Clay Nash 5 Read online

  He made the rocks and threw himself over the outer ones, landing in an ungainly tangle amongst the others. But he had been seen, despite the pall of dust, and lead raked his shelter almost immediately. Nash had enough room to lie full length and he squirmed between the slabs of shale and found a place where two flat rocks tended to lean together and left an angle, a small triangular-shaped space, free at the base. He squinted through this, saw the gunsmoke from the killers’ hangout up above and to the left, over the trail and behind a clump of brush and rocks that clung to the steep face of the mountain. They might just be able to see down into his shelter, he figured, but he had sufficient room to maneuver his rifle so that he could shoot upwards.

  Lead spat and spanged off his shelter but he nerved himself against the close ones, took careful aim at those bushes where the spurts of powdersmoke showed, and squeezed off a single shot. The brush erupted violently as a man reared to his feet, his rifle spinning from his hands Nash fired again, though it was probably unnecessary, as the man was already falling, clawing at his upper chest. Blood spattered the front of his dark gray shirt and then his body somersaulted out of the brush and plunged down the mountain side to thud across the narrow trail, leaving a pall of dust to mark his progress. If the lead hadn’t killed him, the fall would have finished the job.

  Nash ducked as a savage volley from the man’s companion raked his shelter, and rock dust and chips spattered down around him. He hunkered there, waiting for the firing to cease, knowing the man would have to stop to reload in a few seconds at this rate of fire. The lull came and Nash looked through his loophole, searching for the telltale cloud of gunsmoke hanging above the killer’s shelter. He saw it: the man was holed-up in some rocks, higher than the brush that had sheltered his dead partner, and more to the left. The rocks were only breast high and there were gaps between them. The position would command a good view of the trail and likely the man could just see into the ring of shale slabs that sheltered Nash. But to get a really good shot at the Wells Fargo man, the killer would have to stand up. And that meant showing himself.

  Nash drew his legs in close to the rocks, squirmed around, had to find another loophole that would allow him to tilt the rifle barrel at a steep enough angle to shoot up at the bushwhacker’s protection. Before he was properly in position, the man up there had reloaded and suddenly three fast shots rang out and Nash’s left leg jumped as a bullet clipped the edge of the high heel. His foot went numb briefly but the heel was still intact. The man up there was surely a marksman and could see into his shelter without having to stand and show himself as Clay had reckoned.

  Another shot ricocheted from a shale slab, spattering rock particles around him. He figured now that the man couldn’t see him properly: likely he could catch a glimpse of Nash’s lower legs, but he wouldn’t be able to see his body entirely from up there, without standing to look over those breast-high rocks. Even so, he had Nash pinned, for the Wells Fargo agent couldn’t move a muscle without the killer putting a bullet close alongside him.

  Nash waited, not moving at all. Lead spattered in and around his shelter but he stayed dead still. He was ‘waiting out’ the killer up there. When he saw he was only wasting lead, not getting any results, sooner or later the killer would take the chance to stand and put a shot smack in the middle of Nash’s shelter, a final, killer shot.

  Nash was ready for that moment.

  It was a long while coming; the killer fired with monotonous regularity, one shot at a time. Some of the lead bounced off the rocks on the outside so Nash knew he wasn’t a consistent shooter. Either that or he was beginning to get angry and emotion of any sort could throw a man’s lead all over the countryside.

  Then it came. The man suddenly reared up, farther around to the right than Nash had expected, and took a swift sight along his rifle barrel. Nash moved his rifle barrel several inches, drawing bead, too, and the guns whiplashed together. Clay Nash spun back as he felt the burn of hot lead streaking across his left shoulder. It ripped through his jerkin material and shirt and gouged a searing trough across the flesh. His arm muscles jerked involuntarily, the tendons convulsing so that his fingers momentarily clawed and his rifle fell from his grasp. Panting, the pain taking his breath, he lay there briefly and then flung himself back against his peephole.

