Clay Nash 17

by Brett Waring

  Nash lifted his hat, scratched at his head, and then shrugged and hurried back towards the stage platform where Penn Larkin, big-bellied, bewhiskered, and cussing a blue streak, was waiting impatiently in the driver’s seat of the stage, whip already in hand.

  “It sure is good to see you, Aggie,” Cassidy told his wife as he held her hand.

  She sat in a chair beside his bed, bonnet removed now, the sunlight coming through the window striking deep bronze highlights from her hair. She was balancing a coffee cup in its saucer on her lap with the other hand. Dr Simmonds had discreetly left her alone with Matt Cassidy, but she could hear him in his office next door, arranging instruments, occasionally talking with a patient who came to visit.

  “I came as soon as I heard, Matt. I wish I could’ve sprouted wings and gotten here the sooner now that I’ve seen the extent of your injuries.”

  Cassidy smiled. “Heck, no permanent damage, Aggie. I’ll be up an’ around in a few days, Doc says. Now that I’ve gotten my memory back.” He looked puzzled and then shook his head as if finding something hard to believe. He snapped his fingers. “It came just like that. Click. I woke up and I could recollect everything. Doc said Jim Hume and Clay Nash were beginnin’ to doubt me when I claimed I couldn’t remember. But it was the truth, Aggie! Everything was so blurred, so mixed-up. I didn’t know what had actually happened and what I might’ve imagined. Anyway, I can tell Hume whatever he wants to know now.”

  Aggie Cassidy looked at her husband soberly. “Can you tell him what’s happened to the fifty thousand dollars that were hidden under the driver’s seat?”

  He stared at her and slowly shook his head. “I swear I knew—know—nothing about that, Aggie. I didn’t know it was there when Loco Larrabee and me were drivin’ along, and I didn’t know it was there after the crash busted open their secret box. I didn’t know anythin’ about it till Nash and Hume told me.” His lips clamped together. “They think I stole it, don’t they?”

  Aggie nodded. “I get that impression. Dr Simmonds sent me a long telegram, explaining some of it, and he told me the rest before letting me in this morning. I believe they’re going to make a scapegoat of you, Matt!”

  “That’s not true, Mrs. Cassidy.”

  Aggie spun in her chair and Cassidy frowned at the figure of Hume standing in the open doorway, a hand still on the latch. The woman’s mouth hardened.

  “I might’ve known a detective would sneak in instead of knocking!” she snapped.

  “Easy, Aggie!” Cassidy begged.

  Hume smiled slowly, coming in and closing the door. “Moving quietly is a habit I’ve picked up over the years, Mrs. Cassidy. My apologies for startling you.”

  Aggie refused to be mollified. She glared at the big detective as he came into the room, her eyes never leaving him, noticing the papers he held in his hand.

  “Mrs. Cassidy, we only want to get to the truth. We’re missing a lot of money. Your husband was in a position to take it. We don’t know what happened to the money so we have to investigate every angle, eliminate what we can.”

  “Of course!” she said sardonically.

  Hume shrugged. He looked down at Cassidy. “Doc tells me your memory’s returned.”

  “No doubt you’ll hold that against him, too!” the woman said, and Hume smiled slowly as he shook his head.

  “Ease off, Aggie,” Cassidy said, looking at Hume. “Yeah. It’s come back. You want the details of what happened?”

  “If you feel up to it.”

  “Sure.” Cassidy told Hume about the raid and the stagecoach crash. “I was groggy when I came round and I think I wandered about for a bit, before I got the notion to cut loose one of the team horses and climb aboard. Then I ran into Nash and the posse. The rest you know.”

  “And that’s the truth!” snapped Aggie, her attitude just daring Hume to deny it.

  He smiled faintly, opened the papers he held. “Matt, we’ve done some checking. You claim you come from Canada ...”

  He paused. Matt and Aggie Cassidy exchanged glances. He ran a tongue over his lips, lifted his gaze to Hume’s face, speaking a mite defiantly.

  “I do.”

  Hume shook his head, “It’s a lie. You were born and raised right here in Arizona. At Tacoma Springs near the Mexican border, to be exact.” Hume waited. Neither Cassidy nor the woman said anything. “Those years prior to joining Wells Fargo when you claimed you were prospecting ...”

