by Brett Waring
“If you get a chance to speak at all!” Hume shook his head briskly. “Too risky, Clay. Can’t let you do it.”
“You want the hold-ups stopped, don’t you? That’s what you pay me for. Okay, they want me, so I’ll go to ’em. I can make Burns listen to me once I get to him. So you spread the word that there’s a special run to Knife Edge with gold bullion aboard and that I’ll be riding shotgun. That’ll bring Cade and Bryant out. Even if they suspect a trap, they’ll come, just to make a try for me.”
Hume snapped his fingers. “And we have a posse or army troop riding parallel to the trail, ready to move in at your signal! Yeah, that might work, Clay.”
“It won’t and you know it! Cade and Bryant are no amateurs. They’ve been holdin’ up stages or trains since they were in their teens. They know all the tricks, ours especially. No, we’ll take passengers and I’ll ride shotgun and that’s all. No one’ll get hurt if I don’t put up a fight.”
“Good grief, Clay, I’m damned if I like it!”
“We don’t have a hell of a lot of choice, Jim. Now you start things rolling, see if that snooty agent can get a special rollin’ tonight and get the word out, up and down the trail. Cade’ll get to hear of it and I’ll take it from there.”
“By God, Clay ... !”
“Time’s a’wastin’, Jim.”
The special stage left Blackwood at one in the morning, with a sleepy volunteer driver, an express-box full of rocks, Clay Nash as shotgun guard, and five ‘passengers’ ... four male and one female, just to make it look good.
But they weren’t ordinary passengers. They were Wells Fargo people.
As soon as the stage had cleared town, Clay swung down from the guard’s seat and hung onto the side of the swaying Concord with one hand while he opened the door with the other and ducked into the passenger compartment. The four men and the girl were beginning to settle down for the night and weren’t any too happy at his disturbing them. That was possibly the least of Nash’s worries.
“A few things to get straight,” he said, wishing he could see their faces more clearly. “This is a set-up, sole aim to decoy Cade and the others out. They want me, so when they hit the coach, no heroics. Just do what they say, drop your weapons or hand over whatever money and valuables Jim Hume gave you to carry.”
“Sounds all right,” growled one of the weekend deputies, “but why did Hume say we might have to fight, if that’s the truth of it?”
“Because it’s possible Cade and Bryant might ride in hellin’ and throwing dynamite around, just aiming to blow me up and anyone else who happens to be close by. In which case, your jobs’ll be to try to pick ’em off before they toss any dynamite sticks close enough to do damage. Otherwise, there’s nothing else to defend, so just go along with whatever they want. If there’s any real chance of gunning them down without harming Burns, I’ll give the word.”
“There’s a bounty on Cade and Bryant,” spoke up the second weekend lawman. “Put on ’em by Wells Fargo.”
“Forget it!” Nash snapped. “The important thing here is to get me to where I can reach Brad Burns before he does somethin’ loco that’ll get him hung. If things work out, I’ll get the drop on Cade and Bryant and I’ll see that any bounty is paid over to all five of you, equal shares. That suit you?”
There was general agreement.
“When do you figure these hombres’ll hit us?” asked the veteran of a thousand Wells Fargo stage runs, handling the reins casually one-handed while he fired up a vesta with the other hand, cupped the flame, and touched it to the stub of cigar that jutted from his mouth.
“Dunno. Depends how soon word gets to ’em, I guess. Likely not until tomorrow afternoon, when we’re deep into the heavy timber. They seem to like knocking trees down across the trail.”
The driver nodded, removed the cigar and spat over the side. “Just don’t expect me to get in on any gunplay, is all,” he growled.
“You just worry about your team,” Nash told him. “I’ll handle the rest of it, whatever it is.”
But he wondered if he would be able to. Cade hated his guts and might be content just to toss dynamite into the stage and blow him and the others apart. He might not even get the chance to confront Brad Burns.
He shrugged off these thoughts. It was a gamble, so he would have to play the cards he was dealt.
~*~
And Cade had an ace-in-the-hole which he threw down a whole lot sooner than Nash or the others expected.
