Jim Hume alighted from the stage as it rocked to a stop at the Seymour depot on Cactus Street. The local agent gaped at him.
“This is sure a surprise, Mr. Hume. If we knew you were ridin’ on the Amarillo Stage I’d’ve—”
“I ain’t stayin’, Mitchell,” Hume cut in, sweating, obviously a man in a hurry. “Look, I have to be able to move fast. Can you get me a mount right away? A rifle, too.”
“Sure thing, Mr. Hume. Give me twenty minutes.”
Mitchell was already on the move as Hume walked across the platform. He jumped to the ground and hurried to the end of the street where it junctioned with Main. He turned left and made directly for the U.S. Marshal’s office which was attached to the local law office and jail. Inside, he found a gaunt man with a straggly gray moustache and a balding head packing the bowl of a charred corncob pipe.
“Jim Hume, Wells Fargo,” the chief of detectives said.
The marshal raised bushy gray eyebrows, set down the pipe and stood up to grip Hume’s hand firmly.
“Laird Bowman. Glad to know you, Hume. Heard a lot about you. What can I do for you?”
“You had the word that Clay Nash was captured up in Wichita Falls, I understand.”
“That’s right. Livery man named Hunnicutt managed to jump him and hogtie him. Sent my deputy, Lee Neubold. Good man. He’ll get Nash back here in one piece, no worry.”
“Have you heard from your deputy yet?”
Bowman shook his head and picked up his pipe, preparing to light it. “Be just about arrivin’ in Wichita Falls, I reckon. What’s wrong?”
“Dunno yet. Did a Captain Joshua McAllister call on you?”
“Yep. He’s in charge of the U.S. Army investigation into them stolen guns. He went north after my deputy. I telegraphed McAllister, matter of fact, soon’s I got word about Nash. As per my instructions.” He added the last a little defensively.
Hume raised a hand. “No argument with you, Marshal. But how much of a lead does McAllister have on me? He quit Amarillo maybe four hours before I found out about your wire.”
“He’ll be that much ahead of you now, mebbe a shade less. He was ridin’ like the wind and took spare mounts. Had me wire on ahead to an Indian Agent at Oak Crossin’ to have fresh mounts ready for him.”
Hume nodded. “Thanks, Bowman. I’ll—”
Hume froze as a man wearing cardboard cuff protectors and an eyeshade entered the office holding the yellow form of a Western Union telegraph message. The man glanced at Hume, then handed the form to Bowman.
“Urgent wire from Seymour, Laird.”
The marshal took the form and read swiftly, sighing as he looked at Hume. “Your pard Nash has flown the coop. Left two more dead men behind. Livery man with his brains beat out, and another feller called Bull near blowed apart by a heavy caliber gun, likely a buffalo rifle.”
“Can I see that?” Hume indicated the telegram.
Bowman shook his head. “Federal business. Sorry, Hume.”
“Damn, Nash is my man!”
“He’s an outlaw and a killer,” the marshal said flatly.
“Thanks a lot,” Hume said bitterly, then he left the office and hurried back to the Wells Fargo depot where a saddled horse was waiting for him.
“Much obliged, Mitchell,” Hume said as he swung up into leather. “I’ll remember this.”
“Pleasure, Mr. Hume. Good luck. Just wire if there’s anything else I can do for you.”
Hume hesitated. “There is, come to think of it. Send a wire to Captain Joshua McAllister, care of the Wichita Falls Army Post. Ask him to wait till I arrive.”
Mitchell scribbled on his note pad, nodding. Hume doubted that the message would do any good, but he had to try to hold up McAllister. The man had quit Amarillo without telling Hume about the wire concerning Nash’s capture.
Hume knew his top operative well enough to realize that he wouldn’t simply disappear. He would be following a lead. He must have been on a hot trail that took him off in the first place. Being captured might have been an inconvenience, but now that Nash was free again he would need room to follow through. If McAllister got too close in the interests of authenticity, he might endanger Nash.
The army didn’t seem to realize this, just as he hadn’t seemed to realize that by putting out the kind of fake wanted dodger he had that he would probably be giving Nash a lot of aggravation from bounty hunters.
For a man who was supposed to be an expert at his job, McAllister seemed to be making some obvious mistakes, Hume thought as he rode north.
He just hoped he could head McAllister off before he pushed Nash into a situation that could result in the undercover agent’s death ...
