by Jory Sherman
"So?" asked Leffler.
Clay held the sack up so that everyone in the room could see it. "I took this and five others like it out of the stage this morning. They're all the same. This is what you killed Pops, Andy, Jenks and Van Hoke for!" He poured the contents of the sack on the floor in a steady stream.
"Sand!" gasped Ken McElves back of the bar.
"That's right, sand! You were hoodwinked, Jingo. You got taken for fair."
"We don't know anything . . ." Nat started to say.
"Step out, Nat, away from the bar," Clay ordered. "Bring that right hand up where I can see it," he said evenly.
"Go to hell, Brand!" Nat snarled, his hand jerking on his pistol butt. Clay was ready for him. Nat stepped to his right, his pistol clearing the holster for a clear shot at Clay. It was too late. Clay's hand jerked as the Walker spit fire and lead.
Leffler twitched as the first bullet caught him high in the chest. His gun went off, kicking up splinters at Clay's feet. Clay fired again before the smoke had cleared from his first shot. The bullet smashed into Leffler's belly, plowing him backward as his gun rattled to the floor.
The miners ducked for cover. Kathleen stared in awe as death filled the room. Jingo moved fast. Both guns blazed as he raced backward, dodging around tables and chairs, heading for the rear door. Painted girls scattered like flushed quail. Clay fired and saw Jingo twitch. The Californio's arm went limp and he dropped the pistol in his left hand. Clay fired again, but Jingo had a bead on him. Two shots rang out fast.
Clay dove behind a table, wood splinters searing his flesh. When he recovered, Jingo was gone. Clay rose and knew he had to reload. By that time, Jingo would be gone. A trail of blood leading to the back door showed him that he had something to follow.
"Clay!" Kathleen shouted. "Are you hurt?"
"No," he said, "but I've got to get Garrison. I've a hunch Jingo Perez'll be looking for him, too."
Before she could protest, he was gone.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Clay knew he was just in time. Morfit and Wilson were loading a wagon. The team was already hitched. They had seen him ride up, he knew, but they seemed prepared to bluff it through. He still wasn't dead sure about Wilson, but seeing them loading in a hurry like that, confirmed his suspicions.
"There's a posse after you, Brand," said Garrison. "We don't want any trouble here."
"You got trouble here," Clay said, dismounting.
"We won't say anything, Clay. Just—just ride out of here and we'll keep quiet," Wilson stammered.
Clay drew the reloaded Walker and reached into his saddlebag. He pulled out another sack he'd taken from the stage strongbox.
"Recognize this, gentlemen?" Clay said walking over to the two men, his boots crunching on snow.
"I—I don't," said Henry Wilson.
"What're you trying to pull, Brand?" Garrison spat.
"This is the 'gold' that was on that stage. Leffler's dead and Jingo's wounded. I expect he'll come looking for you two fellows before long. It's a question of who gets here first. The miners'll be out once a few things sink in. I wouldn't give a plugged rifle barrel for your chances."
"Drop that gun!"
Clay spun at the voice. Behind the mill stepped Laura Wilson. She had a shotgun leveled at Clay's head. "I said drop it, Clay. I can shoot and I won't hesitate if you don't do what I say."
Clay figured the odds. Laura looked as though she meant business. That scattergun could cause quite a bit of damage, especially if it were loaded with double-ought buck. Garrison was armed. He didn't know about Wilson. Nothing was showing, but that didn't mean anything since Henry Deringer had started making his deadly little pocket pistols. He let the gun fall from his hand. Laura started walking down the slope, the shotgun still aimed at Clay.
Garrison drew his pistol. "I've got him covered, Laura," he said. "Better put that thing away before someone gets hurt."
Laura lowered the gun, but kept it cradled in her arm. "What's this all about, Clay?" she asked.
Clay showed her the cloth sack. "Take a look for yourself," he said. "There wasn't any gold on the stage except what the passengers were carrying on their persons. Garrison rigged the whole thing. Your father was probably in on it."
"Shut up, Brand," Garrison warned. "Laura, he's just trying to cover up."
