‘That’s the idea, but there’s somewhere even more unlikely for them to go: Deadman’s Gulch where your deputies arrested Fernandez.’
‘Because that’s the last place anybody would hide out,’ Ballard mused.
Ballard and Cassidy exchanged a nod and a grin. Then Ballard headed back to Deadman’s Gulch, leaving Cassidy and Hearst alone with Nat.
‘Come on, Hearst,’ Cassidy said, turning to his horse. ‘We’ve got an outlaw to take in.’
Hearst nodded and bundled Nat on to his horse. Then he mounted his own steed and secured the rope.
‘You got anything to say about that?’ Hearst said, tugging Nat’s rope.
Nat glanced at Hearst, nothing in his firm gaze suggesting to Cassidy that his hunch was correct. As Cassidy no longer understood Nat’s attitude, that meant nothing.
Nat turned in the saddle to face Cassidy and smiled.
‘Don’t blame me, Cassidy,’ he said.
‘Keep a tight hold of that rope, Hearst,’ Cassidy said as he reached his horse. ‘I don’t want no trouble from our prisoner.’
‘You can’t ignore me for ever,’ Nat said.
‘And make sure our prisoner doesn’t waste his breath talking.’
‘You heard him,’ Hearst said, pulling the rope binding him to Nat taut and dragging Nat back in the saddle.
‘I kept my promises to you, Cassidy,’ Nat said, righting himself.
Cassidy mounted his horse and raised the reins, but then lowered them and glared at Nat.
‘You did nothing.’
‘Fernandez is dead, I’ve handed myself in, and Spenser has the gold.’
Cassidy looked over his shoulder to see Ballard disappear over the ridge and into Deadman’s Gulch.
‘Whether my hunch about your plans was right or wrong, with that lawman on his trail, Spenser won’t enjoy his gold for long.’
‘Either way, I still kept my promises.’
‘You’re forgotten so much of what I taught you that you don’t know what promises mean no more.’
Cassidy shook the reins, moving his horse on. He rode on, Hearst and the trailing Nat ahead of him, but as they passed the end of the cart tracks, he pulled back on the reins.
Leaning from the saddle, he examined the tracks and then closed his eyes, envisaging the other tracks that Hearst had found on the ledge.
‘Misdirection,’ he whispered to himself. ‘The tracks from the second cart weren’t there to confuse us as to the direction they took. They were there to make us believe there was a second cart.’
Cassidy snorted, swung his horse round, and galloped towards the crag.
‘Where are you going?’ Hearst shouted, swirling round in the saddle.
‘Just guard our prisoner,’ Cassidy shouted over his shoulder.
At a gallop, he reached the crag. His horse balked at the incline, so Cassidy jumped down and scurried, on hands and feet, up the slope to reach the flat ledge before the cave.
He stood and stalked towards the cave, his gun drawn. With his gaze darting to either side, he walked round the cart to consider the tracks that the second cart had made. They were identical to the other cart tracks.
With his gun held low, he entered the cave and swung the lid from the crate. He dragged the furs from within, hurling them to the ground as he confirmed nobody was hiding inside.
In the cave entrance, he ran his gaze over the ledge. The ground was rocky, but in a hollow before the cave, sand had collected.
Ten feet before the cave, an animal bone, possibly hollow, protruded from the ground.
Cassidy smiled and paced on to the sand.
Something snagged his leg and pulled him to his knees. He swirled round to see that a hand had emerged from the sand and grabbed his ankle.
Then Spenser rose up from the ground, sand cascading from his form, but he was slow in dragging himself free, giving Cassidy enough time to rip his leg away and clip Spenser’s jaw.
Spenser shrugged off the blow. On his back, he grabbed Cassidy’s collar and kicked up to wheel Cassidy over his head.
Cassidy landed on his back and lay stunned, enabling Spenser to stand up and dive at him. Cassidy rolled to the side, Spenser’s dive landing him on his belly.
As Spenser floundered, Cassidy jumped to his feet. He ripped back his foot and kicked out, the blow crunching into the point of Spenser’s chin and cracking his head back.
