Clay Nash 14

by Brett Waring

  “You’re a cold-blooded son of a bitch, ain’t you?” the doctor said to Nash. “Fill a man with lead, then want to make his dying hard just so’s you can annoy him.”

  “He’s got information that I need, Doc.”

  “You leave him be.”

  “I’m a Wells Fargo agent.”

  “Don’t give a damn if you’re a deputy of the Grim Reaper or the President himself, you killed a human bein’ and a man’s a man no matter what side of the law he’s on. I took an oath to heal and prevent suffering. Keepin’ this hombre alive the way I see it, is only going to make him suffer at your hands.”

  Nash squatted down and stared bleakly into the medic’s face. “Damn right he’ll suffer. If necessary. He’s sidin’ the bastard who gunned-down a pard of mine and he did his damnedest to put lead into me as I came in that door. You might call him a man, I call him a killer. If my questionin’ won’t allow him to die in peace, then so be it. But I aim to make him tell me what he knows before he’s turned over to the undertaker.”

  “You’re worse than he is!” the little medic said.

  Nash snapped, “How long’s he gonna live?”

  The doctor clamped his lips tightly together and his eyes blazed but his gaze wavered under the steady chill of Nash’s stare. “Minutes. An hour. Can’t say.”

  “Better get him over to the infirmary, Doc,” Red Morgan suggested.

  “No, movin’ him won’t help. Might kill him quicker.”

  Nash jostled the doctor aside in the cramped space as the killer groaned and fluttered his eyes open. He blinked as more blood trickled into his left eye from the wound in that side of his head.

  “Who sent you to nail me?” Nash asked harshly, shaking the man by the shoulder.

  “Now, just a minute!” protested the medic.

  Nash ignored him, shook the killer again: “You’re goin’, mister, fast. Do one decent thing before you die on us and I’ll see you get a decent grave and headboard, a pine marker with your name on. Any kinfolk you want notified, I’ll undertake to do that, too. You know enough about me to know I keep my word. Deal?”

  “Damn it, Nash, let the man die in peace!”

  “Shut down, Doc,” Nash said quietly, not taking his eyes off the blood-streaked face of the dying man. “Well, mister?”

  “Callan,” he croaked.

  “Yeah, we know he was waitin’ outside my window. He left the chancy spot to you. But he’s dead.”

  The man’s mouth worked for a spell before he spoke again, harshly, the words seeming to gurgle deep in the back of his throat.

  “Callan—hired—me,” he gasped and slumped.

  Nash swore and shook the man again. His head rolled limply on his neck. His eyes were staring. The medic pushed in roughly, examined the killer briefly.

  He turned and glared at Nash.

  “You can quit shaking him. You’ll get nothin’ more out of him.”

  “He’s dead already?”

  “There’s still some sort of a flutter that you might call a heartbeat, but he’s so weak I’ll wager he never regains consciousness again.”

  Nash sighed and stood up. He saw that Sheriff Race Hollander had come into the room now and was standing beside Red Morgan.

  “Learn anythin’?” the sheriff asked.

  “He said Callan hired him,” Nash told him flatly.

  Hollander arched his eyebrows. “The next question being, who hired Callan, huh?”

  Nash looked at him soberly. “That’s one.”

  Hollander frowned. “One what?”

  “One question.”

  “You got others?”

  “Sure, Sheriff. Like how come Callan managed to slip back into town past you and your hotshot deputy?”

  Race Hollander’s eyes narrowed and the small scar on his cheek was livid now, seeming almost to pulse against the flushed flesh of his cheek.

  Chapter Four – Free Agent

  “You sure your arm is all right, Clay?” Lucy Parrish asked with concern on her face and in her voice as Nash lowered himself stiffly into a chair.

  His left arm hung down by his side, stiffly. He nodded. “Arm’s fine. But I’m lucky. Callan was a professional. Set up the stooge inside the room. If he’d nailed me, all well and good, but if he fouled it up, as he did, Callan had the element of surprise, lying outside there on the awning roof. Lucky I spotted him in time.”

