by Brett Waring
Hume looked levelly into Nash’s eyes.
“That’s your problem,” he said flatly. “Main thing is you bring him in. Three dead posse men added to his tally now, Clay.”
Nash’s lips tightened. Yeah, he thought, there was no dodging that. No matter how much he rationalized and pussyfooted around it, there was one inescapable fact:
Shell Shannon was a killer and likely the most dangerous man in Colorado.
But there were others who would disagree, others who would say that the most dangerous man in Colorado—and probably anywhere else—was Clay Nash.
Two – Now It’s Official
The mining town was far up in the mountains. The buildings which dotted the slopes were mainly raw pine and cedar logs. What passed for a main street was merely a winding track that happened to be a little wider than the others. It took a more or less level swing across the mountain face at one section that the business district decided would be a good place to build.
This section included a number of saloons, whore houses, dance-girl parlors, gambling halls, stores, barber shops, eating places, rooming houses and gun shops. And, at the far end of the street nestled the big rectangular, split-log building that housed the Wells Fargo Stage Depot, handling both freight and passengers.
Inside the big reception room, patient and impatient passengers waited by the big open fire as logs blazed and filled the room with stifling warmth. A graybeard was hammering his cane on the counter, making the booking clerk wince.
“Goddamn it, you young whippersnapper,” he thundered, “don’t you take that tone with me. I’m no child. I was fellin’ trees an’ helpin’ my pappy build his wilderness cabin in the Kentucky hills when you was no more’n a gleam in your pappy’s eye.”
The thin, balding clerk, adjusted his eyeshade and cardboard cuff protectors as some of the others laughed at the oldster’s tone.
“Sir, I—I’m only followin’ instructions. Company instructions ... There will be no passengers taken on the next stage out. You’ll just have to wait for the next one.”
“An’ when in the name of the seven devils set loose by Davey Crockett would that be?” roared the old man.
“Two-thirty, sir,” the clerk bleated.
“Two-thirty in the morning suh?”
“I—I’m afraid so.”
The cane whacked the counter again like a gunshot, and the other waiting passengers began to mutter angrily.
“I’m sorry, sir,” the clerk said. “Nothin’ I can do about it.” His tone clearly said ‘and nothing you can do about it, either so like it or lump it’.
But the graybeard soon wiped the smirk off his face when he poked the man in his scrawny chest with the end of his cane.
“Why?” he thundered.
The clerk blinked. “Uh—wh—what ...?”
“Why can’t we take that stage they’re hitchin’-up outside right now, suh? I ask why?”
Other passengers had crowded behind the oldster with the cane, and they, too, demanded to know why they weren’t to be allowed on board the stage outside the depot.
The clerk was sweating, but his face brightened as he suddenly thrust out a scrawny arm and pointed.
“There,” he breathed in obvious relief. “That’s why you can’t take that stage.”
The group turned and stiffened when they saw four guards entering from a room at the rear of the building.
The first man held a double-barreled shotgun cradled in his arms. He was followed by two beefy, straining men carrying an ironbound chest between them. The fourth man also held a cocked shotgun, and brought up the rear.
The guards raked the group of staring passengers with cold eyes as they moved through the room and out the front door into the chill mountain night.
“That chest looked mighty heavy, suh,” the graybeard said to the clerk.
The man mopped his scrawny neck with a stained kerchief and nodded vigorously. He leaned forward, flicking his gaze from one passenger to the next.
“Gold from the big mine, Lucky Garter,” he said quietly. “Not ore, mind you, but recovered gold. They got themselves a recovery process goin’ up there now. On the quiet. They shipped in barrels of mercury last month, labeled ‘Tar’. Use it in the process. Crush the ore, recover the gold here, and they only got small, manageable chests of it to ship down. Makes it easier for them and easier for us. We can guard a single chest of pure gold a helluva lot easier than a ton of ore loaded onto mules or wagons.”