As Spenser slumped, unconscious, footfalls pounded behind him.
Cassidy half-swirled round, and the sand-coated Dewey ran into his side and flattened him. On the ground, Cassidy squirmed, attempting to extricate himself, but Dewey drew his gun and aimed it at Cassidy’s head.
‘Don’t,’ Cassidy said.
‘Then don’t push me,’ Dewey said as he stood up and loomed over Cassidy. ‘I just want to better myself. The gold will do that.’
‘After the life you’ve led, even jail will better your life, but shooting me will just end it.’
With the back of his left hand, Dewey wiped his mouth, his gaze flickering between the sprawled Spenser and a spot near the cave, leading Cassidy to assume that that was where they’d hidden the gold.
‘I’ll take my chances.’
‘You won’t,’ Hearst shouted from the end of the ledge. ‘You are under arrest, Dewey.’
Dewey flinched, but then backed two paces with his gun still aimed down at Cassidy.
Cassidy shuffled to a sitting position and glanced over his shoulder. Hearst had Nat’s rope slung over his shoulder, dragging Nat along, five paces back.
Dewey rolled his shoulders and firmed his gun hand.
‘I’m taking the gold or dying,’ he roared.
Two gunshots blasted.
A slug whistled by Cassidy’s head and gouged into the dirt beside his right ear as Dewey wheeled to the ground, clutching his shoulder. Cassidy rolled to his feet and pounded three long paces to kick Dewey’s gun away.
He turned, but it was to see Hearst lying flat on his belly and Nat dashing over the end of the ledge.
Hearst stumbled to his feet, rubbing the back of his head. Then he moved to follow Nat, but Cassidy ordered him to guard the wounded Dewey and the unconscious Spenser instead, and dashed past him.
When he reached the end of the ledge, Nat was already halfway down the slope, his rope trailing behind him.
As Cassidy’s horse was now mooching twenty yards from the crag bottom, Cassidy ran headlong down the slope after him, but even though the rope binding Nat’s wrists impeded his running, Nat was still thirty feet ahead.
Cassidy bounded down the slope, his feet slipping on the loose stones, but Nat slipped, too, and, with his bound hands not letting him stop himself from falling, he tumbled down to the flat earth.
Nat lay for a moment, shook his head, and then staggered to his feet but, as he set off, Cassidy dived the last few feet and thudded into Nat’s shoulders, his momentum dragging Nat to the ground.
Cassidy and Nat tumbled for five feet and then slammed to a halt. Cassidy rolled to his knees first and pole-axed Nat with a clip to the jaw.
He dragged Nat to his feet. With anger ripping through his guts, he stood Nat straight and pummeled his cheek with a left hook that knocked him one way and then with a round-armed slug that knocked him the other way.
Nat crashed to the ground, plowing through the dirt before he halted. Cassidy was on him in a moment and drawing back his fist ready to pummel him again.
Nat peered up at Cassidy, dirt and blood streaking his face.
‘Cassidy, stop!’ he shouted. ‘It’s me, Nat.’
‘Yeah, you are Nat,’ Cassidy said. He slugged Nat’s jaw and then took hold of the trailing rope to drag him to his feet. ‘But whoever you answer to, you’re heading to the same place.’
Kindle editions by I. J. Parnham
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The Gallows Gang
After escaping en route to their appointment with the gallows, eight condemned men led by Javier Rodriguez blazed a trail of destruction. Wherever they went, the Gallows Gang left behind swinging bodies as a reminder of the fate they had avoided.
Four men set out to bring them to justice, but the prison guard Shackleton Frost and Marshal Kurt McLynn both blamed the other for the prisoners having escaped. All they could agree on is that they didn't trust Nathaniel McBain. Wrongly condemned himself, the Gallows Gang held the key to proving Nathaniel’s innocence. None of them knew what demons drove the enigmatic man known only as The Preacher.
Can this mismatched group put aside their personal feuds for long enough to end the Gallows Gang’s reign of terror?
Wanted McBain Page 11