Clay Nash 21 Read online

  Nash sighed. He knew Jim Hume’s famous creed that was embroidered on a woven sampler back in his Denver office:

  The difficult we do immediately—

  The impossible takes a little longer.

  The buckboard’s springs were bent low with the heavy load as it lumbered slowly along the muddy trail through the rugged canyon.

  Old Man Jarvess was in the driving seat, urging the straining mule team forward, his dustcoat flapping about him as he flayed their hides with a blacksnake whip.

  Ahead, Tag rode with rifle cradled in his arms, while Chet walked his mount alongside the vehicle. McGovern was on the other side and Tyler, Wyatt and Marlowe brought up the rear.

  There was a drizzling rain and the track was sloppy, the mud curling over and falling in on the wheel ruts, effectively hiding them. The men in the rear added to the deception with branches of trees, slowly wiping out their own tracks as well.

  A particularly steep grade almost stopped the buckboard and the mules strained in the harness, braying and grunting as they fought for footholds. Tag and Chet got ropes on them and used their mounts to help. McGovern and Marlowe heaved from behind while Tyler and Wyatt continued to wipe out the tracks.

  The tarpaulin in the rear of the vehicle slipped and revealed the long, gray painted metal of the strongbox with its strange lock.

  “Where the hell’s he takin’ us?” growled Wyatt, a mean-eyed man with the lobe missing from one ear: it had been shot off by a prison warden during the man’s escape from the Colorado State Penitentiary some years earlier. “We been travellin’ two days now.”

  “Jarvess says he’s got his own hole-in-the-wall,” Tyler answered. “This is his bailiwick. Hasn’t used it for years. But I hear tell he’s stashed a lot of his loot here in the past. I figure if we play our cards right, we’ll come out of this with a helluva lot more than what we’ll find in that chest when we get her open.”

  “If we get it open,” growled Wyatt.

  “I aim to let the Old Man lead us to his hole-in-the-wall then jump him an’ his two lousy sons—an’ blow that chest apart. Marlowe knows how to make nitro by boilin’ dynamite sticks.”

  Wyatt whistled softly. “Judas! An’ I’ll stand guard a couple miles away while he does.”

  Tyler laughed. “You just be there when I give the word to jump the Jarvess bunch, savvy?”

  Wyatt nodded, watching the men straining to move the buckboard over the rise in the trail. “Be a pleasure. They treated us like dirt since we joined ’em.”

  The redhead sobered and nodded grimly, glaring at the Old Man as he hauled rein on the mules just over the rise.

  “Let’s go see why the hell he’s stoppin’,” he growled and spurred his mount forward.

  Tag and Chet sat their mounts beside the driving seat where the Old Man stood with the rain dripping from the sagging brim of his hat, and his silver beard matted and limp. He glared at the four outlaws gathered at the rear of the buckboard.

  “Far as you hombres go,” he announced as Tag and Chet casually brought up their rifles and swung the barrels to cover the others.

  “What the hell does that mean?” McGovern demanded.

  “You pullin’ some kinda double-cross, Jarvess?” demanded Tyler.

  The Old Man held up a placating hand. “Easy. Haul rein on that. No double-cross. We just aim to stash that strongbox in our hole-in-the-wall, but that’s what we aim to keep to ourselves. The location.”

  “Like hell!” snapped Marlowe, his jaw hardening.

  “What’re you comin’ at, old feller?” Wyatt asked with narrowed eyes. “You got somethin” up your sleeve.”

  Old Man Jarvess nodded unhesitatingly. “Damn right. This hole-in-the-wall is mine. Has been for years. It’s got a lot of memories for me. Only ever been used by family. It’s our last retreat when things get really hot and I don’t aim for no one outside my boys to know where it’s at.”

  “Well, you just make up your mind that we aim to know where it’s at, Jarvess,” growled the redheaded Tyler belligerently. “We don’t aim to be left out in the cold, roamin’ these breaks, stumblin’ around like booze rats, tryin’ to find a hidey-hole to crawl into. Our deal was you’d help us lie low till things died down an ...”

