Ride the Savage Land Read online

  “Yeah. And that storm probably has any bad men lying low. Besides,” Chance added, “our horses will let us know if anybody comes sneaking around.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Ace agreed. “It’s been a long enough day we can both use the sleep.”

  They settled down, using their saddles as pillows.

  Chance muttered, “Seems hard to believe it’s been less than twenty-four hours since we were looking at that damned snake in ajar. I hope Shelby and Baylor and the rest of that bunch don’t come after us. Those sweet, innocent young ladies don’t need our trouble coming around to bother them.”

  “Amen to that,” Ace agreed. He dozed off a few minutes later.

  He wasn’t sure how long he had been asleep when something roused him. The horses were quiet. That was the first thing he checked when he pushed himself up on an elbow and peered around in the darkness.

  Nothing seemed to be going on. The limestone ledge loomed over the wagon. The vehicle’s canvas cover was easy to see in the starlight.

  Also easy to see was the dark shape that moved between him and the wagon. He reached out to his shell belt, which he had coiled and placed on the bedroll beside him. His hand closed around the butt of his Colt.

  The shape stood upright and was human. Somebody was sneaking around the wagon while the women slept. Ace glanced over at the other bedroll for a second and saw Chance stretched out there, breathing deeply and regularly.

  Ace felt a little bad that for an instant he had suspected his brother of trying to pay a nocturnal visit where he had no business being.

  That still left the question of who was skulking around the wagon. Ace pushed his blankets aside and rose silently to his feet, gun in hand. He intended to find out who the intruder was.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Ace’s bare feet didn’t make much noise on the muddy ground as he crept closer to the wagon. He didn’t want any shooting—bullets flying around wildly would endanger the women—but he was ready if he needed to use his gun.

  He kept thinking about the Kiowa. The Indian could have trailed them from Fort Worth. Ace hadn’t considered that a likely possibility, but he couldn’t rule it out. And now that he was closer to the mysterious intruder, he could tell that the hombre wasn’t very big. Neither was the Kiowa.

  He leveled the Colt, looped his thumb over the hammer, and said quietly, “Don’t move.”

  A shocked hiss of sharply indrawn breath came from the person next to the wagon. The shape lunged to the side. Ace made a grab with his left arm, aiming to smack the stranger over the head with the gun if it took that to subdue him.

  As Ace encircled the shape and clamped down with his forearm, he felt it pressing against mounds of soft flesh and realized they were breasts.

  Warm, firm, female breasts.

  He had grabbed one of the mail-order brides—who, by the feel of it, was wearing a thin shift and not much else.

  Ace let go of the woman and jumped back. “I’m sorry!” he blurted. “I didn’t mean to—I mean, I thought you were somebody else—I mean, somebody sneaking around the wagon—”

  Roused from sleep by Ace’s exclamation, Chance came up out of his bedroll with his .38 gripped in his hand. “Ace?” he said sharply. “What’s going on?”

  Ace’s face was hot with embarrassment, and it grew even warmer when Lorena stuck her head out the back of the wagon and asked, “What in blazes is all this?”

  From the front of the wagon, Isabel added, “Is there some sort of trouble?”

  Two of them were accounted for. Ace still didn’t know which young woman he had grabbed. If he had to guess, judging by the impression of the body he had gotten during the brief, too-intimate encounter, he would have said Jamie or Molly.

  It proved to be the redhead. He recognized her voice as she said, “It’s all right, Mr. Jensen—Ace. Don’t worry, ladies. Everything is fine.”

  “I never meant to—” Ace began again.

  “I know that,” Molly assured him. “You were just making sure we were safe, and I appreciate that.”

  “But what are you doing out here?”

  “Really, there are some questions that a gentleman just doesn’t ask a lady.”

  Ace wouldn’t have thought it was possible that he could get any more embarrassed—but he would have been wrong. His face felt like it was on fire. “Of course,” he muttered. “My apologies, Miss Molly.”

