Clay Nash 4

by Brett Waring

  The boy, not wanting to make it public that a girl had busted him one and made him cry, snuffled and nodded. Ellen mopped him up with a handkerchief and Burns caught the little angel’s eye and winked slowly. She gave him the sweetest smile he had ever seen and damned if he didn’t feel good about it!

  Finally, the kids were all on board and more or less in their seats in the passenger car and Burns lugged the heavy picnic baskets down the aisle and set them up firmly on the luggage racks, out of reach of little fingers. Then Ellen gave the children a brief lecture about behaving themselves while on the train and sat down at the far end of the car beside Burns. The train started to move and kids yelled and cheered and ran to look out the windows. Ellen took off her hat and brushed a strand of hair off her forehead. Burns picked up her hand and held it tight. She turned to him and smiled, warmth in her eyes.

  The little angelic girl stared at them over the back of the seat in front and Ellen felt a blush coloring her cheeks. The little girl looked at Burns and winked very slowly as she gave him another sweet smile. He cleared his throat, released Ellen’s hand and sat up straighter in his seat, working his suddenly tight collar away from his neck. Ellen smiled slowly to herself.

  The train bell clanged monotonously as it robed out of the siding and continued along the border towards Rimrock Canyon.

  ~*~

  Zack Forrester stood over the campfire and held the tin mug of hot coffee between his numbed hands. River mists curled clammily around him as he watched Lester and the Mexicans gobbling beans in the campsite. He stood up, tossing the coffee dregs into the fire.

  “All right, we don’t waste no more time on Dundee or Clay or whatever his name was,” Forrester told them. “We searched all night along the river and there ain’t a sign of him. If he wasn’t shot, he’s drowned, just like his horse did. We head straight for Rimrock now and get that dynamite in position. We wait well back, down in the canyon, up on Puma Ledge.” He laughed shortly. “That way we don’t get hit by any fallin’ railroad cars! Then we move in and help ourselves. You all savvy?”

  The Mexicans nodded and Lester walked slowly across, picking his teeth with a sliver of wood. He spoke in a low voice out of one side of his mouth.

  “You gonna cut these hombres in for equal shares like you told ’em Zack?”

  Forrester looked steadily at him. “What d’you think?” he snarled, then heeled and strode impatiently towards his mount.

  A slow smile creased Clem Lester’s face. He should have known better than to ask.

  ~*~

  The cutbank was only ten feet back from the river itself as Nash found out when he woke up, shivering, cramped, aching. He couldn’t stop his teeth chattering but at least the cold water had stopped his wound from bleeding. He took time out to ram his kerchief over the bullet hole and then staggered and crawled towards the ragged arc of daylight he could see ahead. As he drew nearer, he could hear the roar of the river and soon he was wading through waist-deep water, boots scrabbling for a footing on slippery rocks.

  He stood with water up to his chest, surging and frothing on the edge of the current, looking out, holding to a tree root that protruded from the roof of earth above his head. It was early, for there were still mists on the river, hanging like balls of cotton just above the water. Bright sunlight pierced them in parts and he longed to feel its warmth on his flesh. After making sure the riverbanks were clear as far as he could see, he stumbled out from the cutbank, cautiously, holding to the bank for support, afraid that if the current swept his legs out from under him he would never survive this time. His head was ringing and his wound throbbed and his belly ached with hunger. He rubbed his temples, remembering the chase and the luck that had swept him under the cutbank. Too bad the current hadn’t carried him on downriver a mile or so farther and he would have come to the junction with the Rio and, downstream, there was the trestle bridge across Rimrock Canyon.

  He saw a log being tossed end over end in the turbulent whitewater rapids that he had somehow survived last night and he started to scramble up the bank to get out of the way. He had no wish to be crushed by that great tree that the current would heave over into his section of backwater in a few seconds. Nash groaned as he heaved himself out onto the bank but he turned and watched as the tree, complete with root system and branches, nudged into the bank several times, bouncing back and each time, being thrust around just a little so that eventually, it would be picked up by the swift main current and borne away down the deep-water channel to the junction with the Rio.

  It came to him then. By hell, he didn’t have a horse—or a gun for that matter, for he had lost the Colt in the rapids last night—but he had the river! There was no way he could reach the bridge in time on foot. But riding that log downriver, using the current, he might be carried to the canyon before the train reached the bridge. It would be one hell of a job climbing up out of the canyon to warn them, most likely, but ... one thing at a time, he told himself! One thing at a time!

