Up on the ridge, Dodd smiled crookedly. He could have finished Nash with that shot but he figured it would be better to blow the man’s horse out from under him. He would then have the Wells Fargo man to toy with.
He looked around at his panting men through the gunsmoke that shrouded the area where they stood.
“Get the horses. He ain’t goin’ nowhere after hittin’ that tree like that. And his satchel’s on that hoss.”
The mount had come to rest in the thick timber, too, but at the edge, its carcass partially shielding Nash’s still form at the base of the tree. Dodd was whistling softly as he went back over the ridge with his men. They rounded up the horses and Dodd saw that his mount was still bleeding badly from the bullet that had seared across its neck. He had neither the time nor inclination to doctor the wound and took off his saddle-rig and flung it over the back of Dixie’s horse. The animal didn’t like it, but Dodd kicked it in the ribs and wrenched the cinch strap tight. He swore at it as he stepped up into leather and glanced briefly at Dixie’s body down the slope. Then he led his men back up towards the ridge.
Just to be on the safe side, he sent Griffin to search the rocks where Nash had lain in ambush. There was a remote possibility that the man might’ve hidden the statue somewhere.
Griffin came back in a few minutes shaking his head.
“No sign of where he could’ve dug a hole and the rocks are either too big to move, or too small to cover it. Nope, he didn’t leave it there, Will.”
“Then let’s go get it,” Dodd said and spurred his mount down the slope towards the carcass of Nash’s horse.
They rode in single file, in a slow zigzag across the face of the slope and worked their way carefully down towards the edge of the heavy timber, where Nash’s huddled body was just visible. But Hackleback spotted the satchel across the face of the mountain and the outlaws all turned in that direction as the man spurred his mount. He leapt from the saddle while his mount was still running and picked up the battered and scuffed leather bag.
Dodd jumped from his horse and snatched it from his hand.
“It’s locked,” Hackleback panted.
“Not for long,” Dodd gritted as the others gathered around. He knelt with the satchel between his knees and took out his hunting knife. He used the point to hack and lever at the brass lock but found it more difficult than he had figured. However, the knife blade was strong and the brass hasp snapped free of the plate and he hurriedly threw back the satchel flap. He tipped it up and the papers inside spewed out, scattering on the ground.
But the central compartment remained locked and he grinned tightly at the others as he shook the satchel and they could all hear the movement of something heavy inside. He set it down again and went to work on the lock with the knife. But this time, the point of the knife only penetrated the thin covering of leather and then skidded off the reinforcing metal beneath.
Dodd swore and hammered with the hilt on the walls of the compartment. They all sounded metallic.
“Damn it! It’s lined with steel,” he snarled.
“Shoot the bastard off,” suggested Talman. Dodd nodded and drew his six-gun. They stood back as he placed the muzzle against the lock at the top of the compartment and dropped hammer. The satchel spun away and when Hackleback handed it over to him, Dodd grinned: the lock was mangled metal.
“Well, I guess Wells Fargo ain’t never gonna live this down,” he chuckled as he wrenched the buckled metal plates apart and turned the satchel upside down.
The creek rock fell at his feet and the smiles abruptly dropped from the faces of the expectant outlaws.
“Judas Priest!” Dodd snarled, picking up the stone and hurling it savagely away. He lunged upright, trembling. “By hell, I’ll pull his teeth out one by one for this. He’s tryin’ to make us look like fools. Let’s get that hombre roastin’ over a fire. By the time I’m through with him, he’ll be pleadin’ with me to let him tell me where he’s hid that eagle.”
They mounted and ran their horses recklessly down the slope and into the edge of the thick timber.
But when they reached the tree they found no sign of Nash, only a few spots of blood on the bark and a few coins that had spilled out of Nash’s pocket on impact.
“Spread out,” roared Dodd, sweeping an arm around wildly. “Spread out and bring me that bastard by sundown,” he screamed, letting go uncaringly. “Find him. He can’t be far.”
The four outlaws spread out and rode into the heavy stand of timber, eyes and ears alert, knowing Nash couldn’t have moved very far into the deep-shadowed trees.
And they were all glad they weren’t in the Wells Fargo man’s shoes. For when he was found, only bloody torture and screaming death awaited him.