"That's right," said Henry Wilson. "He's a killer who robbed that stage and now he's trying to blame us."
"Open the bag, Laura," Clay said.
She did what he said. She poured some of the contents in her hand. "It's just sand," she said.
"And they're all the same. The $60,000 in gold dust never left in that stage," Clay said evenly. "I'd say it's in that buckboard right there."
"I'm warning you, Brand," Garrison said.
Clay saw the man's hand tighten on the pistol grip. In a moment, he knew, Garrison would pull the trigger. It was dangerous for him to say any more just then. He hoped Kathleen could convince the miners that Morfit was the man who robbed the stage. If they got together a posse, they should be here before long. He hoped he could stall.
"You could have put this sand in here, Clay," Laura said. "Any man who would earn his money with a gun would stoop to anything."
"And your father, who wears no gun, what about him?" Clay asked. "He's stealing from honest folks just the same."
Angered, Laura walked up to Clay. She slapped him hard in the face.
Suddenly, a wounded Jingo, riding fast, came bursting through the rocks above the mill. Clay figured he had circled above it, the same way Garrison had that day he had tracked the three men. Jingo's left arm was hanging bloody and useless at his side, but his right hand, gripping the reins, was full of pistol. "Hold it, everyone," Jingo said, pulling his mount up short. "Step away from Brand, lady. Drop that pistol, Garrison."
Garrison dropped his weapon. Henry Wilson began edging away from the center of action. A wracking cough tremored his body and he was forced to stop.
"Wilson, stay in the open where I can see you," Jingo ordered.
"I—I don't understand," Laura said, looking at the stranger. "Who's this man?"
"He's one of those who held up the stage, Laura," Clay said. "His orders came from Garrison. From your father, too, it now appears."
"Shut up, Brand. You'll die soon enough. No use rushing it with your mouth."
"Jingo, I—I . . ." Wilson started to say. Laura looked at her father in horror.
"You aced me out, Hank," said Jingo. "That's why you're going to be the first to go. You made up the bags. You told me so. I didn't kill those men out there for sand. Now, where's the $60,000?"
"In the wagon. I'll get it," said Wilson, moving fast.
"No!" Laura screamed as she saw her father draw a small pistol from inside his belt.
Jingo fired pointblank at Henry Wilson just as the latter's Deringer coughed smoke and lead. Wilson twisted around from the impact of the slug from Jingo's gun. It caught him in the side, near the heart. Blood bubbled from his mouth. He tumbled in a heap beneath the wagon.
Clay moved fast, grabbing the shotgun from Laura. He shoved her down with one arm where she fell face first in the snow. Jingo's gun was already tracking Clay.
Brand tumbled to one side, bringing the shotgun up with both hands, cocking the triggers with his thumb. He fired, first one barrel, then the other. Buckshot sprayed Jingo as the man's mouth opened in surprise. He twitched in the saddle as wounds opened up in his stomach and chest. His gun flew out of his grip and sailed over Garrison's head.
Clay threw the shotgun down and grabbed up his Walker. He watched Jingo fall from the saddle and lie in the snow and mud, jerking spasmodically, like a beheaded frog. "He's dead," Clay said to Garrison.
"Father!" Laura screamed, still dazed by the sound of gunfire. She raced to him as Clay and Garrison watched. Clay shook his head.
"He—he's dead," she sobbed. "What will I tell my mother?"
"I'm sorry, Laura," Clay said. "Sorry as hell."
She looked at him, ready to blister him with her tongue. She realized, then, that Clay had been right. Her father was implicated with the man they called Jingo and with Garrison. She held her father's head in her arms, then, holding back the tears.
They all heard the shouts and horses, the rumble of wagons at the same time. "That would be the miners coming from town, Morfit," Clay said.
"Look, Brand, there's over sixty thousand in gold in that buckboard. Half of it's yours if you get us out of here."
Clay looked at the man with contempt. "It's the hanging tree for you, Garrison. Right in front of God and everybody!"
Garrison Morfit went pale and his knees began to shake. He knew Clay meant what he said.
