by Brett Waring
In total, all these sums brought Wells Fargo’s losses in the period between 1870 and 1884 to one million dollars.
The score for this violent period stood at sixteen guards and drivers killed, many others wounded, and thousands of dollars’ damage to company property. Twenty-three robbers were killed or hanged and the company convicted two hundred and forty other captured outlaws.
But in spite of such a successful operating sheet, the Chief of Detectives, Jim Hume, was not satisfied. For there were still some outlaws running free who had tweaked the nose of the company. And Hume took this as a personal insult.
One of those men was Will Dodd. The man had plagued Wells Fargo for nearly seven years, ever since there had been some trouble about a right-of-way granted to the company by the New Mexican Government of the day. It had cut through land that had belonged to the Dodd family since Will’s grandfather had settled it years earlier. It was useless land; a dustbowl and good for nothing but a stagecoach trail with a small swing-station constructed on one of the many ridges.
But Will figured Dodd land was Dodd land and that no one was going to take it away from him. The fact that the land had never been filed on by his grandfather and was, technically, free range, didn’t deter him. Nor did Wells Fargo’s offer to settle his small spread in more fertile country appeal to him. Will was stubborn and a hothead and there was some trouble with one of Wells Fargo’s representatives sent to see him. Will beat the man so badly that he died.
Later, he shot the deputy sheriff who rode out to take him in for trial. After that, there was no turning back. It had to be the outlaw trail and Will Dodd had laid the blame for it squarely at the feet of Wells Fargo.
They had pushed him into outlawry, he reckoned, had put a price on his head, and had ruined his life. So he had set out to make them pay through a series of robberies. First, he had held up coaches and he had made no effort to hide his identity. He wanted the company to know who was stealing its money and gold shipments. The price on his head increased. He shot it out with a couple of guards, killed one and crippled the other. Another time, a passenger had tried to be a hero and Will had blown his head off with a double-barreled blast from his twelve-gauge Greener.
He moved on to the express cars of trains for a spell, always managing to choose the time when the Wells Fargo box contained a large sum of money. But trains were hard work and required a lot of men to make a successful hold-up. It was a chancy business, too, for there were too many places a posse could hide on a train.
So he hit a few more coaches and then, having gained some expertise with dynamite, suddenly switched to blowing the safes in Wells Fargo depots spread across the West.
Jim Hume had pulled out all stops on several occasions and had almost had Will within his grasp but the man’s ingenuity and powerful sense of self-preservation had always managed to pull him out of trouble.
Hume had had high hopes that Clay Nash would have nailed Will Dodd in Morgan. Nash, after three days’ fruitless tracking in the harsh country around Morgan, rode back with the weary posse to town and was surprised to find Hume waiting for him. After a hot bath and some food, Nash reported to the Chief of Detectives in the man’s hotel suite.
Hume was a shortish man, but very blocky and wide-shouldered. He was dressed in his customary Prince Albert suit with ribbon bow tie at the throat and a starched collar pressing into the flesh of his bull neck. He was smoking a thick cigar as he listened to Nash’s report.
“Must’ve had his escape route all planned out in advance, Jim,” Nash told him. “Tracks led into rugged canyon country and then just disappeared as if Dodd had suddenly sprouted wings. We searched and climbed peaks so as to look down into the canyons, but there was nary a sign of him. I’m afraid we’ve lost him again, Jim.”
Nash waited for the explosion, for Hume was becoming almost obsessed with the idea of nailing Dodd, just as he had been when Black Bart had been loose and thumbing his nose at the company. It had taken Hume eight years, but, eventually, he had nailed the man, tracked him down by a laundry mark on a kerchief in San Francisco and got his conviction.
He had now swung his intense hatred to bear on Will Dodd and Nash had watched it eating into him as Dodd continued to get away with robberies.
That was why he looked so surprised when Hume leaned back in his chair, puffed a heavy cloud of cigar smoke, and waved casually.
“Well, don’t worry about it, Clay. These things happen and Dodd’s had lots of practice at shakin’ us. We’ll nail him eventually.”
