by Brett Waring
Dodd shook his head emphatically.
“Nope. He’ll use Nash, I’m certain sure of it. But even if he don’t, Nash’ll sure come into it after we get the statue. By the by, Hank, you find out just what it was?”
'“An eagle, like Chuck told you. Ain’t very big, I hear. But worth plenty ’cause it’s solid gold.”
“Hell, that ain’t what makes it valuable,” Dodd scoffed, it’s the art work. And because it’s bound for the governor and only one of a kind. But, like I said, that don’t bother me: you fellers can divvy-up whatever you can get for it. All I want to do is show up Wells Fargo as a pack of fools—and get Nash out in the open where I can lay for him.”
He slapped the passenger list and other details that Griffin had brought back with him.
“This is the run, right enough. It’s the kind of played-down thing Wells Fargo would pull, but they slipped up by questioning the passengers booked on that stage, and not the ones going on other runs. Hank done a mighty fine job picking that up and I reckon you other fellers ought to vote him some kinda bonus when you finally sell off that eagle.” He looked around at the hard, silent faces and then shrugged. “Up to you, of course, but you wouldn't be gettin’ a chance at it if it wasn’t for Hank.” Still the others said nothing and Griffin scowled. It was something he could figure out later, anyway, he reckoned.
“Well, we don’t have any time to lose,” Dodd told the men. “We gotta start ridin’ and get into position. Now, at least one of these passengers will be a guard, you can bet on it, and there’s the usual shotgun up with the driver, so there’s gonna be some lead flyin’. Which means, if we want to prevent that, we got to get the drop on ’em pronto.” He glanced at the man called Dixie, a bearded, yellow-toothed killer with a broad southern accent. “You reckon you know that trail down to Peckham and Bowie, Dix. Does the stage run come anywhere near that place you were tellin’ me about, the one you figured would make a good ambush site?”
“It takes a swing away about there, I guess,” Dixie allowed. “I mean, we could pull it off but we’d have to ride out into the open to do it and that might give ’em time enough to make a run.”
Dodd shook his head.
“No good. They’ll be ready this time. No one’s gonna get within spittin’ distance of that stage. Soon as they spot a rider or a bunch of riders, they’ll take off and the guns’ll be out.”
“Not at High Hat Rock,” allowed Talman, a slim man with a very wrinkled neck and a scar under one ear that could have been an old rope burn.
The others looked at him with puzzled frowns.
“High Hat?” echoed Dodd.
“Sure,” Talman said. “Where that cowpoke drops off. He’s expectin’ to be met by a buckboard full of hombres from the ranch he’s goin’ to.”
Dodd nodded slowly.
“Well, mebbe not a whole buckboard full, but sure one or two. Yeah, Talman, I think you’ve pinned down the place.”
“Hell, High Hat Rock’s only twenty miles down-trail,” protested Moran. “They’ll have law after us in no time at all.”
“No, mebbe not,” Dodd said. “It’s a good place because it is so close to Alamogordo and they sure won’t be figurin’ on us hittin’ ’em so soon. Like everyone else, they’ll figure we won’t make our try till the stage is well away from towns, like after it leaves Bowie on that long, fifty-mile stretch to the next town with only a way-station in between. I reckon High Hat’s the place.” They discussed it some more but nothing changed: Will Dodd had made his decision.
From the window of his hotel, Clay Nash watched the early Santa Fe stage pull out of town. It was the decoy run and seemed to have a full complement of passengers. Only he knew that more than half of those ‘passengers’ were Wells Fargo guards.
The cowboy who was to drop off at High Hat was a genuine passenger, as were the two women. But the others were Fargo men. They were there as much to protect the passengers as to nail the outlaws. The fact that the stage was a decoy meant that it was risky for any real travelers and so the company had had to make sure that no one could point the finger at them afterwards should the decoy draw Dodd and his outlaws in to attack.
There was a small army troop leaving Alamogordo, too, within an hour, and though they were only going out on Indian Patrol, there had been several enigmatic hints dropped around town that maybe the chuck wagon that rode with them contained more than just grub for a bunch of hungry troopers. This, too, might act as a decoy.
