Clay Nash 18

by Brett Waring

  “That’s a big start, admittin’ it.”

  “Yeah, I have been ridin’ a high horse. I felt like—well, I felt like I was a man, packin’ a shotgun, ridin’ up top, guardin’ the passengers and the express box. You know what I mean, Clay, don’t you? I hardly got outside that cabin where pa kept me all them years. Then you and Jim Hume gave me a chance to show what I could do, and ... well, I guess I got carried away.”

  Nash nodded. This was more like the young Larry Holbrook who had turned on the vicious outlaw Sundance and risked his neck to save a train-load of people. He could understand the kid’s outlook. He’d been a virtual prisoner of his drunken father. He’d been beaten so regularly that it had become a part of his life. He’d never been allowed to grow.

  Then he had been treated like a human being for the first time in his life—by the notorious Sundance. The outlaw had stepped in and saved him from a vicious beating at the hands of his father. Sundance had ended up killing old man Holbrook, and even that had been a favor to Larry. Only later had Sundance showed his true colors to the youngster.

  After saving Hume’s and Nash’s necks, Larry had been given what to him was the chance of a lifetime: the job of riding shotgun on the Wells Fargo stages. Jubal Ricks had caught him flat-footed at that river crossing and made him look foolish. Then Dan Penny’s bunch had robbed the second stage he was guarding. It was no wonder Larry had cut loose on his own and tried to bring in the outlaws single-handed.

  Nash had lived with the Apaches in Texas for a time some years ago. They had taught him to find healing herbs in the

  woods; and now, after only twenty-four hours treatment, Larry’s wound was starting to heal.

  “Clay, I don’t want to be a shotgun guard any longer,” Larry said as they rode across the Big Plains. “I want to be an investigator like you. You reckon Hume would agree?”

  Nash shrugged. “He might. You showed plenty of guts goin’ after Penny’s bunch, even if not much sense. But you need a lot of trainin’, Larry.”

  “I know that. I can’t use a six-gun properly and all I know about trackin’ is what I picked up from pa; he was a good hunter. And I guess I gotta learn to control my mean streak. But I’d sure like to work as a Wells Fargo investigator.”

  “Well, ask Jim about it when we get back.” Nash patted his saddlebags. “You’ve got the stolen money to help your case.”

  Larry Holbrook smiled, his youthful face lighting up.

  Nash glanced at the youngster uncertainly. He still wasn’t sure the kid was stable enough to make the grade. But he figured that Wells Fargo at least owed him the chance to show what he was made of.

  Bad news waited for Nash at Malloy’s way-station on the Big Plains.

  Jubal Ricks had killed the sisters at The Convent and escaped into the hills. The Indian roustabout, hiding in deep timber, watched Ricks ride off and then had the presence of mind to go to the station and tap out a meaningless message on the telegraph key. He tapped on the key for hours and finally Malloy went there to investigate.

  Chuck Malloy arrived back at his own way-station a few hours before Nash and Larry rode in.

  Clay Nash swore when he learned what had happened. “Does Jim Hume know yet?”

  “Sent him a message right away,” Chuck Malloy said. “He’s organizin’ a posse in Topeka.”

  “Tell him to cancel it,” Nash said grimly. “I’ll bring in Ricks.”

  “Be best to have a bunch with you, wouldn’t it?”

  Nash shook his head, his face grim. “No. I left Ricks with Hattie and Millie. They’re dead and it’s my fault. I’ll bring in Ricks myself.”

  Malloy pursed his lips. “I don’t think Hume would want you takin’ off after Jubal Ricks alone, Clay. He wouldn’t want you to get bushwhacked by that varmint.”

  “Have one of your men get me a fresh mount and some ammunition, Chuck. And I’d be obliged if your wife would pack me some grub. I aim to be on the trail by sundown.”

  “Clay, that’s loco! What’s the point of leavin’ at night?”

  Nash smiled thinly. “Because Jim Hume won’t have time to get here by then.”

  Malloy sighed in resignation.

  “Can you make that for two men?” Larry asked, holding Nash’s gaze steadily. “Jubal Ricks made a damn fool out of me, Clay, so I owe him somethin’. But I also want to help you. I didn’t do too bad against Dan Penny. And maybe you could teach me things while we track Ricks down.”

