A Texas Hill Country Christmas Read online

  Smoke pulled back to avoid the hit, but the outlaw’s arm struck his forearm and knocked the gun out of his hand. The man threw himself at Smoke, crashed into him, and drove him backward.

  Smoke landed with his shoulders at the back edge of the roof with his head hanging over the canvas-covered boot. The outlaw tried to knee him in the groin, but Smoke writhed aside at the last second and took the vicious strike on his thigh. Roaring curses, the outlaw knelt astride Smoke and began raining punches down on him.

  Smoke jerked his head from side to side to avoid most of the blows, and as soon as he got a chance he shot up a short punch of his own that caught the man on the chin and rocked his head back. That gave Smoke an opening to grab the outlaw by the throat and heave him to the side.

  The man fell against the railing and toppled over it, but he snagged it with a hand and a foot and clung there. Smoke rolled over, came up on his knees, and glanced back and forth between the outlaw who was struggling to pull himself back up onto the coach and the road ahead of them, which took a fairly sharp turn at the bottom of the hill.

  If the coach hit that bend in the trail at the speed it was going now, there was a good chance it would turn over. Smoke had no choice except to try to slow it down.

  He scrambled up to the driver’s box. Tom Burke had slipped down into the floorboard and lay there either unconscious or dead. Floyd Horton had passed out from being choked and lay slumped across the seat. Smoke shoved the senseless driver aside and slid down onto the seat.

  The loose reins coiled and writhed on the floorboard next to Burke like a nest of snakes. Smoke reached down and grabbed them, then straightened and hauled back on the leathers. The horses were still spooked, but they responded immediately to a human touch on the reins. They started to slow down.

  Something hit Smoke from behind with such force he would have pitched forward off the seat if an arm hadn’t looped around his neck and held him up. As that arm closed on his throat and cut off his air, he knew the outlaw had managed to climb back onto the coach and was trying to choke him to death, just as he had done with Horton.

  As Smoke’s head began to spin from lack of breath, he reached back and caught hold of the man’s duster. Smoke was immensely strong, as his unusually wide shoulders indicated, and his position gave him a little leverage. He bent forward and pulled with all the strength he could muster. The outlaw let out a startled shout as Smoke heaved him up and over. The man came down on the singletree attached to the front of the coach, tried to get hold of it, but slipped off and fell under the hooves of the still galloping team. Smoke felt the jolt as two of the wheels rolled over him.

  Smoke had been forced to drop the reins to deal with the outlaw. He lunged for them again and caught them just as they were about to slither out of his reach. Straightening, he planted his boot soles against the floorboard and pulled back on the reins with his left hand while he used his right to lean on the brake lever. The team slowed again and the coach shuddered to a stop about ten feet short of the turn that likely would have wrecked it.

  Smoke looped the reins around the brake lever and dropped quickly off the box. He jerked the door on that side open and said, “Sally, are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” she told him as she leaned out to give him a reassuring smile. “Bounced around quite a bit, but that’s all. Arley’s the only one who’s wounded.”

  “How’s he doing?”

  “I think he’ll be all right. It looks like the bullet went through cleanly. Mrs. Carter and I are trying to stop the bleeding.”

  “You get back to that, then. When you get a chance, check on the driver and the guard. I need to make sure none of those outlaws are still alive.”

  Smoke had lost his Colt in the struggle with the man who had jumped on top of the stage, so he went to the boot at the back, untied the canvas cover and pulled it aside, and reached in to get his Winchester that was stored there along with quite a bit of baggage. He knew the chamber was empty but the rifle was fully loaded otherwise. He worked the lever up and down so it was ready to fire, then walked grimly back up the hill toward the first body lying in the road.

  He could tell before he got there that the man was no longer a threat. Several hooves had struck him in the head, battering it into a shape that was barely human. That would have been enough to kill him even if the stagecoach’s iron-rimmed wheels hadn’t crushed his midsection. Smoke’s lips tightened as he looked at the grisly remains.

