Clay Nash 20

by Brett Waring

  He felt the warmth of a bull’s-eye lantern and smelled the hot kerosene, then the lantern cover was pushed back and the spot shone into his pain-twisted face. A hand knocked his hat off. Fingers entwined in his hair and jerked his head up.

  Squinting against the light, Nash saw that the man holding the bull’s-eye lantern was a taller, younger version of the livery man.

  “I’m Jeff Hunnicutt. Heard you was askin’ for me.”

  “Yeah, that’s right,” Nash gasped, still held tightly by Hunnicutt’s unseen friends. He saw Lew Hunnicutt come out of the darkened office to light more lanterns in the aisle.

  “Take him out back or you’ll drive my customers away,” the livery man complained.

  Jeff Hunnicutt nodded and Nash was half-dragged down the aisle and into the darkness of the yard near the corrals where he was slammed heavily against a feed shed.

  “Who are you and where’d you get my name?” Hunnicutt demanded. To back up his words he drove a fist into Nash’s midriff.

  Doubled over as far as the two men holding him would allow, Nash said, “My handle is Clay Nash. Buck Tanner told me to look you up.”

  “He’s the one who killed Buck, Jeff,” one of the men growled. “Lucky’s got a wanted dodger with this hombre’s face and name on it. He killed Buck and also three soldiers down Lubbock way.”

  “I didn’t kill Tanner,” Nash denied.

  Hunnicutt backhanded him across the face. “’Course you didn’t. None of us did. Or robbed banks or held up stages or did none of them naughty things the law blames us for. We’re all as innocent as babes.”

  The two men laughed and then Hunnicutt slammed Nash’s head violently back against the shed wall.

  “It don’t matter whether you did or didn’t do what the wanted dodgers say, Nash. Now, why’d you want me?”

  “Buck thought you might hide me out.”

  Jeff Hunnicutt spat. “Hogwash. Tanner didn’t know me that well. And I figure you didn’t know him that well. You know what I figure, Nash? I figure you’re still workin’ for Wells Fargo and tryin’ to trace them guns.”

  Nash’s eyes narrowed. “I never mentioned any guns.”

  Hunnicutt hit him in the ribs, hard, bringing a gasp from Nash. “You got me tagged for a fool? Mister, I make it my business to keep up-to-date on wanted dodgers and all strangers who hit this neck of the woods. I have to if I want to stay alive. I know you worked for Wells Fargo as Hume’s top gun, and you was investigatin’ some guns stolen from a way station at Pueblo River.”

  “Tanner said you were in on that,” Nash said, hoping to get a reaction out of Hunnicutt.

  But the man merely stared back soberly. “Tanner always had a big mouth. Just as well somebody killed him.” He suddenly planted his boots wide and ripped three solid blows into Nash’s ribs. As Nash started to jack-knife the men holding him slammed him back against the shed and Hunnicutt smashed him in the face with left and right hooks, then he shifted his attack to Nash’s stomach.

  Panting and sweating, Hunnicutt finally nodded to his friends and they released Nash. He dropped to his knees, bleeding and gasping for breath. Hunnicutt kicked him in the ribs and Nash rolled onto his side, knees drawn up to his chest.

  “Now tell me about Wells Fargo, you sidewinder!” Hunnicutt roared. “Talk or I’ll stomp your gun hand to pulp!”

  Nash raised his blood-streaked face to look up at Hunnicutt through a red haze. “Wells Fargo wasn’t supposed to investigate that raid. It was strictly federal. We were warned off ... but the tower guard was a pard of mine and I—I started checkin’ round anyway. Then I ran foul of McAllister. Three of his dogs came after me and I nailed ’em. He got riled ... put out a dodger on me. When Tanner was killed—accidentally by Brazos Lane—I was there and McAllister hung that on me too.”

  Hunnicutt stared silently down at Nash for a spell, then he looked at his men. “What do you think?”

  “Sounds like it might be truth, Jeff,” the first man said. He had only one ear, a mass of twisted scar tissue showing where the other had been. He was called Foxy.

  The second man was short, broad and hairy. He was known as Bull, which seemed appropriate enough. He looked from Nash to Hunnicutt, scrubbing a hand over his jowls.

