by Brett Waring
Lead sang past his face and the guns thundered and stabbed blue-yellow flames into the night. The reek of powder bit at his nostrils as Nash brought up the Colt and blasted point blank into a rider who appeared alongside.
The man was literally blown out of the saddle and thudded heavily to the ground.
Clay’s hat was jerked from his head by a slug and he crouched, shooting left, cycling the rifle in time to bring up the muzzle and trigger as a dark shape bore down on him. The horse whinnied and reared, throwing the rider and, as Clay galloped past, he brought his left arm across his body and fired downwards with his Colt. The rustler, just starting to get to his feet, was suddenly slammed back to earth, face down.
Cattle were racing past him as he saw the rustlers making a break into the night, their shapes ragged and blurred against the stars. Clay spurred after them and one man turned and fired three swift shots at him. He didn’t hear where the lead went but he rammed his six-gun into his belt and got the Winchester to his shoulder.
He fired, levered, and fired again.
The heavy caliber slugs smashed into the fleeing rustler and he pitched to the side, but one boot caught in the stirrup and his body bounced and jarred alongside the frantically running horse.
Then Nash fired after the remaining man but wasn’t sure if he’d nailed him.
Spinning away, he rode back towards the camp in the wake of the stampede, reloading his guns as he went ...
When the shooting had started, the Kid was crouched over the last of the cooking pots in the camp.
He heard the stampede coming towards him, so he dropped the pot and made a leap for the safety of the heavy chuck wagon. But he slipped in the mud around the tub, and by the time he’d regained his feet, the first line of snorting, bellowing, wild-eyed, steers were thundering into the camp.
The Kid screamed but his piping cry of terror was lost in the nightmare of snorting and rumbling beasts. The boy made a leap for the chuck wagon and managed to get his feet onto the spokes of the rear wheel. He clung there, scrabbling to pull the canvas cover up so he could get into the well of the wagon, but steers slammed into the wagon from all sides and he felt a horn tip rake his legs.
Then the whole wagon trembled and he yelled again as it tilted, jarring him loose from the wheel. He hung out over the bawling steers for a few seconds, then the great, high-sided wagon crashed over and he was lost among bucking, rearing heaving backs and clashing horns and splintering wood ...
The stampede tore through the camp and continued on across the flats towards the distant town ...
Nash noticed the camp site was wrecked as he raced after the herd on his straining horse. He thought of the Kid at once and began to slow down but then spurred on. The boy had either got out or he hadn’t. There wasn’t anything Nash could do about it.
The chuck wagon was a splintered hulk and the rest of the camp was churned up, dotted here and there with downed steers. If the Kid were still there—no one could help him.
The Wells Fargo man knew he hadn’t a hope in hell of overtaking the stampede before it reached the town. The steers were well away, wild-eyed and terrified out of their wits. And there was no stopping them.
And if that meant going right through the town, then that’s what the steers would do ...
It was what happened.
Townsfolk heard the rumbling thunder of the approaching stampede and some thought it was the rain storms coming back. But others felt the ground trembling beneath their feet and they knew it was more than just thunder.
“Stam-peeeeeeeeeeed.”
The cry went out through town and brought folk running to windows and doors. The cowmen in the saloons and whore houses heard that most dreaded of all cries and in various states of undress and sobriety, hit the streets as the first of the herd came roaring into Main.
“Get under cover,” Largo Dunn bawled, holding up his pants with one hand. “Nothin’ we can do. Get under cover.”
The streets were cleared of people in a flash as the steers took over. They swept in like a living tidal wave, battering the town’s buildings, smashing down awning posts and causing roofs to collapse. Vehicles left unattended in the street—buckboards, buggies, surreys—were overturned and splintered under the charging hooves.
Horns raked flimsy clapboard walls, and overturned rain butts and barrels outside stores. A couple of frantic animals were shouldered through plate glass windows and blood flowed across the splintered boardwalks. Men got their guns and started shooting into the edges of the herd as the animals threatened more life and property.
