by Brett Waring
“Clay!”
“Jim, we lost Company men and two passengers in that raid. Four other passengers were wounded and are suin’ the Company. You’re loco if you knuckle under to this feller—”
“This ‘feller’, as you call me,” growled McAllister, “represents the U.S. Government, Nash. In other words, the President himself. You’d do well to remember that before goin’ off half-cocked!”
Nash paused with his hand on the door knob. He eased the door open a few inches and then smiled crookedly at Jim Hume. “You know I never go off half-cocked, Jim. I get all my facts straight and then I move. Adios for now.”
“Wait a minute, Clay!” Hume thundered, slamming a fist down on the desk and getting to his feet. “You come back here! You’ll only make trouble for the Company!”
He was shouting through the open door and McAllister was standing in the middle of the office with his fisted hands at his sides, but Nash strode purposefully through the outer office, and past the gawking clerks and passengers, heading for the street door. The eavesdropping clerk managed to look busy, though he was bursting to tell the others what he had heard through the walls.
Jim Hume came halfway across the outer office as Nash went into the street. “Clay, don’t be a fool! If you disobey orders in this, I can’t help you! It’s out of my hands ...”
But Nash wasn’t listening. He was already at the hitch rack, untying the reins of his sorrel. He swung lithely into the saddle and wrenched the animal’s head around, riding swiftly away from the Wells Fargo depot.
McAllister and Hume stepped onto the porch.
“He’s a damn fool,” McAllister said, ignoring the passengers who were crowding behind him to see what all the shouting was about. “If he interferes in this, I’ll throw the book at him, Hume. I mean it. I’ll have your man behind bars.”
His face like a thundercloud, McAllister threw a jerky salute at the Wells Fargo detective chief, jammed on his campaign hat, and strode angrily down the boardwalk.
Jim Hume shook his head slowly as he turned and went back into the office. He had the look of a man who could see only trouble and with good reason—he knew there was no stopping Clay Nash once he set his teeth into something like this. The clerks, too, knew Nash’s reputation.
He would take on the whole U.S. Government if he had to—and to hell with the consequences.
Chapter Two – Traitor
The three soldiers at the table raised their foaming beer glasses in salute to Clay Nash as he leaned on the bar of the Palace Saloon in Lubbock, Texas. The Wells Fargo man, dressed like any cowhand riding the grubline, acknowledged the salute with a nod and then downed his shot glass of rye. He turned to the balding bartender.
“Three more shot glasses, amigo.”
He took the bottle and glasses to the table and edged out a chair with his boot before sitting down. The soldiers watched as he filled each glass with whiskey. He set a drink before each man.
“Your good health, amigos.”
They drank and the man to Nash’s right wiped a hairy hand across his wet lips. The other two stared silently.
“Reckon you’re wonderin’ why a complete stranger rides in on the Wells Fargo stage and starts buyin’ you drinks, huh?” Nash said.
“We don’t mind why,” the big soldier grinned. “You just keep buyin’. You don’t have to explain.”
He picked up the whiskey bottle, sloshed rye into his glass, and passed the bottle on to his companions.
Nash smiled thinly. “No, I don’t mind. Finish the bottle between you. It’s paid for.”
“The only thing that is,” the big soldier said pointedly.
“Okay,” Nash said. “So far.”
They stared at him.
“You from the South?” one soldier asked finally.
“El Paso,” Nash replied. “Rode north with a trail herd far as Big Springs. Was lookin’ for a pard of mine. He was in the army and I heard he was stationed around Big Springs. Since then I heard he came to Lubbock here but the army kicked him out.” Nash grinned. “Which seems about right for Buck. My only surprise is that it didn’t happen sooner. A lot sooner.”
The soldiers stared at him levelly and drank more rye.
“Buck, you say?” asked the third soldier, speaking for the first time. He had a ragged scar running across his cheek, puckering up the lower part of his left ear, “Buck who?”
“Buck Tanner,” Nash said. “A real hell-raiser. Dunno what he done, but it seems the army was glad to get rid of him. You fellers know him?”
