by Brett Waring
Largo Dunn continued to glare at Nash. “That gospel?”
“Swear it, Mr. Dunn.”
The trail boss scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “All right, the rest of you, get on with your chores. Go on. This ain’t your concern.”
“You gonna hire a gunnie, boss?” Pecos Smith said.
“If I hire—or fire—that’s my right. You live with my decision, Pecos. Or you got the choice of quittin’.”
Pecos colored, then shrugged and turned away to set about his chores. Largo Dunn continued to study Nash closely.
“There was somethin’ about you when you rode in. You had the look of a man who got trouble for a pard.”
“Can’t get into a lotta trouble out here, Mr. Dunn. Only one trail town between here and Freedom, if I know my territory and if you say so, I’ll stay in camp when we hit it.”
“You seem to want a job with my outfit mighty bad, Clayton.”
“We-ell ... It would be good cover and I’d be earnin’ something into the bargain.”
Largo Dunn suddenly laughed. “Mister, you got gall. Leastways, you’re honest. Look, Clay, I’ll put this to you. You can ride along with us for the next couple of days and I’ll keep an eye on you, see how you shape up. If you know cattle like you say, I guess I’ll take you on. But any more trouble ...”
“There won’t be, Mr. Dunn,” Nash promised. “Leastways, won’t be my doin’ if there is.”
“No more trouble of any kind. It comes your way, you dodge it, no matter what. Or you’re out. Savvy?”
“I savvy … Boss.”
“All right. You can take drag for the day.”
Nash smiled faintly as he prepared his bedroll before tying it behind his saddle. Drag was the worst position. A man had to eat dust and like it. He knew he was being tested, but that was all right with him. Butterfield was no loss to the world. His death gave him the chance to observe the other trail hands and decide if any of them could be the three hombres he was after.
“Before you do anythin’ else,” Largo said suddenly, gesturing to Butterfield’s sprawled corpse. “You can bury that. Good and deep where the coyotes won’t dig it up. He wasn’t any great shakes as a man—but he was good on the trail.”
Nash nodded and was surprised when he turned and found the Poisoner holding a spade.
“You got the look of a killer about you, mister,” the trail cook said. “And I don’t much like killers.”
Nash smiled faintly, took the spade without replying and walked slowly out of the camp to a spot about fifty yards away on a knoll. He began to dig.
The Concord stagecoach rolled down Main and braked to a stop in a cloud of dust outside the Wells Fargo Depot. The dust-spattered team shuddered in their harness and blew hard.
Bede McCall looped the reins around the upright brake bar and stood up, stretching the kinks out of his shoulders as he glanced down at the guard.
“You can wake up now, Zack,” he joked.
The young guard scowled at the driver’s remark, leaping down lithely from his seat to the platform.
“Man’s got no chance of sleepin’ the way you drive.”
“Din’ seem to bother Asa Coombs.”
“Aaah! He had no more brains than you,” the guard snapped, and McCall figured it could get nasty so he shrugged and clambered from his seat, and helped out the passengers. After unlashing the tarp covering the boot, he tossed the luggage to a helper from the depot, then went into the office to drop in his lists and sign off.
“Like to have a talk with you, Bede,” Jim Hume said, approaching from the counter.
The driver was surprised that the Detective Chief was still in town. He nodded, ran a tongue swiftly over his lips, and mentally checked off his recent behavior. He had stuck within the limits of the schedules and hadn’t gone in for more than a token pilfering of passenger’s belongings, so it wasn’t likely Hume was onto any of his activities ...
“Where you wanna go, Mr. Hume? I’m pretty tuckered.”
Hume smiled thinly beneath his bristling moustache and clapped a thick arm about McCall’s shoulder. “Then you need a couple of whiskies to perk you up.”
They found a table in a rear corner of the big saloon bar and Hume produced a bottle and two glasses. He poured and they saluted each other as they tossed down the first drink. And the second.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Hume?” he asked.
