Those Jensen Boys! Page 20

  “You should’ve gone ahead and killed her, too,” Eagleton snapped. “Shown some initiative.”

  Buckhorn kept a tight rein on his temper. “That would have meant going against your direct order. I didn’t want to do that.”

  Eagleton waved a pudgy hand dismissively, turned toward the sideboard in his sitting room, and reached for the brandy decanter “Well, it’s over and done with now. Maybe Wheeler and Kaiser will get lucky and catch them. As for you, you’re no good to me now with that busted wing—” He stopped short and his breath hissed between his teeth.

  Buckhorn’s left hand had dropped to the gun holstered on that hip and swept back up with the Colt in it, hammer cocked and ready to fall. The draw was fast, mighty fast, if not performed at quite the same blinding speed as he would have managed with an uninjured right arm. It was still slick enough to have beaten most men. “I wouldn’t say I’m exactly useless,” Buckhorn intoned flatly. “I’m pretty good with my left hand, too.”

  With the decanter in one hand, Eagleton picked up a glass and splashed brandy into it. “Fine. You’ve made your point. Now put that gun away.” Even though the revolver wasn’t pointed in his direction, he looked a little nervous until Buckhorn pouched the iron.

  Instead of sipping the brandy, Eagleton tossed it back.

  It would have been easy just then, thought Buckhorn. He had the gun in his hand and Eagleton right there. All he had to do was squeeze the trigger. Rose would never have to submit to the man’s brutish caresses again. She would be free, free to . . .

  To do what, exactly? To take up with a half-breed gunfighter who would be a wanted murderer? He figured nobody in Palisade could stop him if he killed Eagleton, but the law would be after him from then on if he did. Rose wouldn’t want to have anything to do with him in that case.

  Or in any other case, he thought bitterly. He was just chasing a dream where she was concerned, a dream that would never come true.

  “So you don’t know where they are now?” Eagleton asked as if the momentary friction between the two men hadn’t taken place.

  “Still up on the mountain someplace would be my guess,” Buckhorn said. “The posse hasn’t come back as far as I know. They’re still up there searching for the Jensens.”

  “Maybe luck will be with them,” Eagleton said. “Maybe by morning, those two troublemakers will be dead.”

  Buckhorn didn’t say anything. He didn’t know what to hope for. He wanted to see Ace and Chance Jensen dead just as much as Eagleton did.

  He just wanted to do the killing himself.

  Night fell like a gate crashing down, dropping darkness across the mountain with breathtaking speed. One minute Ace could see where he was going, the next he was practically blind.

  He reined his chestnut to a halt and sat in the saddle for a long moment, letting his eyes adjust to the gloom. Once he had gotten used to the dark, the millions of stars in the sable sky arching over the mountains cast enough light for him to see his way.

  He also used the pause to listen for any sounds of the posse searching the mountain for the fugitives. He didn’t think Marshal Kaiser would give up just because night had fallen.

  Not hearing anything, and confident that he could see where he was going again, Ace nudged the horse into motion. He kept the chestnut moving at a deliberate walk because of the thick shadows cloaking the trail and because he wanted to make as little noise as possible.

  He had ridden another couple hundred yards when he heard something in front of him. He thought it was the rattle of bit chains, caused by a horse shaking its head. Definitely not any hoofbeats. The rider, whoever he was, was sitting still.

  More than one of them, Ace realized a moment later when he heard a soft whisper. It was answered by an equally low-toned voice. He couldn’t make out the words, but he knew the men were up ahead of him.

  Moving as quietly as possible, he dismounted and left the chestnut’s reins dangling so it would stay. He suspected the searchers had heard him coming and were waiting to ambush him. His best chance was to turn that around against them.

  He slipped into the rocks, taking it slow. Being careful not to make any more noise than he had to, he hoped the night wind sighing around the mountain’s flanks would help cover up any sounds he made. He’d been lucky to hear the ones that had warned him of the other men’s presence.