  Nash grabbed one of the branches of the tree, leaned his weight against it and pushed the tree away from the bank, guiding it towards the main current. He could feel the river’s power begin to pull it out of his hands now and, awkwardly, almost falling, he stepped onto the tree and straddled it, using his legs to fend it off the bank, get it out into the main current. The pain was intense in his side and sent waves of dizziness sweeping through him. but after several minutes, the tree was clear and the surge of the river caught it, bumped it over shallows and then plucked it into the main deepwater channel. He grabbed hold of a branch and clung tightly, surprised by the sudden burst of speed as he was whipped away.

  Once he was sure he was in the mid-stream current and could do nothing to control the tree’s progress, even if he wanted to, Nash wrapped his arms around a branch and stretched out full-length, feeling the warmth of the sun striking through his torn and ragged clothing.

  ~*~

  The train lurched and swayed around the bends as it came down into the Sierra foothills and the bell clanged wildly with the motion. The couplings clattered and banged and the cars lurched and rocked. The schoolchildren squealed in delighted, self-generating terror, hugged each other and pretended to be scared.

  Burns used the lurching as an excuse to slip an arm about Ellen to steady her. She leaned her head against his shoulder and didn’t appear to want to move. But when she looked out the window and saw some landmarks she stood up, holding on with one hand while she called for the children’s attention.

  “Children, I want you all to sit down and gather your things together,” she told them. “We’ll be in sight of the trestle bridge across Rimrock Canyon when we round the next bend. The train will stop when we cross the bridge and we will get off and climb down the trail into the canyon and to the river. The Sierra Blanca freight train will pick us up at sundown tonight on its way in to Ojo Medina so I want you all to promise that you will not wander off. It’s important we are there on time. The train can’t wait and if we have to miss it because we can’t find someone, then we’ll have to spend the whole night here.”

  Burns smiled as the kids cheered at the prospect. Then he poked his head out the window as they rounded the bend and, way up ahead, he could see the shape of the massive trestle bridge where it leapt across the canyon.

  Forrester stood at the foot of one of the high supports of the trestle bridge on the bank of the river, looking back and up to where his lookout waited. He saw the man tense and, a moment later, he turned and waved his big sombrero in Forrester’s direction. The big outlaw chief struck his vesta and touched it to the fuse in his left hand. When it was burning, he looked up at the bridge, tilting his head back, and could just make out the bundle of dynamite tied to the track support in the center of the bridge. Now if only that fuse burnt at the correct rate, it would reach the explosive and blow when the express car passed over it.

  Zack Forrester moved away from the trestle and began the long climb back up to Puma Ledge wher
e Lester and the Mexicans waited. When that train tumbled down into the canyon they would have to move in fast on the wreckage of the express car, for the dynamite, inexpertly placed, could blow any which way.

  ‘‘Zack! Zack!”

  Forrester checked in his climb up the rocks, snapped his head up fast at Lester’s call. He saw the man pointing down into the canyon towards the trestle bridge, out where the pylons were in the river. At first Forrester couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary, except a floating tree, on the far side of the bridge, coming downstream. Then he saw the movement on the tree trunk as the current tugged it in amongst the pylons. A man leapt from the tree onto the nearest bridge support and, without pause, began to climb rapidly, yet awkwardly, favoring his left side, up the crisscrossed beams, angling unmistakably towards the bundle of dynamite far above. Forrester swore loudly.

  “It’s Clay!” Lester called and snatched his rifle from his scabbard, throwing it to his shoulder. The clang of the train’s bell could be heard as it hit the approach to the bridge and picked up speed.

  “Don’t shoot!” Forrester yelled, already leaping down from the slope. “The shots’ll warn the engineer!”

  Lester lowered the rifle and motioned to the Mexicans with him to put down their arms. They watched as Forrester pounded back to the trestle bridge and leapt onto the crossbeam, hauling himself up fast, moving much quicker and more surely than the wounded Nash. The outlaw’s face was gray and strained, wondering if he could get to Nash, or Clay as he knew him, and throw him off the bridge before the fuse reached the explosive.

  Lester and the Mexicans waited on the ledge, watching tensely, listening to the rumbling approach of the train, seeing the trailing spurt of smoke from the fuse, as it climbed up towards the dynamite.

