Clay Nash 1 Read online

  He was nursing the old cap-and-ball model Dragoon Colt that Summers had given him when he’d insisted that he must keep a firearm at hand. Nash’s raw, but healing, hands gripped the heavy pistol tightly as he saw Summers talking with Vern Dekker out there in the yard, as the agent worked at hitching on a new coach team. The other passengers had gone straight into the cool adobe room where they could have some of Mary’s coffee or cool goat’s milk and maybe a wash-up at the bench, but Dekker, not easily recognized at first in duster and polished half boots, had stayed in the yard, ignoring the blistering sun. At first he’d spoken with the Indian helpers but they’d all professed to speak little or no American and then Dekker had followed Jed around as the agent changed teams.

  Nash couldn’t hear a word Dekker was saying but he knew the man would be asking about him: whether he’d turned up here out of the desert. He’d told Summers and Mary the story when he’d regained consciousness on the second day after arriving and he’d predicted that someone could come here looking for him. He didn’t underestimate Matthews. The man was stubborn—and smart. When he couldn’t find sign of Nash in the other direction he’d check out the only possibilities left before calling it quits. Or maybe he’d never give up on it: he didn’t take kindly to being beaten or things not coming out the way he wanted them to.

  The Summers’ had done all they could for Nash and, his luck still holding, there’d been a sawbones passing through on one of the stages a couple of days after Nash arrived. He’d taken a look at him, left some medication and reckoned that the salve the Indians had made for his sunburn was as good as anything he could concoct. He was a taciturn man, grumpy but efficient, and there was little chance he’d ever mention having treated Nash at the way-station.

  Nash had been here a week now and was feeling ready to get out of bed and face up to life again. He knew he owed his life to the Summers’. If they hadn’t pulled him out of that tank he’d have drowned, for he’d sure been too weak to get himself out. His nights and fitful dozings were still wracked by nightmares of his journey across the desert. His stomach still rebelled at food occasionally, after the survival diet he’d consumed.

  Outside, Dekker looked grim as he finally nodded to Jed Summers and climbed back into the coach, not even going into the adobe building for a break in the long, dusty journey. A half-hour later, the stage rolled out of Iron Ridge and Jed and Mary came into Nash’s room shortly afterwards. He set down the heavy Dragoon pistol on the table beside the bed.

  “Know him?” Summers asked.

  Nash nodded. “Vern Dekker. The hombre who dragged me behind his horse. Matthews’ top trouble-shooter.”

  “Mean hombre,” opined Jed. “He’s lookin’ for you right enough, son. Offered twenty bucks if it’d help my memory. But you’re lucky. He ain’t convinced you could’ve made it this far. He’s just checkin’ around because his boss told him to, I guess. If he figured you could’ve made it, well, guess I wouldn’t’ve been able to stop a hombre like that from searchin’ the place. He’s got real killer’s eyes.”

  “He’s a killer, all right,” Nash agreed quietly. “Look, I don’t want either of you to risk gettin’ hurt on my account. If they come again and get tough, just step aside and let ’em come after me. It ain’t your fight and I owe you enough already.”

  “They won’t come again,” Jed said confidently. “Dekker’s impatient to get the chore over with, way I figure it.”

  “They might,” Nash insisted. “Cash Matthews won’t give up easy.”

  Mary frowned. “That name, Clay ... Cash Matthews. It’s been bothering me since you first mentioned it.” She turned to her father. “Isn’t that the name of the man who won’t give Mr. Garth the right-of-way across his property? Won’t give it to him unless he pays a fantastic sum?”

  Jed pursed his old lips thoughtfully. “By godfrey, I believe you’re right, daughter ... ” He glanced at the interested Nash. “Walt Garth, stageline owner, has been tryin’ to get a right-of-way through Matthews’ land for months. It’d cut thirty miles off the coach journey and be through good, flat country. He’s gradually goin’ broke tryin’ to repair his coaches after they’ve been through a rough stretch of near fifty miles down that way. Can’t get the parts out here fast enough and some can’t be made by local blacksmiths. Matthews knows this and he’s holdin’ Garth to ransom.”

  Nash nodded. “That sounds like the Cash Matthews I know.”

  “Mr. Garth has been to the State Senate about it and he’s been told that if he takes it to the courts, he’ll likely get a judgment in his favor as it’s for the public good. They take the view that once the stage route’s established, it’ll become a public road some day. But Mr. Garth doesn’t have the money to fight a long legal battle.”

