Ride the Savage Land Read online

  Isabel laughed. “I can imagine. You’re a strong-willed woman, Agnes. That’s what I like about you.” She looked around the table. “I think we are all strong-willed women. We know what we want—and what we don’t want—and will do whatever is required to achieve it.”

  “Damn right,” Lorena said. “Pardon my French.”

  Isabel looked like she was about to make some cutting response to that comment, but she controlled the impulse in time. Ace was glad to see that. They were all getting along right now, and it would be fine with him if things stayed that way. They had enough potential trouble facing them without fighting among themselves.

  As that thought went through his head, he glanced again at the doorway. Still no sign of the Fairweathers. Maybe something had happened to delay them. Maybe the river would go down and he and Chance and the ladies could get across before the Fairweathers arrived.

  But on this side of the Brazos or the other, Ace still had a feeling that a reckoning was coming sooner or later.

  * * *

  As night approached, the immigrant families retreated to their wagons. The charges for taking care of their livestock were high enough; they couldn’t afford to pay Blanchard for lodging as well.

  Ace thought it would be a good idea if the ladies stayed inside the trading post, though, and Chance agreed.

  “We can do a better job of protecting you in here,” he told them.

  “We’ll have to spend plenty of nights on the trail after we leave here,” Lorena argued. “And we don’t have a lot of extra money to pay what that avaricious old buzzard is going to charge.”

  “You should be able to afford one night,” Ace said. “If you can’t, Chance and I can kick in part of the money you’ve set aside to pay us when we get to San Angelo.”

  “Now, hold on a minute, brother—” Chance began, then stopped and sighed. “I reckon you’re right. It’s too risky to stay outside while those Fairweathers are skulking around, if you’ve got another option.”

  The ladies agreed, although not without more reluctance.

  Ace went and made the arrangements with Blanchard, who pushed aside a curtain that covered a doorway leading to a hall with five doors on each side. “The rooms ain’t fancy, but the beds ain’t got no varmints in ’em . . . I don’t think.”

  There was no door at the far end of the hall, so no one could get in that way.

  Ace asked, “Is anyone else staying here tonight?”

  “Nope, them ladies are the only ones.”

  “Then let’s put them all on the right side. We’ll put a chair here in the hall and my brother and I will take turns sitting up, just to make sure nothing happens. Whichever one of us isn’t on guard duty can get some sleep in one of the other rooms.”

  “A chair, eh?” Blanchard rubbed his jaw. “I might have to charge you for the use of it—” He stopped when he saw the frown on Ace’s face, then waved a hand casually. “Oh, I reckon we can throw that in.”

  “Thanks,” Ace said dryly.

  “That fella who was here earlier . . . What sort of grudge is he holdin’ against y’all, anyway?”

  “We had trouble with him and his sons back in Weatherford, and they wound up spending a night in jail because of it. The main thing, though, is they’ve made up their minds that the unmarried boys ought to have those ladies as their wives.”

  “Well, they’re mail-order brides, I heard tell.” Blanchard spread his hands. “What difference does it make who they get hitched up with?”

  “It makes a difference,” Ace snapped.

  Supper was more of the savory stew. When it was over, the ladies went out to the wagon to fetch a few things they would need. The Jensen brothers went with them. Night was falling, and danger could be lurking out there in the gathering darkness.

  At the moment, however, there was a bit of a festive feeling in the air. The immigrant families had built campfires and cooked their own food rather than pay Blanchard’s prices. Kids were running around, getting in some last playing before turning in. Men sat on lowered tailgates and smoked pipes. Women finished cleaning up. It was a homey scene, even though they had no permanent home at the moment. They had the wagons and their families, and with the resilience of pioneers everywhere, they were making the best of the situation.

  The ladies went back inside and settled into their rooms, which, as Blanchard had said, were not fancy. They were small, with no room for any furniture other than a narrow bed with a straw tick mattress and a tiny table with a candle on it.

