by Brett Waring
“Almost. Someone set us up, Dakota,” Nash said.
Haines nodded grimly. “Yeah, and I know who. Now I know you’re okay, I’ll go square things.”
He nodded curtly and started to leave.
“Hey, hold up!” Nash called, breaking into a cough and falling back on the pillows from his attempt to sit up. Maggie and Mrs. Moran looked concerned. Haines turned back into the room.
“Just rest easy, amigo,” he told Nash. “I’ll find out where Christian’s holed-up. Be seein’ you, pard.”
He went out quickly and Mrs. Moran came back to stand beside the bed with Maggie.
“You show some sense, boy, and rest while you can, you hear?” she said firmly. “You try to go rushin’ around right now and you’ll fall flat on your face and wind up in bed for a month. Rest up a couple of days and you’ll be on the mend in a week. Makes good sense, don’t it?”
Nash nodded slowly, sagging back onto the pillows. The way he felt he couldn’t have helped Haines if he had wanted to. He just hoped Dakota would be able to walk away from the chore he had set himself.
~*~
There was a wooden panel over the glass door but the frame was still peppered with holes left from the buckshot. There was even a smear of dark brown that hadn’t scrubbed off completely where the guard had died.
Dakota Haines rode straight into the yard and dismounted with easy grace and when he hit the ground he had the shotgun held in both hands. He took a quick look about him, not liking the absence of customers lounging around the porch of the sandstone building and the absence of horses from the corrals.
Haines didn’t hesitate any longer. He made a run for the porch. He reached the steps without any shots being fired at him and then kicked open the remaining glass-paneled door and dropped flat to the porch. Guns opened up from inside the parlor and from behind him, in the stables. Haines rolled across the porch, scrabbling to turn about and direct the barrels of the sawn-off through the open door. He saw movement inside and triggered both barrels at once. The gun leapt in recoil as the thunder crashed and some of the buckshot took out the remaining stained-glass panel. There was a cry of someone mortally wounded inside and the sound of more glass crashing. He kept rolling and dropped off the end of the low porch to the ground.
Bullets from the stables thudded into the boards inches above his head as he thumbed in fresh shot shells and snapped the breech closed. The hammers notched back and he swung the barrels towards the stables, letting go both triggers at once. A saddle-sized section of plank wall was blasted in by the charge of shot and there came the whinnying scream of a terrified horse. Haines reloaded swiftly, got his legs under him and ran down the side of the building. He paused by a near-empty rain butt, lifted it and hurled it through a side window. Guns inside blasted at the remains of the window and while they were busy in that direction, Dakota raced around to the back, grabbed a chair off the back porch and used it like a battering ram to smash open the rear door. It caved in, splintering, and a guard who had run out to the parlor-bar came hurrying back but dropped his gun and turned tail when he saw Dakota stalking across the kitchen area.
The man’s warning cries brought the guards’ guns to bear on the kitchen but Haines overturned a heavy deal table and pushed it ahead of him through the double doorway. Crouched behind it, he got into the parlor area and cut loose with the sawn-off again, just one barrel this time. The charge of buckshot brought down most of the bar mirror and bottles and someone yelled as flying glass hit.
Six-guns boomed and lead thudded into the deal table. Haines cut loose with the second barrel and a section of the ornate bar was chewed out and a man flopped out from behind its shelter, clawing at his bleeding face and arm. Dakota reloaded and spun about to turn his shotgun across the room where the guards crouched behind furniture but he held his fire as he heard a voice from the top of the stairs.
“Enough! Enough!”
Firing ceased as all eyes, including Dakota’s, turned to the top of the stairs. He saw Madame Mustang standing there, dressed pretty much as he had last seen her, but her knuckles where they gripped the stair banister showed white even from that distance. Her face was like ivory and her lips were bloodless.
“All right, Dakota! Come on up! That bar and the glass door cost me a fortune! I don’t want my place wrecked any more. I don’t owe Clint Christian that much.” She signaled to the gunmen crouched behind the furniture. “Hold your fire and let him come up.” Then she looked back to Dakota. “All right, Dakota, you can come up now.”