The big one seemed to have been appointed the spokesman. He toyed with his glass. “Most everyone knew Buck Tanner. Orneriest son of a bitch ever joined the army.”
The Wells Fargo man shrugged. “Sure sounds like Buck.”
The man’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah? Well, we didn’t find him too funny, amigo. Steal the gold out of a man’s back teeth, he would. First to hunt cover if there was an ambush and the last to leave. Always came back from patrol with near as much ammo as he set out with. No, mister, we didn’t think much of your pard. Same as we don’t think much of you if you’re a friend of Tanner’s.”
Nash smiled crookedly. “I notice you didn’t refuse my drinks. Makes you sort of ... obligated.”
The big man leaned forward. “I’ll tell you what it makes me, amigo. It makes me damn mad when I think of what Tanner got away with for years. Finally he stepped across the line and was caught tradin’ off ammo to some Injuns for gold dust. Lucky he wasn’t shot. ’Stead, they booted him out with a dishonorable discharge. And we say good riddance.”
The man thrust out his jaw aggressively and Nash figured it was time to change tack. He tugged at his left ear lobe.
“Yeah, well, I didn’t know about that part. Fact is, I’ve got a score of my own to settle with Tanner. Didn’t like to say so right off, in case you fellers were pards of his.”
The big man snorted. “Hell, Tanner never had a pard! Not even a rattler would stay in his bed—and don’t think we didn’t try puttin’ one or two in!”
Nash laughed. “Well, I guess he’s somethin’ of a snake himself. Point is, I’m lookin’ for him and I’m willin’ to pay for information that’ll lead me to him.”
The three soldiers exchanged glances.
“How much?” the big one asked.
“Double eagle,” Nash said.
“Make it two.”
Nash shook his head. “I’ll find him sooner or later myself. Might take a little longer is all. Thanks for your time, gents.”
He stood up but the soldiers rose with him. The barkeep reached under the counter for his mallet, thinking there might be a brawl. He knew how some soldiers could gang up on a man.
“Hey, what’s your hurry?” the big man said, forcing a smile that had no mirth in it. “Set down and let’s talk. We can deal.”
“For a double eagle?” Nash said.
The man shrugged. “That and another bottle.”
Nash considered the situation, then he nodded to the barkeep and the relieved man set down his mallet and brought another bottle to the table. Nash paid with coins from a small chamois bag he kept inside his shirt. He was aware of the three soldiers staring at the bag as he took out a gold twenty-dollar piece and spun it on the table.
“Where will I find him?”
The big soldier bit the double eagle between yellowed teeth and pocketed it. “Have a drink,” he said.
Nash shook his head. “Time’s runnin’ out for me, amigo. There’s a man behind me by the name of McAllister I’d rather not tangle with. He’s an army captain and he’s got more resources to draw on than me. I have to reach Tanner before McAllister knows I’m after him.”
“Josh McAllister?” the big soldier asked.
Nash frowned. “Yeah.”
The man pursed his lips. “Mighty tough customer, feller. Army investigator. They say he killed more men than most officers workin’ patrol in bad Injun country. I’d say you might have trou
bles. No man tangles with McAllister and just walks away.”
“Then don’t keep me any longer. Where’s Tanner?”
The big man shrugged. “Last I heard he was workin’ bar for his brother-in-law in Amarillo. Saloon called the Dancin’ Gal, on Front Street. His brother-in-law, hombre by the name of Brazos Lane, is a mighty tough customer. Used to be a gunfighter down along the Border. They say he made his stake bounty huntin’, and all the men he brought in were shot in the back.” The man picked up a shot glass of whiskey that one of the others had poured for him. He lifted it to Nash. “Good luck, amigo. You’re gonna need it.”
Clay Nash was inclined to agree, for he well knew the reputation of Brazos Lane. The man was a paid killer and gunfighter who had supposedly hung up his guns a few years ago.
It looked like being an interesting trail.
As Clay Nash rode towards Amarillo on a hired mount, he thought about Jeb Burnley.