  “Shut up, Tyler,” growled Chet, cocking his rifle. “You’re so damn busy talkin’, you ain’t give Pa a chance to finish what he’s sayin’. Now, shet down an’ listen. All of you.”

  Tyler glared murderously at Chet then slowly turned his gaze on the old man.

  He gestured to the strongbox. “We got to get rid of that thing. It’s draggin’ us down. So I figure to stash it in our hole-in-the-wall where it’ll be safe, then I’ll take you fellers to a place we can all lie low till the hills clear of the posse an’ Wells Fargo men.”

  “They’ll swing Nash onto somethin’ as big as this,” Marlowe pointed out. “He don’t ever give up.”

  “He will when a bullet stops him,” Tag Jarvess pointed out.

  Tyler shook his head: he was obviously the spokesman for the others. “I don’t like it. We’re too much out of it. We not only don’t get to know where your damn hidey-hole is, it means we don’t know where you stash the strongbox. We gotta know that much. In case somethin’ happens to you ...”

  “What? All three of us?” Tag scoffed.

  “Nothin’s gonna happen, Tyler,” Chet said flatly. “We know this neck of the woods. We was raised around these parts.”

  The redhead flicked his gaze to the old man. “I still say you’re askin’ us to trust you too much, Jarvess.”

  His three companions nodded—and there was a pause. Finally, Jarvess sighed, and scratched his beard.

  “We-ell,” he said finally, slowly, “I can see Ty’s point of view ...”

  “Wait a minute, Pa,” Chet protested.

  “No. We’re askin’ a lot, son. First time they’ve worked with us. An’ they did their parts well. We been squabblin’ an’ at each other’s throats all the time. That ain’t no good. It’ll cause a blowup and that could be the finish. If we don’t wipe ourselves out, it could bring the law down on us. No, Ty’s got a point, I’m afraid.”

  “Damn right I have,” Tyler said crisply. “What you aim to do about it?”

  They waited tensely while Jarvess thought it over. Finally, he pointed to the strongbox. “That’s what’s botherin’ you hombres, right? You figure we’re gonna do you out of your share. Okay, you don’t need to answer. So far, we been workin’ as a family—trustin’ each other. We sort of figured you’d be prepared to do the same. All right—I’ll take one of you with me. He’ll be there when we stash the box and he’ll be able to lead you to it should anythin’ happen to me or my boys. Fair enough?”

  The four outlaws figured it was but Tag and Chet had reservations. They didn’t like the idea of anyone else knowing about the location of their stronghold, but their father ruled them with an iron fist ...

  “So choose your man,” the Old Man told Tyler. “Who’s it gonna be?”

  They eventually chose McGovern and the dark-skinned man unshipped his rifle from his saddle scabbard, jacked a shell into the breech, then lowered the cocked hammer slowly. He sat with it across his knees, his actions plain as he met and held the cold stares of the Jarvess family.

  “All right,” the Old Man said slowly. “Ty, you, Wyatt and Marlowe take that fork in the trail. It’ll bring you to a small canyon with a cave in the west wall. Inside you’ll find canned grub and boxes of ammunition. It’s one of our outposts. You set up camp—and we’ll be there by sundown.”

  “Sundown?” Marlowe echoed. “Hell, that’s half a day off.”

  “It’ll take us that long,” Jarvess told him in clipped tones. “Longer if we don’t get goin’.”

  So they separated and McGovern brought up the rear, riding behind the slow-moving buckboard, his rifle at the ready.

  After moving a short distance along the trail fork, Tyler reined down and looked back towards the bu
ckboard disappearing between two large boulders.

  “What do you think, Ty?” Wyatt asked.

  The redhead’s teeth tugged briefly at his lower lip. “I think it’ll be all right,” he said slowly.

  “Damn well better be,” Marlowe growled.

  Tyler nodded. “You’re right there, amigo. It damn well better be.”

  At the narrow, rock-and-brush-hidden entrance to the hole-in-the-wall, Jarvess turned in his driving seat and looked at McGovern.

  “Far as you go, Mac.”

  McGovern stiffened, his grip tightening on his rifle. All he had to do was cock the hammer and pull the trigger ...

  “What?” he asked.