  “What d’you think it means, Clay?” the girl asked. “I mean, do you think your investigations were taking you too close to the truth and someone thought you had to be silenced?”

  He shook his head vigorously. “Couldn’t be, Lucy. I haven’t learned a thing.”

  “Then—why?” she asked in genuine puzzlement.

  “Dunno. The only common link in this case is that I was friendly with the three men who were killed. Whether that counts for somethin’ now, I couldn’t say. If that is the reason, then the key has to be in something I did with the others. But I was never with all three of them together at any time. We never sided each other on the same assignment, even, though I did ride a couple of stages as extra security with Chuck Claybourne.”

  Lucy sighed. “I don’t know, Clay. It’s a mystery, I’m sure. And it’s dangerous for you, isn’t it?”

  “I’ve been in danger before. Seems I’ve spooked someone into comin’ after me and that suits me. It’s the way I operate best when I know someone’s stalkin’ me.”

  “But you don’t know who! Nor even why!”

  He smiled faintly. “I can handle it. Hollander’s warned me off, told me to clear out of town or to play things down. He knows he can’t force me out. He can’t buck Wells Fargo, but he’s just lettin’ me know he’s tough. But how about you, Lucy? Did you find anything among Mitch’s papers?”

  She shook her head swiftly. “Nothing, Clay.” She seemed very tense.

  “Something wrong?”

  “Oh, no, it’s just that—well, he’d kept some letters I’d written him before we were married. They brought back—memories.” There were tears in her eyes and she dabbed swiftly with her handkerchief.

  “Would you like me to go through his things for you?” Nash offered.

  Lucy shook her head swiftly.

  “I—I’ll be all right, Clay, thanks. You take care, though. I—wouldn’t want anything to happen to you.”

  He smiled as he stood up. “I’ll be all right, Lucy. Guess I’ll go turn in now. They should’ve cleaned up my room by this time.” She saw him to the door and waved briefly as he strode away down the street. Lucy wiped at her eyes; closed and bolted the door and went back to the parlor. She stared at the roll top desk for a long minute and then walked across, unlocked the top and struggled to raise it. Dust flew up and she coughed, fighting the stiffness of the top. It wouldn’t go right back because it was caught on something. As she left it, it began a slow, maddening slide back down the slots and she irritably pushed it up again as she began going through the papers.

  The top eased its way down yet again and angry now, Lucy Parrish pulled out the set of pigeonholes and reached in to see what was preventing it from going right back. She was surprised when her fingers touched creased paper.

  She was even more surprised when she pulled it out and saw that it was a letter of some sort in an envelope, that had apparently slipped out the rear of a pigeonhole and become caught in the groove where the roll top’s slats were. It was jammed tight, being compressed each time the top was pushed back.

  Lucy straightened out the creases in the envelope and saw that there was nothing at all written on it. It wasn’t even sealed. She opened it and pulled out two folded sheets of paper, both covered in writing.

  As she read, her mouth sagged a little and her hands began to tremble. She felt as though a great weight was on her and she had trouble breathing.

  She held the key to Mitch’s death in her hands.

  The Wells Fargo offices in Virginia City were at the far end of Buchanan Street, backing onto op
en ground that was used to house the spare teams and contained work sheds for repairs and maintenance to the stagecoaches.

  The offices were in a double-storied building and right now the downstairs section was crowded as one stage had pulled in from the Ruby City run and another was preparing to leave for Salt Lake City. Passengers and friends milled about and jostled one another. Clerks called passengers’ names and warned them there were only two minutes left to departure time. A woman complained bitterly about having to pay fifty-six dollars excess luggage on a heavy wooden trunk.

  The patient clerk sighed and tried to explain that each passenger was only allowed thirty pounds of luggage weight free cartage. Each pound beyond that limit had to be paid for at the rate of twenty-five cents.