  He went on up the hill, retrieving his Colt when he spotted it lying on the road on the way. The man who had ridden out and tried to stop the stage was dead, too, with a single gunshot wound to the chest, as was the first man who had toppled off the bank when two of Smoke’s slugs punched through his belly.

  That left two more men, one on each bank. Smoke found places where the banks had collapsed a little and climbed up to check on them. Both were dead, the man on the east bank from one of Smoke’s bullets, the other on the west bank shredded by the buckshot from Tom Burke’s shotgun.

  Smoke wondered briefly if they had any connection to the man he had killed at the stagecoach station in Morgan Mill. Chances were he would never know, since none of them were left alive to tell the tale.

  When he got back to the coach, he found that Floyd Horton was sitting up, shaking his head, and rubbing his throat.

  “Are you all right, Floyd?” Smoke asked.

  “Yeah,” the jehu rasped. “Be a mite hoarse for a while, but I’m fine. Can’t say the same for Tom.”

  Burke was stretched out on the ground with a folded blanket under his head. Sally knelt beside him as she tried to wipe some of the blood away from the wound on his head.

  “He’s alive,” she told Smoke. “It looks like the bullet just left a deep graze on his head, but I can’t tell if it cracked his skull. He needs real medical attention.”

  “It’s only about ten more miles to Stephenville,” Horton said. “We’ll put him in the coach and make him as comfortable as we can, then get him there right away.”

  The other passengers had gotten out of the coach, too. Arley Hicks had a crude bandage tied around his left shoulder and that arm was in a makeshift sling, but he didn’t seem to be in too bad of a shape. Herman Langston was fine, and the Purcells were badly shaken up but otherwise unhurt.

  “Wait a minute,” Donald Purcell said. “Will there be room in there for the guard and the rest of us?”

  Horton’s eyes narrowed as he said, “I’m gonna forget you said that, mister. The ladies can ride inside. There’s room for the rest of you on top of the coach.”

  “On top?” Purcell repeated. “Oh, no, I paid for my passage—”

  “Tom Burke took a bullet trying to keep you safe,” Smoke snapped. “You’ll help us get him in the coach and then climb up there and keep your complaints to yourself.”

  Purcell opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, but he didn’t say anything else. His wife just gave him a contemptuous look and said, “Give them a hand, Donald, like Mr. Jensen told you.”

  Langston said, “I suppose we’ll leave the bodies for the sheriff?”

  “Or the coyotes and the buzzards,” Smoke said. “Doesn’t much matter to me who gets to them first.”

  The stagecoach station in Stephenville was a block away from the courthouse square. A man in a suit and top hat was pacing back and forth in front of the building when Horton brought the coach to a halt.

  “There you are!” the man exclaimed. “I expected you earlier.”

  Smoke was riding on the seat next to Horton. He said, “Who are you, mister?”

  The man ignored the question and rushed to the back of the coach. He fumbled with the ties on the canvas cover and then threw it aside. His hands shot into the boot and brought out a small valise that he clutched to him like it was something precious.

  By this time Smoke had climbed down from the box. The station manager and a couple of hostlers came out to greet the stage, too.

  “Tom
Burke’s inside the coach, got a bullet wound on his head,” Horton said. “Somebody best fetch the doc right away.”

  One of the hostlers rushed off to do that while the manager said, “Good Lord, Floyd, did you get held up?”

  “Yeah, they jumped us in one of those cuts a few miles this side of Morgan Mill.”

  “They didn’t steal anything?”

  “No. In fact, the varmints all wound up dead.” Horton nodded toward Smoke. “Thanks to Mr. Jensen there.”

  The man holding the valise tried to step around Smoke, who blocked his path and said, “Wait a minute, mister. I asked who you are, and now I want to know what’s so important about that bag.”

  “That’s none of your business,” the man snapped. “Now, get out of my way—”

  Horton moved up beside Smoke and said, “I’d listen to this hombre if I was you, mister. You’re actin’ like what’s in that bag is important enough to make a gang of owlhoots come after this stage.”