Nash frowned, wondering if he had heard correctly. The detective chief smiled wryly.
“No, I’m not loco, Clay. And I want to see Dodd caught as bad as I ever did, but right now, we’ve got something more important on our books.”
Again Nash’s weary face showed his surprise, for the agent had had drummed into him that nothing was more important than running Dodd to earth and bringing the man in, dead or alive.
Apparently, he thought, there was something of more importance.
“Must be a humdinger,” Nash said.
Hume nodded and the faint amusement he had shown, faded from his round face. The blue shadow of his heavy stubble, gave his features an unwashed look.
“There’s a story behind it and it ranges from an old sourdough prospector to the governor of New Mexico himself.”
Nash whistled softly, alert despite the massive weariness from the long, sleepless trail with the posse. He waited while Hume thought out just what he was going to say.
“You heard about the big gold strike in Alamogordo, I guess, Clay. Five, six months back?”
Nash nodded. “Picked up a bit here and there. Some said it was a fizzer, others a bonanza. I do know it started a kinda rush, but I figured if it had been of any size, we’d have been handling express shipments and that was something I hadn’t heard about.”
Hume stubbed out his cigar.
“Well, we’ve been handling some of the shipments, but mostly they’ve been crushing the ore and refining it themselves. There used to be a mill there at one time; started to rust away after the big strike of the ’fifties petered out. Well, the governor heard about the new strike, turned up by some old sourdough diggin’ a latrine hole. And as the governor’s an old Alamogordo man, born and bred, he figured to see the town prosper again. He sent in a team to survey the extent of the strike and it had all the makings of a bonanza, right enough. So he got State money plowed back into the refining and crushing mill as he reckoned the whole of New Mexico would benefit in the long run. Naturally enough, Alamogordo’s now a boom town again and the folk are mighty grateful to the governor.”
“‘Reckon they would be. It wasn’t much of a town after that original strike of the ’fifties went sour on ’em, and cattle never did any too marvelous around there. Governor must be somethin’ of a hero to folk up there by now.”
Hume leaned forward and gestured with a forefinger.
‘“You hit the nail right on the head, Clay. He became a hero and the folk wanted to show their appreciation. So, you know what they went and done?”
Nash waited as Hume prepared and lit another cigar.
‘“Well, this old sourdough, he dug up a nugget of pure gold twice as big as a man’s fist. So, the Alamogordo folk got together and brought up a Mexican artisan from Durango and had him sculpt that gold nugget into an eagle with spread wings and a shield on the body, and engraved with a message of thanks to the governor from the people of Alamogordo. Apparently, it’s a beautiful thing, a real genuine object d’art. Priceless, of course.” He paused. ‘“Wells Fargo has the job of transshipping the eagle to Santa Fe.”
Nash nodded slowly. “You want me to ride shotgun?”
Hume shook his head: “More than that, Clay. We can’t take any chances with this. It’s a one-of-a-kind thing and there’s no way Wells Fargo could replace it or compensate anyone for it if it was lost. It’s going to be a fairly elaborate set-up. You’ll go to Alamogordo and pick up th
e eagle in a valise which you’ll keep with you every minute until you turn the eagle over to the governor’s representatives in Santa Fe. Now, naturally, everyone knows about the eagle and what’s being done with it. You can bet that word’ll get around and maybe someone’ll be loco enough to try to take it. So I’m rigging a couple of decoy stage runs from Alamogordo. I’ll ‘leak’ the information about when they’re supposed to be going and what route they’re taking and so on. Hopefully, this’ll flush out anyone who aims to try for it and while they’re chasin’ the decoys, your stage’ll be making what seems like a normal passenger run to Santa Fe.”
“Guess I’ll need a change of name and appearance, then, huh?”
