective chief scratched a vesta into flame on his desk stand and held the flame out towards Nash. The top investigator dipped the end of his cigarette into the flame and blew a plume of smoke as he sat back in the chair again. “We know ’em?” he asked.

  “They’re all upright citizens of Virginia City. One was the saloon man, Lafarge, but he had nothing to gain by lying and, in fact, he was the most cautious of all. He said he didn’t see how Parrish could have slipped an extra card in, but it looked like he must have. Thing was, they found an extra deck on Parrish, same design as the cards they were playing with.”

  “Hell, that would’ve been easy enough to plant.”

  Hume nodded in agreement. “They were marked, too, some with nicks, depressions, trimmed corners, shaved sides. It was a real four-flusher’s deck, Clay.”

  Nash smoked in silence for a spell.

  “Callan,” he said and there was a query in the word.

  Hume shrugged. “Got the look of a professional gambler. Claims to be a miner’s agent and that�
��s how he was operating in Virginia City. Clinched the deals he had going after the shooting and disappeared.”

  “Disappeared?” Nash sat up straight.

  “Law had nothing to hold him on. Callan paid out his deals with the miners and lit out. Not unusual for a miner’s agent to disappear off the face of the earth when he’s carrying upwards of five thousand dollars in pure gold.”

  Nash whistled again, frowning deeply. “That’s what he bought from the miners?”

  Hume nodded. “So you can see he wasn’t short of cash, wouldn’t have needed the five hundred dollars in that poker pot. But Mitch Parrish sure could’ve used it.”

  Clay Nash stood up abruptly and took a jerky walk around the small room, pacing one way as far as the blank wall and then back to the window, standing there, looking down through the smudged glass at the bustling street. He smoked his cigarette down, lifted the window a couple of inches and flicked the butt out into the street. Closing the window, he turned to face Hume.

  “You don’t believe it was just like it seemed, either,” he said flatly.

  “I don’t?”

  “You know damn well you don’t. Otherwise you wouldn’t have pulled me off that last assignment.”

  “Mitch Parrish was a friend of yours.”

  Nash smiled faintly. “You were never any too strong on sentiment, Jim, if you don’t mind my sayin’ so.”

  Hume nodded slightly, thick fingers tapping the desk.

  “I’ll admit that, Clay. And you’re right: I wouldn’t have pulled you off that assignment just to attend a friend’s funeral. Too late anyway. Parrish was buried three days ago in Virginia City. I sent condolences and flowers in your name to the wife.”

  Nash waited in silence, knowing more was coming. “Normally, in view of all the evidence, I’d have had to put Mitch Parrish’s death down to what it seems to be on the surface: a man who got bitten bad by the gambling bug and, when he saw his money going down, got desperate enough to try four-flushing.”

  “Normally, you said.”