Ride the Savage Land Page 16

  A strident yell came from Ace’s left. “Pa!”

  Ace turned in that direction and saw one of the blond Fairweather sons charging toward him. The man held a torch that he whipped through the air at Ace. The blazing brand turned over and over, casting flickering light across the ground as the man opened fire with his rifle. The torch sailed over Ace’s head and fell to the ground behind him.

  He felt as much as heard bullets ripping through the air next to his ears. Steadying the Colt, he triggered a shot that slammed into the charging man’s chest and stopped him as suddenly as if he’d run into a stone wall. He dropped his rifle, pressed both hands to his body, and seemed almost to melt down to the ground.

  Screams made Ace turn in the other direction. Two of the immigrant wagons were on fire, but the wagons’ occupants had scrambled out and escaped the flames because the Fairweathers had their hands full with the attack by Blanchard and his stepsons. Ace saw them darting here and there, firing at the Fairweathers, who returned the shots in a roll of gun-thunder.

  Ace snapped a shot at one of the dark-bearded Fairweathers as the man tried to reach cover. He stumbled but kept moving, disappearing behind one of the wagons.

  A shot from the trading post’s porch made Ace glance in that direction. Chance was there, the .38 in his hand spitting fire. Ace surged to his feet and ran to the porch, bounding onto it to join his brother. As he thumbed fresh rounds into his Colt, he said, “You shouldn’t have left the ladies!”

  “Lorena and Isabel got a couple shotguns from Blanchard’s stock. Anybody who tries to bother them will get a gut full of buckshot!”

  Ace didn’t doubt that.

  “They chased me out of there and told me to help out here,” Chance added.

  Ace believed that, too. He hadn’t been acquainted with Lorena Hutton and Isabel Sheridan for very long, but he already knew how strong-willed they were.

  Gunfire still crashed back and forth across the clearing in front of the trading post. The burning wagons threw a nightmarish glare over the scene. A couple torches, obviously dropped by the Fairweathers when the fighting started, still burned where they lay on the hard-packed dirt, but they were about to gutter out, as was the torch that one of the men had thrown at Ace.

  The shots began to dwindle. Between blasts, Ace heard the swift rataplan of hoofbeats. Somebody was lighting a shuck, and he had a pretty good idea who it was.

  “Hold your fire!” Ace shouted. “Mr. Blanchard! Hold your fire!”

  One by one, the guns around the trading post fell silent. No more shots came from the darkness. The surviving Fairweathers were gone. They had fled back to their camp, wherever that was.

  Dingus Blanchard stepped into the light from the burning wagons. He still held his old buffalo gun. The left sleeve of his nightshirt was stained with blood, but he didn’t appear to be badly hurt. He waved three more figures into the light—stocky, dark-haired young men—his Lipan stepsons. A couple sported bloodstains from minor wounds, as well.

  “Check on those immigrants,” Ace said as he came down from the porch. “See if anybody is wounded.”

  Ace had natural leadership ability that came to the fore in times of trouble. “We’ll see about the Fairweathers.”

  Blanchard nodded.

  With Chance beside him, both holding their guns ready, Ace approached Linus Fairweather first. The man lay facedown in the open area between the parked wagons and the building. Chance kept the clan’s patriarch covered closely while Ace hooked a boot toe under Fairweather’s shoulder and rolled him onto his back.

  Fairweather was still alive, but the huge dark stain across his middle was an indication that he wouldn’t be for very much longer. He glared up at Ace and Chance and gasped for enough air to curse them. “You damn . . . Jensen boys. You’ll be . . . damned sorry . . . you ever crossed the path . . . of the Fairweathers!”

  “I reckon we already are,” Chance said coldly. “So are plenty of other people, including some of your sons.”

  Fairweather groaned, whether in pain or grief or both, Ace didn’t know. He supposed it didn’t really matter.

  “I curse you,” Fairweather said. “You’ll never . . . know peace . . . Blood and death . . . will follow you . . . all your borned days!”

  “We’re used to it,” Chance said.

