Those Jensen Boys! (16 page)

Tanner had taken one of his customary cigarillos from his vest pocket and put it in his mouth. His teeth clenched on it as he said, “Sorry, Marshal. It's as much a mystery to me as it ever was. I never saw those two until they tried to kill me.”

“Well, we'll get to the bottom of it sooner or later,” Kaiser promised. “They left here with one of those Corcoran girls whose pa owns the stage line, so they probably went back to Palisade with her. I'm taking a posse over there first thing in the morning. I know Marshal Wheeler. He's a good man. He'll cooperate.”

“Are you going to arrest the girl?” Tanner asked.

“I damn well might,” Kaiser blustered. “She helped a prisoner escape from my jail. That's a crime right there.”

Tanner nodded. “It certainly is.”

“Not to mention the way she rang that fire bell and made all hell break loose around here. It took an hour for everything to settle down.”

“I'm going with you.”

Tanner's declaration made the marshal frown in surprise. “With the posse, you mean? I don't know if that's necessary, Mr. Tanner. I've got my deputies, and I can get plenty of volunteers. An important man like you shouldn't be mixed up in something as messy and dangerous as this.”

“You forget, Marshal, I was the intended first victim of these desperados. I want to make sure they get what's coming to them.”

“Well . . . all right. I don't reckon I can stop you. But you need to be mighty careful. The whole area is depending on you to help it grow.”

Tanner smiled and said around the cigarillo in his mouth, “And I have plenty of plans, Marshal. You can count on that.”

As happy as Brian Corcoran was that Emily had been able to retrieve the mail pouch from the railroad station in Bleak Creek, he was despondent over the stage line's chances in the long run. As they all gathered in the kitchen of the living quarters behind the office the next morning, he said gloomily, “Without a stagecoach, I just don't see how we can carry on.”

Emily set a big plate of biscuits in the center of the table. “Bess and I will ride over there and get the stagecoach. We can tie the saddle mounts behind it when we come back.”

Chance said, “Plenty of people are bound to have seen you yesterday afternoon and last night. Marshal Kaiser knows you had a hand in both of those ruckuses. You'd never get in and out of town without him arresting you.”

“I won't have that,” Corcoran said. “I forbid it. I'll sell the damn stage line to Eagleton before I see one of my daughters in jail!”

Ace said, “That's exactly what he wants. He's been pulling the strings on this affair the whole time. We've managed to stop his plans, but he keeps getting closer to his goal anyway.”

“That's true,” Corcoran admitted. “Sam Eagleton's nothing if not a diabolical schemer. Everywhere I turn, there he is, ready to take away everything I hold dear.”

Chance frowned. “It's almost like he has a personal grudge against you.”

Corcoran shook his head. “No, there's nothing personal about it for him, and that makes it even worse. He does these things simply because he's power mad and thinks that whatever he wants is his by right. Maybe he wasn't that way before he made that Golden Dome strike and got filthy rich so fast. I reckon maybe money changes a man.”

“I don't think so,” Ace mused. “Money just allows a man to let out what was inside him all along.”

On that dour note, they fell silent and concentrated on their breakfast, although no one had enough of an appetite to appreciate Emily's excellent cooking.

When the meal was finished, Corcoran sighed. “I suppose I'll take that mail pouch over to the post office. It'll actually be getting there earlier than it would have if you two fellas had brought the stagecoach back today.”

“You know, I was just thinking the same thing,” Ace said. “Does your contract with the government specify
how
the mail has to be delivered?”

Corcoran frowned and shook his head. “No, only that it be delivered twice a week from here to Bleak Creek and from Bleak Creek to here.”

Bess exclaimed, “The Pony Express!”

“That's just what I was thinking,” Ace said with a grin.

“Wait a minute,” Chance said. “You're talking about carrying the mail on horseback?”

“It worked twenty-five years ago when Russell, Majors, and Waddell did it.”

“But that was a cross-country route.”

“Going from Palisade to Bleak Creek and back would be a lot easier.” Excitement visibly gripped Bess. “We could do it. We have plenty of horses.”

“But . . . but this is a stage line!” her father protested.

Emily was caught up by the idea, too. “You just admitted, Pa, that there's nothing in the contract saying we
have
to use a stagecoach. As long as the mail gets delivered, that's the only thing that matters.”

“Well . . .” Corcoran rubbed his bearded jaw as he frowned in thought. “What about the passengers?”

“We're lucky if we have half a dozen in a month, and you know it.”

