by Brett Waring
The Home of Great Western Fiction!
CONTENTS
About Slaughter Trail
One – Celebration
Two – Hold-Up!
Three – All Stops Out
Four – Trail to Flatrock
Five – In the Right Place ...
Six – New Ally
Seven – Powwow
Eight – Square the Debt
Nine – Beyond Trail’s End
Copyright
About the Author
It started out as a drunken prank … but when one man died and his fellow passengers aboard the Tucson-Tombstone stage were involved in a devastating crash, it was no laughing matter. Wells Fargo’s top troubleshooter, Clay Nash, was dispatched to find the cowboys responsible, and uncovered a criminal enterprise that might otherwise have gone undetected. Those drunken pranksters were actually tough as nails and handy with their guns, and they were ready to fight him all the way to avoid paying for their crime.
But Clay had an ally as he rode the slaughter trail … a beautiful Mexican girl who wouldn’t stop until she had her revenge on the men who’d killed her father!
One – Celebration
The cattle yards at Tucson were only a quarter-mile from the outskirts of town, but the buildings couldn’t be seen from the yards this day because of the heavy yellow dust cloud stirred up by the thousand head of steers milling about.
Cowboys yipped and yelled and cursed as they hazed the cattle into the pens, cutting out those to be branded for market, separating calves from mothers, pushing a few tick-ridden beasts through a chute into a smaller pen where they would later be dipped. Around the edges of the pens, several men stood. There was Halloran, the tally-clerk, squinting and coughing in the dust, checking his count; near him waited two men, Durbin, the cattle agent, and Matt Hansen, owner of most of the steers. To one side, a bunch of cowboys waited impatiently, leaning in various postures on the rails, hoping as much as Hansen that the agent’s price would be top money: Hansen had promised them all a bonus if the price was a good one.
Halloran added some figures to his total in the small, grease-stained book he held, did a swift calculation, running his stub of pencil up the line of figures and then underlined his total several times. He leaned down and handed the tally book to Durbin.
“That’s it, boss,” he said, indicating the columns he had drawn on the stained page. “Prime, medium, calves, hurt or sick.” He glanced across at Matt Hansen, a big, middle-aged man, handsome in a hard kind of way with dusty longhorn moustache and graying hair combed thickly back about his ears and neck. “See you got a couple of different brands mixed in, Mr. Hansen?”
There was a query in the tally-clerk’s voice. Hansen nodded. “Picked up a few along the trail ... but the two-hundred-odd wearin’ the D Bar C belong to Taco Dodd and Wes Coogan.” He indicated a couple of nondescript cowpokes leaning on the rails, sharing a tobacco pouch with some of the waiting hands. “Run a hard rock spread near me and threw in with my cows for the drive.” He looked at Durbin. “You can divvy the cash accordingly, Cass.”
Durbin nodded and began his calculations. He paused once, climbed to the top rail now that some of the dust was dispersing and looked over the steers as they settled down. Durbin climbed down again, returned to his book, sucked on his pencil end, then figured furiously for a full minute, lips moving constantly as he mentally calculated. Finally, he looked up, aware of the tense, expectant faces of the cowmen. He smiled slowly.
“I guess if I told you it averages-out at seventeen bucks and twenty cents a head, it would set you all in a tizzy tryin’ to calculate how much that works out to for the herd. So, all-up, it comes to …” He consulted his small book again, briefly. “Seventeen thousand and twenty-eight bucks, say seventeen thousand, thirty even. How’s that sound to you?”
Hansen, a normally sober-faced man, grinned widely, and his men let out wild whoops. Dodd and Coogan clapped each other on the back. One man who did little more than raise his eyebrows and flick up one corner of his mouth was Hansen’s hardcase ramrod, Hank Nolan. He was a mean-eyed man and came from Missouri, a long streak of unsmiling walking death, a man who figured he was pretty fast with a gun and had the notches on his gun butt to prove it. But he was pleased, too, for the bonus offer also applied to him. Then, while the men yelled and whooped at the prospect of a wild wing-ding in Tucson, horsing around in their exuberance, Hansen sobered a little and squinted at Durbin.
