by Brett Waring
In order to keep folk away.
For the Spur would make a great hideout for anyone on the dodge.
And, if there was someone in there, hiding out, keeping the ‘ghost’ legend alive, maybe that someone saw the stage crash.
Maybe, just maybe, he—or they—came down from Hangman’s Spur to take a closer look ... and found the fifty thousand dollars in the shattered secret compartment.
Clay Nash knew he was grasping at straws now, but it seemed the only thing he could do under the circumstances. Unless Cassidy had lied all along ... which was possible, he had to admit ...
He dumped his cigarette stub and ground it under his heel, straightening and hitching at his cartridge belt.
Then he froze at the unmistakable sound of a gun hammer ratcheting back to full-cock behind him.
Eight – Ghost of Hangman’s Spur
Wes McGinnis felt like he had been drinking all night, had really tied one on, and was now paying the inevitable penalty with one of the worst hangovers he had ever experienced.
His head felt like an over-ripe melon that someone was tossing around indiscriminately. His mouth tasted like the bottom of a chicken coop. His tongue was raw and stinging, his throat burning, his belly very—sensitive. It churned and rumbled and filled his gullet with bitter bile.
He groaned as he opened his eyes slowly and tried to see what the hell was mangling his left shoulder. Through a haze, he saw a bulky figure standing over him and he heard distorted words coming to him as if down a long tunnel, echoing, blurred. The face was hazy, out of focus. And then his vision came good and he recognized Jim Hume and realized it was the Wells Fargo man’s big hand gripping his shoulder, shaking him awake in a chair outside Matt Cassidy’s room in Doc Simmonds’ house.
“Wh-what ... what?” McGinnis murmured, making a feeble attempt to push Hume’s hand away.
Then Hume stepped back, releasing him and McGinnis held his head in his hands as he leaned forward, moaning.
“What the hell’s wrong with you?” demanded Hume.
McGinnis winced and looked up, eyes squinting. He saw that Doc Simmonds was standing in the background.
“Looks like a hangover to me,” the medic said, tight-lipped.
The sheriff straightened, grimacing. “Wh—? Hangover? You’re loco! I been sittin’ here all night! Hell, you ought to know, Doc. You brought me a cup of coffee ... when was that?”
“Oh, around ten,” the medico said very quickly, and pointed beside the chair. “But that wasn’t there then!” His tone held a note of disapproval.
The sheriff blinked and looked down at the empty whisky bottle that Simmonds nudged out from under the chair with a boot. McGinnis blinked, trying to remember.
“I never—”
“By hell, man!” snapped Hume, holding out a hand and snapping his fingers. “Where’s the key of the room?”
The lawman fumbled in a vest pocket, had to look in two more before he found the key and Hume hurriedly opened the door and flung it back.
He swore explosively as his gaze travelled from the empty bed to the open window. McGinnis was on his feet, leaning heavily on the wall, looking in over his shoulder. Hume switched his gaze to the medic who held the empty coffee cup in his hands now and was starting to move away.
“You know anythin’ about this, Doc?” Hume demanded.
Simmonds looked innocent, standing so that his body shielded the coffee cup.
“About what? You people disturbing my patients? Posting armed guards in my house? That what you mean, Hume ...?”
Hume’s eyes narrowed. “I mean the fact that Cassidy’s gone, Doc. And the other fact that I’ve seen men before comin’ round after a dose of Chloral hydrate has been slipped into their whisky—or coffee. They looked about as bad and as confused as McGinnis here. It’s different to a hangover.”
Simmonds’ face was hard. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. If my patient Cassidy has gone and anything happens to him, then it’s on your shoulders, Hume! I told you he shouldn’t be moved and you’ve driven him in desperation to make a run for it. By Godfrey, if any harm comes to him ...”
“Get out of my sight, Doc!” Hume gritted. “You lyin’ old interfering sidewinder! By hell, I’m warning you, if Cassidy did steal that money, you’ll serve your time in a territorial Pen for helping him escape!”
