Clay Nash 20

by Brett Waring

  Nash hit him in the middle of the face and the cowman staggered back, blood spurting from his nose and his thick arm jostling drinkers, knocking bottles and glasses off the bar. Nash picked up a bottle and hit the man over the head with it as he lunged back. The barkeep’s mouth sagged when Nash smashed the bottle on the bar edge and threatened him with the jagged glass. Drinkers edged back at the look on Nash’s face.

  “The service in this place stinks,” Nash gritted out as the barman held up his hands placatingly. The other two bartenders edged towards the far end of the bar, but one man kept glancing under the counter and Nash was alert in case he reached for a weapon hidden there. He went around the end of the bar, and then, as the tall man pressed back against the shelves, he held a jagged bottle in front of his face, left-handed.

  The saloon had gone silent, all eyes on Nash and the bartender.

  “Get me a drink from the bottle with the red label,” Nash ordered.

  The tall man swallowed hard. “That’s the boss’s special bottle.”

  “Then it oughta be smooth. Pour it, amigo!”

  The man’s hand shook badly and he spilled more than he put into a shot glass. Nash took the drink and downed it swiftly. The barman at the far end chose that moment to make his try for the shotgun under the counter. Nash kept the jagged bottle menacing the tall man as his right hand dipped and rose in a blur. The six-gun thundered in his fist and the barman was smashed back against the shelves by the strike of lead in the shoulder. The shotgun spilled from his hands to the floor. The man sobbed as he sat down, stunned and pain-wracked.

  Nash looked into the tall man’s face. “You Buck Tanner?”

  The man blinked. Still dazed by the fast events, he nodded before he could stop himself. He realized he had been tricked when he saw the slow smile appear on Nash’s face. The Wells Fargo man gestured with the jagged bottle to the wounded man and the semi-conscious cowboy.

  “You saw what I’ll do to get a drink. Just imagine how far I’d go to get some information I want.”

  Tanner ran his tongue over his lips. “Wh-what sort of information?”

  “About the Pueblo River raid.”

  Tanner stiffened.

  “I doubt that he could tell you anything about that massacre, Nash,” a cold voice said behind the Wells Fargo man.

  Nash stepped back, the broken bottle still menacing Tanner, the smoking six-gun in his right hand. He looked to the side and faced a man some four inches shorter than himself, a lean, wolf faced man wearing a hat with a concho-studded band. He wore a brocade vest over a white shirt. His striped trousers were tucked into half-boots. There was a slanting gunbelt with a tied-down holster on his right side and a sheathed Bowie knife on his left hip. A worked silver band was on the little finger of his left hand.

  He drilled agate eyes into Nash’s gaze now and there was the suggestion of a twitch to his thin lips. “Long time, Clay.”

  “Not long enough, Brazos. I could happily go the rest of my life without ever layin’ eyes on you again.”

  “Mutual. What the hell are you doin’, comin’ into my place and shootin’ it up? You on the prod over this Pueblo River thing?”

  “Kind of. One of the guards was a pard of mine.”

  Brazos Lane pursed his lips, seemingly not in the least worried by the Colt in Nash’s hand. “Yeah, I guess by your past record that must rile you some. But why pick on Tanner? He had nothin’ to do with that raid.”

  “Heard he might’ve. Got a dishonorable discharge just before the special rifles were shipped out via Wells Fargo ... and now he works for you.”

  Brazos’ eyes narrowed. “So?”

  Nash looked at him levelly, his gun holding steady on the man’s chest. “One of the survivors heard the raider’s leader called ‘Brazos’.”

  Lane laughed. “Judas Priest! Do you know how many hombres are named Brazos in Texas?”

  “Nope. But I know of a murderin’ bounty hunter and hired gun named Brazos who’s been known to run arms across the Rio as well as a little dope.”

  Brazos Lane was no longer amused. “Get out of here, Nash. You got nothin’ on me or Tanner. Vamoose while your luck still holds.”

  “Not yet. Where were you at the time of that raid, Brazos?”

  “Right here. I’ve been tryin’ to get the place organized into a payin’ proposition. Rundown mess when I took over. Been bustin’ a gut to get it out of the red. Hardly had time to spit. Ask anyone in town. I ain’t left in a coon’s age, surely not long enough to get down to Pueblo River and back.”

