by Brett Waring
“Two hours.”
“Usually on time?”
“Sure is. ’Specially with Tully in the drivin’ seat. He sets records and then sets out to break ’em. He’s always down here ahead of time. By as much as an hour and a half.”
Hume pursed his lips.
There could be many simple explanations why a stage was late, but he didn’t fool himself any—he had been in the business too long not to get hunches about such things. And his hunch told him there was trouble.
“What’ve you done about it?” he asked the agent.
“Sent a man out to Pike’s Bluff to watch the trail. He sent back a messenger fifteen minutes ago to say there’s nary a sign of the stage. No dust cloud or nothin’.”
Hume frowned. “How much gold was it carrying?”
“Hundred-twenty-five,” Carmody murmured.
“What?” Hume came out of his chair. “It’s usually around fifty pounds.”
Carmody swallowed and licked his lips. “They—they’ve speeded up the recovery process, Jim, while you was up north. Last run was a hundred; this one’s even bigger.”
“You double the guards?”
Carmody moved his feet uneasily and winced.
Hume knew the answer before the man even shook his head. “Just the usual—two.” The agent added swiftly, in an attempt at justification, “But they are the best there is, Jim. Arlin and Red Baccy. They know their job better’n anyone. I—I figured if there was too many guards, someone might figure it worthwhile makin’ a try at hittin’ the stage.”
“Judas, man! That much gold justified more guards. You had dummy passengers. You could’ve just replaced two of them with extra men.”
Carmody shrugged. “Yeah—but, no-one knows about these shipments, Jim. Far as most folk are concerned, it’s just a normal passenger night run down to Denver—that’s always booked-out well ahead of time. No-one knows about the mine usin’ the mercury to recover the pure gold from the ore.”
Hume looked grim. “Seems to me someone might’ve got wind of it. Get Sheriff Casey and round-up a posse. We’re going looking for that stage.”
He moved around the desk.
“You’re comin’?” Carmody asked, surprised.
“Damn right I am. With that much gold involved. Now, move. Pronto!”
Hume went quickly to the cupboard where he kept his guns as Carmody hurried from the office ...
Sheriff Casey sent one of his deputies on ahead to act as scout as the twenty-strong posse rode fast across the plains outside Denver, looking for some sign of the late stage, always hoping to see a dust spiral on the horizon that would tell them their worst fears were unfounded and that the stage had only been delayed by a cracked wheel spoke or lame team horse ...
But no dust spiral showed and the sun beat down relentlessly as it climbed towards its zenith. The posse rode in silence, grimfaced, and with guns across their knees—knowing in their hearts that they were riding towards tragedy.
Right on high noon, the deputy came racing back on his dusty mount, shouting and pointing behind him.
He skidded his horse to a stop at the head of the line where Hume snapped his cold gaze to the breathless man’s face.
“What’d you see, Will?” he snapped.
“A man. Staggerin’, near crawlin’. Looks like he might only have one arm.”
“Anything else?”
“Rock pile in the way, but I—think there’s somethin’ beyond,” Will replied cautiously. “Mebbe a—crashed stage ...?”
“Let’s go find out,” Hume said, his mouth closing like a bear trap as he lifted the reins and jammed home his spurs.
The man was down in the dust. They could see his dark shape against the lighter color of the earth as they topped the hogback and rode quickly down the far side.
Ten minutes of furious riding brought them to the man.
Hume was the first to quit leather, while his horse was still skidding.
He knelt by the man and gently rolled him onto his back, grimacing as he saw the blackened wound in the man’s shoulder.
It was a massive exit wound and only the front had been crudely packed with a kerchief. The man’s arm was thrust inside the sweat-stained shirt.
Tully’s eyes slowly flickered open.
“It’s Jim Hume, Tul,” the Detective Chief said gently, cradling the man’s head in his lap. He signaled to Sheriff Casey to bring a water canteen and gave the man a drink, then bathed his face with the tepid water. “Case, send a few men on ahead to take a look beyond those rocks. I think Will was right: there’s something out there and it could well be the stage ...” He turned back to the wounded man. “Feel up to talking, Tul?”