Queer old cuss. Jeb would do anything for a friend, but the booze had ruined him. It had shot his career prospects all to hell and his marriage, too. He had married a fine woman from the East who contracted a mysterious disease that left her in a wheelchair, unable to walk. Before that happened, she had borne Jeb two sons and a daughter. The girl had run off with a slick drummer and might be anywhere now, no loss to the mother. Both sons had stuck by the crippled woman, though, and they had a small hard rock spread in New Mexico.
Nash wasn’t looking forward to breaking the news about old Jeb to them. Strangely enough, they still cared a lot for him, and, in his own way, Jeb had cared for them too. The fact that he had walked out on them before his boozing caused a tragedy had proved that.
He and Roarin’ Dick Magee, Wells Fargo’s famous stage driver, had initiated Nash into the mysteries of shotgun guarding and other aspects of working for the Company. They had rousted him and joshed him, but each time it had taught him something. After a while the two older men had looked upon Nash as a son, and they had followed some wild trails together.
A few years back Nash had picked Jeb out of a gutter in Las Cruces. He got him cleaned up and slapped him stupid, telling him to pull himself together and go back to Mary and the two boys. They hadn’t parted on exactly friendly terms, despite Nash’s good intentions. Now he was sorry that he hadn’t had a chance to see Jeb one last time, to let the man know how he felt about him.
The shot came from the rim of a small draw Nash was riding through. Before the flat echoes kicked back at him from the broken walls he recognized the weapon as being a Trapdoor Springfield because of its distinctive roar.
He didn’t know where the bullet went, but he instinctively spurred left, jumped the horse back to the right, then stretched out along its back as he drew his six-gun, his gaze raking the rim.
He caught a glimpse of a moving black blob that could be a man’s head. As he beaded on the object, the man fired again and he heard the lead this time as it buzzed past his face. He veered away and then two more rifles banged at him, one from the opposite wall and the other from behind an egg-shaped boulder ahead.
There was movement behind the boulder and he saw a soldier’s cap.
Nash quit leather but didn’t release the horse. He held the reins and dragged the animal behind some broken rocks, sliding his rifle out of its sheath. He hunkered down then, his face pressed against shale as lead whined off his shelter. The horse fought to get away, whickering and jerking its head. Nash cursed and held onto the reins, keeping the horse under cover. He knew the old army trick of shooting the enemy’s horse first ...
He finally managed to ground-hitch the animal, holding the reins down with a heavy rock. Then he levered a shell into his Winchester and rolled onto his back as a small cascade of stones spilled over his shoulders. One of the ambushers was trying to get a back-shot at him from the rim above. Nash fired, levered, and fired two more times, so fast that the three shots blended into one prolonged roar. Stone kicked from the edge of the rim and the man up there reared back, clawing at his face. The third bullet took him in the chest and he fell, an arm in a cavalry shirt dangling lifelessly over the edge.
Crouching, Nash ducked as lead from the other two bushwhackers peppered his rock. Nash threw himself to the right, belly-down, and drew bead on a figure that moved against the skyline above and to his left. The Winchester cracked and the man dived behind the nearest rock.
Nash jerked back as rock chips burned into his cheek and then he rolled, coming up on his knees and spotting the killer standing to get a better shot. Nash’s rifle cracked twice and the bushwhacker jerked around, staggered for balance and stepped off the rim edge, giving a brief cry as he plummeted down. He hit the slope, bounced, somersaulted and rolled limply to the bottom.
Nash thumbed fresh cartridges into the Winchester’s loading gate. He heard a horse whinny and was up and running before the sounds of a galloping mount reached him. He pounded up the slope, topped the rim and was in time to see a big man in an army uniform riding down the slope beyond. Clay Nash knelt, steadied his forearm on a rock and carefully beaded his man. He led the running horse by a couple of feet and squeezed off his shot, knowing he would get only one in.
The soldier kept riding, then suddenly jerked upright as if pulled by a wire before falling out of the saddle. His body had barely stopped rolling when Nash slid down the slope and ran to him, his cocked rifle covering the man as he groaned and lifted his head, turning a gravel-scarred face up to Nash.