  “Not that much worse than what I’m used to,” Agnes commented, although the other four women looked a little disappointed by the accommodations.

  Ace got one of the chairs from the trading post’s main room and placed it in the hall, which was lit by a single candle on a shelf.

  “Flip a coin for the first shift?” Chance suggested. As always, if there was a way to gamble on something, he would find it.

  Ace was about to say that Chance could just go ahead and do whichever he would prefer then sensed that his brother would be disappointed by that. “Sure.”

  “Call it,” Chance said as he took a coin from his pocket and flipped it in the air.

  “Tails,” Ace said.

  Chance caught the coin, slapped it down on the back of his other hand, and then revealed that it was heads. With a grin, he said, “I’ll take the first shift. Maybe Miss Jamie will have a bad dream and need some comforting.”

  “I think somebody else may be the one who’s dreaming.” Ace took off his hat, gunbelt, and boots but was otherwise fully dressed as he stretched out on the narrow bed. It was more comfortable than a blanket spread out on rocky ground, but that was about all he could say for it. He dozed off pretty quickly anyway.

  He had no idea how long he had been asleep when what sounded like a clap of thunder jolted him awake. He lay there for a second before he realized the noise hadn’t been thunder at all.

  It was a shotgun going off.

  Leaping out of bed, he crammed his feet in his boots and snatched the Colt from its holster without taking the time to buckle on the gunbelt or grab his hat. He lunged into the dimly lit hallway and spotted Chance standing tensely by the chair near the entrance to the trading post’s main room. He had the Smith & Wesson in his hand.

  “The ladies?” Ace asked sharply.

  “All right, I guess,” Chance replied. “That shot came from somewhere outside.”

  Both brothers stiffened as they heard someone scream. Then a harsh voice shouted, “Jensen! Ho, you Jensens! You better get on out here right now!”

  “That’s Fairweather,” Chance said.

  Ace nodded but said, “We need to check on the ladies before we do anything else.”

  They didn’t have to. All five doors opened, and the young women poked their heads out into the hallway. Jamie and Molly looked frightened but all right. Lorena, Isabel, and Agnes were apprehensive, but their eyes flashed with defiance and a readiness to fight if need be.

  “What the hell is all the commotion?” Lorena asked.

  “Fairweather’s outside,” Ace said. “He fired a shotgun, and then somebody screamed. Now he’s yelling for me and Chance to come out there.”

  “You’re not going, are you?” Isabel said.

  “All those pilgrims are out there,” Ace replied grimly. “We can’t let Fairweather and his sons harm innocent folks.”

  “You’ve been hired to keep us safe.”

  “And we will,” Ace said. “Chance, you stay here while I go see what Fairweather wants.”

  “We know what he wants, more than likely,” Chance said. “The trick will be keeping him from getting it.”

  Ace went out into the main room, which was dark. He thought he would have to make his way through the labyrinth of shelves and goods by feel, but another door opened and Dingus Blanchard stepped into the room, holding a lighted lantern up with one hand and carrying an old Sharps buffalo gun in the other. A nightshirt flapped around his bony kn
ees, but he was still wearing the black plug hat.

  “What in blazes?” he demanded.

  “Fairweather’s back.”

  “I warned you boys I didn’t want no trouble!”

  “Then you shouldn’t have let us stay here,” Ace said. “It seems to follow us around.”

  “I ain’t in the habit of turnin’ away customers, no matter who they are. I just don’t like it when they drag their problems into my tradin’ post!”

  Linus Fairweather shouted again from outside, “Jensen! You Jensen boys! You better get out here now!”

  The demand was followed by another shrill scream, this one cut off with ominous abruptness.

  Ace started toward the front door. Behind him, Blanchard cursed and followed him.

  Ace said over his shoulder, “When we get up there, blow out that lantern! We don’t want to make ourselves better targets.”

  “I know that. This ain’t the first time I’ve had trouble come callin’, sonny. I’ve fought Injuns, remember?”