Clay Nash felt as if he were going to topple over and stay down next time around. He had lost count of the number of times he had fallen and thrust upright again, stumbling on through the timber, glad that the shadows had deepened.
His left arm was not much use to him though he didn’t think anything was broken. He had examined it on the run—or the stagger, he thought with grim humor—but, though it was swollen and hurt like hell at the shoulder and elbow joints, the bones seemed to be intact. He must have had it jammed between the tree and his body when he had struck.
Just as well, too, he figured. If he hadn’t, likely he would have suffered cracked ribs and maybe a splintered bone would have penetrated a lung or some other essential organ. Despite his present condition, which was not too good to say the least, he figured he had been lucky. He was without ammunition or hat or food or water, but he was still able to run.
If Dodd and his men had moved on him at once, they would have him prisoner now—or he could be dead. But Dodd had gone back for the mounts, supremely confident that he had the Wells Fargo operative cold-decked. Then they had stopped at the satchel—
If he could keep on the run, dodging the searching outlaws for another hour he would be safe. Once night closed in he could make his way through the timber, and down to the foot of the mountain. But then he would have to face the badlands.
There was little cover out there and he couldn’t hope to make it across the way he was. No, he would have to make a stand in the Arrowheads. There was no choice in the matter. It would be suicide for him to attempt to cross the badlands on foot, without food or water or even a weapon to protect himself. All he had was a stag-handled clasp knife in his pocket.
In the timber of the hills, even that could be put to his advantage, but it would be mighty hard to use it productively out there in the wasteland. Not to say that a clasp knife wasn’t a useful tool to have for survival in the desert, for Nash had managed to pull through on at least one occasion with only such a weapon, but then he had had time to search for water and food such as was offered by the harsh environment.
There were not a lot of leaves or twigs on the ground so he was able to move silently. He saw and heard the outlaws in their search, but because of the noise they made he was able to keep track of them and go to ground when they drew close. Once, Will Dodd rode past his hiding place so close that Nash could have reached out and plucked the man from the saddle.
He used the brush growing between the trees and the rocks, and the deep, purple-black shadows cast by the trees themselves. Twice he went up into the branches of trees and lay among the foliage while the outlaws rode past beneath. On the second occasion, they had stopped to palaver and twist up cigarettes and the odor of the tobacco had awakened a craving in him which he was still having trouble putting down.
When they had ridden on, he had crossed to the next tree. The timber was so thick here that branches intertwined and he was able to make his way down the slope for several yards before having to climb down.
By then, he could hear the outlaws scattered across the slopes, calling out to each other. Darkness was falling as if someone were lowering a blind.
“Where we gonna meet up, Will?” someone yelled.
“Yeah—we lost him for the night, Will,” another voice called.
“Keep lookin’ till you can’t see your hand in front of your face,” Will Dodd roared in reply.
“Hell, we won’t even be able to find ourselves by then,” an outlaw protested.
“I’ll light a fire and you can all come in,” Dodd yelled and Nash could tell by the sounds of his voice that he was savagely angry at not having had success in his search. “I want Nash found. And taken alive.”
The Wells Fargo man smiled tightly. Dodd wanted to know where the eagle was, of course. And he knew he could look forward to torture and pain if Dodd ever caught him.
The thing was to stay uncaught, and not only that, but, if possible, to whittle down the odds.
That night he would be fine. He had taken bearings earlier on a pile of rocks that had a natural overhang that would furnish him with shelter. There was moss growing underneath the rocks so he would have water—moisture, leastways. Nuts on some of the bushes would furnish food. Elderberry, chokecherry, cottonwood trees, all could give him enough food to sustain him.
But, come daylight, that was when the real danger would begin.
Dodd would keep an eye on the badlands but he would also know that Nash would have long since decided about making a crossing on foot. The outlaw would know Nash was still on the mountain and his men would scour and beat the brush and trees until they drove the Wells Fargo man out.
There were four of them and he had to start paring away at those odds. Nash made his way down to his shelter among the rocks and while he hacked some damp moss free and crammed it into his mouth, sucking the moisture from it, he began to figure out just how he could start killing off the outlaws.
In the darkness he looked down at the faint glint of the clasp knife in his hand.
It was all he had to work with, so it would have to do the job for him. Somehow.