  Cassidy sighed and Aggie reached out swiftly to grasp his hand, shaking her head slightly. But he nodded soothingly and looked directly into Hume’s penetrating eyes.

  “Okay. I guess you’ve found out. I did five years in the Arizona Territorial Prison on the chain gang for bank robbery.” He smiled bitterly as he added: “And I didn’t find one speck of gold in all the thousands of rocks I broke open in that time!”

  “Matt,” Aggie said softly, pressing close to him. Then she looked angrily at Hume. “Leave him alone. He paid his penalty for his foolishness! Surely you can understand why he had to lie to you when he applied for the job!”

  Jim Hume nodded slowly. “I can savvy the reason. But that don’t make the facts sit any the easier right now. You’ve got to see that it makes your husband’s position look very damn shaky indeed, Mrs. Cassidy.”

  Aggie was silent, her gaze on Matt’s stiff face. She realized the truth of Hume’s statement of the hard facts.

  “I needed that job with Wells Fargo,” Cassidy said quietly. “Work was hard to get. Aggie had been workin’ all them years I was in the Pen. She was providin’ the money to live on while I did roustabout jobs, couple days here, couple there, traipsin’ all over the territory, chasin’ a few bucks on far-out ranches where they not only didn’t know me but didn’t ask too many questions. And I did do some prospectin’! Hopin’ to find a big bonanza that’d—set us up so Aggie’d never have to work again ...” He paused, sighed, shrugged. “Then the chance of the shotgun guard’s job came along. It paid well. I had regular runs, could figure out when I’d be home and for how long. I just had to get it, at any cost, Mr. Hume.”

  The Detective Chief said nothing. Cassidy looked at his wife. She smiled and it was easy to read on her face that she was telling him she was with him all the way, no matter what.

  “But you still are working in Phoenix, Mrs. Cassidy,” Hume said, tapping his papers. “We know that.”

  For the first time she lowered her eyes before his gaze and seemed to flush slightly.

  “I’m—pregnant,” she almost whispered. “We need the extra money.”

  Hume scratched at his jaw line and refrained from saying that fifty thousand dollars would assure the unborn child of a secure future ...

  “We were only just startin’ to get a few bucks together,” Cassidy told him quietly. “Then we found out Aggie was gonna have a baby and, naturally, I want her to have the best, so I agreed to her takin’ a job again just for a couple months.” He set his eyes on Hume’s face. “And I did not take that money from the stage coach, Mr. Hume! My past is behind me. I wouldn’t be loco enough to risk jail again with a baby on the way.”

  “Believe that!” Aggie said suddenly with some of her earlier aggression.

  Hume looked up from making a few notes. He flicked his gaze from the man to the woman and back to Cassidy again.

  “We’ll just leave things as they stand for the moment.” He smiled fleetingly, without meaning, at Aggie. “Nice to’ve met you, Mrs. Cassidy.”

  He went out as quietly as he had entered. Cassidy felt his wife’s hand grip his own tightly, turned his head to look into her face.

  “What d’you think?” he asked.

  “I think Hume’s a very hard man. Perhaps he’s fair, but he’s hard and tenacious. He hasn’t eliminated you as a suspect by any means, Matt. He still thinks there’s a chance you took that fifty thousand dollars!”

  Matt Cassidy stifled the curse that rose to his lips: he had exactly the same feeling.

  Lang Jarves
s was riled-up, Nash could see that even as he entered the manager’s office in the Sesame Ridge depot. Jarvess was a big man, about Nash’s age, maybe a shade older, and he had a jutting aggressive jaw, long arms and big fists. These were clenched now as he stood behind his desk and watched Nash enter.

  Then he slowly opened his hands and a wide smile crossed his square face. He strode around the desk, right hand outthrust, gripping hard with Nash, pumping at his arm vigorously.

  “Goddamn! Clay, you old son of a bitch! Man, it must be what? Five years? Hell, yeah, five easy ... By hell, you keep yourself trimmed-down, man. Look at that gut!” He swung a punch abruptly and laughed as Nash instinctively tensed his midriff muscles and Jarvess’ fist bounced off the steel-hard ridges. “Like I said, keep yourself in shape! Look at me: thickenin’ middle, sprinklin’ of gray at the temples, double-chin comin’ hell or high water ... Great to see you, amigo!”

