Clay Nash 8 Page 5

  “Nothin’ … She didn’t get any mount or buggy from there and, far as I was told, she didn’t even own a bronc.”

  “Could still be in town, then?”

  “Possible,” said Hollis. “But if she was quitting Harmer’s because she’d slipped a Mickey into Clay’s drink, I reckon she’d clear this neck of the woods completely.”

  Nash had to agree with him.

  He rolled a smoke and lit it before standing and throwing up his hands. “Well, looks like we’d better forget about that trail. I don’t figure Ruby to be all that bright—but I’m damn sure she drugged me. Not for money, neither. Wasn’t more than forty bucks. Accordin’ to Blondie—she could’ve made more than that workin’ the saloon trade.”

  “You’re right, Clay,” Hume said crisply. “Forget that tack altogether. I don’t think it means a thing. The gal might’ve been implicated in some way but I doubt it. I’ve had a good look at the safe and the office. Have you?”

  Nash frowned. “Well, yeah. But I was feelin’ mighty low at the time. I could've missed something, I guess.”

  Hume swiveled his gaze to Hollis. “You?”

  “Sure, but I was nursin’ a hangover, too.”

  Hume’s mouth tightened. “Fine crew I’ve got. But we’ll forget that—for now. Main thing is to recover the money and the other stuff.” He stood up, walked across the room and took a folded map out of his valise. He brought it back and spread it out on the table. He pointed to Red Rapids. “We are here. Up here we got Squirrel Creek. Over here, we got the Diamondback Ranges, honeycombed with canyons—and a known hangout for outlaws.”

  Both men looked puzzled. Hume smiled and tapped the Diamondback Ranges again on the map.

  “This is where Nitro Mantell was sighted.” The two men reacted. “Thought that’d make you sit up and take notice. We’ve tended to forget Nitro some. Anyway, the sightin’ hasn’t been confirmed and I’m thinking that mebbe it’s a sidetrack—deliberately arranged by Mantell himself.”

  “Could be,” Nash admitted, still trying to figure what Hume was getting at.

  “My guess is he pulled the raid on the depot last night.”

  Nash and Hollis both looked startled as Hume dropped this bombshell. He flicked his flinty gaze from one man to the other.

  “Think about it,” he said quietly.

  They thought about it for several minutes.

  “Consider the facts. There were no fuses or detonator caps,” Hollis said slowly. “But the lock had been chiseled and all the rivet-heads around the plate cut away. That’s Mantell’s way, I’ve heard.”

  “And he wouldn’t have had to use much nitro on the lock of that old safe,” Nash added slowly. “So, if he muffled it a little, there was the chance that no one would hear the explosion.”

  “And no one did,” Hollis said. “By hell, Jim, you could be right.”

  “But if that sighting in the Diamondbacks is on the level,” Nash said, “then he couldn’t possibly have gotten down here in time to rob the depot.”

  Hume scowled. “Hell, there’ve been reports of Mantell’s bunch bein’ sighted in a dozen different places at once. That argument’s no good, Clay. We can’t take that Diamondback sighting as genuine. It’s just to throw us off the trail. No, I reckon this has got all the earmarks of Mantell’s nitro. You think about it some more.”

  “I don’t have to,” Hollis said. “I’m convinced, Jim.”

  “Why would Mantell pick the depot just at the right time when there was a payroll in the safe? No one knew about that until we were ready to pull out of Denver, Jim.”

  “But it was common knowledge that that particular stage was carryin’ a payroll up to the Squirrel Creek mines and on to Fort Piper,” Hume pointed out. “S’pose Mantell’s bunch had figured to hold it up. They followed it, or set up along the trail, but it never showed, because it diverged along the trail to Red Rapids here. By the time they found this out the stage was in town and the express box had been put in the depot safe for the night. So they moved in and blew it. Which was right in their line.”

  “But a stage hold-up wouldn’t be,” Nash said.

  Hume frowned. “Mantell’s held up our stages before, Clay.”

  “Not for years. Not since he discovered how to make nitro.”

  “Hell, he’d be desperate now,” Hollis pointed out. “Every lawman in the State is after him because of Squirrel Creek. He'd grab whatever he could, Clay.”

