Dixie had managed to cut one of the team mounts free from the tangled harness. The animal gave him considerable trouble because it was badly frightened, but he cuffed and fought it and managed to straddle it and wasn’t far behind Dodd and the others when they rode away from the wreckage of the stagecoach.
Harlan was still alive and so was Jack the driver, though both men still marveled that they were. They had been beaten and cut up pretty badly by Dodd who had finally become enraged to the point where he was notching back his gun hammer to kill the driver when the shots had sounded in the valley. The first two were like whip cracks but could have been the report of a light caliber gun. There had been no mistaking the rifle shot. It had been enough for Dodd. With a final double-lashing out with his gun barrel, knocking both men sprawling, he had ordered the others to mount.
Jack, blinded by blood from his injuries, crawled across to where Harlan was sitting up against the overturned coach, holding to his wounded side. His face was scarred and misshapen.
“You—okay?” Jack gasped.
Harlan nodded: “Will be. Lucky they went—when they did—”
“Yeah—”
“Think they’ll—be—back?”
“Dunno—but we better not be here if they do come back. Reckon you could set a hoss?”
Harlan looked towards the tangle of the team and saw one was pinned by two others and struggling to get free. But there was a wound on the animal’s shoulder.
“We got—one?” he asked.
“Yeah—that one’ll be okay when we get the two dead’uns off him. Can you lend a hand? Not right away, but—soon?”
Harlan managed a smile.
“Soon. Mebbe.”
Jack flicked a smile back at him.
“We can cut over the range seein’ as we don’t have to haul a coach after us now. With some luck, we’ll come up with a ranch tomorrow, or maybe even find a telegraph station, where we can get word to Santa Fe.”
Harlan nodded, too weak to speak. Jack sagged back, too, aching—and wondering if they would get to help in time to send someone after Clay Nash before Dodd and his bunch caught up with the agent.
Will Dodd and his men found the place where Nash had jumped from the stage without trouble. They could see plainly the swathe through the brush made by Nash’s tumbling body.
The outlaws put their mounts down the steep slope, sliding and skidding and crashing through the brush. Dixie had a time of it fighting his stage team mount down and he had to cling tightly to the mane, but he made it only a few yards behind the others. Nash’s tracks were easy enough to follow. Not long after they found Moran’s body in the clearing by the creek. The sign was easy to read and, just as Nash had assumed, Dodd didn’t even stop. He saw the horse tracks leading to the creek and beyond and hurriedly urged his men to get going.
Only Dixie paused, mainly because the horse was fighting him, but also to allow the animal to drink at the little cascade. He slid off its back, knelt and scooped up a handful of water. He noticed some marks in the turf: it was wet and spongy and there were a couple of depressions that hadn’t yet quite filled but they might well have been made by a man kneeling. Dixie frowned and thought about it, staring at the cascade as his horse continued to drink.
Slowly, he turned his head and looked downstream and then back upstream. The little frothing pool was fairly clear while the horse drank thirstily, reducing the flow of the cascade. Dixie could see three small ovals where mud seemed to be floating in suspension among the rocks at the bottom. He saw the places where Nash had removed the stones to ram in beneath the flat rock under the tumbling water, but they didn’t register with him.
He decided that this was the most likely place for a man to drink at the creek and that Nash had been drinking there when Moran had ridden in.
Then Dixie vaulted onto the back of the horse, yanked its head up by the mane and put the animal across the creek after the others.
The horse stepped on the flat rock and the stone tipped and sagged, ripping out some turf from around the edges, changing the cascade to a muddy froth. As they moved off, the water changed course and began eating into the turf and earth, washing it away and starting to tunnel under the flat rock—into the cavity where Nash had stashed the golden eagle.
Clay Nash knew he had a good start and he had every hope of being able to hold it. For one thing, the horse he had taken from Moran was fresher than the pursuing mounts. For another, Nash was at home in the woods and, although his ammunition was depleted and limited, he figured he had enough to hold Dodd and his men at bay.
And that was the part he was thinking about as he rode the horse in a weaving trail through the timber, heading up towards the top of the range.
He found himself a jutting rock and rested the mount, leaving it blowing, with trailing reins, while he climbed on the rock and scanned the country below. He eased to the edge and looked down. It took him several minutes to spot the outlaws following his trail through the thickly timbered slope.
Nash counted five outlaws; easily recognizing Dodd in the lead. The identity of the others he wasn’t sure about, but it made little difference: all he had wanted to do was to find out just how many men were pursuing him.
He eased back from the edge and sat on the rock in the warmth of the sun, scrubbing a hand gently around his swollen, begrimed jaw. The Wells Fargo man figured he ought to be able to handle five of them if he picked his spot. He could just keep running and hope to outdistance them, but the odds of five to one out in the open didn’t appeal to him and he knew that over the range there were badlands fronting the mesa that led to Santa Fe.