Carl Olsen was a Swede and most folk called him simply, ‘Swede’. He was a big man and though the iron had gone from his muscles with the encroaching years, even now, in his mid-fifties, he would outwork most of the young Indian bucks who did the chores around the way-station.
Of course, they weren’t there to make a career out of working for Wells Fargo; the bucks came down from the hills or the reservations, if they had a pass and departmental approval, just to get a few dollars together for some specific purpose. One might want to buy a new saddle for his horse; another might want seeds or agricultural tools; a couple might even want good guns. For they were all learning that the white man had many things that made life easier than the old traditional methods.
Still, Swede Olsen treated them fairly and he paid them by the hour. If he didn’t think they had done enough for their money, he said so and only occasionally did he have to slam down a cocky young buck with his big knotted fists. Most went along with his estimate of what constituted a fair day’s work.
Apart from the Indians and an occasional Mexican wandering that far north of the Rio, there was only a fat French woman from New Orleans for a cook at the way-station by way of permanent company. Swede yarned with the stage driver and the passengers when they passed through, but these were only brief encounters and mostly it was shop talk or a discussion on the weather, or the condition of the trail ahead.
So Swede turned to his books. Long ago he had taught himself to read, with the help of a Norwegian mate on the windjammer he had stowed away on years earlier. Books comforted Swede in his loneliness as agent at the remote way-station on the edge of the badlands running around the base of the Arrowhead Hills.
He often read well into the early hours of the morning until his eyes ran with water from the strain in the dim yellow light cast by the oil lamps.
It was one of those times when he was sitting up late. There had been a stage through two days earlier, running south, and it had brought him some books from Santa Fe. Catalogues, agricultural manuals, stockmen’s products’ lists, some old newspapers, months out of date, and a ragged copy of Charles Dickens’ “Pickwick Papers.” It was this that kept him up so late as he avidly devoured the tale, glorying in the feel of such a thick book and in its fine print. He figured he would have a few nights’ comfort out of this work.
There was a strong wind blowing in across the badlands and it rattled some of the shutters, but the noise didn’t bother Swede Olsen: he was lost in Dickens’ prose.
Then, slowly, he lifted his head, puffing on his curved-stem pipe, frowning, reluctantly tearing his eyes away from the doings of the rotund Mr. Pickwick and company. Swede’s frown deepened as he cocked his head on one side, his cropped hair catching the lamplight briefly.
He thought he heard a voice calling in the darkness. It was faint and the shutters banged, drowning out the sound. Swede sat there, wanting to dismiss it and return to his reading, but in the lull between the shutters banging shut and swinging open, he heard the sound again.
There was no mistaking it. There was someone out there.
Swede got up, set book and pipe on the deal table in the big room and walked to the cold fireplace. He took down the old Spencer repeater from the pegs and cocked back the large hammer as he clumped across the floor to the front door. He opened the door, stepping swiftly outside onto the verandah and to one side, so that the lamplight was not at his back.
There were stars, misted a little with a small scud of dust stirred up by the night wind, but there was no moon. A faint silver glow behind the Arrowheads over to his left told him it was rising, but that didn’t help him as his eyes strained to see through the darkness. Could be it was one of the Indians, drunk from a quick visit to the reservation, was having trouble finding his way to the station? No. He could catch a word now and again now. That was not an Indian’s voice.
“Hola, out there,” he bawled in his gruff, accented voice.
The wind blew across the yard and he didn’t hear the reply; if any.
“This is a Wells Fargo way-station,” Swede yelled, “What wantin’, eh?”
“Help!” He heard that clearly enough and the voice sounded raspy and near exhaustion. “He-elp—please.”
But Swede had been a long time managing way-stations. He knew that often things weren’t as they first seemed. He stayed where he was, straining his ears and eyes. There was another sound, too: a horse, moving slowly and plodding, unevenly. Could be someone in trouble all right, but he wasn’t about to chance it.
“Swede,” the voice croaked. “Our—hoss’s—just about—tuckered—we—I’m failin’.”