The sun hadn’t been in the sky for an hour as the stage rocked its way across boulder-strewn flats, rising gently towards the foothills of a thickly-timbered range ahead. It was in these distant foothills that Nash had figured Cade would make his try, during the afternoon.
Instead, Cade struck without warning while they were all still drowsy from their night of fitful slumber aboard the rocking vehicle. Nash himself was actually dozing as the coach turned a bend in the winding trail, around a massive butte of stacked boulders and he was jerked awake violently by the driver standing in his seat, foot on the brake bar, reins hauled back tight as fiddle strings. The team lead horses reared up, pawing the air, whinnying in protest and the stage rocked and swayed to a halt. Nash was flung forward off his seat and grabbed at the side grip rail hurriedly.
The trail was blocked by a huge rock fall. One look at the splintered, jagged sides of the sandstone boulders and Nash knew they had been blasted loose with explosives. There was no one in sight and he gripped the Ithaca tightly as he stood up and looked around.
A single shot roared from up on the butte and the heavy shotgun was torn from his hands. He dropped low, crouching, using the body of the coach for cover as the driver tried to fight the team around and go back. His six-gun was in his hand. Another shot blasted, from rocks on the other side of the trail, and the driver grunted and fell over the side. Nash swore but when he heard the vitriolic stream of cusses released by the driver down there on the ground, he grinned briefly. The man had only been winged, it seemed, and that not badly.
“Next time, we shoot to kill, Nash!” a voice called from a third rock clump angled off to the left. He recognized the voice as that of Tyler Cade. “Don’t get froggy and no one gets hurt ... except maybe you, but you’re ready for that, I guess, or you wouldn’t be here.” Cade’s voice was suddenly urgent, commanding. “Tell them fools inside to throw out their guns, Nash, or I toss a stick of dynamite in there!”
“Do like he says,” Nash ordered and dropped his own Colt to the ground, lifting his hands. “Don’t take any chances ...”
The last word was drowned by the roar of a gun from inside the coach and Nash cursed, figuring it would be one of the deputies trying for the bounty.
The bullet ricocheted from the rocks where he judged Cade to be and the other two hidden rifles crashed and bullets ripped into the coachwork, splintering the panels and tearing a frightened scream from the girl. Nash started to swing down and saw the deputy who had fired the shot getting out, the smoking gun still in his hand. Nash kept his grip on the top luggage rail and swung his legs, his boots kicking the Colt from the man’s hand. He dropped down and grabbed the deputy and flung him to the ground, seeing something arcing through the air from the rocks where Cade was hidden.
The dynamite fell short of the coach, rolled a few feet against a rock and then exploded with a deafening roar, flinging stones and clods of earth high into the air. The debris pattered down on Nash’s back and thudded into the coach and set the horses wild-eyed and prancing. Nash grabbed the deputy and shoved him violently towards the panic-stricken team.
“You want to be a hero, take care of those horses and see they don’t bolt!”
The man was pale and shaking after the explosion and stared wide-eyed at Nash, who shoved him towards the horses again. “Go on! That was only to let you know he’s really got the dynamite!”
The man stumbled off and Nash faced the boulders where he knew Cade to be, hands raised.
“All right,
Cade! Here I am. You can let the others go. There’s no gold bullion. It was all a decoy to bring you out.”
Silence from the rocks.
Nash turned slightly left to face the butte. “Burns, I did this to talk to you. I’m sorry I didn’t believe your story. I’ve checked it out and you’re in the clear! The real road-agent’s dead, so you’re a free man, and the bounty on his head is all yours. Quit Cade and Bryant before you get mixed up in somethin’ you can’t back out of!”
“Goddamn liar!” came Burns’ voice from the rocks over to the right and Nash swung that way. “You think I’d be loco enough to believe you, Nash?”
“It’s the truth and I can prove it!”
“Hogwash!” called down Alex Bryant from the butte. “Nash always was a fast-talker, kid!”
“Don’t worry, kid,” Cade joined in. “You’ll have the truth out of him before we finish him off.”
Cade stepped out abruptly, holding a stick of dynamite in one hand, a lighted cigar in the other. He held the glowing end near the fuse in the stick as he walked slowly towards the coach and the tensed passengers. He kept his eye on Nash.