Clay Nash planted the forked stick firmly in the ground near the edge of the screening brush. He used his weight to push the sharpened end of the stick in as far as possible and then he wrapped a fist-sized rock in several layers of gunnysack and used this to hammer the stick in firmly. He looked around to see if the muffled thuds had disturbed the grazing buffalo on the slope across the valley, but they were browsing calmly, their dark hides moving slowly against the green of the hills.
Nash crouched in the brush, spread his blanket out and set down the big Christian Sharps Special Skillet had given him on the understanding that its cost, and that of the ammunition he used, would be deducted from his share at the end of the season. Nash spread out fifty rounds of heavy .75 caliber ammunition, each brass cartridge case three-and-a-half inches long. The round nosed bullets had been deeply gouged in the shape of a cross, turning them into dum-dums to increase the force of impact. They would peel back like a banana skin, the lead tearing up the buffalo’s vital organs as it smashed through. They made for a cleaner kill as long as they entered the chest cavity.
Placing his water canteen on his right, Nash stretched out on his stomach and thumbed back his hat, then he opened the breech of the rifle, slid in the long shell, closed the breech and sighted down the barrel through the buckhorn to the blade foresight. He swung the muzzle slowly over the buffalo on the far slope, looking for the old cow leader. He found her in the middle of the herd and waited patiently to get a clear shot at her.
The opening came and he sucked down a breath, released half of it, and, in that moment of dead stillness when there wasn’t a quiver in the whole of his body, he squeezed the finely tuned trigger.
The rifle butt smashed back in violent recoil and the thunder of the shot reverberated down the valley. Across on the opposite slope, the old cow went down to her knees, almost leisurely, shaking her head, and Nash saw by the gush of blood through the nostrils that he had placed the bullet correctly. Scarlet appeared at her mouth and dribbled to the grass, staining the green like paint. The old cow began to cough out her life and the rest of the herd moved away from her a little, giving her room. Only a few animals looked at the downed cow curiously.
After raising their heads, they lowered them again and continued grazing. They had become so used to following the old cow that they would stay in her vicinity, waiting for her to get up and lead them to another place of her choice.
But she would never lead the herd again.
Nash’s rifle thundered a second time and a young bull dropped, legs folding as if jerked from under him by an invisible wire, nose plowing up the dirt as he settled onto his side, already dead. The bullet had taken him squarely in the heart.
Nash reloaded, keeping the brass cartridge cases for refilling later at the camp. He stayed at his stand most of the day, shooting leisurely, the herd moving no more than twenty yards across the face of the slope. By mid-afternoon he had killed forty-seven buffalo, using only forty-eight bullets, one of the kills requiring two shots. Then the herd moved on.
He gathered up his things, stowed them on his mount and rode back to the camp by the creek. The skinners were already working their way up the valley, two men going to each downed beast and making swift, deft cuts along the legs and brisket, then setting hooks attached to ropes hanging from a wagon. The vehicle then backed off and peeled the hide from the flesh, the skinners working fast to slash away sinews and tendons, careful not to pierce the hide and thus ruin it.
Buzzards were circling in the sky and a few dozen were gorging themselves on the bloody carcasses that had been skinned. Coyotes and prairie wolves were gathering in the brush and timber at the edge of the valley and would slink down after dark.
Back at the camp, Nash found Skillet already there, cleaning his Sharps and preparing to mold some bullets, the lead already bubbling in an iron cauldron over the fire. Yellow Rose had started Nash’s shirt, working on a hide that had already been cured. She was chewing on it at the moment, softening it so that it would resemble cloth when it was finished. He knew it would be smoked a mellow color over hickory wood and rubbed with a mixture of animal brains and river water. The smoking would remove most of the rancid smell and it would be all sewn together with animal sinew and fringed with buckskin strips.
After cleaning his rifle he lent a hand pouring the bullet lead into molds while Skillet tapped out the ones that had cooled.
“You got the makin’s of a fine buffler runner, Nash,” the big man said. “That’s sure a good tally for your third day here. But I’m wonderin’ if this sort of life is gonna suit you ...”
Nash looked at him levelly. “Suits me now. Long as the law don’t show.”
Skillet nodded slowly. “Which is what I want to talk about. I had word that a Captain McAllister hit Wichita Falls expectin’ to pick you up from the livery. Now he’s comin’ for you out here.”
Nash continued to look down at the mold, trying to hide the shock he felt at the news. He hadn’t expected McAllister to be loco enough to carry the charade this far. Showing up in Wichita Falls he could go along with, but the man was forcing him to run again by pursuing him out here. Nash couldn’t stay around Skillet’s camp now that McAllister, his supposed Nemesis, was coming after him. He cursed the army man for a fool. McAllister was forcing him to make a move before he knew anything definite about the guns. He was only surmising that they were being smuggled across the Red River to the Indian Territory amongst shipments of buffalo hides. It was nothing but a theory and he needed proof—but he wouldn’t get enough time now that McAllister was on his backtrail.
