Instinct saved him. Over the years he had survived many ambushes and drygulchings. Although he hadn’t heard the gun, the feel of his hat being torn from his head told him it had been a bullet and not a hanging branch.
He grabbed his rifle butt as he threw himself sideways out of the saddle, lunging from the stirrups towards some heavy brush. He saw the bush jump and leaves and twigs fly and knew the bushwhacker had put a second shot into it. Then his hurtling body crashed into the branches and through them and he jarred hard against the ground, the breath gusting from him. He lost his grip on the rifle momentarily but grabbed it with one hand as he rolled into the small shelter beneath the brush.
The claybank ran off on the other side, smashing a path through the brush.
The earth in front of his face jumped and he tasted dirt and dead leaves. He spat and squirmed around, using elbows and knees to get deeper into the brush. He had to depend on his eyesight: if he could find the pall of powdersmoke, he might be able to pinpoint the bushwhacker: he sure had no hope of hearing the gunfire.
He went to ground when he came to a small knoll that gave him a commanding view over a gulch that was relatively free of bushes. But, on the far side, there was a rock-and-brush studded slope that would afford mighty fine cover for any bushwhacker. Nash lay there, feeling the occasional jerk of the branches above him as bullets tore through them, searching for him. It told him that the gunman didn’t know his exact location and was firing blind.
He cursed his inability to hear. By now, he should have had the position of the bushwhacker pinpointed. By sight alone, it was difficult. There was a drifting pall of powdersmoke about halfway up the slope, but he saw there was a strong wind blowing through the gulch. It would have blown the smoke far away from its point of origin.
Slowly, Nash let his gaze travel back and down, trying to see where the smoke was spurting from. But the wind was too strong. He saw torn clouds of the smoke rapidly dispersed across the face of the slope but couldn’t pinpoint the killer.
The shooting stopped for a spell and Nash lay very still, watching a small area where he figured the killer would have to be hidden. There were rocks in clumps and screening brush: it was an ideal place for a drygulcher and, after studying the drifting smoke and the swaying bushes he had figured on the area he was watching as the most likely place.
Nash had plenty of patience. He didn’t move a muscle. He felt something crawling across the leg of the old pair of army trousers Macrae had found for him to wear; it might have been a lizard or a snake or a centipede, even a scorpion. He didn’t even turn his head to look. He kept his gaze on the slope.
And he was finally rewarded.
At first it was only a movement of a patch of shadow on one of the rocks. He wasn’t sure that it hadn’t been caused by a cloud passing across the face of the sun. Then he saw that it was someone changing position, clambering higher up the slope, using the rocks and brush for cover. Their shadow was thrown between two big rocks onto the ground and he saw distinctly, the shape of the rifle.
Nash nodded, got his own rifle butt against his shoulder and sighted down the barrel. He let his gaze go on ahead of the moving shadow, saw where the killer would be momentarily exposed and set his foresight on the point. As he saw the first hint of moving shadow, he squeezed off the shot.
He felt the thump of the explosion and the kick of the butt against his shoulder, saw the brief muzzle flame lance out through the spurt of powdersmoke—but they were all sensations of sight and feeling: he heard nothing.
On the slope, he saw the bullet spray a line of rock dust only inches from the target. The man floundered in fright and Nash levered hastily, got off another shot, and saw more dust fly. His third bullet went between the rocks and he didn’t see where it landed, but he knew he hadn’t hit the gunman, at least not fatally, for, a few moments later, he saw the spurt of powdersmoke and a bullet slapped through the brush ten feet to his right.
Nash grinned tightly. It looked as though the bushwhacker had lost his position. He took careful aim, waiting until he saw a flash of colored cloth, then squeezed off another shot.
The color disappeared but he had no indication of where his bullet had gone. There was no more gunfire from the slope, so the Wells Fargo man waited, lying perfectly still and watching. If his hearing had been back, he would have gone to investigate, but it was too dangerous a move when he had only his sight to help him. He was still dizzy when he moved fast, too. A knot tightened in his belly as he wondered what he would do if he didn’t get his hearing back ... Hell! He’d be finished as a Wells Fargo agent. There was a long line of enemies waiting, too, for something like this to happen to him: he could be shot from behind and never even know what had happened.
The thought had hardly formed when he stiffened.
A gun barrel rammed against his spine and a boot pinned his hand against his rifle on the ground.
