Clay Nash 20

by Brett Waring

  Lane nodded, grinning. “Worked for a spell, too. But I told McAllister to let me nail you right off. I knew you were too damn dangerous to have runnin’ round free when we had such a big deal on. But he was worried that if he didn’t go along with the army’s idea of outlawin’ you so’s you could work undercover, he might be suspected. And he had other big deals planned for the future ...”

  Nash slumped, looking at Skillet. “You weren’t just playing along, though. I had you fooled.”

  “And you just might live to regret it, amigo,” Skillet said with a tight, humorless smile. “We’re goin’ on a buffalo hunt before we move along in the mornin’. But not you, just me an’ Brazos. You’ll soon know if we’re successful or not.”

  He laughed and then one of Brazos’ men jerked Nash’s arms behind his back and began to tie his wrists with rope.

  He wondered what Skillet had in store for him. He knew it was a safe bet that it wasn’t anything he was going to enjoy.

  Yellow Rose forked the pinto bareback, riding fast through the trees, her eyes scanning the ground ahead for tracks, although she knew pretty well where Skillet and his friends headed.

  She had swum across the river, holding onto the pinto’s tail with Nash’s buckskin shirt in a bundle tied on top of the animal’s head to keep it dry. The delivery of the shirt was to be her excuse for riding after Nash and the others. She didn’t know if Skillet would accept her story, but she was a Sioux and she could say she had decided to visit relatives who were with the renegades at Shiloh. He wouldn’t argue with that; she had done it before.

  Only if he decided to check Nash’s buckskin shirt might there be trouble, for in the pocket was a long note in Hume’s neat handwriting. After she’d treated Hume’s wound he had insisted that she try to warn Nash about McAllister. As far as Hume was concerned, it was more important to get Clay Nash out alive than to save the guns.

  While Hume was writing the note, one of the skinners had ridden downriver to where Sergeant Dooley’s patrol was stationed, carrying another message from Hume. The man had just arrived in camp when she left and, from the north bank, dripping from her swim, she had seen the soldier talking earnestly with the wounded Wells Fargo chief detective.

  Now she rode fast through the timber, hoping she would be able to warn Nash in time. She liked him. He seemed a decent type for a white man, and most of her experiences with white men had not been pleasant. Skillet treated her like an animal at times, and some of the others forced themselves on her when they caught her alone and away from the Indian camp.

  But not Nash. He had been gentlemanly and courteous, treating her as he would a white woman. While she didn’t feel any strong affection for him, she did regard him with a certain amount of interest, enough to chance facing Skillet and the others on his behalf.

  She found the campsite they had used the previous night and her heart lurched as she read the signs of trouble in the scuff marks around the fire. Then, searching, she found Nash’s saddle and scabbarded rifle, and later his Colt half-trampled into the soft earth. She knew it was his gun because it was engraved with his name, a presentation piece from Wells Fargo.

  She stood at the campsite, feeling the hot sunlight against her skin as she looked around. There were drag marks in the earth that could have been made by a man’s boot heels. Her stomach knotted up as she followed the sign slowly, leading her pinto by its rawhide reins. At the edge of the timber she stopped dead, looking out at the sun baked plains.

  At first she thought it was a dead buffalo calf, for it was not large enough to be a full-grown beast. Then, the longer she stared at the dark bulk there, the more she realized it was not the shape of a buffalo calf.

  She gasped. Only once before she had seen such a thing. It had happened to a Sioux who had raped her during his first year of marriage to her sister. Yellow Rose jumped onto the pinto’s back, kicked its flanks, and rode fast towards the dark object. As she had suspected, it was lying on an anthill.

  The Indian girl jumped down from the pinto before it skidded to a stop, whipping out her knife from its beaded belt sheath. She could see Nash’s hair but his face was hidden by some of the bloody, fly-ridden folds of the freshly skinned buffalo hide. She slashed at the green hide thongs which were drawn so tight by the sun that she had difficulty getting enough slack to work on with the blade. Nash moaned and she felt his weak struggles inside the hide as ants gnawed at him and the hide clamped around him.