“How come you’re payin’ so much? I didn’t expect more than about twelve, twelve-fifty a head ...”
Durbin smiled slowly. “Your timing happens to be about as good as you could get it, Hansen. Hasn’t been a live cow seen around Tucson for nigh on two months.”
That surprised Hansen. “How come?”
“Army. Came through here couple of months ago and bought up every pound of beef on the hoof that could walk. They’re pushing out into the Painted Desert with a new outpost and settlement, and needed the cows. They paid well and all the ranchers hereabouts sold out, without stoppin’ to think about leaving any for their own herds. We’ve had some veal and the town was offered mutton from the next county—a sheep man’s county—but they wouldn’t look at it. They been shippin’ in jerked beef and iced beef on the Wells Fargo stages, rather than eat sheep. But I figure they was about ready to try mutton when you showed. That’s how come you got such a welcome from the townsfolk when they spotted your dust.”
Matt Hansen shook his head with a crooked smile. “Well, I sure ain’t complainin’. I’ve come a long way, clear beyond Flatrock, out of the Medicine Hills.”
Durbin whistled softly. “Long drive, all right. How come we ain’t seen you before?”
Hansen shrugged. “Been usin’ the Flatrock market, but it’s mighty low at present. Thought I’d take a chance on the long drive here and it’s sure paid off.”
“Well, like I say, you struck it just right. Come on into town and we’ll have a drink then I’ll settle up with you.”
Hansen reached out and put a hand on Durbin’s forearm, stopping the man as he made to turn away. The cattle agent looked at him quizzically.
“If it’s all the same to you,” Hansen said, and gestured to his exuberant cowpokes, “we’ll settle up first, then have that drink.”
Durbin nodded his understanding. “Sure. We’ll go to the bank first and square-up. No problem.”
Hansen turned and bellowed to his men, “All right, you hombres, simmer down! Mr. Durbin’s gonna get the dinero right now, so saddle up, you trail wolves, and let’s get into Tucson. I dunno if the town’s ready for us, but we’re sure ready for it, after that drive. Right, boys?”
The reaction was deafening and a few minutes later, the trail-stained band rode into town with Durbin at their head.
~*~
The Wells Fargo agent in Tucson was a man named Enright, and he had worked for the company for ten years. He was used to handling the sometimes tough characters who came to ride under the Wells Fargo banner; they came in all shapes and sizes and colors, but Enright could handle them, simply because he was as tough or tougher than any of them.
But he wasn’t so sure about Link Somers, a shotgun guard who had ridden a half-dozen stages, survived two armed holdups by shooting down the robbers, and generally raised hell around town on his time off. He was a rangy man, lantern-jawed, with a forehead that jutted out over his eyes and kept them in permanent pools of shadow. His mouth was mean and thin-lipped and he was one of those rare men of the West who favored the carrying of two six-guns on a ‘buscadero’ rig, a very wide belt with a holster slung from each side and twin rows of cartridges. His hips were so narrow, Enright—and many others—had often wondered how come such a heavy rig could stay up. No one ever got a
round to asking Link Somers himself; his manner didn’t exactly encourage that kind of question. Right now, Somers was sour and his face reflected his mood as he sprawled in the chair opposite Enright’s beat-up desk in the agent’s small office. Enright had a craggy face himself that had obviously been on the wrong end of many a fist and his manner was hard and uncompromising.
“Link, you work for the company, you do the jobs the company gives you. It’s as simple as that.”
“Don’t mean I can’t bellyache some if I ain’t happy with my assignment,” Somers growled and he leaned forward, looking across the paper-strewn desk into Enright’s face. “And I sure ain’t happy with this one.”
“Hell, I don’t savvy your gripe, damned if I do,” Enright answered shortly. He stood up, lighting a cheroot with jerky motions. He took a turn around the desk, leaned his ample hips against the desk corner and looked down at Somers through a haze of smoke. “You’re ridin’ easy, man, all the way to Tombstone. Nothing but a few bucks in the express box. I figured you’d like a quiet run after the two hold-ups.”