  Nash smiled and slapped Jarvess on the shoulder. There was still plenty of muscle there, he thought, despite the man’s hint of approaching flabbiness. Jarvess still looked pretty fit to him. He caught the chair that the manager skidded across the floor to him and sat down slowly. Jarvess was still the violent, excessively energetic character he had known four or five years ago.

  He had been a mighty good shotgun guard, but had decided he wanted a managerial job and had applied for an Internal Course with the Company, topped his class, and had been managing way-stations and agencies ever since. He had his sights set on a job in head office, eventually hoping to rise to an executive position, but Nash didn’t know what had gone wrong there: maybe he had just decided not to set his sights so high ...

  “Hell, when I got Hume’s telegram to say he was sendin’ in another man to replace Howie Shaw, I expected another undiplomatic clod to come stomping into my office, shouting accusations right left and center.”

  Nash arched his eyebrows. “Was Howie that bad?”

  “Damn right! I personally threw him out of this office.” Jarvess grinned. “Notice how nice and shiny new the glass is in that there window above the alley? That’s how Howie Shaw left!”

  Nash whistled softly. “You must’ve been some riled!”

  “I was, Clay,” Lang Jarvess said seriously. “I mean, hell, a man with my record in the Company to be accused by some two-bit detective of letting slip information as vital as the shipping of that fifty thousand in secret ...! Sure, I was riled, and I’ll be gettin’ mighty riled again if you’ve come up here to do the same thing!”

  Nash met and held his aggressive gaze. He took tobacco sack and papers from his shirt pocket and began to build a cigarette without taking his eyes off Jarvess’ face.

  “You’re kind of touchy, Lang,” he said mildly.

  Jarvess’ eyes narrowed. “You hintin’ at something?”

  “Chrissakes!” Nash said in disgust. “Ease up, will you? What’s your beef? You know damn well Hume has to investigate every possibility in a case like this, Lang! Hell almighty, you can stand up under any kind of investigation, so what’s the idea of strikin’ sparks off everyone? I’ve got my job to do, too.”

  Lang Jarvess stood behind his desk, and leaned his big hands on the edge, and glared at Nash. “I wish like hell you’d go someplace else and do it then!”

  Nash lit his cigarette, squinted up through the smoke. “Judas, Lang, you’re making it damn hard. Nigh impossible! I mean, we all know Howie Shaw’s got about as much tact in him as a falling tree, but hell, man, you’re on a short fuse and if he met you in this kind of mood it’s no wonder things blew up.”

  Jarvess sat down, but his face was still angry. He was silent a spell and then he said, “Clay, look at it from my angle. I just put in for transfer to head office. Oh, yeah, I’m still anglin’ for an executive position if I can get one, but seems I can’t! Wrong background or somethin’. I dunno. But they keep refusin’ my applications. Talk about ‘seniority’, ‘quotas’ and crap like that. Okay. I’m on my best behavior. I run a tight depot here. Not so much as a nail gets stolen from the stage workshop here. My staff don’t make mistakes. I pride myself on it. Head office knows that. Hume knows it, yet, when somethin’ like this happens, miles from here so that my office couldn’t possibly be blamed, what do they do? Send in a halfwit like Howie Shaw to question me. Me, Clay! Aaah, I’m beginning to think more than ever that someone in head office has his knife into me and this is just another part of it!”

  “That’s loco, Lang,” Nash said, hiding his surprise at the man’s outburst. He certainly wasn’t the Lang Jarvess that Nash remembered. The man seemed—paranoid—persecuted, seeming to think that all this reflected on him personally. Well, there was a modicum of truth in that, Nash supposed, for if some clerk under Jarvess’ jurisdiction had let slip about that shipment, he might be mildly reprimanded by head office for employing such a man, but the clerk himself would find himself out of a job, pronto.

  Jarvess seemed to relax abruptly. He gave Nash a quick grin, but there was little mirth in it now. “I guess maybe you’re right. I’ve had a lot of worry lately, Clay. I was married, you know. She divorced me. It’s only just become final and there was a lot of dirty washing aired. That’s what I meant when I said my ‘background’ might not be suitable for head office ...” He paused and sighed. “Then, as you likely know, the railroad ran a spur line out to Middler’s Wells and that wiped out our stage line to there almost overnight. It operated out of this depot, of course. There was a fire, too, through the workshop. Lost two stages and a lot of stock ... This other thing, coming on top of all that ...”