  He appealed silently to the crowd in the saloon and several men confirmed his words with nods. Not that Nash put much store in this; they were all hard cases and would swear to almost anything for a few drinks.

  Nash stared into Brazos’ eyes. “Guess that’d go for Tanner too, huh?”

  “Yeah. Buck was married to my sis for a spell before she got herself killed in an Indian raid. When he had that little trouble with the army, I was glad to give him a job. He’s comin’ along fine.”

  “Not from what I saw, but that’s your business.” Nash holstered his gun and smiled faintly as he saw Brazos flex the fingers on his right hand; Nash knew then that Brazos had been a lot more tense than he had shown. “Guess maybe I’ll stick around town for a spell and check things out for myself.” He gestured at the gun on Brazos’ hip. “Heard you were tryin’ to hang that up.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Do you wear it all the time around here?”

  “Mostly. I’m not stupid, Nash. I made a lot of enemies. Some of the men I killed have kinfolk still walkin’ round. I don’t aim to get caught nappin’.”

  “Still practice?”

  “Every mornin’. Regular as clockwork.”

  Nash smiled. “Want to watch that, Brazos. Men like us can’t afford to be regular at anything. You turn up at the same place at the same time for a spell and one day you’ll walk smack into an ambush. Thought you’d know about that.”

  Brazos’ face was tight. “Mebbe I forgot. Thanks for remindin’ me.”

  Nash’s smile widened. “Don’t worry, Brazos. When I come, you’ll see me. I don’t work from ambush.”

  “Any time, Nash.”

  Nash laughed. “Not yet. I know you were in on that Pueblo River raid, Brazos, and I’ll prove it. Then I’ll come after you.” He turned to Buck Tanner. “And you.”

  Tanner paled and jumped back as Nash dropped the broken bottle to the floor. The Wells Fargo man stepped around the end of the bar and brushed past Brazos Lane.

  “We’ll meet again, Nash,” the saloon man said quietly.

  “You can bet on it,” Nash said.

  Then the batwings swung open and Captain Joshua McAllister strode in, followed by Jim Hume and a man with a longhorn moustache and a tarnished sheriff’s star pinned to his frayed vest. McAllister pointed at Nash.

  “That’s the man, Sheriff. Arrest him.”

  Nash’s gaze darted from the army man to Hume and then to the sheriff. The middle-aged lawman was summing up Nash, taking in the set of his gun rig and the hard, flinty look in his eyes. Nash casually dropped a hand to his gun butt. The sheriff stiffened and McAllister colored.

  “Damn it, Sheriff, I said to arrest that man! He’s a murderer!”

  “Now hold on there, McAllister,” Jim Hume said, starting forward. “Clay, just relax for a spell till we—”

  “Who am I s’posed to’ve murdered?” Nash asked.

  “Three soldiers, that’s who!” McAllister snapped angrily. “You killed them in a draw south of here, outside of Lubbock.”

  Nash nodded. “I killed ’em all right. They bushwhacked me—for this.”

  He opened his shirt to reveal the chamois bag of gold pieces, shaking it so the coins clicked together.

  “I paid them a double eagle to tell me where to find Tanner here. They figured to relieve me of the rest of the gold so they bushwhacked me in that draw.”

  Hume turned to McA
llister. “Told you it’d be somethin’ like that.”

  “Then how come you ain’t even wounded?” demanded the army captain. “Three men highly trained in the use of firearms got the drop on you in a draw, yet you rode away and left them dead. One was shot in the back, one in the chest, and the third had a body wound and a shot through the head.”

  “He asked me to put him out of his misery,” Nash said.

  “And the back-shot man?”

  Nash remembered the man who had been running along the rim when he fired; the man had been half-turned away at the time. He shrugged. “He was movin’ away from me when he got hit.”

  “It sounds like gospel to me, McAllister,” Hume said. “Clay Nash isn’t a murderer.”

  The army man turned to the detective chief. “He was told to stay out of this investigation. He defied us both. Do you expect me to believe his story after that? And you’re here only on sufferance, Hume, remember that.”