“That run where the Mexican was shot,” Hume said. “You recall what happened before you left town?”
“How you mean ...?”
“Anyone ... during the few days, maybe even a week beforehand ... question you at all about what the stage might be carrying? Or who the passengers might be?”
McCall frowned and toyed with his empty glass. He looked sidelong at Hume but the Detective Chief made no move to pour another drink. The driver shrugged. “Fair while back now, Mr. Hume. Always someone askin’ if we’re doin’ a run with a full express box or full complement of passengers. Just comes up as natural curiosity when I’m havin’ a drink. Nothin’ special.”
“Who asks these questions?”
Hume started to lift the bottle, then paused, obviously waiting for an answer.
“Uh ... aw, most anyone who’s interested. Or just wantin’ to make conversation. I mean, my wife nearly always asks me, ’cause she gets worried when she knows there’s valuables in the strongbox. She’s mighty religious and on those occasions, heads for the church to light a candle for me and say a prayer. Dunno if it does any good but I’m still around so mebbe it does.”
He laughed, and Hume filled his glass.
“Think, Bede,” Hume urged. “Who asked about passengers on that particular run? And did anyone ask about Gomez?”
McCall took his time. He drained his glass and Hume hesitated, then refilled it. The driver thought hard, then looked up, a little surprised.
“By hell, there was someone a mite more interested than usual, now you mention it, Mr. Hume. A drifter. Cowpoke, I figure him to be. He somehow got into our drinkin’ group at the bar. Fact, he bought a few rounds. Said he’d just paid off a trail herd an’ was holdin’. He said he might take the stage south an’ asked if we had any room left.”
“You told him about the Mexican?”
“Guess I must’ve, ’cause he said he figured he’d ride anyway, that he didn’t much care for ridin’ in such close quarters with Mexes, even if they was only ’breeds an’ not full-bloods.”
Hume’s eyes narrowed. “How did he know Gomez was a breed? Did you tell him? Now think about this one, Bede. It’s important.”
McCall frowned and sat back in his chair, as he concentrated on trying to recall. He took his time, but after a spell, he shook his head.
“No. No one told him Gomez was a breed. I just said he was a Mex.”
“Sure, Bede?”
“Certain sure, Mr. Hume.”
“Can you remember what this drifter looked like?”
McCall moved uncomfortably in his chair. “Well, like I said he was a cowpoke. Just the usual type. I guess he was a big hombre, ’bout the size of Clay Nash. About the same age, maybe, too. Can’t recollect much about his face, ’cept he looked like a hombre who’d been around, sort of—used, you know? Hair was darkish—what I could see under his hat.”
“No scars or anythin’?” When McCall shook his head, Hume asked, “What about guns?”
“Just one. Tied down, I think. Neither high nor low.” McCall shrugged and downed his whisky. “Kinda far back now, Jim, an’ I never took much notice at the time.”
“You did all right, Bede,” Hume said and pushed the bottle towards him. “Don’t drink it all at once,” he said, grinning briefly as he stood. “Adios, Bede. And gracias.”
“Any time,” McCall said, holding the bottle tightly as if it might get away. “Any time, Mr. Hume.”
Hume went to see Merida Gomez in her small cottage on the side street, taking with him a leather satchel. He untied the thong on th
e flap as she led him into the tiny parlor.
“You have some information, Mr. Hume?”
“I’ve had some of the papers translated, Merida,” Hume told her, taking the lists from his satchel. “It’s a long job. Hardest seems to be breaking the script up into single words. As it is, it’s all joined together and it seems that if you miss a syllable or tag it onto the wrong word, you’re in a lot of trouble. Anyway, that’s by the by. So far, what we can make out is that this is a lot of correspondence between your grandfather and Santa Anna in one of his terms as El Presidente. Seems your grandfather had one time been a general under Santa Anna and as reward for his victories he was given vast tracts of land here in Texas. There was some sort of agreement made with the Texas Government of the time that your grandfather would keep his land, leased or deeded, perpetually. That’s as far as the translation has gone so far: Santa Anna confirms this in writing but we haven’t yet pinned down the locality of the land. Do you know anything about it?”