  He circled to the left, thinking the lurkers were on that side of the trail. The odds were bad if he encountered only two men. If half a dozen men were waiting to jump him, he’d have to back off and find another trail to take him down the mountain. He gave a shudder at that thought. It would be dangerous. He could wind up lost and wander around in circles.

  Every couple steps, he stopped to listen. After several pauses, he heard another whisper and could understand what was being said.

  “I thought he was fixin’ to ride right past us. I’d have sworn I heard a horse comin’.”

  “So did I. He’s out there, all right. Could be he stopped to rest his horse.”

  “You reckon it might not be one of the Jensens at all? Maybe it’s one of the other fellas from the posse and he’s lookin’ for us. Maybe they already caught both those varmints.”

  “Don’t you think we’d have heard the shootin’?”

  “Maybe they didn’t have to kill ’em.”

  The second man laughed quietly. “Jed Kaiser’s so mad he’s gonna grab any chance he can to fill those young fellas full of lead. If they show even the least sign of fight, they’re dead if it’s the marshal and the men with him who catch ’em.”

  Ace didn’t doubt the truth of what he had just heard. Kaiser wanted them dead, and that prospect wouldn’t disturb Claude Wheeler, either. A couple dead Jensens would work out well all around.

  The two men fell silent as they continued to wait for Ace to show up.

  He suspected they were volunteer members of the posse. Judging from their voices, they were on the other side of the massive rock next to him.

  His eyes were fully adjusted to the darkness, and he could make out quite a bit by the starlight that filtered down from above. As he rounded the boulder, he spotted the two men standing and watching the trail, their horses behind them.

  Scenting Ace, one of the horses spooked and tossed its head.

  Its owner turned to quiet it, and the man spotted Ace sneaking up on them. He yelled, “Hey!” and clawed at the gun on his hip.

  Ace lunged at the man, reaching out with his left hand to grab his wrist and keep him from drawing the gun. A shot could ruin everything. At the same time, Ace threw a punch with his right fist, putting as much power behind it as he could. The blow landed squarely on the man’s nose, crushing it and sending blood spurting across Ace’s knuckles. The man reeled back.

  Since he was already going in that direction, Ace bulled into him and forced him to fall back against the other man. Their legs tangled and both went down. Despite that, the second man was able to get his gun out.

  Ace saw starlight reflect from the barrel and lashed out with his right foot. The toe of his boot caught the man on the wrist and knocked the gun out of his hand. It went spinning away into the darkness. He aimed a second kick at the man’s head, hoping to knock him unconscious, but the man reacted quickly, grabbing Ace’s foot and heaving.

  Ace couldn’t catch himself. He went over backwards, rocks digging painfully into his back when he landed.

  The man scrambled up and jumped on top of him. He locked his hands around Ace’s throat and growled, “Damn you.” It was obvious the man intended to choke the life out of him.

  A good-sized young man, Ace bucked up from the ground but couldn’t dislodge his attacker. The posse man was bigger.

  Ace clubbed both hands together and shot them straight up between the man’s arms and under his chin. The powerful blow rocked the man’s head back and knocked his grip loose. Ace surged up from the ground and rolled the man to the side.

  The man got a hand down and caught himself,
but Ace swung his clubbed hands again, catching him on the jaw. The man sprawled to the side.

  The first man let out a bubbling moan and tried to get up as blood leaked darkly from his flattened nose. Ace hit him on the jaw and stretched him out, as well.

  On his knees and breathing hard, Ace waited to see if either man had any fight left in him.

  It appeared they didn’t.

  Without even waiting to catch his breath, Ace moved quickly, using their belts to tie their hands behind their backs. He stuffed their bandannas in their mouths to keep them quiet when they woke up. He hoped the fella whose nose he had busted was still able to breathe well enough through it that he wouldn’t suffocate, but he couldn’t wait around to make sure of that.

