Clay Nash 8 Page 6

  Nash smiled faintly. “You wouldn’t want to delay me.”

  “I wouldn’t want to. But I’m just saying I could. You see, the law works both ways for everyone. Perhaps that fact escaped you.”

  Nash was sober now and he scratched at his stubbled jaw. “Miss Garrett, I truly wish you’d stay right out of this. Look at the number of folk who were killed by Mantell in this town. And that—female—who was strangled in Red Rapids. I’m used to danger, it’s my job. Has been for a long time. If that mailbag can be recovered, I’ll do it. And likely a damn sight faster and easier if I know I don’t have to keep worryin’ about you popping up at the wrong time.”

  Her eyes held his. “I know your reputation, Mr. Nash. It’s a fine one. I have every confidence in you. I’ll stay out of your way. In the background. I promise. But I have to know about that document as soon as possible. I have to be on the spot.”

  Nash sighed, seeing it was no use arguing with her. He touched a hand to his hat brim again.

  “’Evenin’, ma’am,” he said quietly and turned to walk back towards his hotel room again. The girl frowned but didn’t move until he had disappeared through the hotel doorway. Then, thoughtfully, she went into the store, slapping the quirt against her thigh.

  It was dark in the hallway of the hotel. Only two wall lamps were burning as Nash made his way towards his room. He stopped abruptly, hand dropping to his gun butt as a man stepped out of the shadows.

  “Nash?” he asked quietly.

  The Wells Fargo man kept his hand on his gun and swiftly studied the man, deciding he didn’t know him.

  He looked past him but couldn’t see anyone else lurking in the shadows.

  “I’m Nash,” he said in a low voice.

  The man stepped forward, holding his hands out from his sides. He was wearing a gun but he obviously had no intention of using it just now.

  “Name’s Monroe. Got some info that might interest you.”

  “That so?”

  “Yeah, it’s so. You think I’d risk my neck comin’ here for some sort of joke?” Monroe sounded angry but Nash’s cold eyes never left his face. “Listen, I read about the reward for information leadin’ to Mantell’s arrest. ‘Information leadin’ to,’ that’s what it said. Does it mean that if I tell you somethin’ that’ll eventually lead you to Mantell, I’ll get the reward?”

  “Mebbe not all of it,” Nash said slowly, alert for some sort of trick but seeing no more menace in the shadows. “Depends just where your information leads. What you got?”

  Monroe smiled faintly, shaking his head. “Oh, no, I ain’t stupid, Nash. And I know damn well I’m riskin’ my neck comin’ here. You gotta guarantee me that reward and a safe conduct up to Canada.”

  “Can’t do it. I’m no lawman. I’ll have to check with my boss first. But you’d have to give me some idea of what you’ve got before I’d even do that.”

  Monroe regarded Nash narrowly. He looked a tough hombre and the Wells Fargo man figured Monroe was all out for himself, so it was possible his information might well be of some use. Monroe scrubbed a hand around his lantern jaw.

  “Well, it’s like this. I got a few posters out on me in some States. Not this one, but in others. I’ve been at a place recently where I seen Nitro Mantell and his bunch, includin’ his sidekick, Cherokee. I can tell you who they went to see. He’s a hombre who hides owlhoots for a livin’, so I figure he’s hid out Mantell’s bunch for a fistful of dollars. How’s that sound?”

  Nash pursed his lips. “How long since you saw him?”

  “Two days.”

  “You had a fallin’-out with this hombre?” Nash asked shrewdly. He saw by the sharp way the man looked at him that he was right.

  Monroe shrugged. “My reasons don’t matter none to you. We got a deal? If you ain’t interested, I’ll go someplace else.”

  “Well, Monroe, it sounds okay, but it’s up to my boss. We can’t go outside the law to help you, even if it’ll help us get Mantell.”

  “Depends how bad you want him, don’t it?” Monroe said. “So what’s the next move, Nash?”

  “I’ll have to wire my chief in Red Rapids.”

  Monroe swore. “Hell, that’s a mighty good way of advertisin’ where I am and what I’m doin’!”

  “Your name won’t be mentioned. But, one thing: those posters out on you. Any of ’em for murder?”