  “Fact is, he’s thinkin’ about sellin’ out to Wells Fargo,” Jed added. “They’ve made a fair offer and I reckon he’ll take it. Be better all round if he does. Won’t have any more worries and Wells Fargo can eat up a dozen Cash Matthews.”

  Nash looked dubious. “Wouldn’t write off Cash that easy,” he said quietly. “He’s mean and he’s patient. He’ll wait a long time to get his own way, whatever the cost.”

  “Well, I guess it ain’t our worry, not directly, leastways, but I hope Walt Garth does sell out to Wells Fargo. He’s been a good boss but he’s goin’ broke slowly and I’d like to see him come out with somethin’ while he can.”

  “Dad, we’ve been talking about the stageline and other things,” Mary said suddenly, “and we haven’t yet settled what Clay is going to do. You can stay here as long as you have to, and longer it you wish, Clay. It’s up to you. But if you want dad to give you a job, he’ll have to send some sort of message to that effect to Mr. Garth so you can be put on the payroll.” They both looked at Nash and he glanced towards the big Dragoon Colt on the washstand and scratched lightly at a piece of peeling skin on his face. He looked from Jed to the girl, smiled faintly.

  “Well, I guess I can’t repay you folk enough for what you’ve done, and what you’ve offered. I’d be glad to stay on and work off some of the debt for a spell ...”

  “That don’t come into it,” Jed told him flatly. “You don’t owe us nothin’ and there’ll be no talk about workin’ off debts that don’t exist. You stay on and work and you get paid for it. Right?”

  Nash shrugged, not aiming to argue the point about it right now. “Okay. Soon’s I’m good and ready I’ll need a horse and some guns. Guess I’ll have to work to get money for them.”

  “Why, Clay?” asked Mary. “What do you need them for now?”

  He looked at her levelly. “I’m goin’ back to the southwest, Mary. I aim to square things with Matthews and Dekker. I don’t have anythin’ back there now, thanks to them. Ain’t good enough law in those parts for me to do anythin’ legal and Matthews has likely moved in a line shack or some such where I’d had my cabin anyway. Only road open to me is the outlaw trail.”

  They both looked startled. There was dismay in Mary’s eyes. “I’ll rustle his stock and drive ’em over the range to the hard case settlements out near the Brazos. I can set fire to a few of his pastures just as he’s got ’em ready for feedin’ up prime beeves. I can drag down his fences, pick off his crew, stampede his remuda and his herds. I can slip in at night and loosen the lockpins on the wheels of his wagons and buckboards. I can think up all kinds of ways to make life hell for Cash Matthews and his crew. But it’ll all be against the law when you get right down to it.”

  “And downright dangerous!” exclaimed Mary. “Not to mention plain stupid.”

  Nash frowned at her tone and blunt words. “I don’t aim to let it ride, Mary. It ain’t my way. I could ride in and kill Matthews right off but that’s too quick for him. Rather hit him in the pocket where it hurts. Dekker I’ll square with in my own way and my own time.”

  “You’re being very foolish, Clay,” the girl said. “I only know what you’ve told us and I believe every word, but I just don’t see t
he sense in putting yourself outside the law. Matthews will be the victor if you do that, don’t you see? You can’t win. There are Texas Rangers now as well as Federal Marshals. Matthews doesn’t have to worry about you. He simply has to call in the Rangers and they’ll put a bounty on your head and you’ll spend more time running and hiding from them than you will fighting Matthews. You’ll be hunted while he sits back and goes about his business.”

  Nash frowned. He hadn’t thought of it that way, but he knew now that she was right. Matthews would be riled at first but he was smart and he’d figure things the same way as Mary had. He’d call in the Rangers, make Nash a hunted man, and then Nash would be too busy to bother Matthews. And, eventually, he’d be killed or tossed in prison, for the Rangers were tenacious and didn’t give up till they got their man. He knew: he’d once joined the force himself but lasted only six months. He didn’t have the stomach for hunting men, and what’s more, he’d felt too much sympathy for a lot of the so-called lawbreakers, knowing poverty or pressure from big ranchers like Matthews had driven them onto the owlhoot trail.