  Clay Nash was tiring and his hand slipped off the wooden crosspiece. He almost fell, hung precariously by one hand, the river far below spinning dizzily. Ho closed his eyes momentarily, swung back onto solid support and looked up. The dynamite was too far. He would never make it in time. His best bet would be to try to reach the fuse ahead of the burning part and pull it free. There was always the danger that the detonator cap might explode with the sudden yank on the fuse pulling it out of the dynamite, but it was one of those times when there was little choice.

  He saw Forrester on the far side of the trestle, climbing as surely and as swiftly as a monkey, gaining on him. He knew the man would shoot only as a last resort in case he warned the train crew. But he knew the outlaw would likely overtake him too, for he was fitter and hadn’t lost a lot of blood, didn’t have a bullet in his body somewhere sending knife thrusts of red-hot agony through him with every movement.

  Nash pushed on, thrusting upwards, catching a glimpse of Forrester actually leaping from crossbeam to crossbeam so he would be on the same side of the trestle as Nash. The outlaw glanced up occasionally but mainly concentrated on his climb. Nash’s fingers were aching, strained, could barely grip the timber hard enough to pull him up the next few feet so his scrabbling boots could find a hold. He coughed as a breeze wafted smoke from the burning fuse into his face. At the same time, the trestle began to tremble with the approach of the train. He glanced down, saw Forrester’s suddenly white face look up past him at the bundle of dynamite and abruptly the man stopped climbing and started to drop down faster than he had come up. Obviously he figured he couldn’t stop Nash in time but that the Wells Fargo man was finished anyway, for the dynamite would explode before he could reach it. The trestle shook as the locomotive rumbled onto the far end of the bridge.

  Nash heaved himself at the burning fuse, grabbed it a yard above the spark. But he couldn’t break it. He tried to chew through it as he saw Forrester frantically taking desperate risks in his efforts to get down off the bridge and up onto Puma Ledge again with his waiting men. Bracing himself, knowing he had nothing left now but the last desperate move of yanking the fuse and hoping it would pull free without exploding, Nash wrapped the fuse around his hand and heaved, almost losing his balance.

  The fuse did not pull free: instead, it yanked the whole bundle of dynamite sticks from the loosely-tied ropes one of the Mexicans had used to secure the explosive to the bridge. The whole bundle fell into Nash’s hands and he almost dropped it straight down in fright, but grabbed it, interrupted his instinctive wild swing and hurled it far out from the trestle, smoke from the still-burning fuse arcing across the hot sky.

  Forrester was almost up to the ledge now where his men waited and they began to scatter when they saw where the dynamite would fall. Forrester jerked his head up at a thud above him and stared in horror at the bundle of dynamite with the spluttering fuse only feet ahead. He started to scream but it was drowned in a massive explosion that blasted a great chunk out of Puma Ledge and sent men and horses tumbling down into the Rio amidst tons of earth and rubble.

  The trestle bridge swayed and Nash almost fell, deafened by the explosion. The train on the bridge rocked dangerously in the blast wave and a dozen windows smashed in ... and then it slowed to a stop on the far side of the canyon and Nash climbed up the last few feet and pulled himself up onto the tracks between the ties. He swayed drunkenly and almost fell down into the canyon where the river was choked with the landslide and bodies washed around in the shallows.

  Then a man with a star on his shirtfront came running out along the ties, grabbed his arm and led him back off the trestle to where a dozen white-faced school kids were waiting with Ellen Bray, the express van guards and the shocked engineer.

  Nash looked at Brad Burns as the sheriff supported him. “It’s a long story,” he gasped.

  Burns nodded slowly, soberly. He looked at the kids and the raw new scar the explosion had made down in Rimrock Canyon. He turned to Nash and suddenly thrust out his right hand. Nash, surprised, took it and gripped with Burns.

  “I can guess a lot of it. And ... well, I reckon we’re all squared-away, Nash, you and me. Maybe I can write a book about it. What do you say?”

  But Nash didn’t hear the question. He was sliding gently to the ground, for all he needed right then was sleep.

  The Clay Nash Series by Brett Waring

  Undercover Gun

  A Gun Is Waiting

  Long Trail to Yuma

  Reckoning at Rimrock

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  1 As told in A GUN IS WAITING