In thick timber and range country, he felt he could handle them so it was the logical time and place to do it. Leave it until the chase got down to a dead run across the open country and he could well be finished. All it would need would be for his horse to stumble and throw him and then they could close in and pick him off at their leisure.
Nash reckoned he wouldn’t be able to get all of them, but even if he nailed a couple, it would reduce the odds when he reached the badlands. He stood and went to the patient horse, swinging easily into the saddle and urging it forward and up through the trees. By his reckoning, he was still a good forty minutes, maybe even an hour, ahead of Dodd. He hid his tracks in parts, but he figured he was actually losing time by dismounting and doing this, for Dodd knew that he would have to go up and over the ridge if he wanted to reach Santa Fe.
And the ridge was the place Nash had decided on for his ambush.
This range of hills was low enough to have timber growing to the top and the slopes were studded with egg-shaped boulders of great age, scabbed with lichen, and scarred with deep cracks and fissures. The horse was tiring and blowing hard from the steep climb. Nash urged it up the last part of the grade and came to the crest of the ridge. There was enough timber there to give him cover if he wanted to ride the line of the ridge and this he did for a spell, glancing downslope occasionally and seeing the first of Dodd’s men weaving his way through the timber.
Nash yanked the reins hard left and jumped the horse across the ridge and over the crest. But he hauled back as soon as he had dropped below the skyline again, and put the animal along the face of the slope, picking his way through the fallen trees and scattered boulders. He didn’t want to start shooting while Dodd’s men were in timber, so he rode along just below the ridge looking for a suitable spot. Above, right on the crest, he saw the ideal place, a nest of rocks of all shapes and sizes, black against the sky. He rode towards them and dismounted then weighed the horse’s reins with a stone. Nash worked his way across to where he could see down the slope to the outlaws.
They were reaching into the thinner timber. There was a cleared patch on the face of the slope they would have to cross. It would be ideal for what he had in mind. Rocks and tree trunks littered the slope, but there were no tall trees within easy reach.
Clay took the rifle from the scabbard and hurriedly checked through the saddlebags, swearing when he didn’t find any spare boxes of bullets. He loaded his six-gun, took shells from his belt loops and thumbed them into the Winchester’s tubular magazine.
He was one short of filling it.
That meant he had only sixteen shots: six in the Colt, and ten in the rifle. He would have to place them carefully. He picked his spot, wedging himself between two needle-like boulders, able to stretch out on a flat rock that slanted upwards and gave him protection. He edged up, keeping the rifle down at his side, and looked over warily.
The horsemen were traversing the cleared patch on the slope below but, because they were strung out, the leader, Dodd, would be across before the last man had cleared the trees. Nash cursed but there was no helping it; he had to make the most of things as they were. He dragged the rifle up and settled himself, elbows jammed into the rock as he brought the butt to his shoulder and sighted along the barrel, beading on Will Dodd.
Then his luck turned sour.
As it happened, the sunlight was slanted at an angle to one side, giving depth to the hillside and its hollows and secret places, outlining every blade of grass, and highlighting rocks and the wrinkled bark of trees. It also flashed along the blued steel of the rifle barrel like ball lightning, as Nash settled the weapon snugly for his aim.
At that instant, Will Dodd chose to glance up at the ridge, gauging the distance he and his men had yet to travel, knowing that Nash would make a swift run down the other side for the badlands’ crossing.
Dodd saw the strike of light from metal and, being an old hand at the game of manhunting, he didn’t hesitate. He didn’t worry about trying to turn the horse or yelling a warning to the others. Dodd merely kicked his boots free of the stirrup and hauled himself headlong—dragging one of his six-guns and using his free hand to cushion his fall somewhat. He struck hard but rolled; his leg muscles snapping and propelling him behind a fallen tree. His men just had time to wonder what was going on when Nash’s first shot whip cracked over the hills.
Dodd’s horse reared and whickered as the bullet seared its neck, then it plunged away downslope. Dodd’s gun blasted four swift shots, the big man having already spotted the rocks where Nash lay prone. The bullets ricocheted like berserk wasps from the needle boulders and the Wells Fargo man kept his head down, cursing that he had missed. The lead whined and buzzed off the rocks.
Nash lifted his rifle again knowing he had to be fast if he wanted to get any of the scattering outlaws. They were running their horses all over the clearing, some trying to make it back to the timber, others, like Dodd, quitting leather with wild leaps, and hunting cover on the slope.
He beaded a man riding a horse without a saddle and figured it was one of the stage team, which meant it had crashed. His lips tightened into a thin line as he squeezed the trigger and Dixie spilled from the back of the running mount. He bounced and rolled but wasn’t fatally hit. His legs pumped as he pushed upright and made a staggering run for some rocks. Nash led him by a foot and squeezed off another shot. Dixie was blasted off his feet and his boots continued to pound in mid-air for a second or two before he crashed to the ground and started to slide and roll and bounce down the slope like a bundle of dirty laundry, his limbs flopping limply.