* * *
The stage stood in front of Octagon House, looking almost as good as new. The leather had been oiled with bear grease, the springs dried out, the axles repacked. A team of four horses champed at their bits. A crowd stood outside the saloon and on the other side of the street in front of the lock-up shed.
Laura gave her mother a hug just before Clare Wilson climbed up into the coach. "I'll be down in a week or so," Laura said "As soon as the sale is complete. I paid the last of the miners today."
"Hush. Don't talk about that now, child," Clare said. "What's done is done."
"Yes, Mother. I just wanted you to know that you can hold your head high in San Bernardino."
"I've always held my head high, my dear."
Clay rode up from the stable then.
"Good," Laura said. "I was hoping you'd ride this one down, Clay. I know I'd feel better about my mother going if you were along."
"Oh, I'll be along all right, Laura." He got off his horse, tying it to the coach's boot.
He and Laura walked out of earshot of her mother. "I want to thank you for your help, Clay," she said. "I never could have repaid the miners if you hadn't been there."
"They trusted your count. None of them hold you to blame."
"I guess I didn't know what greed really was before."
"It's a thing you find in mining camps."
"It killed my father."
"It's killed a lot of good men."
"Are you staying on up here?" she asked.
"Yes, I am, Laura."
She came close to him, then, putting a hand on his arm. She smiled up at him warmly, her dark hair glinting in the sunlight like a crow's wing.
"I didn't think a man like you would settle down, Clay. You give a girl some hope."
Just then, from down the street, a girl came walking from a shop. She was dressed in calico and a bonnet. Her flame-red hair tumbled over her shoulders, nonetheless.
Clay turned. "Kathleen!" he called. "Over here!" Then he directed his eyes back to Laura. "No, ma'am," he said. "I can't give you hope at all. Kathleen's the one that's tamed me."
"I see. She's a very beautiful girl." Laura bit her lip to keep from saying more.
"Be seeing you, Laura. Kathleen and I have business in San Bernardino. We likely won't be back before you leave. I'll see that the stage gets down all right."
"I—I'd like to make you a present of the stage line," she said. "I know my father was partners in it with—with Garrison, but you really deserve to inherit it."
Kathleen joined them, smiling at Laura and at Clay.
"No thanks, Laura." He put his arms around Kathleen. "We've got a claim to work. I expect I'll be using my gun to shoot rattlesnakes with from now on."
Kathleen smiled. "Are we ready?" she asked.
He held the door open for her, proud of Kathleen. She had rallied the miners to his side when some of them still thought he was guilty. Finding the sacks of gold in Leffler's pockets had helped. They were embossed with the emblem of the Shamrock mine. That had proved to them that Leffler had been one of the killers. Jingo's saddlebags told them the rest, with the pokes of Jenks and Van Hoke still there.
The trial had been swift, the hanging even swifter. Garrison had swung from the hanging tree the next day. McElves said it was the biggest crowd they'd ever had, with people coming from Starvation Flats, Clapboard Town, Doble, and Bairdsville. "If we could've held it a week later," Ken had said, "we'd have had the whole county up here."
But that was over a week ago. The snow had melted and the waters had proved a bonanza for the men working the placers. New dust and nuggets washed down from the high ground, from the undiscovered mother lode locked somewhere in the secret fastness of the San Bernardino mountains.
He helped Kathleen into the stage.
"May I kiss the groom?" Laura asked. "Just once?"
"Just once," Kathleen said.
"How'd you know . . ." Clay started to ask.
"Oh, a woman always knows, doesn't she, Kathleen?"
Kathleen smiled.
Clay nodded to the driver who loosened the brake. A whip snapped as the team rolled into motion. "Hooo!" the driver called.
Clay waved to the people watching and to Laura. Then he stood in the stirrups as his horse raced ahead of the stage.
The Gold Fever Trail, dry and flat, wound ahead of him, up through pines and over the mountains, past Cactus Flats and Whiskey Springs, and down into the desert where a man could see forever and never ride to the end of it.
