by Brett Waring
Nash wasn’t sure why he was on that particular ridge. The soldiers had found nothing to indicate which direction the robbers had taken. There had been some sign just for a few yards leading away from the wrecked armored car, but then the hoof marks had branched out into a dozen different directions.
That was no doubt deliberate and meant to confuse any pursuit. Captain Macrae had broken up his troopers into small bunches and, about that time, the horses had finally arrived after their wild ride down The Slide with its greased rails. The men who had been sent after them reported that both trains had made it safely, though the engineers figured it to be nothing less than a miracle. Macrae wanted to send Nash down to the trains and get him to a doctor, but the Wells Fargo man had bluntly refused. When the argument had become a bit too strong he simply had made out that he didn’t understand what the captain was trying to say. His face had been red as he shouted but Nash hadn’t heard a thing.
Then Macrae had thrown up his arms in disgust and made a gesture that plainly said: ‘Do what you like—I wash my hands of all responsibility.’
Nash had chosen the big claybank because it looked as if it had plenty of stamina and he had figured that to be more important than speed in the mountains. He had studied the wreck site, including the area where the scattered fuse ends and detonators and cigarette butts had been found. They had all been on the north side of the rails, and yet the tracks that were visible led across the cinders and into the southwest. It could be said that the outlaws had waited on the north side because there was more cover there.
But the empty grease cans had also been found on the north side—together with marks that showed where the horses had been tethered. Looking northwards, Nash saw a tangle of hills and ranges, most rising high enough to have permanent snow. There would be hidden draws and canyons in there, and the timber was thick and green on the lower slopes.
To the southwest, in any direction on that side of the tracks, there were hills, too, but they were barren and rocky and, while they no doubt held hidden valleys and canyons, also, there was little timber to provide cover.
Nash had a hunch that the outlaws would ride to where the timber was. What’s more, there was hard, flinty ground just beyond where the scattered tracks ended. It afforded a wide area where the horsemen could have turned back to the north, crossed the tracks by the railroad ties and left no sign that they were headed in almost the opposite direction.
Macrae didn’t agree with Nash, so the Wells Fargo man had set off alone. In fact, Macrae didn’t mind: he was glad to have the deaf Wells Fargo man off his hands and no longer his responsibility. He couldn’t come to much harm wandering around the hills for a few days, uselessly searching for tracks. And Macrae knew Nash’s reputation for wilderness survival. Meantime, he sent urgent word to Denver and spread out the remainder of his men, searching the southwest side of the tracks.
And that suited Nash.
He didn’t mind travelling alone. He preferred it. He had been the lucky one, being blown out of that armored van. If he hadn’t been opening the trapdoor he would have been mincemeat like the others. He was the lone survivor and so it was up to him to avenge the dead guards who had put their lives on the line with him.
He was following his instincts. There were no tracks. Although the ground hardly lent itself to hoofmarks, the outlaws had been careful about the bushes. He hadn’t found any broken twigs. But, in a couple of places there had been fresh marks to show where some leaves had been brushed from the tips of branches. It could have been the wind, or a bird, but the broken stem marks were fresh and the leaves were on the ground beneath the bushes. If it had been the wind, it would have scattered the leaves far away.
It was a tenuous sign but with his hunch working as strongly as it was, Nash drove on, using his logic to tell him which way the men would go; down through a draw rather than trying to smash a patch through the tangled brush beside it; around the base of that hogback, because there was too much open space on the slope and the ground was soft enough to leave a hoof-mark plain to see; upstream in an icy creek, rather than down or across: downstream, there were rapids and their froth told him they would have been too deep and strong for horses to cross: on the far bank, the earth was dark and damp and mossy and would show tracks.
He put himself in the place of the robbers and followed the trail he reckoned they must have taken.
It led him into thick timber with a carpet of leaves and pine needles that would not take tracks. They had been mighty careful. There hadn’t been one discarded cigarette butt anywhere and he didn’t come across any campsites. He had a map of the country and he figured that the robbers would have arranged for the hold up within a day or so’s ride of their hideout, especially when they had so much gold to carry. It had been evenly distributed, he figured, and not merely loaded on one or two pack animals. For the animals would have left some sign, carrying such a weight.