  “That’s all right.” She laughed, but it sounded a little strained. “Now that I’ve disturbed everyone’s sleep, I think we should all go back to bed, don’t you?”

  “That sounds good to me,” Isabel said. “Who knew that riding in a wagon could be so tiring?”

  Instinctively, Ace started to step forward and offer to help Molly climb into the wagon, but then he remembered her state of partial undress and thought better of the idea. Under the circumstances, she could manage by herself.

  She climbed into the wagon, and Ace and Chance went back to their bedrolls.

  As he stretched out, Chance chuckled and said quietly, “You’re the one who always accuses me of taking too many liberties with the ladies, Ace. But it was you putting your hands all over Miss Molly, not me.”

  “I didn’t put my hands all over her.” Ace scowled in the darkness as he slid the Colt back into its holster. “It was more like my arm that, uh, got up against some things it shouldn’t have, just for a second.” He heard a muffled noise and went on. “You’re trying not to laugh out loud, aren’t you?”

  “Trying not to,” Chance admitted, “but I don’t know if I’ll succeed!”

  * * *

  The sky—deep blue with not a cloud in sight—was completely clear the next morning. A light wind containing a hint of coolness blew across the valley. The weather wouldn’t stay that pleasant for very long. In another month or six weeks, summer would set in with its full force, and Texas would be blisteringly hot and dry.

  Ace and Chance and the five women would reach San Angelo long before that. The ladies would be married to the men who were waiting for them, and in all likelihood, the Jensen brothers would have moved on, heading wherever their fiddle-footed nature took them.

  Ace not only had trouble meeting Molly Brock’s eyes, he didn’t want to look at her at all. He concentrated on checking on the horses then looking for wood that had dried out enough overnight to serve as fuel for a fire.

  He had wandered down through some trees toward a gully at the bottom of the hill when he realized that somebody had followed him. He glanced over his shoulder, expecting to see Chance, but it was Lorena Hutton who stood there with a faint smile on her face.

  “You’re looking for firewood, aren’t you?” she asked. “I thought I would give you a hand.”

  “Well, that’s generous of you, but you don’t have to. I can manage.”

  “I’m sure you can, but I want to do my part.” Her smile got a little bigger. “If we can get a fire going, I’ll be drinking the coffee we brew on it, as well as eating hotcakes and bacon.”

  That sounded mighty good to Ace. After the day and the night they’d had, a nice hot breakfast would make a heap of difference in how he felt.

  “I saw the way you couldn’t even look at Molly this morning,” Lorena went on. “There’s no need to torment yourself about it. I don’t think she’s the least bit upset.”

  “That’s just because she’s being nice,” Ace said. “I had no right to grab her like that, especially with her being, well, spoken for by another man.”

  “It was an accident, and Molly knows it.” Lorena moved close enough to reach out and rest the fingertips of her right hand on his left forearm. “Anyway, even though she’s spoken for, as you put it, she’s not married yet. Some of us figure that until we’ve said ‘I do’ and the preacher’s done his part, we can still do whatever we want and no one is hurt by it.” She didn’t withdraw her hand. In fact, she increased the pressure and slid her palm up his arm.

  He felt the warmth of her touch th
rough the sleeve of his faded blue shirt. Somehow, she had gotten even closer. If he leaned forward just a few inches, their lips would be together . . .

  The sound of voices nearby made Ace pull back. He looked toward the wagon. He could see movement through the trees, although the thick trunks obscured any details. Chance and the women were moving around over there, and it had been his brother Ace heard talking.

  “We, uh, we need to find that firewood.”

  “Sure.” Lorena’s hand tightened a little on his arm. “But you remember what I said, Ace. It’s a long trip to San Angelo, and I don’t see any reason why we can’t be friends along the way. Good friends.”

  Ace had a pretty strong hunch what she meant by being good friends. While he was as healthy as any young man his age and responded instantly to the beautiful woman’s touch, he also felt like it would be wrong to take advantage of the situation that had brought them together.

  Of course, if there was any taking advantage to be done, it might not be him doing it.

