by Brett Waring
“What in hell’s this?” demanded Haines, looking coldly at Christian, who had his eyes closed and seemed to be having difficulty in breathing. There was a tent built over his wounded right leg.
“Transferrin’ him to Tucson to let some sawbones have a look at his leg,” Buck Petersen said. He jerked a thumb towards the doctor. “Doc here reckons if it don’t come off he’ll die of gangrene and cheat the hangman. The prison governor wants him transferred down. There’s gonna be hundreds pour into this town to see the hangin’ and he don’t aim to disappoint ’em.”
“Kinda light on with guards, ain’t you?” Nash said.
“Be more comin’ before the train pulls out,” Petersen said easily. “He’ll have six armed guards all the way and they won’t leave his side for a minute.”
Nash was looking hard into the doctor’s eyes and the man dropped his gaze and fussed with the sheets covering Clint Christian. He glanced at Haines and Dakota shook his head slowly. He didn’t like this any better than Nash.
“Say, Sheriff, this don’t seem right to me,” Nash said. “You ask me, that doctor could’ve been bribed—”
“I beg your pardon!” snapped the medic, looking angrily at Nash and drawing himself up. “If you think that I ... ”
There was a fusillade of shots from the platform of the passenger car behind them and the lawman with the shotgun threw up his hands and yelled as he fell between the train wheels and was still, Buck Petersen went down without a sound and the warder at the stretcher lifted to his toes as a bullet took him between the eyes. People at the depot yelled and ran.
Dakota Haines and Clay Nash abruptly went for their guns. The doctor, blubbering, fell to the platform and lay there, yelling not to shoot him, his hands over his head. But the sheet on the stretcher was suddenly flung back, entangling Nash and Dakota, and Clint Christian sat up with a forty-five in his hand.
“Just don’t make a move, you sons of bitches!” he snarled, as they fought the sheet away from them. They froze when they looked down the barrel of his six-gun and Nash glanced back and saw a man and woman holding smoking rifles coming down off the platform of the passenger car.
“Well, well,” Dakota said calmly. “That’s Madame Mustang and I figure that dark-lookin’ gent has to be Laredo ... ”
As they drew level, Christian looked at them sharply. “What happened? You weren’t s’posed to jump ’em till you had the train crew under your guns!”
“Didn’t know Nash and Haines were gonna be on the same train,” Laredo said. “Figured we’d better make our move when they were bracin’ Petersen ... ”
“I’m sure glad to see Mr. Dakota Haines again, anyway,” the woman spoke up, her face tight, eyes bitter as she looked at the agent. “Now unclip that damn sawn-off shotgun, you trigger-happy skunk! I’m going to take great pleasure in blowing you apart with it!”
“Come on, ease up on that stuff!” Christian said. “Get me out of here! I still can’t walk fast and that shootin’ll bring a crowd of deputies. Go put a gun on the engineer, Laredo, and let’s go ... ”
The half-breed nodded but looked dubiously at the woman. “I’ll be all right!” she snapped, still glaring at Haines. “I’ll be fine ... ”
Christian was keeping his gun on Nash as he eased his good leg down off the stretcher. “I’ve got some squarin’ away to do with you, Nash, after what you did to my leg! I reckon I’ll shoot off both your knee-caps and leave you to crawl around like a bed-bug!”
There was a single booming shot and Clint Christian’s body spun off the stretcher to flop onto the cinders beside the track. Madame Mustang whirled, her rifle coming up, but Dakota slammed the wheeled stretcher into her and knocked her flying. He stood over her with his shotgun pressed against her head and she didn’t move. Nash whirled and ran down the long line of the train after Laredo. The breed had turned at the shot and, running, blazed several shots at Nash. The Wells Fargo man dived to the ground, somersaulted and came up, gripping his Colt in both hands, the foresight laid across Laredo’s running form. He led the man just a shade and dropped hammer. The gun bucked and Laredo faltered in mid-stride, started to fall. Nash shot him again and the ’breed went over onto his side and lay still.
Then Nash ran back down the platform to where Dakota Haines had pulled Madame Mustang to her feet and was holding her by the arm. All the fight seemed to have gone out of her but there was still hatred for him in her dark eyes.
Nash checked in mid-stride as he caught a glimpse of someone else then: Maggie Moran, coming slowly out of the shadows, face pale, a smoking six-gun held down at her side. She was staring at the still form of Clint Christian. Her bullet had taken him squarely through the heart. Nash walked up to her, gently took the gun from her hand and saw that the brass butt-strap was engraved with the Wells Fargo legend.
“I—I was bringmg it to you as a—a going away present,” Maggie said in a dazed voice. “It was pa’s. Ma and I decided we’d like you to have it ... as a keepsake ... I saw Christian with a gun on you and I—I—just had to fire.”
She swayed and came in against him, her legs weak. Nash slipped an arm around her shoulders. He kissed the top of her head.
“You did well, Maggie,” he said quietly. “You did real well. I won’t forget this. Ever.”
She looked up into his face. “And I’ll never forget you, Clay Nash ... Oh, I know I’m not much more than a kid, and I can’t expect you to feel about me the way I do about you, but ... well, I guess I’ll get married some day and have kids, but I’ll never forget you. Never.”
“We’ll see each other again, Maggie,” Nash said gently.
Her eyes searched his face. “You mean that, Clay?”
“I sure do.”
Dakota Haines decided to put in his two cents’ worth as he shoved Madame Mustang roughly into the arms of a deputy lawman who came pounding up.
“Sure, we’ll be back,” he said. “When we come to see our godson ... Clayton Haines Moran!”
Maggie slipped an arm around Haines, hugging both big Wells Fargo agents to her body. She was smiling.
The Clay Nash Series by Brett Waring
Undercover Gun
A Gun Is Waiting
Long Trail to Yuma
… And more to come every other month!
CLAY NASH 3: LONG TRAIL TO YUMA
By Brett Waring
First Published by The Cleveland Publishing Pty Ltd
Copyright © Cleveland Publishing Co. Pty Ltd, New South Wales, Australia
First Smashwords Edition: April 2017
Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information or storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.
This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book
Series Editor: Ben Bridges
Text © Piccadilly Publishing
Published by Arrangement with The Cleveland Publishing Pty Ltd.
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