  The man glared at them and said, “Well, if you must know, I’m the president of the bank here in Stephenville, and I arranged for a shipment of cash to be brought in—”

  Smoke didn’t let him finish. He pulled the bag out of the protesting man’s hands, undid the catches, and opened it. Inside were bundles of greenbacks.

  “Who knew about this?” he asked disgustedly as he shoved the valise back into the man’s arms.

  “Why . . . why, just Mr. Ferguson and myself—”

  “You didn’t tell the law, or the folks who would be responsible for getting that cash here safely?”

  “I thought it best to tell as few people as possible.”

  “Blast it,” Horton said. “If I’d known we was carryin’ all that loot, I would’ve brought the stage on into town yesterday evening. Didn’t seem like there was any rush, though.”

  “And your secrecy almost got some innocent people killed,” Smoke added.

  The banker drew himself up and said stiffly, “I was just conducting my business as I saw fit, and you’ve no right to chastise me for it.”

  Sally had climbed down from the coach by now. She put a hand on her husband’s arm and said, “Let’s go, Smoke. I want to make sure Mr. Burke gets the attention he needs, and Arley could use having that shoulder wound looked at, too.”

  Smoke nodded slowly and turned away. Sally was right. There were more important things to take care of than punching that stuffed-shirt banker in the mouth.

  But it sure was tempting.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Seth Barrett put the pen down next to the sheets of paper in front of him and leaned back to rub his eyes with both hands. He had been sitting here at his desk all evening, working on his sermon for the Sunday morning service. He looked at the words he had written in the light from the lamp at the corner of the desk, but the letters seemed to blur before his eyes until they no longer made sense.

  He was worrying about it too much, he thought, putting too much pressure on himself. But this would be the first Christmas sermon he had ever preached, and he wanted it to be a good one.

  That was one thing about hearing the Lord’s call and coming to the ministry late, he mused. There were a lot of first times for everything.

  He got a clean sheet of paper, picked up the pen, and dipped it in the inkwell. As he leaned forward again, he muttered, “Bethlehem . . . manger . . . wise men . . .”

  Too bad that last didn’t apply to him, he thought wryly. He was trying, but he didn’t figure anybody would ever call him wise.

  A gust of wind struck outside, causing the window in Seth’s study to rattle in its casement. Bare branches tapped against the glass, and fingers of cold rain clawed down the smooth surface.

  Seth was glad he was inside tonight. Even though the little whitewashed parsonage behind the Enchanted Rock Baptist Church had its share of drafts, the weather outside was a lot more miserable.

  Seth scrawled a few lines on the clean piece of paper, then paused to read them over. Unsatisfied, he gave in to a sudden urge and crumpled the paper.

  Then he chided himself for being wasteful, smoothed out the paper, and turned it over to make a fresh start again on the other side.

  After a while he at least had an opening that he was satisfied with. Thinking that was enough for tonight, as well as something he could build on, he put the pen back in its holder and stood up to stretch after being hunched over the desk for what seemed like a long time. He winced as stiff muscles caught and twinged. He had some bruises and scrapes from the fracas with Felix Dugan the day before.

  He wondered what the members of the congregation would think when they heard that their pastor had been brawling with the rancher. That wasn’t a good thing for him to be doing, and he had known it at the time. He just hadn’t been able to control that wild, reckless streak in him, especially knowing that Delta Kennedy was there watching....

  The thought of Delta made him frown. He didn’t have any business being interested in the pretty widow. It would be a mistake for him to get involved with any woman, especially one as nice as her. What he needed to do was concentrate on the work that had called him here, ministering to the spiritual needs of the people in this area instead of worrying about himself and the loneliness that sometimes gripped him.

  “You think too much,” he told himself out loud this time. Picking up the Bible sitting on the corner of the desk, he leaned over and blew out the lamp. It was time for him to retire for the evening. Before he went to sleep, he would read for a while from the Good Book. The beautiful power of the language always soothed him. He would forget about the storm outside, forget about Felix Dugan, even forget about Delta . . . although the image of her beauty that was burned into his brain would make that more difficult.