Simmonds curled his lips and he snorted. “I’m too old for such empty threats to bother me, Hume. Anyway, Cassidy never stole any money. I get to know people in my game. He was a victim, that boy. He’d had a lot of hard breaks and he naturally attracts bad luck, I reckon. I figured it was time he had a good break and I defy you to prove I helped him in any way ...”
Hume muttered a curse and turned to the sick-looking sheriff who was holding his head. He grabbed his shoulder and urged him towards the door past the irascible old doctor who watched them go with a crooked smile.
“C’mon, McGinnis! Pull yourself together, damn it! We’ve got a posse to organize!”
Clay Nash stared at Matt Cassidy and Aggie as they covered him with their rifles.
He was sitting down now in a clearing amongst the rocks not far from where they had first jumped him. But it was well hidden and couldn’t be seen from the trail. Cassidy looked pale and a mite shaky, but he was determined, too, and this stubbornness put some iron in his spine.
That, and Aggie. For Nash could see she was a strong-willed woman and the driving force behind this.
“You’ve only made it worse for yourself by running, Matt,” Nash told Cassidy quietly. “You look about ready to drop, anyway. Can’t’ve done your health much good by clearing out from the sawbones’.”
“He helped us,” Aggie told the surprised Nash. “Yes, Nash, Dr. Simmonds believes in Matt’s innocence and he felt strongly enough about it to help me get him away, despite Jim Hume having that sheriff stand guard.”
“Well, Simmonds made a bad mistake,” Nash said. “He’ll be in a heap of trouble. Hume’s a hard man to fool. He’ll read the signs correctly.”
“Maybe he will,” the girl said. “But, by the time he catches up with us again, maybe we’ll be able to prove Matt’s innocence.”
Nash shook his head. “How? Wells Fargo and the local law haven’t come up with anything, and Cassidy’s still the best bet for takin’ that money. I’ve caught up with Moss Dooley since I saw you last and he didn’t have it. Never had it. I know that for a fact. So it only leaves you, kid.”
Cassidy’s pale lips thinned out. “I didn’t steal that lousy money! I didn’t even know it was there! I—I only broke loose so I could prove my innocence.”
Nash linked his fingers behind his head and smiled faintly as he saw them both tense at his movement. “Then you’d best hurry it along, kid. Hume and McGinnis’ll be on your trail right soon, wouldn’t wonder.”
Cassidy smiled and shook his head. “I don’t think so. We left a false trail heading the other way, towards the border. It’s what they’d expect us to do. In fact, I think it’s what Doc Simmonds expected us to do, the amount of food he packed into the saddlebags.”
Nash sobered. “He supply the guns, too? Those outfits you’re wearin’?”
Cassidy nodded. He was dressed in denim shirt and levis with copper rivets holding on the pockets, the newest refinement put out by old Levi Strauss who manufactured them. They were more expensive than the normal cowboy’s workpants, but their popularity was soaring and soon they would dominate the range wear of the men of the West.
Aggie wore a split riding skirt, checked shirt and a flat-crowned hat with a wide brim. She held the rifle like she knew how to use it.
“The clothes were taken from one of my carpetbags that I left at Doc Simmonds’ house, because my hotel room didn’t have a clothes closet,” Aggie explained. “He just packed some into the war bags tied on behind our saddles.”
Nash frowned. Simmonds must have felt mighty strongly about young Cassidy’s innocence, he figured, to s
tick his neck out the way he had ...
“Well, what you aim to do now?” he asked. “With me, I mean?”
Cassidy glanced at his wife. She didn’t take her eyes off the Wells Fargo man.
“We can tie you up, or maybe even kill you,” she said slowly, ignoring the start her husband gave at this. “Which is something we could have done at any time if we were guilty, Nash, remember that!”
He nodded. “Yeah. But, like you say, you can still do it at any time ... You thought that it don’t look good you coming back here after layin’ a false trail to the border? Some folk’d say you came back to collect the loot ...”
Her jaw jutted and her eyes blazed. Cassidy looked furious enough to crash his rifle barrel into Nash’s face. But neither did anything.
“We could kill you or tie you up,” Aggie gritted, “or you could come along and help us prove Matt’s innocence.”