  He hurried around the boulder to get his horse, hoping that Kaiser and Wheeler had spread their men out across the mountain to watch all the trails. If he knew that for sure, he wouldn’t have to be quite as careful as he descended. Unfortunately, he couldn’t assume that, so he still proceeded cautiously.

  Farther down the mountain, he looked to his left and saw lights on the same level about a mile away. That would be the Golden Dome mine, he thought, where men were working around the clock as usual to gouge riches out of the earth. If Ace’s theory was right, Eagleton wouldn’t need three shifts much longer. The payoff would be coming to an end.

  Ace’s only real interest in the mine was that it meant he had made it halfway down the mountain without getting killed or captured. He angled in the direction he thought the main trail lay. Once he reached it, he could make a dash for Palisade.

  He had just ridden between two boulders and onto the larger trail when shots blasted out. Ace stiffened in the saddle, then realized the gunfire wasn’t close by. The sound was drifting down from higher on the mountain. He reined in and turned to look up, seeing tiny flashes of light near the top of the peak, like deadly fireflies. Those were muzzle flashes, he knew, and they were in the area of the hideout where Chance and Emily had taken shelter.

  A sick feeling filled Ace. There wasn’t a damn thing he could do to help if his brother was up there fighting for his life. His mission was to deliver the telegraph message to Bess in the hope of keeping Chance and Emily safe, but that decision might have backfired. He might be the one who had somehow dodged trouble.

  As Ace was sitting there feeling heartsick over what might be happening up above, four horsemen rode around a bend in the trail below him.

  “Hey!” one of them shouted. “There’s somebody up ahead by himself. We’re all supposed to be in pairs or more!”

  That was a good way of identifying somebody who wasn’t a member of the posse, Ace thought as he jerked around toward the new threat. The only riders on the mountain were the posse men and the fugitives they sought.

  “Get him!” another man shouted.

  Ace hadn’t recognized either of the voices as belonging to Kaiser or Wheeler, but that didn’t matter. All were the enemy, no matter who they were. As the riders charged toward him, he bent over in the saddle, kicked the chestnut into a run, and drew his gun. Colt flame bloomed like crimson flowers in the darkness as the men opened fire on him.

  Ace returned that fire, aiming a little high as he squeezed off several rounds. He didn’t necessarily want to kill the men who believed they were hunting genuine lawbreakers, but he did want to scatter them so he could get through.

  He accomplished that as the group broke apart in the face of the counterattack by a seeming madman. Ace leaned so far forward to make himself a smaller target, he was practically hugging the horse’s neck as he flashed past the startled posse men. He didn’t know where their bullets were going, but neither he nor the horse were hit and that was all he cared about.

  The posse men shouted curses, continued shooting wildly, and wheeled their horses around to give chase. Ace knew they were behind him and urged the chestnut on to greater speed, calling on the valiant horse to give everything he had. He could see the lights of Palisade ahead and below him. All he had to do was follow the road down into the settlement, give his pursuers the slip, and make it to the stage line’s headquarters so he could talk to Bess and give her the message to send to the railroad. And stay alive while he was doing it.

  That was all.

  His thoughts were tortured by wondering what had happened to Chance and Emily, up near the top of the mountain.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Emily was furious after Ace left the hideout. She twisted out of Chance’s grip, stalked as far away from him as she could, and stood with her arms crossed over her chest, glaring and fuming. “The two of you shouldn’t have done that. By letting Ace make what he thought was a noble gesture, you’ve probably ruined everything!”

  Chance stayed where he was. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that. If I’ve learned one thing over the years, it’s not to underestimate my brother. Ace has pulled our fat out of the fire more times than I can remember, and usually when the odds were against him.”

  “It’ll be a miracle if he makes it to town without getting killed or caught. Things already looked pretty bad. Now they’re just worse.” She looked away and wouldn’t talk to him.

  Chance tried several times to get her to engage in conversation, then gave up. He started arranging some wood in the fire circle, taking advantage of the last of the fading light to see what he was doing.

