Clay Nash 10 Page 2

  She protested as he stepped over the swinging gate and strode past her desk to Hopkins’ office door. He opened it and went in while she made gasping, ineffectual noises behind him. He timed it just right so that he slammed the door in her face. Then he leaned against it, holding the knob in a massive hand so that she was unable to turn it. She started to thump on the panels.

  Hopkins, small, bald and neatly dressed, looked up from a plate of stew. He had a big napkin tucked into his collar. He frowned at Barrett.

  “I’m not ready for you yet. Wait outside.”

  “I dunno as I’m ready for you, either, Mr. Hopkins, but I’ve done all the waitin’ I aim to do. You sent for me and I came in—”

  “An hour late,” Hopkins cut in primly.

  “I came in,” Barrett repeated harshly. “Twenty-four miles, and near lamed my hoss. I aim to be back home by dark—and that means you say your piece now, so’s I can get away.”

  “I told you, Barrett, I’m not ready—”

  Dan Barrett crossed the room, took the plate of stew from the banker and dumped it in the wastebasket. He ripped the napkin away from the startled man, balled it up and threw it into the face of the old maid as she came rushing in, already apologizing to Hopkins.

  “Get out, Barrett roared, and she turned and ran, slamming the door after her. He was holding on by a thread: if it snapped, he reckoned he would probably beat Hopkins to a pulp. But he clenched his massive fists at his sides and glared at the small banker. “Now—let’s talk.” He kicked out the straight-backed visitor’s chair, turned it around and straddled it. He folded his arms over the back, looked steadily at Hopkins and wondered why he had been so tense and nervous. But he knew the answer: he owed the bank money on the ranch, and he hadn’t been able to pay. He was afraid of foreclosure, and that meant Eadie and young Crissy would lose their home; the one he had built with his own hands for them. That was why he had felt nervous. He wasn’t afraid of Hopkins, but he was sure as hell scared of what the runt could do, not to him, but to Eadie and Crissy. Barrett could always manage, alone. But, since he had been married and become a father, he knew he was more vulnerable than he had ever been in his life. It was like having three hearts for an assassin to shoot at; his own, Eadie’s, and Crissy’s.

  These thoughts were reflected on his strong face as he stared at Hopkins and it was the banker who became the nervous one. He shuffled papers, cleared his throat and eased his collar around his scrawny neck.

  “Well, Dan, I guess you know why I sent for you.”

  Barrett refused to answer: he didn’t aim to make it easy for Hopkins.

  “Yes, well, it’s about your repayments, of course,” the banker went on. “You made the first two pretty much on schedule but the third—well, it’s considerably overdue and I’m—I’m afraid I can’t allow it to run on much longer.”

  “How much longer?” Barrett asked in a low voice.

  “Er—well—uh—it’s run about as long as I can allow it to already,” Hopkins said and he tilted his narrow chin, getting some of the old arrogance back into his voice. “I’ve given you two extensions, Dan. You signed papers. All legal and binding. The bank stuck to its side of the bargain and advanced you the money; now you have to meet your obligations. It’s only fair.”

  “Sure, I agree,” Barrett said in reasonable tones. “All I need’s another month. Just till I get some cattle out of the breaks before winter sets in. I can drive them to the railhead at Carbine Crossing and have the bank’s money and some left over in that time.”

  Hopkins was already shaking his head before Barrett had finished speaking.

  “You’d need more than a month for that, throwing in the trail drive. More like six weeks, and that takes us into the next fiscal year, something which just isn’t possible, Dan. No. I’m sorry. We have to have that money by the end of this month or I’ll have no other alternative but to foreclose.”

  Barrett stood, his massive form towering over the banker who seemed to sink lower in his chair as he looked up at the rancher.

  “That’s only three weeks off.”

  “I’m sorry.” It came out as a bleat and Hopkins cleared his throat noisily and irritably. “Now, don’t you resort to violence, Dan Barrett. It won’t solve anything and I’m quite within my rights demanding the bank’s money. I’ve—I’ve already given you more of a break than you deserve and you certainly don’t act grateful—”

  Barrett leaned across the desk and Hopkins pressed back in his chair, fearful and wide-eyed.