  He was in time to see a rifle bouncing and skittering down the mountainside to land on the narrow trail. Above, the bushwhacker was toppling backwards, as if in slow motion, hatless and with blood cascading down his face. Nash knew his bullet had scalp-creased the man. The killer fell from sight behind the rocks and Nash heaved himself to his feet, got his rifle to his shoulder and sent two fast shots up into those rocks. He heard his lead ricocheting wildly and, hard on the heels of the dying whine, the sound of a horse being lifted to a gallop. He couldn’t see the rider and knew there must be a hidden path behind those rocks that led to wider, flatter ground where the killers had had their mounts staked out. Nash vaulted over the shale slabs, grunting at the pain that ran through his shoulders, feeling the wetness of blood on his back. He pounded up the narrow trail, rifle at the ready, leapt over the corpse of the man he had killed, and hit the steep slope fast.

  He went zigzagging up like a mountain goat, sideways on, eyes darting ahead, picking out footholds, holding the rifle in his left hand and using his right to balance himself. He could hear the horse racing away and then he came to the brush and the boulders that had sheltered the killers, lunged over them and bounded to his feet. Staggering now, legs like rubber, he spotted the hidden path easily enough from up here and ran out along it, through a screen of brush.

  Below him, racing full-pelt down the steep trail, went the wounded outlaw. He lay low in the saddle, mopping at his face with a kerchief. Nash dropped to one knee and, arms trembling from his efforts, breath rasping in his throat, he threw his rifle up to his shoulder. He had trouble holding it steady but suddenly lowered it and just stared after the retreating bushwhacker.

  Nash could have shot him out of the saddle, maybe not with the first shot, but certainly with the second or third. But that would gain him little. The man would be dead— and useless. Right now he was running scared, not bothering to cover his trail, bullet-hurt and panicking. Nash would bet he was making an unthinking run straight back to wherever he and his pard had come from.

  And, not ten feet from Nash, stood the horse belonging to the second outlaw, the one he had killed earlier. Clay Nash walked to the horse and scrambled into the saddle. He adjusted the stirrups swiftly, sheathed his rifle in the empty saddle-scabbard and heeled the mount around. He set it along the trail after the fleeing man, who was by now out of sight in heavy timber below.

  It didn’t matter. There was a clear trail to follow off this slope. Even if it petered out, that man was riding so fast and carelessly, he wouldn’t even take time to cover his tracks. Nash would find it an easy chore to follow him back to wherever he had come from.

  Then, maybe, after all this time, after all the killings and beatings and raids, he might learn what was behind the campaign to make Wells Fargo close down the Deadman’s Run.

  Eight – Madman’s Valley

  By mid-afternoon, Nash knew the fleeing outlaw was no longer running scared. He was taking time to cover his tracks.

  Nash had lost him completely by the time they had travelled through the valley below the ambush spot. He had found the remains of a campfire, but they were cold, and there were signs that a couple of men had been in the area for some time. He figured maybe the drygulchers had holed up here until they had received a signal from someone watching the trail or even the relay station itself. But this place was of no interest to him now. The main thing was where the man had gone after riding through here. Nash scouted around for over half an hour before he found the covered trail. The man had brushed out his tracks with a leafy branch but had been careless enough to toss the branch away so that it had fallen with the broken end towards the trail. The whiteness of the fresh-broken
wood caught Nash’s eye and he knew he was headed in the right direction.

  It was slow work now and he could no longer hear any sounds of the quarry. He was either riding far more carefully or had drawn so far ahead that he was out of earshot. Nash wasn’t worried yet. He had lived with Indians down in Texas once, and he knew most of the tricks employed in covering trails. He knew how to move around, belly down, or on all fours, until he got the sunlight slanted just right to show the faintest depression in the ground left by a careless boot or hoof. He could tell from the discoloration on grass stalks which way they had bent when a man or horse had passed over them. The bruising was always uppermost, the undersides mostly unmarked. Even if only a leaf was knocked loose from a branch across the path he could find that leaf and locate the position it had fallen from. By swishing the branch he could easily determine the direction the man had been moving when that leaf had been broken off its stalk.

