Those Jensen Boys! (21 page)

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.

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 wall 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.

Emily broke the kiss. “Yes, let's see how the hand plays out.”

They put their guns away and she gripped his hand, leading him onto a narrow ledge that twisted upward, higher on the mountain. Behind them, Kaiser continued his blustery shouts until he finally ordered the men with him to charge the hideout again.

Guns roaring and muzzle flashes ripping through the blackness, they advanced, but it was too late.

Chance and Emily were gone.

 

 

It looked like every building in Palisade was lit up. Fires burned in smudge barrels in the street as if the town was expecting an attack by an army.

He was only one man, Ace thought as he studied the situation from a vantage point in the trees up the slope from the settlement, but he hoped to bring down the boss of Palisade anyway. He watched rifle-toting guards patrol the streets. He had no doubt they were Eagleton's men.

Several were posted in front of the hotel, which wasn't really a problem. Ace had no interest in going there. Several more had taken up positions in front of the stage line office and barn, and that presented a problem. He needed to get to Bess so he could give her the message to take to the telegraph office in Bleak Creek. He didn't see any way he could do that without being caught.

Unless . . .

He studied the barn. The back of the barn had no windows, and the doors were closed and probably barred on the inside. A tree grew near the building, its branches reaching out toward the high roof but falling several feet short.

As far as he could tell from where he was, no guards were behind the barn—probably because it had no easy entrance. Not much of the light from the street reached back there, either.

It was his only avenue of approach, he decided. He didn't know if it was possible, but when everything else was
impossible
. . .

He dismounted, noticing grass on the hill, and patted the chestnut on the shoulder. “I'll come back and get you later if I can, fella. If I can't . . . you've been a mighty good trail partner, and I'll miss you.” With that said, he stole down the slope toward the settlement. The chestnut could graze for a while, and if Ace didn't come back someone would find the horse sooner or later. Still, it wasn't easy leaving the animal.

Using every bit of cover he could find, Ace made his way toward the back of the barn. Reaching the tree growing behind it, he saw that it was an aspen, which wasn't his first choice for what he had to do. Climbing it would make the branches and leaves shake, causing noise as they brushed together.

It couldn't be helped. It was his only option.

Growing up mostly in saloons, Ace and Chance hadn't had many opportunities to climb trees. The urge to do so seemed to be in the blood of every boy, however, so on those rare occasions when they were around trees, they'd shinnied up the trunks like boys instinctively do.

Ace hadn't forgotten those childhood lessons. He hugged the aspen's trunk and worked his way up slowly but surely until he could reach up and grasp one of the lower branches. After that, it got easier. He climbed slowly and carefully, making as little noise as he could, until he was level with the top of the barn next to the stage line office.

Things got even riskier. He located the thickest, sturdiest looking branch and crawled out onto it. Close to the trunk, it didn't sag under his weight, but the farther out he went, it began to bend.

He looked to the end of the branch about four feet from the edge of the roof. Holding his breath, he reached above him, got hold of another branch, and used it to brace himself as he worked his feet under him and stood up gingerly. He slid his boot soles along the branch an inch or two at a time, one hand gripping the higher branch while his other arm stuck out at his side to balance him. With each step, the branch he was standing on bounced slightly as it bent more and more.

Finally, he had to let go of the higher branch and balance precariously as he moved out the last few inches. He had never felt quite so unsteady in all his life.

Light came over the building from the street, making the back edge of the barn roof fairly easy to see. He fixed his eyes on that goal and took a deep breath. If he dared lean forward, he could almost reach out and touch it, but the branch would bend too much and he would plummet to the ground.

Instead, he leaped.

His pulse hammered wildly in his head and his breath froze in his throat as he seemed to hang in midair for a split second that was infinitely longer. Then his reaching hands slapped the rough wood shingles on the barn roof and caught hold. Ace desperately tightened his grip as his body swung down against the barn, the impact making his fingers slip. He dug in harder with them.

After a moment, he realized he wasn't falling. The muscles in his arms, shoulders, and back bunched as he began pulling himself up. The strain on his fingers was terrific, but he withstood the pain until he was high enough that he could swing a leg up and hook it over the edge of the roof.

Rolling onto the top of the barn a few seconds later, he was safe . . . at least for a while. He lay just below the roof's peak for a minute or two with his muscles trembling.

Funny how he never had realized he was afraid of heights, he thought, but a leap like that was enough to make anybody scared of falling.

Gathering his wits and his breath, he rolled over onto his hands and knees and crawled along the peak until he neared the front of the barn. On his belly, he wriggled the last foot or so, until he could see down into the street.

The guards were still in front of the barn and the office and living quarters next door. They weren't looking up, of course—they didn't expect any threats to come from above—but if he tried to swing down into the opening for the hayloft, which was right below him, they would probably hear him.

He crawled backward to the rear of the barn again, felt around until he found a partially loose shingle, and wrenched it free. The nails squealed a little, but he didn't think the sound was likely to be heard in the street. He took the shingle with him and crawled back to the front of the barn.

Twisting around, he flung the shingle into the darkness. It landed with a clatter behind the stage line office. The guards heard it, called to each other, and hurried around the barn to see what had caused the noise.

Quickly, Ace turned, slid off the roof, hung by his hands again, and kicked his legs to start himself swinging. After a couple times back and forth, he let go and landed just inside the open hayloft door.

He grabbed the edge of the opening to keep from toppling backward out of it and pulled himself forward, landing on his hands and knees again. The darkness inside the barn swallowed him up.

He had made it, confident Eagleton's guards at the stage line property hadn't seen him, but it was possible others along the street had. Ace scrambled quickly toward the ladder leading down from the loft, easily finding it in the dark, since he and Chance had spent a couple nights up there.

A minute later, his boots hit the hard-packed dirt inside the barn, and it felt mighty good.

He cat-footed across the aisle toward Nate's sleeping quarters next to the tack room. Pausing outside the door, Ace called in a whisper, “Nate! Nate, are you in there?”

The door jerked open and he heard a startled voice gasp, “Ace?” Arms wrapped around his neck and a trembling body pressed against him.

As Ace instinctively wrapped his own arms around that slender but shapely form, he knew good and well he wasn't hugging the old, stove-up former jehu turned hostler.