  Nash shook his head impatiently. “I won’t have any time for teachin’. I aim to go into those hills and get Jubal Ricks, dead or alive.”

  Larry nodded, his face eager. “Suits me, Clay. I won’t hold you back none. I’ll learn by watchin’. And it just might turn out that you’ll need a back-up.”

  Nash frowned, but he looked thoughtful now. He flicked his gaze to Chuck Malloy. The big relay station man shrugged.

  “The kid’s right about you maybe needin’ a back-up, Clay. Ricks has a lot of friends in those hills. You could ride into an ambush at any point along the trail. With two of you on the lookout, there’s less chance of ridin’ into a trap.”

  Clay Nash rolled a cigarette and fired it up, then he looked steadily at the expectant Larry Holbrook.

  “All right, kid. But the first time you foul up, the first time you jump the gun or don’t come through when I need you, you’ll get your butt booted all the way to the nearest Wells Fargo depot. Savvy?”

  Larry’s face split into a wide grin, making him look even more boyish. “I savvy, Clay!”

  “Long as you do, ’cause you’ll either measure up or fall flat on your face. And if you do that, I’ll be the one to grind your nose into the ground.”

  Larry Holbrook merely nodded.

  The two Wells Fargo men rode out of Malloy’s way-station yard just as the blood-orange sun touched the top of the sawtooth hills to the west.

  Nash and Larry started at The Convent where the Indian roustabout, Cotton Jack, was working under the supervision of a Wells Fargo man sent out from Topeka by Jim Hume.

  The Indian knew enough English to understand orders, but he spoke nothing but his own tongue. Nash squatted in the dust with him, grimly pointed to the cellar and the newly dug graves and then he swept an arm to indicate the hills, raising his eyebrows in a silent question. Cotton Jack spoke in his own language, only a few words of which Nash understood. Nash indicated that he wanted Cotton Jack to use sign language.

  By using his hands and face expressively and drawing in the dust, the Indian told Nash he had run into the timber and hidden, watching the way-station until Jubal Ricks rode out. He indicated that the outlaw had taken two horses, one loaded with food and the Remington buffalo rifle. The old muzzle-loading Colt Dragoon was missing, along with lead balls, a powder flask, percussion

  caps and a bullet mould. Millie’s Henry repeater rifle and the entire stock of .44 rimfire cartridges had also been taken.

  Jack drew a series of wavy lines and crosses in the dust. After studying the seemingly meaningless symbols, Nash nodded, handed the Indian a sack of tobacco and papers, and then he and Larry rode out, heading for the foothills.

  “What’d he tell you?” Larry asked, squinting into the early morning sun. “How’d you make head or tail of all those marks? They didn’t seem to mean anything.”

  “You gotta know Indian sign, kid! That crooked line was the hills. The wriggly one was the trail in. The crosses were waterholes or springs where Ricks would most likely stop, and the big curve line was the river we can expect to find on the other side of the hills. He also said the packhorse has got a fracture line in the off-front shoe and the horse Ricks is on has a weak right rear leg and digs in deeper with the left back one. All are signs that’ll tell us when we’re on Ricks’ trail.”

  Larry was impressed but Nash had no interest in the youth’s reaction. He wanted to catch up with the outlaw as quickly as possible and so he set a hard pace into the hills.

  After a few hours of climbi
ng, Nash hauled rein and dismounted. Larry brought his mount to a stop as Nash got down on one knee to examine the ground. Larry slid down and saw the faint impressions of horseshoes.

  “Judas, did you spot that from the saddle?”

  Nash pointed to the left. “That hoofmark’s deeper than the others.”

  The kid peered closer and slowly shook his head. “Damned if I can tell.”

  “Here. See the way the edge slopes in at the top of the curve? Means the hoof was bent when the shoe was fitted. The same area on the other print is flat. And over there, that other set of prints ... Didn’t you notice ’em before? Hell, kid, you better sharpen your eyes if you want to learn how to be a tracker. Over there is the fracture Cotton Jack spoke of. That small, wriggling, raised line.”

