Clay Nash 6

by Brett Waring

  Somers nodded jerkily. “Yeah. Son of a bitch beat the hell out of me. Lightnin’ fast with a gun too.” He paused to let his words sink in, then went on, “I’m kinda out of a job now. Wells Fargo fired me because I didn’t start shootin’ when you fellers showed. I was wonderin’, Mr. Hansen, if you might have somethin’ for me here?”

  Hansen looked Somers over, taking in the buscadero gun rig and the holstered six-guns. He flicked his gaze to Hank Nolan who was also looking Somers over. Then they all glanced around as Laramie hurried out of the bunkhouse, fresh rags covering his injured hand, and went towards the corrals. He climbed aboard his horse, lifted the bandaged hand in a brief salute, then turned the animal and rode out of the yard at a fast clip.

  “You really think Nash might’ve slipped past Taco and Wes?” Nolan asked the rancher.

  “I think he might’ve outsmarted ’em, even outgunned ’em,” Hansen replied slowly, but his eyes were set on Somers’ face now and he said in a quiet voice, “Something’s just occurred to me. How come Nash knew who we were? We all wore masks when he jumped that stage.”

  Somers moved his boots uneasily. “Well, I dunno. Mebbe some of the passengers recognized you from in town. You were wearin’ the same clothes and you were whoopin’ it up for quite a spell before the stage pulled out. They must’ve seen you.”

  Hansen shook his head. “They wouldn’t know us, though, and that cattle agent wouldn’t be able to tell where we were from. Someone who knew us, or some of us, must’ve recognized us. Like you, Somers. You’ve known me for quite a spell, couple of the other boys, too. You were riding with Lewis, a few years back over near Santa Fe. I did a couple of deals with Lewis, and I recollect you bein’ along.”

  “Yeah, well that was a long time back.” Somers was nervous now. “Sure, I recognized you out at the hold-up point, but Nash already knew who you were before he beat me up.”

  “That so?” Hansen asked mildly. Then his voice hardened. “Well, why the hell did he beat you up?”

  Somers moved his feet around and looked at Hansen as if he was about to speak, then swiveled his glance to Nolan. He met only an icy stare and a hard-set jaw. Then he shrugged as he turned his gaze back to the rancher.

  “A Wells Fargo thing, I guess,” he said lamely. “I—I threatened the agent in Tucson. Nash is the top troubleshooter and he came to warn me out. He beat me up to make sure I savvied the message.”

  Hansen held his gaze for a long minute and then looked at Nolan. “You believe him, Hank?”

  “Nope,” Nolan said succinctly. “I reckon he’s lyin’ in his teeth.”

  “Now, wait a minute!” growled Somers, flushing with anger.

  Nolan continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “I reckon that Nash didn’t know who held up that stage and he went to see Somers here and beat the hell out of him until he spilled his guts and named us all, or as many as he knowed. Then, he kinda panicked and figured he’d try to make it good by ridin’ in to warn us. And so we’d take care of Nash, and do his dirty work for him, because he’s too damn yellow to square away with Nash himself!”

  Link Somers’ face was bone-white with anger now and his nostrils were flared as the breath hissed through them. His eyes were pinched down as they looked at Nolan, his arms crooked threateningly. Very quietly, he said:

  “I ain’t too yeller to square-up to you, mister!”

  Nolan smiled faintly. “That’s fine with me.”

  He held his gaze on Somers’ face and Hansen stepped back on the porch, looking from one man to the other.

  “Okay,” he said quietly. “The man who walks away is on the payroll for keeps and he gets all the protection I can give him.”

  Nolan snapped his head around angrily but spun back instantly as a slight movement caught his attention.

  Link Somers was already going for his twin guns and Nolan swore silently as he drove down for his own Colt, stepping back and to one side at the same time. Hansen stepped swiftly inside his open office doorway as both men’s guns snapped up into line, with only a second between them. Somers’ weapons roared a split second before Nolan’s and the foreman jerked and flailed backwards as the two bullets struck him in the chest. His own shot went wide, but only by a scant inch: the lead plucked at the loose cloth of Somers’ shirt sleeve, between his arm and his body.