There was total chaos. It was like a scene from Hell itself when Nash rode in. Fires had started in two places, caused by overturned stoves and the blacksmith’s forge. Dazed folk staggered out in the wake of the thundering, bawling herd and mechanically began forming themselves into bucket brigades. The stampede swept on past and into the night.
They would run themselves out during the night across the plains and Clay Nash knew it was going to be one hell of a job trying to round them up and gather in all the stragglers ...
Six – Manhunter
“Here he is.”
The men cleaning up the trail camp site stopped work immediately at Largo Dunn’s grim voice and looked towards the big trail boss where he stood amid the wreckage of the chuck wagon. He had just lifted the smashed planks off one side and underneath had found the trampled, mangled remains of the Kid.
Silently, the crew gathered round and Poison Pete knelt, pushed a strand of the Kid’s hair off his freckled face.
“Damn!” the Poisoner breathed. “He was a right fine kid. I had high hopes for him. He wanted to be a trail boss, like you, Largo.”
Dunn nodded. “Someone wrap him in a blanket and we’ll make up a casket from this plankin’. Seems fittin’ to bury him in somethin’ like that. Now look among all this mess for my Bible. We ain’t goin’ after any cows till the Kid’s laid away decent an’ I’ve read some words over him.”
Largo jerked his head at Nash and they walked across to stand beneath the tree as the men worked on, following Largo’s instructions. The chaos looked worse in daylight and the gloom was enhanced by the drizzling rain that had started up again.
“You get a look at the hombres you shot?”
Nash gestured to a rock. “Laid ’em out there.”
“Let’s go take a look.”
They walked over and he stared down at the three dead men propped against the wet boulders. “Brandon I know. Not these two.”
“Their pards. The ones they’d arranged to meet out here to drive off the beeves while you were in town. McPhee got away in the dark. I’m goin’ after him, Largo.”
Dunn had been squatting. He snapped his head around to look up at Nash, then straightened.
“Oh?”
“He’s a lousy rustler and I don’t take to rustlers. Lost my own herds to ’em years ago when I homesteaded,” Nash explained. “But I figure I owe it to the Kid.”
Dunn said nothing as he continued to stare at Nash.
“I could’ve warned him, sent him ridin’ into town after you,” Nash went on quietly, “but I didn’t want to take the time. I figured he was agile and nimble enough to get out of the way of any trouble. Anyways, I jumped the varmints and figured that way there wouldn’t be any shootin’ to start a stampede. It was this galoot Brandon who got off the gunshot that set the steers a’runnin’. I want to get McPhee now.”
Dunn thought about it and Nash hoped the man would agree. He didn’t want to push it. But come hell or high water he was going after McPhee. Ten scattered double-eagle gold pieces had been found in the wrecked camp and Pecos and Johnny Marks both said they came from the area where Brandon and McPhee had stowed their war bags. Everything was pretty well scattered around, but Dumplin’ Dan also said he’d seen McPhee with a couple of gold pieces only two nights earlier.
Nash wanted to question McPhee himself about the coins. He didn’t want to show too much interest
in the gold for even if Brandon and McPhee had been two of the road agents he sought, there was still the unidentified third man and he didn’t want to arouse his suspicions. He’d managed to get a look at the date on one of the coins. It was current, the same as the one Johnny Marks had claimed to be his lucky piece—the same as the ones stolen from the Spanish Springs stage express box.
Marks might be the third man, but, whoever he might be, Nash knew he couldn’t show undue interest in the gold coins without possibly making someone suspicious.
So he was using the Kid’s death as an excuse to go out and hunt down McPhee. He wanted Dunn’s permission so that he could return to the trail herd later. But, if Largo insisted he forget about McPhee, Nash would quit and go after the man anyway. For he was sure he could get some answers from McPhee.
“All right, Clay,” Largo Dunn said abruptly. “I’ll be hiring a few men from town to help round-up those steers. They’ll be scattered to hell an’ gone all over the plains by now. We’ll be here best part of a week by the time we round ’em up and get ’em settled down proper. You be back well before we’re ready to roll. With or without McPhee. But if you get him, I’ll give you a fifty dollar bonus when we get to Freedom.”