The driver’s voice was weak and ragged, some of the words barely audible, but he told his story and Hume’s face was rock-hard when the man finally slumped.
“’Nother thing, Jim,” Tully croaked, his hand feebly plucking at Hume’s sleeve. “F—feller was tall—hatchet-face—moustache—heavy but not longhorn—hair black—short. F-F-funny sorta—gun—butt like—like a—hayfork.”
Sheriff Casey met Hume’s gaze.
“Delirious,” he murmured.
Hume’s lips tightened. “No. I know that gun. It’s a special Remington. Used by Shell Shannon.”
Casey pursed his lips.
“Sounds like he’s changed his appearance some, but it could still fit him,” Hume said. “Case, have a couple men get Tul back to Denver to a sawbones. Send another man lickety-split to the telegraph station and get off a wire to Clay Nash. He last checked in at Guncarriage Hill. Tell him to return to Denver, pronto, and ...”
He broke off and looked up as the deputy who’d been sent to the rock pile came riding in. He hauled rein only yards from Hume and the sheriff.
“Stage is out there all right, Mr. Hume,” the man panted. “All smashed-up. Hosses dead. Men, too. Strongbox is gone and this was pinned to the coach door.”
He handed Hume a torn piece of brown wrapping paper. A crude message had been painted on it with axle grease.
“Sorry, Nash. Need a stake. Adios, amigo.”
There was no signature but Hume didn’t need to see one. He knew damn well who had left the note. He looked at the man Casey had selected to ride to the telegraph office.
“Tom, add to that wire to Clay Nash: Now official: Shannon has robbed a Wells Fargo stage. See it gets off top priority. I want Nash back here pronto.”
Three – Dead or Alive
Big Tree Crossing was a well-known stopover for owlhoots making into the hills and the many holes-in-the-wall where a man could lie low for a spell. It had seemed the logical place to start looking for Shannon.
Clay Nash had ridden in, gone to the nearest bar, and let it be known that he was willing to pay for information about the big killer.
Shannon, according to his file, knew that neck of the woods pretty well—and the men who would help him to hide.
Seeing the man had been spotted in Colorado—only fifty miles north—Big Tree Crossing seemed to Nash like a good place to strike it lucky.
He did no good at all the first day he was there, but on the morning of the second, a man calling himself Carney approached Nash in the back room of the saloon and said he had information about Shannon.
“Calls himself Shelton now,” Carney added.
Nash nodded. That could be right: it was the man’s first name. But he didn’t trust Carney. He knew him vaguely as a petty outlaw, a man who hung around the fringes of violence and robberies, moving in for the pickings.
He might well sell information but he had a yellow streak and Nash figured a man like Carney would be scared witless by someone like Shannon and would steer well clear of him.
Still, so far, what he said seemed like it could be the truth ...
“He come through here a few days back. Word is he’s holed-up in the hills at Smoke Reardon’s hangout,” Carney continued. “Smoke’s only got three or four men with him. They got hit bad by
a big posse on that Mormon Wells train hold-up that blew-up in their faces.”
Once again, that much was true: Nash knew about the attempt on the train at the watering tank at Mormon Wells and how a tip-off had placed a posse in ambush—waiting for the robbers to show.
They had cut them down in a hail of lead and only three or four men had escaped.
Nash looked narrowly at Carney, wondering if the man had double-crossed Reardon and set him up. It would be right in Carney’s line.
“You’re giving away a lot of information, Carney,” Nash said slowly.
Carney shrugged and smiled crookedly. He had a horse-like face, the impression enhanced by his large yellowed teeth and lantern jaw.
“Not really, Nash. You coulda picked up most of what I told you around town in a couple days. Thing is, Smoke Reardon’s moved to a new hole-in-the-wall. And I’m the only one knows where to find it.”
The Wells Fargo man felt better. Carney was holding on to his ace card. It made the situation more acceptable.
“How much?” he asked.
Carney gave him a sidelong glance. “Hundred?”