  He swallowed hard, turned away, and resumed his search for firewood. Lorena helped him, although her assistance consisted mostly of walking around and being distractingly pretty.

  Despite that, in a short time Ace was able to gather up an armload of branches he believed might be dry enough to burn.

  Chance frowned a little when he saw Ace and Lorena walking back up to the wagon together, but he didn’t say anything.

  That would be just what he needed, Ace thought—his rake of a brother lecturing him about women!

  He was able to get a fire going. He’d expected to prepare breakfast, since he usually did that when he and Chance were on the trail, but Agnes moved in and said, “I’ll take care of this, Ace. You did enough by gathering the wood.”

  “All right.” Ace straightened from the fire. He hoped she was a good cook. He had a hunch that she was, since she had proven competent at every other task she had tackled so far. He backed off and let Agnes get to work.

  Chance came up beside him as he was watching her prepare breakfast. Quietly, he said, “She’s a mighty hard worker, isn’t she?”

  “You could say that.”

  “She’ll make some farmer or rancher a fine wife, I reckon.”

  “Because she works so hard?”

  “Well . . . yeah. Why else?”

  Ace just gave a little shake of his head and didn’t say anything else. It wasn’t his job to point out the obvious to his brother. He moved toward the wagon to have a look at it and make sure it hadn’t been damaged in the rough ride down the hill the previous afternoon.

  However, before he could get there, Molly intercepted him and linked her arm with his, steering him away from the vehicle.

  That wasn’t like her, Ace thought, although he hadn’t really known her long enough to make such a judgment.

  “I hope you’ve gotten over feeling bad about what happened last night. It was purely an accident, Ace. I’m not angry or embarrassed about it, and you shouldn’t be, either.”

  “I always try to oblige a lady. If that’s the way you feel about it, Miss Molly, I’m mighty happy to go along with what you say. I wouldn’t want bad feelings between us all the way to San Angelo.”

  “And there won’t be any,” she promised, smiling. “Do you think the ground is dried up enough for us to get back to the main trail? Why don’t we go have a look?”

  “Sure,” Ace said with a shrug. It seemed like it was his day to receive more feminine attention than usual, he thought as they walked over to have a look at the trail leading back up the hill.

  First the worldly Lorena and now shy, quiet Molly. Those two were just about the opposite of each other, but Ace had to admit the interest they were taking in him was gratifying. Not that it really meant anything, of course.

  The path was still muddy, but Ace thought the wagon and the team would be able to manage. The women would need to walk to the top of the hill, since the wagon needed to be as light as possible going up the slope.

  The coffee, flapjacks, and bacon were all good, and breakfast was a friendly meal, with none of the tension between Lorena and Isabel that had been present the day before. Ace didn’t know how long that truce would last, but he planned to enjoy the peace while it did.

  When breakfast was over and Agnes had cleaned up, Ace and Chance hitched the team to the wagon.

  Ace said, “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you ladies to walk for now. That way the horses won’t have to pull as much weight up the slope.”

  “Didn’t anybody ever tell you not to use the words ladies and weight that close together?” Lorena asked with a smile.

  “Sorry, I just mean—”

  She stopped him with a wave of her hand. “I’m joshing you, honey. We can hoof it, can’t we, ladies?”

  “I do not care for the idea of walking in the mud,” Isabel said with a doubtful frown.

  “Stay there at the edge of the trail where there’s some grass,” Chance told her. “It won’t be too bad.”

  It wasn’t. Chance led the saddle horses and went first, while the mail-order brides followed him in a straggling line. Agnes gave the other women a hand now and then when the ground proved slippery.

  Ace handled the team. The horses pulled valiantly and stubbornly against the wagon’s weight and fought against the mud, as well. They were able to get enough traction to keep going and not let the vehicle get bogged down.

  When he reached the crest, Ace brought the wagon to a halt and looked to the east, toward Fort Worth. From that elevation, with the air so clear, he could see a good ten or fifteen miles, all the way to the town on the bluffs above the Trinity. He couldn’t see any buildings, of course, but he knew Fort Worth was there.