Nash flicked his eyes across the gulch and swore. There was still someone over there, moving about the rocks again. There had been two of them and while one kept him busy from across the gulch, the other had worked his way up behind. If he had had his hearing, he might have detected the man ...
He knew by the violent way the man kicked him in the ribs, grabbed the back of his shirt and flung him roughly onto his back that he had been given several orders. When he hadn’t responded, the gunman had grown impatient.
Lying on his back, Nash raised his hands to shoulder level as he looked up at his captor. He was a man just under six feet, with a rocky sort of face and gun barrel eyes. His mouth was a razor slash and the jaw jutting aggressively. Nash figured he was in his mid thirties and he looked like he wouldn’t hesitate to use the rifle that he held pointed at Nash’s chest.
The mouth worked, the lips curling in a snarl. Nash shook his head and pointed to his ears, again shaking his head, trying to convey his deafness.
The gunman frowned. “You deaf?”
Nash nodded, reading the man’s questioning lips.
The rifle prodded hard into his ribs.
“You talk?”
Nash shook his head. The rifle barrel jerked in a short arc and slammed him across the face, knocking him onto his side. He held his numbed cheek as he sat up slowly and spat some blood. The gunman looked at him coldly.
“Don’t lie to me, mister. I heard you cuss when you missed my pard over yonder.”
Nash didn’t make out all the words but he caught the drift. The Wells Fargo man sat up carefully under the gun.
“Okay, I can talk,” he said, having no idea that he was shouting. “But I can’t hear. Nothin’.”
The man studied him for a moment and then gestured with the rifle for Nash to turn onto his face. Slowly, apprehensively, the Wells Fargo man did as he was told. The gunman planted a boot in the middle of Nash’s back and then lifted his rifle. He turned the barrel into the air and triggered. The shot crashed out and echoed through the timber and across the gulch. Nash didn’t move and there was no involuntary flinching of muscles under the gunman’s boot.
The man arched his eyebrows, glanced across and saw that his companion had emerged warily from the rocks at the sound of the shot. He waved and gestured for the second gunman to come across. Then he grabbed Nash’s shoulder and rolled him onto his back. He squatted, holding the rifle on the Wells Fargo man. He looked directly into Nash’s face and mouthed his words slowly, giving the man a chance to read his lips.
“Who—are—you?”
“Nathan Clay,” Nash, replied.
“What’re you doin’ here on Rolling C land? You after our steers?”
It took Nash some time to figure out what the man was saying and when he did he showed his surprise at the accusation and swiftly shook his head.
“No. Just riding through.” He was thinking fast. He hadn’t known there was a ranch there—right across the trail he reckoned had been used by the train robbers in their getaway. It might be a good place for them to hide out. “Lookin’ for work, as a matter of fact.”
The man studied him.
“We been troubled with rustlers lately. You could be one.”
When Nash worked out what he had said he shook his head fast.
“Hell, no! I’m just a cowpoke on the drift. Grubliner. I’m no widelooper. Is that why your pard started shootin’ at me?”
The man didn’t answer but turned his head slowly and Nash looked past him and saw the bushwhacker from across the gulch coming through the brush. He felt the surprise straighten his face when he saw that it was a girl.
She was young, about twenty, dressed in checked shirt and corduroy trousers. There was a small hat perched on the back of her head, revealing wavy brown hair that fell to her shoulders. Her face was tanned, oval, full-lipped—and she held the rifle as if she knew how to use it. He had already had a demonstration of that.
Suddenly, he stiffened. Through all the vacuum and whistling and hissing inside his head, he heard some other sounds.
The girl tripped and fell to her knees, dropping the rifle. It clattered against some rocks.
Nash heard the noise it made. Very faintly, as if it were at the other end of a long, long tunnel, but he heard the sounds, saw the rifle strike, and his senses matched them up exactly.
He had a hard time keeping his face straight as he realized that his hearing was beginning to return. The army medic had told him that if it were going to come back at all, it would start suddenly, then gradually increase.
He had said that if there was no improvement in three days, then likely the damage would be permanent.
The gunman glanced at the girl with concern as she picked herself up.
“You okay, Rachel?”
“Yes, Jordan,” the girl said, turning her attention to Nash. “Is he one of them?”
“Reckons not. Says his name’s Nathan Clay. He’s deaf.”
She looked at Jordan and frowned. “Might be convenient for him to have us think that.”