Nash laughed bitterly. “You’ve got your gall! I don’t believe he is innocent! It comes down to him takin’ that money. Has to be that way.”
“Then what were you doing here when we got the drop on you?” Aggie asked shrewdly. “Looking for fresh clues? Searching for the money? No, Nash. We watched you for a time before showing ourselves. You were looking at the Spur, preparing to ride up in there, weren’t you?”
“So?”
“Why? Did you think the money might be hidden up there?” She paused for a spell and when Nash said nothing, asked, “Or did you think that maybe—just maybe—someone else we didn’t even know about before could’ve come down while Matt was unconscious and stolen the money from the stagecoach wreckage?”
Nash felt the surprise on his face, but couldn’t do anything about it.
“What makes you say that?” he asked, keeping his voice neutral.
Aggie glanced towards her husband and nodded slowly. “You should tell him, Matt.”
Cassidy frowned uncertainly, leaning against the rock beside him for support. He looked very tired and weak. He finally shook his head.
“He won’t believe me.”
“Tell him!” ordered the woman. “Or I will!”
Cassidy sighed and looked at Nash’s hard face, finally shrugged.
“I remembered somethin’ else, lyin’ there in bed, thinkin’ about this,” he said quietly. “Hume was accusin’ me, makin’ it official, and he had the sheriff guardin’ my door, so I knew I was in real trouble. I wracked my brain over that hold-up and I can recollect coming half around at one stage. Just sort of swimmin’ up towards consciousness, but not quite makin’ it. I—I saw a rider, some kind of horseman up on a ledge on the Spur. The sun was behind him, glarin’. I wasn’t seein’ so good, anyway. It looked kinda spooky—like he wasn’t solid, that I could see right through him. I guess it was a trick of the light and my bein’ only semiconscious, but he sure looked like a ghost to me.”
Nash’s eyes narrowed. “You know about the legend of Hangman’s Spur?”
Cassidy nodded curtly. “Most everyone does. Loco Larrabee told me some tall tales about it, claimed he’d seen the ‘ghost’ on and off for years drivin’ that stage run. I don’t believe in ghosts, so I figured maybe there was a rider up there on that ledge and he’d seen what had happened, rode down to help, maybe, and found all that money. Then taken it and disappeared back into Hangman’s Spur.” He shrugged. “And that’s why we’re here. To try to find him—or the ‘ghost’—if there really is a ghost.”
Nash shook his head. “No ghost. Leastways, I don’t believe in ’em, either. Funny, I’d about reached the same conclusion when you showed up: that someone is hidin’ out up there and has maybe been keeping the ‘ghost’ legend alive to keep folk away from the Spur ... I was aimin’ to go in after him, too.”
“Then you don’t believe that Matt is guilty!” Aggie said swiftly. “You must have some doubts, to think like that!”
Nash flicked his gaze from one to the other and nodded slowly. “Guess maybe there’s a chance you’re speakin’ gospel, kid. A chance.”
Aggie smiled slowly and lowered the hammer on her rifle.
“Then you’ll help us, Nash? We need someone like you to believe in Matt’s innocence.”
Nash remained silent a spell. Then, “You’ve had a few bad breaks, kid. Maybe it’s time your luck changed. Sure—we’ll do this together. But I warn you both: if you’re conning me, you’d better leave me certain-sure dead when you ride out with that money. For I’ll damn well come after you and track you to the ends of the earth. Savvy?”
They nodded soberly and Cassidy lowered his gun hammer; he seemed relieved to be able to let the heavy rifle sag to the ground.
“We’ve plenty of grub and water,” he said, a mite breathless. The girl hurried to his side, frowning in concern. “I’m all right, Aggie. Just—tired. A mite weary. Honest.”
“Take it easy,” Nash advised. He glanced at the sun. “We’d better move. Your false trail might not fool Hume for long. He might figure you’ve come back here to pick up the money from where Matt stashed it.”
Aggie nodded and helped her husband back through the rocks to where their mounts were tethered. Nash fetched his own horse and they mounted and rode into the shadow of Hangman’s Spur, making for the ledge where Cassidy claimed to have seen the ‘ghost’ rider.