He saw he had the passengers’ attention and he gave a knowing wink.
“More’n a hundred pounds of pure gold in that there chest, ladies an’ gents,” the man added quietly. “Yessir, one-hundred-twenty-five pounds of gold as near pure as dammit. Bound straight for the Denver Mint. Which is why that stage ain’t takin’ any passengers. Just the driver, two shotguns, and the chest of gold ... Now, you folks been told the whys and wherefores, so if you’ll just allow me to get on with my work ...?”
But no one was listening ...
Outside, the men loaded the chest into the waiting stage and it was only when they stepped back that they noticed the “passengers”—dressmaking and store dummies, anchored to the seats.
One of the guards climbed in and sat in the only vacant space, a middle seat between two dummies, one a man, the other a woman. He settled with the shotgun between his knees and nodded as the remaining armed guard closed the door and climbed to his seat beside the driver.
The guard, a red bearded man, spat over the side and nodded.
“Let ’er rip, Tully. We is on our way to Denver.”
Tully let loose with the wildest, loudest, rebel yell that had ever shaken the mining town at that hour of the night. It echoed through the streets and out beyond the confines of the town to roll across the mountain.
At the same time, the driver flicked the reins, unshipped a long bullwhip and snapped it onto the rumps of the team in turn—one, two, three, four.
The animals squealed their protests, slammed into the harness collars—and the big Concord stage jerked forward, almost wrenching two of the dummies off their seat mountings.
The inside guard, by the name of Arlin, cursed Tully as he snatched at the dummies and set about fixing them back in place again as the stage rolled along Main and began the twisting descent from the mountain mining town.
Up top, the red bearded guard, Baccy, braced his muddy boots against the footboard and used both hands to hold on tightly as Tully expertly tooled the rig down into the first series of hairpin bends. Tully half-stood, as though he were driving in a chuck wagon race, riding the drawbar and let rip with a seemingly endless stream of cusses.
The lights of the town soon dropped behind and fell from their line of sight as they rounded a rocky butte.
Out on the chill, wind-torn mountain, Tully made no attempt to slow down and the stage rocked and jarred along the trail, brake-bar screaming, streaming smoke from the block as the spinning iron tires clattered on the edge of the down trail.
Baccy’s eyes were starting out of his head.
Inside, Arlin clung desperately to the seat and window frame and tried to keep from being thrown to the floor. Already one of the bonnets from a female dummy had come adrift and landed on his head. He clawed it off irritably, swearing and shaking a fist at the roof and the crazy driver above.
“We is supposed to deliver that lousy gold in one piece, you goddamn idjut,” Baccy roared at Tully as they hit a particularly steep drop-down and he found himself almost standing on the footboard. “Keep drivin’ this way, an’ all they’ll find is a load of dust scattered over the wreckage. An’ our corpses.”
“Set you down an’ relax, Baccy,” Tully said casually, breaking off his stream of curses. “We’ll hit the flats in an hour an’ then I’ll really let ’em run with the bit between their teeth.”
He cackled as Baccy groaned and clung more tightly to his seat rail.
“By hell, I’m gonna see the Denver agent about this, w
hen we get to the depot,” the redhead snarled. “If we get there.”
Tully chuckled then began his string of curses again, laying into the team with the whip, driving them on even faster ...
But somehow, they made it down the mountain safely. Tully had never for a moment doubted that they would: he knew it was his deftness with a racing team that had made him the choice for this particular chore and, true to his word, the driver had given the team their heads once on the flats.
By then, the moon had risen and the trail was faintly visible. Baccy and Arlin still didn’t know how Tully could see well enough to drive so recklessly.
They didn’t realize that it only appeared to be recklessness: Tully was in full control of the team at all times.
After a while, he seemed to have tired of scaring the two guards out of their wits and he allowed the horses to settle down to their own pace and, content, he put away his bullwhip, laced the reins between his fingers, folded his arms, and let his chin drop onto his chest as he dozed.