  Most of all he would forget about the things that had brought him here, the past that lurked behind him like a lobo skulking along after its prey.

  Two men sat on horseback under the dripping trees about thirty yards from the parsonage. The bare branches didn’t offer them much protection from the cold rain. In slickers and wide-brimmed hats, they hunched miserably in their saddles as they watched the window’s glowing yellow rectangle and then saw the light go out.

  “Looks like he’s turnin’ in for the night,” one of the men said. “We could go in there and get him, Deke.”

  The man called Deke shook his head, causing more water to run off his hat brim.

  “You know that’s not what the boss told us to do, Packy,” he said. “We’re not supposed to do anything except keep an eye on him.”

  “Shoot, we ain’t even sure he’s the right fella, are we?” Packy asked.

  “It’s him,” Deke said heavily. “It’s got to be. Nothin’ else makes sen—Hold on.” He stiffened and leaned forward. “Somebody’s comin’.”

  It was true. Several riders were approaching the church and the parsonage. The two men under the trees drew their mounts back deeper into the shadows.

  The newcomers rode around the church and into the small yard between the bigger building and the parsonage. They drew rein there. One man swung down from his saddle and went up the three steps to the porch. He pounded a fist on the door and yelled, “Preacher! You in there, preacher man?” His voice was loud enough that the watchers heard him clearly over the drip of the rain.

  Packy edged his horse forward a step and said quietly, “Deke, we better do somethin’ about this. That hombre sounds mad, and the boss won’t like it if anything happens to that so-called preacher.”

  Deke lifted a hand to hold back his companion. He sounded amused as he said, “No, for now we’re gonna just wait and see how this plays out. I don’t think we have to worry. If we’re right about that fella, those men have bit off more than they can chew.”

  Seth had lit a candle in his bedroom and was about to get undressed and put on his nightshirt when the pounding came on the front door. He frowned as he swung around in that direction, wondering why anybody would be visiting at this time of nigh
t. Maybe someone was sick or hurt....

  Then he heard the raucous shout and recognized the voice. For a second, Seth closed his eyes and sighed.

  He knew that hoping the caller would go away was asking for too much. He picked up the candleholder and started toward the front of the house.

  The man was still beating on the door and yelling when Seth twisted the latch and pulled the panel open. The slicker-clad figure swayed forward a little when the door wasn’t there for him to hit anymore. He caught himself and blinked at Seth, owl-eyed in the candlelight.

  “What do you want, Andrews?” Seth asked the puncher who rode for Felix Dugan.

  Whiskey-laden breath gusted in Seth’s face as Andrews leaned toward him again.

  “Come to settle up with you, preacher man,” the cowboy said.

  “You don’t owe me anything.”

  That brought a harsh bark of laughter from Andrews. He said, “It’s you that does the owin’, Barrett! You laughed at the boss, and then you whipped him. You got to pay for that.”

  “I’m sorry I laughed at Mr. Dugan,” Seth said. “I shouldn’t have done that. It was un-Christian of me. And you can tell him I said so. Or I’ll apologize to him myself the next time I see him.” Seth paused. “As for the fight . . . he attacked me. I had a right to defend myself.”

  Andrews shook his head stubbornly and said, “You think a bunch o’ words are gonna make it go away? It’s gonna take more’n that, preacher man.”

  “You’re drunk,” Seth said, not bothering to keep the disgust out of his voice.

  “Not too drunk to teach you a lesson.”

  Seth had the candleholder in his left hand. His right clenched into a fist. It was pure instinct, as was the urge to knock the drunken, loud-mouthed cowboy off his front porch.

  Forcing himself to relax, Seth said, “I’m not going to fight you, Andrews. You might as well go home.” He couldn’t stop himself from adding, “Besides, in your condition, it wouldn’t be a fair fight.”