  When he had the firewood laid out, he used some shavings as tinder and snapped a lucifer to life, hold the flame to the curling pieces of bark until they caught, blazed up, and the fire took hold in the branches he had arranged carefully.

  As the chilly wind whipped around and through the area under the overhang, he hunkered next to the flames for a while, watching Emily’s stiff back as she looked out at the gathering night.

  Finally, as if drawn by the heat, she turned and walked over to the fire. Her face was still taut and angry in its reddish light.

  No less beautiful for that, Chance thought, staying silent until she spoke first.

  “I came damn close to getting on my horse and going after Ace and leaving you here. You know that, don’t you?”

  He nodded. “It doesn’t surprise me.”

  “I don’t need anybody doing anything gallant for me. I can take care of myself and my family.”

  “I know you can. Nobody’s saying otherwise.”

  “I’m surprised you let him go. I would have thought you’d be fighting each other to see who got to make the big sacrifice.”

  Chance warmed his hands. “That’s the thing of it . . . Ace isn’t planning to make any sacrifice. He figures he’ll make it through and get that message to Bess without being caught. In something like this, he feels the same way I do every time I sit down at a poker table. I plan on winning.”

  “But you don’t win every single time, do you?” Emily asked quietly.

  Chance hesitated before answering. “Often enough, I do.”

  “But not always. And losing this game might mean that Ace dies.”

  “Believe me. You’re not telling me anything I haven’t already thought about.”

  They were quiet for a while after that.

  Emily sat down on the other side of the fire and warmed up. “You mentioned something about having some jerky . . .”

  “I’ll get it.” Chance went to fetch the strips of dried beef from his saddlebags.

  He was standing next to the horse when he heard what sounded like a boot sole scraping on rock. His head whipped around as he looked to see if Emily was approaching him, but she was still sitting by the fire.

  He bit back a curse and looked down the trail, then cursed again as he realized he had spent too much time looking into the flames. His night vision was poor. He knew better than to stare into a fire, but he wasn’t much of a frontiersman so he had forgotten.

  He didn’t have any trouble seeing the spurt of flame from a gun muzzle, though. The blast echoed through the cave-like area and slammed against his eardrums. The bullet hit the rock w
all and whined off into the darkness. Men charged toward the hideout, boots slapping against the trail.

  The Lightning leaped into his hand, triggering several shots at the attackers as he backed toward the fire—and Emily. His slugs whipped around the men and drove them back. They retreated down the trail a short distance, using the curving shoulder of the mountain for cover.

  “Jensen!” The shout that floated up the trail came from Marshal Jed Kaiser. “We have you trapped up there, Jensen! You might as well surrender!”

  Emily was up and on her feet, the revolver she had taken from Joe Buckhorn gripped in her hand. As Chance reached her side, he kicked the fire apart, quickly extinguishing it except for a few glowing embers. They backed away from the glow and into the deeper shadows.

  “How did they find us so quickly?” Emily whispered. “I didn’t think they’d get this high on the mountain tonight.”

  “Kaiser’s half loco. He must’ve pushed those posse men on instead of letting them make camp for the night. Maybe one of them has been up here before and knew about this place.”

  She sighed. “I don’t guess it matters. He’s right, we’re trapped up here.”

  “There’s no other way out?”

  “Not that a horse could take. A person could climb up higher, I suppose, but what’s the point? Do we just keep climbing higher and higher until there’s nowhere else to go?”

  “If we let Kaiser take us in, it probably means prison for both of us. I don’t know about you, but I couldn’t stand being locked up.”

  “No,” Emily said quietly. “No, neither could I.”

  “The last card hasn’t been dealt.” Chance felt a smile tug at his lips. “Let’s see how the hand plays out.”

  Emily surprised him then. She was the one to put her hand on the back of his neck and lean in to press her mouth to his. Carefully, because of the guns they were holding, they embraced in the shadows, and for a long moment neither of them knew anything except the warmth they were sharing.