“Very little. My father mentioned several times that if he had the land he believed my grandfather owned, he would now be a rich man instead of a poor one, struggling to make a living. But, as far as I know, he never pursued the matter.”
“My theory is that he did pursue it. Could he read this old-style Spanish, d’you know?”
“I’m not sure. He was well-versed in Spanish-Mexican history so it’s possible.” Merida frowned deeper as she stepped forward. “Just what are you trying to say, Mr. Hume?”
He hesitated, then placed the letters back in his satchel before replying. “You have to realize this is only a theory, speculation ...”
“Of course.”
“Could it be that your father translated these documents and got the exact location of the land. And if he did, could he have let it slip somehow? Could the present owner of that land have found out and figured he might be in danger of losing it?”
“My God,” the girl exclaimed, horrified, a hand going to her breast. “You mean—the hold-up was only a cover to stop my father reaching—whoever he was going to see?”
“Seems that way. And we know he said he was going to Austin to see the Governor. His papers, were stolen, so whoever was behind the hold-up still has them.”
“But who could this be? I ... I mean, I never heard where my grandfather was supposed to have this land. It ... it was like a fairy tale when I was a child. My father would tell me stories of the big rancho my grandfather once had before his land was taken from him but I never really ... believed it. In fact, I never knew why he lost the land or how large it was. If only I had paid more attention ...”
“No point in upsetting yourself, Merida. We’re onto something here, I think. Could be there was some legal tangle that lost your grandfather his land or maybe it was simply taken back by the Texas Government. I don’t know, but likely it was all done constitutionally. The point is, there could’ve been some sort of loophole that might’ve threatened the current land-owner. And if he found out that your father was on his way to the Governor ...”
“He’d order him to be murdered,” the girl said, her mouth pulled into a grim line. “Please keep me informed, Mr. Hume. And if you learn anything definite, I would like to be told immediately. I was perhaps a ... disappointment as a daughter to my father in many ways, but I won’t let his murder go unavenged.”
Hume saw that this handsome girl meant what she said: she’d gladly kill the man who’d murdered her father.
Five – Trail Town
Nash had graduated from riding drag to one of the point positions. It hadn’t taken Largo Dunn long to see that the Wells Fargo man he knew as ‘Clayton’ was an experienced trail hand.
Nash got along well enough with the rest of the hands. There were a couple of hard cases as was to be expected but none he would pick as murderers or road agents. Not that that meant much, for he well knew that a man could look innocent enough but underneath be a sadistic killer who broke out only once in a while. He’d seen women who looked like angels turn out to be she-devils who’d kill a man cold-bloodedly without missing a brushstroke as they did their hair.
Pecos Smith was a real trail rogue, a man who loved to put scorpions and ants in a man’s blankets, or bugs in his coffee mug or burrs inside his trousers or shirts. He wouldn’t do anything that would endanger a man, like loosening a cinch strap, but he’d pull just about anything else. Nash had fallen victim the first night he came back to camp after riding drag all day, covered in dust and grit.
As it happened, the herd was camped by another shallow water hole that was thick with mud. Pecos had handed Nash a tin bowl of clear ‘water’ and said the cook had saved it for him. At the same time, he’d been giving Nash a demonstration of how to rub sage and some other wild plant so as to make a pleasant odor that a man could rub into his shirt if he got tired of the smell of his own sweat or that of horses and cattle.
The pungent herbal odors had ruined Nash’s sense of smell temporarily, and didn’t realize he was washing in coal oil—until he splashed it onto his body. Then it stung, and his skin went red. Pecos Smith roared with laughter as Nash made a wild dash for the water hole and floundered into the mud, scrubbing frantically to get rid of the burning oil.
The whole camp figured it was a good joke and Largo Dunn made it kind of hard for Nash to do much more than grin and bear it. Dripping with mud that he knew would cake all over him, Nash stumbled back into the camp like some swamp creature.