  “If he’s still in Colorado,” Nash said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if that sighting in the Diamondbacks is genuine, Jim. They run across the State line into Wyoming. I figure Mantell would clear Colorado lickety-split.”

  “State lines are bein’ watched with a lot of armed men concentrated around there,” Hume answered. “Mantell knows we’d figure he might try to jump the State. It’d be the logical thing to do. So, bein’ a smart hombre, he might just stay put—and try to grab himself some dinero.”

  Nash still looked doubtful.

  “I’m with Jim,” said Hollis. “What he says makes sense—and the robbery does have the earmarks of Mantell. It explains a few things if he used nitro.”

  Nash sighed and slowly shrugged. “Well, I guess it’s as good a theory as the one I came up with.”

  “Harmer? I reckon you’re way off the trail there.”

  “I’d still like to talk with Ruby,” Nash said stubbornly.

  “In that case, I’m making it official, Clay,” said Hume. “You follow through on the Mantell theory and tie it in with the Squirrel Creek raid.”

  “Okay, you’re the boss. But just one thing, Jim. No one’s actually put Mantell at Squirrel Creek—even at this stage.”

  Hume smiled. “Just goes to prove my point. The man’s smart.”

  There was a knock at the door. Hume shouted, “It’s open.” He stood up as the town’s old sheriff came in, taking off his hat. He looked tired and sick, which he was, riding out the last years of his life in the comparatively easy job as lawman of Red Rapids. He nodded briefly to the two men and turned to Hume.

  “Sorry to trouble you this time o’ night, Mr. Hume, but somethin’s come up that I figured you should know about.”

  “That’s all right, sheriff,” Hume said. “What’s up?”

  The lawman glanced at Nash. “You’re the hombre gunned down Moody and beat-up on Harmer, ain’t you?”

  Nash nodded. “I made my statement to your deputy.”

  “Yeah, sure. It’s all right, son, don’t go to worryin’. But you said the reason for your goin’ to the Palace was to trace one of the gals ... Ruby Dow?”

  “Well, I didn’t know her other name,” Nash admitted, “but Ruby was the one I was hopin’ to find.”

  The sheriff nodded. “Well—we have.”

  The Wells Fargo men tensed.

  “Fine,” Hume said. “What’s she got to say for herself?”

  The lawman shook his head. “Nothin’. Nothin’ at all.”

  Hume glanced at Nash. “You’d better get on down to the jail and question her, Clay, now that she’s been located.” He turned to the lawman. “I take it she is at the jail, sheriff?”

  Again the sheriff shook his head. “Coroner’s.”

  “What!”

  “She’s dead. Cowman who lives just outside of town found her body at the foot of the rapids while he was trackin’ a puma that’s been at his calves.”

  “Accident?” Nash asked tightly.

  “Nope. She’d been strangled. You ask me, looks as if someone didn’t want her to talk to no one.”

  Nash nodded. He would go along with that

  ~*~

  She said her name was Liz Garrett and she looked ready to chew on nails as she faced the startled Jim Hume across his hotel room in the early morning sunlight. Clay Nash had been about to leave for Squirrel Creek when she came in and announced herself. Curious, he glanced at the startled Hume who was now regaining his composure a little.

  “I have a brother named Ben,”
the girl said. “He’s in jail at Julesburg for a crime he didn’t commit. It’s a long story, but the bottom line reads where he was accused of a hold-up when he was someplace else. It’s as simple as that. Some old bat identified him out of spite ’cause he rejected her. Now he’s serving five years on the chain gang.”

  Hume glanced at Nash and then back to the girl. He gestured to a chair.

  “Have a seat, Miss Garrett, and tell me how this concerns us.”

  The girl sat down without taking her eyes off Hume. “The woman confessed she had lied—but only when she was dying in childbirth. Apparently, the fact that she was unmarried and pregnant was the reason she tried to get her hooks into my brother in the first place. Anyway, she wrote a statement tellin’ the whole story before she died. And there was a whole mess of witnesses.”

  “Get to the point,” Hume said.