  Monroe hesitated then shook his head swiftly. “No. They called it murder in one place, but it was a fair shake and I beat the other hombre. Trouble was, he was the local law’s kin.”

  Nash thought about it, then nodded and motioned for Monroe to precede him down the hall towards the stairs. He kept his hand close to his gun butt.

  “You know the telegraph office?”

  Monroe nodded, looked back over his shoulder, and for the first time, Nash saw the fear in his eyes. “I’m playin’ this square, Nash.”

  Clay nodded. “That’s the way I play it, too.”

  Monroe held his gaze a moment longer and then started down the stairs, Nash a few feet behind. They were halfway to the first landing when a gun blasted out of the darkness below in three swift shots. Splinters flew from the banister. Monroe jerked and clawed at his chest, grunting, making an instinctive grab for his gun. He toppled forward and began clattering and rolling down the stairs. Nash had his own gun out and he blasted a shot at a shadow down there. The assassin’s gun roared in return and more splinters jumped from the banister rail.

  Nash leapt to the first landing, crouching beside Monroe’s body. The man was coughing blood, his eyes wide, mouth working. A door opened and closed and Nash snapped a shot and heard glass shatter. Monroe’s fingers grasped his shirtsleeve and Nash, watching the dark foyer below, leaned his ear close to Monroe’s mouth.

  “B-B-B-Buck-skin ...” Monroe gasped and the word was lost in a rattling sigh as the man convulsed, coughed and sagged back limply.

  Nash leapt over his body and down the rest of the stairs, hearing folk yelling and seeing the night clerk in his bathrobe hurrying out of a door from behind the counter, holding a lantern. Nash ignored his questions, crouched by the street door and opened it warily. A gun thundered out there and he threw himself to one side as the door was blasted off its hinges by the charge of buckshot. Some red-hot pellets stung his arm and one thudded onto his hat brim with a dry rattle. Glass and wood were blown across the foyer and the clerk was down on all fours behind the desk, trying to find enough wind in his lungs to blow out the lantern flame.

  Nash heard a horse galloping outside, changed position and saw a rider pulling away from in front of the hotel, flinging the empty shotgun from him to lighten the load. Nash lunged through the doorway, triggered, grasped his wrist with his left hand and steadied the six-gun., beading the man with the blade foresight. He fired but he was a little too slow and the man disappeared around a corner of a building. Nash holstered his Colt and vaulted into the saddle of the first horse at the hitch rail. He rammed home his heels and sent the animal flying down the street after the killer. Folk were running out of houses and buildings, yelling and shouting, some brandishing guns and demanding to know if Mantell had come back.

  Nash skidded his mount around the corner and caught a glimpse of his quarry far out on the road leading away from town. One thing was for sure, anyway; Monroe must have had genuine information about Mantell’s whereabouts, otherwise they wouldn’t have sent in a killer to shut his mouth for him.

  Now, if he could run the killer to ground, he might yet get the information he needed on Mantell. If ...

  ~*~

  Clay was forced to camp for the night in strange country and as he had no supplies and no canteen, he went hungry and thirsty. There wasn’t even a warbag and so no blanket. He didn’t want to risk a fire so he spent a cold, miserable night, huddled under an overhang of rock on a slope surrounded by trees. There was an early morning mist that gave the place a ghostly appearance at first light and its clamminess did nothing to make him
more comfortable.

  But, because of the mist, everything was deathly still—and the few birds that called seemed to do so in hushed tones. He stretched the cramps out of his muscles and stood by his shivering mount, listening. He hadn’t noticed before but now he thought he could hear a stream trickling gently over some rocks not far away, somewhere down slope, hidden by the thick layer of mist. His parched throat brought visions of cool, clear springs to his mind and he felt the horse tense, ready to move forward. Just as he was about to release his hold on the bridle, he heard another sound.

  A dull ‘clunk’. It was a very distinctive sound, one that a man who spent much of his time in the wilderness, as he did, knew well. It was the sound a rock makes underwater when it is disturbed by the hoof of a horse crossing a stream. He saw the mount’s ears prick and was only just in time to clap his hand over its muzzle and prevent it giving a whicker of greeting. He slid the Winchester from the saddle scabbard, thinking at least he was lucky in this respect; he had a long range weapon with which to defend himself.