  It was slow work, but Nash was patient. He was alert, too, for the man was not unarmed. He might have one almighty headache from the scalp crease, but he still had a six-gun on his hip and he could just as easily turn at bay and decide to shoot it out with Nash: especially if he spotted the Wells Fargo agent still doggedly trailing him. He wouldn't want to lead Nash right back to his hideout, that was for sure.

  So Nash had to take time, too, to stay under cover as much as he could, so that the killer did not spot him if he stopped long enough to check his back-trail. Likely he was confident enough to figure that his efforts at covering his tracks would be sufficient to confuse Nash and make the man give up. But it paid to be wary in these hills.

  He had no idea where he was, though he knew he could find his way out again. He had taken fixes on enough landmarks for that, but he did not know where he was in relation to the relay station. There was something vaguely familiar about the skyline, though he was seeing it back to front, he figured, and maybe it was the rear of the mountain peak that could be seen from the relay station yard. It was possible that he had travelled in a wide circle, around the peak’s base, for it had been on the opposite face of that slope where Jed and Mary had spotted the man with the telescope. If it was the same peak, the relay station was on the far side and that meant it was a lot closer than anyone had figured to whatever it was these mysterious hombres in the dark gray shirts wanted to hide.

  Nash led his borrowed horse across rock flats, almost unerringly following the trail that his quarry thought he had covered. The sun was just at the right angle to show the slight fresh chippings made by shod hoofs on the rock and it made an arrow-straight line for a stand of timber that lifted back into thickly wooded hills, deep-shadowed in folds that could hide canyons or valleys.

  He was almost across the rock flats, which were bare of cover, when the killer turned at bay, having spotted him hot on his trail and figuring he had led Nash far enough.

  A six-gun hammered from the timber and the horse reared, whickering wildly, a red streak laid across its left shoulder.

  The upward motion saved Nash’s life from the second shot and, by the time the horse’s hoofs were down and striking sparks from the rock, Nash had his rifle to his shoulder and he kicked the animal forward, shooting fast, levering and triggering at fantastic speed, raking the timber with a whole magazine load of .44 caliber slugs, hearing them whine off trees, white chunks of bark spinning away into the shadows. It was a wild volley, calculated to flush out the killer and that’s just what it did.

  The man made a run for it, diving out from behind his cover, lunging for another, thicker tree, shooting at Nash without even looking. Nash sheathed his rifle and his Peacemaker palmed up as he rode in at an angle and snapped a shot at the running man. The bullet knocked the killer’s legs from under him and he went down hard, rolling and skidding, clinging desperately to his own gun. He brought up against the tree he had been making for and, sobbing, wrenched his body around to bring his Colt up across his chest, tilting the barrel as he tried to draw bead on Nash.

  Clay Nash rode in on him and triggered coldly. The lead smashed the man back into the earth and he jerked convulsively before stretching out and lying still. By that time, Nash had quit leather and, holding the reins of his lightly wounded horse, stood over the dead man. He examined the shoulder wound on the horse and saw that it wasn’t serious. It would stiffen up the shoulder some, but wouldn’t trouble him too much if he gave it some treatment without delay. First, he had to reload his six-gun and his rifle: no telling how far the sound of those shots had carried or how close this ranny’s pards might be.

  He had reloaded his Peacemaker and had the magazine of the rifle half full when he whirled at the sound of a hammer cocking behind him. He froze in the act of levering a shell into the rifle’s breech.

  Four men in dark gray shirts and black whipcord trousers faced him from just inside the stand of timber, and each held a cocked rifle. They didn’t say anything and Nash slowly set down his own rifle and lifted his hands shoulder high. One of the men lifted his rifle to his shoulder to take aim but the man next to him, a big man with a deep scar on one cheek and a yellow bar across his shirt collar, slapped the gun aside.

  “We’ll take him to the general,” he growled and the others looked at him sharply. The man didn’t take his eyes off Nash. “Climb aboard that horse Nash. After you shuck your gunbelt!”

  Nash obeyed slowly, knowing this was the man who had given Widow McLean the message about the Garths. This was the man.