About the Author
Jory Sherman began his literary career as a poet in San Francisco’s famed North Beach in the late 1950s, during the heyday of the Beat Generation. His poetry and short stories were widely published in literary journals when he began writing commercial fiction. He has won numerous awards for his poetry and prose and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in Letters for his novel, Grass Kingdom. He won a Spur Award from Western Writers of America for The Medicine Horn. He has also won a number of awards from the Missouri Writers Guild, and other organizations. Sherman was a book producer, packaging books for many major publishers. His CHILL series of mysteries, published by Pinnacle, appeared in 14 countries. He has published more than 400 books since 1965, more than 1000 articles and 500 short stories. In 1995, Sherman was inducted into the National Writer’s Hall of Fame. Literary critics consider Sherman to be among the top 5 of western writers, according to Dale Walker, historian. Warren French, former professor of literature at the University of Florida, wrote that: “Jory Sherman has a strange and powerful knowledge of language and an almost perfect ear.” Sherman continues to write novels and short stories as well as conduct writing workshops. He received the Western Fictioneers Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012 and is the 2013 recipient of the Owen Wister Award for Lifetime Contributions to Western Literature. www.jorysherman.com
Also available from Western Fictioneers
West of the Big River:
The Lawman
William M. "Bill" Tilghman had one of the most illustrious careers of any Old West lawman, serving as sheriff, town marshal, and deputy United States marshal in some of the toughest places west of the Mississippi. But he faced perhaps his greatest and most dangerous challenge when he rode alone into the wild Oklahoma Territory settlement of Burnt Creek on the trail of a gang of rustlers and outlaws with some unexpected allies . . .
THE LAWMAN, by New York Times bestselling author James Reasoner, is the first novel in a new series from the Western Fictioneers, West of the Big River. These are brand-new, original short novels inspired by real-life characters and actual events from the exciting, colorful history of the American frontier, written by today's leading Western authors including Robert J. Randisi, Michael Newton, Jackson Lowry, Frank Roderus, Bill Crider, Matthew P. Mayo, James J. Griffin, and many others. Don't miss any of these action-packed short novels that showcase the best of the American West!
West of the Big River:
The Avenging Angel
Orrin Porter Rockwell is more than just a deputy United States marshal and a deadly gunfighter. He's a member of the Mormon Danites, the group of enforcers known as the Avenging Angels, and he's the personal troubleshooter for Governor Brigham Young. And when Young sends Rockwell to th
e rough-and-tumble mining town of Tartarus, there'll be plenty of trouble for him to shoot. A group of Mormon miners has vanished, and before Rockwell uncovers the secret of their disappearance he'll face deadly danger from all sides. What his adversaries don't know is just how dangerous the Avenging Angel is . . .
Award-winning author Michael Newton spins an action-packed, historically accurate yarn in THE AVENGING ANGEL, another exciting adventure west of the big river.
West of the Big River:
The Artist
Before he was a world-famous Western artist, Charles M. "Charlie" Russell was a horse wrangler on a ranch in Montana during the worst winter in that state's history. The danger of freezing to death while riding for the brand isn't the only threat Russell has to face, however. A ruthless band of rustlers is sweeping the range of cattle, and a beautiful but trouble-making rancher's daughter complicates Russell's life even more. He'll need more than his artistic ability to survive this deadly winter!
THE ARTIST is the latest volume in the popular West of the Big River series from the Western Fictioneers. Acclaimed author Jackson Lowry spins as entertaining a tale as any of those from Charlie Russell himself in this superb new historical novel.
West of the Big River:
The Ranger
Acclaimed author James J. Griffin, noted for his fine stories of the Texas Rangers, joins the West of the Big River stable with THE RANGER, a short novel featuring real-life Ranger Sergeant J.S. Turnbo. Tangling with rustlers, bank robbers, and road agents is all in a day's work for Turnbo as he fights to bring law and order to the area around Abilene and San Angelo, Texas, but solving a deadly mystery will put Turnbo's life in more danger than ever before. It'll take all of the Ranger's wits and gun-handling skills to keep him alive as he untangles the strands of a lethal conspiracy!