  “Got to admit it’s got a kind of gospel ring to it, Jeff. I don’t think someone like McAllister would stand for a hombre like Nash here interferin’. Yeah, I’d be inclined to go along with him.”

  Hunnicutt grunted and turned to Foxy. “Go fetch that wanted dodger from Lucky. He’s watchin’ the mounts down at the end of the alley.”

  Nash was still on the ground, barely moving, when Foxy came back with a crumpled handbill. Bull held the lantern while Jeff spread the paper out and read it through, checking the hand drawn likeness on the dodger against Nash’s face.

  “Him all right,” he muttered.

  “It’s Nash right enough,” Bull said. “Saw him gun down Streak Dawson and Injun Joe Cash in Laredo a few years back. It was after they held up a Wells Fargo stage near Brownsville. Hardly had time to bury the loot before Nash showed up and buried them.”

  Hunnicutt continued to study Nash, still holding the dodger. He looked back at the paper and held it out towards Bull, pointing to something, then he showed the same thing to Foxy.

  Nash knew what it was, and he cursed Josh McAllister for rigging the reward money the way he had on the dodger. It was too big a temptation for bounty hunters—or men like Hunnicutt.

  “Kind of risky, Jeff,” Foxy said.

  “Hell, no. We leave him with Lew and Lew sends for the law, collects the reward and we come back for our share long after the law’s gone and taken Nash off.”

  “I reckon it’d be safer to put a bullet through him now and just settle for the five hundred,” Bull said.

  “Like hell!” Hunnicutt said. “McAllister wants him alive so’s he can put him on trial, make a big show, grab some glory. We’d be loco not to grab that big reward while we got him.”

  With that Nash’s fate was decided. He was tied to a corral post. Jeff Hunnicutt squatted in front of him and slapped him lightly with the folded reward dodger across the face.

  “You can finance us for a spell, Nash. But tell me, are you still after them guns or what?”

  “Like hell I am!” Nash growled. “Wells Fargo dropped me like a hot potato and McAllister outlawed me. All I want is a safe place to hide. I figured you might help me.”

  Hunnicutt laughed as he stood up. “You got some gall! But no matter. Lew’ll send for the law and they’ll string you up. You won’t have no more worries then.”

  He laughed and Foxy grinned, but Bull’s expression didn’t change.

  Hunnicutt looked at the squat man. “You stay here with Lew and keep an eye on Nash. You can fade as soon as you get word that the law’s headed in.”

  Bull nodded. “Where’ll you be?”

  “Out in buffalo land. Skillet’ll be headed back soon. I’ll do some huntin’ for him for a spell till I hear from you. Then we’ll collect the reward, cross the Red and live it up around Shiloh. I hear them renegade women are really somethin’.”

  Nash pricked up his ears at the name “Shiloh”. It didn’t mean anything to him then, but he knew they weren’t referring to the famous Civil War battlefield far to the east. Maybe it would mean something to him later.

  If he lived long enough.

  Nash knew there was no use fooling himself: he was going to have to break loose before Lew Hunnicutt could get the law to Wichita Falls or the whole deal would be shot. The best thing to do was escape now, before the law arrived. That way it would look like the act of a desperate man trying to stay clear of the hangman’s rope.

  But breaking free was easier said than done. The ropes that held him to the post had been wrapped tightly around his chest, and his wrists were tied as well as his ankles. He could barely move.

  Horses in the corrals moved close by, a couple coming close enough so that he felt the hair on th
eir fetlocks as their hoofs brushed past his hands. He was afraid they would stomp on his hands accidentally, and it wasn’t a pleasant thought.

  Bull had gone inside the livery and was drinking whiskey and playing two-handed stud with Lew Hunnicutt in the small office. Every once in a while Bull looked out to make sure Nash was still there, but only once did he walk out to test the ropes.

  Nash knew it wouldn’t take long for a lawman to get to Wichita Falls from Seymour. By sundown tomorrow at the latest, he figured. So he would have to be a long way from Wichita Falls by then.

  Which meant he needed a miracle.

  “Well, looks like they got you all trussed-up like a Thanksgivin’ turkey, amigo! You must’ve let your guard down after me tellin’ you not to.”

  Nash almost cricked his neck as he turned his head to see the man who spoke out of the darkness near the feed shed.