That surprised Nash but he showed his pleasure—as any trail hand would—and swore he’d be back in time to continue the drive to Freedom.
“If you can,” Dunn added, “bring him in alive. I’d sure admire to have the pleasure of stringin’ the sidewinder up to the nearest tree.”
Nash arched his eyebrows as he waved and moved away to rope himself a fresh mount from the remuda. Johnny Marks walked across as Nash was putting his saddle on a long-legged sorrel.
“Boss says you’re goin’ after McPhee.”
“Yeah.”
“How come?”
Nash looked at him soberly. “The Kid’s dead because of him. I feel responsible.”
“Yeah, too bad it happened, all right. Never did cotton to Mac an’ that Brandon, though. Aw—by the by, Clay, I made a mistake about that gold piece in the saloon the other night.”
“How’s that?” Nash asked, tightening the cinch strap.
“Well, I thought it was the one Ma gave me. But damned if Pecos ain’t told me he’s already spent it. Son of a bitch. I asked him to hold it for me till we got paid, but he spent it. Couldn’t hold off.”
“How come he had that other one, then?” Nash asked. “Twenty bucks is a lot of dinero for a trail hand to have.”
“Guess what? He snitched it. From McPhee. You know Pecos, always up to practical jokes. Well, normally he steers clear of Mac an’ Brandon, them bein’ such hard cases, but he got the notion to shove an old mousetrap he’d found in the chuck wagon and rigged so it’d work again into Mac’s saddlebags. Rummagin’ around he found them coins in the bottom an’ he couldn’t resist an’ took one. He figured to palm it off onto me for my lucky piece, but when he ran out of dough the other night he was gonna spend it an’ get hisself another from Mac’s bags. Only I caught him. Wasn’t till later I figured the date was all wrong …”
Nash studied the young wrangler’s open face as he grinned and punched Nash lightly on the arm.
“I dunno where Mac got so much money, but I reckon I can take a guess. Anyway, good luck. I hope you will nail the sonuver. Never did cotton to him.”
“So you said,” Nash said quietly. “Okay, thanks, Johnny. See you when I get back.”
“Luck.”
Marks watched as Nash rode the sorrel back to the camp and called the Poisoner away from where the men were making the coffin for the Kid.
“I’ll need some grub, Pete,” Nash said. “You rescue enough from the wreckage or should I ride into town?”
The cook glanced around and made a helpless gesture. “Kind of a helluva mess here, Clay. I could scrape you somethin’ together, but might be easier if you picked up some stores in town, put it on Largo’s bill. I’m gonna have to replace nearly all my stuff.” He stepped close to the sorrel and held the reins as Nash made to turn the animal. Poison Pete looked up at Nash with cold eyes. “Nail that bastard, Clay. I’ll give you ten bucks personal, out of my pay, if you get him. I blame him for the Kid’s death.”
“No bounty necessary, Pete,” Nash told him quietly. “Largo’s already offered a bonus. But it’ll be my pleasure.”
The Poisoner nodded and released the reins. Nash turned his mount and rode out of the wreck of the camp towards the wreck of the distant town. Poison Pete watched him go and turned when he felt someone step up beside him. It was Pecos Smith.
For once the prankster wasn’t smiling. “Helluva thing, huh?” The trail cook said nothing as he walked slowly over to supervise the making of the coffin.
Nash was more or less expecting an ambush—but not quite as soon as it came.
McPhee’s trail had been simple enough to follow at first, for the man had merely fled without giving thought to covering his tracks. Nash had followed the sign well into the ranges before McPhee had obviously slowed down and then taken time to try to wipe out his trail.
Nash didn’t hurry. He took his time and carefully examined the ground and gradually found enough sign to indicate which way the rustler had gone.
North-east.