“Guess I better be movin’ along, Skillet,” Nash said tightly, aware that the big buffalo man was watching him closely. “Can’t afford to stick around and hope McAllister doesn’t locate me.”
The big man tapped out some more bullet heads. He picked up cool ones and shaved off the mold marks with expert slashes of his skinning knife. He continued to work while he spoke, not looking directly at Nash:
“Don’t want to lose a good man like you. You’re mighty handy with a gun. And I don’t mean just a Sharps.” He paused, glanced briefly at the silent Wells Fargo man, then picked up more bullet heads. “Fact is, a feller with your talents shouldn’t have trouble findin’ work anyplace he goes.”
“Mebbe I’m choosy,” Nash said. “I worked for Wells Fargo for a long time, Skillet. It’s too much of a change to work on the wrong side of the law. Leastways, right now it is. I don’t rightly know what I want to do except survive.”
Skillet nodded. “Sure, that’s the main thing. Survival. You really cut loose over that friend of yours gettin’ killed in the raid at Pueblo River, didn’t you?”
Nash’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t recollect tellin’ you that, Skillet.”
The big man smiled crookedly. “I keep my ears open. I got my contacts. I heard things about you for years, Nash. Fact is, I found it hard to believe that you busted loose from Wells Fargo. Figured it was some sort of set-up for you to work undercover.”
Nash was aware that Skillet was studying him closely now. He lifted his gaze to the other’s bearded face and smiled. “You sure ain’t as dumb as you look, big feller.”
Skillet stiffened, his massive shoulders tensing. “You are workin’ undercover. Is that what you’re sayin’?”
“Hell, I’d hardly admit it if I was, would I?” Nash shook his head, forcing a grin. “No, I meant you’ve seen through a trick used by Wells Fargo and the Rangers many a time in the past. But this time it’s genuine. I liked Jeb Burnley a lot and I owed him plenty. I got good and mad when I heard about his death—and then, when I was told to keep my nose out of things, that the army was handlin’ the investigation, it riled the hell out of me. I defied Hume before, but this time, as it turned out, I was buckin’ the whole army, too, not just the Company. I was up against federal agents who had orders that came clear down from the President himself. Guess they had no choice but to outlaw me after I tangled with those three soldiers near Lubbock. Then things went from bad to worse. I sure as hell don’t like bein’ an outlaw, Skillet, but I don’t aim to set still and let McAllister catch up with me.”
Clay Nash set down the cauldron and molds and stood up, brushing his hands across the seat of his trousers and adjusting his hat. “So, guess I’ll be sayin’ adios and thanks again for savin’ my neck back in Wichita Falls.”
“Set down, Nash,” Skillet said quietly.
But the Wells Fargo man shook his head. “No. I’ll be riding. I can make a lot of miles in the darkness and maybe get across the River into Indian Territory.”
“And what would you do there? Know anyone who’d help you? Know a place where you could hide out? Man with your reputation, Nash, would be committin’ suicide goin’ into the Territory alone. Army’s watchin’ the river. You’d never get across.”
Nash shrugged. “Okay, so I’ll head for buffalo country, but I sure as hell ain’t stayin’ here.”
“You are for now, amigo,” Skillet said, then he looked behind Nash.
Clay Nash spun, his hand streaking to his gun butt. But he froze when he looked at the cocked rifle in the hands of Jeff Hunnicutt whose battered face couldn’t mask the hate he harbored.
“What is this, Skillet?” Nash demanded, dropping his hand from his gun butt. “You reward hungry all of a sudden?”
“Now just set down an’ relax like I told you,” the big buffalo man said. Nash obeyed, aware that Hunnicutt had moved closer. Soon the other hunters and skinners would be returning from the plains. Skillet continued working on his bullets as he spoke. “Why’re you still lookin’ for them guns, Nash?”
“I’m not.”
“Then what’re you doin’ here?”
Nash did his best to look puzzled. “Hell, you brought me here, Skillet. You can’t deny that.”
The buffalo man looked at him soberly, no humor in him now. “Let’s take it back a step then. Why were you in Wichita Falls lookin’ for Jeff?”
Nash glanced over his shoulder at Hunnicutt. Then he smiled as he turned back to Skillet. “You just told me that Hunnicutt’s involved in the gun stealin’.”
