by Brett Waring
There was something glittering beneath the cinders between the tracks and he stooped to pick it up. It was a single gold ten dollar piece. He slipped it absently into his tunic pocket as he forced himself to walk forward on wooden legs and look inside the van.
He took only a cursory look and then backed out. When he turned to face the men, he was white and shaken. He had to clear his throat several times before he could speak properly.
“They’re all dead. Shocking. No use even looking in there. There’s not a box of the gold remaining. In fact, there’s very little of anything—or anyone—remaining. Forget it. Start looking ’round for tracks. Spread out. Watkins ... take Mahoney and make your way down the slope and see if you can locate the rest of the train with the horses. We’re going after these bastards and no one rests until we nail them. Savvy?”
The soldiers spread out and the two detailed to go after the horse van jogged away, trailing their rifles. Macrae lit a cheroot with shaking hands and stood smoking, trying to steady himself, as he looked down the steep grade of The Slide. He watched his men slipping and sliding among the cinders. And then he knew why the train hadn’t been able to stop: the rails were still heavily greased.
He savagely ground out his cheroot against the iron rail with his boot. Goddamn it to hell! he thought angrily. It had seemed so foolproof and yet some lousy outlaw with a couple of pounds of dynamite and a shackle-pin driver had blown apart thousands of dollars’ worth of security in minutes. Blown a lot of good men apart, too, he thought grimly. Dispassionately and coldly. All for gold. He slipped a hand into his pocket and brought out the ten dollar piece, feeling the stamped design, the date and the smoothness of the gleaming yellow metal. No doubt about it, minted gold had a ‘feel’ all of its own. It attracted the eye, too. It held strange powers over men that were not so easily discerned. Maybe he could understand the fascination and greed of some men for gold, but he couldn’t savvy the coldness and the savagery the outlaws had displayed just to get the gold in their hands.
“Hey, Cap!”
Macrae snapped his head around at the call from one of his men searching the brush near the armored car.
“Cap ... there’s a man here,” the soldier called, and Macrae was already running as some of the other men started across. “By the looks of his clothes, he was in that explosion. Looks like he was somehow blown clear.”
Macrae’s eyes went to the roof of the van. When he had looked in through the jagged hole in the floor, he had seen sunlight streaming into the slaughterhouse of the van’s interior through some kind of hole in the roof, but he hadn’t even glanced towards it after seeing the carnage.
Macrae swore as he knelt beside the man lying sprawled in the bushes.
“Hell almighty!” the captain breathed. “It’s Clay Nash!”
Nash’s clothing was torn and singed and part of his trouser leg had been burned away. The flesh beneath was raw and angry. His shirt hung in tatters and there was a deep gash on his right cheek, with another above his eye. His left shoulder showed through a rent in the cloth and there was blood on it. He was unconscious and his legs were studded with splinters. His head seemed to roll loosely on his neck and Macrae felt it gingerly, fearing that his neck was broken.
“Get him some water,” the captain snapped. “Hold him up. Two of you ... And gently, goddamn it!”
Macrae forced some water between Nash’s slack lips and the man coughed, spraying the water back over his tunic. The captain gave him some more and Nash coughed again but managed to retain some of the liquid. The officer glared at the soldiers as they gathered around.
“Get lookin’ for those tracks,” he barked. “The devils who did this weren’t ghosts. They had to leave some sign and I want it found. Pronto.”
The men scattered to carry out his orders.
“Hold it!” he roared suddenly and stood up, looking at the puzzled troopers. “Anyone just—happen to have maybe—something a mite stronger than water in his canteen?”
No one said anything, though several men avoided the officer’s gaze.
“There’ll be no charges,” Macrae added. “In fact. I’d be inclined to think kindly of any man who showed initiative enough to have some brandy or whisky on hand right now ... When it’s most needed.”
Again none of the men said anything and the captain sighed.
“All right. Get on with it.”
As he turned away, a small, gray-haired man with ‘Old Soldier’ written all over him, shuffled forward with his canteen. He stopped by the captain and looked down at the unconscious Nash.