  Ace was too busy thinking about what might be going on outside to discuss Blanchard’s history. Those screams had come from a woman, and the only women out there were the ones from those immigrant wagons. Ace knew the Fairweathers had a grudge against him and Chance and wanted the ladies traveling with them, but he had hoped that the troublemaking clan wouldn’t bother anybody else.

  When he reached the door, he held the Colt pointing up beside his head. He looped his thumb over the hammer and glanced back to nod at Blanchard. The man leaned closer to the lantern and blew out its flame. Darkness closed in around them.

  Ace found the door latch, twisted it quietly, and eased the door toward himself. Through that narrow gap came the flickering glare of firelight. He moved where he could look out better and spotted a man standing beside one of the parked wagons, a blazing torch in his hand. Judging by the amount of light outside, there had to be more torches—and more vengeful men holding them.

  “I saw that door move, Jensen!” Linus Fairweather yelled. “Open it on up! Boys, hold your fire. We’ll try talkin’ first, before we go to shootin’ and burnin’ and killin’.”

  Ace didn’t trust Fairweather for a second. Ordering his sons to hold their fire might mean exactly the opposite. They might start shooting as soon as the door opened wider, but Ace had to run that risk. Otherwise he couldn’t find out exactly what was going on—and how bad the threat really was.

  “You’d best back off some, Mr. Blanchard,” he said quietly. “I can’t guarantee what’s going to come through this door when I open it.”

  “Well, if any bullets come in, I can guaran-damn-tee you what’s goin’ back out.” The sound of the big Sharps being cocked came to Ace’s ears. “A .50 caliber buffalo slug, that’s what!”

  With no time to argue with Blanchard, Ace held the Colt ready, stood a little to one side, and pulled the door back so he could see what was in front of the trading post.

  What he saw made his heart sink and his pulse hammer in his head. Linus Fairweather stood near one of the immigrant wagons with the light from several torches playing over him. He had his right arm around the neck of a middle-aged women as he held her close beside him. Ace recognized her as the mother of several little tow-headed boys from one of the immigrant families.

  In Fairweather’s left hand was a shotgun with sawed-off twin barrels. He held the muzzles close to the woman’s left ear. At that range, if he fired the weapon he would blow the woman’s head clean off her shoulders.

  “I see you, young Jensen,” Fairweather called. “But I only see one of you. Get your brother and both of you come out here where we can talk.”

  “I can talk just fine from right here,” Ace said, “and I speak for both of us. What do you want, Fairweather?”

  “That’s Mister Fairweather to you! Respect your elders, boy. And you know good and well what we want. I got a man standin’ next to each of these wagons with a torch and a gun, holdin’ the folks inside ’em. You turn over those women to us, or I’ll give the order and my boys will burn ever’ one o’ them wagons and ever’body inside ’em!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The horror of what he had just heard struck Ace dumb for a moment. Fairweather was threatening mass murder if he didn’t get his way. That possibility had crossed Ace’s mind before, but he hadn’t really believed anyone could be that depraved.

  That was his mistake, he told himself grimly as his brain began to function again. There was no limit to the depravity of some human beings.

  “Good Lord!” Blanchard exclaimed, sounding equally shocked. Then he said fearfully. “My boys!”

  “The Indian boys you mentioned earlier?” Ace asked.

  “Yeah. My wife’s boys, really. Three of ’em. Pureblood Lipan. But I helped raise ’em, and they feel like mine, damn it. They sleep out in the shed, next to the corral.”

  “Fairweather may not know they’re there,” Ace said. “There’s a good chance he hasn’t hurt them.”

  “If he has, I’ll kill the bastard,” Blanchard vowed. “He’ll have to kill me to stop me.”

  Ace hoped it wouldn’t come to that, but he had his doubts. By threatening to massacre all the immigrants, Fairweather had gone too far. He had to get what he wanted—the five women—if he meant to retain the power in his family. And even if he succeeded, he might decide to wipe out everyone else at the trading post anyway, just to make sure no one was left to spread the story of what he’d done.