“Attempted hold-ups,” Somers corrected him. “They never got away with nothin’, remember?”
“Okay, and the company gave you the usual reward, Link. They’re squared-away with you and they’re thinkin’ of your hide now. “You’ve had two close calls, so they decided you need an easy chore. And you’re bellyachin’!” He shook his head. “Beats the hell out of me.”
Somers stood slowly, towering over Enright, drawing himself up to his full lean height of six-two, thumbs thrust into the buscadero belt arrogantly. “I like the tough runs, mister. I got ambition. I’m good with my guns and with the bonuses Wells Fargo pay me, I can make more money than any other way that I know of, short of robbing a gold-carryin’ stage myself. And I sure as hell ain’t gonna get a chance to make any on this run! Not with less than fifty bucks in the express box.” He shook a bony index finger at Enright. “I tell you now, mister, if anyone is loco enough to try to hold up this stage, I sure as hell don’t aim to get my butt shot off tryin’ to protect fifty bucks!”
Enright’s face hardened and he straightened. “You’ll do the job you’re paid to do, Link. Long as you’re ridin’ shotgun it’s your job to protect whatever’s on that stage; express box and passengers. Now I’m fed up hearin’ about it. You got two choices: ride shotgun on the Tombstone stage or quit. What’s it gonna be?”
Enright’s ultimatum surprised Somers. He hadn’t expected it to be laid on the line for him like that. Hell, he was one of their top guards, couldn’t they see that? Well, leastways, he was on the way up, had ambition. He was good with his guns, liked to use them, but only when he stood to gain a considerable number of dollars out of it. Hell, even if there was some kind of fracas with this lousy stage run they wanted him to guard—and that was goddamn unlikely—there couldn’t be anything in it for him, not with virtually nothing for him to protect in the strongbox. Even the passengers were nothing out of the ordinary: an old Mexican with wrinkled skin and purpled lips who looked like he might die before the stage even left town; a woman and her daughter on their way to join the husband and father at some army outpost; a drummer for ladies’ underwear; a cowboy going all the way to Tombstone for who knew what reason; and a middle-aged widow woman on her way to see her grandchild in Tombstone or Flagstaff, or someplace. Hell, bandits could kill the lot and no one would do more than cluck their tongues in sympathy. And this was what they gave him for a chore after foiling two attempts at robbery!
“Well? You made up your mind?”
Link Somers stirred himself out of his mood and snapped his cold face around to look at the unbending Enright. He stared for a spell then sighed heavily.
“All right,” he muttered in bad grace. “But this is the last time I take anythin’ like this, I want stage runs where I can get a chance to earn them bonuses.”
Enright stared back at him, went around his desk and shuffled some papers, then sat down in his chair. He looked up from reading the top paper. “Passengers start loadin’ in an hour. Try to stay awake, huh?”
Somers’ thin lips tightened. “Don’t forget what I said about some better runs.”
“Get this one over with first,” Enright told him coldly and watched as the guard uttered a curse, signed for the double-barreled Ithaca shotgun engraved with the Wells Fargo name, and stomped out of the office, slamming the door after him. Enright let out a slow breath and tapped the ash from his cheroot. He was glad Somers had backed down. He sure didn’t fancy mixing it with that hombre.
~*~
Link Somers stepped out of the Wells Fargo agent’s office and into the waiting room outside where passengers for Tombstone were already gathering and the clerks were working behind their desks. He paused to look around at the passengers and his gaze settled on the old Mexican ... what was his name again? Oh, yeah, Hernandes. Going to Flatrock to spend his last years with his daughter. More like his last hours, judging by the look on his face. The leathery, sagging skin was pasty, the lips empurpled, the eyes rheumy. Bony hands that had been misshapen by rheumatics and the heavy calluses from long years of hard work on the harsh land south of the border.
