by Brett Waring
Marnie Blake nodded with a faint smile. “I’ll be around, Mr. Hume. I really came looking for your top gun, Clay Nash. Mitch was always talking about him, and how deadly he was. I thought he might be interested in avenging Mitch’s death.”
“That was his assignment but he disappeared, not very long ago.”
The girl looked surprised. “Disappeared? My contacts said he was in town last night.”
“Yeah. But he vanished this morning. I’ve been searching everywhere and was about to admit I was beat when you arrived.”
“You mean, I’ve helped ...?”
Hume smiled faintly. “With a little luck you have. You gave me an idea I hadn’t even thought of before ...” He broke off as there was a peremptory knock on the door and then it burst open and a sweating man with a flushed face burst in, breathless, holding to the door knob.
“You were right, Jim! They took him to the prison!”
Hume was already moving around his desk. “I’ll be seeing you, Miss Blake.”
He went out with the other man, drawing his Sheriff’s model Colt from his shoulder holster and hurriedly checking the loads.
The prison governor stood slowly behind his desk, smiling benignly as Jim Hume was shown into his office. He thrust out a beefy hand across the desk.
“Well, Mr. Hume, this is indeed a pleasure, sir! What can I do for you?”
“Well, you can help me with a small problem if you’ve a mind, Governor,” Hume said, smiling, holding out his right hand as he approached.
But a step from the desk, just before their hands touched, he whipped out his Sheriff’s model Colt and took a long step around the desk, ramming the short muzzle of the gun against the startled governor’s head.
“What in God’s name ...!” stuttered the prison chief.
Hume smashed the flat of the gun into the man’s mouth, mashing his lips against his teeth, seeing the blood flow. The governor collapsed into his chair, hand going to his mouth. Hume moved behind him, locked an arm about the man’s throat, pushed the gun muzzle into his ear and thrust his face almost against the other’s.
“Now, you son of a bitch, I’m giving you just one chance and likely that’s one more than you gave Clay Nash!” Hume snarled. “I don’t have time for pat-a-cake or shenanigans. You tell me what I want to hear first time round or I decorate your office with your brains. Savvy?”
The governor made strangled sounds but managed to nod. Hume didn’t ease up the pressure.
“Clay Nash! I want him and I want him now!”
The governor made gobbling sounds and Hume was forced to ease up on the pressure on the man’s throat. He kept the gun barrel against the governor’s ear.
“Again!”
“Solitary!”
Hume swore. “I’ve heard about the so-called Hellhole in this place. He better be alive!”
“Yeah! He’s—alive!” The man showed a spark of defiance. “Not that you’ll ever get him out of here without my say-so.”
“I better get that or you’re gonna be walking around without your head. And if you think I’m talking just to hear the sound of my voice, you put me to the test!”
Hume yanked the man upright in the chair, flung him halfway across the room. “Move! I’ve got seven men outside, all armed with shotguns. They’ll have your guards buffaloed by now. Those that ain’t, well you just tell ’em what’ll happen to you if they get froggy!”
He shoved the bleeding governor at the door and the man fumbled at the knob with blood-slippery fingers and slowly led the way through the prison’s corridors with Hume and two of his Wells Fargo shotgun guards siding him.
The guards backed-off when the governor yelled at them to make no trouble and finally they came to the damp stench of the Hellhole. The guard who opened the door to Nash’s cell tried to make a run for it as Hume stepped around him. But one of the shotgun guards tripped him and when he tried to rise, smashed the butt of his weapon across the man’s head.
The governor spun and made a dash for the stairs, but his bulk was too great and he got no more than a half dozen steps before the second guard slammed him across the shoulders with his gun butt, knocking him sprawling. The guard sat on his head as Hume helped the battered, filthy Nash out of the cesspit of a cell.
Clay Nash was covered in filth and the smell turned Hume’s stomach. Through the muck he could see the marks of beating and Nash was squinting badly in the dim lantern light.
“Can you make it, Clay?”
Nash’s voice was hoarse and sounded as if it hurt to speak, but he said, “I’d crawl ten miles over burning brush to get out of here.”
Hume’s mouth tightened as he came to the foot of the stone steps and stared down at the struggling, cursing governor. The guard was grimacing, looking sick at the smell emanating from Nash.
“Larry,” Hume said, “I reckon we got to keep the governor in a safe place till we get this all sorted out. That cell I just dragged Clay out of is the nearest. Put him in there, with that other guard.”
“No!” yelled the governor. “God, Hume, you got no right to treat me this way!”
“Get the swine in there before I smash his face in!” Hume snarled and the protesting governor was dragged across bodily and flung into the dark maw of the stinking cell. The half-conscious guard followed and Nash smiled in satisfaction through the filth as he heard the steel door clang shut and the key turn in the lock.
“It’d be suicide, Clay!” Hume protested. “I can’t give my sanction to that!”
Nash, cleaned up now, pulled on the new denim shirt and looked at Hume through his one good eye. The other was swollen near-closed, black and puffy. His lips were split and swollen, his nose was purpled around the bridge. His body ached and throbbed from the punishment he had taken, but as soon as he had the shirt on, he reached for his gunrig and buckled it on with stiff, scarred fingers.
