by Brett Waring
“Faster, damn it, faster!” Cade snarled in Bronson’s ear and the Warden lashed with the reins and yelled at the team.
There was a gunshot from way back on the prison wall as the gate guards realized an escape attempt was being made but they were well out of range.
Cade climbed over to sit beside Bronson and the Warden looked sideways at him, apprehensive. The outlaw grinned.
“Goin’ mighty fast, Warden. Good team of horses you’ve got hitched up there.”
Bronson said nothing, feeling the wind cutting at his face, squeezing the tears from the corners of his eyes. He glanced behind once but the prison’s bulk was hidden by the dust cloud kicked up by the buckboard. He turned back to the front swiftly as the reins were suddenly yanked from his hands. He reared back as Cade thrust the gun barrel into his face. The outlaw’s teeth were bared in a tight grin and he ripped the foresight savagely across Bronson’s face, laying open the cheek from his left ear to the corner of his mouth.
“Don’t have to worry none about markin’ you up now, Warden. That was just a little present, a kinda partin’ gift you might call it, before you go.”
Bronson felt a cold knot in his belly and his fingers instinctively tightened their hold on the seat rail. He whispered, “What are you going to do with me?”
“You’re leavin’ us, Warden. Get out!”
Bronson sat there, staring, his massive chest heaving. He shook his head slowly. “Cade! I’ll be killed!”
“Not right off,” Cade told him casually. “Now step out, you bastard, or I'll blow the top off your head!”
Bronson stared down the gun barrel and knew he had little choice. He looked away and down at the ground racing past the spinning wheels. The ground looked hard, studded with fist-sized rocks. He jumped as the cold metal of the gun muzzle touched his flesh and with a wild scream went over the side of the buckboard.
The escaping prisoners watched with deadpan faces as the big body bounced and smashed and somersaulted and rolled across the ground to finally flop to a standstill. Burns thought Bronson looked like a heap of tattered, dirty laundry someone had dumped in the middle of the plain.
Cade yelled and whipped up the team even faster and the buckboard raced on ... to freedom.
Chapter Nine – Bushwhacker
It sure was a long ride to the Sioux Peak area of the hills, thought Clay Nash, as he put the hired mount down a slope towards a fir-fringed stream at the bottom of a small valley, just as a rifle whiplashed from across on the far slope and the lead tugged at his flapping vest.
Nash didn’t hesitate. He kept his left-side motion going, kicking right boot free of the stirrup and going clear out of the saddle, dragging his Winchester from the saddle-scabbard as he did so. He hit the thick grass of the slope and it cushioned his fall, even as two more swift shots hammered and lead buzzed past him. He tipped himself forward as the dun whickered and ran on down the slope. Nash did a somersault, coming up on his feet and running like hell down the grassy slope to keep from falling. But his momentum was too great and he sprawled headlong, hearing the bushwhacker’s rifle crack again. Then he was on his back and sliding and he couldn’t stop himself from going over the cutbank straight into the icy stream.
The water was only waist-deep and it stopped him suddenly, jarring clear through him, but it also kept him from falling forward on his face and floundering. Getting his feet firmly under him, Nash didn’t stop, he waded on across, holding the Winchester high as the water crept up his chest.
The rifle up-slope was silent and he figured the bushwhacker had temporarily lost sight of him because of the intervening trees and brush. That suited him fine, and he got to one knee, picked his next cover and made a run for a small pile of boulders. He launched himself headlong as the rifle cracked again and another bullet ricocheted from the rock above his head.
Shivering a little now in his clammy clothes, Nash made his way through the brush and deep into the tree clump. He moved upslope, taking swift bearings through gaps in the trees, as far as possible, keeping his eye on that area of slope where he had spotted the smoke-puff earlier.
The Wells Fargo man slipped on a carpet of pine needles and swore, hoping the noise wouldn’t carry to the killer, but there were no more shots and he wondered if the bushwhacker was moving or simply playing the waiting game. Nash got his feet under him again, wishing his boots weren’t full of water and making squelching sounds. But the ground was too rough underfoot for him to take them off and try to make the climb in his stockinged feet.