  And he’d almost taken that trail himself. It had seemed so easy, until Mary had pointed out how loco he’d be. He could see her logic now. But that still didn’t mean he’d let it ride: he still had a debt to square with Matthews and Vern Dekker. But it could wait. By now, they’d figure he was dead. Let them sit back, complacent, and he’d turn up when they least expected it. First, though, he needed a stake and he couldn’t ask these folk for a loan. If he wanted dinero, he’d have to work for it. And he should be fit enough for that pretty soon, thanks to Mary’s attentions.

  Nash looked at Summers. “You figure Mary makes sense, Jed?”

  Jed scratched at one ear and nodded. “Reckon I do, but it’s your decision, Clay. You’re the one who suffered hell out in that desert and lost your home. I’d feel the same as you do, but Mary’s angle makes a lot of sense. You can’t square anythin’ if you get the Rangers on your trail.”

  “Way I figure it, too,” Nash said and gave Mary a faint smile, wincing a little as the movement of his lips opened a crack in the flesh again. “I need a grubstake and other money. Reckon I’ll go on the stageline payroll soon as I can get around well enough, Jed.”

  Mary smiled and her father nodded. “Okay, I can use an extra hand at the station here, but if Walt Garth sells out to Wells Fargo, the coaches’ll be carryin’ express boxes and there’ll be shotgun guards needed. It’ll pay a lot more than team-changin’ on a relay station.”

  “Suits me,” Nash said. “Suits me fine. And there’s another thought that’s comfortin’.” He looked at them both with a faint, crooked smile: “The stageline’ll be up against Matthews, whoever owns it. He won’t stick to lawyers and courts. If he wants to make things hard for the line, he’ll put his hard cases up against the stages. And that also suits me fine.”

  His smile faded and his face became grim and deadly. Mary felt a shiver pass down her spine as she saw the cold anticipation in his eyes. She knew that here was a man who would never forget what had been done to him, never forgive those who had done it to him.

  ~*~

  As it turned out, Walt Garth was something of an historian. From pioneer stock, his ancestors having migrated from Wales during the first California gold rush, Garth had a literary background. His grandfather had been a poet of some renown while his father, before trying his luck on the goldfields—and afterwards, too, when that luck turned out to be all bad—was a newspaperman. He’d built up a small-town newspaper and printery and left it to Walt, who’d sold the business and put his money into transport, believing that, with the opening of the West, there just had to be a boom in moving people to their destinations. He was right to a certain extent, though, spending more time on the writing of his ‘History of American Transport from the Pilgrim Fathers to the Present Day’, his stageline business did not expand the way it should have done. He left too many gaps, and other lines moved in and took business that should have been his. But Garth wasn’t a greedy man: he was content to make a reasonable living and have some time to spare for his literary activities.

  He was a small man and gave the impression of not quite listening to the person who was speaking to him. But when pressed, he always had the right answer. His thoughts were always on his book, constantly changing, improving, editing, rephrasing. Garth was something of a perfectionist and his young daughter, Susan, claimed he would never finish his book, because it would always be less than perfect by his own strict standards. Garth could laugh at this and his own shortcomings and this made him an immensely likeable man. Clay Nash took to him the first time they met, when he was helping Jed change teams on a stage to El Paso. Garth was a passenger and told his employees at the way-stations that he was on his way to clinch the deal with Wells Fargo.

  Garth would still be running his line, but Wells Fargo would be the owners and they were prepared to take Matthews to court over the right-of-way if he didn’t agree to a reasonable settlement.

  “Jed tells me you’re looking for a job riding shotgun, Mr. Nash,” Garth said as they ate a meal in the big kitchen, with Susan helping Mary Summers serve the men at the table.

  Nash nodded. “Figured it’d pay pretty well.”

  “It will. And I should think that we’ll be running Express boxes within the fortnight. I’ll be back in my head office in Warbonnet by then. Come in and see me.”

  “Fine, Mr. Garth. Thanks.”

  “Meanwhile, you may care to look into some of the background of stagecoach lines in this country,” Garth said, rummaging in his ample leather valise and bringing out a thick, loose-leaf bundle tied with a rawhide thong. “This is my manuscript on the History of Transport in Frontier America ... a somewhat more manageable title than my original. The background it offers may prove of some use to you.”

  Nash took the bundle reluctantly, not knowing how to refuse, and he saw Jed Summers duck his head over his plate, the oldster’s broad shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter.

