Clay Nash 11

by Brett Waring

  Dodd turned back to the guard.

  “Tell me about that eagle, mister.”

  “I dunno nothin’ about it,” the man slurred. “All I know is we was to be a decoy. Nothin’ else.”

  Dodd merely shifted his eyes sideways and nodded slightly to Talman. The man’s gun blasted again and the other male passenger was dead before the echoes had died away.

  The guard began to struggle. Dodd held him against the coach.

  “Now you got two deaths on your conscience, mister. But we got somethin’ special planned for the ladies there.” He turned with a leer, glancing only briefly at the white-faced, trembling women. “Hank, you and Hackleback seem to like the ladies. Whyn’t you take one of ’em over there behind that rock and amuse yourself for a spell? We won’t mind. You can make all the noise you like. No one here’s gonna complain.”

  The guard spat at Dodd and earned himself a gun barrel in the midriff which drove him to his knees. The Bible lady fainted as Griffin and Hackleback selected her and carried her limp form over to the rocks. The older woman dropped to her knees, on the verge of passing out, too. The guard tried to get up but Dodd pushed him back, planted a boot against his chest and shoved him against the ground.

  The Bible lady screamed from behind the rocks.

  “Judas!” the guard breathed. “Hold up, Dodd. Hold up, damn you.”

  Dodd continued to keep his boot on the man’s chest and his gun barrel angled downwards. The woman screamed again and went on screaming this time.

  “Dodd!” roared the guard.

  “You got somethin’ to say, mister? Somethin’ I wanna hear?”

  The guard tried to close his ears to the woman’s screams and sobs.

  “Yeah. Yeah, I have. Tell ’em to ease up on that lady.”

  “Quicker you talk, quicker they’ll ease up.”

  The guard glanced at the other woman who was being sick beside a wheel of the stage and then looked back at Dodd.

  “All right. I dunno much, but word leaks out among the guards, you know.”

  “Never mind the story-telling, damn it,” Dodd said, leaning forward, placing more weight on the guard’s chest. “Gimme the details.”

  “Okay. Near as I can figure, the eagle was bein’ shipped by the next stage to Santa Fe, the one out through the Arrowhead Hills.”

  Dodd frowned and glanced at Talman who looked dubious.

  “Accordin’ to Griffin, there’re only a coupla passengers on that and the express box ain’t even bolted to the floor.”

  Dodd was thoughtful.

  “Could be just the same. Wells Fargo are known to play down things most times. I just didn’t figure they’d play it down so much, this bein’ such an important thing. I figured this would be the run the statue was on, because they screened the passengers openly and planted a couple of guards.” He turned suddenly and kicked the guard in the side. “Is that what they done? Set it up for me or anyone else who might’ve been tryin’ to get hold of that statue?”

  The guard bared his teeth in pain and nodded.

  “Guess so. All I know is they was bringin’ in Clay Nash, one of their top men, to kinda see it safely there. He was to carry it on him in a special valise.”

  Dodd had stiffened at the mention of Nash’s name. His jaw hardened and his eyes slitted.

  “Which one’s Nash?”

  “He’s s’posed to be a cattle agent—Nathan somethin’, if I recollect.”

  “When was that stage leavin’ town?”

  “Couple hours after us.”

  “What else?”

  “Nothin’ else. Gospel, Dodd. It’s all anyone knows—’ceptin’ Nash and Hume.”

  Dodd stared down at him for a short time, realizing that the woman’s screams had stopped. Then he moved his gun barrel a little and the guard’s eyes widened an instant before the Colt roared and he slammed back against the ground.

  The killer rounded on the trembling woman.

  “Old woman, you’re lucky. I’ve no hankerin’ for you, and no hankerin’ to kill you. You’ll be a long time gettin’ to help from way out here, so I’m gonna let you live. By the time you get somewheres we’ll be long gone and we’ll have carried out what we set out to do, so you can tell the law anythin’ and everythin’. In fact, make sure you do. I want Wells Fargo to know who done it. Tell ’em they owe me.”

  He swung away and the woman collapsed with pure relief, lying face down in the dust, dizzy, semi-conscious, and choking.