  “I don’t have nothin’ to be grateful for, not to you, Hopkins. I know there was an option in that mortgage so’s you could renew at the end of your fiscal year as you call it. All you gotta do is exercise that option.”

  “It is not a viable proposition to renew. The bank has to recover its funds and if foreclosure is the only way then I’m afraid we must resort to it. You should not take on loans you cannot handle, Barrett—”

  “You smug—” Barrett stopped as he felt his fists rising and saw the gray fear on Hopkins’ face. He fought down the urge to hit the banker as he thrust his face forward. “Okay—you reckon I’ve got till the end of the month. Three weeks. Fine. I’ll get your money by then.”

  “How can you?” Hopkins asked.

  Barrett stared bleakly at him.

  “I’ll get it. But, if I don’t, and you try to foreclose, you’d better come with an armed posse. Because I’ll be waitin’—with a gun.”

  He heeled abruptly and stormed out of the office, leaving Hopkins pale and shaken.

  Clay Nash never did find the way-station at Reddings. At least not by himself. He had searched for a spell then the effects of his wound had caught up with him. Dazed and nauseous, he had spilled from the saddle, hit the ground hard, and had jarred into unconsciousness.

  Awakening somewhere around mid-morning of the second day, he had managed to haul himself onto a rock and then had called his mount. Somehow he had fallen into the saddle and, once settled, had roped himself to the horn and cantle. It was just as well he did, for he had little recollection of what had happened after that.

  The pain sometimes woke him and he would look around, wild-eyed, seeing strange country, and the world tilting dangerously on all sides. The plodding of the horse seemed to jar through him and set his head rocking. He muttered a lot but didn’t know what he was saying. He had no idea where he was and, such was his state of mind, that he didn’t even care.

  It was the horse’s instincts for survival that saved him. The animal caught the yellow splash of color that was the new log structure of the way-station. As it drew closer and the wind blew across from the direction of the buildings, the horse increased its pace and the change in motion brought Nash back to the edge of consciousness. He could smell pine resin and wood smoke and dust. There was a blurred vision or something glowing like a massive mountain of gold—and gray shapes moving around. As he plunged back into oblivion, he heard voices.

  He thought he was dreaming when he opened his eyes and stared up into the cool, anxious face of Mary Summers. She was a girl who was much in his thoughts and he had been trying to get a chance to visit her for months, but—

  “M—Mary?” he croaked, his voice barely audible to the girl. “Is—really—you?”

  Mary Summers’ face brightened with a wide smile and she leaned down and kissed him.

  “Yes. Yes, Clay. It is me. You’re not dreaming. Your horse brought you here and I thank God that you’ve come through. You’ve been out of your head for two days.”

  He did a swift calculation, surprised at how alert he felt—alert, but weak as a newly-hatched chicken.

  “Makes four—days all—told,” he rasped. “Am I hit bad?”

  “Bad enough. I don’t know how far you’d travelled with that wound, but you sure wouldn’t’ve been able to travel much farther. You seem to have lost a lot of blood. But, luckily, the wound itself wasn’t infected.”

  “Moonshine likker did that,” he told
her, even managing a faint smile. “Tell you about it later. Is this Reddings?”

  “Yes. Pa and I are opening it up for the company. Strange, we were only just talking about you a day or so before you showed up. Though I reckon I’d have been better pleased to see you in one piece.”

  “I’d’ve rather turned-up that way too, Mary. Muchas gracias, querida, for all you’ve done.”

  “Just seeing you like this, conscious, and obviously on the mend, is all the thanks I want, Clay. Truly. Wait’ll I get pa. He’s been worryin’ about you, too.”

  It was a fine reunion, even though Nash couldn’t enjoy it as much as he would have liked. But the Summers’ had always been special folk to him, right from the time he had staggered into their out-station in Texas after having been left for dead in the desert by a land-hungry killer. i Mary had been the first person he had seen, then, too, when he had come round.

  And it was at that moment that he had fallen in love with her.

  Nash knew it would be some time before he could hope to sit up fully in bed. He was weak and still shaky and feverish. The wound itself was stiff and sore; it could yet become infected or other complications could set in. He reckoned he would be at the way-station for a few weeks before he was able to ride out.