“Tell ’em to throw out their guns first,” Haines said and there were growls of protest from the guards.
“Do as he says,” Madame Mustang said wearily. “If you don’t, he’ll shoot the joint to pieces.”
Reluctantly, the guards threw out their guns and Haines stood slowly, letting them see he had both hammers cocked on his shotgun and that the triggers were depressed. The gun barrels were slanted up, pointed at the woman.
“First one tries anything and I blow your boss all over the top floor,” he warned the guards. He made his way upstairs warily, walking crabwise, keeping an eye on the guards. But no one tried anything and he was soon on the landing with Madame Mustang. He looked coldly into her eyes and saw the naked fear there. He grabbed her arm after easing down one hammer.
“Let’s you and me talk.” He shoved her roughly down the passage towards the door of her rooms, striding after her purposefully.
Inside, he kicked the door closed behind him, grabbed her as she made to go to the drinks bureau and heaved her roughly down into the nearest chair. He leaned down to glare into her face.
“You almost got me killed, you bitch!” he gritted. “Me and my pard, Clay Nash. You set us up and Christian sent his rannies after us!”
She swallowed. “Look, Dakota, I couldn’t help it. If I hadn’t done it, Clint would have sent someone to burn me out and kill me.”
“I’ll do both them things if you don’t tell me where to find Christian.”
“I—I don’t know where he is!”
Dakota walked over to the imported English drinks cabinet and heaved it onto the floor. Timber splintered and the crystal decanter and glasses shattered. Madame Mustang leapt out of her chair but sat down again slowly as Dakota swung towards her and came striding back, his face hard.
“I’ll kick all your furniture to pieces every time you keep lyin’,” he said flatly.
She knew he meant it and fear fought with her avarice. But maybe she was just that little bit more afraid of Clint Christian, for she shook her head stubbornly.
Dakota shrugged, smashed a boot through the overturned cabinet, broke up two of the brocaded chairs, pushing everything into a heap in the centre of the room. It was only when he picked up an Italian porcelain lamp, hand-painted, that she stood up again, clasping her hands.
“No!” she cried.
Dakota looked at her and deliberately smashed the lamp into the centre of the pile of shattered furniture. Oil from it spilled everywhere. He took out a vesta from his shirt pocket and held it against his thumbnail, ready to snap it into flame. She slumped back into her chair.
“All right, you win ... I’m scared of Clint but I sure don’t want my place burned down around me. He’s got a cabin in the Painted Hills, ten miles this side of Buckhorn Flats. It’s more like a small ranch and he keeps a half-breed called Laredo there to run it most of the time, so folk won’t think it’s anything more than a hard rock ranch. He hides out there after most of his jobs and usually sends for Maxine Chan. He told me to set up anyone who was getting close and to let him know about it. He—he threatened to kill me if I didn’t ... I’m sorry, Dakota.”
Haines looked at her levelly for a long minute.
“It’s the truth, damn you, the truth!” she said, almost pleadingly.
Dakota nodded gently and reached down to pick up a cheroot that had spilled out of the carved box that had been on the cabinet. He snapped the vesta alight and she t
ensed as he dipped the end of the cheroot into the flame. He looked at her over the clouds of smoke, then straightened, still holding the burning vesta and looking at the tensed woman.
“My pard got shot up and left for dead in a creek beside the Buckhorn trail,” he said quietly.
She was breathing fast now, bosom heaving, straining at the low-cut gown top. Her hands gripped the side of the chair tightly. She began to shake her head very slowly.
“No,” she breathed. “No, Dakota! Please! It—it took me ten years to build up this place. I—I’ve told you what you wanted to know. Look, you want better directions? All right! Clint’s cabin is down in a hollow, with brush and timber growing up close behind it. You ride off the trail until you come to a big rock that looks like a crouching cougar. The trail that leads down to the cabin is underneath that rock. It goes clear through in a tunnel but you’d think it was a dead-end if you didn’t know to push aside the clump of hackberries under the cougar’s left front paw. There! He’ll kill me if he ever finds out it was me told you that. You’ll have to kill him, Dakota, or he’ll get me sooner or later! Now there’s nothing more I can tell you!”