“Sweet Judas Priest,” croaked Baccy, shaking Tully violently by the shoulder. “Man, you is supposed to be drivin’ not sleepin’.”
“Hell, the team knows the way. They make this run four times a week.”
“Not with me aboard they don’t,” Baccy said, forgetting to spit and swallowing instead. He nearly choked and began to cough violently as he leaned over the side of the seat.
When the spasm had passed, he turned his streaming gaze on to Tully and found the man settling down to a doze again.
“Chrissakes, Tully. Stay awake,” he roared.
Tully shook his arm free. “Leave me be, goddamn it! You do your job an’ I’ll do mine.”
“Then do it with your damn eyes open,” Baccy croaked.
“For hells sakes!” groaned Tully, hitching around with his back half turned to the guard. “Leave me be or I’ll kick you over the side.”
Tully reached for the seat bar, pulled himself into a slightly more comfortable position, then closed his eyes and settled down.
Baccy began to put out a hand to his shoulder, then noticed that Tully’s fingers were wrapped around the butt of the bullwhip—and slowly withdrew his hand. He shook his head as Arlin called up through the window.
“Everythin’ okay up there?”
Baccy leaned down and said, casually, “Sure. Just helpin’ Tully get hisself comfortable for his snooze.”
There was a long silence then Arlin said tightly, “I didn’t know you could manage a four-in-hand team, Bac.”
“Can’t,” he replied with a chuckle, “Tully’s doin’ it in his sleep.”
“Hey! We’ll pile up.”
“Just relax, Arlin. Tully knows what he’s about.”
Arlin ducked back into the coach and Baccy amused himself trying to figure out the man’s frightened thoughts. But all the while he kept a mangling grip on the seat rail and his gaze moved alternately between the dozing driver and the racing horses ...
The stage thundered and rocked on through the night and into the gray light of dawn and the early amber hues of first light.
Still Tully dozed, rocking and swaying in the seat, the team picking its own way unerringly along the familiar trail.
Then some instinct made the driver stir. He wasn’t sure, later, just what had caused him to wake up fully, but something had and as he blinked in the early sunlight he realized that he was staring down at Baccy’s boots as they drummed on the seat beside him.
Suddenly coming alert, Tully stared at the red bearded guard’s body lying halfway back across the roof of the stage, twitching in its death throes. There was a neat hole between the man’s eyes and the back of his skull seemed to have disintegrated. There was bloody gore spread all over the roof of the stage.
Tully felt his stomach turn and he stared around in bewilderment.
There had been no gunshot, he was certain of that, and yet there was the faint, lingering echo of—something, dying away across the plains. But that was loco, he thought. The stage was rocking across the trail out in the middle of the plains, at least half—no, three-quarters—of a mile from the nearest cover.
No gun could shoot that far, with such accuracy, so he must be mistaken about the echoes of anything. Something else must have happened to Baccy. But what in hell’s name could have put that hole between his eyes? It sure looked like a bullet hole. The shotgun was lying on the footboard, sliding about a little with the motion of the Concord.
Now what the hell had caused ...?
There was a sudden whinny from the off-side team leader and the horse reared, pawing the air, an instant before collapsing.
Tully yelled but it was too late.
The stage piled into the other three horses and he was catapulted out of the driving seat like an arrow fired from a bow. And as he shot towards the hard ground, he saw the rear horses mangled by the crashing coach body—the drawbar spearing through one animal, the other being crushed by an iron-shod wheel rolling over its skull.
The surviving horse tried to struggle out of the traces and, just as he slammed violently against the earth, Tully heard—unmistakably this time—the distant crack of a heavy-caliber, high-powered rifle.
Before he passed out, he saw the remaining horse convulse as a bullet tore through its brain ...
Then out of the shuddering, splintered coach body, Arlin crawled with blood oozing from a cut above one eye. Shocked, reacting instinctively, he staggered to his feet, brought up his shotgun—and looked around.