Then there was a small slithering sound from above and he whipped his head up in time to see someone moving across his path up there amongst the trees, dislodging a rock that was bouncing down through the carpet of pine needles. The rifle up there roared and Nash felt the burn of a bullet across his shoulder as he threw himself forward, bringing his rifle around in front of him and firing one-handed. The Winchester roared and jumped and he saw bark tear off a tree in a fist-sized chunk. Then he was levering and rolling to the side as the killer peppered his position with rapid fire.
Nash was sliding down slope despite himself and his boot caught in a tree root, stopping him briefly. He threw the rifle to his shoulder as he saw half the killer’s body exposed behind a fir tree and fired, once, twice, and levered in a third shot.
The bushwhacker jerked with the strike of lead and fell back behind the tree. Nash ran on.
Then he was only a few feet away and saw the spreading patches of blood on the man’s shirt and he knew that whoever was lying there would never move again.
He knelt and turned the body over onto its back, and stared down into the face of Brad Burns. Nash reared back, shocked, then realized that it wasn’t Burns at all The dead man had long yellow hair and a thin nose. Under a bleached stubble, his flesh was gaunt and pain-lined and he wore a silver ring on his third finger, left hand. Nash moved him a little and pulled his right hand out from under his body. There was a silver ring there, too. but there was no white flesh underneath when Nash moved it along towards the knuckle. The skin was the same even tan all over so it looked like this ring was a recent addition, He pulled the ring right off and examined it. It was a plain wide silver band with a flat, oval section on top edged with an engraved lariat. In the oval area was a single letter. ‘B’ For Brad? Or Burns, most likely.
Nash sighed. Burns had been telling the truth all along, it seemed. Well, he sure was glad he had found out before the young yellow-haired hombre had been hanged.
The dead outlaw, on examination, had an old bullet wound in his right side that had been bandaged with torn strips of calico. The wound had been bleeding since it was dressed but the blood was dried on the cotton pad. Nash figured that this was where he had hit the outlaw when he had attempted to hold up the Knife Edge stage. He looked down at the man’s dusty boots and saw that, on the right one, there was a bulge like a great corn, over the big toe area just as Dick Magee had described.
There could be no doubt that this ranny was the one who had held up the Blackwood stage with Missouri Aimes and Three-fingered Con Stuart.
Nash snapped his head up at the sound of a horse up the slope and saw, through the trees, Julie Gant, mounted on a big chestnut, sitting there, staring down at him.
“No!” she cried, a hand going to her mouth. “Josh?”
She put the chestnut down the slope and Nash waited, seeing she was unarmed. Her eyes were on the dead man at his feet as she pulled rein on the horse.
“He was your husband, wasn’t he?” Nash asked quietly. “If there’s anyone under that headboard back of your house it wasn’t your husband, was it?”
Her breasts were rising and falling and there were tears rolling down her cheeks as she looked down at Nash. Her voice was a strangled cry of despair.
“You ... bastard!”
She lifted the reins and drove her heels savagely into the chestnut’s flanks. It leapt forward with a startled squeal and Nash was caught unawares as it slammed full-ti
lt into him. The impact lifted his boots clear off the ground and he flew backwards, arms flailing, instinctively gripping his rifle tightly, as the breath was slammed from his lungs. He hit the slope at an angle and one leg folded under him so that he was in a teetering, kneeling position, fighting for balance when Julie Gant rode down on him again.
Nash had no choice. He fell backwards into the stream, then reared up and, as the girl drove her horse at him, he reached up and clawed her from the saddle. She screamed but it was soon drowned to a gurgle as his weight carried her under and he kicked away from the flailing chestnut, retaining his grip on the girl. She fought and kicked and bit at his wrist, made talons out of her fingers and slashed at his eyes. Nash, figuring to hell with this wildcat, hit her solidly in the stomach and she gagged and went limp. He carried her retching form out onto the bank and dropped her unceremoniously, flopping down beside her, panting, his shoulder stinging where water and sand had irritated the bullet burn.