  “And that’s an almighty heavy trunk you got there, ma’am,” the clerk added. “In fact, I ain’t at all sure the driver’ll take it. Might not be able to stow it without upsetting the coach’s balance.”

  That gave the woman something else to yell about: she had never heard of such a thing, refusing to carry baggage for a paying customer ...

  The noise drifted up to the offices above but up there it was mainly a dull rumble that continued just loud enough to be annoying. The clerks working there frequently looked up from their ledgers or erased mistakes and stomped their feet loudly on the floor. It was doubtful that their protests were heard above the din below.

  In the manager’s office, now being used by Jim Hume, who had arrived on the stage that had pulled in only twenty minutes ago, the sounds below were muted. The door was ajar and Hume stood at one end of the desk, his face flushed and angry as he faced a narrow-eyed Clay Nash between the desk and door.

  “By God, Clay, I gave you credit for more damn sense!” he roared and the clerks outside looked up from their ledgers, exchanged glances and with one accord, lowered their pens, looking towards the slightly open door of the manager’s office, always ready to listen-in on any gossip.

  “Hell almighty, they were trying to blow my head off!” Nash protested. “What did you want me to do? Stand out in the full light of the passage and make a fine target for ’em to shoot at?”

  “Don’t get smart, Clay!” Hume snapped. “This is serious. I’ve had a complaint from a member of the medical profession about the inhumane way you treated that wounded man. Now I know he was a killer and you had to act fast and get what information you could get out of him, but, good God, man, did you have to be so rough?”

  “Hogwash!” Nash snapped.

  “Hogwash, my foot. There were plenty of witnesses, it seems. You know the company always places a helluva lot of stock by its good name and you didn’t do one damn thing to help its image by rousting that dying man the way you did!”

  “The sawbones said he only had a few minutes to live.”

  “Look, I know all that and I’ve allowed for you being keyed-up from the shoot-out and so on, but you’re an experienced agent, Clay. You know how to act. How the hell is it going to seem to folk who saw you working-over a dying man? And on top of it, you got nothing, anyway! You’re too personally involved in this because Mitch Parrish was your friend. I’m going to have to take you off the assignment. Now, wait a minute, before you sound off at me, it’s not just my decision. I’ve been instructed by head office. You’re attracting too much adverse publicity.”

  There was a silence and the clerks exchanged knowing looks. It wasn’t often that they had the inside running on something like this, with someone with the stature of Clay Nash getting a strip torn off him. This story would be worth a free drink or two around the saloons.

  “I don’t get it, Jim,” Nash said suddenly, sounding much quieter now, but there was a cold edge to his voice that none of the others had heard before. “You’ve never come down hard on me before and I’ve been a lot rougher with some of the characters I’ve had to go up against.”

  “Clay, what you do out in the wilds makes no never mind. I don’t want to know about it. The company is happy to remain ignorant of your methods. But it’s when you do what you did in front of witnesses and we get complaints that we have to act on them. You savvy that. I simply can’t figure why you didn’t stop to think! It bears out my contention that you’re too personally involved in this, hell-bent to avenge Mitch Parrish’s death.”

  “Damn right I am!” Nash admitted. “And the fact that they sent two killers after me shows I was on the right track.” He paused and laughed briefly. “The joke is I haven’t yet realized where I was headed, but obviously something I did stepped on someone’s toes and spooked ’em into sendin’ those killers after me.”

  “Well, you can make a detailed report and it’ll be passed on to whoever takes over the assignment. They might see something you can’t. I don’t doubt that they’ll have a far more objective view of things.”

  “You go to hell,” Nash said quietly, but his words carried clearly out into the outer office and the clerks grinned in anticipation. It was always rich to hear someone stand up to one of the bosses.

  “What!” came Hume’s shocked voice.

  “I said for you to go to hell.”

  “Who d’you think you’re talking to?”

  “I know who I’m talkin’ to, Jim. And you damn well know why. I’m not turnin’ this assignment over to anyone else. It’s mine. Mitch was my pard and I aim to nail the sonuver who set-up his killin’.”