Then he jack-knifed as if kicked in the stomach by some invisible mule. His body was picked up and slammed back into the mud-caked underside of the overturned stage. His mouth opened as his body flopped to the ground, but all that came out was a gush of blood.
He rolled onto his face and was still, a huge hole showing in his back where the bullet had ripped through.
A coach wheel screeched to a juddering stop on its bent axle and, as dust settled slowly over the scene of carnage, a rider appeared, moving easily on a big bay horse out of the shadow of the distant rock pile, leading a pack mule.
He had a heavy rifle with a strange, pronged butt resting on one knee, the brass work reflecting the blaze of the early sunlight ...
By the time he was level with Tully, the dazed driver was sitting up taking stock of his injuries. He had a broken wrist and a dislocated shoulder.
One of his legs was either busted or badly wrenched but he tried to stagger to his feet as he heard the approach of the stranger’s bay.
Tully turned to face the approaching horseman then fell with a grunt onto his side. He pushed upright, squinting against the sun as the rider drew level and paused briefly, swinging down the big rifle.
“N-no,” Tully gasped as the big muzzle lined up on his chest. “Don’t ... I got five kids.”
The big gun blasted and Tully’s body skidded away for a distance of some ten feet before rolling into a heap.
Shell Shannon had shaved off his beard and had cut his hair short so that it barely covered his ears.
He whistled softly as he rode up to the Concord’s wreckage, dismounted and worked the mule alongside.
Then he climbed into the Concord, kicking aside the dummy passengers and strained to lift out the iron-bound chest of gold through the open door ...
It was good to be back in his familiar office, Jim Hume thought as he sat at his desk, catching up on the correspondence that had piled up while he had been north in Wyoming on the Luke and Mary Lee Farrell chore.
He liked the familiar surroundings, and he had spent a good deal of his working life with Wells Fargo in that room, directing operations, building up files on stage and bank robbers, killers and gunslingers—and the start of a ballistics record.
James Hume was one of the first men in the world to develop the science of tracing a bullet to a particular gun through the rifling marks—for each gun is individual and leaves its own distinct mark on every bullet fired through the barrel.
Much
later men would realize that the firing pin also left a distinctive mark that was never duplicated and there were much finer and more sophisticated means of identification to come ...
Hume had already sent seventeen men to the gallows through ballistics evidence.
He glanced around at his walls lined from floor to ceiling with cabinets that contained smaller drawers and boxes filled with his precious files.
There were thousands, yet Hume could lay his hands on any particular record in seconds. He was a methodical man and liked to tie up all loose ends.
It was one of the reasons why he was determined to get the Shannon case over and done with.
Clay Nash was his top operative and so he was willing to bend over backwards on his behalf—to cover up for him if he figured it necessary, and if it got results.
For results were what mattered to a man like Hume. The getting there was incidental: and yet he was a man of high principles. He had strict codes of behavior under certain circumstances that he would not tolerate to be broken.
Nash, despite his standing with Hume and Wells Fargo, had gone against all orders—and the Law itself—and had broken Shannon out of prison.
Through a set of circumstances mostly beyond Nash’s control, Shannon had escaped and was still free. The man might have helped Nash to solve his last case, but in Hume’s view he was still a wanted killer—and belonged in prison.
It had to be Nash’s chore to track him down and return him to the State Penitentiary. It had to be. Hume would have it no other way.
That was why he had Nash out in the field ...
There was a knock on the door. Hume finished reading a paragraph before looking up with a frown.
“Come in,” he snapped.
The door opened instantly and Carmody, the Denver Wells Fargo agent, hurried in, looking troubled. He crossed the office and announced:
“The stage from Goldenrod’s overdue, Jim.”
Hume’s frown deepened and there was the beginning of a wrench in his stomach but he ignored it.
“How long?” he asked quietly.