The man had said ‘we’ and that made Swede tense. They must be close, though, he thought as he tightened his grip on the old Spencer, for he heard the thuds of two bodies striking the ground. There were moans and he caught the sounds of two distinct voices. Then he spun with the rifle coming up but relaxed, heart thumping, as a dusty, droop-headed horse staggered out of the darkness near the end of the porch. It was caked with dried froth and its legs were rubbery.
Behind it, he saw a man crawling and he slowly lowered the rifle hammer. He knew now why the man had called him by name. It was Jack, the stage driver—and he was hurt. Swede propped the gun against the wall and jumped to kneel beside Jack.
“What happened?”
Jack pointed back into the darkness.
“’Nother man—hurt—” He grabbed weakly at Swede’s arm as the station man made to move away. “Wait—you gotta get a—telegraph away—to Jim Hume—Santa Fe.”
Swede frowned.
“We try—but the wind—sometimes it blow down the wires.”
Jack nodded. “Try. You gotta try. Or Clay Nash is dead.”
At the first showing of pale gray light, Clay Nash was stirring from his hollow under the rocks.
He sucked more of the moss and chewed on leaves from the elderberry brush and a few berries of the chokecherry. While he ate, he looked around him. Within a radius of thirty yards from the rocks, he saw three kinds of trees that were of interest to him: the chokecherry, the mountain mahogany, and the ash. A little higher up he spotted some service berry, too, but there would be no need to go that far for what he had in mind.
Lying on its side, down slope, was an uprooted mountain mahogany. He moved down to it, slipping a little in the uncertain light and on the rugged ground. After he reached the mahogany, he listened a spell, but heard only the natural sounds of the woods awakening to a new day. There was a faint odor of wood smoke that likely came from the outlaws’ camp, but he didn’t think they were close enough to hear him as he hacked at a slim, straight branch. He cut a ‘V’ notch in the section he wanted and continued to cut into it, deepening it until he had cut the sapling right through. He cut off the top branches about the level of his shoulder and then tested the wood for springiness. It bent and sprang from his hand, clattering loudly against the trunk of the parent tree, making him snatch it up and crouch low.
The noise had scared a few jays in nearby bushes but otherwise all seemed well. Nash balanced the stave in his left hand and climbed back over the tree. He used his knife to cut a longer and slimmer stick from the main body, then hurried away from the rocks and started up the slope. It was getting much lighter and he knew he had to hurry for the outlaws, would soon be stirring.
He found some bushes where he could work and also a tree that would furnish the kind of stringy bark that he needed. Nash worked fast and expertly, though he really needed a fire to bend his bow properly and to recurve the ends for greater strength and power. But he wouldn’t be wanting to use this bow over and over again. Just once would be enough. He scraped the thicker of the two staves, tapering the ends, leaving a section of the middle the natural thickness. He notched the ends about three inches in, then took his strips of bark and rolled them back and forth across his thigh, making them into a strong cord. Animal sinew was by far the most superior bowstring but he had to make do with what he had.
He tested the stave and found its most natural curve, hooking one end of his string into a notch and, keeping the stave bent, looped the other end into the bottom notch and fumbled to get a slipknot that pulled tight. The bark string ‘twanged’ when he plucked it and tested it for pull. The bow was powerful the way he wanted, and he took the thinner shaft, cut a notch in one end and measured off about four feet. It was as thick as his thumb.
He split the blunt end, then decided he wouldn’t have time to flake a stone arrowhead. The noise might just be heard. So he cut off the split end and merely sharpened it to a point, then rubbed it on a stone until it was round and smooth and sharp. He gathered up his spare string. It was daylight and he could hear a horse across the mountain slope as the outlaws got under way.
Nash moved swiftly to a thickly wooded area where there were many bushes and he went quickly to work with his knife. He made two props, drove them into the soft ground by his own weight until they projected about a foot. He lashed the bow at the main curve to the props, then tested the pull on the string again. Marking the place, he released it while he pushed another stake in, cut a notch and then looked for a bush with a ‘Y’-shaped fork in its lower branches. He cut one out, notched it and pulled back the bowstring, hooking it into the first notch on the straight arm of the ‘Y’. A deeper notch held it to the thick stake behind the bow at the limit of the string’s travel. Then he ran the remainder of the string he had made from a notch in the other arm of the ‘Y’ through the brush, hooking it behind small branches for about ten feet and then turned it in a right-angle around the base of the bush and pegged it across so that it was directly in front of the curved bow.
