Those Jensen Boys! (18 page)

“You could be right about that. I reckon he's just about run out of reprieves, though. With no stagecoach and the Jensens and one of his daughters on the run from the law, there's no way he'll be able to make the next run to Bleak Creek.”

Eagleton scowled and drank some of his coffee, which Buckhorn happened to know was laced with brandy.

“You say there's a posse in town?”

“Yep. They're looking for Emily and the Jensens, but I've got a hunch they won't find 'em. That blond gal is crafty.”

“Could
you
find them?” Eagleton asked bluntly.

Buckhorn didn't like the sound of that, but he answered honestly, “I probably could.” He might not dress like a redskin, he thought, but he could track like one.

“Then that's your new job right now,” Eagleton said. “Find those three and bring Emily Corcoran to me.”

“What about Ace and Chance?”

“Do you even have to ask?” Eagleton said with a sneer. “Kill them, of course.”

Ace lay stretched out on his belly atop one of the boulders that surrounded the place where he, Chance, and Emily had made camp. He had climbed up there to keep an eye on the trail, cuffing his hat to the back of his neck so it wouldn't stick up as far when he raised his head. He was careful to edge up just high enough to look back along the route they had taken.

Emily was convinced that neither Kaiser nor Wheeler knew the terrain as well as she did and that she, Chance, and Ace were relatively safe.

Ace hoped that was right. From where he was, he could see not only the trail but also across the bench where the settlement was located, over the giant rocks that had given Palisade its name, and across the valley to Shoshone Gap. As he studied the landscape stretching out before him for miles, he was more convinced than ever that the theory forming in his head was correct. He needed to find out the answer to one more question, and that would probably be the last thing he needed to confirm the idea.

A sound drifted to his ears, causing him to stiffen with alarm. It was the clink of a horseshoe against rock, just one, but enough to tell him that a rider was moving around somewhere up there and not too far away at that. His eyes intently searched every bit of the mountainside he could see, but he didn't spot any movement.

That didn't mean anything. If the rider was good enough to keep his mount that quiet, he was good enough not to be seen.

Ace turned and carefully slid down the boulder toward the spot where it dropped off into the camp. He had to warn Chance and Emily that they might have company soon.

 

 

Chance was glad his brother had volunteered to clamber up above the camp and keep watch. That gave him the opportunity to spend some time alone with Emily, which was always welcome. “I don't know if I thanked you for all your help,” he said as she unsaddled her horse.

“Help with what?”

“Well, if not for you, I wouldn't have gotten away yesterday afternoon when Kaiser tried to spring that trap on us, and you deserve most of the credit for getting Ace out of jail. You came up with the plan, after all, and ran most of the real risk by causing that distraction.”

“You thanked me.” Emily set the saddle aside. “And you ran some risk, too, so don't go making it sound like I'm some sort of storybook heroine. I'm about as far from Joan of Arc as you'll find.”

“I'm not so sure about that. Joan of Arc was supposed to be beautiful, wasn't she?”

“She was also a kid. I'm not.”

Chance nodded. “I'm well aware of that.”

Emily let out one of her customary exasperated snorts and picked up her rifle. “Maybe I'll climb up there and see if Ace needs a hand.”

He put a hand on her arm. “Ace will be fine. He's got the best eyesight of anybody I've ever seen. If he spies anybody on our trail, he'll let us know right away.”

“You sound mighty sure about that.” She was tall enough that her eyes were almost on a level with Chance's.

“I am. I know my brother. We've been watching each other's back for years. We sort of raised each other. Doc tried, but he wasn't really cut out for the job.”

“Is he still alive?”

“He is, or at least he was the last time we heard. He's in a sanitarium down in Colorado. His health took a turn for the worse, so he had to take a rest cure. Ace and I send money back there to pay for it and go visit him when we can.” Chance shook his head. “That's probably not often enough, but . . .”

