A Jensen Family Christmas Read online

  Long decades of being exposed to the elements had browned his lean face permanently to the color of saddle leather. He was clean-shaven these days, but no matter how often he ran a razor over his face, it seemed like he always had a new crop of silvery stubble sprouting. His thick salt-and-pepper hair had thinned only a little from the days when it was a dark thatch. Because of his appearance and his air of unquenchable vitality, most people who looked at him probably took him for being in his sixties, when actually he was twenty years older than that.

  Preacher sawed off another bite of steak and chewed it with teeth made strong by years of gnawing on jerky and pemmican. He took another sip of coffee and reminded himself to ask next time if the cook could brew it up a mite more potent. He liked his coffee strong enough to get up and strut around on its own hind legs.

  He was well aware that some of the folks in the dining room were casting curious glances in his direction. A few of them even frowned in disapproval, as if they thought he wasn’t fit to be in here.

  Preacher had seen that same sort of look on the face of the clerk when he checked in earlier that day. Denver had become a mighty civilized place in recent years, and it wasn’t often that a man walked into a fancy hotel lobby with saddlebags slung over his shoulder and a Winchester in one hand. The clerk had looked like he was ready to holler for one of those uniformed law dogs Denver had now to come and throw this mangy old saddle tramp out on his ear. He was new and hadn’t been there for any of Preacher’s previous stays at the hotel.

  Then Preacher had plunked down a double eagle on the counter, and the sight of that gleaming twenty-dollar gold piece had changed everything. The clerk had yes-sirred and thank-you-sirred Preacher plenty after that.

  He hadn’t asked Preacher where the money came from, but as it happened, nearly twenty years earlier the old mountain man and Kirby Jensen, the youngster he had nicknamed Smoke, had found themselves a gold mine. It had made them both rich, although Preacher didn’t give a hoot in hell about such things. Smoke had banked part of the profits in Preacher’s name, though, and as such things sometimes happened, those funds had grown to the point that Preacher had more money than he would ever spend in the rest of his life.

  He still didn’t care about that and lived the way he always had, as a plain man who didn’t need or want a bunch of fancy foofaraw around him. He liked to travel and see new places, or at least places he hadn’t been to for a long time. With the adventurous, fiddle-footed life he’d led, Preacher sort of doubted there was anywhere west of the Mississippi where he hadn’t set foot at one time or another.

  At the moment, however, he wasn’t drifting. He had an actual destination. He was on his way to the Sugarloaf, the successful ranch that Smoke owned these days. Sally, Smoke’s beautiful wife, who was the best thing that had ever happened to him, had invited Preacher to spend Christmas with them. He did that every few years and was always glad to see Smoke and Sally again, as well as Smoke’s brother, Luke and Smoke’s adopted brother, Matt. The Jensens were his favorite people in the whole wide world. They might not be blood kin, but they were Preacher’s family, anyway.

  So Preacher didn’t care if the other guests in the hotel thought he belonged here. The way he’d always figured it, he was at home wherever he was.

  He had polished off his steak and trimmings and was waiting for the waiter to bring him a bowl of deep-dish apple pie when he noticed the woman coming across the dining room toward his table. She wore a dark brown traveling outfit and hat and had long brown hair lightly touched with gray here and there. Her gloved hands held a woven reticule. A nice pearl brooch was fastened on the jacket, just below her throat.

  She didn’t look like any sort of threat, but she could have a derringer in that little bag, thought Preacher. He sat up a little straighter in case he needed to dive for cover.

  As the woman came closer, he realized there was something familiar about her. He had seen her before, but he couldn’t say where or when, nor could he put a name with the face. He thought she might stop at one of the other tables as she crossed the room, but no, she was headed for his.

  When she stopped on the other side of the table, his natu ral chivalry made him stand up. He greeted her with a polite nod and said, “Ma’am? Somethin’ I can do for you?”

  She smiled at him. She wasn’t beautiful, but she was pretty, and the smile made her more so. She said, “You don’t remember me, do you, Arthur?”

  That was the clincher. He was acquainted with her, all right, even though he couldn’t recall her name or where they might have met.