  Larry bent lower. “You almost need a magnifyin’ glass to see it.”

  “Tilt you head, move around, get the sun striking it from different angles.”

  Larry was still trying to find the sign when Nash mounted up and started to climb again. Larry ran to his horse, jumped into the saddle and spurred after the Texan.

  This was going to be a long, hard chore, he could see that, and Nash wasn’t about to make any concessions where he, Larry Holbrook, was concerned.

  The kid either kept up or got left behind.

  Eight – Wild Living

  By the end of the third day their saddlebags were almost empty of food. They had a can of beans, some coffee, bacon fat and a few stale soda crackers.

  “We’ll have to shoot a deer or somethin’,” Larry said.

  “No shootin’,” Nash ordered. “How do you know where Ricks is? He might be close enough to hear a gunshot. That’ll warn him about us and we’ll either ride into an ambush or he’ll go to ground somewhere.”

  “But we have to eat,” Larry said, not liking the prospect of going hungry for a spell.

  Nash looked at him through the smoke of his cigarette. “I could last a couple of days on what we have left.”

  “So could I if I had to, I guess, but Judas, Clay, these woods are thick with game. And there’s fish in the river.”

  Nash nodded and indicated a willow overhanging the quiet stretch of river where they were camped. “Take your Bowie and cut me a straight length of willow about ten, twelve feet, maybe an inch in diameter, but not much thicker.”

  Larry frowned. “Now?”

  “You want to eat breakfast don’t you?”

  “Sure. But it’s dark now. What can we do at night?”

  “Make a spear for the mornin’.”

  “Spear? A fish spear?”

  Nash nodded. “Quickest way of gettin’ a fish.”

  Larry was interested now. He took the big-bladed Bowie from his saddlebag and went to the willow to search for a suitable shaft. Nash searched for a length of hardwood and then cut two lengths about a foot long. He used his hunting knife to carve a series of serrated notches in the edges of the wood and by that time Larry was back with a stripped length of willow, but it was curved and had bumps along the shaft.

  “No matter,” Nash said. “Well straighten it over the fire. Hold it above the flames so it don’t burn, but when you hear the sap sizzlin’, jam it between them rocks and straighten out the kinks.”

  By the time the shaft was reasonably straight, Nash had finished the hardwood spear points. Unraveling some of his lariat plaiting, he bound the hardwood prongs to the end of the willow shaft, splaying out the hardwood a little.

  He put the sharpened points in the fire until they charred, then he rubbed them to a polished hardness with a piece of stone. Examining the spear critically, Nash said, “If I had the time I’d put bone points on, but this’ll catch us breakfast all right.”

  Larry couldn’t sleep that night, wondering if the spear would work. He was beginning to realize that there was more to being a Wells Fargo investigator than just being able to ride and shoot and use logic. A man had to know how to live off the land, for he might be forced to trail his quarry through uninhabited country for weeks or even months. He aimed to learn his lessons well, and he figured he couldn’t have a better teacher than Nash ...

  With the first throw of the spear, Nash impaled a river cod that was feeding amongst the roots of a tree growing at the water’s edge. Four other fish darted into the muddy depths.

  “Hell, I never even saw him in those roots,” Larry said as he gutted the big fish and split it open for frying in the skillet.

  “The spots on his back act as camouflage,” Nash said. “If you look hard enough in the right places you’ll find ’em. And aim about a foot behind the tail, because of light refraction. You aim right where you think he is and you’ll miss.”

  After eating they broke camp, taking the spear with them, even though there was a chance the trail seemed to lead away from the river. But it swung back and there were signs that Jubal Ricks had re-crossed at one of the fords marked on the dirt map by Cotton Jack back at The Convent.

  There were no tracks on the far bank.

  “He rode up the middle of the stream,” Nash said. “Could’ve come ashore anywhere. You take the left side. Ride or lead your

  mount a couple of feet out from the bank. You’ve got a better chance of seein’ tracks leadin’ out that way. Look for ’em under low-hangin’ brush or where there are flat rocks.”

  Larry nodded and they set out upstream; downstream led back to the Big Plains and Nash was sure Ricks wouldn’t head that way.