  It bothered Ace a little more to hear such a dire prediction, but Chance had a point. They already seemed to run into more than their fair share of trouble.

  “Not fair,” the old man muttered. “We was supposed to get . . . what we wanted . . . We’re Fairweathers . . . by God . . .” His chest rose as he drew in a sharp breath. Then the air came out of him with an ugly rattling sound, and he was gone.

  The Jensens walked over to the blond Fairweather Ace had shot.

  He thought it was Fergus but couldn’t be sure. That man was dead, too, drilled cleanly through the heart.

  Two more Fairweather sons, both sporting dark beards, were dead, as well, crumpled near the wagons where the unexpected volley from Blanchard and his stepsons had dropped them.

  Four of them had gotten away. Ace hoped the two men with families had been among them. As loco a bunch as they had been, he hoped no women and children had lost husbands and fathers tonight. Even more so, he hoped that was the case among the immigrants.

  He was relieved when Blanchard reported there were no fatalities among the pilgrims who had stopped to wait for the river to go down.

  “Couple families lost everything except their livestock, though,” Blanchard said with a frown as he looked at what was left of the burned-out wagons. Flames still danced here and there on the blackened husks.

  “The Fairweathers ought to have to pay for that,” Chance said.

  “I’m gonna sic the law on ’em, you can count on that,” Blanchard said. “I’ll send one of the boys ridin’ to Weatherford first thing in the mornin’ with word of what happened here. But from what you told me about how they was tryin’ to cheat that storekeeper in town, they probably don’t have any money. Not enough to make it right for these poor folks, anyway.”

  Blanchard frowned and rubbed his grizzled jaw. After a moment, he went on. “I got plenty o’ goods and supplies here. I can help ’em out, make sure they got enough to head on their way again once they get some new wagons. I can give ’em a hand with that, too.”

  Ace and Chance stared at him in surprise.

  Chance said, “No offense, Mr. Blanchard, but we thought—”

  “That I was a penny-pinchin’, money-grubbin’ son of a bitch?” Blanchard laughed. “Well, I sure as hell am, boys, but ever’ now and then you got to put that aside and at least pretend to be a decent human bein’. I can do that . . . as long as those times don’t come around too often.” He went to talk to the immigrants and start making arrangements to salvage their westward journeys, while Ace and Chance returned to the building.

  The five women, all wearing robes over their nightclothes, stood waiting on the porch. Lorena and Isabel still held the shotguns they had commandeered from Blanchard’s stock.

  “Is it all over?” Lorena asked.

  “I hope so,” Ace said.

  Then he thought about Linus Fairweather’s curse and the fact that four of the Fairweather sons were still alive, and he wasn’t the least bit sure.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  By the next morning, the flames in the two burned wagons were all out. The families who had lost everything had spent the night inside the trading post. At least two men had stood guard all the time, with Ace and Chance splitting up the duty along with Blanchard’s stepsons.

  With the coming of a cloudy dawn, Ace walked to the river to see how it looked. The Brazos was down considerably from the day before, and the current was slower. Sandbars poked through the muddy water here and there.

  A footstep behind him made him half-turn as his hand moved to the Colt on his hip. Dingus Blanchard raised a hand to forestall Ace’s draw. “No need for that hogleg, son. I see we done
had the same idea.”

  “What do you think?” Ace asked. “Will we be able to ford the river today?”

  “I reckon so. As long as you know the way to avoid all the snags and sinkholes and quicksand . . . which I happen to know, o’ course, since I’ve lived on this here river for so long. I’ll ride on the wagon with you and guide you. One o’ my Injun boys can come along behind on his mule, and then he can carry me back across once you folks are on the other side.”

  “We’ll be obliged to you for your help. How much will all that cost?”

  Blanchard waved a hand. “Shoot, won’t be no charge for that. Nor for anything ’cept the grub y’all and your horses et. I’m feelin’ . . . what’s the word? . . . generous . . . today.” He cackled. “First time I been able to say that in a spell. And all it took was gettin’ shot at by a bunch o’ loco hillbillies.”