  But she knew that his real name was Arthur. He had gone by Art as a boy, but he hadn’t used the name for many, many years, ever since a run-in with some proddy Blackfeet as a young man had resulted in him being dubbed Preacher by his mountain man friends. That handle had stuck, all this time.

  “I reckon you have the advantage of me, as they say, ma’am. I know we’ve met, but dam . . . danged if I can call your name.”

  Her smile didn’t waver. She said, “Some women might be offended to be found so forgettable.”

  “Oh, it ain’t that. I’m old.” Preacher tapped a finger against his temple. “Don’t have much memory anymore.”

  That was an outright lie. His brain was as sharp as ever. But he had lived a hell of a long time and had met a hell of a lot of people, and it was only natural that he couldn’t sort them all out.

  “I’m Adelaide DuBois,” she introduced herself.

  All it took was for Preacher to hear the name, and then all the memories snapped back to him. His shaggy brows rose, and he exclaimed, “Polecat!”

  The woman laughed and said, “Yes, that’s what Pierre’s fur-trapper friends called him, all right.”

  “Well, dadgummit, I should have knowed you right off. Is ol’ Polecat here in Denver with you? I ain’t seen that varmint in, Lord, must be twenty years or more.”

  Her smile went away and she shook her head, and when Preacher saw that, he cussed himself inside for blurting out the question.

  “I’m afraid Pierre passed away a number of years ago, Arthur. When he got sick, he claimed it was from that arrow wound he suffered up in the Prophecy Mountains that time he and you were trapping together.” She added hastily, “Not that he blamed you for it. He always said he would have died that day if it hadn’t been for you.”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” Preacher said with a half shrug. “It’s pretty near impossible to know about such things for sure.” He realized what he should have said and done before now and quickly went around the table to pull out a chair. “Please, sit down. We’ll get the waiter to bring you somethin’ to eat.”

  She lowered herself onto the chair and shook her head, then said, “I’m not really hungry, but I could do with a cup of that coffee if you can spare it.”

  “Sure, if you want, but it’s a mite on the strong side, especially for a lady.”

  “I was married to a mountain man, remember. I don’t think it will be too strong for me.”

  Preacher caught the waiter’s eye, and when the man came over, he asked him to bring a cup for Adelaide DuBois. Then he sat down across from her and said, “I’m sure sorry to hear about ol’ Polecat . . . I mean, Pierre.”

  “Calling him that would just sound odd coming from you. You knew him as Polecat, and I have no objection to you calling him by that name. I suspect you’d be more comfortable if I called you Preacher instead of Arthur.”

  “Well, that’s what I’ve gone by for a long time, but it don’t really matter. Folks can call me ’most anything as long as it ain’t late for dinner.”

  Adelaide laughed and shook her head. “You’re as colorful as ever, I see. I didn’t expect anything different, to be honest. You’re as unchanging as those Rocky Mountains west of here.”

  “I reckon I’ve changed some. I’m a heap older than the last time you saw me.”

  “And I still say you haven’t changed a bit.” She reached across the table with her left h
and, and before Preacher knew what she was doing, she’d clasped his right hand with it as she smiled at him.

  What the hell?

  A wild thought suddenly leaped into Preacher’s head. According to what she had just told him, Adelaide didn’t have a husband anymore.

  Was it possible she was on the scout for another one?

  With that worrying possibility nagging at him, Preacher was glad to see the waiter show up with that second coffee cup and saucer. The man poured for Adelaide and then withdrew, but the brief distraction gave Preacher an opportunity to gather his thoughts.

  “Did you just happen to see me in here?” he asked. He hoped that would be the case. A chance encounter didn’t have to mean anything.

  “Not at all,” she replied without hesitation. “I’ve been looking for you, Preacher. I wanted to see you again. So I wrote to Mrs. Sally Jensen at Big Rock. She’s your daughter-in-law, isn’t she?”

  “Well, not really, but in a manner of speakin’, maybe. You’ve been . . . lookin’ for me?”