  “Plain enough, ain’t it?” snarled Tag. “You wait here. We’ll take in the strongbox and stash it.”

  “Like hell!”

  “That’s the deal,” snapped Chet.

  “No,” he snarled, and jerked the rifle.

  Old Man Jarvess sighed.

  “Look, there’s the entrance to the hideout. You can take bearin’s from that pinnacle rock yonder—The Cathedral it’s called. You can find your way here easy enough.”

  “Sure. So why can’t I come inside?”

  “There’re things in there that you don’t need to see,” the old man told him gruffly. “The graves of my wife an’ daughter for one. That’s strictly family. And it ain’t all that big inside. The strongbox’ll be stashed behind a triangular rock with a seam of quartz runnin’ across it an’ that sparkles like diamonds when the sun hits it right. I give you my word on that, Mac. That’s where the strongbox’ll be. We won’t be long.”

  “No,” McGovern said, and lifted the rifle. The brothers stiffened as he brought the weapon smartly to his shoulder and beaded the Old Man. “You’re pullin’ somethin’. Ty’s right. We can’t trust you. We was fools to think we could get a fair shake from a Jarvess.”

  “Goddamn it, put down that blasted gun,” snapped Chet, his hand hovering above his Colt.

  The rifle muzzle instantly swung to cover him. “Don’t do it, Chet,” rasped McGovern.

  “Just what d’you aim to do, Mac?” asked Tag dropping a hand from his knee to let it dangle alongside his holstered six-gun.

  McGovern was sweating as he swung his rifle to cover Tag, hesitated, then started to swing it back to the Old Man, knowing he couldn’t keep all three covered. Yet he was reluctant to fire.

  “Git him, boys,” the Old Man said abruptly—and McGovern almost fell from the saddle as he spun to cover the brothers.

  Suddenly, Tag and Chet had blazing Colts in their hands.

  McGovern’s rifle whiplashed in a single shot, the barrel pointing to the ground. The outlaw went over his mount’s rump and he thudded to the mud and lay still.

  Tag and Chet eased their mounts forward and slammed another three shots into his body, then looked up through the gunsmoke at the Old Man standing in the seat of the buckboard.

  “I reckon we just got ourselves a heap of trouble, boys,” he said slowly, looking at McGovern’s bleeding body. “A heap of trouble.”

  Chapter Four – Bushwhackers’ Guns

  The Jarvess family rode into the small canyon just a fraction after sundown.

  They had planned it that way.

  McGovern’s body lay under the tarp in the bouncing buckboard as the old man tooled the vehicle over the rough trail.

  The cave mouth was outlined by a small campfire deep in the hillside. A dark shape lounged in the entrance, watching as the three reined down.

  “Where’s McGovern?” Tyler asked tightly.

  “We-ell, he was kind of—foolish,” the Old Man said from the buckboard seat. “We made a small request but he got riled and tried to blow my head off. Naturally, my boys had to step in.”

  Tyler was silent for a moment or two. “Naturally,” he said dryly. “That him lyin’ under the tarp?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Tyler walked to the side of the buckboard and lifted the edge of the tarp. He flung it back and could just make out the bullet-riddled body of McGovern. He sucked in his breath.

  “Judas! You sure made a sieve out of him.”

  “Him or us,” Tag said.

  “Pa,” Chet said uneasily. “Where’s Wyatt an’ Marlowe?”

  “Where they should be,” Tyler said suddenly and leapt back from the buckboard, dragging his Colt and shooting.

  Old Man Jarvess spun over the backrest of the seat as lead slammed into him and Tyler dived full length into the cave.

  “Pa,” cried Tag as his horse went down under him from bullets fired from a high ledge on the far side of the canyon.

  He rolled out of the saddle and came up on one knee, blazing three fast shots at the ledge, then leaping up and running for the rear of the buckboard.

  The mules brayed and reared—then charged forward, with sand and mud flying from the buckboard wheels.

  Old Man Jarvess clambered groggily to his knees and groped over the back of the seat, trying to reach the flying reins. Blood was seeping through his shirt.

  Chet spun his mount, shooting up at the ledge, and moving forward to try to help Tag.