Then, very carefully, he laid the sharpened shaft against the taut string on the ‘Y’ notch, and on the thick part of the bow-shaft, between the two props he had first cut.
There was no time to try it, but the theory was that any man tripping that string directly in front of the bow would dislodge the ‘Y’ stick and release the long, arrow-like shaft.
The problem was, it had to be a man on foot and he was being hunted by horsemen. But Nash was working on that. He made sure the bow couldn’t be seen by bending and cutting some brush to prop in front of it. He looked critically at his handiwork and figured it would do.
That would be for one man. With luck, he might be able to get the victim’s gun and that would even the score considerably. But in case he couldn’t, he had to prepare other man traps and risk his neck to lead the hunters into them.
They were working over to his part of the slope. He could hear their mounts and the occasional call as they picked up some of his tracks from the previous night. Then he spun about, startled, as a man yelled from below.
“Hey, Will. Looks like he holed-up here among some rocks last night. Been eatin’ berries and moss. And he’s been shavin’ wood.”
Nash cursed. One of them had stumbled on his hideout. That meant he had no choice. He had to stay at that level or go back up over the mountain.
Then a gun blasted and a bullet ripped bark from a tree near his head. Nash threw himself headlong into the brush. He didn’t stop; he plowed on wildly, slapping the branches aside, hearing guns banging behind him. Lead tore through the brush around him and he saw a man bearing down on him with a horse that looked like it had the bit between its teeth and was beyond control.
Nash skidded to a stop, not knowing the outlaw’s name was Talman. The killer fired and lead kicked stones near Nash’s feet. He stumbled and grabbed up an egg-shaped rock that just fitted his hand. He hurled it and it struck the horse squarely between the eyes. It whinnied and reared and fell sideways, unseating the rider. The man shook his head and snapped a wild shot at Nash as the horse bounded away.
Nash ran for it, figuring that he now had a man afoot and he was damned if he were going to waste that man trap he had set up.
He hurled himself down the slope with Talman skidding after him, swearing and shooting wildly. Nash glimpsed the other riders heading towards him, racing their mounts through the trees. It seemed he had chosen the part of the mountain that Dodd had reckoned on searching first. He smashed his way into the brush and Talman fell, bounded up and loosed off another shot. The bullet whipped air past Nash’s face as he lengthened his stride, and swung towards the stretch of brush that hid his man trap.
He leapt over a fallen log and turned sharp left, almost missing the area. He slowed, grabbing at his side as if he had a stitch, throwing back his head and gasping in agony. Talman stumbled through the screening brush and saw Nash seemingly in pain. He bared his teeth in a tight grin and lunged forward. His boot stomped on the bow cord but the bark string was apparently too thick, for it only sagged. Nash cursed, knowing the bow would not release. As Talman’s gun blasted, he threw himself to the side, his right arm straining forward to knock the ‘Y’ fork loose. It dropped from beneath the taut bowstring and the powerful stave straightened with a ‘twang’, sending the long shaft hurtling towards Talman. The man tried to stop his forward motion as he caught the movement but it is doubtful that he knew what it was that drove through the center of his chest and impaled him, the bloody point protruding at least a foot out of his back.
As he toppled, his eyes glazing, his hands clawing at the shaft, and coughing blood, Nash jumped for the gun Talman dropped.
A rider crashed his mount through the brush shooting and Nash rolled onto his back and triggered as the man leapt his mount across him. The man, Hackleback, reared in the stirrups as the lead drove up through his body, and he fell forward across his mount’s neck, the smell of warm blood and gunpowder panicking the animal. It leapt away and Hackleback bounced in the saddle, slipping lower and lower. It was only a matter of time before he would fall off.
Nash stumbled to his feet as the next horseman came thundering in. He was slightly up the slope and he was using a rifle. It was Hank Griffin. Nash whirled, shooting from the hip. He missed, but the bullet went close enough to have Griffin wheeling away. Then Nash dropped hammer again and swore when it fell on an empty chamber.
But Griffin was making up the slope still and Nash dived for the dying Talman as the man twitched among the bushes. He fumbled at the man’s gunbelt and just got it free as Griffin turned and threw the rifle to his shoulder again. His lead flicked at Nash’s hair and the Wells Fargo man dragged the cartridge belt completely free of Talman as he threw himself backwards.