“That’s it, Clay. You’ll be a drummer of some sort, or a cattle buyer, which might be better as it could explain why you’re hanging on so tightly to the valise. Folk’ll think you’re carrying cattle registers or something. We’ll dress you up some and maybe you can let your moustache grow. Just in case someone recognizes you and starts to wonder about our top man riding a normal passenger stage.” He paused and stared through the tobacco smoke. “No need to tell you it’s one of the biggest commissions we’ve ever had, Clay. It could be one of the most dangerous for you, too.”
The danger part didn’t worry Nash: he lived on the edge of danger every waking moment. But the awesome responsibility of getting the golden eagle to the governor in person didn’t set easy with him. Maybe he hadn’t had tougher assignments, but he had had some beauties over the years and he had no doubt that he would have tougher ones in the future.
“When do I leave?” he asked.
“Tomorrow morning. That’ll give you time for a rest and a final briefing. I need the time to make some arrangements, too.”
Nash nodded and stood, stretching some of the kinks out of his stiff body.
“There could be an extra bonus,” Hume added quietly and it was the very softness of the man’s tone that alerted Nash.
He paused with his arms half-stretched and shot a sharp look at his boss. Then he lowered his arms slowly.
“How so?”
“Will Dodd.”
Nash frowned.
“Well, you know he don’t rob Wells Fargo just for the money or the hell of it. He’s got a loco streak in him that blames the company for whatever kind of hell he’s turned his life into. He’s actually waging a war with us, Clay. He’s not like the others. They’re just in it for the profit. Dodd’s there to hit us where it hurts and to make us look foolish if he can.” He paused and puffed out some smoke, squinting at Nash through it. “We’d look just about as foolish as we ever could if he was to steal that eagle away from us.”
“Hell, yeah,” Clay agreed. “You’re hopin’ when word leaks out, that he’ll make his try and we might be able to nail him?”
“There’s a chance, it’s the kind of thing that would suit Dodd. He’ll be looking for your scalp now that young Adam was killed in that gun trap—even if you didn’t fire the bullet that nailed the kid, Will Dodd’ll tag you with it. He’ll maybe see it as a chance to nail two birds with one stone: get you and the eagle and make us look incompetent all at once. If ever there was anything that could be set up to drag Will Dodd out into the open, this is it.”
“I’ll be ready for him, Jim.”
“Can’t do more than put on an extra guard as the driver, Clay. If I draw too much attention to the coach you’re on, it’ll give everything away.”
“I savvy, Jim. Like I said, I’ll be ready. And I’d like a chance to nail Will Dodd myself. Now, I’m for some shut-eye.” Hume watched him go from the room then sat back with a sigh.
He reckoned Nash would get his chance, all right. He could practically guarantee it.
Three – Wolf Pack
Will Dodd first heard about the Wells Fargo commission to deliver the golden eagle to the State governor when he was stealing a fresh horse from a company corral behind a way-station out along the Resurrection Trail.
It was night and he was on his belly down by the corrals, short rope in hand, selecting his mount from the animals in the pen, when he froze. A cigarette stub arced out from the back porch into the yard and hit with a shower of red sparks.
Then the door opened and a voice said: “Better start gettin’ some target practice in tomorrow.”
“How so?” said another.
“Driver says the company’s shippin’ some kind of gold statue to the governor. Extra guards, express box bolted to the floor, all passengers screened before they board and so on. The stage’ll stop here, of course, and we’ll be responsible. For a spell, leastways.”
“We gettin’ extra pay?”
“Guess so. So we better see if we’re still shootin’ straight come daylight.”
“Hell, yeah. Someone’ll be loco enough to try for it. You can bet on it.”
Dodd lay there until they went back into the building then he stood and casually dropped a loop over the sorrel he had selected.
The news sounded mighty interesting. He aimed to find out a lot more about it. The man who took that away from Wells Fargo would sure make them look like a pack of fools.
And that appealed to Will Dodd.
At an outlaw roost called Pepperpot, Dodd learned more and began to formulate a plan.
The word was out among the men who would be interested in stealing the gold statue; such men always managed to get ‘inside’ information on these things, no matter how many security precautions were taken. Will Dodd was well-known in Pepperpot and other outlaw roosts around the area, and he had no trouble picking up all the details he wanted from the men who gathered in the smoky room of the tumbledown building that served as saloon, whorehouse and cafe to men on the dodge.