  He let the words trail off and Nash nodded sympathetically. “Had it rough, Lang. Listen, why don’t we go have a drink and talk about this? You can give me a list of the clerks and indicate if there might be someone who’s likely to talk out of turn and then we could ...”

  “Judas priest!” Jarvess was on his feet, trembling with rage. “You just don’t savvy it, do you? I tried to tell that idiot Shaw and I’ve told Hume by wire and now I’m telling you: I do not employ staff who make mistakes, any kind of mistake! I simply will not tolerate it! And I hand-pick all my staff personally! So, any accusations against them reflects directly onto me and I strongly resent it, Clay! Damn strongly!”

  He smashed a huge fist down onto the desk, making papers jump. An inkwell toppled off and spilled on the floor. Jarvess didn’t seem to notice.

  Nash stood slowly, cigarette dangling from his lips, looking at Jarvess steadily. “Lang, I appreciate all that. I think you’re being a mite too sensitive about it, but I see your point of view. But Jim Hume gave me a job to do and I aim to do it ... So, if you wouldn’t mind filling me in on the background of your clerks, in particular, the ones who had anything to do with the shipping of that fifty thousand ...”

  Nash reeled back as Jarvess growled deep in his throat and suddenly lunged across the desk, slamming a fist into the middle of his face. The detective shot across the room, cannoned off the wall, nose bleeding as he shook his head dazedly.

  Then Lang Jarvess came wading in with huge fists clenched and swinging murderously ...

  Nash couldn’t dodge the first blows. They slammed home hard, one taking him in the midriff and, as he jack-knifed, another clipping him on the side of the head. He spun across the office, hit the wall and dropped to one knee. Jarvess strode forward, snapped a knee up towards the agent’s face. Nash, shaking his head, cleared his vision in time to see it coming. He dodged, but caught the force of the blow on the point of his shoulder. He crashed sideways.

  Jarvess stomped at his face, mouth twisted. Nash rolled, caught the boot and twisted savagely. He didn’t have enough strength to throw the big man completely, but he had him off-balance and that was about as good as he could expect. He wrenched hard and heaved to both knees, thrusting upwards with his arms. Jarvess stumbled back and hit the office wall hard enough to jar loose a couple of framed prints.

  By then, Nash was up on his feet and moving in, hammering a tattoo of drum
ming, thudding blows into the man’s midriff. Lang Jarvess gagged and his knees buckled. Nash hooked him in the chest, smashed a blow against his jaw. The man’s head snapped back and hit the wall with an audible crack.

  Lang Jarvess’ eyes rolled up and showed the whites. Nash hooked him a mighty left in the ribs and then crashed his right against the point of his jaw. Jarvess went down on both knees, already out as he pitched forward onto his face and didn’t move.

  Nash leaned on the desk that had been knocked to one side, panting, tasting blood, seeing a few spots of red dripping onto his supporting hand. Sweat stung his eyes. Breath was painful going down into his lungs.

  Through the roaring in his ears, he heard the office door open and he blinked the haze from his vision. Clerks from the outer office were crowding inside, staring in awe and something like horror at Jarvess’ still figure.

  One man, a nervous-looking hombre about forty, thin and balding, ran to kneel beside Jarvess, almost wringing his hands, face screwed up.

  “Oh, my God!” he said huskily. “Oh, my God, what’ve you done to him? He—he’ll kill us when he comes round!”

  Nash frowned. “You had nothing to do with it. He started it himself.”

  The thin clerk and the others shook their heads worriedly.

  “You—you don’t know him! He’ll find some way to—to blame us. He’ll take it out on us—no matter what!”

  “Cutler’s right,” spoke up another man. He looked a mite tougher than the others, gesturing to Jarvess. “Mean sonuver. He’ll kick the cat in the outer office, all right. Likely it’ll be poor old Cutler. He’s the one he rides ragged.”

  Cutler was already wetting a bandanna with water from a carafe and wiping it over Jarvess’ blood-streaked face. Nash watched the man silently, frowning. Cutler was shaking badly, terrified. Nash knew now why Jarvess insisted on choosing his own clerks: he picked men he could push around.

  And if one of them inadvertently had let slip anything about that shipmen of money to Spanish Creek, he would likely be as terrified as Cutler was—in case Jarvess ever found out.