He turned and plunged away into the brush, catching a glimpse of Will Dodd riding in from below. They were going to drive him up-slope through the trees, he knew that. As he ran he took shells out of the loops of Talman’s belt. Somehow he managed to get six of them into the chambers of the Colt and he rammed the gun into his holster, taking out the remainder of the shells and then discarding the belt. He dropped the shells into his pockets and turned up the slope.
On foot, he was making better time than the horsemen but he knew they wouldn’t stick to the thick timber. They would skirt it and work their way above him. Or, one of them would, while the other came up at him from below. Nash pulled out the Colt, his thumb on the hammer spur. Now that he was armed, he could give a good account of himself and he had already whittled the odds to a manageable size.
Panting, staggering, and gagging for breath, he kept going by sheer willpower, stumbling from one tree to another, his boots scrabbling for purchase on the slope. A few yards more and he caught his second wind.
There had been no gunshots for a while. The outlaws knew they would only waste lead shooting at him among the trees. But they would be ready for him. He stopped abruptly, leaning a forearm on the tree and resting his head on it, trying to listen, but the pounding blood roaring in his ears tended to drown out the sounds he wanted to hear.
A stone rolled down the slope a few yards away and he snapped his head up, notching back his gun hammer and swinging the Colt around at the same time. Hank Griffin was above him and riding down into the timber again, rifle cradled across his chest. He hadn’t seen Nash until the Wells Fargo man had moved. They both brought their guns around together and the weapons exploded almost simultaneously.
Clay Nash staggered back, hands clawing at his face as the rifle bullet spat bark into his eyes. When his vision cleared, he saw Griffin on the ground, blood dribbling from a corner of his mouth as he fought to his knees, bringing up his six-gun. The horse ran off and Nash had time to curse the animal before he threw himself sideways, his Colt blasting. Griffin spun almost completely around with the impact of the bullet taking him through the chest and he landed face down, unmoving.
Nash jumped up and went skidding down the slope after the horse that had slowed and was trotting to a stop. At last he would be mounted again and then he would be able to—
He propped in his tracks as a rifle shot rang out and the horse’s head jerked violently to the left. It didn’t even scream. It just crashed over onto its side, all four legs kicking frantically.
Half crouched with gun in hand, Nash glanced down the slope and saw Will Dodd with his rifle to his shoulder again. The gun whiplashed and lead sent stones kicking into the air a foot from Nash’s boot.
“Run, Nash, run,” the outlaw yelled. “Run, you murderin’ bastard, but it ain’t gonna do you no good. I’m gonna ride you into the ground.”
He fired again and Nash winced as the bullet struck a tree and whined away across the mountain. Then he turned and ran into thick timber. Twice more Dodd’s rifle barked and bullets landed near his pounding boots.
Nash ran for almost half a day, dodging from the heavy stands of timber to the brush and, finally, into the rocks near the ridge crest. Dodd was amusing himself. He was mounted and he kept shooting at Nash, placing his bullets and driving the man towards the ridge. Nash exchanged a few shots with the man but wanted to conserve his ammunition. That kind of chase could go on for a long time.
Then, around mid-afternoon, reeling with fatigue, his throat burning with thirst, Nash figured he had had enough. By running like this, he was playing right into Dodd’s hands. He was acknowledging that Dodd was in control and that the psychological advantage was all with the outlaw. The man had food and water and ammunition and a horse under him.
Nash had nothing but the few bullets left in a strange gun. He was near exhaustion and he knew that this was what Dodd wanted, to drive him to the stage where he could barely crawl and then hound him along on hands and knees until he dropped completely. Then the man would dismount and begin his torment. Well, Nash wasn’t about to let him have his way. He was scarred and weak and hungry and thirsty, and he knew he would likely fall down the slope on the other side of the mountain.
So, when a man reached that stage where he had nothing to lose, it was time to make a stand.
Nash sprawled headlong among the same rocks he had used to ambush the outlaws the previous day. God, was it only a day ago? He was shaking uncontrollably with fatigue and he thought he would never take an adequate breath again. But he lay quietly, trying to will his thudding heart to slow down, to drive oxygen into his brain so as to clear his dizziness.
