Clay Nash 17

by Brett Waring

  He fired twice and Dooley, shotgun coming up, was lifted off his feet and flung back. The outlaw fell on the gun and it exploded. His body jumped into the air and flopped back. He screamed in pain, one side bloody from armpit to waist.

  Nash went forward fast, gun hammer cocked back, smoking barrel trained on the wounded killer. He winced when he saw the wound that the shotgun had made in Dooley. Moran lay still half-in and half-out of the saloon doorway.

  “Name’s Clay Nash, Dooley,” the Wells Fargo man said, kneeling. “Where’s Moran’s Injun wife? I tell you now, I don’t think she can save you. No one can ...”

  The woman came up out of the root cellar as Nash spoke, hands in the air. He gestured for her to come across and motioned to Dooley.

  “Can you do anythin’ for him?”

  She shook her head almost immediately, looking sad.

  “All right. Better tend your husband. I don’t think he’s dead,” Nash said and watched her closely as he knelt beside Dooley. “Moss, I just want to know one thing: did you find that fifty thousand dollars hidden under the driver’s seat of the Spanish Creek stage?”

  Even through the pain glazing his eyes, Dooley showed surprise at Nash’s question, his grimacing face momentarily straightening. He gasped, tried to speak, couldn’t, shook his head.

  Nash sighed. “All right. I can see you didn’t even know about it. Why’d you hit that particular stage?”

  Dooley coughed and moaned and drew up his knees. Blood was everywhere, but the wound was too large for Nash to even attempt to staunch the flow. The outlaw looked bone-white, waxy, and he was growing noticeably weaker.

  “R-Ritchie,” he murmured.

  Nash nodded, sighing regretfully. “The cattle-agent. How’d you know he had five grand in his money belt ...?”

  Dooley’s bloodless lips worked frantically. Nash leaned closer, his ear near the man’s face.

  “C-c-c-cl-cler—cler ...” The man pouted and then he screamed, convulsed and after a series of blasphemous curses, straightened out slowly and died.

  Nash stood up and walked over to where the Indian woman was working on Moran. He looked down into the man’s pain-wracked face.

  “You get all of Dooley’s dinero?” Nash asked.

  Moran hesitated and then nodded.

  “How much? C’mon. I’ve no more argument with you. Just want to know how much you took off him. Then I’ll be on my way.”

  Still Moran hesitated and then he said, huskily, “Little more than a thousand. He was here a week. With the kind of aggravation he had, he didn’t figure it was too steep. But he was gonna—leave tomorrer.”

  “You were gonna kick him out then, you mean. After you’d bled him white.”

  Moran shrugged, looked away as his Indian woman wiped his sweating face with a grimy cloth.

  Nash curled a lip. “Scum,” he murmured and then stepped over the man and walked back through the saloon to where his mount was tethered at the front.

  A few minutes later he rode away from Moran’s Landing.

  Upstream he came to another ford and paused to allow his mount to drink. While he waited, he looked up and, in the distance, saw the rugged bulk of Hangman’s Spur rising against the mountain-dominated sky.

  Nash scratched at his beard stubble.

  Maybe it was time for him to go back up there and have another look around. He had a nagging hunch that the answers to a lot of questions might be found up there.

  He set his horse across the ford and turned it in the direction of Hangman’s Spur.

  Seven – Run For Cover

  Aggie Cassidy had spent an hour making herself as beautiful as she could before the streaked mirror in the small room she had rented at the Redwood Hotel in a Spanish Creek side street. She had hired a flatiron for five cents and pressed her best dress. She had purchased a cake of wrapped Eastern toilet soap, washed her hair and body, touched up her cheeks with a faint smudge of rouge and brushed her teeth with camphorated chalk powder.

  Her hair was tied up in paper curlers and she swiftly undid these now, brushed and combed out the curls and waves, primping it this way and that with eager fingers, holding several hair clips in her mouth. Finally satisfied, she pulled on the fresh bonnet, the pale green one with a trim of lace that her mother had sent her from San Francisco last Christmas.