Dodd ate a meal and drank half a bottle of whisky in silence at a rear table, listening to the men who came up and gave him whatever they knew about the gold statue. He nodded to each but said nothing.
Then one man, Sling Monroe, leader of a wolf pack that preyed on local settlers and stages and anything else that offered a chance at an easy buck, kicked out a chair and turned it around, dropping into it and folding his arms across the back. He was a big, mean, hard-eyed man with flaming red hair and a cast in his left eye that gave him a kind of off-center, loco look. Which was about right, anyway: he acted loco at times and had been known to rape women passengers and crucify the men on cactus trees. Once he had gutted a buffalo and stuffed two live women inside and sewed up the belly again with rawhide. Then he left them to die in the blistering sun.
He was silent for a while as he stared through the smoke haze at Will Dodd.
“Wells Fargo’s kinda your exclusive territory, I hear, Dodd.”
Will looked at him, munching on his tough beefsteak, and nodded slightly.
“But not this time,” Monroe said softly.
Dodd stopped munching and looked at him hard-eyed.
“No?”
“Nope. This time it’s mine. I’m goin’ after that statue. Worth a quarter-million, and I aim to have it.”
“Hogwash,” Dodd said. “Wouldn’t be worth anythin’ like that. If it was, they’d use the army, a whole damn troop of cavalry, and they’d clear the whole area. It’s made from a big gold nugget. Likely worth maybe ten thousand, but you couldn’t sell it for that. Be too hot to touch.”
“I’ll sell it for a helluva lot more’n ten grand.” Sling Monroe’s eyes were starting to get a crazy glint in them. He didn’t like being doubted, or corrected.
“You can try,” Dodd shrugged.
Monroe lurched to his feet.
“I’ll goddam do it,” he bellowed and there was a sudden silence in the smoke-filled room as Monroe’s chair clattered. He faced Dodd threateningly.
Will raised his eyes without moving his head.
“Take it easy, Sling. No need to fuss. I’m more interested in makin’ Wells Fargo look like fools than making my fortune out of ’em. Always have been. We can work this between us.”
“No,”
Monroe snapped. He raised an arm and pointed a rigid finger at Dodd. “You stay out of this one. I’m warnin’ you, Dodd.”
Will Dodd picked up a greasy cloth and stooped to wipe it across his mouth. He used it on his hands and then stood, belching loudly and patting his belly.
“That feels better. So much so that I don’t feel like arguin’ with you, Sling.”
“No need to argue. Just stay away from that stage and you’ll have no trouble.”
Dodd was still rubbing gently at his belly. He pursed his lips. “Well, I dunno as how I can do that, Sling.”
“You better.”
“Nope. Wells Fargo’s kinda special to me, as you know. Grabbin’ that statue would really upset them. Besides, Clay Nash has just got to be involved, and I want that bastard. He killed my kid brother. So, you can see I have to buy in on this one, Sling.”
Before he finished speaking, Dodd’s hands moved across his belly in a blur and his twin six-guns came up, braced against his hips, blazing. Monroe had started to reach for his gun in a cross-draw but he hadn’t a hope in hell—which was where he was headed as Dodd’s lead smashed into his chest and sent him hurtling back across the room, choking and spraying blood. Men scattered but one of Monroe’s hardcases, a hombre going by the name of Kettle, started to draw his gun.
But the big outlaw turned and calmly nailed him through the middle of the face—and saw a swift movement out of the corner of an eye. He spun that way, spotting Monroe’s Mexican knife-thrower sending a blade hurtling towards him at flashing speed. Dodd merely ducked and heard the knife whistle over his head as he triggered with both guns.
The Mexican screamed, snatched at a shattered shoulder and dropped to his knees, blood dripping from his splayed fingers to the filthy floor. Dodd took three short steps to the Mexican, placed the smoking gun barrels against the sobbing man’s head and dropped both hammers.
