Clay Nash 5 Page 6

  Nash frowned. “It’ll put you on the trail after dark, Walt. I'll get out after those stampeded horses right away and we might be able to catch up enough for a team swap and get you out earlier.”

  Garth stood with Nash. “Well, if you think it’s dangerous for us to be on the trail after dark, maybe we should move along now, without the team change. Didn’t I see four horses in the corrals? That’s a two-thirds change. We could get by with that.”

  “I reckon that’d be a good idea, Walt. Long as you pull out by noon, you should be okay.”

  Susan came into the kitchen just as Nash spoke and she stopped dead, with an empty coffee pot in one hand, plates in the other. She immediately set them down on the table and whipped off the apron, walking around the table to take the surprised Nash’s hand. She smiled sweetly at her father.

  “If we’re moving out so soon, father, I don’t intend to waste what little time I have with Clay waiting on tables! Mary will have to manage by herself. Clay and I have— things to talk about!”

  Nash started to protest as the girl led him towards the back door, still smiling sweetly. He looked appealingly at Garth but the man merely smiled indulgently. Obviously he was quite happy for his daughter to show an interest in Nash.

  But it was obvious from Mary Summers' face as she came back into the kitchen that she didn’t agree. She slammed her coffee pot loudly down onto the stove top as Susan Garth dragged Nash through the rear door, and out into the yard ...

  ~*~

  Mary’s face was even tighter after the noon meal when Susan kissed Nash on the mouth as the stage readied for the remainder of the run down to Shiloh. Nash frowned a little and looked soberly down into the mischievous face of Susan Garth.

  “I’ll sure see you on my way back to Deadwood, Clay,” she said huskily, yet loud enough for Mary to hear on the station porch.

  Nash took her shoulders between his hands and she started to melt against him but he held her at bay and gave her a shake. “Cut it out, you little vixen! Playin’ up to me like that! You’re gettin’ at Mary, ain’t you?”

  Susan gave him a ‘Who? Me?’ look in all innocence and then pouted, pretending to be hurt. “Oh, Clay, the things you say to me! You can be quite cruel!”

  “I ought to put you across my knee and spank your bottom for you.”

  She smiled. “That sounds nice!”

  He laughed then, couldn’t help it, and leaned down and kissed her lightly, drawing his head back swiftly before she could hold him. “You quit playin’ games. One of these days you’ll bite off more than you can chew.”

  “What an interesting thought! As long as it’s with you, Clay Nash.”

  “Go on ... get aboard,” he told her with a grin, having her measure now. “You’re nothin’ but a damn flirt, Susan Garth, and for a spell there you had me fooled. I thought you still had that girlish crush on me you had down in Texas.”

  She sobered and her cornflower blue eyes looked solemn. She put up a hand and touched his face. “I still think you’re sweet …”

  He lifted a hand swiftly and put a couple of fingers on her lips, forcing a grin. “That’s enough. You’ve had your fun. Now you get aboard and wait for your pa.”

  Walt Garth came out of the station with Jed Summers and walked across to the stagecoach. He shook hands briefly with Nash.

  “Take no unnecessary risks, Clay,” he said. “The company would much rather close down completely than lose any more men, especially one of their top operatives.”

  “I’ll watch it, Walt,” Nash said and stood back as Garth settled in, and closed the door.

  Five minutes later, the stage rolled out of the yard and Nash waved it off, then turned back towards the relay station porch.

  “Mary ... would you please hand me my shirt off the back of the chair?”

  She looked at him, face carefully blank, but her eyes were blazing. “Get it yourself!” she snapped and stormed inside.

  Nash blinked in the sunlight and Jed Summers laughed. “She ain’t so mad at you as she is at that Garth gal.”

  “Hell, Susan was only joshin’!”

  “Tell that to Mary.”

  Nash looked at the door which Mary had slammed. “Reckon we’ll go after those stampeded broncs, Jed.”

  Out across the Longknife, the dust of the last stage to Shiloh lifted lazily into the hot noon sky.

  Six – Hostages

  The horses had scattered all over the Longknife and some had gone out beyond into the canyon country. Summers and Nash separated after gathering a small band of horses each and bunching them down by a creek.