  He led the horse behind some rocks, ground-hitched it and hoped it would stay quiet, while he settled himself amongst the mist-wet boulders, rifle cocked and ready. There were several more dull ‘clunks’ and they seemed to be fading. Nash swore. Could be the rider was moving down the middle of the stream, likely hiding tracks. Well, that seemed as though he could be a lot closer to his quarry than he had imagined. If a man wanted to cover his tracks, then it could only be because he didn’t want to be followed.

  Clay Nash eased down the hammer on the rifle and moved back out of the rocks to the horse. He yanked the reins loose and led the animal cautiously out onto the slope, keeping to the damp grass tufts, making sure it placed its hoofs carefully—between the scattered stones. About halfway down, he stopped and listened. The sounds were fainter now because he was closer to the stream and its gurgling helped blanket the unseen rider’s progress. But they were going downstream and that meant whoever it was, was moving deeper into the valley. There were thick woods and snaking gulches that gave way, eventually, to remote and tortuous canyons; perfect hiding places for men on the dodge.

  If only this damn mist would give way. He was getting down into the thick of it now, feeling its clamminess in every breath he took. Pretty soon, he was standing on the bank of the stream and he was almost knocked off his feet by the horse as it lunged forward to drink deeply and noisily. Nash knelt upstream a few feet and drank his fill. He scooped up a last handful to scrub over his face, sucking down a sharp breath at its chill and he jerked his head back as some trickled down his neck and inside his shirt to snake across his chest.

  The movement saved his life.

  A gun roared from across the water and he actually smelled the powder gases on the lead as it passed in front of his face. He even thought, afterwards, that he had felt the air-whip or turbulence it made but maybe he had only imagined that. He didn’t hesitate. The horse whinnied wildly, lunged away, wild-eyed, and the reins jerked just out of reach of his clawing fingers as he lunged for them. He fell flat as a second shot blasted lead into the damp turf under his body. Nash rolled, dragging iron now, shooting across his body. The rifle was in the saddle scabbard and he cursed the impulse that had made him slip it into the leather sheath while he drank.

  He didn’t have a target; the shot was wild, but meant to let the killer know he was armed and fighting mad. Nash gathered his legs under him and made a dive for a deadfall, a long dried-out cedar with wrinkled bark. Some of that bark leapt into the air as two bullets chewed at it while he was in mid-air, diving across for shelter. He lit on his shoulders, twisted violently, grunting with the effort and rolling in flat against the tree trunk. Nash jumped as a bullet found its way under the trunk and burned across his boot. He threw himself further along, crouching down where the tree rested on the ground itself.

  Nash came up with his head between the butt of a thick, splintered branch and the trunk proper. It gave him some protection and he picked out the killer now, though the swirling mist made it difficult to see the only slightly darker pall of gunsmoke. But the man tilted the rifle barrel and a fugitive streak of sunlight touched the muzzle. Nash could pick him out, a man in dark clothing, hidden against the deep shadow of a green hackberry bush. He seemed to have long, lank hair that was greasy for it caught the weird light, too, gleaming, flying around his face as he moved position to get a better shot at Nash’s deadfall.

  Nash laid his Colt across the tree, gripped his wrist to steady it and fired. The man spun into the brush with a curse that carried across the gray water. The brush shook violently. Nash fired again, a little lower. The brush jerked and there was a crashing of twigs and Nash was caught unaware as a horse suddenly lunged out of that hackberry clump with a wild, piercing whinny of pain, charging into the stream and sending water fanning out in a blinding spray. Nash moved aside so as to get a view of that bush again. He knew his quarry had sent the horse out so that he could move under cover of its wild dash. He thought he had hit the man but couldn’t be sure. The brush was moving and he snapped a shot in that direction but had to throw himself aside as the wild-eyed horse charged straight at him—leaping over the deadfall. Nash stumbled and sprawled across the log. He flung himself back as a hunk of bark as big as his hand leapt into the air and slapped against his face. Then he heard the sound of the rifle shot and figured that if he had hit the killer, he hadn’t put him out of commission.