  But Tyler stepped out of the cave with a sawn-off shotgun and dropped both hammers as Tag staggered upright and lunged for the cave entrance.

  He stopped as if he had slammed into a solid wall, and his jerking body spun and was hurled backwards—his head hanging by a shred to his shoulders.

  Chet felt his gorge rise and he screamed a curse and rode in with gun blazing at Tyler. But the outlaw had ducked back into the protection of the cave and Chet was blasted from the saddle by the gunfire from the ledge.

  “Chet!” Old Man Jarvess cried as the buckboard cleared the canyon and, clinging to the rear of the driving seat, he saw both his sons cut down. “Tag, boy,” he groaned.

  Then the buckboard bounced over a rock and he was thrown heavily into the rear. He felt the blood on his groping hand while he tried to get out his six-gun, knowing it was no good. They had been bushwhacked properly and both his sons were dead.

  And he was dying ...

  But he knew he’d feel better about it—if only he could take those three killers with him. One thing, anyway: they would never get the loot, because they didn’t even know where to begin looking. He was now the only living person who knew ...

  And that thought gave him strength.

  Tyler and his pards would already have realized that. So they would be coming after him, to torture the location out of him ...

  With an immense effort, he clambered over the dead body of McGovern and somehow managed to get back into the driving seat. He hung on desperately with one hand, coughing and tasting blood, knowing by the way his breath bubbled in his throat that he was lung shot. He felt the rein ends and grabbed them, looped them around his hand and wrist and guided the panic-stricken mules away from the trail they had used coming in.

  His vision was blurred and things kept going in and out of focus, but if only he could find his way down out of the breaks—and he had often claimed he could do it blindfolded—then he might spike their guns.

  Old Man Jarvess figured he was dying anyway and if the worst came to the worst, he would run the buckboard off a cliff.

  Leastways, he thought he could do it. It would take a lot of guts, but if it meant Tyler wouldn’t get his hands on that strongbox ...

  “That old sidewinder must be able to see in the dark,” snapped Wyatt as he reined down his sweating mount on a knoll. “Listen to the speed that buckboard’s travelin’ at.”

  Tyler and Marlowe reined down alongside and he heard the distant rattle of the vehicle clattering along the track below.

  “He’s alive, anyways,” gritted Marlowe. “Which means he’ll talk when we get our hands on him.”

  “If we do,” Tyler said. “C’mon. He’s gettin’ further away by the minute.”

  He put his mount down the dim trail, cursing that the stars weren’t out. Old Man Jarvess had outfoxed them in that w
ay, by arriving at the rendezvous just after dark. He knew there would be at least an hour between sundown and the first appearance of the stars. But it made no difference to him. In fact it was an advantage. He could find his way around the hills like no other man.

  But Tyler knew he had hit the old man high in the chest and it was likely Jarvess was already dying. Tyler sensed the urgency: he had to get his hands on that old outlaw before he cashed in his chips—and took with him the whereabouts of the hole-in-the-wall.

  If the old man died before they found him they would spend the rest of their lives searching ...

  They managed to hold him within earshot until the first stars came out. Twenty minutes later they sighted him almost directly below a steep mountainside.

  “Come on,” Tyler snapped. “If we lose him, we lose a fortune.”

  Without hesitation, he put his mount straight over the edge and began the steep and dangerous descent straight across the face of the mountain. Marlowe sucked in his breath and Wyatt hesitated for almost a half minute before finally plucking up courage enough to set his mount down the dark hillside.

  Marlowe gritted his teeth and eased his horse off the edge of the trail. It fought him, but he was committed and he had to struggle to hold the animal’s head upright or he would sail over its ears.

  Old Man Jarvess was suffering badly. His shirt was soaked with blood, some pulsing out of the bullet wound—the rest from what he had coughed up. His senses were reeling and he figured he was sinking fast ...

  He managed to turn his head and he saw the three outlaws’ darker shapes against the paleness of the mountain slope. They were coming straight down on top of him and he knew they would be with him within ten minutes. Jarvess didn’t think he would die that fast and he didn’t trust himself if they caught him. He’d seen what Tyler could do to a man before with hot coals and boiling water ...