Wanted McBain

by I. J. Parnham

  Ballard let rip with a joyous whoop that echoed down the gulch. Then he let the deputy who claimed the kill gather Fernandez’s hat for a trophy.

  Cassidy and Hearst stood back and, within ten minutes, the well-tethered prisoners were ready to move out. So, at a trot, the group set off down the remaining two miles of Deadman’s Gulch, heading to Bear Creek.

  At the back, Cassidy glanced around, searching the slopes for any stragglers who may have run when they realized they faced imminent capture, but saw nobody, and Ballard didn’t think the effort worthwhile.

  Instead, Ballard whistled a merry tune, his deputies hollering and cheering their success. The contented cries echoed down the gulch, heralding their passage.

  On the plains, Ballard called a halt and they waited for the deputies that he’d sent around the north and south of the gulch to rejoin them.

  As they waited, Ballard rode up and down, nodding to his men. Improbable stories of bravery gathered momentum as each man encouraged the others to provide more details about their role in their defeat of Fernandez.

  Cassidy and Hearst dismounted and stayed back, avoiding another confrontation, but Ballard rode up to them and raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Your men are a credit to you,’ Cassidy said, jutting his jaw. ‘I mean that.’

  ‘Just three usual deputies,’ Ballard said, gesturing at his men. ‘The good folk of Bear Creek make up the rest. So, have you learnt enough about being a lawman yet to help you back in Morbid?’

  ‘I guess I have,’ Cassidy said with his teeth gritted.

  ‘Good.’ Ballard dismounted and puffed his chest. ‘Perhaps you might make a lawman one day, but only if you stop chasing around and learn to plan.’

  ‘You didn’t plan all this. You got lucky and trapped Fernandez through his own greed.’

  ‘I did plan all this. Isaac told me that Nathaniel and Spenser had visited the bank. I let them carry on with their plans, knowing they’d pass on more information than the bits I’d fed to Dewey Wade, and convince Fernandez to hide out where I wanted him to.’

  ‘You knew Dewey was double-crossing you when he gave you information about Fernandez?’

  ‘Of course.’ Ballard patted his stomach and laughed. ‘That idiot thought he was leading me on, but when you deal with the likes of Dewey, you learn to extract the truth from the half-truths and lies. When you understand men like him, you can play everybody to do your bidding.’

  ‘Dewey will suffer for those lies, one day,’ Hearst said. ‘He double-crossed Nat, Spenser, and me, too. He told Fernandez that we were trying to capture him.’

  ‘Why didn’t Fernandez kill you?’ Ballard asked.

  ‘I reckon he was testing Dewey to see if he had the courage to kill us. He tied us up and left Dewey guarding us, but Dewey came too close. Nat knocked his legs from under him and overpowered him.’

  ‘You were tied up and he still couldn’t control you!’ Ballard threw back his head and roared with laughter. ‘That man really is an idiot.’

  ‘If Dewey were as big an idiot as you reckon he is,’ Cassidy said, ‘he’d never have survived for as long as he has.’

  ‘Fernandez tolerated him. I tolerated him. That mouse survived in the cracks between us.’

  ‘Now I guess he won’t be improving himself like he wanted to,’ Hearst said.

  Cassidy paced in a circle, patting his leg. Then he stopped and faced Ballard, who was still chuckling.

  ‘Or maybe he was waiting for the right moment to improve himself. You knew what Nathaniel, Spenser and Fernandez wanted.’ Cassidy set his hands on his hips. ‘But what did Dewey want?’

  ‘Another drink,’ Ballard said.

  ‘He did, but what if that isn’t the full story? What if all the time you were playing him, he was playing you?’ Cassidy shook a fist as he warmed to his theme. ‘Dewey was resourceful enough to get a message to Nathaniel and then hold Hearst and me at gunpoint, but he was so stupid he couldn’t defeat three bound men. That doesn’t sound right.’

  ‘You never know with Dewey.’ Ballard chuckled. ‘But I guess an idiot like you would understand him.’

  ‘Either way, he isn’t around,’ Cassidy said, raising his eyebrows. ‘And the gold isn’t here either.’

  ‘And neither are Nat and Spenser,’ Hearst said.