  “You take them back to the station corrals, Jed, and I’ll push on and see how many I can pick up in the canyon country by mid-afternoon. That’ll give me time to drive ’em back to the station around sundown. You can round-up the odd ones still running around Longknife here.” His face sobered as he added quietly. “And you’ll be in easy ridin’ distance of the station.”

  Summers looked at him sharply. “Yeah, I’ll watch out for Mary. But I reckon they won’t come back for a while after the reception we gave ’em.”

  “Could just be the thing that does bring ’em back,” Nash pointed out. “Okay, Jed. See you around sundown.”

  He rode off across the creek, the sun making the water splashes sparkle, and headed down the first of the canyons, riding easily, scanning the ground for the tracks left by the stampeding horses. By the time they had run this far from the relay station, they had been starting to slow down and there were signs where some grass had been cropped. He didn’t anticipate any trouble picking them up. It seemed that they were slowly grazing their way along now.

  By the time he had ridden two miles down the big canyon, he had spotted some of them. They were in a natural pocket by a waterhole, contentedly grazing on a patch of lush green grass. Nash made no attempt to hide his approach and the animals merely lifted their heads, ears pricked, and regarded him unconcernedly as he rode in. They returned to their grazing unafraid.

  Nash walked his palomino amongst them slowly, talking to them as he rode in, to keep them calm. He whistled through his teeth and gave a couple of quiet ‘Yi-yahs!’ followed by a series of fast whistles and this got the bunch moving.

  He figured there were only a half-dozen horses missing now as he drove them down canyon on the first leg of the trail back to the relay station at Longknife.

  He was anxious to arrive as close to sundown as possible: he didn’t much like the idea of leaving the Summers’ alone and unprotected and he hoped Garth would arrange for Hume to send some men out here pronto.

  ~*~

  Mary Summers was still angry as she slammed around in the kitchen, washing dishes and stacking them with more violence than was necessary. That Garth girl! Little more than a kid and throwing herself at Clay that way! It had been the same down in Texas. She was mad at herself for letting Susan get her angry at all and she was mad at Clay Nash for playing along with the younger girl.

  Mary snapped her head around fast as the kitchen door opened and her father came in, wiping sweat from his face with a kerchief. He stopped and looked at her, reading the signs.

  “Er—ain’t it time to be gettin’ the supper on, Mary?” he asked tentatively.

  “You want to get it on?” she snapped.

  “Now you know I ain’t much of a cook.”

  “I’m busy!”

  “Hey, listen, gal ... I didn’t have nothin’ to do with upsettin’ your applecart. And I’m hungry. And Clay ought to be showin’ up with them horses right soon.”

  She stopped slamming the dishes around and glared at him. Then, abruptly, her face softened. “I’m sorry, Pa ... I shouldn’t be mad at Clay, I guess. I—I’ll start supper now.”

  As she moved about preparing the meal, Jed smoked silently, stood up and wandered over to a window, pushing the drapes aside and looking out across the yard towards the surrounding hills. The sun was low in the western sky and deeper colors and shadows dotted th
e Longknife.

  “Mary,” Jed said quietly, “I figure Clay’s interested in you, but you got to realize he ain’t the marryin’ kind. Oh, I don’t mean he wouldn’t’ve considered it if he’d stayed on that spread he had down in Texas. But, in his job, with all the danger, and not knowin’ whether he’s gonna come back from an assignment or not, well, he’d be foolish to tie himself to any woman. You understand?”

  “I think I’ve known that all along, Pa,” Mary said quietly. She walked over to him and slipped an arm about his waist. She smiled fleetingly. “It still doesn’t change the way I feel, is all.”

  He started to turn towards her, then swung back to the window, squinting at the hills.

  “What is it?” Mary asked, alarmed at the look on his face.

  “Rider up in the hills, on that ledge. He’s watchin’ this place.”

  Mary looked out the window and her face paled as she caught a glimpse of the distant rider as he lowered a telescope from his eyes, then walked his horse behind a rock.

  “D’you think they’ll come back?” she asked.