Jordan’s lips moved faintly as he shook his head. “He’s deaf all right. Tested him. Fired my gun behind him and he never flinched a muscle. He can’t hear worth a damn.”
“Read lips?”
“Not any too well. Guess he ain’t been deaf for long.”
Rachel stood in front of Nash and he nodded slightly. “I’m Rachel Castle,” she told him slowly, watching his eyes study the movement of her lips. “My father owns this land. It’s part of his spread, the Rolling C. You’re trespassing.”
“I picked up somethin’ about your father and Rolling C and that I’m trespassing,” Nash said, truthfully. He had heard these actual words, faint and muffled and distorted, but it was a good sign. The rest of the girl’s conversation he could work out logically enough. “Didn’t know I was on anyone’s land. Never seen any fences or signs. I’m lookin’ for work. I ain’t no rustler like that feller thought. I’m just a cowpoke. Tophand, and I can bust horses, build fences and barns.”
All this was true enough: before joining Wells Fargo as a top investigator, Clay Nash had owned a small ranch in Texas for many years.
The girl looked at him carefully.
“What d’you think, Jordan?”
The man shrugged. “Could be gospel. Never heard of a deaf rustler, but never head of a deaf tophand, neither.”
Rachel nodded and turned to face Nash.
“How long have you been deaf?”
Nash knew it was no use making out that he had been deaf for many years because he wasn’t adept enough at reading lips for that. He shrugged.
“Last place I worked at, over in Biggins County, they was blastin’ rock to make a dam. Some dynamite went off too early. I guess I was too close. But I was lucky just the same. Four fellers with me got killed.”
Rachel frowned.
“I never heard about that. Which ranch was it?”
Nash made out he didn’t understand but after several more tries and when he saw both Jordan’s and the girl’s patience wearing thin, he shrugged.
“Place called Flatiron.” It was anonymous enough: ‘Flatiron’ was a common name for spreads in every county. “Owned by an eastern meat house, I think. Wasn’t there long enough to find out much. They fired me after they seen I was deaf.”
Suddenly there was compassion on the girl’s face.
“You can still do ranch chores?”
He made her repeat it three times before nodding. “Sure, as long as hearin’ ain’t involved.”
“Will you ever get your hearing back?” she asked.
Nash shrugged. “Don’t look like it. Doc said if it didn’t come back in a week there’d be no chance. That was three weeks back.”
The girl turned to Jordan.
“Bring him along. Dad’ll want to talk with him.”
Jordan jerked his rifle for Nash to get to his feet and the Wells Fargo man clambered up. When they asked where his horse was he pointed in the direction the claybank had run off. While the girl kept him covered, Jordan caught the animal and brought it back. He led the claybank while Nash was ordered into the gulch where two other horses were tethered. All three mounted and Rachel led the way with Jordan riding behind Nash. Nash had been allowed to keep his guns but Jordan watched him carefully.
At the big ranch—the house was sprawling, separated from the bunkhouse and ranch yard by a white adobe wall that enclosed a huge flagged patio—Nash was taken in at gunpoint and introduced to Sam Castle on the shaded porch.
The hard-faced rancher listened as his daughter told him Nash’s story but his bleak eyes never left the Wells Fargo man’s face. There was hard suspicion there and Nash had seen enough of that over the years to recognize it easily.
Sam Castle didn’t trust Nash—and maybe he didn’t trust anyone. He had that look about him. Nash figured he was a man with something to hide. Of course, it could be that if he was having rustler trouble, then every stranger had to be viewed with suspicion. It would be natural enough.
But Nash had always worked on his hunches and he had a strong gut feeling that there was more to Sam Castle than just worry over rustling. And he couldn’t shake the fact that the Rolling C was right across the escape trail of the train robbers—or what he figured to be their escape trail. It could be that they had dispersed there, then lost themselves among the thousands of rolling acres. They might be among the cowpokes who worked the ranch, with or without Castle’s knowledge.
Castle studied Nash carefully. It seemed strange, he was thinking, that the man calling himself Nathan Clay should turn up so soon after the robbery. There were signs on his face that he had been in a fight or some kind of accident. A gash on his cheek, swollen jaw, and what looked like burned skin on one side of his face. Some of his hair seemed singed where it showed beneath his hat brim.
And the man claimed to have been deafened by an explosion.