So far, the Santa Fe run that was due to head out through the Arrowheads had been played mighty casual and should not bring much attention on itself. It was Nash’s responsibility alone. There would be only the normal shotgun guard riding up top beside the driver. The remainder of the passengers would be just that: genuine travelers. Their reasons and backgrounds had been checked as far as possible without arousing any suspicions. It had all the appearances, so far, of being a slow run up to Santa Fe without undue emphasis on any part of it.
Leastways, that’s what Nash and Hume hoped. Not to mention Linton Stewart who was in a fine old state of nerves. He would be glad to get rid of the eagle out of his vault, but, at the same time, transferring responsibility for its safety was still worrying. If anything happened to it, he might still get a large portion of the blame, simply because he was in on the arrangements.
Nash smoked by the window as he watched the stage’s dust settle in the plaza and then the coach itself turned down another street and was swallowed up by the thick traffic. He took out his silver pocket watch and glanced at the time. Two full hours yet before his own stage was due to start. He would have to time things just right so that he boarded it as it swung past Stewart’s bank, making it look as if he had been held up by negotiations over his finances until the very last minute.
That way, any outlaw agent hanging about the depot waiting room would have little chance of recognizing him as Hume’s top operative in disguise.
And, hopefully, with papers sticking out of the battered valise, no one would figure that in among them, locked in its special compartment, was the golden eagle bound for the State governor.
That was the theory, anyway.
The cowboy’s name was Woody Franklin. He was a big, lumbering type with soft-looking flesh and a moon face that seemed ready to light up with a wide grin at most any time. He was a man who stumbled his way through life in an easy-going manner even when doing chores that no one else wanted to tackle. In fact, Woody Franklin’s willingness to take on any kind of job was abused by most of the men he worked with.
But he didn’t mind. As long as he had some chores to do and was being paid his forty-and-found, Woody was happy. It made no difference to him if he worked longer and harder than anyone else; he just liked the company on ranches and the rough talk and sometimes grim or mean humor, and he rarely did more than smile wryly when he was the butt of some of the jokes. Once in a while he got riled over something and then men found out that his lumbering gait and ready smile didn’t mean that he was a fool or unable to defend himself.
Woody Franklin had busted quite a few heads in his time. But he would rather laugh than fight any day; he would rather sing than cuss.
And it was his endless singing of range tunes on the southern run out of Alamogordo that began to rile the other passengers. At first they didn’t seem to mind, but when Woody showed no sign of easing off and, when he reached the end of his repertoire, then started all over again, it began to wear a mite thin. One of the ladies tapped her fingers on the window ledge, her mouth drawn into a thin, grim line. The other tried to bury herself in a Gideon Bible but she seemed to be reading and rereading the same passage over and over, distracted by Woody’s off-key singing.
But the cowboy was oblivious to the sour faces of the men, and sat beside his window with one hand gripping the canvas blind roller, eyes closed, and singing away merrily. Finally, one of the disguised Wells Fargo guards leaned across and touched him on the knee. Woody opened his eyes slowly and
finished his verse before grinning at the man.
“Yessuh? You want me?” he asked brightly.
“I want you, all right,” the guard growled. “I want you to quit that blamed caterwaulin’. You’re drivin’ us all loco. We’ve heard them songs three times already.”
Woody looked startled, then hurt.
“Well—I figured you liked ’em. No one complained the first couple of times—”
“I really think you’ve done enough singing for now, young man,” said the lady with the tight lips, unsmiling. “And I feel perhaps the steers on the range may be more appreciative than your present audience.”
It took Woody some time to figure that out but he nodded vaguely then slumped back in his seat, frowning, trying to work out what the lady meant. By the time he had it figured, it was mid-afternoon and High Hat Rock was looming up ahead. The passengers, including the guards, dozed. Suddenly, they all leapt up, startled out of their wits, as Woody Franklin let out one hell of a wild, prolonged ‘Yipeeeee.’