  “Oh, I fully intend doin’ that, Mr. Hume. You see, that document was on the riverboat that went down in the flashflood.” Liz Garrett’s full lips suddenly clamped into a tight line. Nash thought she was a fine-looking woman and the fact that she was good and mad only seemed to add to her beauty. It put a fiery spark in her brown eyes and the way she tossed her head a mite irritably to get the strand of vagrant black hair off her forehead gave her a proud look. Her nose was straight and her jaw small but rather squarish and determined; maybe outright stubborn. She was dressed in the female travelling attire of the day; ankle-length dress with matching hat, a long handled sunshade and a cloth handbag with a leather insert that matched her button-up boots. Now she raked her gaze across Nash, too.

  “I thought the papers had gone forever, and then, as you know the mail was eventually recovered, and I have been waitin’ for it to arrive in Julesburg—by one of your stages, Mr. Hume. Only now I am given to understand that this is not possible as someone has broken into your depot and stolen all the mail.”

  “Not only the mail,” Nash added quietly. “But also a lot of other papers and a payroll of around ten thousand dollars.”

  The girl looked at him coolly. “I’m not interested in that. The confession is all I want. My brother’s freedom depends on it.”

  Nash shrugged, a mite uncomfortable under the hard eyes of this woman. Hume gestured briefly.

  “My top investigator, Clay Nash. He’s lookin’ into the robbery—and the big one at Squirrel Creek. You’ve no doubt heard of that.”

  “Yes, several people were killed,” she said without much concern. She ran her eyes over Nash’s tall form, the set of his gunrig, his lean, muscular body.

  “You look tough enough and smart enough, I suppose. What have you learned so far?”

  Nash raised his eyebrows. “Well, I guess that’s our affair, ma’am.”

  “Like hell it is,” she snapped. “I’ve told you it’s very much my affair. I want my brother out of that prison just as fast as possible—and I want to know what’s going on.”

  Nash looked towards Hume a mite helplessly and the detective chief scratched at an ear lobe.

  “Appreciate that, ma’am, but you have to realize we’re detectives. We can’t take any chances of our progress reaching the men who might be responsible and putting them on their guard. So, our enquiries have to remain confidential. In any case, you said there were witnesses to that confession the woman signed. I recall the case, by the by. About six months back, wasn’t it?” Liz Garrett ignored his final question.

  “There were two witnesses—an old woman who dropped dead a month back and a doctor who moved to Texas, but I can’t locate him.” The girl swallowed hard, trying to control her emotions. “When that mail was recovered from the riverboat I thought it would be all I needed.”

  “You sure the document you wanted was there?”

  “It had to be.”

  Hume and Nash exchanged glances. It was obvious the girl was trying to convince herself. She tilted her chin and sat up straight in the chair.

  “And I want that mail recovered—again. It’s your job, Mr. Hume. And yours, too, Mr. Nash. But this time I aim to go along and make sure I get my hands on that document personally.”

  Both Hume and Nash stiffened at her words.

  “Just what does that mean, Miss Garrett?” Hume asked.

  She met their gazes unflinchingly.

  “Exactly what I said. I intend to accompany Mr. Nash on this investigation—to make sure nothing else happens.”

  “Mail could’ve been dumped—or burned—already,” Nash said.

  Liz Garrett paled. “Wh-what d’you mean?”

  “Well, they likely just took the mailbag to see if there was any money in it. They wouldn’t carry around stuff they didn’t need. They never do.”

  “You mean—if the document was there, amongst the mail, it could’ve been destroyed?”

  Nash felt compassion for the girl as he saw the knowledge hit her like a sledge hammer. Obviously it was something she hadn’t thought about before. He moved a little uncomfortably.

  “Well, it’s possible, ma’am.”

  She glanced at Hume and he nodded slowly. “It’s usual for them to destroy the mail or to dump it when it’s no good to them, Miss Garrett. No sense in them toting around evidence that could be used to convict them.”

  Her teeth tugged at her bottom lip and then she looked up with defiance in her face. “Well, that’s just one more reason for catching up with these creatures quickly. Get to them before they have a chance to dump the mailbags.”

  Nash and Hume didn’t quite have the heart to tell her that this would have been already done.