It would take him deeper into the hills, into an area known as the Cortes Breaks where a troop of Spanish conquistadors were supposed to have perished long ago, besieged, starved and belabored by Indians. The Breaks were often used by outlaws, and a man who knew them well could stay a frog’s leap ahead of the law for years.
Nash had been in there twice in his life, both times on the trail of killers. He’d cornered one man in a box canyon and shot it out with him for some time before thirst made his quarry reckless enough to show himself and Nash shot the man through the head as he knelt by a spring to drink for the first time in three days.
The other killer had eluded Nash and the Wells Fargo man had been lucky to find his way out of the Breaks on foot before he starved. He’d eventually caught up with that killer.
As he rode warily into the outer Breaks, he tried to recall every detail of their topography.
They were rugged, and got more so as they thrust towards the sky. Canyons were deep and narrow and many false trails led off them. There were sudden drop-offs and landslides as the ancient rock gave way under its own weight. There was no permanent water. A man had to look mighty hard to find even a small soak or spring used by animals. Not that there were many animals.
It was a little piece of Hell in the Cortes Breaks and Nash figured McPhee must be mighty desperate to head in there. Either that, or he had friends who’d protect him.
Then, as he led his mount over a barrier of broken rock and started down the far side into a snaking canyon, the ambusher opened up with a rifle.
He was high up on the walls, but below the rim. The sound of the shots crashed and reverberated through the canyon and slapped in wild echoes across the drab foothills. The bullets ricocheted from the rocks between Nash and his mount, and the pack horse, roped to the saddle of the sorrel reared and thrashed, going down on its side, spilling stores over the rocks.
Nash palmed up his Colt, dropped to one knee, blazed two fast shots up at the canyon wall, then desperately tried to untie the rope that was pulling the sorrel onto its haunches.
The animal was wild-eyed and fighting, and Nash dropped flat as a bullet burned across his shoulder. He snatched his Winchester from the sorrel’s scabbard and somehow managed to get the rope free. The animal lunged up and Nash held onto the stirrup as more lead slammed into the earth around him.
Screened by the dust kicked by the slithering mount, Nash rolled swiftly near the bottom of the slope and scrambled behind some rocks. He got the rifle around just as the bushwhacker triggered—revealing his position.
Clay’s rifle came down between the rocks and he got off four fast shots, straddling the killer’s position. He saw the dust spurting and heard the wasp-like ricochets. Hard on the heels of hi
s shots he got his legs under him and made a wild dash for better cover as his mount raced under an overhang of rock. Bullets whined around him, kicked dust near his feet and from the rock wall behind him. Then Nash dived over the boulders and sprawled in the center of the ring, skidding on the sand within.
He spat some out of his mouth, squirmed around and got the rifle butt into his shoulder. He was just in time to catch a glimpse of a man running along the ledge where he’d been sheltering. Nash’s bullet sent rock splinters flying but the man didn’t pause. He ran out of sight and by the time Nash had reached his horse, he heard the distant tattoo of racing hoofs high above.
He paused. Not much use hurrying. He’d scared the man off and he’d be well hidden by the time Nash had found a trail up there. Meanwhile, he knew he’d best salvage what stores he could and push on ...
As he knelt by the dead pack horse, trying to pull free the panniers, he puzzled over the attack. It seemed too early somehow. He hadn’t expected McPhee to stop him at that stage. He wouldn’t have expected it to happen until he was much deeper in the hills.
Then Nash sat back on his hams as he recalled something about the man. He’d been slim and of medium height. In no way had he resembled the bull-necked, big-gutted McPhee.
Looked like the outlaw had some pards. And that meant that Clay’s job was going to be that much harder.
Largo Dunn was going to be down on his profits, he reckoned.
There was the time lost while they rounded-up the steers after the stampede. Some were found so badly injured with horn gashes and busted legs that they had to be destroyed. The rest were skittish, nervous, and ran off when a horseman approached. There was a lot of riding required and more roping than Largo had planned on. His men were nigh on worn out at the end of the day and he had to spend time in Chicimec, holding long talks with the town’s authorities discussing the damage done to property.