  Ace wasn’t going to argue with the man’s generosity. The ladies didn’t have enough extra cash to spend when it wasn’t necessary.

  They returned to the trading post where everyone was enjoying a simple but filling breakfast prepared by Blanchard’s Indian wife. Ace and Chance washed down the food with cups of steaming black coffee, then went around the building to fetch the team and hitch the horses to the wagon.

  Not surprisingly, Agnes tagged along. “I don’t mind driving the wagon across the ford.”

  “I figured I’d do that,” Ace said. “No offense.”

  “None taken, but if you do that and I ride in the back with the others, there’ll be that much more weight in the wagon. Wouldn’t that increase the chances of it bogging down?”

  “Mr. Blanchard says he knows where it’s safe to cross. He’s riding with us to make sure everything goes all right.”

  “He can tell me the same as he can tell you,” Agnes insisted.

  Chance said, “Agnes has a point, Ace. It’s not like you’re all that fat—”

  “Thanks a lot,” Ace said dryly.

  “But extra weight is extra weight,” Chance went on. “Why not let her give it a try?”

  Agnes smiled brightly at him. “Thank you for standing up for me.”

  “Just trying to be reasonable,” Chance said, but he returned the smile, and that made Agnes beam even more.

  The families that hadn’t lost their wagons were getting ready to move on. They had decided to band together and form a little wagon train, since the delay at the Brazos had caused them to bunch up. Ace and Chance didn’t intend to wait for the others. They would push on with their charges as soon as they were on the other side of the river.

  The sun had been up for about an hour when the ladies climbed into the wagon and Ace and Chance swung into their saddles. Dingus Blanchard pulled himself up onto the seat next to Agnes as she took up the reins. Jamie waved from the back of the wagon to everyone who was still at the trading post as Agnes got the vehicle rolling toward the river.

  Blanchard directed Agnes down a grassy slope to the water’s edge and told Ace and Chance. “You boys ride on ahead so the lady can use your horses to judge how deep the water is.”

  The Jensen brothers walked their mounts into the river. The horses seemed to have fairly solid footing. Agnes followed them. Gravel crunched under the wagon’s wheels as water rose to the hubs.

  It didn’t get any deeper than that, though, and in some places it wasn’t even that deep. The riverbed was a mix of gravel and sand. As long as Agnes kept the wagon moving, it wasn’t likely to bog down.

  In a loud voice, Blanchard called out directions to Ace and Chance, and Agnes followed them unerringly. One of Blanchard’s stepsons followed the vehicle on a mule, as the trading post owner had told Ace.

  There were no mishaps along the way, so it took only a few minutes for the wagon to ford the river. The horses pulled it out on the western bank, and Agnes brought it to a stop.

  Blanchard climbed down and waved Ace and Chance over. He shook hands with the two young men as they leaned down from their saddles. “Good luck to you boys. I’m hopin’ you’ve seen the last o’ them blasted Fairweathers.”

  “I hope we’ve all seen the last of them,” Ace said. “I’m sorry our trouble came down on the heads of you and those immigrant families.”

  “Nobody can avoid trouble all the time,” Blanchard said. “The world won’t let that happen. I’m old enough to have figured that out. Take the good times as you find ’em, and deal with the bad ones when they come along and slap you across the mush. That’s about all we can do.” He waved farewell as the wagon rolled away.

  It headed west once again and soon disappeared among the wooded hills.

  From the top of a hill a short time later, Ace turned in his saddle and looked northward across a sweeping landscape that fell away into the valley where the Brazos made its way. The distant water sparkled gold in the early morning sunlight, creating a beautiful vista.

  “If a fella wanted to settle down, he could find worse places to do it than this,” Ace mused.

  “Yeah, but that would mean settling down, and we don’t want to do that,” Chance said.

  “I didn’t say us. I was just talking about folks in general.”

  “Well, stop it. I don’t like the sound of it. There are way too many hills I haven’t seen the other side of to even be thinking about anything like that.”

  Ace grinned, clucked to his horse, and got the animal moving again.