  “Can you get to the shed without going out this door?” Ace asked Blanchard.

  “Yeah, I can go out the back window.”

  “Fairweather is liable to have somebody watching it.”

  “I can skulk around damn near as good as an Injun, if I do say so myself. I can get out without bein’ spotted.” The man sounded confident.

  Ace hoped he was right. “Get out there and check on your boys, then. Are they armed?”

  “There’s a couple rifles and a shotgun in the shed.”

  “Good. You may need them. If hell breaks loose and you have to shoot, remember that the Fairweathers are the ones with the torches.”

  “We’ll be careful,” Blanchard said. “What are you gonna do?”

  Ace sighed. “Try to talk some sense into that loco fool.”

  “Good luck with that,” Blanchard said, sounding like he didn’t believe such a thing was even remotely possible. He faded back into the darkness while Ace turned his attention again to the partially open door.

  Outside, Linus Fairweather called, “I’m losin’ my patience here, boy! Send them females out right now, and we might let you little bastards live!”

  Something about the way he said that convinced Ace his hunch was right. Fairweather didn’t intend to leave anyone alive when he and his sons left.

  Easing closer to the door, Ace said. “Fairweather!”

  “Damn it, boy, I’ve told you about respectin’ your elders!”

  A split second later, a rifle cracked and a slug chewed into the doorjamb, throwing splinters in the air.

  “Hold your fire!” Ace yelled. “Mr. Fairweather! Is that better?”

  “Keep talkin’ and we’ll see.”

  “Your two oldest boys are married, right?”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?” Fairweather asked. “We ain’t lookin’ for wives for them.”

  “But they have wives, and children, too, I’m told.”

  “So? What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

  “Do you really want to turn family men into killers? You want their kids having to grow up knowing that their fathers are murderers?”

  “They’re Fairweathers, by God! Their loyalty to me and their brothers comes first!”

  “What kind of father would ask his sons to do such a thing?” Ace asked. “And what about their families? They’re not out there watching this, are they?”

  “That’s none o’ your damn business . . . but we left our wagons a ways back, camped for
the night.”

  “Because you know those women and children don’t need to see such horror. And yet you’re willing to inflict it on all those innocent folks you’re holding prisoner.”

  “Damn you, boy, hush your argufyin’! Nobody’s got to die here. Just give us those women.”

  There was no reasoning with the man, Ace realized, and no trusting him, either. He was going to have to lunge onto the porch and take a shot at Fairweather, in the faint hope that he could kill the old man before Fairweather could pull the sawed-off’s triggers.

  That would leave Ace in the open to be riddled by the other Fairweathers, but if Blanchard and his Lipan stepsons were in position to hit them with a surprise attack, everyone else might have a chance to survive.

  He wished he’d been able to say so long to Chance before it came to that.

  Ace’s taut muscles were about to propel him into action when the whiplash of a rifle shot sounded, followed instantly by another and then the boom of a shotgun. Blanchard and his boys were going into action.

  Ace kicked the door all the way open and saw that Linus Fairweather had twisted his head away from his prisoner and toward the sound of gunfire. That was enough to make the sawed-off’s barrels waver away from the immigrant woman’s head.

  The Colt boomed and bucked in Ace’s hand. He saw Fairweather jerk as the bullet hit him somewhere. The impact was enough to loosen his grip, and the woman tore free from him. She ran screaming toward the wagons.

  Fairweather caught his balance and swung the scattergun toward Ace. Flame belched from both barrels.

  Ace was already diving off the porch. He landed on his shoulder and rolled, then came up on one knee with the Colt roaring again. Two swift shots blasted from it.

  Fairweather staggered back and bent forward, then swayed from side to side. Ace could tell from the old man’s reaction that at least one of his bullets had punched into Fairweather’s midsection. Fairweather fell to his knees but otherwise remained upright, hunched over the wound.