“Shoot the girl if they try anythin’!” Cade yelled to Bryant on the butte. He stopped about five yards away, bleak eyes raking over the people in the coach and then settling on Nash’s taut face. “You’re comin’ for a ride with us, Nash. I even brought a hoss for you. Start walkin’ towards them rocks I just come out of.”
Nash looked into Cade’s vicious face. “What about the others?”
“Do like I say, damn you!” Cade shouted, betraying the inner tension he felt, despite his efforts to appear calm. He moved the cigar-end a fraction of an inch closer to the dynamite fuse. “You want ’em all blown up, Nash?”
Nash met his mad gaze levelly. “I’ll come with you. Just let the coach turn around and start back down the trail. You’ll miss a lot of fun if you blow me up and kill me fast, Cade.”
Tyler Cade’s mouth twisted into a sadistic grin. “Yeah, and I sure wouldn’t want to do that, would I, Nash? Not after the way you changed my face with your gun-barrel, you polecat! I don’t care if there’s gold on that there stage or not, it’s you I want. We figured this for a set-up, but we also figured the dynamite gave us the edge, which it did. After we take care of you, we don’t need Burns any more. We’ve been usin’ him as bait for you. We figured his story so cock-eyed it had to be true and there was just no point in him denyin’ it all the time to us. We figured he’d bring you to us, Nash. ’Course, for a while there I hoped he was lyin’ and that he was the real road-agent and we could kinda persuade him to tell us where he’d stashed the gold. We was kinda disappointed when we realized he was likely tellin’ the truth all along. But it don’t matter much. There’s a bounty on his head and we’ll find a way of collectin’ on it. That’ll set us up for headin’ north to Canada, maybe way up north to the Yukon where I hear tell there’s a big strike.”
He had been moving closer to Nash as he spoke and now the burning cigar jabbed out swiftly towards Nash’s eyes. The agent whipped his head back in time but the glowing end still caught his temple and he smelled singed hair as excruciating agony ran through his head from the burn.
Cade laughed, kicked Nash’s legs from under him and then casually booted him in the ribs. “Get up and head for them rocks like I told you!” he shouted, face congesting, veins standing out in his neck.
Dazed, Nash got his legs under him and stumbled towards the rocks. Cade ordered the others out of the coach, told one of the Wells Fargo employees to unhitch the team, then he drove them back down the trail on foot. When they were twenty yards away, he touched the cigar to the fuse, waited for it to start burning, then tossed the dynamite into the coach. He walked back towards the rocks unconcernedly, puffing on the remains of the cigar. Bryant had worked his way round from the butte now and had Nash covered with his rifle.
Cade joined them, turned and grinned, looking towards the stage. The dynamite exploded and blew the Concord to splinters. A horse shrieked as a sliver of wood embedded itself into its side. Cade drew his pistol and casually shot it. Then he fired several shots over the heads of the group leading the wounded driver back down the trail. They stumbled on faster and he grinned.
“Kid,” he called as Burns appeared from some rocks, carrying a rifle, his face stubbled. Nash thought how much he resembled the dead Josh Gant. “Kid, you bring them other horses with us. A good team of horses is worth money and might save a man’s life one day. They’re too valuable to shoot but I don’t aim to leave ’em for them passengers to ride back to Blackwood.”
Burns nodded, his cold eyes raking Nash’s face as he moved to obey. Bryant jabbed at Nash with his rifle barrel and indicated that he should walk ahead of him, likely to where their mounts were hidden, the agent figured.
He was right and they took him to a canyon far back in the foothills that was honeycombed with huge, wind-scoured caves. His hands were manacled behind him by Brad Burns, who took great delight in doing it.
“Took these manacles off Gomez, specially to use on you, Nash!” he told the Wells Fargo man. “Just like you did to me!”
“Listen, Burns, I know you’ve had a rough time of it, and I made a mistake. I’m sorry. But you’re okay now. You’re not in any trouble you can’t get out of. Give me a chance to prove to you that I’m telling the truth.”