  Hume paused briefly before replying and the effort at control was evident in his voice.

  “Clay, calm down. Don’t make this worse than it already is. I’ve another job for you down in New Mexico and ...”

  “Keep it!” Nash’s harsh voice cut in. “And keep this, too!”

  The last words were followed by the thud of something being slammed down violently onto the desk in the other office.

  “His badge!” one of the clerks breathed, making a silent, whistling sound with his lips. This was really blowing up!

  “Don’t be stupid, Clay,” Hume said. “There’s no need for this.”

  “The hell there ain’t!”

  The clerks suddenly all turned back to their ledgers and appeared to be working hard as the door jerked wide and an angry Clay Nash appeared, speaking back over his shoulder into the other office.

  “You can keep the job and the badge, too, Hume! The whole damn company can go rot! But I’m followin’ through on this, on my own.”

  He slammed the door so hard it shook the wall and he began to stalk savagely towards the door leading downstairs. A red-faced Jim Hume came after him, holding Nash’s Operative’s badge.

  “You’ve got information you gained on company time, with company money! I demand you turn it over to me, Nash!”

  Nash opened the outer door and faced Hume briefly. His lips curled in a cold, crooked smile.

  “Like I said, you can go to hell,” he said quietly and went out, slamming the door after him.

  “You crazy fool!” yelled Hume, then, aware that the clerks were staring at him, muttered a curse and stepped back into the manager’s office, closing the door firmly.

  “Whew!” breathed one of the clerks.

  “I wouldn’t care to cross Nash in the mood he’s in right now,” said another.

  “Ready to kill, I reckon,” opined a third man, with relish.

  The saloon on Cannon Road was packed solid with miners and townsmen liquoring up.

  The yellow clapboard walls seemed to bulge with the crush and the noise was deafening. There was a fight near the side door and two bulky bouncers armed with bung-starters, waded in, slugging. The combatants were both laid out; no one bothered to try to find out the whys and wherefores. The fight was simply stopped abruptly and the dazed, bleeding men flung out into the alley. Clubs raised, the bouncers faced the jeering crowd, challenging, but no one came forward. Men opened out their ranks and allowed the sluggers through to their stations on the first landing of the stairs leading to the top floor.

  Clay Nash had managed to find himself a small tab
le over against one wall. Twice he had had to defend it against burly miners who wanted to share it with him. One man he laid out with his six-gun, slamming him across the side of the head. The other he grabbed by the shirtfront and drove him back against the wall, saying something very quietly into his ear. Whatever it was he said, the miner paled and lifted his hands placatingly. When Nash released him, he jammed his hat on his head and joined the crush at the bar. He didn’t even look towards Nash for the rest of the evening.

  The ex-Wells Fargo man didn’t exactly invite company or even enquiring looks. His face was as if set in granite, his eyes cold and looked inward as he thought about all his long years with the company and the missions he had carried out, the scars he had earned, from bullet and knife. He had bought a bottle of redeye earlier in the evening and now it was below the halfway mark. He swayed a little in his chair, hat pushed to the back of his head, fair hair dangling over his forehead, one boot up on the spare chair, elbow resting on the bent knee as he fumbled to roll a cigarette. He spilled the tobacco flakes twice before getting a lumpy paper cylinder formed and stuck in one corner of his bitter mouth.

  The table top was wet with spilled drinks and the first two vestas wouldn’t light. He was fumbling in his shirt pocket for a third when one suddenly flared under his nose and he instinctively jerked his head back, squinting up through the smoke and glare, seeing the vague outline of a tall, wide-shouldered man. He dipped the end of the cigarette into the vesta flame and blew out a plume of smoke as he squinted up again at the man who held the match.

  “What the hell do you want?” he demanded, words just a little slurred.

  “Figured I’d have a word or two with you,” replied big Race Hollander. He gestured to the spare chair occupied by Nash’s right boot and lower leg. “Mind if I sit down?”

  “Yeah, I do,” Nash growled.