“Sir ...?”
“Yes, Hogan?”
“I—I must’ve picked up the wrong canteen when we was shippin’ out. Mine had water in it, you savvy, but this one—I just happened to remove the cork when you was talkin’, sir, and—well, it kinda smells like Sutler’s brandy to me. Here, sir, see what you think?”
He held it out towards Macrae. The captain went along with the act and sniffed. He screwed up his face. Then he sipped it.
“By God, you’re right, Hogan. It is Sutler’s brandy. Raw enough to knock a grizzly flat on his butt. Just the kind of thing I need right now. Uh—you go start looking for tracks. You can—uh—draw a fresh canteen when we get back to Denver.”
Hogan grinned with broken teeth and threw a smart salute.
“Thank you kindly, Cap’n, sir. Uh—hope the spirits can help that young feller.”
He gestured to Nash then hurried away. Macrae motioned to the two soldiers to sit Nash up straighter and then tilted the canteen against the Wells Fargo man’s lips. It took just two sips to bring Nash around, choking and hawking, hands clawing futilely at his throat as if he wanted to tear it out. His eyes bulged and watered and the soldiers had to hold him tightly.
“Sorry, Nash,” Macrae apologized, recapping the canteen. “Had to bring you round fast. Feel like talking?”
Nash’s head was hanging and he was still coughing. He didn’t answer so Macrae put an impatient hand under his chin and jerked his head up so that he was looking into the man’s gaunt, battered face.
“Nash, can you tell us what happened? Give us anything that might help?”
Nash was staring straight at him and frowning deeply. His mouth moved slowly, awkwardly as he cleared his throat.
“Wh-what?” he stammered.
“I said I need your help in this. Damn it, man, shake yourself. Snap out of it. Every second’s delay is a gain for those sidewinders ...”
Nash, looking somewhat alarmed, shook his head violently and put his hands to his ears and stared at the startled captain.
“I can’t hear you,” he grated.
“Hell, if I yell any louder, they’ll hear me back in Denver,” snapped Macrae.
Nash shook his head again.
“I can’t hear you,” he repeated, shouting himself. “I’m—deaf.”
Macrae blinked and the soldiers looked sharply at each other. Then the captain understood and he put out a hand onto Nash’s leg.
“The explosion.” He formed the words carefully with his lips, making sure Nash was looking at him. “It—was—the—explosion. Blew—you—out—through—the—trap—in—the—roof. Must’ve—deafened—you.”
Nash frowned and nodded slowly. When he spoke, it was much louder than necessary.
“Can’t hear a blamed thing. My head’s all kind of—muzzy. I’m dizzy. The ground seems to be movin’ under me. Got this goddamn ringing in my ears. Drownin’ out everything. Must’ve been the explosion. It blew me through the emergency trapdoor. I was trying to open it when the whole shebang went up.” He paused and there was concern on his face as he asked, “What about the others? Drake? Brock? Petersen?”
Macrae shook his head slowly.
“No one survived. Only you.”
He had to repeat it, slowly, before Nash understood. The Wells Fargo man’s face was ugly as he sat in his world of silence. Silence? Hardly. He had a world of high pitched ringing and hi
ssing inside his head that obliterated completely every other sound. He couldn’t hear air hiss through his nostrils when he sniffed and there was no indication of blood pounding through his veins with the pumping of his heart.
Nash felt in both ear canals, probing with a finger tip. He was glad to see that there was no blood. It looked as if his eardrums were still intact, anyway. They hadn’t burst, though it felt as though something in his head had come apart. There seemed to be pressure of blood behind his nostrils, just waiting to burst through.
He reckoned he could live with the lack of hearing—it would likely lessen and he would get it back in time—but it was the disorientation and loss of balance that really scared him. He tried to stand and simply couldn’t make it alone. He fell and floundered like a drunken trooper on pay day. The soldiers helped him up and held him tightly by the arms. He put out a hand as if to steady himself.