“Come on, Nash,” Dodd’s taunting voice reached him up the slope. “No time to rest, feller.”
The man’s words were followed by a rifle shot and the bullet ricocheted from the tallest rock. He knew where Nash was, it seemed. The Wells Fargo man dragged himself to a gap between the rocks and blinked several times in an attempt to clear his blurred vision. He saw only a hazy outline of Dodd casually riding his mount knowing he had Nash at his mercy
The fact drove Nash to his knees. He ran his tongue over his scaled and split lips. After a while, he got one leg bent and stayed on one knee. He looked between the rocks again. Dodd was coming, only twenty yards away, riding alertly, his rifle cradled in his hands.
Nash thrust upright, and planted his boots firmly in the ground. Dodd saw him and stopped his horse dead. Then a slow smile spread across his battered, stubbled face.
“Well, well, well. Decided to make your stand, huh, Nash? Like a cornered rat. No place to go, so you figure to fight.”
Nash said nothing, conserving his breath and his strength. With every passing second he was getting a little more strength, his heart was slowing, his breathing was settling and the trembling was passing from his body. It was no miraculous thing, it was merely his body responding to the imminent danger that threatened; a survival mechanism enabling him to call on reserves of strength he wasn’t aware of having.
Dodd’s rifle exploded suddenly and Nash jumped as the bullet jarred into the ground only a foot from his right boot. The outlaw laughed.
“You’re never gonna make it, Nash. You’re finished. I’ve ridden you into the ground like I said I would, and now I don’t even give a damn about the eagle or Wells Fargo or anythin’ else. I got you dead to rights, mister, and that’s all that counts—’cause you killed Adam.”
He threw the rifle to his shoulder with a sudden movement, his face hardening. Suddenly, Nash’s right hand dipped and blurred upwards, his Colt stabbing fire and smoke. Dodd flung backwards in the saddle, sending the rifle flying as the lead smashed him off the horse. He hit hard and turned a stunned, incredulous face towards Nash. Then he grabbed at his six-guns—but Nash’s Colt roared again as he drove his last bullet into Will Dodd’s heart.
The outlaw slammed backwards and lay still.
Nash’s legs gave way under him and he sat down heavily. He stayed that way for almost an hour before he managed to find enough strength to stagger over to Dodd’s horse. He climbed onto a rock and pulled himself into the saddle.
Then he turned the horse and walked it towards the crest of the ridge.
It was nearing sundown before he got to the bottom on the other side and then he saw a band of riders galloping towards him and he hauled rein, blinking. Jim Hume was in the lead and he recognized Swede from the Arrowhead way-station and some other Wells Fargo men. There was a man wearing a sheriff’s star, too. They reined down a few feet from him and Nash’s eyes bulged when he saw that Hume had the golden eagle poking out of his saddlebags.
“Anyone after you, Clay?” Hume asked.
Nash shook his head, drank deeply from the canteen that Swede handed him and wiped his lips.
“I got ’em all.”
“Good. Jack got to Swede’s place and he sent a telegraph. I organized a posse and came as quickly as we could.”
Nash pointed to the eagle.
“How come?”
Hume looked at the statue casually.
“This? Oh, found it stickin’ up out of a small cascade in a creek back a-ways. Guess you’d hid it and the water washed the earth away from around it. Don’t matter anyway.”
“Not now—but ’spose someone else had found it?” Nash realized just how close a call it had been.
Hume grinned while he pulled at the lobe of one ear. “Well—it still wouldn’t’ve mattered much.”
Nash stared at him blankly.
“This is only gold-plated brass,” Hume explained. “A casting of the original.”
Nash stiffened.
“You mean—you used me as a decoy?”
“We had to make sure we got that eagle to the governor. We shipped it out in a load of vegetables earlier in the day, before your stage left.”
“All this killin’ and shootin’—over a hunk of brass?”
“It served its purpose. Want it for a souvenir?”
Nash shook his head.
“I never want to see it again or even think about it—except maybe as the best excuse I’ve had in a coon’s age for going out and gettin’ drunk.”
Hume grinned and ranged his mount alongside his top agent’s as they rode back through the posse on the return trail to Santa Fe.