  She looked beautiful in the weak lantern light as she picked up the small picnic basket she had packed with some cakes and sweets and a special evening meal she had purchased for her husband.

  Humming to herself, she left the hotel by the side stairs and then walked briskly down the street to Dr Simmonds’ house and entered by the rear door without knocking as he had instructed her to do. She made her way towards the room where her husband was and then stopped dead.

  A big man she had never seen before was sitting beside the door, arms folded, staring into space, his longhorn moustache twitching as he sniffed. He saw her and stood up and she felt her heart lurch as she saw the tarnished sheriff’s star on his vest.

  “You’d be Mrs. Cassidy, I reckon?” McGinnis asked.

  Aggie moved forward, jaw thrusting out defiantly. “I am. And who are you?”

  “Sheriff McGinnis, ma’am. Uh—I ain’t sure if you can go in there.” He jerked his head towards the bedroom door beside him.

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” Aggie snapped. “My husband’s in there and I have his supper in this basket for him ...”

  McGinnis stepped directly into her path as she reached for the latch. He stared down into her angry face and shook his head slowly.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am. Mr. Hume of Wells Fargo has seen fit to bring charges of robbery against your husband and as doc don’t want him moved yet, I can’t put him in a cell, so I aim to stand guard here and see he don’t get any notions to run off.”

  Aggie stamped a small foot. “This is ridiculous!”

  McGinnis shrugged, making a helpless gesture.

  “But—surely you can see that, if Dr. Simmonds thinks my husband is too ill to be moved, he can’t possibly escape?”

  “That’s as may be, ma’am. I know my duty, and right now it’s to see your husband don’t go no place until Mr. Hume gets more evidence.” He held out a hand. “I’m truly sorry, Mrs. Cassidy, but if you’ll give me the basket I’ll see your husband gets his supper.”

  She pulled the basket back out of reach. “You will do nothing of the sort! I’ll give it to him myself!”

  McGinnis’ face hardened. “You don’t get past me without Mr. Hume’s say-so, ma’am!” He folded his thick arms across his chest emphatically, standing like a huge solid rock blocking the doorway.

  Aggie’s lips thinned. “Very well! I shall get Mr. Hume’s permission! I’ve never heard of anything so stupid in all my life.” She turned and stormed towards the rear doorway.

  Dr Simmonds poked his head out of his surgery, looking at her above his half-moon glasses.

  “I’m sorry about this, Mrs. Cassidy,” he said. “There’s been a—new development, a complication, with your husband ... Now, don’t be too alarmed. It’s just that I wouldn’t want to see him moved and perhaps cause—well more serious complications. If you care to step into the office for a moment, I think I can explain and perhaps put your mind at rest some ...”

  A worried Aggie stepped into the doctor’s office. She spun urgently towards him as he closed the door.

  “What on earth’s happened to Matt ...?”

  Simmonds put a finger to his lips, shaking his head. “Nothing,” he told her and the suggestion of a smile touched his leathery old lips in his irascible face as he saw her surprise. “Look, Mrs. Cassidy, I’m as law-abiding as the next man, I guess. I just don’t like to see folk treated roughly or without thought. Now this feller Clay Nash and Jim Hume, they’ve been mighty rough on your husband, I reckon. I’ve spoken at length with Matt. I know damn well he didn’t steal any money from that stage. Ask me, Hume knows it, too, but he can’t take the chance of your husband
movin’ out so he’s chargin’ him with robbery and put a guard on his door. Originally, they wanted to put him in the cells, but I wouldn’t hear of it.”

  Aggie blinked, trying to keep up with the medico’s urgent, whispered information. She put a hand to her hair.

  “It’s all right,” the medic assured her. “He can move all he wants, I guess. I just figured it’d be better if Hume and McGinnis got the idea he couldn’t move much.” He winked at her. “That’s all I’m sayin’, all I’m doin’. If you want to take it any further, that’s up to you. I don’t want to know about it. You understand?”

  “Yes, of course, doctor, and I appreciate all you’ve done, though I must admit I can’t see how it’s helped much ...”

  Again there was that suggestion of a smile on his face.