Hearts raced and the Bible lady gasped, going white. The guards reached for their guns instinctively and Woody got to his feet, his big boots trampling other passengers’ feet as he gripped the upper edge of the door window and suddenly swung his long legs up and out.
“So long, folks,” he called. “This is where I gotta leave you. Good luck, y’all.”
And then he twisted and, boots clumping on the window ledge, missing the fingers of the tight-lipped lady by a hair, swung up onto the tailboard of the coach where the luggage was. One of the guards excused himself and, hanging onto his hat in the dusty wind, leaned out to see what in hell the dumb cowpoke was up to.
Woody Franklin was on the tailgate, singing again, as he lifted the tarp, reached in under it and hauled out his saddle-rig. He dropped it off the tailboard into the dust and then grabbed his war bag. He stood up and thumped a big hand on the roof, startling the driver and shotgun guard. The latter swung the double-barreled Ithaca twelve-gauge around and the muzzles were only a foot from Franklin’s startled face, wiping the big grin off instantly.
“Whoa, there, pard,” he yelled into the wind. “I ain’t about to do nothin’ but drop off the tailboard with my gear. Figured it’d save you stoppin’ to let me off. Adios and gracias for a smooth ride, driver. Good luck, y’all.”
Then the stunned guard saw him just drop from sight and he stood up in his seat to look back past the end of the coach and saw Woody rolling around in the dust then bounding to his feet. The cowboy waved, holding his war bag; his saddle a black blob back along the trail.
The guard shook his head slowly and faced the front as the bulk of High Hat Rock loomed ahead and to the left. He pointed.
“There’s his pards waitin’ in the buckboard for him. And, man, they’re welcome to him.”
The driver laughed and tapped his temple.
“A mite short-changed upstairs, I reckon. Bet them rannies out at that ranch give him hell for a spell.”
“Yeah,” the guard answered absently, watching the buckboard and its two passengers drive out of the shadow of the big rock. He frowned. “Looks like they ain’t seen him for the dust. They seem to be expectin’ us to stop.”
“Hell, I ain’t gonna, not now that he’s dropped off. Just give ’em a yell. They’ll find him.”
The guard called out and pointed back along the trail. The two men in the buckboard, Will Dodd and Talman, cursed when they saw the figure of the big cowboy trotting out of the dust-cloud, war bag over one shoulder, his saddle rig held down at his left side.
“Judas Priest! We had to have us a joker,” Dodd swore. “Dropped off on the run, now the blasted stage ain’t gonna stop.”
“Then I reckon we gotta make it stop,” Talman said, lifting the reins of the buckboard team and slapping the horses’ rumps. The vehicle swung quickly into the path of the stage and the driver, not expecting it, kicked out at the brake bar hurriedly but missed. The stage rolled on at full speed for a few yards that proved to be fatal.
By the time he had found the brake bar, Dodd had killed the shotgun guard and had calmly watched the man pitch over the side of the swaying coach. Then the teams hit and tangled with a wild whickering and a squealing as one animal went down and was trampled. Dodd and Talman leapt from the buckboard as the rest of the outlaws came thundering out of the shadow of the big rock.
The stage rocked and lurched, flinging the passengers into a tangled heap on the floor. The guards cursed and kicked and punched in their efforts to get out and get their guns free. By that time the outlaws had the door wrenched open; the driver was dead, draped over his brake bar with a bullet through the heart.
“Out!” bawled Dodd, his smoking gun menacing the mass of men and women inside. “Try to reach for a gun and you’re dead!”
His Colt exploded suddenly and one of the women screamed. One of the disguised guards fell back, half his face blasted away. His gun fell from his nerveless fingers.
“Like that, see?” Dodd added unnecessarily as he heaved the dead man out and then hauled the Bible lady through the door, sending her sprawling in the dust.
Ignoring her sobs, he shoved out one of the male passengers, then the second, older woman. The others clambered hurriedly over the express box and stepped down, their hands raised, menaced by the outlaw gang.
“Hey, hold up, there. What in hell’s goin’ on?”