To Somers, the old Mexican embodied the whole essence of this run: a bunch of nobodies, and he had to ride shotgun on them! Hell almighty, it galled him! He had figured after forestalling that second bunch of robbers that Wells Fargo would send him on to bigger and better things. Hell, he had taken chances aplenty in that last shoot-out, and no one to this day knew that the passenger who had died during the fracas had been brought down by one of his own bullets. But risks had to be taken by anyone who travelled the frontier by whatever means. But, instead of recognizing that they had a mighty good man-in-the-making on their payroll, Wells Fargo were relegating him to this nothing run.
It never occurred to Somers that he might be under a test; that the company had seen how he reacted to dangerous situations, and now they wanted to see if he could take a mundane, boring, run-of-the-mill trip, the kind that made up the majority of the Wells Fargo routes. A man had to be able to handle both kinds; it showed self-discipline, also a willingness to do whatever the company wanted without complaint.
As he made for the street door, Somers deliberately stepped on the bare toes of the old Mexican. The man wore woven grass sandals and he sucked in a wheezing, sharp breath of pain, looking up with his skull-like face at the tall, challenging guard. Somers paused, giving the old man a chance to complain, hoping he would; he didn’t like Mexes at any time, but he especially detested having to ride herd on decrepit old cusses like this greaser.
Wise after all these long years of being treated badly by those in authority, both white and of his own race, old Hernandes merely shuffled his feet out of the way, muttered something, and dropped his gaze.
Somers curled a thin lip, dug his fingers cruelly into the bony shoulder and then grabbed the old man’s chin and yanked his head up so that he could look down into his leathery face.
“You said what?” Somers snapped, aware now that all eyes were on him.
The old man swallowed, Adam’s apple bobbing, and his voice was a croak when he spoke. “I say pardon, señor; forgive my clumsiness.”
Somers frowned, blinking, knowing he couldn’t rile this oldster. It only made him madder, but there was little he could do openly here. So he crushed the man’s jaw as hard as he dared, then shoved him roughly away.
“Just watch it! You old hombres figure you can do anythin’ and get away with it, because of your age.”
He moved on. The old man rubbed gently at his jaw line where the white spots left by Somers’ fingers showed plainly against the dark skin. The other passengers and the clerks watched silently as Somers stormed out through the street door.
Just as he hit the porch outside and looked towards the stage where the men were harnessing the team, there came a fusillade of shots, followed by wild yells from down the street. Glass shattered. There were two or three more ragged s
hots. Then the door of the law office next door burst open and Marshal Lew Tanner legged it down the street towards the disturbance, six-gun already in his hand.
The lawman was in his early forties, solid and fit, and he wasn’t breathing any heavier than normal when he leapt up onto the porch outside the Lady Gay Saloon and crashed through the weathered batwings. The big barroom beyond was in chaos. Men were diving under tables and lying flat on the floor around the walls. In front of the bar itself there was a wild melee of maybe fifteen or eighteen men, mixing it well and truly. Fists were slugging, chairs were swinging and the mirror behind the counter had already gone.
The barkeep was crouched somewhere out of sight, likely nursing his ‘special’ bottles of imported rye from the East. A gun barked and lead thudded into the ceiling. A man with his shirt half-ripped from his body, lunged upright, waving a smoking six-gun in one hand, a half-empty bottle of whisky in the other. He let out a wild yell and triggered three shots into the air, as he lifted the bottle towards his mouth. Tanner lunged forward, heaving men aside bodily, struck out with his six-gun and smashed the bottle just as the man put the neck to his lips. He staggered back as broken glass and whisky spilled down the front of his shirt. His face paled and he turned his gaze to Tanner, eyes starting to blaze with anger. Before he could do anything or even mouth the curse that rose to his lips, the lawman slammed him across the side of the head with his gun barrel.
At the same time, Tanner staggered back as another gun roared almost in his ear, and he turned his ringing head to see a wild-eyed cowboy shooting drunkenly at the wagon wheel chandelier swinging above. Even as the lawman looked a bullet hit the chain where it swung from a steel eye in the ceiling and the whole kit and caboodle dropped. Tanner threw himself backwards and the chandelier plummeted down to slam into the bar top, demolishing what remained of the bottles and glasses there, hurling shattered lanterns and splintered wood in all directions.