  “Listen, mister, you don’t talk like that to me!” Hume exploded. “I’d like to see you make me leave here right now. I’ve taken a heap from you, McAllister, but it’s as far as I go. I’ll cooperate with the army because the Company told me to, but by hell that don’t mean I can’t tangle privately with you. In fact, if you’ll just step outside right now we can—”

  McAllister ignored Hume’s angry outburst and whirled to face the silent sheriff. “Goddamn it, what’re you standin’ there for? I told you I want this man arrested! Right now!”

  “Well, it don’t seem to be near as clear-cut as you made out, Captain,” the lawman said. “Besides, he’s got a hand on his gun butt and I know how fast Clay Nash is ...”

  “Arrest him!” McAllister raged.

  Nash looked challengingly at the sheriff and the man licked at his lips.

  “Go ahead and put a gun on him, Sheriff,” Brazos Lane said from behind Nash. “He won’t draw.”

  There was the sound of a gun hammer clicking to full cock. Nash started to turn and then Brazos Lane stepped forward and his gun rose and fell in a short arc, knocking off the Wells Fargo man’s hat. Nash crumpled unconscious to the floor. Hume took a step forward but stopped when the sheriff’s six-gun came up. The lawman knelt, took manacles from his belt and snapped them on Nash’s wrists. Hume turned his cold gaze to Brazos Lane.

  “Who asked you to buy into this, Lane?”

  The saloon man grinned. “Always willin’ to lend a hand to the law or the army, Hume. Anyway, people here can swear to it that Nash was on the prod. He dropped a cowman, wounded my barkeep, and threatened Buck with a broken bottle. Wouldn’t surprise me at all if he murdered those three soldiers.”

  Jim Hume’s eyes narrowed but he was silent as the sheriff enlisted the aid of two husky men. The unconscious Nash was carried out.

  McAllister nodded to Lane. “Obliged, mister.” He flicked his gaze to Tanner. “I want to see you, Tanner.”

  The lanky barkeep curled a lip. “Go to hell, McAllister. You ain’t my captain anymore. I’m discharged, remember.”

  “Dishonorably!”

  “Go to hell,” Tanner told him again. Then, turning away, he began sweeping up broken glass behind the bar.

  The captain started forward angrily but Brazos Lane stepped into his path.

  “Easy, Captain. Buck’s right. You got no jurisdiction over him anymore. If you want to know where he was during the Pueblo River raid, he was servin’ drinks right here in the saloon. Half the bar’ll swear to that. Good enough for you?”

  McAllister frowned, glaring down at Brazos Lane, his jaw muscles working. Finally he nodded and turned to Hume.

  “I’m gonna throw the book at your man, Hume! I’ll see him strung up before I quit this town!”

  The detective chief scrubbed a hand over his jaw as McAllister left the saloon.

  Clay Nash had a welt on the side of his head that gave his face a lopsided look as he sat on the edge of his bunk, rolling a smoke from the tobacco sack Jim Hume had been allowed to pass through the bars. A deputy lawman leaned against the passage door near the cell as Hume stood at the barred door.

  “It’s gotten way out of hand,” Hume said. “There’s pressure on from Washington to get those guns back and it’s been passed right down the line all the way to McAllister. I can savvy how he feels, even though I think he’s gone crazy havin’ you arrested. But you have to admit that the story on those three dead soldiers can be made to look any way he sees fit ...”

  Nash fired a match on a thumbnail and lit his cigarette. “They bushwhacked me just like I told you, Jim.”

  Hume nodded. “Okay, I believe you. What I’m sayin’ is that I don’t pull much weight around here right now. McAllister’s convinced that you gunned down the soldiers in cold blood. Seems he’d alerted the army to watch out for you after you disappeared from Big Springs. McAllister figured that you’d find your way up here eventually. Looks to him—and I got to admit it’ll look the same way to a lot of other people—like the soldiers tried to move in and stop you from horning in on army business and you gunned ’em down.”

  “I told you it wasn’t like that! Damn it, Jim, are you callin’ me a liar?”

  Hume sighed. “Will you calm down? All I’m saying is that McAllister can make it look bad for you and he aims to do just that. He figures to see you hang and get you out of his hair once and for all.”

  Nash paled and looked towards the deputy who was obviously listening intently. His hand shook a trifle as he lifted the cigarette to his mouth and he saw the deputy smirk. Nash figured it would be reported in the saloon tonight how the hand of the tough Clay Nash had trembled at the thought of wearing a hemp necktie ...