  “Skillet?” he said huskily. “That you?”

  “Sure as hell is, amigo,” the big buffalo man said, stepping out of the shadows. He was still carrying his Sharps, and the iron skillet dangled from its rawhide thong, clanging softly as he walked forward. “So you let ’em jump you, huh?”

  “Better keep your voice down,” Nash warned. “Bull’s been left to watch me and Lew Hunnicutt’s inside—”

  “No they ain’t. Here they come now,” Skillet said, turning casually as the two men came rushing out, apparently having heard the big buffalo hunter’s arrival. Bull had a shotgun in his hands and Lew held a pitchfork.

  He lifted the heavy Sharps, thumbed back the hammer as Bull brought up the shotgun, then he pulled trigger. The thunder of the massive weapon was like a dynamite explosion in the confined space. The impact lifted Bull into the air and sent him back to land in a flailing, bloody heap fifteen feet away.

  Lew hesitated, then lunged at Skillet with the pitchfork. Skillet swung the smoking rifle around, knocked the fork aside, and brought his heavy iron pan down solidly on Lew’s head. The stableman collapsed, unconscious.

  The buffalo hunter put down the Sharps and effortlessly lifted the corral post out of the ground.

  “Now let’s get you untied and head out to the clean air of buffler territory, huh? It seems a lot healthier than the air in town.”

  Chapter Seven – The Lawless Land

  The big wagon lurched over the trail, climbed a rise and skidded down the opposite side, the fat Indian squaw who handled the reins kicking a bare foot against the brake bar. The younger, slimmer squaw beside her clung to the seat rail expressionlessly as the vehicle made its way to the foot of the slope.

  Clay Nash reined down his horse on top of the rise and watched as the squaw expertly handled the six-mule team through a section of ruts and stone-studded ground.

  He turned as Skillet rode alongside, his long legs so low in the stirrups that his feet seemed to brush the ground. The big buffalo hunter spat a brown stream of tobacco juice to one side and lifted a bare, muscular arm, the prairie breeze flapping his stained vest against his naked chest.

  “There she be,” he said in his deep voice. “Dead Men’s Walk.”

  Nash frowned. “I was expectin’ a desert. But, though it’s dry and the grass is short, I can see a creek out there and some trees. How come it’s got such a miserable name?”

  “Injuns. Whole damn tribe of ’em upped tepees and walked clear across here, over the Red into the Territory, rather than stay on the reservation the gov’ment fixed for ’em. Now if you’re thinkin’ that ain’t any great achievement, I’m here to tell you that they did it mid-winter, with ice and snow on the ground clear up to their butts. They had no horses or mules; the gov’ment men took ’em all away. They walked in moccasins and buckskin leggin’ and the squaws wore skirts, totin’ kids and papooses on their backs. They say only one in five made it.”

  Nash whistled. “I guess they didn’t have weapons to get food with either.”

  “Only their huntin’ knives. But they made lances and bows and they trapped a few buffler, enough to get some of ’em through. Plenty died just so’s the rest of the tribe could make it. You imagine any white man livin’ that way with that much determination? ’Course not. But at least it got ’em some sort of peace, ’cause the gov’ment let ’em be ever since. They’ll get round to roundin’ ’em up again someday, I guess, but right now the Injuns is free and that’s how come this piece of dirt is called Dead Men’s Walk.” Skillet squinted at Nash. “They say the ghost of old Mountain Eagle, their chief, still walks this land on a winter night when there’s no moon.”

  Nash smiled. “Didn’t expect to get a ghost story out of you, Skillet.”

  “It’s not just a story, it’s true. Mountain Eagle does walk. Once, when I was near froze and lost, he stood on top of a knoll pointin’ into the heart of a snow-clogged valley. I thought it was the wrong way but I was starved and desperate and so I walked right through him where he stood in the middle of the trail and followed the direction he pointed. Took me the rest of the night to crawl through that snow but in the end I came across a wagon train of pilgrims and I’m sure here to tell the tale.”

  Nash said nothing. He had learned a long time ago never to scoff at strange stories of ghostly helpers coming to the aid of the lost. There were too many of them to ignore, even though none could be explained.