The vesta flame was burning his finger tips by now and he shook it out. The woman breathed a long sigh of relief and, deadpan, Dakota walked across, the cheroot jammed in his mouth, and grabbed her arm. She looked up at him pleadingly.
“See me out, sweetheart,” he said, propelling her towards the door. He paused and took the cheroot from his mouth, staring at it. “Too strong for me.”
He threw it into the pile of oil-soaked furniture in the centre of the room. She gasped, then swore at him and tried to run back. When he prevented her, she screamed obscenities at him and he heaved her violently back down the passage towards the stairs. She fell to her knees, leapt up and started to run back but he grabbed her arm and flung her towards the stairs again. Then, she saw it was too late.
Flames were filling the room and licking at the drapes and walls. She began to sob as he led her down the stairs, the shotgun cocked and ready in his free hand.
Eight – Hunt the Man Down
Maggie Moran’s teeth tugged at her lower lip and the frown between her eyes deepened as she watched Clay Nash button his shirt over the thick bandages around his torso. He swayed on his feet and she moved towards him but he shook his head stubbornly.
“I’m all right, Maggie,” he said irritably. “Just a mite unsteady on my pins but that’ll pass.”
“But you shouldn’t be out of bed yet!” she said, desperately.
“Doc said a couple of days in bed and I’ve had that. So I’m okay.”
She stamped her foot in frustration. “You men are all alike. Pa was the same! Think you know everything. The doctor certainly didn’t mean for you to be setting out on a two-day ride the moment you got out of bed, Clay Nash!”
“Hell, I’ll be restin’-up in the saddle,” he told her, smiling. He buckled on his gun rig and jammed his hat onto the back of his head. Then he leaned down and kissed her lightly on the forehead.
“Thanks for all you’ve done, Maggie. I’m obliged.”
Her anger went from her at once and she grasped his forearms hard, looking pleadingly up into his face. “Be careful. Clay. I know you have to do this, but I wish you could leave it a little longer.”
He shook his head. “Christian will have flown the coop if I tarry much longer.”
“But why can’t you and Dakota at least tell Sheriff Petersen where you’re going? He could round up a posse!”
“And we wouldn’t get within a hundred miles of Christian. No, Maggie. It’s our job and we stand a better chance alone. Adios.”
“Come back to us, Clay,” she said huskily.
“Sure will be tryin’,” he said and went out of the room and downstairs to the kitchen where Dakota Haines waited with Mrs. Moran. She looked at him disapprovingly as he moved stiffly across the room, favoring his left leg, arm pressed against his wounded side. She shook her head slowly.
“Just as loco as Pop,” she said. “Just as loco and just as devoted to your job! Well, if you ain’t got sense enough to stay home, the least I can do is see you got some decent grub in your bellies.”
She placed a flour sack on the table and it was bulging with food. Dakota winked across the table at Nash.
“Just a few little things me and Maggie whipped up,” Mrs. Moran told them. “We figured right off you’d be stubborn enough to want to tag along with this hellion.” She gestured at Dakota, who tried to look innocent but it didn’t set well on his rugged face.
He hefted the sack. “Thanks, ma’am. Now we better be goin’. You all right?”
He asked this question of the pale-faced Nash and the operative nodded. But he looked far from healthy as he farewelled Mrs. Moran and followed Dakota stiffly out of the kitchen.
He had to ask Dakota to help him into the saddle and he saw Maggie’s pale face at the window of the room he had just left.
“You ain’t gonna be a goddamn hindrance, are you?” Dakota asked as they rode slowly out of the Moran yard. “I’d just as lief go in there alone if I got to waste time nursin’ you along, Clay.”
Nash clamped his jaws together and his eyes blazed at Dakota. “I won’t hold you back!” he gritted. “I’ll do my part!”
“You better,” Dakota Haines told him. “I won’t have time to play nursemaid once I start movin’ in on Clint Christian.”
“No one’s askin’ you to!” snapped Nash, determined to sit tall in the saddle and keep up with Dakota. “And it’ll be when we move in on Christian, not just you.”