  “You can’t let it go that far,” Nash said.

  “’Course not. I’ll do what I can to head him off ...”

  “You’ll do what you can?” echoed Nash. “Hell almighty, you stop him! By God, if Wells Fargo don’t back me all the way in this, they’ll sure as hell wish they had when I get out!”

  Hume’s face hardened. “Kind of missin’ the point, aren’t you, Clay? Even with Wells Fargo backin’ you up, you mightn’t get out of this. McAllister wants your scalp. Think about that.” Hume made an impatient gesture. “If you hadn’t been so damn stubborn you wouldn’t be in all this trouble. Hell, Jeb Burnley was only a drunk ...”

  Nash glared bleakly. “What’s that got to do with it?”

  The detective chief shook his head wearily. “I guess it’s no use talkin’ with you, Clay. Never is when you’re on the prod this way. I’ll go see what I can do.”

  “It better be enough!” Nash called out as Hume turned away.

  Hume nodded to the deputy who unlocked the door and let him into the front office. The lawman watched Nash for a long moment and then sat down on his chair, his back to the wall, as Nash paced his cell. He figured Nash had a date with the hangman this time.

  Chapter Four – Run From the Rope

  The evening meal was pushed to Nash through a gap below the barred door. He uncovered the cloth-draped tray and made a face as he saw beans swimming in a murky sauce and a ragged chunk of unbuttered cornpone. The coffee in the tin mug looked black and bitter and was already almost cold.

  “How about buyin’ me some decent grub, Deputy?” Nash called out as the lawman made his way back towards the office door. “There’s a couple of hundred in gold in that chamois bag the sheriff took from me.”

  The deputy gave him a crooked grin. “That’s evidence. Can’t be touched.”

  Nash looked at him blankly. “Evidence of what?”

  The deputy reached the door and opened it. “I hear tell they’re claimin’ those three soldiers you killed won the gold off you in a poker game. They’re sayin’ that the soldiers left town first and you followed ’em. Seems it was you that set up the ambush in the draw. Leastways, that’s what McAllister’s claimin’. Says he has evidence to back it up.”

  Nash’s knuckles whitened as he gripped the cell bars. “He’s loco! That ain’t
how it happened! I never played poker with those hombres!”

  “There are witnesses, I hear.”

  Nash swore. “You tell McAllister I want to see him. Pronto.”

  The deputy grinned. “You’ll see him soon enough. They’re fixin’ to try you come mornin’.”

  Nash swore again as the door closed and then he took his food to the bunk. He sat down and began to fork up beans mechanically, looking thoughtful.

  By the time he had finished eating, the cell block was in darkness. Only a paleness showed at the cell window above the bunk and it was fading swiftly. He ran his mug along the bars until the office door opened and the sheriff poked his head in.

  “What’s all that racket about Nash?”

  “How about some light in here?”

  “No.” The lawman closed the door.

  After a time Nash settled on his side and went to sleep.

  Something awakened him. Nash opened his eyes, lying still, listening. The town seemed silent. There was nothing moving in the cell block. He looked up at the window and saw stars through the bars.

  “Clay!”

  His whispered name drifted in through the bars of the high window. He crouched on the bunk, close to the wall.

  “Clay, are you awake?”

  “Who’s that?” Nash asked, standing now, his head just below the edge of the cell window.

  “Judas, you must sleep like the dead!” the man outside said. “Where the hell are you? I can’t see a thing. I’m standin’ on my horse’s back, here at the window.”

  Nash reached up, slowly clamped his fingers around the window bars and then pulled himself up slowly until his face was level with the window.

  “Who is that?”

  “Hell, you scared the daylights out of me! Wasn’t expectin’ your voice to be so close. Can’t see a damn thing. Where are you? Still at the window? Listen, light a match so—”

  Nash released his grip and fell back to sprawl on the bunk a split second before both barrels of a shotgun blasted from outside. Buckshot tore through the air where Nash had been a moment before. The shot chewed adobe from the edge of the window, bent one of the bars, and angled up to batter down a head-sized piece of ceiling. Nash jumped up as pellets stung him down one side from knee to shoulder.