  As they started down the slope, the lumbering wagon well ahead now out on the plains, Nash asked, “What made you go to that livery?”

  Skillet spat a brown stream. “I know Lew Hunnicutt and his crew from a long way back. After you left The Cave somebody mentioned seein’ Jeff Hunnicutt in town with Bull and Foxy. So I figured you might be needin’ a hand.”

  Nash grinned. “Well, you sure as hell gave me one. I’m obliged, Skillet.”

  “It wasn’t full unselfish, Nash. You look like a pretty tough hombre to me, whether that wanted dodger on you is true or not. I heard some talk about you. Good with a gun, folks say, Colt or rifle. I need a good shooter this season, and you need someplace to dodge the law for a spell, so it seemed to me that we could do each other a favor.”

  “Sounds fine to me,” Nash said.

  Skillet stood in the stirrups suddenly, and pointed ahead, indicating a dark, roughly oval stain on the side of a knoll in the distance. “What’s that look like to you?”

  Nash squinted, studying the shape he had at first thought was a cloud shadow. But it wasn’t moving. Then he thought he saw the edge give a kind of ripple. He frowned and turned to stare at Skillet.

  “Buffalo herd?”

  “That’s it. They spotted the wagon dust and are lookin’ us over. It’ll be the young bulls on the outskirts movin’ about, struttin’ their stuff, showin’ how tough they are. Pretty soon one of the older ones’ll butt ’em in the slats and cut ’em down to size. Like them Injuns and their tribe, everythin’s for the good of the herd as a whole. You don’t get to doin’ just what you like.”

  “How many’d be in a bunch that size?” Nash asked.

  “Two hundred mebbe. They’re getting’ shot-out. Used to see herds of five hundred, even a thousand. I’ve seen ’em stretch clear across the prairie, horizon to horizon, fifty abreast. They took nearly a whole damn day to pass the point where I was set up, pot-shootin’ ’em as they went by.”

  “The gunfire didn’t stampede them?”

  Skillet shook his head. “Nope. Funny thing that. You can come on a bunch feedin’, pick out the leader—usually an old cow, strangely enough—drop her with a lung shot and the others’ll move no more’n a few feet away. You can set there and shoot down half the herd before them dumb critters begin to feel like they’re bein’ threatened. Then they’ll take off and you better be well out of the way or have your tree picked out, amigo, I’m here to tell you.”

  “I hear the old hunters used to ride right in amongst a stampede shootin’ down their targets.”

  “Yeah. That’s how we got the name of ‘runners’. Some used to hunt with the old Colt Dragoon, that big hand-cannon of
.44 caliber, leanin’ down from the saddle and puttin’ the slug smack behind the ear. Only other places to hit ’em is in the loins or just for’ard of the hips on the spine where the hide’s thinnest. Mighty dangerous chore.”

  “How many men work for you, Skillet?”

  He shrugged. “Depends how many I can get and how many buffalo I scouted. This season looks to be a shade better than last, but the beasts are gettin’ harder to find. I’ll have me a team of mebbe six shooters this time, and the number of skinners depend on how many good ones I can hire. I use contract skinners and pay a flat fee. There’s a dozen or so Injuns always around the camp and the squaws’ll scrape the hides and the bucks’ll salt ’em and put ’em through the presses. We’re a pretty big camp.”

  Nash nodded. “Long as we’re well clear of the law. By the way, Skillet, you ever hear of a place hereabouts called Shiloh?”

  Skillet’s jaws stopped chomping for a moment. His eyes narrowed slightly and it seemed to Nash that he spoke carefully when he replied.

  “Was quite a battle at a place called Shiloh as I recollect, back in—”

  “I said hereabouts, Skillet,” Nash cut in, watching the man closely. “Shiloh. Jeff Hunnicutt mentioned it. Said that when he and his pards collected the reward money on me they could head for Shiloh and live it up. I never heard of a town called Shiloh around here.”

  “Dunno of any town by that name this side of the Red,” the buffalo man said.

  “How about the other side? In the Territory?” Nash persisted.

  Skillet spat juice and took a plug of tobacco from his vest pocket. He tore off a chew with his big discolored teeth, looking steadily at Nash. “No man with any sense talks much about what he sees on the Territory side of the Red River, Nash. Remember that.”