He knew the woods must be alive with wildlife sounds all around him but he still couldn’t hear.
In fact, when his hat was whipped from his head as he came out of some trees, he didn’t even hear the shot.
Chapter Seven – Deadly Silence
Instinct saved him. Over the years he had survived many ambushes and drygulchings. Although he hadn’t heard the gun, the feel of his hat being torn from his head told him it had been a bullet and not a hanging branch.
He grabbed his rifle butt as he threw himself sideways out of the saddle, lunging from the stirrups towards some heavy brush. He saw the bush jump and leaves and twigs fly and knew the bushwhacker had put a second shot into it. Then his hurtling body crashed into the branches and through them and he jarred hard against the ground, the breath gusting from him. He lost his grip on the rifle momentarily but grabbed it with one hand as he rolled into the small shelter beneath the brush.
The claybank ran off on the other side, smashing a path through the brush.
The earth in front of his face jumped and he tasted dirt and dead leaves. He spat and squirmed around, using elbows and knees to get deeper into the brush. He had to depend on his eyesight: if he could find the pall of powdersmoke, he might be able to pinpoint the bushwhacker: he sure had no hope of hearing the gunfire.
He went to ground when he came to a small knoll that gave him a commanding view over a gulch that was relatively free of bushes. But, on the far side, there was a rock-and-brush studded slope that would afford mighty fine cover for any bushwhacker. Nash lay there, feeling the occasional jerk of the branches above him as bullets tore through them, searching for him. It told him that the gunman didn’t know his exact location and was firing blind.
He cursed his inability to hear. By now, he should have had the position of the bushwhacker pinpointed. By sight alone, it was difficult. There was a drifting pall of powdersmoke about halfway up the slope, but he saw there was a strong wind blowing through the gulch. It would have blown the smoke far away from its point of origin.
Slowly, Nash let his gaze travel back and down, trying to see where the smoke was spurting from. But the wind was too strong. He saw torn clouds of the smoke rapidly dispersed across the face of the slope but couldn’t pinpoint the killer.
The shooting stopped for a spell and Nash lay very still, watching a small area where he figured the killer would have to be hidden. There were rocks in clumps and screening brush: it was an ideal place for a drygulcher and, after studying the drifting smoke and the swaying bushes he had figured on the area he was watching as the most likely place.
Nash had plenty of patience. He didn’t move a muscle. He felt something crawling across the leg of the old pair of army trousers Macrae had found for him to wear; it might have been a lizard or a snake or a centipede, even a scorpion. He didn’t even turn his head to look. He kept his gaze on the slope.
And he was finally rewarded.
At first it was only a movement of a patch of shadow on one of the rocks. He wasn’t sure that it hadn’t been caused by a cloud passing
across the face of the sun. Then he saw that it was someone changing position, clambering higher up the slope, using the rocks and brush for cover. Their shadow was thrown between two big rocks onto the ground and he saw distinctly, the shape of the rifle.
Nash nodded, got his own rifle butt against his shoulder and sighted down the barrel. He let his gaze go on ahead of the moving shadow, saw where the killer would be momentarily exposed and set his foresight on the point. As he saw the first hint of moving shadow, he squeezed off the shot.
He felt the thump of the explosion and the kick of the butt against his shoulder, saw the brief muzzle flame lance out through the spurt of powdersmoke—but they were all sensations of sight and feeling: he heard nothing.
On the slope, he saw the bullet spray a line of rock dust only inches from the target. The man floundered in fright and Nash levered hastily, got off another shot, and saw more dust fly. His third bullet went between the rocks and he didn’t see where it landed, but he knew he hadn’t hit the gunman, at least not fatally, for, a few moments later, he saw the spurt of powdersmoke and a bullet slapped through the brush ten feet to his right.