  Nolan went down awkwardly in the dust and Link Somers curled a lip as he dropped hammers again and watched the man’s body jerk as the bullets struck home. Hank Nolan’s body spun in against the bottom porch step and flopped back and was still. Somers squinted through the gunsmoke as Hansen stepped out onto the porch again, his jaw slack with surprise.

  “By hell!” he breathed, looking down at his dead foreman. “By hell, I never expected to see anyone outgun Hank Nolan that way. Of course you took advantage of him when he looked away.”

  “More fool him,” Somers said, his confidence returning tenfold now that he had downed a man of Nolan’s stature. He shucked fresh cartridges out of his belt loops and began to thumb them home into his guns’ chambers. “I’d have beat him anyway. Now, mister, you got a deal to live up to. I want whatever Nolan was gettin’ and more. You stickin’ by your word?”

  He had finished reloading now and held his guns casually in his hands. It would take only the flick of his wrists to snap the muzzles up to cover the rancher. Hansen shrugged, gesturing to the guns with a nod.

  “Be a fool to say no, wouldn’t I? You got the deal you want, within reason, Link. Nolan was good and you put him down so that makes you better. Come on into the office and I’ll explain what I got in mind for Triangle H.”

  “Hold it.”

  Hansen stopped halfway through the office doorway, looking back with a frown.

  “Anyone else on your payroll likely to get spooky about me movin’ in? I want to know now, and if there is, I’ll ride out and look him up right away and get it settled.”

  Hansen stared at him for a while, then shook his head. “No one’ll fuss about it. Now come on in. You got considerable to learn.”

  There was a swagger to Somers’ walk as he stepped over Nolan’s body and up onto the porch. He went into the office and kicked the door closed behind him.

  ~*~

  Merida Hernandes knew she wasn’t going to make it to Signal ahead of Clay Nash now. Their plan had been for her to ride to the trail that entered the town from the south, while Nash continued along the route that would bring him in from the north-west. He was going to delay an hour or so to give her a chance to reach the other trail and get well along it so that she would arrive in town first. They both figured that she would likely learn more before he turned up with the two dead men slung across their mounts’ backs than afterwards.

  But, while she had reached the trail easily enough and without any delays, her horse had now picked up a stone in its shoe and it was limping badly.

  Merida stopped the animal, dismounted and examined the hoof. The stone was a piece of flint and had worked its way well in under the shoe. There was only her belt knife to use and she found it awkward because of the length of the blade; she could not manipulate it as well as if it had been shorter and given her more control. But she thought she managed to get the stone out, or most of it, and mounted again. The horse appeared a lot better when it walked, though it favored the leg still but that was only natural as it would still be tender from the bite of the stone.

  She rode slowly for a mile or so and when the animal seemed to be walking with barely a limp, she dug in the spurs, lifting the horse to a lope, trying to make up lost time. This she did but for less than a mile and, though the buildings of Signal were now in sight across the flats, the horse suddenly went lame again.

  It broke stride with an abruptness that almost threw her over the animal’s head and she grabbed at the mane and pulled herself back up into the saddle. There was no need to rein down for the animal had stopped completely and was snorting and tossing its head, the lame leg held right off the ground. Merida slid
from the saddle and spoke soothingly to the animal, stroking the muzzle and the ears, calming it. Then she lifted the offending hoof and examined it. She shook her head, lips compressed.

  The stone she had removed had apparently broken and the sharpest part had worked deep into the flesh right back in under the shoe. Though she tried again to lever it out with the knife point, it was too tender for the horse. The animal whinnied, jerked the hoof out of her grasp several times and even swung around in an attempt to bite her.

  Merida gave up then, sheathed the knife and took the reins in her hands. She had no choice now but to walk the rest of the distance to Signal, leading the limping mount. She would not get there ahead of Clay Nash after all. Which would likely mean that she would have a harder time getting information out of the townsfolk. Once Nash rode in with the dead men, no one would want to even talk about Triangle H or its allies and they would be right back where they’d started.

