Those Jensen Boys! (7 page)

The boulders bouncing and crashing down the slope were headed straight for where the stagecoach was parked. Bess had already turned it to head up the next stretch of trail, so at least it was pointed in the right direction as she slashed and yelled at the team. The horses leaped forward and jolted the coach into motion. Getting out of the way of the rockslide was the only chance.

It was no good, Ace saw almost immediately. The stagecoach wouldn't have time to get clear, but the road was a little wider, wide enough for one man on horseback to get past if he was careful.

Unfortunately, there wasn't time to be careful, either. Ace jabbed his boot heels into the chestnut's flanks and galloped up next to the coach. The sheer drop down to the next lowest section of trail was only inches away from the horse's pounding hooves. Chance followed close behind.

“Bess!” Ace shouted over the growing thunder of the avalanche. “Come on!”

She glanced frantically over her shoulder at him and cried, “I can't abandon the coach!”

“You have to! Jump while you can!”

It was a matter of moments before the falling rocks would sweep over them. Bess saw how desperate the situation was and let out a cry of despair. She dropped the reins and launched herself off the driver's box, landing on the chestnut's back behind Ace and clutching at him.

He reached back with his free hand to grab her as the horse stumbled and Bess started to slip. His fingers closed tightly on her vest and hung on. The chestnut recovered and surged ahead of the valiantly struggling team.

Chance moved up and shouted, “Emily! Come on!”

Her face, shadowed by the broad-brimmed brown hat and framed by curly blond hair, was pale and drawn with fear. Only seconds remained, but Emily didn't budge. Chance leaned over in the saddle, held out his free hand to her, and shouted again, “Emily!”

Finally, she broke the grip of terror that paralyzed her and slid over on the seat. She stood up and launched herself into space as she reached for Chance's hand. He locked his fingers around her wrist and pulled her toward him. She landed in front of him and wrapped her arms around his neck as he embraced her waist and held her tightly. The horse lunged ahead.

A heartbeat later, the first boulder struck the coach and crashed through its roof. The impact made the vehicle lean far out over the brink. The horses screamed in pain as the leading edge of the avalanche swept over them and pushed them off the trail. The coach went, too, vanishing along with the team in the deadly wave of rocks and dust.

Chance and Emily cleared the avalanche's path by a few feet but Chance didn't slow down. The onslaught of falling rocks could still spread out and threaten them. He didn't haul back on the reins until they reached the next turn in the road, where Ace and Bess waited.

All four of them were covered in dust and quite shaken by the close call. As Chance brought his horse to a stop, Emily and Bess slipped down and ran to each other, hugging fiercely.

Bess said, “Are . . . are you all right?”

“Barely.” Emily was breathless as she went on, “I . . . I wouldn't be . . . if it wasn't for . . . Chance.”

“Ace saved me.” Bess turned to look at the brothers. “You saved our lives.”

“I'm sorry we couldn't save the stagecoach and the team,” Ace told her. His face was grim and angry.

“Those poor horses,” Bess said. “Losing the coach hurts, but we have another one. And we have more horses, of course, but—”

“We damn near lost a lot more than that.” Emily had caught her breath. “We were almost killed!”

“That rockslide didn't start by accident.” Ace said.

“How do you know that?” Bess asked. “Did you see something?”

Ace shook his head. “I heard a scraping sound, like somebody was prying a boulder loose somewhere above us. I can't prove that's what happened, but I'm confident I'm right.”

Carefully, Bess leaned over the edge to look down at the wreckage of the coach and the broken bodies of the horses visible at the base of the slope. “The road looks like it was damaged in places, but I think we can still get down there. We need to try to recover the mail we picked up in Bleak Creek.”

“That's right,” Emily said. “Failing to deliver it could cost us the mail contract with the government. Eagleton could still beat us that way, even if his men didn't manage to kill us!”

With Ace and Chance leading their horses, the four of them started back down the trail, picking their way around the debris left behind by the avalanche. Bess was right about the road being damaged—chunks of it had been knocked out—but there was room for them to make their way to the bottom where the rocks had spread out, only partially covering the destruction.

Bess cried over the dead horses. Emily was more stoic, but tears glittered a little in her eyes, too. They concentrated on digging through the wreckage of the stagecoach with help from Ace and Chance until they found the box that contained the mail pouch. The lid was broken but hadn't come off. Ace wrenched it loose, took out the pouch, and handed it to Bess.

“I'll hang on to this,” she said. “We can still take it to Palisade.”