Cade stepped across and smashed Nash hard in the mouth, bringing blood to his lips. “Get aboard your horse!” he snarled and turned to Burns. “Don’t listen to him, kid. He’d lie to his own mother.”
Burns nodded and moved away to mount his own horse.
In the cave where they had made their camp, Nash was pushed off the horse by Bryant and he hit hard on the point of his left shoulder. Bryant kicked him the full length of the cave until Nash had moved into the corner where the outlaw wanted him; but he hadn’t given any directions and he grinned viciously at Nash’s dazed, bleeding form and turned to the white-faced Burns.
“We’re gonna have a lot of fun with this hombre before we finish him, kid! He’s been a pain in our backsides for a long time but now we’ve finally got him where we want him!”
Burns grabbed Bryant’s arm. “Wait a minute! What d’you mean, ‘have fun’ with him before killin’ him?”
“They’ll show you a few Injun torture tricks on me, kid,” Nash spoke up, his words slurred because of his bleeding mouth. “Cade don’t kill clean or fast if he can help it.”
Cade threw a billet of wood across the cave from where he was building the fire and it thudded into Nash’s chest, knocking him back against the rocky wall. Cade stood up and walked across, took his cigar from his mouth, blew on the end until it glowed red and then shoved Nash onto his face, held him there with a knee on his back and ground out the cigar in the palm of the agent’s gun-hand.
Burns started forward, face white and angry.
“Hold up! This isn’t how I figured it was going to be!”
Cade shoved him roughly away, his eyes glittering, mouth twisted, as he pushed the kid back down the cave. “How you figured it or anythin’ else don’t matter a good goddamn to us, kid! Nash is our meat and we’ll butcher him good before we throw him to the dogs. You savvy?”
Burns was shaking but he refused to back down from Cade’s mad stare. “I—I figured it was going to be just between him and me. Or maybe him and one of you. But I reckoned it’d be fair play! A square-off, fast draw wins, and that’s it settled! Hell, I’m ready to face Nash over six-guns.”
“You won’t get that chance, kid,” Nash murmured, the pain showing through in his voice.
“You sure won’t!” growled Cade. “Any objections?”
Burns saw Cade’s hand hovering menacingly over his gun butt and Bryant was holding a rifle cradled across his chest. He shrugged and sighed. “Well, I guess I’ll get used to it,” he said, then hardened his voice. “But you don’t leave me out of it altogether! I owe him plenty for the beatings I took from Br
onson, and you hombres ain’t gonna get all the fun!”
Cade stared soberly at him for a spell, then grinned crookedly. “Now that’s better. I guess we can leave you an inch or so to work on, huh, Alex?”
“Reckon so,” Bryant said, deadpan. “But let’s eat first. We ain’t had breakfast yet.”
Cade nodded and returned to the fire, while Bryant went to tend the horses outside. Burns took a slab of sowbelly from some cheesecloth in his saddlebags and began slicing it up on a flat rock, obviously used as a table, near Nash. He did not look in Nash’s direction once.
“I’m not here to trick you, Burns,” Nash said quietly, hoping Cade was too busy with getting the fire going to hear. “I did catch the real road-agent.”
“So you say!” Burns growled, but it was just a little above a whisper and Nash figured there might yet be some hope of getting out of this. Otherwise Burns would have used a normal tone that would have carried to Cade. “It’s too late now, anyway.”
“It’s not too late, damn it!” Nash whispered fiercely. “There won’t be any charges over breakin’ out of prison. But you stick with these hombres and you’ll have a murder rap hangin’ over you!”
“Your murder, and that suits me!” Burns whispered back.
“Look, s’pose I prove to you I found the man who held you up?”
“How can you prove it?”
“Shirt pocket. Your signet ring. ‘B’ in an oval surrounded by an engraved lariat. Took it off the road-agent after I killed him.”
Burns stared at Nash, frowning, then jumped when Cade yelled, “What in hell you doin’ back there?”
“Be over in a minute. He wants a cigarette. All right if I roll him one?”
“Yeah, yeah, but gimme that sowbelly to start cookin’ first,” Cade growled and Burns took over the sliced bacon and dumped it in the skillet. Cade looked at him coldly. “Don’t get any funny ideas, kid.”
