Those Jensen Boys! (5 page)

They split up. Ace rode up the incline, his big, sturdily built chestnut picking its way across the slope. He drew his rifle from its sheath and rode with it resting across the saddle in front of him. His keen eyes searched every hiding place he came to.

Looked like they had gotten skittish for nothing, he decided. Shoshone Gap was deserted. Nobody was waiting to ambush the Corcoran sisters and their stagecoach.

That thought had barely had time to pass through his brain when shots blasted from the other side of the gap.

Chance was approaching a clump of boulders when he heard a rock rattle somewhere close by and then the clink of metal against stone. It was the only warning he had before somebody thrust a rifle barrel over the top of a big slab of rock and opened fire on him.

He was already diving out of the saddle when the slugs sizzled through the space he had occupied a heartbeat earlier.

He hit the ground hard, narrowly avoiding some cactus, and rolled over. The gun he carried in his shoulder holster, a .38 caliber Colt Lightning, was in his hand as he came back up on one knee. He triggered the double-action revolver twice at the rock where the bushwhacker was hiding, then surged up and dashed toward some nearby trees. His shots had made the hidden gunman duck momentarily, giving Chance enough time to reach cover, although a couple bullets kicked up dirt near his feet as he ran.

He darted into the pines, twisted so that he was behind one of them, and pressed his shoulder against the rough-barked trunk, making himself as small a target as possible. Some of that bark leaped in the air as lead thudded into the tree. The ambusher's bullets searched through the pines for Chance but failed to find him.

That hombre probably thought he had him pinned down, Chance mused, but there was a wild card in this game. An Ace, to be precise, and he was taking a hand. Chance heard the sharp crack of his brother's rifle from across the gap.

Bullets smacked into rocks and spanged off as ricochets. The bushwhacker returned Ace's fire. All of it blended together into a racket painful to the ears.

Since Ace was keeping the rifleman busy, Chance risked moving up to the edge of the trees where he could see better. Gun smoke still rose from behind the rock where the bushwhacker was hidden. Chance thought that from his new location, he might be able to bounce a few slugs behind that slab of rock. He sighted carefully and squeezed off three swift rounds, emptying the Lightning.

He drew back into better cover and reloaded the revolver with fresh cartridges from his pocket. He heard hoofbeats and looked up. A man on horseback, bent low in the saddle, was lunging up the slope toward some trees. The bushwhacker was lighting a shuck.

Chance sent a couple bullets after him, but the horse never broke stride and the rider was still slashing at the animal with the reins as they disappeared into the trees. Chance didn't know the terrain and wasn't going to give chase on foot. It looked like the bushwhacking son of a gun was going to get away.

As Chance was replacing the cartridges he had just fired, he heard another horse rattling up the slope.

Ace shouted, “Chance! Where are you?”

Chance stepped out of the trees and called, “Up here!” He saw that Ace had caught the cream-colored gelding and was leading it. “Be careful! That no-good bushwhacker might double back.”

Ace had his Winchester in one hand as he rode on up the slope toward his brother. “We'll make him sorry if he does.”

Chance holstered the Lightning and looked around for his hat, which had flown off when he dived out of the saddle. He spotted it, picked it up, and flicked several pine needles off before he settled it on his head. By that time, Ace had reached him.

Chance took the reins and swung up into the saddle. “I reckon you didn't run into any trouble over on your side of the gap.”

“Peaceful as can be over there, but as usual, you seem to have a way of attracting trouble.”

Chance snorted in disgust. “Getting ambushed wasn't my idea. I promise you that.”

“Was there just one man?”

“Only one that I saw, and I never heard but one gun shooting at me. You think he was one of the men who work for that fella Eagleton?”

Ace shook his head. “No telling, but he sure might have been. He could have been posted here to ambush Bess and Emily if they made it past those other varmints. Or he might have been just a run-of-the-mill owlhoot looking to rob you.”

“Either way, he's gone now. Let's take a look at the place where he was holed up. He might've left something behind.”

They rode over to the slab of rock where the bushwhacker had been hiding and dismounted to look around. Chance found some empty cartridges from the man's rifle and the butt of a slender black cigarillo, but that was all. The ground was too hard to take boot prints.

Ace said, “He had his horse over here behind this other boulder, but the ground's too rocky for there to be any tracks.”

“Same here.” Chance studied the cigarillo for a moment, then tossed it away. If he ran across a man who smoked stogies like that, it might be worth remembering, but it wouldn't really prove anything. “We'd better get back to the girls and let them know what happened. They must've heard all the shooting.”

That proved to be the case as Ace and Chance rode out of the gap. They found the stagecoach stopped in the road near the entrance. Emily held her coach gun ready to fire, and Bess had drawn the old pistol from her holster. The young women visibly relaxed as they saw the Jensen brothers riding toward them.

“Are you two all right?” Bess called.

“We heard a lot of gunfire,” Emily added.

Ace and Chance reined in beside the coach.

Ace said, “Somebody was waiting in the gap, all right. Whether he was there to ambush you or was proddy for some other reason, we don't know. But after we'd traded some lead with him, he took off for the tall and uncut.”

“Did you get a good look at him?” Bess asked.

Ace shook his head. “He was just an hombre on a horse, riding away from us as fast as he could.”

“So you think it's safe to go on through the gap?” Emily wanted to know. “You cleaned out anybody who might want to stop us?”

Ace and Chance exchanged a look.

Chance shrugged. “That fella's gone, and nobody else took a shot at us. We didn't see anybody else, but I don't suppose we can guarantee anything.”

“Well, all life is a risk, I guess. Sometimes you've just got to take a—” Emily glanced at Chance, stopped short, and frowned. “Get that damn grin off your face, Jensen.”

“Yes, ma'am. You're right, though, about life being a risk.”