Corcoran sighed. “Aye, the passenger business hasn't been nearly what I'd hoped it would be, no doubt about that.”

“It would work,” Ace said. “Bess would have to be the one who rode the route.”

Emily frowned. “Bess? Why her? Why not me?”

“Because you'll probably be arrested if you set foot in Bleak Creek,” Chance said. “The same holds true for Ace and me, or we'd do it.”

“I don't mind doing the riding,” Bess said.

“But not by yourself,” Ace said. “I think we should all go. That'll be safer. But Chance and Emily and I will stop and wait outside the settlement. Bess can handle the last little bit by herself.”

She nodded. “Sure I can. Admit it, Pa. This is the best way for the company to keep going.”

“I just don't know. It still seems wrong. And we can't just leave that stagecoach over there in Bleak Creek.”

“It won't be forever,” Ace said. “Just for the time being, until things settle down.”

Corcoran grunted. “Things won't ever settle down until Eagleton gets what he wants. He'll find some other way to make things tough for us.”

“And we'll find some other way to beat him,” Emily declared. “We've done it so far, haven't we?”

For a long moment, Corcoran didn't say anything else. Finally he nodded. “We'll give it a try. We'll bring back the blasted Pony Express!”

 

 

Palisade's postmaster was the man who ran the mercantile. Even though in his job as postmaster he answered to the government, he had a silent partner in the general store—Samuel Eagleton.

Corcoran explained all this to Ace and Chance, then added, “So five minutes after I drop off that mail pouch, he'll be up in Eagleton's suite at the hotel tellin' him all about it.”

“It's hard to do anything without Eagleton knowing about it, isn't it?” Ace asked.

“Aye. That's what makes it so hard fighting him. He's got most of the town on his side. It's not that folks in Palisade are evil—”

“They just know which side their bread is buttered on,” Chance finished.

“Exactly.” Corcoran picked up the mail pouch from the desk in the stage line office. “I'll be back after I've dropped this off.”

Ace, Chance, Bess, and Emily spent the rest of the morning talking about the planned “Pony Express” route between the two settlements. Now that they were back in Palisade, the Jensen brothers would be able to use their own horses for the journey, and Bess and Emily would pick out the best saddle mounts from the stock owned by the stage line.

“Nate can help us with that,” Bess said. “He's a better judge of horseflesh than anybody else I've ever seen.”

“They'll need to be fast,” Emily said. “We may have to outrun trouble, like the old-time Pony Express riders did. Except it won't be Indians chasing us. It'll be Eagleton's hired guns.”

That wouldn't surprise him a bit, Ace thought.

Chance said, “You know, I keep hearing about this fella Eagleton all the time and we've gotten into these scrapes with the men working for him, but Ace and I have never even laid eyes on the man.”

“He stays in the hotel most of the time,” Bess explained. “He comes out now and then to pay a visit to his mine or to walk around town so the sight of him will remind people who really runs things around here, but that's really the only time most folks see him.”

Emily snorted disgustedly. “It's like Pa said. Eagleton just squats there in the hotel like a fat old spider in the center of a web. Nobody sees him much except Joe Buckhorn and Rose Demarcus.”

“Who are they?” Ace asked.

“Buckhorn's his bodyguard. Spends most of his time in the hotel lobby or up in Eagleton's suite.”

“Indian-looking hombre, wears a suit and a bowler hat?” Chance asked.

“That's right. He's fast with a gun and he doesn't mind using one, either. There's no telling how many men he's been hired to kill.”

“I wonder if he's the fella who shot at us when we were bringing in the stagecoach the other day,” Ace mused.

“I wouldn't put it past him for a second,” Emily declared.

Chance asked, “What about that Demarcus woman you mentioned?”

“She owns the brothel, but Eagleton is her own special customer. Her private customer, I reckon you could say.” Emily grinned. “Just talking about it has little Bess blushing. Would you look at that?”

“I'm
not
blushing,” Bess insisted, although it was obvious from the pink flush on her face that she was.

“She's had a sheltered life,” Emily went on. “I'm not sure she even knows what goes on in such a place.”

“Of course I do. I mean . . . well, I've heard things . . .”

Emily patted her sister's hand and said mockingly, “Don't worry. Nobody expects you to be anything other than an innocent.”

Bess might have continued to insist, unconvincingly, that she was worldly, but at that moment the old hostler Nate hurried into the office. “A bunch of riders comin' into town, and that dang marshal from Bleak Creek is with 'em. I'd say it's a posse”—his gaze went from Emily to Ace to Chance—“and they're lookin' for the three o' you!”