  “Could be. Or he’s waitin’ for somethin’, or someone to show,” Jed answered thoughtfully.

  ~*~

  The stage to Shiloh rolled along the trail, the passengers clinging to the straps inside the compartment, moving with the motion of the big Concord. Walt Garth sat with his eyes closed in thought. Susan leaned against him, holding to his right arm, dozing a little in the late afternoon heat, knowing that soon the mountain chill would start as the stage began its climb into the hills.

  The other passengers either dozed or stared unseeingly out the windows. Up top, the driver concentrated on his teams while the shotgun guard scanned the country on either side and ahead for danger, gripping his Ithaca double-barreled twelve-gauge with the ‘Wells Fargo Express Co’ legend engraved into the receiver.

  He was an alert, hard-eyed man, a veteran of many stage runs, and he had survived seven robbery attempts. In four of those, he had entirely wiped out the road agents with deadly blasts from his shotgun and he proudly wore one of the Wells Fargo silver presentation pocket watches commemorating the occasions. In the other three hold-up attempts, he had been wounded, but had managed to survive and account for some members of the bandits’ gang. His name was Shotgun Wade and he was building a fearsome reputation. That was why he had been especially chosen to ride this rim when the Garths were passengers.

  Now, as the Concord rolled into the darkening hills, he was more alert than usual and he checked the loads in his shotgun, eased back both hammers to full cock but kept his fingers resting lightly on the outside of the trigger guard, rather than on the triggers themselves. The driver cussed his team, calling each horse by name before delivering a string of invectives. He cracked the whip and the team slammed against the harness, beginning to strain on the grade as it steepened. Timber grew close either side of the trail. Ahead, Wade could see some rearing boulders, and the slopes sweeping back from behind the trees offered plenty of cover to any road agents who might have ideas of holding up the coach.

  The only trouble was that Wade checked the trail at ground level as the coach moved on and didn’t look up in the trees themselves. If he had, he might have noticed the gun barrels protruding from the foliage above the trail as the coach rolled by, one either side of the trail.

  But he didn’t, and the oversight cost him his life.

  The Concord passed the trees where the drygulchers were holed-up and, as soon as the luggage boot was by, both rifles up in the foliage whiplashed into action. The bullet that killed Wade took him in the back of the head and his skull exploded in a shower of bone and blood and brains, the impact lifting him to his feet before toppling him forward over the seat, to fall down behind the hoofs of the rear horses in the team. The driver didn’t even feel the thump of the lead that severed his spine and spilled him sideways to thud down past the passenger compartment window to the trail. A woman passenger screamed and then there were more shots, a high-pitched squeal from the horses and the stage rocked and lifted as if it would overturn before slewing around and coming to an abrupt halt, spilling the passengers into a tangled heap on the floor.

  The coach walls shuddered as the rear horses kicked their hoofs against it in panic: it had ridden right up against them when the leaders had been shot dead, and the animals were frantically trying to get free of the tangled traces and harness.

  Inside, Walt Garth fought to get out of the threshing heap of yelling people: the woman passenger was still screaming. He called to Susan and he heard her answer but could not see because of some cowboy’s leg across his face.

  Then someone got the door open and he spilled out onto the ground. The cowboy leapt out after and over him, gun in hand, cussing wildly, yelling for the dirty drygulching sons of bitches to show themselves. He saw the men in the trees then and snapped off a shot. He missed and then a gun roared behind him at ground level and his body arched as he was slammed forward by the striking lead. The second male passenger, a cold-eyed gambler, rolled out the other side of the stage, palming up an ivory-handled Colt Sheriff’s Special with a short, three-inch barrel. He triggered and blasted one of the drygulchers down from the tree, whirled and put a bullet into the man who had shot the cowboy, the lead taking the killer in the shoulder. The gambler dived beneath the coach where Wade’s body was wedged and he snatched at the cocked Ithaca. Men were running out of the trees now and the gambler pulled both triggers, seeing the legs cut out from under the bandits. Then a second shotgun thundered behind him and a double charge of buckshot hurled the gambler’s broken body out from beneath the coach.