  He cried out in sheer agony and she sobbed with renewed effort, slashing through the last thong. But the outer folds of the hide had already set hard. She strained and Nash cursed at her to hurry, blowing and spitting as ants swarmed over his face.

  Finally she managed to push up the first layer of hide. It was so stiff it stayed upright, like sheet-iron bent back. Then she used her knife to cut a long slit in the softer hide, which she peeled off Nash’s body. He was bloody and stinking and covered with swarming ants. His wrists were tied but his ankles were free. He tried to lurch upright, shaking his head violently in an effort to get rid of the ants. She beat at him with her hands, scooping the ants off as she pushed him towards the pinto. She spoke to the animal in her native tongue and the horse knelt. She pushed Nash across its back and leapt up behind.

  “Try to hold on,” she said, then she ran the animal back across the plains towards the trees and the river.

  She rode straight into the water and dumped Nash into the shallows, swiftly dismounting and helping to wash the ants off him. Bloody bits of flesh from the buffalo hide washed away from his clothes as she slashed the ropes from around his wrists.

  In half an hour the last ant was gone and Nash stared at Yellow Rose through bloodshot eyes. She made him strip and plastered him with mud mixed with some herbs she had gathered and crushed. Immediately the almost unbearable stinging ceased and soon the swelling began to go down. In another hour he could see properly. Though he was covered with lumps and welts, he seemed none the worse for his experience.

  “By Godfrey, Rose, you’re a sight for sore eyes! I dunno how you got here, but I—”

  He broke off as she handed him the buckskin shirt.

  “Look in the pocket,” she told him.

  Puzzled, he reached into the pocket and brought out Hume’s note.

  The peak called Shiloh reared against the hot blue sky, shadows highlighting the gorges and crevices beneath the glistening cap of snow.

  The group of men who had gathered at the base of the mountain at the rendezvous point were growing restless. Captain Joshua McAllister had been waiting when Skillet, Brazos Lane and the other two men had arrived. Now the army man scowled at Skillet.

  “Where the hell are these Injuns? It’s nearin’ noon. They were s’posed to meet us here two hours ago.”

  Skillet shrugged, sitting his mount easily, hands on the saddlehorn. “Don’t ask me, Josh. You made the arrangements for the meetin’.”

  McAllister growled a curse. He looked back across the plains, in the direction from which Skillet and his crew had come. “You’re sure Nash is dead? I’ll be a lot happier when I see his body on the way back after we pull off this deal.”

  Brazos Lane smiled. “He won’t be more than a hide full of bones, I reckon, by the time them bull-ants finish with him.”

  “I hope you’re right,” McAllister said. “I hear he’s a hard man to kill.”

  “He’s dead this time,” Skillet said. “There’s no way he could bust out of that buffler hide.”

  “Skillet!”

  The buffalo man snapped his head around at the cry from one of Lane’s men. The man was pointing to an approaching rider forking a pinto.

  Brazos Lane paled. “Nash!”

  “Can’t be!” said Skillet, but he had good eyesight and knew that Nash was riding in. He unslung his Sharps rifle, his big hands beginning to tremble.

  “How the—” started McAllister, breaking off as more riders appeared behind Nash, strung out in a long line.

  Ca
valry men.

  “Now you know why them Injuns never showed,” Brazos said. He hipped around in the saddle as he heard running hoofs behind him and cursed when he saw his two men bolting back across the plains.

  They had no stomach for this kind of fight. But they wouldn’t get far—more soldiers were coming out of the trees ahead of them.

  Brazos turned to see Nash dismounting and standing there in water-wrinkled clothes, his face showing raw patches where the ants had been at him. He raked the three men with cold eyes, his hands at his sides.

  “It’s over, McAllister,” Nash said.

  “How the hell did you get out of that buffler hide?” Skillet raged.

