Clay Nash 11
Page 11
Nash said nothing, conserving his breath and his strength. With every passing second he was getting a little more strength, his heart was slowing, his breathing was settling and the trembling was passing from his body. It was no miraculous thing, it was merely his body responding to the imminent danger that threatened; a survival mechanism enabling him to call on reserves of strength he wasn’t aware of having.
Dodd’s rifle exploded suddenly and Nash jumped as the bullet jarred into the ground only a foot from his right boot. The outlaw laughed.
“You’re never gonna make it, Nash. You’re finished. I’ve ridden you into the ground like I said I would, and now I don’t even give a damn about the eagle or Wells Fargo or anythin’ else. I got you dead to rights, mister, and that’s all that counts—’cause you killed Adam.”
He threw the rifle to his shoulder with a sudden movement, his face hardening. Suddenly, Nash’s right hand dipped and blurred upwards, his Colt stabbing fire and smoke. Dodd flung backwards in the saddle, sending the rifle flying as the lead smashed him off the horse. He hit hard and turned a stunned, incredulous face towards Nash. Then he grabbed at his six-guns—but Nash’s Colt roared again as he drove his last bullet into Will Dodd’s heart.
The outlaw slammed backwards and lay still.
Nash’s legs gave way under him and he sat down heavily. He stayed that way for almost an hour before he managed to find enough strength to stagger over to Dodd’s horse. He climbed onto a rock and pulled himself into the saddle.
Then he turned the horse and walked it towards the crest of the ridge.
It was nearing sundown before he got to the bottom on the other side and then he saw a band of riders galloping towards him and he hauled rein, blinking. Jim Hume was in the lead and he recognized Swede from the Arrowhead way-station and some other Wells Fargo men. There was a man wearing a sheriff’s star, too. They reined down a few feet from him and Nash’s eyes bulged when he saw that Hume had the golden eagle poking out of his saddlebags.
“Anyone after you, Clay?” Hume asked.
Nash shook his head, drank deeply from the canteen that Swede handed him and wiped his lips.
“I got ’em all.”
“Good. Jack got to Swede’s place and he sent a telegraph. I organized a posse and came as quickly as we could.”
Nash pointed to the eagle.
“How come?”
Hume looked at the statue casually.
“This? Oh, found it stickin’ up out of a small cascade in a creek back a-ways. Guess you’d hid it and the water washed the earth away from around it. Don’t matter anyway.”
“Not now—but ’spose someone else had found it?” Nash realized just how close a call it had been.
Hume grinned while he pulled at the lobe of one ear. “Well—it still wouldn’t’ve mattered much.”
Nash stared at him blankly.
“This is only gold-plated brass,” Hume explained. “A casting of the original.”
Nash stiffened.
“You mean—you used me as a decoy?”
“We had to make sure we got that eagle to the governor. We shipped it out in a load of vegetables earlier in the day, before your stage left.”
“All this killin’ and shootin’—over a hunk of brass?”
“It served its purpose. Want it for a souvenir?”
Nash shook his head.
“I never want to see it again or even think about it—except maybe as the best excuse I’ve had in a coon’s age for going out and gettin’ drunk.”
Hume grinned and ranged his mount alongside his top agent’s as they rode back through the posse on the return trail to Santa Fe.
About the Author
Keith Hetherington
aka Kirk Hamilton, Brett Waring and Hank J. Kirby
Australian writer Keith has worked as television scriptwriter on such Australian TV shows as Homicide, Matlock Police, Division 4, Solo One, The Box, The Spoiler and Chopper Squad.
“I always liked writing little vignettes, trying to describe the action sequences I saw in a film or the Saturday Afternoon Serial at local cinemas,” remembers Keith Hetherington, better-known to Piccadilly Publishing readers as Hank J. Kirby, author of the Bronco Madigan series.
Keith went on to pen hundreds of westerns (the figure varies between 600 and 1000) under the names Kirk Hamilton (including the legendary Bannerman the Enforcer series) and Clay Nash as Brett Waring. Keith also worked as a journalist for the Queensland Health Education Council, writing weekly articles for newspapers on health subjects and radio plays dramatizing same.
More on Keith Hetherington
The Clay Nash Series by Brett Waring
Undercover Gun
A Gun Is Waiting
Long Trail to Yuma
Reckoning at Rimrock
Last Stage to Shiloh
Slaughter Trail
Sundown in Socorro
The Fargo Code
Ride for Texas
Bullet By Bullet
The Santa Fe Run
… And more to come every other month!
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