“We won't get there before nightfall, though,” Emily pointed. “The mail will still be late.”

Ace frowned. “Late's not as bad as not getting there at all. Under the circumstances, I don't see how the government could be upset with you for the delay.”

Emily continued. “That depends on how much pressure Eagleton brings to bear. He's rich enough to have some friends in high places.”

“We'll worry about that later,” Bess said. “For now we still have a long climb ahead of us.”

That was true. Still on foot, they started up toward the pass once more.

 

 

When Bess and Emily began to wear out, Ace and Chance insisted that they ride the horses. Both sisters argued but in the end, they went along with it.

“Emily and I could ride double on one of the horses and the two of you could take the other one,” Bess suggested.

“Or Ace and I could ride our own horses and one of you girls could double up with each of us,” Chance responded without hesitation.

Ace said, “The horses don't need to be carrying double going up this slope. Chance and I can walk.” He ignored the glare that his brother directed toward him, took hold of the chestnut's reins, and began leading the horse up the trail while Bess rocked along in the saddle.

They reached the summit and Timberline Pass just as the sun was setting. Enough light remained in the sky for Ace to look across the broad bench that stretched for several miles before the mountains rose again.

Emily pointed. “Palisade is at the base of that sawtooth peak. The entrance to the Golden Dome is about halfway up the mountain above it.”

After letting the horses rest for a while, they mounted up again. Ace and Bess were on the chestnut.

Emily was reluctant to accept riding behind Chance, but he pointed out, “You were happy enough to ride with me after I pulled you off that stagecoach.”

“That was different. That was a matter of life and death.”

Chance just sat there in the saddle smiling as he extended a hand to her.

Emily shook her head, blew out her breath disgustedly, and gripped his hand to swing up behind him. “I'm riding back here. You got a little too free with your hands when I was in front of you.”

“Purely accidental, I assure you.” Chance looked over at Ace and Bess and dropped a wink where Emily couldn't see him. Even under the circumstances, Bess had to laugh.

“What?” Emily demanded.

“Let's just go,” Ace said. “It's going to be well after dark before we get there.”

The sky turned a deeper blue and then faded to black as the stars began to come out. Twinkling lights appeared in the distance to mark the location of the settlement. Those yellow glows came in handy, giving Ace and Chance something to steer by as they guided their mounts through the darkness.

Even before they reached Palisade, they heard raucous music coming from the town. “It sounds like your saloons are pretty lively places,” Chance commented.

“What do you expect in a mining town?” Emily asked. “Men who work underground all day like to blow off a little steam at night.”

“What's the law like?” Ace said.

“There's a town marshal,” Bess said. “Claude Wheeler. But he doesn't really work for the town. He's an employee of the Golden Dome Mining Company, and so are his deputies.”

“So Eagleton's got the law in his pocket, is what you're saying.”

“I'm afraid that's right. It won't do any good to report what happened to us. Marshal Wheeler will say that he'll look into it, and that'll be the end of it.”

“Wheeler's just another of Eagleton's gun-wolves,” Emily said bitterly. “He keeps the peace in the saloons, but that's all he's really good for. That and intimidating anybody Eagleton sics him on.”

“He's not going to intimidate Ace and me,” Chance boasted.

“We'll see.” Emily's tone made it clear she didn't think much of the Jensen boys' chances if they crossed Palisade's star-packer.

“There's no telegraph line between here and Bleak Creek, is there?” Ace asked.

Bess said, “No, although there's been talk about stringing one eventually. It wouldn't be easy bringing a telegraph line up the mountain, though.”

“Having to go up and down that trail to the pass makes everything more difficult, doesn't it?”

“Yes, it does.”

They'd reached the outskirts of town. The music from the saloons was pretty loud, the different songs blending together to form a discordant melody. Light from half a dozen different drinking and gambling establishments spilled brightly into the main street of Palisade, which Emily explained was named Eagleton Avenue.

“As if you'd expect it to be called anything else,” she added. “The man's got such a high opinion of himself you'd think the air would be too thin to breathe up where he is.”

Most of the businesses up and down the street were still open, even though the hour was late.

“They don't roll up the boardwalks at dark around here, do they?” Chance said as they rode past several stores that were still brightly lit up.

“Like I said, the men work all day,” Emily replied. “Actually, some of them work all night, too. The mine never stops operating. The crews have three different shifts.”

“You said Eagleton owns just about everything in town,” Ace said, “but the saloons all have different names and so do the other businesses.”