Suddenly, a hail of lead buzzed around Nash again but he pressed flat and kept shooting, his bullets missing by a hair and bringing cusses to his razor-thin lips. He hit another man, Talman, but he got to his feet, clawing at his thigh and made a wild lunge for a fallen tree, diving headlong behind it just as Nash’s bullet chewed up a handful of bark.
Outlaw bullets tore at his rocks, showering him with dust, chips of stone, and flakes of ancient lichen. One shot struck the lip of the flat rock and he reared back, clawing at his eyes as stones cut into his face, drawing blood.
Shaking his head, he snatched up the rifle again, saw a man trying to run up the slope. Nash fired two swift shots—then the hammer fell on an empty breech and he knew he had used up his ten rounds. His lead took the man’s hat and sent it spinning. The second shot smashed the rifle from the outlaw’s hand and Nash swore again; every goddamn shot was that close.
Ordinarily, he wouldn’t worry. He knew he was shooting well enough at running, leaping targets in this kind of light, but he needed bull’s-eyes, not near-misses. He flung the rifle aside and dragged out his six-gun, knowing he had lost his advantage. The clearing hadn’t been large enough to trap the outlaws in the open as he had wanted. They had been able to find too much cover.
They had his position and the survivors were pouring lead to make him keep his head down, which he did as the bullets ricocheted from rock to rock and blinded him with the dust of their passing. He knew that while he was flattened, the outlaws would be making their way up the slope not necessarily right in front of him, but maybe to the sides, in an effort to get on his same level.
When a bullet seared across his shoulders from the left, he knew one of them had made it. He spun onto his back and fired across his body at a vague shape as the man dodged back behind a tree thirty yards along the ridge. Suddenly, he knew if he stayed where he was, they were going to nail him.
Nash pushed back off his slab, holding his fire to conserve his last few bullets. He bounded upright as he reached the rocks and leapt for his mount, hand slapping at the reins and jerking the ends free from beneath the stone he had used to weight them. The horse whinnied once as he turned it and jammed home his heels.
It leapt forward, dodging between the rocks as bullets whipped past his head from the rifleman on the crest of the ridge. He didn’t know it was Will Dodd as he recklessly put the mount down slope, weaving from side to side. He spotted the man running out of the trees and dropping to one knee, and snapped a shot at him. The bullet kicked up dirt and grass just in front of Dodd and he threw himself back instinctively, his rifle exploding into the air. But he righted himself with a savage curse and thrust off his left hand and threw the rifle to his shoulder again. He triggered two fast shots at the fleeing Nash as the man literally threw his mount down the slope of the mountain.
The lead whistled past and one of the bullets snapped several branches off brush ahead of Nash. He wheeled aside and ran the wild-eyed mount across the face of the slope. He glanced behind and saw other outlaws coming over the ridge.
Nash knew he wasn’t going to make it into the heavy timber. It was too far.
Dodd was reloading his rifle frantically and yelling to his men to bring Nash down, to shoot the bronc out from under him. He didn’t want to let him reach the thick timber where he could well elude them.
The guns hammered and Nash figured the best thing he could do was to take one more chance and set the mount straight down the mountainside towards the thick trees. It was a dangerous maneuver, not only because he wouldn’t be weaving about and so would present a steadier target for the outlaws, but also because the horse could easily stumble and throw him. But zigzagging through the thinner timber was losing him time and keeping him away from cover that he needed badly.
Nash hipped in the saddle and fired a shot up-slope, then wrenched the fleeing horse’s head around and plunged straight down the steep slope. His move confused the outlaws but Dodd quickly recovered and knelt behind a fallen tree, rested his rifle barrel across it and took careful aim. The others were shooting as fast as they could work their levers and triggers, but Dodd took his time and squeezed off his shot gently.
He stood up swiftly, teeth baring in a grin as he saw Nash’s mount stagger, its rump going down into the hillside as its rear legs buckled. A moment later its front legs collapsed and Nash sailed over the animal’s head to crash heavily onto the slope. The outlaw leader saw the man’s gun fly out of his hand and then Nash was skidding and somersaulting out of control, bouncing and thrashing as he spun down the steep grade, pursued by the rolling body of the horse.
Nash had his arms over his head, catching blurred, spinning glimpses of the huge animal as it came thundering towards him. He finally managed to get his legs against a boulder and thrust to one side as it somersaulted and crashed within inches of his body. Even so, the rear legs struck him across the shoulders and shot him off at a tangent, his head ringing.
He smashed into a bush then shot through it, his fingers scrabbling for a hold, then ripping the brush out of the ground. His momentum carried him into the trees and he had a fuzzy impression of trunks racing past only a hair’s-breadth away from his face and then he hit a rock, bounced painfully into the air and saw the bark of a mountain mahogany in all its detail for an instant before he smashed into it with stunning force and fell to the ground.
His body was half draped around the base of the tree as consciousness slipped away from him.