Nash kept his face a blank. Hume had authorized him to pay up to a thousand dollars for information and was arranging with Wells Fargo to post a substantial reward for Shannon’s capture.
Nash was still only half-hearted in his search for Shannon. He knew he had to shake the feeling that he owed the killer anything, but it was mighty hard when, every time he moved his shoulder, he was reminded that he could be rotting in a cave in the Wyoming hills if Shannon hadn’t come back to doctor his bullet wound ...
But a hundred dollars seemed a small price for Carney to be asking when the man must know how badly Shannon was wanted.
It made Nash suspicious.
“I could go to a hundred, I guess. But that’d have to include the location of Reardon’s hangout.”
Carney nodded. “It’s a deal.” He thrust out his hand and didn’t seem bothered when Nash refused to shake with him. “I’ll take you there.”
Nash was instantly wary and grabbed the man’s arm. “No. You tell me how to find it.”
Carney grinned. “No, Nash. I’m callin’ the shots here. I take you to Smoke. Or no deal.”
Nash knew he had little choice, but still had the distinct feeling it could be a trap.
At the same time, he knew from Shannon’s file that Smoke Reardon had once before gone to Shannon’s aid when the man had been on the dodge.
He had to take the chance.
Just before he rode out of town, Hume’s telegraph wire finally caught up with him.
Nash hesitated: it was still possible that Shannon had robbed the stage and had decided to hole-up with Reardon. And someone must have talked out of turn about that mine at Goldenrod using the mercury recovery method.
It was doubly interesting because the train Reardon had attempted to rob at Mormon Wells had also been carrying gold from the same mining company. It was beginning to look as if the information could have been leaked by the same source. And it was beginning to look as if the source could be from within the Company.
He ignored Carney’s curious stare at the telegram form, folded it into his shirt pocket and lifted the reins of his sorrel.
“Lead the way, Carney. I guess you’re not stupid enough to try to pull anything on me.”
Carney looked innocent. “Hell, no, Nash. I want that hundred.”
“Thought Smoke was a pard of yours?” Nash asked as they cleared town and headed into the timbered foothills of the ranges.
Carney shrugged. “We shared beans a couple of times, is all.”
Nash let it go. Carney was lying. It put him on his guard although he pretended to be relaxed. He rode casually, but his left hand held the reins—while his right rested on his thigh, scant inches from his holstered six-gun.
He knew Carney doubled back on his tracks a couple of times but he gave no indication that he had noticed they were travelling through the same part of the hills.
He could go along with that sort of thing all right. It was natural for the man to try to confuse him.
But Nash had lived with Indians for a couple of years down in Texas and it would take more than Carney’s clumsy efforts to bamboozle his sense of direction.
He allowed the man to ride on a little ahead, dropping back when he had the chance and scanning the high country ahead, trying to pick the best places where anyone might try to stage an ambush.
When Carney approached such an area, Nash came doubly alert. But they passed through many dangerous-looking places without incident.
Finally, they came to a narrow draw torn through the granite hills by some long-ago violence in the earth’s crust.
It twisted like a snake and there was little chance for a man to prepare for any danger that might lie around the corner ahead, there were so many doglegs in the trail.
Nash felt warnings of danger as he followed Carney into the draw.
It was a perfect place for bushwhacking someone. The walls were so close together that ricocheting lead would be more of a danger than someone trying for a direct hit: in fact, the bushwhacker needn’t be a marksman to hit his target in a place like that.
Suddenly, Carney spurred ahead around a sharp bend and his nervously pitched voice echoed back through the draw.
“Okay, Smoke. Okay,” he screamed as his gun appeared and he snapped a single shot back at Nash before skidding his mount around the bend.
Nash jammed home the spurs instantly, palming up his Colt so fast that his shot came hard on the heels of Carney’s.
He expected guns to begin hammering at him from the rim above the trail but nothing happened and he could hear Carney’s horse’s hoofs clattering on the granite.
Then Carney yelled again.
“Smoke, for Chrissakes, man. Nash is here.”