  The screaming woman passenger had fainted dead away by that time and Walter Garth was wrenching at the buckles on the strap of his valise, to get at the gun he kept in there. Susan was huddled on the floor of the coach, white faced, afraid, as the bandits surrounded her father. They were cold-eyed men, some bearded, all wearing the same kind of dark gray homespun shirt with black whipcord pants. Garth had the valise wrenched from his hands and he started to slam out with his fists but a gun butt crashed down behind his ear and his knees buckled, a big man catching him and heaving him effortlessly across one shoulder.

  “Pa!” Susan screamed and, sobbing, stumbled out of the coach, reaching for her unconscious father.

  Rough hands grabbed her and lifted her easily off the ground so that, though she struggled and kicked and sobbed with her efforts, she was helpless. A wide-shouldered man with a yellow bar either side of his shirt collar and a short, deep scar under his right cheekbone jerked his head and Susan and the unconscious Garth were carried away.

  The scar-faced man reached inside the coach and pulled the swooned woman upright onto a seat. He motioned to the two men beside him and they lifted her out, one holding her while the other took a canteen and forced some water between her lips. She coughed and choked and spluttered her way back to consciousness. Her eyes opened wide when she saw the outlaws and she almost passed out again but the scar-faced man shook her roughly.

  “Don’t faint again!” he snapped and shook her once more, snapping her head back and forth on her neck.

  The woman, in her early forties and terrified, stared at him, her lower lip trembling.

  “Take it easy,” the scar-faced man snapped. “I won’t hurt you ...”

  She glanced fearfully at the bodies strewn around the trail, cringing away.

  “I won’t hurt you, damn it!” the man growled. “Now snap out of it, ma’am!” He slapped her lightly across the face, enough to jar her out of her terror, and bring tears of pain to her eyes. She was still afraid but not at the panic stage. “All right ... ” The man leaned down suddenly and lifted her skirts and the woman’s knees gave way but the other men supported her. The scar-faced man grinned crookedly. “No, ma’am, I won’t assault your honor, if that’s what’s worryin’ you. Just want to see what kind of boots you’re wearing. Right sensible ones, I might add, buttoned clear up your calves and with a
good heel. Good walkin’ boots!”

  She blinked and frowned, puzzled and even interested now.

  “’Cause you got a long way to walk, ma’am ... Clear back to the relay station at Longknife.”

  “B-but I—I can’t!” she stammered. “That’s miles away and it’ll be dark soon ... ”

  “There’ll be a moon tonight. You only got to follow the stage trail. You’ll make it all right. And when you get there, I want you to give a message to Clay Nash, you savvy?”

  Trembling, white-faced, the woman nodded vigorously.

  ~*~

  Nash sat down in the chair on the station porch and fired up the cigarette he had rolled after supper. It was already dark and the moon was beginning to rise in the east. He smoked slowly. It had been a largely silent supper, with Mary very quiet, serving the food and clearing-off, hardly speaking. Jed hadn’t said much, either, and Nash, weary after his long ride rounding-up the horses, had been content to eat and move out to the porch afterwards.

  The horses were back in the corrals now and he and Jed had rigged up a temporary lodgepole fence as well as the ropes to hold them overnight. Come morning, they would repair the corral poles properly and then Nash figured he would head up into the hills. The old prospector was sleeping most of the time now in his room, recovering from his wounds. Nash figured the old man must have inadvertently prospected too close to something up there in those hills and that was why he had been bushwhacked. He intended to make his starting point on that high cliff trail where the oldster had been shot. Donner couldn’t recollect seeing or hearing anything unusual before he had been shot, but obviously someone had figured he was a danger to them.

  The fact that they hadn’t even bothered to steal his gold proved that there was some other reason than robbery for drygulching him ...

  Nash turned as the porch door opened and Mary Summers came out. She smiled faintly at him. Nash nodded. Things had been a little strained between them since the stage’s departure. It was stupid, of course, but Nash was weary and he had other things on his mind. He knew Mary wouldn’t stay mad for long: she wasn’t that type; and, anyway, she would likely have seen through Susan Garth by now. When she spoke, he knew he was right.