  ‘They took the longer route, so it isn’t surprising that—’ Ballard gulped. ‘Are you saying Dewey’s ambushed the gold shipment?’

  ‘He knew all the plans. With Fernandez out of the way . . .’

  ‘Perhaps he didn’t want to kill Nat and Spenser either,’ Hearst said. ‘Perhaps his stupidity was just a show for me and now he’s using that freedom to free them.’

  Ballard looked down Deadman’s Gulch and then at the plains. He winced and swirled back to face Cassidy.

  ‘The gold is on its way. Deputy Weston will be here any minute.’

  ‘Or maybe Weston has a sore head and Dewey is galloping away with more gold than an idiot like him count.’

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Ballard directed two deputies to head north around Deadman’s Gulch and see what had happened to the men guarding Nat and Spenser. Then he ordered the other deputies to take the surviving members of Fernandez’s men into Bear Creek.

  Then he, along with Cassidy and Hearst, headed around the southern route at a gallop. Within five minutes, they reached the spot where Cassidy judged that the cart would be if it were still heading to Bear Creek.

  Ballard remained quiet, but from the way the veins in his neck pulsed as he bunched his jaw, Cassidy reckoned that he thought they should have met it, too.

  Still, they rode on for another five minutes. Then Ballard spread them out to flank the low-lying hills on either side of the trail.

  After twenty minutes, they reached the entrance to Deadman’s Gulch where they had left Deputy Weston.

  There, they scouted around until they found the cart tracks. Then they doubled-back and followed them towards Bear Creek, but within a half-mile, the tracks left the trail.

  They followed the tracks up the slope leading to the gulch and through a grouping of boulders. A short, silent search found Weston and the other deputy lying unconscious in the shadow of a boulder.

  Behind them, the cart tracks led up the slope, and then veered to the side and away from the gulch. Ballard checked that his deputies were breathing easily and then followed the tracks.

  For the next twenty minutes, the tracks took them on a convoluted path as they skirted round hillocks, taking figures-of-eight patterns, and even doubling back in some sections.

  ‘What in tarnation is that idiot doing?’ Ballard grunted as they rounded a crag.

  Hearst shrugged. ‘Perhaps stealing the gold unhinged what was left of Dewey’s mind and he just wandered around.’

  ‘Stop calling Dewey an idiot,’ Cassidy said. ‘He’s the only one who knows everything that happened here.’

  Cassidy put his hand to his brow and traced back along the recent path of the tracks. Then he pointed ahead and, with their brows furrowed, Hearst and Ballard followed the direction of his gaze.

  They urged their horses onward. One hundred yards on, they saw what Cassidy had pointed at.

  The cart tracks stopped.

  ‘The cart can’t just disappear,’ Ballard said.

  ‘It can’t,’ Cassidy said. ‘But I reckon that by now Dewey had help from Nat and Spenser to brush away the wheel markings.’

  ‘Clearing away tracks would have taken some time.’ Hearst gazed along the path beyond where the tracks stopped. ‘If we carry on, we have to pick up their trail before too long.’

  Ballard jumped down from his horse and peered at the end of the wheel tracks and at the flattened dirt where Nat and Spenser, presumably, had scuffed away the wheel markings. Within ten yards, the scuffing diminished in intensity until the ground returned to its normal gentle undulations.

  ‘The cart could have gone left, right, or straight on,’ Ballard said. ‘But
I’m with Hearst. They couldn’t have cleared the tracks away for ever. We just have to scout around and pick them up when they restart.’

  ‘Let me see the tracks,’ Cassidy said, dismounting. ‘See if I can spot anything.’

  ‘You can’t see anything. They covered them well.’

  Cassidy hunkered down beside Ballard and peered at the ground, confirming that whoever had removed the markings had been skilful.

  He fingered the dirt and picked up a handful. He let it sprinkle through his fingers.

  ‘Or perhaps too well,’ he mused.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Cassidy stood up and peered around, searching for nearby landmarks. The nearest was the crag behind him.

  Cassidy shielded his eyes and saw that halfway up the crag, there was a ledge and at the back of this, the topmost part of a cave was visible.

  ‘Nathaniel has taken the gold up there,’ he said, pointing.