  It was about five minutes later that the outlaws rode away, Moran clasping his bloody side, dragging a little behind the others. The woman slowly came out of her daze and shuddered as she looked around at the bodies strewn over the trail, and the dead horses with two live ones still entangled in the mess of harness.

  Crawling, she made her way over to the rocks where the Bible lady had been taken, wondering if she would find the poor woman alive or dead.

  Five – Arrowhead Trail

  Dodd knew he wouldn’t have time to ride to the other stage before nightfall. Fact was, they couldn’t even get across to the Arrowhead Trail before morning. By that time, the stage, carrying Nash and the golden eagle would be beyond the point where they would come out.

  “You can bet they’ll be watchin’ the back trail as well as the one up ahead,” Talman said as he rode alongside the big outlaw leader. “Might even have that troop of soldiers that left Alamogordo followin’ up in case there’s trouble. It’s a chance, Will.”

  Dodd agreed: “Yeah. But it’s a long trail to Santa Fe yet. We know where the statue is and where Nash is. We figured we had it right before but this time it sets a lot better with me. I seen that guard’s face and his eyes. He was scared white and he didn’t want nothin’ else to happen to them women. He told the truth all right.”

  “As much as he knew, leastways,” Talman amended.

  “It’s enough. Now, that trail through the Arrowheads is a deal longer than the one through Peckham and Bowie, am I right?”

  The others agreed that it was a long trail through the hills. “It swings and loops plenty and it climbs right over them hills,” Dodd pointed out. “Which means the stage ain’t really goin’ any place in a hurry. We can afford to take a little time on this and work out just how we’re gonna do it.”

  “Can’t take too much time,” Hank Griffin said. “That old woman might get to help sooner than we figure. I mean, someone from that ranch is gonna come lookin’ for them cowboys we shot with the buckboard.”

  Dodd gave him a hard look, as if condemning the man for speaking about something he would rather not have heard. And yet he knew that Griffin was right. He had been a fool: he should have killed the old woman, too; made a clean sweep of it. But no matter: if the ranch hands came looking for their men, they would find the coach and the dead men, anyway, so news of the robbery would get out within the next couple of days. It could flash along the telegraph to one of the way-stations where the stage with Nash aboard would be stopping.

  “But that don’t make any difference when I think on it,” Dodd said. “The stage was meant for a decoy and we fell for it. It’ll only make ’em more confident that they’re gonna get through with the statue. Specially if we don’t hit it for a few more days.”

  “A few days?” echoed Hackleback. “Hell, they’ll be all itchin’ trigger fingers by then.”

  Dodd smiled crookedly and shook his head.

  “I don’t figure it that way. If you was in Nash’s place and you heard about the decoy bein’ robbed, what’d you do?”

  “Tighten things up mighty damn slick,” replied Hackleback unhesitatingly.

  “Sure. Natural thing to do. But, s’posin’ nothin’ happened that day? Or the next? Or the one after that? S’pose nothin’ happened on any of the days right after the raid on the decoy, when you expected things to get a mite hot?”

  Talman nodded, seeing what Dodd was getting at.

  “Sure, you’d start to relax. You’d figure you had everyone
fooled; that you was on the home run.”

  “And that’d be a damn good time to make your try, right?” Dodd asked and got immediate agreement from the others. “But we got to remember we’re up agin Nash. He’s no fool. He can get inside a man’s mind, figure out what he’s gonna do almost before that man can himself. I seen it happen. So we got to make some special arrangements to get the advantage on our side.”

  “Like what?” asked Hackleback.

  “We’ll do some figurin’,” Dodd said. “I’m already gettin’ the germ of an idea. If we plan well enough on this, we’ll have Nash beat before he even realizes what’s happenin’.”

  The others looked thoughtful as they rode on. They all knew Dodd’s special reason for wanting to settle with Clay Nash, but that was his business. Their main interest was in the golden statue. But, of course, they had to get past Nash to get their hands on it.

  They all hoped that Will Dodd would come up with something workable that would put the gold in their hands. As far as they were concerned he could have Clay Nash.