  The Wells Fargo man smiled. “Yellow Rose came after me and cut me loose. Then she went up Mount Shiloh and warned the renegades that Jim Hume had arranged for the U.S. Army to move in here. Which means they won’t show and there’ll be no exchange of gold for the guns. There’ll be just you three under arrest—and I hope you resist.”

  “Goddamn you, Nash!” snapped McAllister. “I knew I shouldn’t’ve tangled with you!”

  “You’re right there,” Nash said, watching Lane and Skillet. The big buffalo hunter’s knuckles were white from his grip on the Sharps. Lane’s right hand was twitching, and Nash knew he wanted to drag iron but was worried about the approaching line of soldiers.

  They faced each other in the hot noonday sun. Suddenly Skillet let out a mighty curse, kicked his heels into his horse’s flanks and then, as the animal jumped forward, brought the heavy Sharps around towards Nash.

  The Wells Fargo man dropped to one knee and drew his Colt with blinding speed. He triggered and heard his lead smack into the giant’s chest, then the Sharps thundered and the big bullet clipped his ear lobe. He rolled and brought the Colt across his body as Lane and McAllister drew their guns and rode in. He chopped at the hammer spur with the edge of his hand and McAllister screamed as a slug lifted him clear out of the saddle.

  Nash rolled and came up on one knee as Lane rode in, his gun blazing. The Wells Fargo man steadied himself and shot Lane through the middle of the face. Lane spilled violently over his horse’s rump and his body jerked beneath the hoofs of Skillet’s mount as the giant rode in, still fighting mad, swinging his Sharps by the barrel, meaning to smash Nash’s head in with the steel butt plate.

  Clay Nash jumped back and got in another shot. It took Skillet in his thick neck and sent him crashing to the ground in a cloud of dust.

  McAllister was down, moaning, clutching at his bleeding chest, no more fight left in him. He slumped back as the soldiers galloped in. Sergeant Dooley dismounted and held a gun on him.

  Nash got to his feet and glanced up the slopes of Shiloh.

  Halfway up a small figure appeared against a pale rock and a hand lifted in a brief wave. He went to the pinto, reached into a saddlebag and bought out the buckskin shirt. He waved it like a banner at Yellow Rose, then he ripped off his torn, filthy calico shirt and pulled on the buckskin garment. It came down to his hips, hanging outside his trousers, so he removed his gunbelt and buckled it on over the shirt.

  He knew the shirt would always hold pleasant memories for him. A man in his profession couldn’t ask for much more.

  About the Author

  Keith Hetherington

  aka Kirk Hamilton, Brett Waring and Hank J. Kirby

  Australian writer Keith has worked as television scriptwriter on such Australian TV shows as Homicide, Matlock Police, Division 4, Solo One, The Box, The Spoiler and Chopper Squad.

  “I always liked writing little vignettes, trying to describe the action sequences I saw in a film or the Saturday Afternoon Serial at local cinemas,” remembers Keith Hetherington, better-known to Piccadilly Publishing readers as Hank J. Kirby, author of the Bronco Madigan series.

  Keith went on to pen hundreds of westerns (the figure varies between 600 and 1000) under the names Kirk Hamilton (including the legendary Bannerman the Enforcer series) and Clay Nash as Brett Waring. Keith also worked as a journalist for the Queensland Health Education Council, writing weekly articles for newspapers on health subjects and radio plays dramatizing same.

  More on Keith Hetherington

  The Clay Nash Series by Brett Waring

  Undercover Gun

  A Gun Is Waiting

  Long Trail to Yuma

  Reckoning at Rimrock

  Last Stage to Shiloh

  Slaughter Trail

  Sundown in Socorro

  The Fargo Code

  Ride for Texas

  Bullet by Bullet

  The Santa Fe Run

  This Lawless Land

  Guns on Big River

  Compadre

  Sundance

  Escape to Gunsight

  Ride the Stage to Hangman’s Spur

  Only a Bullet

  Law of the Bullet

  Noon at Shiloh

  … And more to come every other month!

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