Dakota nodded. “That’s how it should be. Now, let’s move out before Madame Mustang recovers enough to get word to Christian that we’re comin’.”
“Hold up! What d’you mean ‘recovers enough’? What in hell happened to her, anyway?”
Haines shrugged. “She got kinda upset that her place was burnin’ down. She tried to run back to save somethin’ she remembered. I had to slug her, otherwise she’d have been burnt to death. I did her a favor.”
“Must’ve slugged her pretty hard by the sounds of it!” Nash opined.
“We-ell, she was sittin’ on a hoss and fell when I did it. Landed on her head. Doc in Pistol Junction figures she’ll be okay in a week or two.”
Nash looked coldly at Haines. “You wouldn’t have hit her just to make sure she didn’t try to warn Christian that we’d be coming after him?”
“Hell, man, I don’t go round sluggin’ women!” Haines protested. “Now, let’s go.”
Madame Mustang’s directions proved to be accurate and they came onto the cougar rock just where she had said it would be. Nash was reeling in the saddle with fatigue and he was pretty certain that the wound in his side had opened again but he didn’t want to unwrap the thick bandages that had been put on so expertly by the doctor. He hoped their pressure would prevent the wound bleeding too much.
As they approached the dark, lichen-scabbed rock, Dakota Haines reined in and waited for Nash to draw level. He leaned on the saddle horn, looking closely at Nash’s gray, drawn face.
“Now’s the time to make up your mind, Clay,” he said flatly. “From here on in it’s gonna be action all the way, so if you don’t feel up to it, quit right now. Wouldn’t blame you or hold it agin you. You look goddamn awful and I won’t have time to make sure you’re okay.”
“We been through this already two days ago when we left the Morans’ place,” Nash told him curtly. “I’ll back you all the way and you won’t have to worry any. I’ll be right where I’m s’posed to be when you need me.”
Haines looked at him levelly. “Just so you are.” He added: “We’d better dismount and lead the broncs through, Clay.” Nash agreed and they dismounted and climbed the slope to the clump of hackberry brush. Haines went in on foot with his sawn-off gripped in both hands, hammers cocked, easing behind the brush. He could see the dim shape of the low tunnel stretching ahead. A rider couldn’t go through here.
He would have to lead his mount, he figured. The tunnel was less than fifty feet long and he signaled for Nash to stay back, then moved silently along the cold rock. There was a slight movement at the far end and he froze. In the sunlight at the other end he made out the bobbing head of a hobbled horse as it cropped grass and Dakota figured this would be the guard’s mount. Shifting his grip on the gun, he slid silently along the wall, moving his boots slowly along the ground, placing his steps warily, being careful not to kick two stones together.
The tunnel smelled of animals of some kind and he hoped he wouldn’t trip over some sleeping form or stand on a snake that had slithered in out of the heat. Then he cursed and struck out wildly as a powerful scent was followed by desperate flapping against his face. By the noise he realized they were bats and he likely had disturbed a small colony sleeping under the low roof. His heart was hammering as he crouched, flattening himself against the wall as the bats whirled and squeaked in their panic.
He saw the guard step into the mouth of the tunnel, yawning but trying to stifle it, obviously awakened from a doze. He held a rifle but the barrel was slanted to the ground as he stood there silhouetted against the sunlight, blinking, trying to see what was disturbing the bats.
“That you, Laredo?” he called, hawking and spitting to one side.
“Goddamn bats!” Haines growled just loud enough for the man to hear. He thrust off the wall and, keeping his head down and the shotgun half behind his back, he stumbled on towards the guard.
“Where’s your bronc?” the guard asked, crouching as he squinted, coming more awake now, looking for the silhouette of a horse against the far end of the tunnel where light filtered through the hackberry brush. “Hey! Someone’s down there outside the brush ... !”
He swung the rifle up and across his body as he levered and Haines swore as he lunged forward. But he wasn’t fast enough. The guard’s gun exploded just as Haines’ body crashed into him and carried him over backwards. He squirmed on top of the downed man and slammed the butt of the shotgun into the middle of his face, twice. There was a cracking sound as the man’s neck broke.