Nash grinned tightly. It looked as though the bushwhacker had lost his position. He took careful aim, waiting until he saw a flash of colored cloth, then squeezed off another shot.
The color disappeared but he had no indication of where his bullet had gone. There was no more gunfire from the slope, so the Wells Fargo man waited, lying perfectly still and watching. If his hearing had been back, he would have gone to investigate, but it was too dangerous a move when he had only his sight to help him. He was still dizzy when he moved fast, too. A knot tightened in his belly as he wondered what he would do if he didn’t get his hearing back ... Hell! He’d be finished as a Wells Fargo agent. There was a long line of enemies waiting, too, for something like this to happen to him: he could be shot from behind and never even know what had happened.
The thought had hardly formed when he stiffened.
A gun barrel rammed against his spine and a boot pinned his hand against his rifle on the ground.
Nash flicked his eyes across the gulch and swore. There was still someone over there, moving about the rocks again. There had been two of them and while one kept him busy from across the gulch, the other had worked his way up behind. If he had had his hearing, he might have detected the man ...
He knew by the violent way the man kicked him in the ribs, grabbed the back of his shirt and flung him roughly onto his back that he had been given several orders. When he hadn’t responded, the gunman had grown impatient.
Lying on his back, Nash raised his hands to shoulder level as he looked up at his captor. He was a man just under six feet, with a rocky sort of face and gun barrel eyes. His mouth was a razor slash and the jaw jutting aggressively. Nash figured he was in his mid thirties and he looked like he wouldn’t hesitate to use the rifle that he held pointed at Nash’s chest.
The mouth worked, the lips curling in a snarl. Nash shook his head and pointed to his ears, again shaking his head, trying to convey his deafness.
The gunman frowned. “You deaf?”
Nash nodded, reading the man’s questioning lips.
The rifle prodded hard into his ribs.
“You talk?”
Nash shook his head. The rifle barrel jerked in a short arc and slammed him across the face, knocking him onto his side. He held his numbed cheek as he sat up slowly and spat some blood. The gunman looked at him coldly.
“Don’t lie to me, mister. I heard you cuss when you missed my pard over yonder.”
Nash didn’t make out all the words but he caught the drift. The Wells Fargo man sat up carefully under the gun.
“Okay, I can talk,” he said, having no idea that he was shouting. “But I can’t hear. Nothin’.”
The man studied him for a moment and then gestured with the rifle for Nash to turn onto his face. Slowly, apprehensively, the Wells Fargo man did as he was told. The gunman planted a boot in the middle of Nash’s back and then lifted his rifle. He turned the barrel into the air and triggered. The shot crashed out and echoed through the timber and across the gulch. Nash didn’t move and there was no involuntary flinching of muscles under the gunman’s boot.
The man arched his eyebrows, glanced across and saw that his companion had emerged warily from the rocks at the sound of the shot. He waved and gestured for the second gunman to come across. Then he grabbed Nash’s shoulder and rolled him onto his back. He squatted, holding the rifle on the Wells Fargo man. He looked directly into Nash’s face and mouthed his words slowly, giving the man a chance to read his lips.
“Who—are—you?”
“Nathan Clay,” Nash, replied.
“What’re you doin’ here on Rolling C land? You after our steers?”
It took Nash some time to figure out what the man was saying and when he did he showed his surprise at the accusation and swiftly shook his head.
“No. Just riding through.” He was thinking fast. He hadn’t known there was a ranch there—right across the trail he reckoned had been used by the train robbers in their getaway. It might be a good place for them to hide out. “Lookin’ for work, as a matter of fact.”
The man studied him.
“We been troubled with rustlers lately. You could be one.”
When Nash worked out what he had said he shook his head fast.
“Hell, no! I’m just a cowpoke on the drift. Grubliner. I’m no widelooper. Is that why your pard started shootin’ at me?”
The man didn’t answer but turned his head slowly and Nash looked past him and saw the bushwhacker from across the gulch coming through the brush. He felt the surprise straighten his face when he saw that it was a girl.