The world spun wildly and he felt heaving nausea. His eyeballs swiveled in their sockets and the blood drained from his face. He clawed at the soldiers as if he were dropping off a hundred-foot cliff and his breathing was fast and ragged.
“God! Lemme sit down!” he pleaded.
But it wasn’t much better. He eased slowly to the ground and lay there with his eyes closed, his fingers clutching the earth and his brain hanging on to a world that seemed to sway and plunge beneath him as if it would toss him into space.
Captain Macrae frowned deeply. Clay Nash wasn’t going to be any use to anyone, it seemed, least of all to himself.
The Ghost Riders drifted into Resurrection singly, though some came in pairs.
Their horses were weary and lathered and spattered with mud, for they had been driven hard. Since the success of the train hold-up, the bandits had been tense with excitement and triumph and had had trouble containing themselves. Sam Castle, for one, admitted aloud that he had had doubts about pulling it off. It had seemed a little too planned, somehow; everything had depended on precision timing—but, he had to confess, that everything had gone just as smoothly as it could.
There were no witnesses. None of the guards had been left alive in the armored van; not that anyone had counted the arms and legs—or heads—but it had been such a butcher’s shop that it was impossible for anyone to have survived. And it had been only the guards who would have been able to see them through the slits.
There was another thing, Castle was ready to admit aloud, too: he had had his doubts about Mohawk’s prowess with the explosive, but the man had come through with flying colors. He had used enough to blast in the floor and kill the guards, but not enough to shatter all the gold boxes and spread the coins all over the countryside. Only one box had splintered; the rest had remained intact and would be opened in Resurrection at their leisure.
And that could cause a mite of hard feeling when Castle made the proposal he had in mind.
But that would come later, after they had had a small celebration.
There was some minor trouble in holding in a few of Mohawk’s more boisterous men. They wanted women to make it a ‘real’ wingding but Castle and Tibbs were adamant that no strangers should be brought to the ghost town and they didn’t want any of the outlaws roaming the countryside, drunk, and maybe boasting about the hold-up.
“We celebrate with a few jugs of snake juice, right here,” Castle said emphatically. “Anyone wants to leave goes with a bullet in him. I mean it. We’ve been successful, but we’d be plumb loco to jeopardize the lot now by either ridin’ into some town to paint it red or bringin’ some whores here.”
He raked his hard eyes around the bunch and set his gaze, finally, on Mohawk as the outlaw leader drank a long draught directly from the jug.
“You’ll back me in this, I take it, Mohawk?”
Mohawk lowered the jug and scrubbed the back of a hand across his wet mouth. He smacked his lips and fixed his somewhat crazy gaze on the rancher, the crooked sheriff, the Wells Fargo agent and the freighter.
“Well, I sure could be pleasured by the smell of a woman,” he admitted.
“Don’t be loco, Mohawk,” Tibbs said shortly. “You know it ain’t worth the risk.”
Mohawk flicked his gaze to Burman and Hayden.
“You two hombres backin’ Sam and Tibbs?”
“You know we are, Mohawk,” growled Burman. “It don’t make sense to risk spoilin’ the deal now.”
“What you got to say, lawman?”
Hayden bored his eyes into the outlaw’s swarthy face.
“I go along with what Sam says.” He spoke quietly and his right hand was already resting on his gun butt. He was sure itching to try his gun speed against Mohawk.
The outlaw raised the jug again and drank deeply.
“Well?” Castle snapped.
Mohawk smiled crookedly.
“’Course you make sense, Sam. Have done all along.” He turned to his men. “No gals. No whoopin’ ’er up in town for a spell yet. And no arguments.”
His men muttered among themselves but there was no belligerence: Mohawk’s word was law. They were scared stiff of him.
“Now the gold,” Castle said quietly, casting a quick look at Tibbs and the others. “The next step is to get it melted down and out of this neck of the woods and on its way to the buyer in Mexico as soon as possible.”
“We’re all set to go,” Mohawk said. “Smithy’s forge is all rigged. We can start meltin’ and pourin’ tomorrow ... If we ain’t too hung over.”