  Maybe he would be able to stretch things a mite and spend as much time with Mary as he could. It was a tempting thought.

  But Jim Hume, his boss, wouldn’t be happy if he knew his top operative was thinking this way. He would have another assignment waiting: there was always another assignment and would be as long as Wells Fargo took on the responsibility of carrying money and valuables into the remote areas of the frontier.

  Stagecoaches were easier to rob than railroads and way out beyond the law there were men who would always be willing to lay their lives on the line for a chance at quick riches.

  It was Nash’s job to hunt down such men as these and bring them to justice, whether it be via the courts, or the swifter kind that rode at his hip in the shape of a Colt .45.

  As much as he enjoyed the chase and the action, he also enjoyed the occasional break from these dangers. And that was why he figured he would stretch his stay at the Reddings’ way-station for as long as he decently could before going back to Hume. He knew Mary wouldn’t mind.

  Five-year-old Crissy Barrett flung her arms about her father’s neck and hugged him tightly, crushing her smooth little face against his. He pretended to be strangling in her grip and made appropriate noises until she released him. But when he saw the uncertainty and alarm spreading across her face he laughed and picked her up, throwing her high into the air and catching her easily in his big hands, hugging her against him with one arm, and slipping the other around the slim waist of his wife, Eadie.

  She was in her early twenties and she laughed delightedly as Crissy squirmed and beat playfully at her father with her small fists for fooling her the way he had.

  “Oh, you,” the little girl exclaimed.

  “Hey, easy, easy,” Dan said, jerking his head out of the way of her blows. “You don’t want your pa to turn up lookin’ for a job all bruised and black-eyed, do you? Who’d want to hire a feller who looked like he’d been on the wrong end of a kickin’ mule?”

  She pretended to kiss his sore spots better as he pointed them out. He winked at Eadie and saw her smile slowly fade.

  “Dan, d’you think this is the right thing, you’re doing?”

  He sobered, set Crissy down, though she clung to his legs and stood on his boots, rocking back and forth.

  “Yeah, Eadie. It’s the only way. I been over it a hundred times in my mind since Hopkins called me in the other day. I just got time to raise the money here by the end of the month.”

  “But—trail driving. Surely that won’t bring in enough, either, Dan?”

  “Mebbe not,” he conceded, “but it’ll be three weeks’ work and I won’t spend nothin’ and I’ll have the full wage to slap down on Hopkins’ desk. It might not be all of the mortgage that’s due, but it’ll hold him. He’ll have to take it, when he sees I’m willin’ to work to get the dinero, Eadie. And that’ll gimme more time when I get back. I reckon the only thing he can do when I’m payin’ that mortgage off is to renew it, and pick up the option. I knew enough about bankin’ transactions to be pretty sure of that. Banks are there to make money—not to take over ranches they got to go to the trouble of sellin’.”

  Eadie still didn’t look convinced and she clung to his arm.

  “I wish you didn’t have to go, Dan. I don’t like being here alone.”

  “Don’t like leavin’ you,” he admitted, “but it’s got to be done, Eadie. And I’ll soon be back and we’ll have less worries then, eh?” He knelt and grabbed Crissy in his big hands, looking into the bright, mischievous blue eyes. “And I might even manage to bring you back a store-bought doll, Miss Hardcase. How would you like that?”

  “You’re the best daddy in the Rockies,” she cried and flung her small arms about his neck.

  “Heck, is that all? I thought I might be the best in the whole darn world. I’m kinda disappointed I only made the Rockies.”

  “Is there a world past the Rockies, Daddy?” Crissy asked innocently and he laughed.

  “I ain’t sure that you mean that after all the books I’ve read you about the big world out there but it’s a right smart answer, miss. Okay. Now you be good for Mommy, and I’ll be back before you can turn round and say your name.”

  He sobered, took his wife in his arms and kissed her. Then he mounted and rode off down the knoll, away from the small log ranch house with the incomplete stone fireplace. Mother and daughter waved and he turned to wave back.

  He carried the picture of them standing on that knoll, hair blowing gently in the breeze, as he rode devious trails through the mountains—along trails that led nowhere near the town of Fire Springs where he had told Eadie he was going to see about the trail-driving job.

