by Brett Waring
“It’s Nash!” he yelled in case she shot first and looked afterwards. “To your left!”
He swung the chestnut as he spotted the man creeping through the trees almost on a level with the girl’s cover. He fired the rifle one-handed and the man reeled as the lead struck him and his six-gun fired wildly. He had been drawing a bead on the unsuspecting girl. Her carbine blasted and the man crashed back down the slope in a flailing, somersaulting heap. His pard, startled to see the man’s body hurtle down almost on top of him, made a run for his horse and Nash reined down the claybank, threw his rifle to his shoulder and fired, all in one smooth motion. The man threw up his arms and crashed headlong, skidding for yards down slope on his face. Nash swung his mount around and walked it down to the girl’s rocks. She stared at him defiantly.
“Now you owe me nothing, señor!”
“How did you let ’em pin you down?” Nash demanded, ignoring her remark. “You had the advantage.”
She shrugged. “The timber was too thick. It threw too many shadows and I misjudged my first shots. It allowed them time to make for cover. I thought I had shot that one who had crept up on me.”
“You got a lot to learn about bushwhackin’ people, señorita!” Nash told her with a crooked grin. “We better mosey out of here before we’re caught. I’ve got a map with some alternative trails.”
Surprisingly, she didn’t argue. She sheathed her carbine and stepped up into the saddle of the claybank. But, just as she was turning the animal, Nash cursed and, at her look, pointed.
Coming up the slope, spread out in a line, were Triangle H men and Hansen was recognizable. Nash couldn’t see Somers but he didn’t wait to spend a lot of time looking.
“Follow me,” he told the girl. “And stick close. There’s a back trail down off this mountain that leads into some sort of canyon, according to the liveryman in Signal. He used to ride for Triangle H before Hansen owned it.”
The girl nodded and followed as he spun the chestnut and angled off across the slope through the trees. He hoped like hell that the liveryman knew what he was talking about.
They followed the ridge and there was a rattle of gunfire behind but the men had no real hope of bringing them down just now; it was only to let them know they had been spotted.
They rode as fast as they dared, dodging low-swinging branches, leaping their mounts over small gullies, Nash trying to recall everything that had been marked on that crude map. He swung down slope abruptly and knew that now was the dangerous time. The Triangle H crew could make up time here and cut across the face of the slope to gain ground. And this was just what they did, guns blazing and lead whining and buzzing off the trees.
They rounded a clump of thick brush and Nash was almost killed by Link Somers, stepping out of hiding, his rifle to his shoulder, blazing away as fast as he could work lever and trigger. Lead took Nash’s hat clear off his head; a red line leapt across his cheek as a bullet burned by; he felt his horse stagger as a shot grazed its shoulder. Then he was racing down on Somers and the man tried to dive aside but Merida spurred the claybank forward and the horse hit him in mid-air, sending his body spinning. She turned the horse back, carbine coming up one-handed and the barrel sweeping down to within a foot of Somers’ head as the man staggered up and tried to bring up his own gun. He opened his mouth to scream but her shot drowned it and he went down under the horse again, his skull disintegrating.
Shaking his head at the close call, Nash spurred the chestnut down the slope again and the girl followed unhesitatingly. He glanced behind twice during the dangerous descent, seeing the Triangle H crew closing the gap fast. But the girl’s face had changed now: there was a sort of satisfaction on it, and also a resignation. He knew that now she had killed Somers, she was almost satisfied. There was only Hansen left.
They crashed through a screen of brush and found themselves in the hidden canyon full of bawling cattle. The men had quit so suddenly that they had not closed any of the corral gates and the steers, spooked some from their long hard drive by the rustlers, were milling about in the canyon itself. They began to bunch, bawling and snorting and tossing horns, at the sight of the man and woman on the racing horses.
“By hell, they’re about ready to stampede!” Nash yelled as he put the chestnut around the outskirts of the herd, making for the rear of the canyon. He couldn’t see any exit, but that was because he didn’t know where to look and, by Godfrey, there wasn’t time now! Half-hipped in the saddle, he saw Matt Hansen lead his riders into the canyon in a tight bunch.
Nash didn’t hesitate. He yanked rein and turned the chestnut so fast that the girl almost cannoned into him and she had to forcibly pull the claybank aside to avoid a collision. Nash leapt the chestnut around the claybank, letting out a wild yell, palming up his Colt and hammering three swift shots into the air. It was all the spooked cattle needed.
With one accord they rushed away from the sounds of the gunfire and thundered forward in a tight, bawling, heaving wedge of backs and horns. Hansen and his men saw what was happening and desperately tried to turn their mounts. The steers crashed through the corrals, splintering the poles. Nash and the girl rode behind them loosing gunshots into the air, shouting and yelling wildly.
The canyon seemed to fill with the thunder of hoofs as the stampede gathered momentum and the dust rose in a choking cloud that blinded them. Steers piled up against the canyon walls as they tried to pour through the narrow opening and the screams of men and horses going down under the hoofs were lost in the general din.
Nash couldn’t see a thing and reined down the chestnut, pulling out of the pall of dust, coughing, reloading his hot six-gun. He saw something move through the dust and thought it was the girl but, at the same instant he spotted her further over to his left and then Matt Hansen rode out of the cloud, having managed to skirt the stampede. But his horse was bleeding in several places from raking horns and Hansen’s left leg had been ripped open from ankle to knee. He was white-faced under the dirt and grime and he bared his teeth as he lifted his six-gun in a shaky hand, and aimed at Nash.
The Wells Fargo man only had two shells in his cylinder but he spurred the sweating, lathered chestnut forward, snapped the loading gate closed and lay low over the horse’s neck. Hansen fired and missed and Nash swung under his mount’s neck and dropped hammer. The rancher spun out of the saddle and hit the canyon floor with a thud and lay still.
Nash reined down and stiffly dismounted as the girl rode up and looked down at Hansen’s body. The steers were still pouring out of the canyon and would run themselves out on the flats and in the ranges beyond. Nash looked up at her wearily.
“Satisfied now?” he rasped, pointing to Hansen. “That’s the last of them.”
She looked at him defiantly. “Si. Now I am satisfied! Muchas gracias.”
Nash shook his head. “Don’t thank me, señorita. I’d rather it had ended back in Signal if I’d known what I was ridin’ into by comin’ after you, but ...” He shrugged and looked towards the canyon mouth where he could see some dead steers and horses and some piles of rags that might once have been men. “One hell of a slaughter because of a drunken prank.” He looked up at her as she started to walk the claybank towards the canyon mouth. “Wait up and I’ll ride back to Signal with you ...”
“I am not going to Signal,” she told him, not stopping.
“Where then?” he asked, swinging aboard his horse.
She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter now. The trail is ended. I will find something beyond. If not, it still does not matter.”
He rode with her as far as the canyon mouth and then she veered left, away from Signal.
He knew it was little use going after her. There was nothing between them now. Wearily, he turned the chestnut back across the pasture towards the Signal trail. He called, “Adios!” but she neither paused nor looked back.
CLAY NASH 6: SLAUGHTER TRAIL
By Brett Waring
First Published by The Cleveland Pub
lishing Pty Ltd
Copyright © Cleveland Publishing Co. Pty Ltd, New South Wales, Australia
First Smashwords Edition: October 2017
Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information or storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.
This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book
Series Editor: Ben Bridges
Text © Piccadilly Publishing
Published by Arrangement with The Cleveland Publishing Pty Ltd.
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
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