  “That’s right. I know about your connection with the famous Smoke Jensen, of course. You’re mentioned in some of those dime novels they’ve written about him.” Adelaide laughed. “Pierre was so tickled by that, reading about the exploits of someone he actually knew from the old days.”

  “Aw, most of them stories are just made-up tripe,” Preacher said with a wave of his hand. “The crazy fellas who come up with ’em oughta be locked away somewheres in one of them asylums.”

  “Still, I knew I might be able to track you down through Mrs. Jensen. She wrote back and said that you would be coming to their ranch for Christmas, and I might be able to catch you in Denver on your way there. She told me you sometimes stay at this hotel. So I did, too.”

  “Just on the chance that I might come along?”

  “That’s right. You see, it’s very important, Preacher. I need your help.” Her hand tightened on his. “Someone is trying to kill me.”

  CHAPTER 7

  The Prophecy Mountains, many years earlier

  Preacher peered over the barrel of his rifle, searching for a target. He knew the Blackfeet were out there, but they had good cover in the trees, and he couldn’t spot any of them.

  “Damn it,” he muttered. “It’s like the red devils up and vanished on us.”

  “You will see them again soon enough, I’ll wager,” Pierre DuBois said from behind the boulder where he crouched a few feet away. “When they are ready for us to see them.”

  “Yeah, you’re right about that.” Preacher eased down behind the slab of rock that provided protection for him. He knew from experience that you couldn’t rush an Indian. They were notional critters who never attacked until they were good and ready.

  He took off his broad-brimmed felt hat and dragged the right sleeve of his buckskin shirt across his forehead. The air held a hint of coolness, a foretaste of autumn to come, but it wasn’t enough to counteract the heat of the sun. Or maybe it was the tension of waiting for a life-or-death fight to begin that caused beads of sweat to pop out on Preacher’s forehead.

  Either way, it was a gorgeous day in the high country. Much too pretty a day to die.

  The scenery was beautiful, too. The cluster of boulders where Preacher and DuBois had taken cover after the war party jumped them was located on the rim of a deep canyon. A few yards behind them, the canyon wall dropped away in a sheer cliff to a swift-flowing river far below. On the far side of the canyon, steep, heavily wooded slopes climbed to a rugged, snowcapped peak that stood out sharply against the blue, crystal clear sky.

  There was forest on this side of the canyon, too, and it came to within fifty yards of the gorge, leaving only that narrow open strip between the trees and the rimrock.

  The open ground was the only thing that had saved Preacher and DuBois so far. The Blackfeet knew they would lose some warriors if they charged straight across it. Preacher believed they were sitting back there in the trees, trying to figure out if there was any way to flank the two white trappers.

  As far as Preacher could see, there wasn’t. He and “Polecat” DuBois had the cliff and the river at their back, but they had open ground in the other three directions and would be able to cut down some of the Blackfeet when they finally lost their patience and attacked.

  Or maybe they would decide that killing two mountain men wasn’t worth it, and would go away. Preacher didn’t put much stock in that hope, but he knew it couldn’t be discarded completely.

  DuBois took off his coonskin cap and ran a hand over his long dark hair. A white streak went right down the middle of that hair, giving him the decidedly skunk-like appearance that had resulted in his nickname.

  One night around their campfire, DuBois had told Preacher where he got that white streak. It had happened when he was a young soldier in the French army, during a battle with the English forces in some European fracas that Preacher didn’t really understand or care about. A British officer had whacked DuBois in the head with a saber, but not before DuBois got him in the belly with a bayonet. DuBois had almost bled to death from the wound, but his friends had gotten him to a field hospital in time for a sawbones to shave off DuBois’s hair and stitch up the gash. When the hair had grown back, covering up the ugly scar, it had come in white as snow.

  From that point on, DuBois had had to get used to being called a skunk or some variation. It never seemed to bother him. He was a real ladies’ man and didn’t lack for self-confidence. And as he had told Preacher, some of those ladies seemed to find his distinctive appearance intriguing and attractive.