But those injuries weren’t three weeks’ old. They weren’t even three days’ old. Castle felt a wrench in his belly: was it possible that he had survived the explosion in the armored van? No, that wasn’t at all possible. He dismissed the thought instantly, but just as swiftly recalled it. Or was it? The inside of the van had looked like a slaughterhouse. But there had been that hole in the roof—where there had been some sort of trapdoor.
It just might be possible that the man had been in the van and had been blown clear. It would account for his wounds, the singed hair especially—and the deafness.
Sam Castle felt the blood drain from his face. By hell, if he were a survivor from the robbery and he had found his way here ... His eyes went past Nash to the man’s big claybank. He fixed his gaze on the gray army saddlecloth, and the regulation saddlebags and rig and his eyes narrowed. That was too much to pass off as a coincidence. The man was forking an army horse and he was wearing old army trousers.
The rancher cleared his throat and looked back at Nash.
“You’ve had a rough time of it—Clay, is it? Well, I can use another tophand, I guess.”
“We don’t need any extra hands, Mr. Castle,” Jordan put in abruptly. “Don’t go feelin’ sorry for this hombre. Mebbe his story’s true and mebbe it ain’t, but we don’t need to hire him. I say give him a feed and mebbe a bunk for the night, then send him on his way.”
Castle fixed his cold eyes on Jordan.
“You’re only my ramrod, Jordan. I have the final say—and I say we need another tophand.”
Jordan clamped his thin lips together and nodded jerkily.
“You’re the boss.”
“Show him the bunkhouse. Put him to work tomorrow. Then I want to see you in my office.”
Jordan nodded again and touched Nash’s arm, jerking his head towards the wooden gate in the adobe wall. The girl and her father watched them go out of the yard and Rachel smiled at Castle.
“Thanks, Dad. You’re a softy.”
Castle gave her a faint smile, his mind on other things.
“I don’t believe his story, Rachel.”
She looked surprised.
“Then why did you ...?”
“I’m wonderin’ what he’s up to. Figured the best way to keep an eye on him was to have him stay around the ranch till I can figure out what’s going on.”
She frowned. “You think he might be involved in the rustling?”
Castle shrugged; rustling was really the least of his worries. He stood up.
“Mebbe. We’ll wait and see. Now you better go sit with your mother for a spell. She’s been bawlin’ for you half the day.”
Rachel’s face sobered and she squeezed her father’s arm before hurrying into the house. She knew her crippled, ailing mother gave her father hell. It had been the new horse he had given her for their wedding anniversary which had thrown her and caused her legs to be paralyzed. That had been fifteen years ago. Her father’s life had been sheer hell since and her mother never for a moment let him forget that it had been his gift which had destroyed her life.
She had since done her best to destroy his.
If Mohawk Brown had known, he would have guessed the reason for Castle’s involvement with the Ghost Riders. The rancher simply couldn’t stand the nagging of his bitter wife any longer. He had lived with his guilt for all these years and had allowed her to accuse him endlessly, but he could no longer take it. He needed an outlet for his emotions and frustrations and the Ghost Riders had been ideal for his purpose.
And the Ghost Riders had also provided him with an extra income.
The big gold robbery was going to be his last job. It would net him twenty grand, maybe more when they took care of Mohawk Brown. He would leave the ranch and a few thousand for Rachel and his wife, then he would take off for Mexico.
With a fair amount of money in his pocket he would live it up down there until it ran out. Then he would simply steal more until some day a lawman’s bullet caught up with him. It wasn’t much of a future, maybe, but it was better than spending the rest of his days being nagged to death.
But the stranger who called himself Nathan Clay could be a threat to all that. And Castle couldn’t take any chances.
He waited in his office impatiently until Jordan came back. Then he offered a chair to the foreman and pushed a whisky bottle and glass towards him.
As Jordan poured, Castle asked, “Get that hombre fixed up?”
“Yeah. I think maybe he can hear some after all. I said a couple of things in a quiet voice while I wasn’t lookin’ at him and he answered once. The second time he caught himself in time, but I think he only got some of what I said. My guess is he’s deaf, all right, but not as deaf as he reckons. He can hear some things, but he ain’t lettin’ on.”
Castle nodded, his mouth grim.
“I figured as much. You think he could be in with the rustlers?”
Jordan looked at him over the top of his glass.
“You ain’t really worried about rustlers, are you?”
Castle stiffened and his eyes pinched down.