  Ballard joined Cassidy in considering the cave. Then he turned on the spot searching for likely directions that the cart could have taken.

  ‘You can’t know that.’

  ‘I know Nathaniel. He’s clever. A cart loaded down with gold can’t outrun us even if it takes us hours to pick up the trail, but what if the gold hasn’t gone anywhere?’

  Ballard paced away from Cassidy and stared at the ground that had either had the wheel tracks removed with some skill, or had never had wheel tracks. He shrugged.

  With his eyes narrowed, he paced back along the tracks, heading towards the crag. Fifty feet from the point where the tracks disappeared, he beckoned Cassidy to join him.

  Cassidy scurried down the tracks and stood beside him. A single wheel track veered off from the normal set of tracks, before it disappeared, too.

  ‘You’re right,’ Ballard said, hunkering down. He gestured in an arc along the tracks. ‘They backed the cart along the wheel tracks they’d just made and then headed to that crag.’

  ‘Then doubled back to wipe away those markings,’ Cassidy said, nodding, ‘hoping that we’d think they’d continued on the same route.’

  Cassidy turned and paced towards the crag, but Ballard jumped to his feet and coughed, halting him.

  ‘Before we get the gold back, what else . . .?’ Ballard sighed and then met Cassidy’s gaze. ‘What else do you know about this Nathaniel McBain that’ll make our ambush easier for us, Sheriff Yates?’

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Cassidy considered Ballard, but on detecting no sign of sarcasm in his steady gaze, he nodded his thanks.

  ‘I know enough about Nathaniel to take him without bloodshed.’ Cassidy took a deep breath. ‘It might be best if I lead, and you back me up.’

  Ballard narrowed his eyes. ‘You’re not leading.’

  ‘I know Nathaniel.’ Cassidy smiled. ‘And I always like to have someone I can trust backing me up, Sheriff Ballard.’

  Ballard flared his eyes, but then glanced away and nodded.

  So, with Hearst and Ballard flanking him, Cassidy headed to the crag.

  From the base, he confirmed that the slope was fierce, but as it was only around one hundred feet to the ledge and the cave, determined men could have maneuvered the cart up there.

  He whispered last instructions to Hearst and Ballard. Then he headed on a snaking route up the side of the crag.

  The dirt was loose and cascaded from under his feet at every pace, but twenty feet from the top he found a length of deep wheel tracks that Nat and Spenser had failed to mask. He pointed this out to Ballard, who returned a grin and patted Cassidy’s back.

  In the lead, Cassidy crested the ledge before the cave, although he stayed low. The ledge was flat and about forty feet wide, the cave nestling under an overhang at the back.

  Cassidy ducked below the ledge and directed Hearst and Ballard to hide by a large sentinel rock, the only cover before the cave.

  He edged down the slope and paced sideways below the cave and out of the view of anyone who was inside, until he was beyond it. Then he climbed the crag, aiming to emerge on the overhang above the cave.

  Sure enough, when he crested the top of the crag, he could look down on the flat ledge before the cave and the rock behind which Ballard and Hearst were hiding. He could also see the cart, set in a hollow beside the cave.

  Cassidy shuffled down the side of the overhang to sit above the mouth of the cave. From this position, he confirmed that the crate wasn’t on the back of the cart, but scuffed earth marked its progress into the cave.

  Leaning back, so that he kept one hand on the rough rock, Cassidy edged down the side of the overhang. He picked each foothold with care, ensuring that he didn’t loosen any stones.

  When he’d clambered to twenty feet above the cave entrance, he saw Nat hunkering down behind the cart, looking to the plains. Cassidy reckoned that from Nat’s low position he couldn’t see the place where they had stopped to consider the end of the wheel tracks.

  So, there was a good chance he was unaware that they were now closing on him.

  Cassidy gestured to the sentinel rock where Hearst and Ballard were hiding, receiving a wave from Hearst. Then he edged down the overhang to stand on the edge, directly above the side of the cave entrance and above Nat.

  As he settled down, a dangling foot dislodged a stone. With slow inevitability, the stone rolled down the last two feet of rock face, and then tumbled from the edge, dust and pebbles accompanying it in its short journey to land a yard from Nat’s right foot.