  Dan Barrett put his mount deep into the wilderness of the Rockies and followed watercourses through hidden ravines. He thrashed the animal through thick brush-choked draws that no one would know were there unless they had a good reason for looking, and climbed high up the slopes to the snowline itself. Then he swung down again, across the face of the mountain, into the fold of the hills and, finally, to a raw sandstone canyon without a trace of green in it.

  The walls were dotted with caves.

  A man appeared at one of these holding a double-barreled shotgun. The hammers were cocked as he aimed the gun at Barrett.

  “Hold up, mister,” he called.

  Barrett’s hand streaked for his gun butt but froze when he saw the shotgun. He lifted his hands shoulder high.

  “Name’s Dan Barrett. I’ve come to see Chip.”

  The guard looked him over for a spell, then half turned his head and spoke quietly. He was joined by a tall, rangy man with high cheekbones. He had shoulder-length hair and must have stood four inches over six feet, but looked even taller with the high-crowned sugarloaf hat he wore. He hooked his thumbs into crossed gunbelts and casually spat a stream of tobacco juice.

  “Howdy, Dan,” he called. “So you decided to come join us?”

  “Need the money, Chip. Need it bad.”

  “You must do. But come on up and meet the boys. You arrived at just the right time. We just decided we needed an extra gun. And I guess you’re it.”

  Barrett dismounted and led his mount to the cave mouth. The shotgun guard took the reins from him as Chip Benedict nodded, took his elbow and steered him into a massive cave that ran far back into the darkness of the mountain. There was a campfire beneath a natural fault in the roof rock that sucked up the smoke on chill air currents. Several men were gathered around the fire. They were all gun hung, hard-faced and suspicious as they watched Dan Barrett without warmth.

  “Boys, this is my old sidekick, Dan Barrett. We shared a cell in Canyon City once and got to know each other pretty well. We’ve helped each other out a few time
s since. I told him about this Reddings way-station deal a few weeks back, but he didn’t think he was gonna be interested then. Guess somethin’ changed your mind, eh, Dan?”

  Barrett scowled.

  “A goddamn runt of a banker named Hopkins changed it; wants to foreclose on my place. I got me a wife and kid, like I told you before, Chip. I’ll do anythin’ to keep the home I built for them and to see they get a fair shake. So, I’m hirin’ out my gun to you for this job—whatever it is.”

  Benedict smiled crookedly.

  “It’s gonna be the biggest robbery this State’s ever seen, that’s what it’s gonna be. There’s a big payroll due to go through Reddings to the borax mines in Fire Springs. Close to thirty thousand bucks. So you ain’t just hirin’ out your gun, Dan, you’re cuttin’ yourself in for an equal share.” His face hardened and the others stared at Barrett coldly. “An equal share ’cause I’ve figured it out that the only way we’re gonna get away with this for sure is for us all to agree on one thing right now.”

  He paused and Barrett frowned slightly, looking at the others, then back to Chip Benedict.

  “What’s that?” he asked quietly.

  Benedict studied his face for a spell, then said, flatly, “We’ve got to kill everybody. Way-station crew, stagecoach driver, shotgun guard, passengers—everyone. If you got no stomach for it, then now’s the time to say so.”

  Dan Barrett looked at him soberly and then shrugged.

  “All right with me,” he said casually. “Long as I get my share.”

  Benedict grinned suddenly and clapped an arm about Barrett’s thick shoulders.

  “You’ll get it—all of five thousand bucks. How’s that sound?”

  “Fine with me,” Barrett said. “Let’s get down to details.”

  Chapter Three

  Raid

  The Reddings way-station was now fully operational.

  Stages were rolling through on what had become known as the Rockies’ Run. It was proving to be profitable for Wells Fargo for there had been no previous transport available to the majority of folk living in the area. Some of the men and women who lived in the hills came down just to ride the stage as far as Fire Springs as a novelty. Others booked the long, rambling, dog-leg run into Denver. The stages carried an increasing amount of valuables and cash in the green-painted strongboxes, too, and there were persistent rumors that the giant borax mining company in Fire Springs was going to use the stages to transport their huge payrolls instead of using bank facilities as it had in the past.