It was the big soldier from the saloon back in Lubbock and he was badly hit. Nash hunkered down beside him, looked at the wound and winced. The bullet had gone in from the side and slightly to the rear, exiting under the opposite arm in a ragged, blood-gushing hole. He shook his head slowly at the soldier’s enquiring look.
“They your two pards from the saloon back in the draw?” Nash asked.
The man nodded, then coughed blood.
“Why? Was it this?” Nash opened his shirt and indicated the chamois bag of gold pieces.
The soldier nodded jerkily.
“Should’ve figured it.” Nash’s face was grim. “Was that gospel or a pack of lies about Tanner in Amarillo? Did you lie to me just to get the double eagle?”
The man slowly shook his head. His blood-flecked bps moved and Nash leaned close.
“G-gospel!”
“Well, that’s somethin’. Damn you and your pards! Now you’re all bound for Boothill. There’s nothin’ I can do for you feller, unless you’d like me to put an end to your misery ...”
The soldier stared with dull eyes for so long that Nash thought he was dead, but then he nodded slowly. The Wells Fargo man sighed, stood, and drew bead ...
Chapter Three – Fast Guns
Amarillo hadn’t changed much since the last time he’d been here, Nash thought as he rode his dusty mount slowly along Main Street. There was the same mixture of adobe and clapboard buildings and the faded paint of the signs—even, he swore, the same painted girls were lined up on the balcony of the bordello, eyeing the men in the street. He earned a couple of calls but although he waved and grinned, he refused the offers the girls made. His ancestry was insulted but he only laughed as he rode on to turn left into Front Street, looking for the Dancin’ Gal Saloon.
He found it about halfway along the street and recalled that on his last visit it had been a theater where a local repertory group had put on plays. Now its fresh paint made it stand out on the street.
Inside, Nash saw that the small stage was still being used. A pale-skinned, henna-haired songbird was warbling and high-kicking, trying to get some attention from the drinkers and card players scattered around the smoke-filled room. But no one paid her much attention and when she took her bow there was only a smattering of applause. A bunch of cowhands, obviously just in from a trail drive, tossed a few coins at her, and a lanky hand with a broken nose tried his luck with the girl. After a minute or so they seemed to reach an agreement and the cowhand climbed onto the stage, helped her pick up the coins
and then they walked into the wings arm-in-arm.
Nash breasted the long bar and looked at the three sweating men behind the zinc-topped counter. To Nash, two seemed to move with an unconscious rhythm, taking orders, pulling beer, cleaning glasses, swamping down the bar top, and putting money into the cash drawer. The third man was slower, more awkward.
He was tall, with skin tanned a mahogany color. Nash shoved along the crowded bar until he reached the end where the tall man labored.
“Beer and a whiskey chaser,” Nash said, deliberately pitching his voice low.
The man went on serving others, earning curses when he brought beer instead of whiskey on one occasion. He cursed right back and one of the barkeeps looked at him sharply. The tall man bit at his bottom lip, murmured “Sorry” to the customer and turned to someone else. Nash gave his order again and then a third time.
Finally, as the man passed close to fill another order, Nash’s hand shot across the counter and his fingers gripped a hard muscled arm, jerking the man to a stop. He looked coldly into the man’s angry face.
“You deaf, feller?”
“I ain’t, but you could be wearin’ a gap in your smile if you don’t let go of my arm, feller!” the bartender growled.
“Listen. I’ve yelled my order three times and fellers just breastin’ the bar’ve been served before me. Now get me a beer with a whiskey chaser!” Nash gritted the words and did not release his grip on the man’s arm.
The barkeep shook loose and lifted a bottle threateningly. “You’ll get served when I’ve filled that gent’s order. Gimme a chance, damn it, I’m new to this!”
“And I’m mighty thirsty,” Nash said. “To hell with that other order. You get mine.”
“Now just wait a minute, you!” growled the man whose order was being filled. He was a cowman, beefy, ugly, with enough scars so that he wouldn’t have to worry about his face getting marked up in another brawl. “Just hold your damn horses! I’ve been eatin’ trail dust for three weeks and I aim to wash it out of my throat right now. Like the ’keep says, wait your turn!”