  The way-station appeared on the horizon long before the stage rolled across the monotonous flats and drew close enough to make out the individual buildings. At first it was a slight, dark bump on the flat horizon, almost lost in the quivering haze of the dancing heat waves. Then it became clearer as the hours rolled by and separated into three distinct units.

  By the time the sun had climbed to the halfway mark between dawn and noon, the buildings could be distinguished plainly enough; a white adobe structure where the passengers could wash and have a meal while the teams were changed; a darker, wooden structure that was the stables and blacksmith’s forge, and a square, log-walled store-shed. Between this and the stables were the corrals where the relief teams waited. There were smaller, moving black dots as the folk on the station ran to do their various chores as they sighted the stage.

  Clay Nash lifted his kerchief over his nostrils and squinted into the choking dust and glare. He lifted half out of his seat, craning to got a good look at the buildings. He was the only passenger on the stretch, the other three who had been with him since Alamogordo, having left at previous stops. But the stage was scheduled to pick up another passenger at the way-station, a doctor. Of course, there could well be others waiting to climb aboard, too, that the driver hadn’t yet received word about. It often happened that way.

  “Look all right, Jack?” Nash called up to the driver.

  “So far,” the man yelled back and then let go a string of wild cusses as he fought the team around a clump of flint rock.

  “How you read it, Chip?” Nash asked the shotgun guard who had a pair of field glasses to his eyes.

  The man studied the way-station for a few seconds before answering.

  “Looks fine. Recognize the agent, Lew Latham, and that’s his two Mex wranglers headin’ lickety-split for the corrals.”

  “How’s the house look?”

  “Okay. Doors open, windows, too. Woman movin’ around at the side, and with a figure like that it just has to be Mrs. Latham. Uh-huh—looks like two folk in the waitin’ room. I figure we’re okay for a run in, Clay.”

  “Keep that shotgun handy just the same,” Nash said and sat back in his seat, taking out his Colt to check the load.

  But all was well when the stage finally rolled into the yard of the way-station and there were only the two new passengers. One was a widow by the name of Lucy Briggs, and her baby girl wrapped up well in a shawl and sleeping peacefully. The other, a doctor. His name was Harlan and Nash was immediately suspicious of him. He was in his mid-thirties, tall and tough-looking, very unlike all the frontier sawbones Nash had ever had anything to do with. The man’s eyes were cold and dark, like gun barrels, and his hands were rough, calloused and laced with a network of old white scars. There were scars on his narrow face, too, showing through the leathery, nut brown skin. He wore a gun on his left side, the holster waist-high, the butt of the Colt to the fore. Obviously he was a cross draw man at Nash noticed that he carried his black bag in his left hand, thus leaving his right free to whip across his body and reach for the Colt should it be necessary.

  He looked more like a lawman than a medic—or a gunfighter, maybe. Clay Nash watched the man warily as he stretched his legs in the adobe building and ate a hurried meal while the teams were changed on the coach. The widow seemed a timid little thing and kept herself apart from the others, including Mrs. Latham, who tried to be attentive and offered to warm the baby a bottle of milk. But the woman shook her head, muttered something about breast-feeding and then hurried outside to sit in the shade of the porch awning.

  Doctor Harlan watched her go, frowning a little, but said nothing as he ate quickly and gulped his coffee. He seemed to be edgy, and moved with swift, but precise movements, his eyes darting around the room from face to face. He said little and when he had finished got up and moved off with his black bag, going outside to sit in the stifling heat of the coach.

  “What you think of him, Chip?” Nash asked the guard.

  “Well, let’s just say I hope I don’t bust a leg or somethin’,” drawled the man. “’Cause I sure as hell wouldn’t fancy that hombre workin’ on me.”

  Nash turned his gaze to the driver.

  “Jack?”

  “Looks more like Jesse James than a sawbones,” the man said slowly.

  Picking up his satchel from between his feet and holding it in one hand, Nash drained his coffee, stood up and walked to the door that led to the kitchen in the rear. Fat Mrs. Latham was bustling about, cracking orders at the mestiza girl who helped her while Lew scrubbed up at the basin on the draining board.

  “Come in, Clay, come in,” invited the big woman. “Or maybe I should say ‘Mr. Clay’?”