“Ain’t I?”
Jordan shook his head. “Nope. Reckon that’s a kinda fiction you thought up—rigged up by drivin’ a few head off into the hills and cryin’ rustler.”
“Why would I do that?” the rancher asked quietly, but with a trace of steel in his voice.
“To help cover your rides out into the hills. To explain why you’re away for a few days at a time. You claim you’re lookin’ for wideloopers, but I ain’t seen any real sign of ’em.”
“Which is why I’m still lookin’.”
Jordan smiled crookedly, downed the whisky, poured another, then shook his head.
“No, it ain’t. You ain’t lookin’ at all. I followed you once. You went to Resurrection and you met some other hombres there. I’d’ve gotten closer except there were armed guards everywhere. Now I dunno what you’re up to and maybe it ain’t any of my business, but I figure I ought to be cut in.”
“Why?” Castle’s voice was harsh.
Jordan grinned widely.
“I don’t know what’s goin’ on, but I do know you don’t ride out to the ghost town just to play a hand of five-card stud with a few of the boys. ’Fact, I seen you take a sheet out of the house one time. Week or so later, I heard about a bank raid by a bunch of fellers all wearin’ sheets over their clothes and masks. Called ’emselves the Ghost Riders.”
Castle seemed relaxed but he was knotted inside. He drummed his fingers on the edge of his desk.
“You’ve kept quiet long enough.”
Jordan shrugged. “Just been bidin’ my time so’s I could mention it to you. And so maybe it could be worth my while if I didn’t mention it to anyone else.”
“Uh—huh. Been waitin’ for that. But so happens you’ve picked a better time than you know, Jordan. I been watchin' you in the three or four months you’ve been here. You’re a hard hombre. I reckon there could be some Wanted dodgers along your backtrail somewhere.”
Jordan said nothing.
“Well, that makes no nevermind—’cept maybe it goes in your favor.” He paused. “You got anythin’ else to say before I put a deal to you?”
“Only for you to make it really worthwhile—I figure you can after that gold robbery.”
Castle nodded jerkily.
“I got that Nathan Clay hombre down as some kind of lawman. Mebbe he’s partially deaf like he claims, but he didn’t get it from no explosion building a dam. I reckon he got it when that express van was blasted open.”
Jordan pursed his lips and whistled softly.
“And he’s on your trail, huh?”
Castle frowned. “I dunno how he got here. There shouldn’t have been any trail for him to follow. Could be that he’s as innocent as he claims, but I reckon not. Thing is, I don’t aim to take the chance. Now, you’re ramrod. You take him for a ride tomorrow, show him over the spread. Go way back in the hills and let him see just how far my land goes.” Then Castle’s voice hardened. “But you come back alone. Savvy?”
Jordan merely stared, then asked, “What makes it worth my while to come back alone?”
“How much did you have in mind?”
Jordan scrubbed a hand down his face.
“Well, seems a pretty big chore to me. And, with what I already know—”
“Get to it,” cracked Castle irritably.
“All right—no pussy-footin’. I might pass up the ready cash—if you get me into the Ghost Riders.”
Castle stiffened; he obviously hadn’t been expecting that. “Way I figure it,” Jordan continued swiftly, “is that I could stand to make a lot more in the long run by joinin’ up with you hombres than by takin’ a thousand in hand now. It kinda appeals to me. What do you say, Mr. Castle?”
The rancher poured himself a drink while he thought about it. He stood and paced across the room, downed his whisky then faced Jordan.
“It’s not up to me. I’d have to get the others’ approval.”
“Then get it.”
Castle’s eyes narrowed at the aggressive tone.
“Don’t push too hard, Jordan. Tell you what. You take this Clay back into the hills tomorrow morning and I’ll ride to Resurrection and meet with the others. I’ll see you back here tomorrow sundown and let you know.”
“They better not say no.”
“I told you once, Jordan ... don’t push it. If they say no, I’ll take care of you. All right?”
Jordan snapped his eyes towards the rancher.
“What’s that mean?”
“I mean, I’ll pay you a good amount out of my share.” Jordan pursed his lips then slammed his empty glass against the desk and stood up. He hitched at his gunbelt.
“Okay. Fair enough, I guess.”
He nodded, heeled and went out.
Castle sat at his desk, looking very thoughtful as he poured another drink.
That sure hadn’t gone the way he had expected it to.