“Jim, Hollander’s mine. The bastard set me up and had it fixed for me to die in that prison. Monte Fish is in there, by the way, and lookin’ mighty worried. I reckon he’d talk and admit that the governor and Hollander arranged for me to be beat-up that way and likely finished-off after I’d done my stint in that stinkin’ hellhole.” He sniffed suddenly at his hands. “I’ve scrubbed the skin near raw and I can still smell that cesspit.”
“Clay, I can get some men and we’ll all go up against Hollander and Red Morgan,” Hume said.
“Where you gonna get men in a hurry? You’ve had to leave those seven up at the prison after lockin’ up the guards. You’ve only got clerks left here. Townsmen won’t buy in. By the time you send for someone, Hollander’ll know I’m out and the game’s up and he’ll run. No, Jim, I’ve got to go after him right now.”
“Then you don’t do it alone.”
Hume checked over his Sheriff’s model Colt again and Nash began to argue but gave up at a single, cold look from Hume. The chief would have no argument.
“They don’t know I’m out yet but they will soon as we start walking towards the law office, Jim.”
Hume said nothing, went to the wall cupboard and took down a rifle, checking the loads swiftly. Then he jammed his hat on his head.
“Let’s go get this chore done, Clay. I’m looking forward to going up against those two. Seems they’ve been a thorn in my side for a long time and I ain’t been aware of it. You ready?”
Nash crossed to the door, held it open and waited for Hume to step through. Then he followed and they went down the outside stairway of the Wells Fargo offices and moved through the back streets towards the law office. Then they reached the point where they had to cut through to the street fronting the offices and both men knew this was the dangerous time, when Hollander and Morgan could spot them.
It was possible that one of Hollander’s spies could have gotten word to him that Nash had been rescued from prison. If so ....
The shotgun thundered without warning and Nash instinctively hurled himself against Hume, knocking the chief sprawling as th
e charge of buckshot screamed overhead and smashed in a window in a store. Folk on the street ran for cover as Nash rolled off the edge of the boardwalk and snapped a shot at the door of the law office where gray powder smoke hung in a cloud.
But Morgan had moved position and the next time the shotgun roared it was from one of the barred windows. Jim Hume was shooting with the rifle butt braced into his hip, kneeling. Suddenly, his blocky body spun almost completely around and his rifle flew from his hands as he was slammed over backwards, face and shirtfront bloody.
Nash was shocked at the sight, for Hume was one of those men he had come to regard as indestructible. To see the big-chested detective chief sprawled there, covered in blood from the charge of buckshot froze him for a long second.
It almost cost him his life.
As he stared at Hume, Morgan fired again and Nash just had time enough to hug the dirt as the buckshot screamed overhead. Then Morgan stepped through the doorway of the office, with a fresh double-barreled shotgun coming to his shoulder. He blasted away at the edge of the sidewalk that protected Nash and the agent rolled back, clawing at his face as splinters and dirt kicked into his eyes. He clawed it out and through a blur saw the big deputy stalking down the boardwalk, stepping out into the street so he could see Nash better and bringing the shotgun up for the killing shot.
Nash had no cover and knew he was done for even as he tried to bring around his Colt.
Then there was a series of sharp, dull cracks from somewhere above and he was surprised to see big Red Morgan stagger and stumble off-balance. The man began to turn, hammered round by striking lead as shot after shot drove into him. His shotgun thundered into the street and blasted a hole in the dust.
He dropped to his knees, coughing blood trying to look up and see who had killed him.
Nash whirled, too, to see who it had been and, as he did, caught a glimpse of Race Hollander in an alley, lifting a massive gun to his shoulder with a long slim sighting tube fixed to the barrel. It was pointed in Nash’s direction.
Clay Nash triggered, saw splinters fly from the building and knew he had at least thrown Hollander’s aim. The massive Sharps blasted and he heard the snarling buzz of the heavy lead ball pass overhead and smash something behind him to destruction. Hollander dropped the big gun, empty now, and clawed at his six-gun.
The Wells Fargo man rolled and came up to one knee, even as Hollander got his gun up and started shooting. Nash blasted away in the face of the other’s blazing gun and felt the burn of a bullet across his cheek. Then he saw Hollander jerk like a rag doll, clatter backwards into an empty rain butt and then go down to one knee, trying to bring his gun up.
Nash took his time, reached down, picked up Hume’s dropped rifle, worked the lever, raised the gun to his shoulder and, just as Race Hollander lifted his Colt into line with both bloody hands, fired. His first shot took the sheriff through the middle of the face and blew the back of his head off. His body was hurled six feet back into the alley.
Clay Nash stood on rubbery legs, face bleeding, turned to see Marnie Blake kneeling beside the bloodied Hume. He saw the revolver holstered at her waist.
“That was you—got—Morgan?” he panted.
She nodded. “From my hotel window yonder. I feel heaps better.”
“How’s he?” Nash asked, gesturing towards Hume.
“He’ll live,” the girl told him confidently. “Just caught the edge of the charge. He’ll be all right.”
Clay Nash sat down on the edge of the splintered boardwalk and let the rifle fall to the dust between his boots.
That was sure good news, he thought. Good news.
He felt as if he could sleep for a week.
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
This Lawless Land
Guns on Big River
Compadre
… And more to come every other month!
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