By the time the girl was able to breathe normally again and was sitting up, Nash had recovered his rifle and had both mounts ground-hitched on a patch of deep, lush river grass. He hunkered down a few feet from her as she glared at him, her shoulders slumped, a kind of listless despondency about her.
“Why did you lie and let folks think your husband was dead?” he asked.
She didn't answer for a spell and he had to ask again. Finally, she shrugged. Her voice sounded dead, uncaring.
“It was Josh’s idea. We’d come up here from Knife Edge after heavy snows wiped out our herds. We thought we’d make a fresh start. It was just another place to struggle. The winters were bad up here in the hills. That lake froze over and our baby crawled out onto thin ice one day and—and it cracked and ... she fell in and ...”
She broke off and Nash felt uncomfortable. Bad luck sure had dogged this gal, all right.
She brushed tears from her eyes, hugged her knees, shivering a little. She didn’t seem to be staring at anything in particular. “We just couldn’t make a go of things. Nothing went right for us and Josh became obsessed with the idea that lack of money was the real reason. I was depressed enough to go along with him. There was fever in the hills and he got this idea of me telling everyone he had died of it. Then, he reckoned, he could rob banks or stages and he couldn’t be suspected because he would be dead as far as anyone knew. He had hardly ever left our place so he wasn’t known around the hills.” She shrugged again. “That’s it.”
“Not quite. How did he meet up with a couple of professionals like Aimes and Stuart?”
“They stopped by the house one day, just drifting through the country. Josh was there. He’d just made some corn liquor and they got to drinking. They talked a lot about their lawless exploits and Josh figured he could use them and so they made a deal.”
“As simple as that?” mused Nash. “So then he shot them in the back of the head as reward.”
She snapped up her head sharply. “You liar!”
“You didn’t know? They were found dead in a cave. You must’ve heard.”
“That they were dead, yes. But I understood they’d been shot by the posse.”
He shook his head. “Hands tied behind them. Bullets in the back of their skulls. No worse, really, than shooting the coach driver and guard from ambush. And you must have known about that.”
She made a listless gesture. “Well, what’s it matter now? Josh is dead.”
Nash walked over to his dun and took a pair of manacles from the saddlebags, then came back to stand beside the girl. She looked up at him quizzically as he dangled the manacles before her.
“I’ll have to put these on you.”
“I won’t give you any trouble. I just don’t care what happens to me now that Josh is dead.”
He reached down, grabbed her wrists and snapped the manacles on. Her eyes blazed at him briefly.
“I said I wouldn’t give you any trouble!”
He smiled crookedly. “Sure. I remember the trouble you didn’t give me in Blackwood, too. It almost got me killed. C’mon.”
He pulled her roughly to her feet and shoved her towards her waiting horse.
“What about Josh?” she asked.
“I’ll rope him across your saddle. Wells Fargo have got a bounty on him. It’ll go to young Brad Burns now. He’ll cheat the hangman but it’s no thanks to you or your husband.”
She pouted her lips as if to kiss him, then spat in his face.
Chapter Ten – Fair Play
They arrived in town in the middle of the afternoon, and people on the boardwalks stopped to stare as Nash led his prisoner and the grisly burden towards the law office. Someone ran on ahead and told Sheriff Carson and the lawman was waiting on the office porch when Nash turned the dun towards the hitch rail. He glanced at the tight-faced girl and then at the dead man whose yellow hair was hanging down, bright in the sun.
“So you got him,” Carson said. “Brad Burns?”
Nash shook his head. “Her husband.” Then he frowned. “How come you ask about Burns when he’s in Fort Laramie Prison?”
“Not anymore,” Carson told him. “He busted out with a couple of friends of yours—Tyler Cade and Alex Bryant.”
Nash stiffened and the girl laughed briefly.
“Now there’s a problem for you, Nash!” she cried. “You’ve just proved Burns’ innocence but he’s broken out of jail with a couple of killers! Could be you’ll have to hunt him down and see him thrown back into jail on other charges! You could have saved yourself a deal of trouble!”