  * * *

  Earl Brock, Seth Cooper, and Ben Hawthorne were riding west along the trail leading from Weatherford to Abilene and points farther west when Brock abruptly reined in.

  “Somebody coming,” the outlaw said, “and he looks like he’s in a hurry.”

  Cooper squinted at the man trotting toward them on horseback. “Looks like an Indian, too. A tame Indian, mind you. Those are white man’s clothes he’s wearin’.”

  “I don’t reckon he’s got anything to do with us, Earl,” Hawthorne said. “Let’s just let him go on about his business.”

  “I’m not gonna stop him from going about his business,” Brock snapped, “but I’m curious what errand he’s on.”

  Behind him, the other two glanced at each other. Cooper shrugged. If Brock wanted to talk to the Indian, it wouldn’t hurt anything as far as he could see. He hoped the redskin wouldn’t give Earl any lip. Brock had been known to shoot people for that, even white people. He wouldn’t hesitate to drill an Indian if he lost his temper.

  Brock held up his left hand in a signal for the rider to stop. His right hand rested on the butt of his holstered revolver. If the Indian didn’t stop, Brock would pull the gun and make him wish he had.

  However, the Indian reined in. He was young, not much more than twenty, and as Cooper had said, he was dressed in a work shirt and a pair of denim trousers like a white man would have been. His reddish-hued face was broad and flat, his black hair cropped off square just above his shoulders.

  Brock could identify the Cherokee, Seminole, and the other tribes up in Indian Territory, but he had no idea which tribe the youngster belonged to. “You speak English, buck?” he demanded.

  “I speak good,” the young man replied. “What you want?”

  “Where are you headed in such a hurry?” Brock’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Did you steal something? Trying to get away?”

  “I am not a thief! I go to Weatherford to see the sheriff.”

  Cooper said. “What in blazes does a redskin need with the sheriff? You don’t expect a white lawman to believe any story you tell him, do you?”

  The Indian scowled. “Tell truth. Crazy men come to trading post. Try to steal women.”

  “Women!” The exclamation came from Brock. “What women?”

  “White women,” the young man said, as if that should have been obvious. He gestured vaguely. “They go west, find husbands.”

  “Damn it,” Hawthorne said. “He’s talkin’ about those mail-order brides!”

  Brock scowled and leaned forward in his saddle. “What did these white w
omen look like? Did one of them have red hair?”

  The young man tried to move his mount around them, but the outlaws’ horses blocked the trail.

  “No talk,” he said in a surly voice. “Must find sheriff.”

  “No, damn your red hide. You’re gonna tell me what I want to know.” Brock’s gun came out of its holster, rose in his hand, and the hammer clicked back under his thumb. “The women,” he went on impatiently. “Tell me about them, or I swear, I’ll blow you out of the saddle.”

  “But the sheriff must know about the crazy men—”

  “I’m worse than any loco hombre you ever ran into,” Brock said, his voice flat and hard and dangerous.

  The young Indian quickly realized that was true. Words tumbled out of his mouth in a rather disjointed fashion.

  Despite that, Brock and his two companions didn’t have any trouble following the story. The young Indian didn’t know all the details of what had caused the problems between the Jensen brothers and the mail-order brides on one side and the bunch of bearded men on the other, but the description of the women was what mattered most to Brock.

  One of them had to be Molly, all right. The young man’s description sounded just like her, which came as no surprise. There couldn’t be two bunches of mail-order brides traveling across that part of Texas.

  Brock interrupted the Indian. “The woman with red hair, she wasn’t hurt in all the shooting?”

  The young man shook his head. “No women hurt. Four men with beards killed. My father and brothers wounded a little, not bad.”

  “I don’t care about anybody else, just the redheaded woman. Is she still at the trading post?”

  The young man’s shoulders rose and fell. “Still there when I rode away. Probably gone now, if river was down enough.”

  “Whereabouts is this tradin’ post?” Cooper asked.

  “Five miles.” The Indian turned in the saddle and pointed west. “That way.”