She was young, about twenty, dressed in checked shirt and corduroy trousers. There was a small hat perched on the back of her head, revealing wavy brown hair that fell to her shoulders. Her face was tanned, oval, full-lipped—and she held the rifle as if she knew how to use it. He had already had a demonstration of that.
Suddenly, he stiffened. Through all the vacuum and whistling and hissing inside his head, he heard some other sounds.
The girl tripped and fell to her knees, dropping the rifle. It clattered against some rocks.
Nash heard the noise it made. Very faintly, as if it were at the other end of a long, long tunnel, but he heard the sounds, saw the rifle strike, and his senses matched them up exactly.
He had a hard time keeping his face straight as he realized that his hearing was beginning to return. The army medic had told him that if it were going to come back at all, it would start suddenly, then gradually increase.
He had said that if there was no improvement in three days, then likely the damage would be permanent.
The gunman glanced at the girl with concern as she picked herself up.
“You okay, Rachel?”
“Yes, Jordan,” the girl said, turning her attention to Nash. “Is he one of them?”
“Reckons not. Says his name’s Nathan Clay. He’s deaf.”
She looked at Jordan and frowned. “Might be convenient for him to have us think that.”
Jordan’s lips moved faintly as he shook his head. “He’s deaf all right. Tested him. Fired my gun behind him and he never flinched a muscle. He can’t hear worth a damn.”
“Read lips?”
“Not any too well. Guess he ain’t been deaf for long.”
Rachel stood in front of Nash and he nodded slightly. “I’m Rachel Castle,” she told him slowly, watching his eyes study the movement of her lips. “My father owns this land. It’s part of his spread, the Rolling C. You’re trespassing.”
“I picked up somethin’ about your father and Rolling C and that I’m trespassing,” Nash said, truthfully. He had heard these actual words, faint and muffled and distorted, but it was a good sign. The rest of the girl’s conversation he could work out logically enough. “Didn’t know I was on anyone’s land. Never seen any fences or signs
. I’m lookin’ for work. I ain’t no rustler like that feller thought. I’m just a cowpoke. Tophand, and I can bust horses, build fences and barns.”
All this was true enough: before joining Wells Fargo as a top investigator, Clay Nash had owned a small ranch in Texas for many years.
The girl looked at him carefully.
“What d’you think, Jordan?”
The man shrugged. “Could be gospel. Never heard of a deaf rustler, but never head of a deaf tophand, neither.”
Rachel nodded and turned to face Nash.
“How long have you been deaf?”
Nash knew it was no use making out that he had been deaf for many years because he wasn’t adept enough at reading lips for that. He shrugged.
“Last place I worked at, over in Biggins County, they was blastin’ rock to make a dam. Some dynamite went off too early. I guess I was too close. But I was lucky just the same. Four fellers with me got killed.”
Rachel frowned.
“I never heard about that. Which ranch was it?”
Nash made out he didn’t understand but after several more tries and when he saw both Jordan’s and the girl’s patience wearing thin, he shrugged.
“Place called Flatiron.” It was anonymous enough: ‘Flatiron’ was a common name for spreads in every county. “Owned by an eastern meat house, I think. Wasn’t there long enough to find out much. They fired me after they seen I was deaf.”
Suddenly there was compassion on the girl’s face.
“You can still do ranch chores?”
He made her repeat it three times before nodding. “Sure, as long as hearin’ ain’t involved.”
“Will you ever get your hearing back?” she asked.
Nash shrugged. “Don’t look like it. Doc said if it didn’t come back in a week there’d be no chance. That was three weeks back.”
The girl turned to Jordan.
“Bring him along. Dad’ll want to talk with him.”
Jordan jerked his rifle for Nash to get to his feet and the Wells Fargo man clambered up. When they asked where his horse was he pointed in the direction the claybank had run off. While the girl kept him covered, Jordan caught the animal and brought it back. He led the claybank while Nash was ordered into the gulch where two other horses were tethered. All three mounted and Rachel led the way with Jordan riding behind Nash. Nash had been allowed to keep his guns but Jordan watched him carefully.