 

 

Buckhorn was trying to enjoy a late breakfast in the hotel dining room, but he kept thinking about what had happened between him and Rose Demarcus late the previous evening. Doubts haunted him. What if the feelings Rose had hinted at were genuine, as unlikely as that seemed? If there was any truth to it, he might have thrown away a chance for the best thing that had ever happened to him . . . maybe the only really good thing that had ever happened to him.

Or maybe he had saved himself some heartache when he discovered that it was all a cruel joke.

Hell, he'd thought, snorting to himself, a gunfighter didn't have any business worrying about something like heartache.

The only thing that ought to pose any threat to a gunslinger's heart was a slug from a gun.

With all that whirling through his head, it was no wonder the food was pretty much tasteless to him, and the same was true of the coffee.

He glanced through the arched doorway between the dining room and the lobby and saw Palisade's postmaster, Hayes Clancey, hurry into the hotel and look around. It was a welcome distraction.

The postmaster saw him at the same time and started into the dining room toward him.

Buckhorn stood, picked up his bowler hat from the table, and put it on as he moved to meet Clancey. He didn't have to worry about paying for the meal. Like almost every other amenity to be found in Palisade, it was free for him because of his association with Samuel Eagleton. “Morning, Hayes. You look like a man with something on your mind.”

Clancey was a short, reedy man with thinning brown hair, a prominent Adam's apple, and spectacles. “Mr. Eagleton told me a while back that he wanted to be informed whenever the mail arrived.”

“The stagecoach won't be back with the mail pouch until sometime this afternoon, will it?” Buckhorn asked, even though he knew perfectly well the stagecoach probably wouldn't be coming back at all. Something unusual had happened in Bleak Creek, as the late-night arrival of Emily Corcoran and the Jensen brothers proved. For the time being, Buckhorn was going to pretend ignorance.

Clancey frowned. “I don't know about the stagecoach, but Brian Corcoran just brought the mail pouch from Bleak Creek into the post office and turned it over to me. It beats me how he got it here so fast, but he did. I didn't even stop to sort the mail, just locked it up and came over here to tell Mr. Eagleton.”

“The boss is still asleep. I'll pass along the news to him when he gets up.”

Nervously, Clancey insisted, “He told me he wanted to be informed
right away
—”

“I said I'd tell him.” Buckhorn put a menacing growl in his voice.

Clancey's Adam's apple jumped up and down in his throat as he swallowed hard and backed away a couple steps. “W-why, sure, Joe, I'm much obliged,” he stammered. “I guess by g-giving you the information, I-I've done my duty here.”

“Thought your duty was to the U.S. Post Office,” Buckhorn drawled.

“Oh, it is, it is. You know what I mean—”

Buckhorn stopped him with a curt nod “Yeah. You better get on back. Folks will be wanting to pick up their mail, now that it's here.”

“Sure, sure.” Clancey turned around and all but ran out of the hotel, obviously eager to get away from the hard-faced gunfighter.

The man was right, Buckhorn thought with a weary sigh. Eagleton would want to know about it sooner rather than later, even if meant waking him up. He wouldn't be happy about being disturbed, but he would be even less happy to know that the mail from Bleak Creek had arrived after all, even earlier than it was supposed to. Buckhorn had no doubt that Emily and the Jensens had brought it with them, even though he hadn't spotted the mail pouch when he'd seen them ride in.

He was about to head upstairs, go into the suite, and knock on the boss's bedroom door when he heard a commotion outside. Glad to have an excuse to postpone the conversation with Eagleton for a few minutes, he stepped out onto the hotel's porch to see what was going on.

A dozen men on horseback had just pulled up in front of Marshal Claude Wheeler's office. Buckhorn's eyes narrowed as he spotted the badge pinned to the coat of the sour-looking, middle-aged man leading the group.

That hombre was Jed Kaiser, the marshal from Bleak Creek. He had a couple deputies with him, also sporting tin stars, and the rest of the men had to be volunteers for a posse.

Buckhorn frowned. Why would Kaiser ride out of his bailiwick and bring a posse with him? It had to have something to do with the Jensen brothers and Emily Corcoran. Maybe he ought to just mosey over there and try to get some answers. He started in that direction.

His eyes narrowed as he got a good look at one of the posse men, a handsome, well-dressed gent with a thin mustache. Buckhorn recognized him—Jacob Tanner, the railroad surveyor.