“But there's always something to see on the other side of the hill, isn't there? Believe me, I know the feeling.”

The conversation had taken a turn he hadn't really expected, but he wasn't displeased with the way it was going. Emily seemed genuinely interested and sympathetic. He found that he enjoyed talking to her, and not just because she was so pretty. Although that certainly didn't hurt anything.

“If you wanted to see some of the rest of the world, I'm sure your sister could help your pa run the stage line,” he suggested. “Well, once all this business with Eagleton is settled.”

“Do you think it ever will be? Like we've said before, Eagleton's not going to give up. Not until he's dead. Maybe what I ought to do is march over to that hotel where he spends most of the time and ventilate his ugly hide.” She looked utterly fierce as the words came out of her ruby-lipped mouth.

Chance couldn't help but admire her, but he was also troubled by the direction her thoughts were taking. “I thought you said he's got a gunfighter for a bodyguard.”

“He does. Joe Buckhorn. I'd just have to take my chances with him.”

“In other words, you'd wind up getting yourself killed for no good reason,” Chance declared. “If you stop and think about it for a minute, you'll realize that.”

She sighed. “I know. I just get so damn frustrated sometimes. It seems like there ought to be something we can do . . .”

“I know one thing we can do,” Chance said as he moved closer and reached up, cupping his hand under her chin. When she didn't pull away but rather regarded him levelly, he went on. “We can do this.” He leaned in and kissed her.

She didn't pull away. In fact, she slid her left arm around his neck and held him closer. She couldn't put both arms around him, because she was still holding the Winchester.

It was probably the first time he had ever kissed a woman who was toting a rifle, he thought, but things like that seemed to be pretty common where Emily Corcoran was concerned.

Her lips moved warmly against his. He rested his hands on her waist. Excitement grew within him as she surged against him.

Chance knew nothing more than a kiss was going to happen as long as Ace wasn't far away, up on top of that rock slab overlooking the trail, but the kiss certainly held the promise of more, . . .

The promise was broken as Ace slid down from the boulder, landed only a couple of feet from them, and whispered, “Somebody's moving around not far from here.”

 

 

While the members of the posse from Bleak Creek were blundering around Palisade, looking in sheds and behind rain barrels for the fugitives and asking blustery questions of the citizens, Joe Buckhorn saddled his horse and rode to the back of the barn owned by the Corcoran Stage Line.

It took him only a few minutes to locate the fresh hoofprints he was looking for. It stood to reason that if Emily Corcoran and the Jensen boys knew Marshal Kaiser was in Palisade looking for them, they would do their best to get out of town.

Buckhorn was hunkered on his heels, studying the tracks and familiarizing himself with the distinctive marks left by the horseshoes—all horseshoes left distinctive marks if you knew what to look for—when a querulous voice cried, “Hey! What're you doin' back here, mister?”

He straightened and looked over his shoulder, moving casually and not getting in any hurry about it. The scrawny old man who worked as a hostler for the Corcorans stood glaring at him and holding a pitchfork in his gnarled hands.

“Take it easy, grandfather,” Buckhorn said. “You don't want to tangle with me. This is none of your affair.”

“I know you,” Nate said as his eyes narrowed in anger and suspicion. “You're that 'breed gunfighter who works for Eagleton.”

Buckhorn felt some anger of his own welling up. “Choose your words carefully, old man. I don't like to be insulted.”

“Reckon it'd be hard to insult a fella who's already lowdown enough to work for a snake like Eagleton.” The old man brandished the pitchfork. “And you ain't answered my question. Tell me what you're doin' back here 'fore I take this fork to you and let out some air.”

Buckhorn ignored him and turned toward his horse. He wasn't going to waste a bullet on the old pelican. Besides, he had work to do. He wanted to get on the trail of his quarry before it got any colder.