Emily blew out an exasperated breath and told her sister, “Let's get this rattletrap moving again.”

 

 

Nobody shot at the coach as it rolled through the half-mile-long gap. Ace and Chance had their rifles out, ready to return any fire that came their way, but nothing happened.

“Plumb peaceful,” Emily muttered as they came out the other side and started down a long, fairly gentle slope onto some flats that stretched for miles to the east.

Still high enough, Ace was able to spot the settlement several miles away. A dark line cut across the flats beyond the town and he figured that was the railroad Bess had mentioned.

It took only a half hour for the stagecoach to reach Bleak Creek, named, Ace supposed, for the little stream that meandered past it. It was a decent-sized town with a business district that stretched for several blocks along the main street and quite a few houses on the cross streets. The redbrick railroad station at the far end was the largest building in town.

“The stage line has an office in the depot, so that's where we're headed,” Bess explained to the Jensen brothers. “There's a stable next door where we keep the coach and the horses.”

“You should be safe enough here in town,” Ace said. “Chance and I need to pick up some supplies.”

“So do we,” Bess said. “Why don't we meet you at the general store once we've handled our mail business?”

Ace nodded “Sure. We'll be there for a while. When do you start back to Palisade?”

“First thing in the morning. We always spend the night when we make this run. There are a couple cots in the office at the depot.”

Chance said, “I see a hotel on the other side of the street. I suppose Ace and I can get a room there for the night.”

Emily frowned. “Wait a minute. You're making it sound like you're going back to Palisade with us.”

“We thought we would,” Ace said. “If Eagleton wants to ruin your father's company as much as you say he does, he's liable to have his men try something else.”

“We don't have anyplace where we have to be,” Chance added. “Palisade is as good as any.”

“Drifters usually don't have anywhere they have to be,” Emily said, still wearing a disapproving frown. “But I suppose it's a free country and if you want to ride in that direction, we can't stop you.”

“Better be careful,” Chance told her. “Keep talking like that and folks might think you're warming up to us.”

“Fat chance of that!” Emily said with a disgusted glare.

The coach rolled on toward the railroad station while Ace and Chance turned their horses toward a building with
MERCANTILE
painted in big letters across its front above the entrance. They tied their mounts at a hitch rack and climbed the steps to the high porch.

The store was fairly busy. They had to wait a few minutes for an apron-wearing clerk behind the counter at the rear to ask how he could help them.

Ace gave the man the list of what they needed—staples like coffee, flour, beans, and bacon—while Chance roamed around the store looking at the various displays of merchandise. He leaned over a glass-topped case and studied several nickel-plated, ivory-handled derringers. He was particularly taken with a two-barreled, over/under model. According to what somebody had written on the piece of cardboard beneath it, the weapon was a .38 caliber, so it would take the same ammunition as his Lightning.

Ace came up beside him and asked, “What are you looking at?”

“I want that derringer,” Chance said, pointing at the little gun. “Never can tell when it might come in handy.”

“There's nothing wrong with the gun you've got.”

“Yeah, but didn't you ever want something just because you wanted it? And we can afford it. We've still got a good stake from that poker game.”

“We won't have if we waste it.”

“Buying a gun's not wasteful,” Chance argued. “That little beauty might save our lives someday.”

Ace shook his head. “I'm not going to be able to talk you out of it, am I?”

“Probably not,” Chance replied with a grin.

“Well, I told the clerk we'd pick up those supplies before we ride out in the morning, so I reckon if you're still bound and determined to have it then . . .”

“Oh, I will be.”

“I don't doubt it for a second,” Ace said.

They walked toward the front of the store and stepped out onto the porch to wait for the Corcoran sisters. The stagecoach was still parked in front of the depot, but there was no sign of Bess and Emily, who were probably still inside tending to their business.

Ace and Chance had been standing there for only a few minutes when Ace said quietly, “Badge coming.”

A man in a black frock coat and string tie was crossing the street toward the general store. He had a clean-shaven, hawk-like face and iron-gray hair under his black hat. A holstered pistol with walnut grips rode on his right hip. As Ace had said, a lawman's badge was pinned to his vest.

The star-packer might be going to the store or just headed in their general direction on some other errand, but as he drew nearer it became obvious that his intent, steely-eyed gaze was fixed on the Jensen brothers. They straightened from their casual stances as the man climbed the steps to the porch and approached them.

Without preamble, the lawman said, “You boys are new to Bleak Creek, aren't you?”

“Just rode in a little while ago,” Ace confirmed.

“What are your names, and what's your business here?”

Chance said, “Do you ask those questions of every stranger who rides into your town, Marshal . . . or do you have some reason for picking on us?”

“I'm not picking on you,” the lawman snapped. “And I ask what I want of whoever I want. I expect answers, too.”

“My name's Ace Jensen. This is my brother Chance. As for what brought us here, we're friends of Bess and Emily Corcoran. We came in with them.”

Claiming that they were friends of the Corcoran sisters might be stretching it a bit, since they'd only been acquainted for about an hour.

“You rode in on the stagecoach?” the Bleak Creek marshal asked.

“No, we were on horseback. We just rode with them.”

“Through Shoshone Gap?”

“Well, that's just about the only way to get here from the other side of the mountains, isn't it, Marshal?” Chance drawled. His insolent tone made the lawman get more stiff-necked.

“Those are your horses?” he asked as he jerked his head toward the two mounts tied at the hitch rack.

Ace didn't like the way this conversation was going, but he didn't see any way to get it on another track. Before Chance could frame some sarcastic response, he said, “That's right.”

The lawman nodded in apparent satisfaction. “Then I reckon I've heard enough.” He stepped back, pulled his gun, and leveled it from the hip at the brothers. “You two are under arrest.”