  “Don’t much matter,” Nash said. “Only Jack and Chip in the dining room. Widow and the medic are outside ... where’s Lucy Briggs from?” He held the satchel in both hands and looked relaxed.

  “Up in the hills,” Lew Latham said, gesturing vaguely. “Husband had a small, hard rock spread up there. Got throwed by a hoss and busted his neck few weeks back. Or so she said.”

  “She said? You don’t know her then?”

  “I only knew Tom. Leastways, met him once when he sold me some broncs. Said he was gettin’ married at that time, so I guess he did. Hell, Clay, you ain’t worried about her, are you?” Nash smiled faintly.

  “Just checkin’ the background. But that medic kinda worries me. Looks a bit tough. Know anythin’ about him?”

  “Only that he killed a man in Carson a few weeks back. In a gunfight.”

  Nash stiffened and his eyes narrowed.

  “Some sawbones. What’s he do? Make his own patients?”

  Lew Latham shrugged. “Dunno. But he’s mighty tough. Hails from the minin’ towns of Colorado, I hear. Even the preachers wear guns there.”

  Nash looked thoughtful.

  Mrs. Latham came waddling across.

  “Tough or not, he seems to know his business, Clay. He lanced a boil on Rosita’s backside: had to cut real deep and sewed it up real pretty. Show ’im, gal.”

  The mestiza girl looked embarrassed and afraid, but the fat woman grabbed her, lifted her effortlessly and draped her across the table corner. She swept her full green skirt up with one arm and pushed grimy petticoats aside, finally revealing the protesting girl’s patched drawers. Mrs. Latham pulled down the waistband a little and revealed a thick pad of cotton covering an area about as large as the palm of a man’s hand, just above her buttocks. The fat woman lifted an edge of the cotton pad to show Nash part of the wound. He looked closely and had to admit it had a professional look about it. Mrs. Latham released the girl who turned and ran from the kitchen into the yard. Lew roared with laughter.

  Mrs. Latham, breathing hard from her exertions, wiped sweat from her flushed face.

  “Make a darn fine embroiderer that sawbones, Clay.”

  Nash nodded, still looking thoughtful. A mining town background could
explain Harlan’s appearance. A man had to learn to use his fists and possibly a gun in such a place, no matter what his profession. And, after all, there was no law that said a doctor had to look like anything in particular. He was a man, an individual, and so he would look different from everyone else.

  Anyway, there was nothing Nash could—or wanted—to do about it now. Doctor Harlan was booked as a passenger on the stage all the way to Santa Fe and Nash would just watch him closely. As for Widow Briggs, he figured the biggest problem with her would be when the baby was due for feeding: there was no privacy in the passenger compartment of a swaying stagecoach.

  Anyway, it was getting less and less likely that an attempt to hold up the stage would take place. They were only three days from Santa Fe. Which meant nothing, of course, and Nash figured he wouldn’t relax for a moment—not until the eagle was delivered to the governor. Word had reached him at earlier stops about Dodd’s massacre during his attempt on the decoy stage. The company was going to get some rousting over that, he figured, with three passengers dead and another raped.

  But there had been no word about Dodd’s whereabouts since, though Nash couldn’t accept that the man had just given up all thought of getting the eagle. It would be by far the best-ever chance to make Wells Fargo look incompetent. Dodd wouldn’t pass up that chance lightly. By now he would have figured out on which stage the eagle was travelling and though each day that passed lessened the chance of a hold-up attempt, Nash couldn’t shake the feeling that Dodd was still going to make his try.

  He might not necessarily stage a road-agent ambush as he had at High Hat Rock, which was why Nash wasn’t prepared to accept any new passenger on the way.

  He lifted the satchel, heavy with the gold statue, and felt at the ragged-looking slit in the worn compartment, inside which was clipped the derringer. He reckoned it would be safer to ride with his hand inside the satchel, wrapped around the butt of the little weapon. That meant that once more, he wouldn’t be able to get any real sleep for the remainder of the journey. He was already reeling with fatigue; he knew only too well that he was vulnerable and felt that after a few more days on the trail, he could well drop from sheer exhaustion. And if Harlan were one of Dodd’s crew, all he would have to do would be to reach out and take the satchel.