  He hoped that Lew Shelby, Henry Baylor, and the other three were still there, as well, and not somewhere on their back trail. The last thing he wanted was trouble dogging them all the way to San Angelo.

  All the women except Agnes were a little winded from the steep walk. Ace climbed down from the wagon, and he and Chance let them catch their breath before they helped them into the vehicle. Agnes took the reins again while Ace swung up into the chestnut’s saddle.

  “Ready, ladies?” he asked them.

  “Ready for anything,” Lorena said.

  Ace sort of doubted that but hoped they wouldn’t have to find out.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Still in Fort Worth, Earl, Cooper, and Hawthorne spent the night in rented rooms on the second floor of the saloon after Hawthorne had gone back out into the storm to lead their horses to a nearby livery stable. The task had fallen to him because he had lost while cutting cards with Cooper.

  The bad weather had moved on by the next morning, but the three men had to avoid large puddles of water as they walked toward the courthouse. By later in the day, horses’ hooves and wagon wheels would have churned the street into a muddy mess, but it wasn’t too bad except for the puddles.

  They had all guzzled too much who-hit-John the night before. Cooper and Hawthorne were bleary-eyed and stumbling, able to move only because they were fortified with several cups of strong black coffee.

  Earl had his hate and anger to fuel him. That was more than enough to keep him striding along purposefully.

  Fort Worth didn’t have a courthouse square like most county seats in Texas. The courthouse sat at the north end of town on Belknap Street, facing the block between Throckmorton and Houston Streets. The three outlaws went up the steps and into the big stone edifice.

  A clerk behind a counter greeted them. “How can I help you . . . gentlemen?” The slight hesitation showed that during his habitual greeting, he realized that these three didn’t quite fit the description.

  Still, it was a public building and they had as much right to be there as anybody else.

  “City directory,” Earl snapped.

  “This is the, ah, Tarrant County Courthouse—”

  “Do you have one or don’t you?”

  “As a matt
er of fact, I do have one on hand.” The clerk reached under the counter and brought up a thin, leather-bound book. He held it out toward Earl, who motioned brusquely for Cooper to take it.

  Cooper knew that Earl could read, but it was a laborious process for the boss outlaw. It would be faster and less embarrassing if Cooper checked the directory for Cyrus Keegan.

  There were two listings—one for the Keegan Matrimonial Agency on Rusk Street, a few blocks over, the other on Bluff Street that was probably the man’s residence. Cooper committed both addresses to memory and slid the directory back across the counter. “Obliged, amigo. Maybe you could give us some directions now.”

  “I’ll try,” the man said. It didn’t take long for him to tell the three men how to find the places they were looking for.

  Earl and the other two outlaws left the courthouse. Cooper and Hawthorne were glad to get out of there. Courthouses reeked too much of law and order to suit them.

  As they walked toward the matrimonial agency, Hawthorne said, “How do folks stand to live in a place like this with the buildings all crowded up against each other?”

  “I wouldn’t like it, that’s for sure,” Cooper agreed. “I’m used to bein’ out in the open.”

  Earl grunted. “Running from posses, you mean.”

  “Well, that’s part of it, I reckon. But you can’t deny we get plenty of fresh air that way, Earl.”

  Earl ignored the comment and stopped in front of a door that opened between two businesses. A sign on it read KEEGAN MATRIMONIAL AGENCY—ONE FLIGHT UP. Below that, a hand-printed sign that appeared to have been tacked up recently announced CLOSED TEMPORARILY ON ACC’T OF INJURY.

  “What the hell does that mean?” Cooper said. Then, realizing that Earl might not understand completely, he added, “Closed on account of injury.”

  “Keegan must be hurt,” Hawthorne said.

  “Then he’ll be home,” Earl said. “That’s where we’ll find him. Come on.”

  It was a long walk to the stretch of Bluff Street—so named because it followed the bluff above the river—where Cyrus Keegan’s house was located. If the three outlaws had known how far, they might have gotten their horses from the livery stable and ridden over there.