“Hey!” Nate shouted as he came closer. “Don't you go turnin' your back on me—”

Buckhorn had reached the end of his patience. He turned quickly and his arm lashed out. The old man tried to thrust the pitchfork at him, but his movements were pathetically slow. Buckhorn knocked the sharp tines aside, reached out to grasp the tool's handle, and jerked it out of the hostler's grip.

The old man gasped and opened his mouth to sound a shout of alarm, but Buckhorn slammed the pitchfork handle against his head.

Nate staggered as the shout died in his throat. Buckhorn hit him again, and the old man went to the ground with blood seeping from the cut the pitchfork handle had opened. He groaned and scratched feebly at the dirt, but he didn't try to get up.

Grimacing in disgust, Buckhorn tossed the pitchfork aside. He muttered, “Mighty warrior, beating up on old men,” then swung into the saddle. He turned the horse and rode away from the barn, following the tracks he had found. His own horse's hooves probably obliterated them, but that didn't really matter, Buckhorn thought. Those posse men were too stupid to ever find the trail in the first place.

The tracks led to the road that ran from Palisade to the Golden Dome mine. Buckhorn's lips quirked in a grim smile when he saw that. That was probably the girl's doing, he thought. Trying to head for a spot where the pursuers wouldn't expect them to go. The Jensens hadn't been around long enough to attempt something like that, while Emily Corcoran was a half-wild tomboy who, in some ways, had never grown up.

Of course, she was plenty grown up in other ways, Buckhorn amended, thinking of the blond beauty. As far as he was concerned, her looks paled in comparison to those of Rose Demarcus, but that didn't mean she wasn't pretty. He wondered if one of the Jensen boys was trying to court her. Wouldn't surprise him a bit.

The tracks didn't stay on the mine trail all the way to the Golden Dome. About halfway up, Buckhorn's keen eyes spotted a couple scratches left on the rocks by horseshoes where the riders had turned onto a smaller path. He paused a moment, thinking Emily was going to get trickier still.

He didn't know those mountain trails as well as he would have liked. He hadn't spent much time up there exploring them. Eagleton kept him close by nearly all the time, which made sense. He was the man's bodyguard, after all. He had accompanied the boss up to the mine a number of times and done a little prowling on the mountain, but it didn't take long for him to be lost as he followed the fugitives' tracks.

Well, he might not know where he was, he told himself, but he knew where he was going—after Emily and the Jensen brothers.

As he climbed higher on the mountain, his instincts told him that he was getting close.

 

 

Ace looked over at his brother and nodded. He could hear the horse approaching. The trail ran directly between the boulders where the Jensens crouched, waiting. When the man rode into view, Ace was going to leap from his perch and tackle him, with Chance jumping down right behind to help Ace subdue their pursuer. Emily was about twenty yards ahead, around a bend, and when she heard the scuffle she would run out into the open with the coach gun ready in case she needed it.

They all hoped that wouldn't be necessary. Gunfire would draw plenty of attention they didn't want.

It was a plan that had a very good chance of succeeding, Ace thought . . . if there was only one man for them to deal with. He had heard only one horse, but maybe that didn't mean anything. Maybe that whole blasted posse was about to come down on top of them and cart them off to prison. Just the possibility of that was enough to make his heart thud painfully in his chest.

The horse's hooves clinked against the rocky trail as it continued to draw closer. Ace tensed and leaned forward as the horse's head came into view. He was poised to tackle the rider when the saddle appeared.

It was empty.

The realization hit Ace like a punch in the belly. The horse's reins were tied around the saddle horn, leaving it to plod along riderless. He had no idea how long it had been that way, but he knew it couldn't be good.

Across the trail from him on top of the other boulder, Chance had seen the same thing, and Ace knew from the stunned expression on his brother's face that Chance had reached the same conclusion. It was very bad.

Just how bad, they found out a moment later when a harsh voice called, “Hey, Jensens! Better come out with empty hands where I can see you if you don't want anything to happen to this pretty little girl!”

The cry of pain from Emily that followed those words stabbed into Ace and turned his blood cold.