Castle gave him a level look.
“Don’t be. Sooner we get that gold out of the state the better. Remember, we’ll have Washington pushing to recover it and there’ll be a big bounty. Every trigger-happy hombre in the country’ll be after our scalps.”
Mohawk gazed at the rancher briefly, then nodded.
“Okay. We’ll start tomorrow.”
“On your share,” Castle added.
The outlaw stiffened and the others snapped their attention to the rancher.
“What’s that mean?” demanded Mohawk.
Castle stood up and planted a boot on one of the ironbound boxes of coins.
“It means, we divvy-up here and now. Each man takes care of his own share. You start by melting down yours tomorrow, Mohawk, yours and your men’s, because you agreed to pay ’em out of your share. The rest of us drift back in here over the next week with our own shares and we stay while they’re melted down and poured into ingots, and we take ’em away with us.”
In other words, you don’t trust me to look after the gold and melt it down,” Mohawk said.
Castle met and held his gaze.
“That’s it, Mohawk. Would you trust me? Or one of the others?”
Mohawk Brown studied Castle’s hard face for a long spell, then flicked his gaze to the others. Suddenly, he laughed.
“No, damned if I would,” he said abruptly.
Castle’s mouth moved in a crooked smile.
“Right—then that’s the way it’ll be. We divvy up. Each man takes his share or buries it along the trail, whatever he likes. But he’s gotta come back here and get it melted down. It’d be plumb crazy to try to spend even one of them new coins. That gold has to be in ingots before it leaves Resurrection.” He raked his eyes around the group. “Everyone agreed?”
The outlaws said nothing, but Tibbs, Burman, and Hayden agreed. Then Castle ordered the boxes broken open and, by lantern light, the division of spoils began; the gold glinting tantalizingly in the rich yellow light of the lamps.
Mohawk hunkered nearby and rolled a cigarette as the coins were stacked up in five lots. He rested his eyes on Sam Castle and chuckled to himself.
The old rancher figured he was so damn smart; thought he’d save a double cross. But there was one thing he had overlooked: the Ghost Riders could be taken care of one by one.
They would drift back one at a time with their gold, ready for melting. It would be an easy job for his men to jump them. It had solved one of Mohawk’s problems. He knew that Tibbs, Hayden, Burman and C
astle were a mighty formidable foursome with guns and they might well have stood against his bunch, even though outnumbered two to one.
This way, there would be no problem and the gold would all be his. He chuckled softly, stifling the sound swiftly, as he stuck the cigarette between his lips and lit up.
Clay Nash’s hearing hadn’t returned, but at least the noises in his head were abating.
That was an improvement of sorts, Nash figured. No one who didn’t suffer the noises could understand and what’s more, he was able to stand without support and could even sit a saddle without feeling as though he would topple into a bottomless pit. Yes, there was definite improvement when he thought about it as he forked the claybank, easing it through the brush carefully as he searched for some sign left by the train robbers.
He still felt strange and tended to cling much tighter to the saddle than usual, especially when he leaned a little to one side or the other, trying to pick up tracks.
The soldiers had found only a few faint signs of the train robbers. There had been marks where horses and men had waited beside the tracks; some pieces of fuse wire and a couple of discarded detonators; a dozen or more cigarette butts, but little else. On The Slide, the empty grease cans had been located, and they would be sent back to Denver to Jim Hume, though Nash doubted that the chief of detectives would find much of value in them.
It was a queer feeling not being able to hear. He would see birds rising out of the brush ahead of his trampling claybank and knew they were screeching and yet no sound whatever reached him. Once the horse shied at a rattler and he hadn’t heard its warning sound, but, luckily had been able to jump the animal away from its lunging strike. He figured to stay mounted if rattlers were about. There was a strong wind on top of a ridge, too, and the brush and trees bent beneath its force, but he heard nothing; yet it was likely whistling through the canyons below and the brush and woods would be sounding like a heavy shower of rain as the leaves rustled.