  Nat flinched and looked up, his gaze arcing up the side of the cave towards Cassidy.

  In a sudden decision, Cassidy leapt from the overhang. He threw his hands up as he hurtled by the cave entrance and slammed into Nat’s back.

  From fifteen feet up, he flattened Nat, the action disorientating himself for a moment. By the time Nat had regained his senses, Cassidy had shaken his head to clear it and had kicked Nat’s gun away.

  Cassidy glanced at the cave, confirming that Spenser and Dewey weren’t visible, but as he turned back, Nat swirled round, his fists flailing in a berserk action.

  Cassidy took a wild blow to the cheek and another to the chest, but then batted Nat’s arms away and grabbed his collar in a firm grip.

  Nat struggled, his head lolling and his rolling eyes suggesting he was still unsure as to who had assaulted him. Cassidy swung him round to face him. He looked into his eyes, Nat flinching as his eyes focused, and then threw him on his back.

  Nat looked up at Cassidy, his eyes wide, as Cassidy paced forward to stand over him. He drew his gun and aimed it down at his chest.

  ‘Nathaniel, you are under arrest,’ he declared.

  Nat raised his hands and shook his head. When it stopped moving, his eyes were clear. He smiled.

  ‘Howdy, Cassidy,’ he said, his voice light and untroubled. ‘You took longer than I expected to find me.’

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Although Nat remained silent after his initial comment, Cassidy already feared the full story. With a sickness in his guts, he beckoned for Ballard and Hearst to join him.

  While he guarded Nat, the two lawmen dashed across the flat area before the cave. Then, on Cassidy’s directions, they stalked into the cave, flanking either side.

  Within a minute, they’d explored the recess and they’d confirmed that the crate was in the cave, but it contained only the furs. The gold had gone, as had Spenser and Dewey.

  Cassidy didn’t bother questioning Nat as to where they’d gone, refusing to give him the satisfaction. Instead, he dragged Nat across the front of the cave and pushed him towards Ballard, who did question Nat.

  Nat refused to talk other than to state repeatedly that when he’d given his word, he never broke it.

  Hearst found Nat’s horse and discovered tracks for a second cart, which had been in the cave. The tracks led south.

  So, Ballard relented from his interrogation and bound Nat. Then, with Ballard holding Nat in a firm grip, they headed down the side of the c
rag to their horses.

  Ballard moved to place Nat on the back of his horse, but he stopped and dragged him back to Cassidy. He pushed him forward a pace.

  ‘This one is yours,’ he said, his former arrogance gone from his tone as he met Cassidy’s gaze.

  ‘This is your territory and your prisoner,’ Cassidy said.

  ‘Yeah, but after all your trouble, I reckon you can deal with him yourself back in Morb . . . back in Monotony.’

  Cassidy nodded and took Nat’s rope from Ballard.

  ‘I reckon Spenser and Dewey won’t get far. Not with an idiot like Dewey at the reins and a lawman like you after them.’

  Ballard slapped his thigh, a huge smile emerging.

  ‘You’re right. I’ll track them down before they leave my county – just like any outlaw that does wrong on my patch.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it.’ Cassidy smiled as Ballard headed for his horse. ‘But you’d better catch them soon. If you don’t, you might stray into another lawman’s territory.’

  Ballard swung on to his horse. ‘That’s never worried me before.’

  He winked and turned his horse to head south.

  Cassidy handed the rope to Hearst. Then he considered Nat as his deputy led his new prisoner to his horse.

  When Nat didn’t return his gaze, Cassidy nodded to himself and then hailed Ballard, who padded his horse back to stand over Cassidy.

  ‘I know where the gold is,’ Cassidy said.

  Ballard glanced over Cassidy’s shoulder at Nat.

  ‘Because you understand the way that outlaw’s mind works?’

  Cassidy sighed. ‘Nope. I now have to admit that I don’t understand him. I understand the likes of Spenser and Dewey more, and my hunch is that they use misdirection.’

  ‘Are you saying that the tracks from the second cart led south, so that means they went somewhere else?’

  ‘Yeah. You could chase phantom tracks for weeks and not find them because Spenser and Dewey will go to the last place you’d expect them to go.’

  ‘Like the place they’ve been camping for the last week?’