Nash looked at her coldly. “You’re the one should be worryin’ about trouble.” He turned to Carson. “Can you lock her up and take care of the body, Sheriff? I better get in touch with Hume.”
“He’s waiting for you at the Silver Slipper.”
Nash flicked his gaze to the girl. “Reckon I can find my way there,” he said quietly and nodded curtly, turned the dun away from the hitch rail and walked it slowly down the street towards the saloon.
He found Hume poring over papers in the hotel room at a small table. The Chief of Detectives looked drawn and tired but he greeted Nash warmly.
“By hell, I’m glad to see you, Clay! You’ve heard about Burns?”
“Just now from Carson,” Nash said coming into the room and dropping onto the edge of the bed, there being no other chairs. He scrubbed a hand tiredly across his face and winced a little as he moved his shoulders.
“You hit?” Hume asked, concerned.
“Not badly,” Nash told him. “By the way, Brad Burns is innocent.”
Hume nodded. “Guessed that when I saw the yellow haired corpse you dragged in. I was watching from the window. The woman was in it, too, was she?”
Nash gave him a brief rundown on what had happened and Hume swore loudly when Clay was through.
“Only makes it worse! Burns is an innocent man tied in with a couple of cold-blooded killers! And if they figure he was the man who robbed the Blackwood stage and got away with all that gold, could be he’s in for a mighty hard time of it. Girl say where the gold is, by the by?”
Nash shook his head. “Not really. But I’ve got an idea it’s buried in that fake grave under the marker with her husband’s name on it. It’d be the kind of thing he’d do. He’d have gotten some kind of kick out of that.”
“I’ll go out there and look for myself after I’ve talked to her,” Hume said and made a swift note. He told Nash how Burns, Tyler and Bryant had accomplished their escape from the penitentiary and went on to say: “Warden Bronson’s smashed up pretty bad but there’ll likely be few tears over that. The guard, Gomez, got a busted collarbone but he’s okay. They drove that buckboard clear into Fort Laramie itself and right into the loading dock of the general store. Cade was leadin’ of course, knew just what he was doin’. They busted in, grabbed guns, grub and dynamite, then forced a handful of customers to go with him and the others while he picked up some fast horses from the livery stables. He tossed a few sticks of dynami
te around and in the riot all three of ’em got clear away.”
Nash pursed his lips and whistled softly. “Anyone hurt in the blasting?”
“Fortunately not, but plenty of property damaged. They’ve been hitting our stages since they got loose, Clay.” He smiled faintly at Nash’s reaction. “Yeah, didn’t waste any time, did they? They haven’t gotten away with anything much, mainly passengers’ valuables, but that’s hardly the point, is it? They’re hitting our stages and we’ve got to stop them.”
Nash frowned. “Not like Cade to go for the small stuff. Did he shoot anybody?”
Hume shook his head. “Nope. But then he hasn’t had to. He works by felling a tree across the trail or blocking it with boulders. Calls out from cover once the stage has stopped that he’ll toss a stick of dynamite into the coach unless they throw out their guns and valuables.”
“Pretty slick tactics, but new for Cade and Bryant. Maybe Burns figured it out for him. He’s got a good imagination.”
Hume looked steadily at Nash as he nodded slowly. “Yeah ... and he’s after you, Clay.” He added: “As I recall, Cade and Bryant have a few things to square away with you, too.”
“Yeah,” Nash agreed slowly. “Could be they’re just usin’ the kid for their own ends. They likely figure him as the real road-agent, all right, and after they square with me, I guess they’ll work on him to make him tell about the loot they think he hid. Nothin’ he says will convince ’em that he knows nothin’ about it. Unless I can prove we’ve got the real bandit.”
“You can prove ... ?” Hume began.
“Hell, Jim, you know what’s got to happen. They won’t believe anything we put out by way of handbills or newspapers. Burns himself might even think it’s a trick to get him to give himself up. But, if I can talk with him, before he does somethin’ crazy, like bein’ with Cade when that loco killer does toss a stick of dynamite into a stage, I might be able to make him see reason.”