It was higher than it looked from the trail, a rugged climb, and it took its toll on the weak Cassidy. His ribs were hurting badly and his injured arm had to go back into the sling. He had tried riding with it free, but the movement was causing him too much pain. He reeled in the saddle on the narrow trail and once Aggie called to Nash to come back and lend a hand.
They finally reached the ledge and, from there they could see the entire hold-up site, clear back down the trail to the point where Moss Dooley and his bunch had first come out of cover and ridden in on the stage. This ledge commanded a fine view of the countryside and the approaches on three sides of the Spur.
There was a dead tree with a shattered limb jutting out at right angles. Nash knew this had been the Hanging Tree for Gray Dog. The place felt kind of—chill—up here on the ledge, even though it was in full sunlight. He shook the feeling and dismounted, walking back to help Aggie get Cassidy out of the saddle. They eased him down and propped him against a rock. The girl fetched water in a canteen and wiped his sweating face.
He smiled wanly at her and she looked at Nash.
“Damn you and your Wells Fargo! Driving him to this!”
“You’d best stay here with him, out of sight of the trail below,” Nash said, standing slowly. “I’ll take a look around.”
Aggie held his gaze steadily. “You don’t have any ideas of trying to get the jump on us and taking Matt back to Hume, do you?”
Nash smiled crookedly as he shook his head. “No. I’ll check this theory first, leastways.”
She stood and slid her rifle from the saddle scabbard. “We aren’t going back for Matt to be thrown in jail again for a crime he didn’t commit.”
“Okay. We’ll see what happens. But you take care of your husband. He don’t look real healthy right now.”
Nash left them, walking, leading his horse with the reins in his left hand, going around some rocks, trying to find any sign that a real live horseman had ever been here.
He couldn’t find a single track.
The rock was flat and hard, sure, but there should have been some sign left by a shod hoof. He was no slouch as a tracker, had lived with Indians years ago, and picked up some of their skills. He knew, if a rider had been up on this ledge, he would be able to pick up some small sign. And that was all he needed, a little evidence to show Cassidy had seen a horseman on this ledge ...
Nothing. He had gone down on his knees, scanned almost every inch of that ledge. It gave way to a kind of narrow trail that was really only an extension of the ledge itself, falling away to nothing. Nash scratched at his head. Damn it, horses couldn’t fly, but it was beginning to look as if, to reach this ledge, a rider would have to be
mounted on Pegasus, the legendary flying horse
Clay Nash swore at himself. Damn it, that was stupid, thinking that way. There must be some other way up here. The rider maybe could have come up the trail he and the Cassidys had used, but it only led down to the plains below, it went nowhere else, there were no branches off, leading into the honeycombed Spur itself.
So, if Cassidy had seen a rider here—and all the stories of the ‘ghost’ of Hangman’s Spur had put the horseman on this ledge—then whatever it had been, wraith or human, it had to have come onto the ledge from some other direction.
He began to check the rocky wall that rose above the ledge in fluted columns, rough sandstone and basalt and shale. He tried to move a couple of heavy boulders, but couldn’t even begin to budge them. Nash was sweating and mopped at his face, moved back into the cooling shadow of one of the rock niches.
It was several minutes before he realized there was a draught of air blowing against the back of his neck.
Turning sharply, he felt the stream cooling his face as he crouched a little towards a small gap in the rock. The air stream was stronger here. He was able to work his hand through the crack and felt only space beyond. Nash stood back, looking at what appeared to be a solid boulder set deep into the rock beneath his feet. He put his eyes to the crack above it and thought there was a faint glimmer of light back there, reflected, not direct, as if coming around a bend in a tunnel ...
He strained and heaved, but couldn’t move the rock. Then, instead of trying to push it from one side or the other, he stood directly in front of it, grabbed it by the top with his fingers wedged through the crack and heaved towards him.
It came so suddenly that he fell backwards and just rolled aside as it dropped down into what had looked like a natural depression in the rock he had been standing on. It jutted up a foot or so, but there was no mistaking what it had been concealing: the entrance to a low tunnel. A man couldn’t ride a horse through there, it was too low for that, but by hell, he could walk a horse through, crouching himself.