Woody Franklin came running down the trail, still hefting his war bag and saddle rig. Dodd stared at him incredulously. He had figured the cowboy would run off into the rocks somewhere and hide till it was all over. It hadn’t bothered Dodd to think he would do that, but he sure hadn’t expected the man to come blundering in on this.
“Grab him, Hank,” Dodd yelled to Griffin. “Line him up with the others.”
Griffin moved towards the cowboy but Woody heaved his war bag into the man and groped for his Colt. The move had been so unexpected that the outlaws were caught flat-footed. He got his Colt out and started shooting. His lead was wild and he didn’t hit anyone, though a bullet drove into the downed horses. The outlaws ducked and scattered instinctively, and then their guns turned on Woody Franklin and they cut him down in a heavy volley of lead, his big body jerking and spinning before it hit the dust and lay there in a spreading pool of blood.
One of the women screamed and then the remaining guard started shooting. His first shot took Moran through the side and his second burned a red weal across Dodd’s left cheek. The big outlaw yelled and rounded, slamming the flat of his gun brutally into the guard’s face. The man went down, choking on his own blood as his nose was mashed into his head. Dodd kicked him in the side and Talman stomped on his gun hand with the heel of his boot. The man lay in the dust, slobbering, semi-conscious. Hackleback notched back his gun hammer and aimed the gun at the guard’s head.
“Hold up,” snapped Dodd. “He made his try to protect the others which makes him a company man. He might be useful. Leave him live a mite longer.”
The terrified passengers were pressed back against the coach and Dodd, dabbing at the bullet welt with a kerchief, shoved them roughly aside and stared at the green express box bolted to the floor. He took his gun and fired at the first of the three padlocks. It took two shots on each lock to destroy them. Then Dodd stepped back and jerked his head at Hackleback to rip up the lid. Moran was sitting on the ground, doctoring the bleeding wound in his side. It wasn’t deep but it wouldn’t have made much difference to the others if it had been. No one offered to help him.
The iron-bound lid of the express box screeched as it was raised and Hackleback, kneeling between the seats, groped among the canvas sacks and bundles. His search became more frantic and he started cursing as he threw out the packages. Then he snapped his head around. His face was white.
“It—ain’t here, Will,” he croaked.
Dodd’s eyes narrowed.
“Check that there ain’t a false bottom.”
Hackleback began tapping the bottom of th
e box with his gun butt and Talman stooped and looked beneath the body of the coach. He came back and shook his head.
“Nothin’ under the floorboards, Will.”
“Bottom sounds firm enough,” reported Hackleback.
“A goddamn decoy,” Dodd breathed. “And I fell for it.” He swore and the Bible lady covered her ears with her hands. “By hell, I smell Nash’s hand in this. Nash and Hume.”
He kicked the bloody-faced guard in the side and then stooped and heaved the moaning man to his feet, slamming him back against the coach so that the whole vehicle rocked violently on its leather suspension. Dodd rammed the muzzle of his shotgun under the guard’s chin, forcing the metal deep into the flesh. The outlaw spoke through gritted teeth.
“Talk or I’ll blow your head off.”
The guard focused his pain-filled eyes with difficulty and his blood-caked lips worked several times before he managed to speak the words.
“Do you no good to do that,” he rasped.
Dodd’s jaw thrust out and he notched back the gun hammer. The guard stiffened, preparing to die. He knew he was but a breath away from Boothill. Then Talman spoke quietly.
“He’s right, Will. Kill him and we won’t learn anythin’.”
Dodd stared into the guard’s battered face and slowly eased down the hammer. He turned the muzzle so that the foresight lay against the man’s flesh and then ripped the gun back. The guard gasped and staggered as he clawed at his gashed face. Dodd grabbed his hair and slammed his head back against the stage.
“Talman.” He spoke over his shoulder to the outlaw. “Kill one of the passengers.”
Talman was startled, but then he nodded and a split-second later his gun boomed and one of the male passengers crashed backwards, gasping as the bullet thudded into him. The women began to sob. The Bible lady looked as if she would be sick.