  It was even possible that someone in town would ride out to tell Matt Hansen about Nash killing his friends and that could mean she and Nash would be up against all of Hansen’s pards when they rode in for vengeance. But there was nothing she could do about it now except plod on towards the town and hope that she would be in time to help Nash should he run into any trouble.

  And Clay Nash was about to do just that, though he didn’t realize it as he rode into the main street of Signal, leading the two horses with their grisly burdens.

  The Triangle H buckboard was backed up to McDonald’s loading bay at the side of his store and Kid Regan and Red Pepper carried out a heavy roll of barbed wire between them, wearing leather gloves to avoid the barbs sticking into their flesh. It was the tenth roll and they dropped it into the buckboard’s tray with a crash. The team horses whickered a little in protest, and Regan tossed his gloves on top of the stores already loaded and wiped his forearm across his sweating forehead.

  Pepper spat over the side of the vehicle. “To hell with what Matt said,” he grated. “I reckon we’ve earned ourselves a beer.”

  “Or two,” added Regan with a grin.

  Pepper smiled faintly. “Yeah. Let’s square things with McDonald and then go sink a few cold ones before we start back.”

  “Hell, ain’t we got time for any gals?”

  Pepper hesitated, then shook his head. “Better not. If Hansen heard about it ...”

  He didn’t need to finish. They went into the store to where the lanky, dour-faced Scot was already totting up the price of the goods.

  Outside, Nash scanned the front of buildings as he rode slowly along, aware of the stares of folk on the walks now and a gradually growing crowd tailing him down Main, the people talking animatedly and running alongside to get a look at the dead men’s faces.

  Nash was looking for an undertaker and saw some faded words on the false front of McDonald’s General Store that held his attention. Under McDonald’s store name, several other sun-bleached words were just visible, one of them being ‘undertaker’. Nash nodded and turned the claybank in that direction, giving a tug on the lead rope, the other two horses following. The muttering crowd came along a short distance behind.

  Nash swung down from the saddle, looped his reins over the hitch rail and did the same with the reins of the other horses.

  “What happened, mister?” someone asked, but Nash ignored him and finished looping the reins around the hickory bar.

  He turned and moved towards the steps up onto the store’s verandah just as the door opened and two cowpokes came out. Red Pepper was tucking the account papers into his shirt-pocket and Kid Regan called back over his shoulder to McDonald inside the store:

  “You damn old skinflint! Don’t expect Triangle H to foot a bill like that! You just wait’ll Matt Hansen sees it. He’ll likely come in and pull this dump down around your ears!”

  “Och, dinna be stoopid!” McDonald answered from inside in his broad Scots brogue. “A mon has to make a wee profit!”

  “Ah, the hell with you!” Regan yelled, and turned to the front cannoning into Pepper with a mild curse as his pard stopped dead in his tracks. “What the—?”

  He saw then what had stopped Pepper: the dead men draped over the horses. “Hell!” he breathed.

  Nash had seen the reaction of the two men, heard Regan refer to Triangle H and Matt Hansen, and knew these were Triangle H men. Their eyes snapped to him right away, picking him out as the newly arrived stranger.

  “You the one who done it?” Pepper asked abruptly, hand dropping to gun butt.

  The crowd that had gathered scattered, knowing there was going to be gunplay and bloodshed.

  Nash nodded. “I sure am. You hombres would be from Triangle H, I guess.”

  “You killed them men?” demanded Pepper, eyes narrowed, unbelieving.

  “One of ’em,” Nash said easily.

  “What happened to the other one?” Kid Regan asked gratingly. “Don’t tell me he died of shock.”

  Nash shook his head, tensed and alert but his manner not betraying these things; outwardly he seemed relaxed and cool. “My pard took care of him when he tried to back shoot me.”

  Pepper and Regan both instinctively looked around the street at the mention of the word ‘pard’ but apart from the townsfolk, in various hiding places where they could view things in safety, they saw only a Mexican girl leading a lame horse in from the south end of the street.

  “Where you got him hid?” Pepper demanded.

  Nash had caught a glimpse of Merida and knew she was just arriving; the lame horse told its own story. He shrugged.

  “He’s around to step in should he be needed,” he replied.