  “By the way, did you know I have a small stables out back?” he asked, seemingly irrelevantly. “Have some good horseflesh there. Long-stepping, fast-running stock. I like horses. Take care of them, like they were patients.” Then he abruptly frowned and scratched at his jaw. “Come to think of it I had a couple saddled earlier this evening. Was planning on going for a ride with a—friend. For the life of me I can’t recall whether I unsaddled them broncs or not ... Oh, well, guess I’ll have my supper first and then go check. Couple of the fastest runners I’ve got, too ...”

  Aggie Cassidy smiled widely and suddenly stood on tiptoe and brushed her lips against the surprised medic’s lined old cheek.

  “Thank you, doctor!” she said huskily.

  He frowned, pretending not to understand. “For what, child? I’ve done nothing but care for a man who needs it ...”

  “Goodnight, doctor,” Aggie smiled as she went out into the passage again, glancing briefly towards McGinnis outside her husband’s door. “Thank you for all you’ve done.”

  “You just remember what I said about your husband.”

  “I will. Oh, I will, doctor.”

  She went out into the night and the doctor glared at the sheriff as McGinnis settled down in his chair again, arms folded across his chest ...

  Inside the room, Matt Cassidy was becoming agitated. He was sure he had heard Aggie’s voice outside and yet she hadn’t yet come in. He couldn’t believe that the lawman Hume had placed there had prevented her ... But, by hell, that was the way it looked!

  He wriggled around in bed and sat up and was just about to call out when a noise at the window caught his attention. He snapped his head around there and was surprised to see the shade being pushed out and then he blinked as he saw Aggie’s face peering at him beneath the shade as she leaned in the open window, one finger to her lips.

  “Get out of bed and come here!” she whispered.

  Matt Cassidy frowned and glanced at the door. “What the hell, Aggie?” he asked, speaking in a whisper, too.

  “There will be hell if you stay here much longer! Hume’s charging you with the robbery!”

  “I know, but it’s only on suspicion ...”

  “Will you stop arguing and get out of bed and come along?” she snapped.

  He frowned and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He groped his way across, his legs rubbery, head swimming.

  Aggie reached in and grasped his hands, steadying him.

  “Climb out,” she ordered. “There’re horses waiting. And Doc Simmonds has clothing, food and—guns, in the saddlebags.”

  “Simmonds!”

  “Oh, hell, Matt, worry about the explanations afterwards, will you?” she said impatiently. “If you don’t hurry up we’ll be caught and they’ll throw you in jail and I sure won’t be able to bust you out of there!”

  Still bewildered and feeling light-headed, Matt Cassidy clambered groggily onto a chair and began to climb out of the window, aided by Aggie’s eager hands.

  What was left of the wrecked stage had been dismantled, the usable pieces transferred to Spanish Creek and the remainder piled up by the trail side.

  It would make a permanent marker for years to come.

  Clay Nash sat his mount, hands folded on the saddlehorn, atop a boulder, looking down on the hold-up scene. He traced the run of the stage from where the bandits had first struck with his eyes, but couldn’t see properly around the butte.

  He heeled the horse forward, easing down from the rock, and rode slowly back down the trail. Nash dismounted and scouted around. It was country that had been gone over before with the posse, but there had been a kind of rush on then: they had wanted to get onto the road agents’ trail as quickly as possible.

  It had now reached the point where he could take it easy, spend a deal of time searching more thoroughly. Things that may have been passed over the first time might have more significance now. Of course, the clean-up crew had been working out here since and he didn’t expect to find anything of real value.

  So he shouldn’t have felt so disappointed by mid-morning, but he realized he had been hoping to come across something that would help throw some new light on the hold-up and disappearance of that money.

  He hunkered down by a rock while his horse stood with trailing reins and cropped at some grass. He rolled and lighted a cigarette, smoking thoughtfully. Nash’s gaze went up to Hangman’s Spur. It was honeycombed with a network of gulches and snaking passes, a mighty fine hideout. It would take an army to search it properly. And it could hide an army if need be ...