“You gotta learn to take Pecos’ little jokes if you ride with me, Clay,” Dunn said, as amused as anyone else.
That had cooled Clay’s anger somewhat, but he still glared as he turned to Smith. “Damn fool. I might’ve scooped that coal oil into my eyes.”
“The Poisoner had some lard ready if that’d happened. We wouldn’t’ve let you get blinded, amigo.”
Nash snorted and spat grit and mud. “Some ‘amigos’ you lot turned out to be.”
Pecos, of course, was on the alert for retaliation as the herd pushed slowly on to the north, but nothing happened during the next few days. Until he drew night hawk duty ...
There was a storm and the camp was on the alert for there were distant streaks of lightning ripping down the swollen sky, and the thunder was making the herd nervous. But the storm passed to the north and the rain gradually eased to a drizzle. Still, it was an almighty busy time for the nighthawks. And when they came back to camp just before daylight and their relief moved out, they were plumb tuckered. They swallowed the hot coffee and biscuits Poison Pete had prepared and staggered away to their bedrolls.
Pecos always spread his blankets under any tree that was available and Nash, as one of the relief riders, laid down his oblong of rubber he always spread between wet ground and his bedroll under a stunted tree and gestured to it with a yawn as he passed Pecos.
“That’ll keep your blankets dry,” he said.
Red-eyed and stumbling with fatigue, Pecos nodded and murmured his thanks, shaking out his bedroll over the rubber sheet, spreading it evenly so that the edges did not touch the muddy ground. Nash delayed mounting, fumbling with his saddle rig, and winking at the Kid as he hunkered over the fire, building it up for The Poisoner to prepare breakfast.
Pecos, stiff from the wet night in the saddle, gave a grunt as he turned and dropped onto his blankets ...
But there was no solid ground beneath him. Nash had dug a trench in the ground and it had swiftly filled with muddy water from the rain. This he had covered with his rubber sheet. As soon as Pecos put his weight on it, he sank into the cold, muddy water of the trench. It was over two feet deep and Pecos found his knees up under his chin, his body, doubled up like a hairpin, and jammed between the muddy walls. He gasped as the chill water soaked him through and by the time he’d floundered out his blankets were covered in mud—as was Pecos himself.
Keeping a straight face, Nash mounted up and walked his horse slowly out of the camp as the other men roared with laughter.
“Sleep
tight, Pecos,” Nash said.
Largo Dunn looked at the muddy apparition that was Smith. “Could be you’ve met your match at last, Pecos,” he said, chuckling.
Pecos swore and began to scoop ooze from his pants as the rest of the camp broke into roars of laughter ...
During the day, he rode with Nash as they hazed back a breakaway. The rain had stopped, although leaden clouds still rolled away to the horizon and shrouded the peaks of a distant mountain range.
“Looks like it rained just long enough for you to get cleaned up,” Nash said.
Pecos nodded, grinning crookedly. “That was a good ’un, Clay. I’ll remember it.”
“Hope I’m not around when you do.”
Pecos chuckled. “Guess that makes us square, huh? You wanna shake on it?”
“Why not?” Nash gripped hands with the prankster, then yelled, almost spilling from the saddle as he felt something wet and squishy in his palm. He looked down anxiously as Pecos veered away, roaring with laughter, and saw that the man had planted a small frog into his palm.
Nash grinned as he threw the frog away. He’d seen incurable pranksters like Pecos before: sometimes their jokes got them into real trouble, but it looked like the crew on that trail drive were used to it.
That afternoon, the herd came to a flooded arroyo. Normally it would have been dry but apparently there had been heavy rains up in the hills and the muddy waters were raging through it.
“Gonna have to swim ’em over,” Nash said as he reported to Dunn. The trail boss agreed.
“Helluva job,” he muttered. “Gonna lose some but we got no choice. Might be days before that water runs away and there’s more rain comin’. Just look at them hills.”