  They climbed up out of the valley in single file, Nash sitting his horse with his wrists lashed to the saddlehorn. The men in front and behind didn’t speak and he spent his time memorizing landmarks, though there was no easily-defined trail here. He figured they were leading him a dance as they would suddenly veer one way or another, even go back down several yards, before coming back to what he judged to be a continuation of the original direction. The name ‘the general’ intrigued him; coupled with the clothing of the men, almost a uniform, though the boots seemed to be the individual choice of the men, he wondered if there was some kind of an army hidden in these hills.

  If there was, only God knew why. Maybe down on the border, close to Mexico, it might have been a possible answer, but he couldn’t see that it would be ’way up here. The Canadian border wasn’t too far away but he had never heard of any Canadian force wanting to take over the U.S. Anyway, he figured, with some luck, he might have the answer to the whole thing before sundown ...

  They weaved up through thick timber and he knew they had tried to confuse him when he looked down and could make out the rock flats where he had been captured, almost directly below. Then they came to the crest of a ridge, dropped down into a narrow pass and came out onto a wide ledge at the other end where they paused. Nash felt his jaw sag at what he saw below him.

  It was an army! There was a whole encampment, of a hundred or more gray tents, a log-walled building with sod roof that had an armed guard on it, and rows of wheeled cannon lined up on one side of a cleared parade ground. Men and horses moved around down there, drilling. There was a tall flagpole with a banner flying from the top: a single gold star against a midnight blue background and, in the center of the star, crossed sabers.

  Nash’s memory stirred and he snapped his head around to look at the mildly amused man with the scar.

  “By glory!” he breathed. “Mandrell’s Marauders!”

  The scar-faced man allowed himself a faint smile. “That’s what the general called them during the war, and that was his insignia. He thinks it’s an appropriate new flag for the Republic.”

  Nash frowned. “What republic?”

  “The Republic of the North. A buffer State between Canada and the United States, across which all trade will have to cross.”

  Nash’s frown deepened. “Somethin’ like that could be used to hold both countries to ransom!”

  “That’s Mandrell's idea.”

  “He must be mad! The U.S., or Canada, would never allow it to get goin’!”
/>   “There won’t be much they can do about it, Nash. Once General Orson Mandrell makes his move, he’ll have the whole north clear across the continent under his rule before anyone in Washington or Quebec knows about it. There are strategic army posts up here, Nash, that, once captured, will make the place almost impregnable.”

  “I still say he must be loco! Mandrell’s always had the name for bein’ a fanatic and a radical, but he was always claimin’ to want a better deal for the U.S., figured he could be a better president ... ”

  “Well, that’s his ultimate plan,” the scar-faced man told him readily enough. “But the Republic’s a start. And the general is almost ready to make his move.”

  Nash nodded slowly. “And Wells Fargo chose just the wrong time to try to open up this neck of the woods, right?”

  “That’s it. We’re about ready to move, only a matter of a week or so now, and we don’t want a flock of new settlers pourin’ into the hills, likely with the U.S. Cavalry comin’ with them to keep law and order.”

  “You’re runnin’ off at the mouth a mite too much, ain’t you, Newman?” growled one of the other men.

  The scar-faced man rounded on him, glaring. “Watch your mouth, Griffin! I’m ‘Colonel’ Newman to you. And it doesn’t matter how much Nash knows now.” He grinned crookedly. “He’ll never ride out of this valley alive. Now, let’s get him on down to the general.”

  They put their mounts forward and Nash was very thoughtful as he rode down the steep trail into the valley encampment. It was much bigger than he, or anyone else, had figured. And Orson Mandrell was a madman: he had been kicked out of the senate on more than one occasion for his radical views and violent speech, but had always managed to bounce back. He had supporters and Nash had no doubt that some big business concerns could see advantage in a Northern Republic, as long as they were in right from the start. He didn’t pretend to know all the whys and wherefores; those things were beyond him, for he was no politician, but he knew Mandrell couldn’t be allowed to make his attempt to take over the country.