  That white-streaked pelt might wind up dangling from some Blackfoot lodgepole before this was over, Preacher thought as he waited in the rocks with DuBois. They would give a good account of themselves and send some of their enemies to the spirit world before it reached that point, though.

  “Do you know what I regret most about dying, Preacher?” DuBois asked abruptly.

  “The ‘not bein’ alive’ part?”

  DuBois laughed and said, “It is true that life holds many pleasures I will miss, but my biggest regret is that I will never see my beautiful Adelaide again.”

  “Adelaide, Adelaide . . . ,” Preacher repeated musingly. “Is she that yellow-haired dove who works at Red Mike’s in Saint Looey, the sort of heavyset one with the big ol’—”

  “Hold your tongue! I speak of Miss Adelaide Martinson, of the Philadelphia Martinsons. It is one of my most miserable failings that I never spoke to her of my true feelings, never revealed the great love for her I carry in my heart.”

  “Now hold on a minute,” Preacher said. “I know good and well you cut a big swath through all the fancy gals in St. Louis, not to mention you got a squaw in almost ever’ Injun village from here to the Milk River. And now you’re tellin’ me that you’re—how would Audie put it?—that you’re madly in love with this Adelaide girl?”

  DuBois waved a hand dismissively and said, “Those other entanglements were affairs of the flesh. What I feel for Adelaide is an affair of the spirit! We are kindred souls, she and I, and if I made enough from this season of trapping, I intended to return to Philadelphia and beseech her for her hand in marriage.”

  “Huh. Well, don’t give up on it yet, old son. There’s still a chance them damn Blackfeet will decide not to—”

  The angry screech that cut through the air told him he shouldn’t have started to say such a thing or even thought it. Now he had gone and jinxed whatever chance they might’ve had of avoiding a fight.

  The warriors burst out of the trees, not surprisingly attacking from three directions at once. Preacher aimed his rifle at the Indians coming from the right as he barked at DuBois, “Whittle down the ones on the left!”

  The rifle boomed and bucked against his shoulder. One of the Blackfeet went over backward, as if swatted down by a giant fist. The heavy lead ball from Preacher’s rifle had smashed into his chest and pulped his heart.

  DuBois’s rifle thundered, as well. P
reacher didn’t take the time to see if his partner had hit one of the attacking Indians. DuBois was a good shot and was coolheaded in times of danger, so Preacher assumed he had.

  Preacher set the empty rifle down and yanked two flintlock pistols from behind his belt. Arrows cut through the air around him as he rose up, thrust the pistols straight out, eared back the hammers, and pulled the triggers. The double blast was deafening. Clouds of powder smoke rose around the rocks, stinging Preacher’s eyes and obscuring his vision for a second.

  As the smoke thinned, he caught a glimpse of several buckskin-clad shapes disappearing back into the shadows underneath the pines. Checking to his left, he saw that the other two groups were retreating, as well. Two more Blackfeet were down on that side, and a wounded man was being helped into the trees by his companions. That made half a dozen members of the war party out of the fight. He and Polecat might have a chance, after all, thought Preacher.

  A gasp of pain dashed that hope. Preacher turned more and saw DuBois slumped against the boulder. An arrow’s feathered shaft protruded from his chest, low on the right side.

  “Son of a bitch! Polecat, you’re hit.”

  DuBois lifted a face gone pale and haggard in a matter of seconds. He forced his lips into a grim smile and said, “Indeed. I am—how do you say it?—the goner.”

  “Now, hold on, hold on. It might not be that bad.” Preacher was working swiftly to reload his rifle and pistols as he spoke. He wanted to check on DuBois, but first things had to come first. “I’ll take a look here in just a minute.”

  “No need. I fear the arrow . . . nicked my lung. I will soon drown . . . in my own blood.”

  Preacher muttered a curse as he rammed home a ball and charge in the rifle. He primed the pan and then set the weapon aside. He had already reloaded the pistols, moving so quickly it would have been hard for inexperienced eyes to follow what he was doing. He placed them where they would be easy to grab, as well, and then knelt beside DuBois.

  “Did the arrow go all the way through?” he asked as he felt around on his partner’s back.