  “Goddamn drygulcher!” gritted Regan. “I bet you bushwhacked Taco and Wes!”

  “They bushwhacked me.” Nash pointed to the nick in his ear. “Thing is, I’m from Wells Fargo, and I want to see all you Triangle H men who made that drive to Tucson.”

  Pepper and Regan exchanged glances; obviously they hadn’t been prepared for Nash’s identity. Merida Hernandes had stopped her mount outside the livery stable now and she stood by the saddle, unbuckling the cinch, but keeping her eye on the men bracing Nash across the street. The liveryman called to her to come in before the lead started flying but she ignored him. When he started out to bring her in forcibly, she whipped out her knife and menaced him.

  “Get away from me!” she hissed and the startled man backed off hurriedly, making placating motions with his hands. He was glad to get back inside his stables with a whole skin.

  “Dunno what you’re talkin’ about,” Pepper told Nash. “Why would Wells Fargo want to see a bunch of cowpokes?”

  “If that’s all they were, no reason. But when they get drunk and hold up stages and kill an old man, that makes ’em outlaws and murderers.”

  Pepper and Regan were startled at Nash’s accusations. “Wh—what the hell are you talkin’ about?” Regan asked, mouth suddenly dry.

  Nash told them, and he spoke loud enough for the rest of the town to hear, or, leastways, those who were watching.

  “Hell, you ain’t gonna take us in because of some old Mex!” exclaimed Regan.

  “He was an old man!” Nash told him coldly. “His nationality don’t matter.”

  “It does out here!” Pepper snapped. “Mexes don’t count any more than cur dogs. Mexes, ’breeds and Injuns.”

  Nash could see Merida was stiff with anger but he didn’t look in her direction. He kept his cold gaze on the two Triangle H men. He jerked a thumb towards the dead men on the horses. “They tried to stop me. They’re both goin’ back dead. Don’t be loco and give me any trouble or you’ll join ’em.”

  A glance passed between Red Pepper and Regan and they slowly moved apart along the verandah of the store, walking away from each other, watching Nash, aiming to give him two targets to keep an eye on at the same time.

  Nash stepped back into the street, widening his field of view so he could keep both of them in sight. But they increased their speed and he knew
this wasn’t the first time they had worked this caper on someone. It was going to be a gunfight, there was no longer any doubt about that, if there had been any, he thought.

  And it suddenly exploded without warning. The two men were walking away from each other still when a gun cracked and Red Pepper staggered as a rifle slug tore through his chest. Nash instinctively whirled and saw the Mexican girl had fired her carbine across the saddle of her horse. She put a second slug into the falling Pepper and then Kid Regan had his gun out and dived for the cover of a rain barrel, shooting as he went.

  Nash’s Colt slid into his hand and he dropped to one knee, firing two fast shots. One struck sparks from an iron hoop on the barrel and the other punched into the wood. Water gurgled out of the hole and Regan rose up, fired once at Nash and once at the Mexican girl. He missed both but his lead struck Merida’s lame mount and the animal shied, rearing up into the air and sending her sprawling, the carbine flying from her hands.

  Nash glanced towards her and felt the wind of another slug near his face. He looked back towards the rain barrel and cursed as Regan kicked it down the verandah steps towards him.

  Nash flung himself aside, rolling desperately as the heavy barrel bounced down, cascading the remaining water. Regan used the diversion to leap to his feet and make a run for it. He vaulted over the verandah rail, landed sprawling in the alley, and slid under the buckboard on all fours. Nash got to his feet and ran after him, sliding under the loaded vehicle but stumbling as he started to get up once he was clear. He caught a glimpse of Regan pounding around the corner of a building, cursed as he got his feet under him, and raced after him.

  He skidded to a halt as he approached the corner, flattened himself against the clapboard wall and eased up to the edge of the building. He looked around cautiously but Regan hadn’t stopped to ambush him. He was running flat out down a wide lane that dwindled out into the flats beyond the edge of town. There was a rider coming in fast and it looked like he was holding something white in his left hand. But when he spotted Regan the man turned his mount towards the running man and Nash heard his yell.