  “Oh, Pa, Mr. Nash likely won’t have time to struggle through all that writing of yours. In fact he’ll be lucky if he can make out the words what with your constant changing and scratching-out,” said Susan Garth, walking across. She was barely twenty, blonde and blue-eyed, with a clear, tanned skin that was in marked contrast to that of Mary Summers. The relay station girl didn’t have the beauty helps that Susan had, nor the money to purchase them. Mary was still a fine-looking girl in her late twenties, but her skin was showing the effects of the harsh desert climate. Nash was unaware that he was making these unconscious comparisons. He was just grateful to Susan for giving him some sort of an excuse for not accepting the manuscript. “Yeah, well, I am kind of a slow reader, Mr. Garth ... ”

  “Plenty of time to look through the book, Clay,” Jed Summers said mischievously. “Won’t be another stage through for three days. And ain’t much that needs doin’ around the station.”

  “Thanks, Jed,” Nash said, face deadpan, tone just as expressionless.

  “You’ll make out the main drift of things,” Garth told Nash pushing the manuscript across. “Be interested to have your opinion on my way back to Warbonnet.”

  Nash sighed and nodded, raked up a slow smile. “We-ell ... thanks, Mr. Garth,” he said lamely and saw Jed laughing quietly again.

  But the laugh was on Jed. For Nash, despite his misgivings, found the book most readable and the subject more interesting than he’d figured possible. He learnt a lot. He didn’t figure it’d help him with the job of riding shotgun, but it was an aspect on the opening of the West he hadn’t known much about before. He skipped the early part about New England, started at the part about the gold rush. Westerners wanted a good, reliable and fast mail service as well as a comfortable way to travel as towns began to grow and flourish on the frontier. The stagecoach was the answer and the service first started from St. Louis, carrying mail and passengers to points East. There were various types of coach but the one which p
assengers and stageline owners liked the best was the Concord, built in the New Hampshire town of that name by the firm of Abbott and Downing. This coach swung on tough but free-swinging leather braces and was the last word in passenger comfort. It was no wonder that more and more Concords were built and used for stagelines.

  Transport was slow in spreading across the continent, although lines gradually crept westwards from St. Louis to Santa Fe and northwards to Salt Lake City. At the time of the California gold rush, a few astute men realized that there was more money to be made transporting goods and passengers than taking a gamble on finding gold, and stagelines running to regular schedules were established within that State. The men who sought gold began to settle in communities and wanted ties with the outside world. This meant the stages began carrying mail and parcels and gave rise to what was to become known as the ‘Express Company’.

  Henry Wells operated a steamboat but saw an opportunity in running mail and carrying packages ‘express’ and he formed a company which did this at cheaper rates than the post office itself. He had a clerk working for him named William George Fargo and in 1844 took him in as a partner in another express company he formed in Chicago. They made a good business team and by 1852 decided to move into California where the Adams Express Company already was established. This company folded up during a financial crisis in 1855 and Wells Fargo found it had a virtual monopoly of express banking business. At that time, Wells Fargo had no real stagelines in California of their own, they sub-contracted and the main mail and passenger service in California was run by the Butterfield Overland Mail Line, running from Tipton, Missouri, to San Francisco, taking a long swing down through Texas and southern New Mexico along the way. It was a journey totaling almost 2,800 miles and took, on average, twenty-four days.

  It was the longest stageline route on record and Butterfield employed more than eight hundred men to keep the coaches operating day and night with changes of horses and teams every twenty miles or so. The delivery of mail by stagecoach was challenged by the short-lived Pony Express which undertook to deliver letters from east to west in thirteen days, come hell, high water or Indians. But the Pony Express was doomed from the start. The pace was too much for men and horses and the telegraph was beginning to spread across the face of the continent. The day after it achieved this, the Pony Express Company wound up. Envious of Wells Fargo’s success, other express companies were formed but the railroads were slower in making inroads into the wilderness. The Central Overland and Pikes Peak Express Companies spread into California from a vast network across many States. Wells Fargo, expanding, bought them out and, by doing so, gained control of every major stage and express company in the West. Smaller stagelines like Garth’s still operated, but slowly Wells Fargo were buying them out, at fair prices, linking the frontier in a vast network of roads that were never free of rumbling Concord stagecoaches carrying passengers, mail and valuables to the far-flung outposts. The company was already running passenger trips from New York to California in only thirteen days, such was the degree of organization and the network of relay stations.