Nothing.
“Shoot,” Carney screamed.
Nash lay low along the sorrel’s neck as he rounded the bend and caught a glimpse of Carney swinging towards him—his gun blazing.
The bullets hit the granite and ricocheted, buzzing only inches above Nash’s back.
He slid towards the left, taking all his weight in that stirrup, and fired across the racing sorrel’s back.
His bullet clipped Carney’s ear lobe and sprayed blood on the man’s neck as he spun his mount in an effort to get to the next outcrop of rock.
Nash triggered again and his lead hit an outcrop of granite, flattened to the size of a silver dollar and slashed back in wicked ricochet.
Carney screamed like a stuck hog as the disc smashed into him and drove him clear out of the saddle—and face first into the opposite wall in the narrow defile.
His horse ran on but Carney lay sprawled in the rocks, his mouth open and gushing blood, staring with terror-filled eyes straight into the sun.
Nash leapt his mount over his body as a rifle opened up from the rim.
Maybe Carney had mistaken the bend where his pard had set up the ambush, or maybe his pard had chosen the wrong area.
Whatever had caused the delay, had likely saved Nash’s life.
The rifle on the rim blasted in three fast shots and the lead buzzed and snarled low down under his mount’s belly.
Nash got off his last shot at the rim, saw the man duck back, then slid back into the saddle, hauled out his Winchester and began levering.
He was still riding through the draw when the bushwhacker rose above the rim for another shot.
Nash blasted him clear off the rocks with two swift shots. The man’s body tumbled into the draw and Nash leapt his mount around the next bend, rifle at the ready, ran on through to the outcrop beyond, then hauled rein.
There were no more shots from the rim. The sounds of gunfire had faded from the draw and were cracking faintly through the ranges above. The only sounds were his horse’s harsh breathing, the occasional stomping of Carney’s mount, and the gargling, rattling breaths of the man he had just shot off the ri
m.
Rifle cocked, Nash walked his mount back around the bend and saw the fallen man was Smoke Reardon. The outlaw was dying.
The Wells Fargo man dismounted, walked across and nudged Reardon with the rifle barrel.
“Thought you’d’ve chosen a better man than Carney to help you set me up, Smoke.”
Reardon, his chest caved in from the two Winchester slugs, coughed and sprayed blood over Nash’s boots. His fingers clawed into the gravel, then he looked up with frightened, dying eyes.
“Beggars can’t—be—choosers,” he gasped. “H-heard you w-was offering dinero. F-figured we—we’d take it—off you.”
Nash squatted and looked coldly into the outlaw’s pain-ravaged face. “About your style, Smoke. Figured Carney was too eager to show me the way. All hogwash about Shannon, was it?”
Reardon merely looked at him, obviously having other things—like dying—on his mind.
Nash shook him by the shoulder.
“Smoke? How about Shannon? You seen him?”
Reardon gave no sign that he’d heard for a while, then he nodded, just once.
“When?”
“L-last—night ... H-he had—chest of—gold—on—on a mule. Gave me some to—to take care of you or—anyone who—came after him ...” His lips twitched and maybe it was a fleeting smile, or maybe only another grimace of agony. “We—tried to—take it off—him. The—the—g-gold ... W-wiped us out. I—I managed to get away ... Leg—hit ... Why I couldn’t get into—position for—you ... Collapsed in this—section ’stead of—the one Carney was—expectin’ ...”
Nash shrugged. “Should’ve known better than to tackle someone like Shannon, Smoke. He’s way out of your league. Leave you for dead.”
Reardon nodded. “H-he did that.”
“Yeah,” Nash sighed. “You’re headed for the Happy Huntin’ Grounds, Smoke. You know that well as I do. I can’t do anythin’ for you. But I’ll bury you decent—if you tell me where Shannon’s headed.”
Reardon shook his head slowly. “C-can’t. D-dunno. But mentioned—Texas. M-might’ve been just—joshin’—throw us some—Dunno. But it kinda—slipped out in—conversation. M ... might be—gospel.”