  It was mid-afternoon before they found where Ricks had left the river. A rugged mountain towered above them, throwing a chill dark shadow across the section of river where they stood. Nash looked up at the bulk of the mountain, grim-faced.

  “Son of a bitch is goin’ into Indian Territory,” Nash muttered. “Over that mountain he’ll come to the Flagg River where there are keelboats that make a business of gettin’ fugitives down into the badlands and beyond the law—for a price, of course. You can bet those sisters had cash at The Convent and Ricks took it.”

  “We might be able to catch up with him before he can get on a boat,” Larry said.

  “Maybe,” Nash said. “But not if we sit here jawin’.”

  “Are we gonna tackle that mountain now?”

  “It’s an hour or more till dark,” Nash said, spurring his mount up the steep slope.

  “What about grub?” Larry called out, spurring after him.

  “Have to go hungry tonight. I’ll set a snare. We’ll have somethin’ in it by mornin’.”

  The youngster swore as he urged his mount up the steep, broken slope, stones and fist-sized rocks tumbling down on him from Nash’s horse above.

  The climb was so hard that they made little more than five hundred feet up the slope when it became too dark for further travel. Nash unraveled more of his lariat, made a series of nooses and set them up across animal trails he searched out in the brush. He also rigged a trap with a ball of bacon fat and soda crackers on the sharpened end of a stick propped beneath a balanced boulder. When the animal gnawed at the bait, the stick would release the boulder and pin the animal.

  Larry growled that he was starving but Nash wouldn’t let him have anything more than a few crackers. He wanted the bacon fat.

  “We might have to make pemmican if Ricks tries to fool us and sets out across the desert instead of takin’ that keelboat,” Nash said.

  “Pemmican?” Larry screwed up his face. “Injun grub! Stinks to high heaven.”

  “Keeps a man alive. Plenty of nutrition in it. But we’ll need berries, too.”

  “Berries?”

  “Sure. You pound ’em into a paste and then mix that with jerky and suet. We don’t have suet so we’ll have to make do with the bacon fat. You mix it into a thick paste and stuff it in the intestines of whatever animal you’ve killed for the meat. Keeps for months. Sustains a man better than beefsteak. I’ve lived on it for weeks at a time.”

  Larry screwed up his face. “Dunno as I’d ever be that hungry.”

 
Nash smiled faintly. “We’ll see,”

  They caught two jackrabbits and a squirrel in the traps and snares. They cooked one rabbit and gutted and skinned the rest of the catch. Nash split the animal’s carcasses and pinned them to flat pieces of bark with wooden pegs. They hung the meat from their cantles, allowing the sun to dry it as they rode.

  Halfway up the mountain face in the midst of thick timber, Nash suddenly reined in and lifted a hand. He stood in the stirrups, his nostrils flared.

  “Ride!” he yelled suddenly, wheeling his mount around. The animal started to slide down the steep slope. “Ricks has set the woods afire!”

  Larry hesitated long enough to look up in the direction Nash indicated with a wild wave. He saw faint tendrils of smoke writhing through the resinous timber. He couldn’t smell anything yet, but even as he watched flames rose into the foliage and then leapt from treetop to treetop, fanned by the breeze that was blowing towards them.

  Larry turned his mount and followed Nash down the mountain face. It was a wild, dangerous ride, the animals going down on their haunches in places and sliding for yards at a time.

  The fire streaked after them, the wind driving it down. The air was full of smoke and blazing brands, whirling sparks and choking resin from the pines. So far the smoke was above them at treetop height and they could see where they were going. But the slope steepened as they got lower down and Larry swung around the wrong side of a clump of trees, separating himself from Nash. He found himself on the edge of a precipitous drop. The river swirled fifty feet below.

  He spun his mount to go back but it was already too late. A wall of fire came through the timber, trapping him. The only way to go was down. His horse propped but Larry kicked at its flanks until, the flames almost on him, the horse leapt into space. He hoped as he fell that the water was deep.

  Larry landed in the water beside his horse with a bone-jarring thud that smashed the breath from him. The horse rolled on top of him and Larry felt water filling his lungs. He fought in uncontrolled panic but then blacked out and the river’s current took hold of him and spun him away ...