  “I can’t authorize you to work on this investigation. Miss Garrett,” Hume said briskly. “And it certainly wouldn’t be a good idea for you to try to follow Mr. Nash around. It could be dangerous.”

  “And you could get in the way,” Nash told her bluntly.

  Liz Garrett stood abruptly and looked from one man to the other. “Good morning—gentlemen.” She turned and made for the door, but paused when Hume spoke.

  “Miss Garrett, I think you should know that one young female who seemed to be somehow involved in the robbery has been found dead in the river outside of town. She had been strangled.”

  Liz Garrett looked startled and her face paled, wrinkling in a brief grimace. She set her brown gaze on Hume. “I—I’m prepared to take any risk if it’ll help get my brother out of jail.”

  She spoke quietly, yet forcefully, then opened the door and left the room. Nash sighed and arched his eyebrows as he glanced at Hume.

  “She’s gonna be a pain in the ass if she interferes.”

  “She won’t. I can come down on her hard if she tries anything.”

  Nash looked doubtful and prepared to leave. “You gonna be around here or you goin’ back to Denver?”

  Hume met his gaze levelly. “I’m staying. I’ll do a little more investigating myself. Can’t just ignore the killing of that female.”

  “Thought the sheriff said he’d handle that? I kind of got the idea he was telling you to just stay with the robbery—and leave the murder to him.”

  “I guess that’s what he was saying, but I’m convinced now the girl knew something. Maybe she saw too much or maybe there was some other reason. But I’ll handle this end. You get out and try to pick up Mantell’s trail.”

  Nash nodded but hesitated. “I’m still not convinced that he pulled this one, Jim.”

  “I guess we could use some more evidence, but seems to me he’s the best bet so far. And if it was him, Clay, he’ll use that payroll to clear the State just as fast as possible. So don’t waste time.”

  Nash nodded. He knew he had a lot to make up to Hume. It was no excuse that he had been drugged; he should have taken more care in guarding the payroll. He would have to try to clear himself now. And that meant some hard riding and, very likely, plenty of danger.

  He hoped like hell he wouldn’t have to try to cope with that damn woman as well.

  Six – Buckskin

  The folk of Squirrel C
reek were only too glad to give Clay Nash all the help they could. Unfortunately, it wasn’t much. They had tried to track Mantell and his gang—though when you got right down to it, no one had actually seen the outlaw and it was just assumed that he was the man responsible—but they had lost the trail amongst lava flats to the north.

  Local lawmen and federal marshals had all tried to track down the outlaw group. Large rewards had been posted in the hope that they might tempt someone who knew something definite to come forward. So far there hadn’t been any success in this direction. In fact, Nash figured that when it was all boiled down, there hadn’t been any success in any direction at all. What it amounted to was that Mantell and his bunch had virtually disappeared off the face of the earth.

  It was while Nash was returning to his hotel in Squirrel Creek that he saw Liz Garrett. He didn’t recognize her at first, thinking only that she was familiar in some way. But she had changed her style and was wearing a split, fringed, buckskin skirt, tooled leather half-boots, buckskin vest over a fawn-colored blouse, and a flat-crowned hat pushed to the back of her head. A plaited quirt dangled from her left wrist and there was a small gun worn in a holster around her slim waist. In any case, she looked prepared for trouble and she was standing in the doorway of a store opposite the hotel, looking in his direction. Nash hesitated, turned away from the hotel and walked back across the street to stand in front of the girl. He touched a hand to his hat brim.

  “’Evenin’, ma’am. I guess you ain’t here to look at the scenery.”

  She regarded him unsmilingly. “You know why I’m here, Mr. Nash.”

  “Hume warned you off. If I wire him you’re trailin’ me around, he’ll have the local law move in on you.”

  A faint smile tugged at one corner of her mouth, “I’ve done nothing the law could act upon. I’m merely here in Squirrel Creek minding my own business. I’ve done nothing to hinder or obstruct you in your work. I’m merely an observer.”

  “So far.”

  “I don’t think there’s anything the law could do about that, Mr. Nash. Meantime, I could delay you some by bringing a charge of persecution. It might even get before a judge.”