  Nash rolled off the log and realized he was now exposed because the man had climbed up a slope of the bank. Lead burned the air near his face as he gathered himself and snapped one more shot across the stream, simultaneously with the rifleman. There was a pause and he distinctly heard the lever work several times across the stream and knew the man was going to have to reload.

  Clay didn’t hesitate; he leapt up and plunged into the shallows, gun cocked in his hand, knowing he had only two shots left himself, maybe only one. But he had to get across and smash his way into that hackberry thicket before the other man was loaded. Of course, he might only thumb one or two cartridges through the side loading gate of the rifle and then start shooting while Nash was a fine target in midstream—but that was a chance he had to take.

  His legs pounded and his boots filled with water. He was drenched with spray and he could feel the pebbles through the soles of his boots. Breath barked in his throat and burned his airway; Nash exerted every ounce of strength he had to get across that water before the other man started shooting. But when he was still a few feet from the opposite bank and saw the blued steel of the rifle barrel lowering towards him he knew he wasn’t going to make it. He literally threw himself forward and held his Colt out in front and dropped hammer. The gun bucked and he splashed into the water; his elbow jarring onto a rock. The numbing pain of a damaged nerve convulsed his fingers and the gun slipped from his grip. He thrashed wildly in the shallows, unarmed, desperately trying to find cover, half-blinded by water but able to see the killer standing up to sight over the hackberry bush, taking his time now, knowing he had Nash dead to rights.

  A rifle whiplashed and a split-second later the killer’s Winchester barked. But the muzzle was pointed skywards as the man went over backwards with a crashing of brush. Nash didn’t wait to figure things out. He leapt up and, staggering, clawed his way up the bank and into the brush. The rifle was slanted at a wild angle across the killer’s body and Nash threw himself at it, grabbed the barrel and wrenched hard. It came free and he rolled away, coming up onto his knees, levering, bringing the muzzle down to cover the wounded man.

  The killer’s face was screwed up in a grimace of pain and he dragged at his Colt. Nash slammed him across the side of the head with the rifle barrel, knocking him flat, semi-conscious. Nash grabbed the Colt and flung it into the brush. At the same time, through the pounding blood in his ears, he heard a horse splashing into the stream and he swung away, bringing the rifle around—

  He froze as he saw the rider holding the cocked
and smoking Winchester on him.

  “Hold it right, there, Nash.”

  The Wells Fargo man obeyed the snapped command, still a mite shaken by the rider's identity. It was Liz Garrett, complete in her buckskin riding outfit. She looked as if she had slept in it. Now she gestured towards the wounded man with her rifle.

  “Did I kill him?”

  “No. But he’s bad hit I had to slug him. Listen, how the hell ...?” He paused and snapped his fingers. “By hell, I heard a rider walkin’ a horse in midstream and I figured it was this hombre coverin’ his tracks. It was you, wasn’t it?”

  She nodded. “Yes, I was looking for your tracks. The stream is very narrow beyond this point. I thought if I rode down the middle I would see anywhere on the banks where you had crossed. But before I got down far enough to find any tracks, I heard the shooting here and came back. I guess the gunfire covered my approach.”

  “It did and I reckon I’m mighty glad to see you, Miss Garrett. You followed me out of town last night, I guess, when I lit out after this killer.”

  She nodded soberly. “Yes. As soon as I was able to get a horse, I came after you. But I lost your trail. I’m not a bad tracker in daylight but I don’t know this country and, it being dark, I camped and started out before dawn again.”

  Nash was impressed. “Shows good sense.” He glanced down at the wounded man who was moaning now and stirring. He knelt beside him as the girl walked her mount the rest of the way across the stream. He glanced up at her as she dismounted slowly. “Got him through both lungs, I think. It’s kinda bloody so if you don’t want to ...”

  “I don’t want to look, but he won’t be the first dying man I’ve seen. Though he’ll be the first I’ve ever killed. Who is he?”

  “Well, I ain’t sure. The feller he killed in the hotel managed to say one word—‘Buckskin’—before he cashed in. This feller looks like a ’breed to me and that’s a buckskin shirt he’s wearin’.”

  She glanced down and winced. “Could be anythin’.”