Skillet stared silently. Hunnicutt said nothing.
“I was on Tanner’s trail when things blew up with those soldiers near Lubbock,” Nash explained. “I figured if I had to quit then I might as well quit while I could still find out who was on that Pueblo River raid. Why? ’Cause I wanted to lay my hands on the skunk who shot Jeb. I had an idea it was Brazos Lane, but I had to light out before I could be sure and then Tanner mentioned that Jeff Hunnicutt was up this way. Not havin’ anywhere better to go, I figured I might as well come here. I also figured that the men who stole the guns were pretty well organized and they’d have a way to get ’em out of Texas. Thought mebbe I could buy me a ride along with ’em and get away from Amarillo. In Wichita Falls, things blew up in my face when Hunnicutt and his pards tried to collect the bounty on me. And that’s all there is to it, Skillet, I swear.”
The big man worked a spell before glancing up. “You got a big reputation to live down, Nash. With Wells Fargo, I mean.”
Nash shrugged. “I have no argument with Wells Fargo. Wasn’t them who outlawed me. It was McAllister.”
“So he’s on your list for killin’?”
“Mebbe. But I’d rather not get that close to him. If he’s comin’ he won’t be alone. I don’t fancy tryin’ to outrun a whole troop of soldiers.”
“He’s alone this time. So far,” Hunnicutt said from behind Nash.
Nash arched his eyebrows, looking closely at Skillet. “He likely sent for help then. So I’d rather not stick around.”
“No, I s’pose not,” Skillet agreed. “You got any idea how these fellers could’ve arranged for the guns to be smuggled out of Texas? I mean, they watch all the state lines and the Mexican border like hawks for anything like that ...”
Nash smiled crookedly. “Guess it depends on where the arms are bound for. If they’re to be taken into the Indian Territory across the river there, I reckon there’d be no better way to get a small shipment of rifles across right under the noses of lawmen and army patrols than hidin’ ’em inside bundles of salted buffalo hides.” He paused. “Like those stacked over yonder near the presses.”
Skillet grinned. “Wondered when you’d notice.”
“Got to wonderin’ why you didn’t take ’em to Wichita Falls to sell with the others. Figured you must be smugglin’ somethin’ or other, but I didn’t pick it to be the guns.”
“Well, mebbe you’re right and mebbe not. What’s more important is whether I’m right about you or not.”
Nash looked puzzled. “Me? Hell, I just told you how it is. I aim to stay alive. I’m finished with Wells Fargo. I’ve been a loner most of my life so I don’t see any problem. I’ll do whatever I have to to survive.”
Skillet studied him closely for a long while, then sat back, took out his chewing tobacco and bit off a chunk. Skinners and hunters were beginning to come into camp along the trail.
“Guess I better make a decision right here and now,” Skillet said. “By accident or design you stumbled your way into the group whose job it is to get those guns out of Texas. Brazos’ bunch pulled that Pueblo River raid and Jeff was there, too. But I’m boss up on the Red River, which is why Lew Hunnicutt and Bull had to learn they couldn’t go actin’ on their own, tryin’ to collect a reward on you. I didn’t want the law in this neck of the woods just when I’m ready to move with the guns. I killed ’em to keep the rest in line.” He looked coldly at the pale Jeff Hunnicutt. “If you hadn’t beat Jeff’s brains out, I’d’ve done it. Only I’d’ve used a wagon tongue. He don’t know how lucky he was gettin’ off so light.” Skillet spat. “But I better move them guns pronto now. They been settin’ around here too long.”
“Can I help?” Nash asked.
Skillet nodded curtly. “Can always use a real fast gun like you. Once we hit the Territory, I’ll need all the protection I can get. A lot of outlaws’d like to get their hands on them guns. Once past the army patrols, you can ride with us or go it alone. Your decision. But if you stay, you go all the way. No backin’ down. You see them guns clear to their destination, savvy?”
“And after that?”
“There’ll be more jobs. We can set you up where the law can’t get at you. But when you’re needed you better come runnin’. Now it’s your turn to make a quick decision, Nash. The others are almost here.”
“I’m with you all the way,” Nash said without hesitation. “Only question is, when do we move?”
“Tonight. We got some riggin’ up to do to the keelboats and work to do on the stack of hides. We need cover, so we move at night. Put down the rifle, Jeff. We gotta start trustin’ him right away.”
Hunnicutt scowled but lowered the rifle. “I wouldn’t trust him any further’n I could spit into a headwind,” he growled.
Skillet laughed and Nash gave a grin, hoping it hid the tension he felt inside.