  The place hadn’t been checked over as thoroughly as it should have been, he decided. It looked forbidding, brooding. As he smoked he tried to recall all that he knew about Hangman’s Spur, and what Sheriff McGinnis had told him.

  It had gotten its name quite obviously: an old Indian had been hanged there thirty years ago. Settlers had been few and far between in those days and there had been a constant sniping war with bands of renegade Indians. It was in the days before Reservations and when white men and women and children were massacred, retaliation was swift and complete, and whole encampments of Indians were wiped out in return. No matter whether they had killed the white folk: they were lousy Injuns’ and so were as guilty as the actual murderer because of that simple and unfortunate fact.

  Then a strong Chief named Red Hawk had gathered up the most powerful warriors of his tribe and fought his way out when an army punitive expedition had besieged his village. With the stoical reasoning only an Indian was capable of, he abandoned his family and the women and children and old men to the sabers of the white man’s cavalry, took to the hills with his surviving band and for five years terrorized that part of the country. And far beyond.

  Red Hawk’s band rode clear across Arizona Territory, east to west, north to south, killing and looting as they went, striking wherever the white man was. They took many scalps, left many dead. The cavalry’s best efforts failed; he slipped out of every trap.

  But there was one way to bring him out of hiding. A Captain Willard Holderness was the man who devised a scheme whereby they could nail Red Hawk. For the rampaging warrior had one weakness: his father, a proud old Indian serving time in an Arizona Territorial Penitentiary for some minor misdemeanor—he had killed a deer for food outside of Reservation boundaries and as Reservations were just beginning to come in, the army figured they had to make an example of anyone who strayed outside the prescribed boundaries.

  The old Indian, Gray Dog, was approached several times, but he stubbornly refused to appeal to his son to give himself up. So Holderness trumped-up a charge against Gray Dog: a troublemaking Indian was found stabbed—with Gray Dog’s hunting knife. A quick trial and Gray Dog was found guilty and sentenced to be hanged.

  Holderness saw to it that the execution date was delayed and made sure the news would reach Red Hawk. There was also a veiled hint that should Red Hawk give himself up, then the execution of Gray Dog might be indefinitely delayed ...

  Red Hawk was too proud to deal with the white man, even when his father’s life was at stake. So, at the Spur, the site of a bloody massacre of a wagon train at the hands of Red Hawk’s band, old Gray Dog was
hanged, his body left dangling on the dead tree that had served as a gallows for over a week, hoping this at least would bring in Red Hawk. Holderness figured the renegade would want to claim his father’s body and bury it according to the Indian ritual.

  But Red Hawk did not come. He was never seen nor heard of again, but there was some evidence that he had disguised himself as a Mexican in order to attend the public hanging of Gray Dog and had been run over by a wagon in the embryo settlement of Spanish Creek. In any case, Holderness fumed for the rest of his life in utter frustration, having failed in his last-ditch attempt to nail the renegade and never knowing for certain what had happened to Red Hawk ...

  The legend had it then that Gray Dog’s ghost haunted Hangman’s Spur, his spirit waiting for the arrival of the son who would never come.

  Dozens of people had claimed to have seen the ghost over the years since the execution. It was usually of an old blanket wrapped Indian sitting a horse, bareback, on a ledge of the spur, gazing off into the sunset. Sometimes he had been seen on moonlit nights, and travelers who camped near the Spur spoke of moans and chants echoing eerily amongst the rocks ...

  Clay Nash didn’t believe in ghosts, but he did believe that the travelers and pilgrims who, terrified half out of their minds, and who told their stories, had seen something ... Likely there was some natural and simple explanation: tricks of the light with jutting rocks, a fallen tree, shadows moving and appearing to make the ‘ghost’ float and disappear or appear at will. Even heat haze, morning mists. There were many possible explanations, many odd-shaped rocks and dead trees that could become wraiths if the viewing circumstances were just right.

  The moaning and chanting could be explained away by the wind howling through the rock fissures and caves. But now Nash was considering another theory: suppose someone was cashing-in on that ‘ghost’ legend associated with Hangman’s Spur?