“Since when do names matter?” Emily wanted to know. “Anyway, the deeds may be in someone else's name, but it's Eagleton's money behind them. For all practical purposes that makes them his, doesn't it?”

She was right about that, Ace thought. Samuel Eagleton might not be sitting on a throne, but from everything Ace had heard, the mine owner was the uncrowned king of Palisade and the surrounding area.

“There's the stage line office,” Bess said, indicating a neat frame building on the left side of the street with a large barn and corral beside it.

Ace and Chance turned the horses toward it. As they came up to the hitch rack in front of the building, Ace looked through the large window. A burly, barrel-chested man paced back and forth in the brightly lit room as if in a worried frenzy.

He caught sight of them and stopped short in his pacing. He rushed to the door, flung it open, and charged out onto the porch. “Bess! Emily!” he cried. “Thank God! Are you all right?”

The sisters slid down from the horses and quickly stepped up onto the porch, where the man threw an arm around each of them and hugged them at the same time.

“We're fine, Pa,” Bess assured him.

“But the coach isn't, and neither is the team,” Emily said. “They're wrecked at the bottom of the mountain.”

“Good Lord!” Corcoran exclaimed. “What happened?”

“An avalanche almost got us when we were climbing up to Timberline Pass.” Emily paused. “An avalanche started by Eagleton's men.”

“We don't know that for sure,” Bess said. “It seems pretty likely, though.”

Corcoran stepped back and regarded his daughters solemnly, with a hand on the shoulder of each of them. His face, which sported a close-cropped salt-and-pepper beard, was flushed with anger. “Tell me what happened.”

Bess did most of the talking and Emily added curt comments, until Bess finally turned to the Jensens. “If it wasn't for the help these men gave us, we wouldn't be here. Pa, this is Ace and Chance Jensen.”

Corcoran barely glanced at them and didn't acknowledge the introductions. “Eagleton is behind this, damn him.”

“That's the way it looks to us, too,” Emily agreed.

Corcoran jerked his head in a nod, then surprised them by turning and stepping back into the office. He was only there for a second, though. When he came out again, he held a coach gun like the one Emily had carried. “I'll teach him to come after my daughters.” He started along the street with a determined stride. “I'll blow his damn head off!”

“Pa!” Bess called after him. “Pa, no!”

“Damn it,” Emily muttered. “We've got to stop him. He's the one who'll get his head blown off if he tries to get past Eagleton's hired guns.”

The two young women hurried after their father. Ace and Chance looked at each other, and Chance said, “We'd better give them a hand.”

“I think you're right,” Ace agreed. “Mr. Corcoran didn't look like he was in any mood to listen to reason.”

The brothers went after Bess and Emily, their longer strides allowing them to catch up fairly quickly. Ahead of them, Corcoran had angled across the street and reached the steps leading up to the front gallery of what appeared to be the best hotel in town, Palisade House.

Ace figured that Samuel Eagleton owned it and might even live there.

Corcoran bounded up the steps and threw the double doors open. Bess and Emily were right behind him as he went in, and Ace and Chance were a step behind them. Bess grabbed hold of her father's left arm, and Emily took his right. They stopped him a few feet inside the door.

The sight of him carrying the shotgun was enough to set off a commotion in the hotel lobby. Ace and Chance stepped into the room in time to see several well-dressed men—probably guests—moving quickly through an arched entrance into a dining room. A couple others were headed up the stairs, obviously wanting to get out of the line of fire in case any gunplay broke out.

That looked like a distinct possibility. Three men had gotten up from chairs across the room and stood tensely, their hands hovering over the butts of holstered pistols. Cigars smoldered in an ashtray on a table between two of the chairs.

One of the men was something of a dude and wore the same sort of suit, vest, boiled shirt, and cravat that a whiskey drummer might wear, along with a bowler hat. The reddish tinge to his sun-bronzed, pockmarked features testified that he had some Indian blood. The well-worn grips of the Colt jutting up on his hip showed that the gun had seen plenty of use.

The two men flanking him wore range clothes but looked equally tough and hard-bitten. The threat of danger seemed to ooze from all three men.

“What do you want, Corcoran?” asked the man in the bowler hat. “You know you can't come in here and start waving a scattergun around.”

“Where's Eagleton?” Corcoran demanded. He tried to shake off his daughters, but they clung to him stubbornly so he couldn't use the shotgun. “He tried to kill my girls!”

Bowler Hat's thin lips curved in a cold, humorless smile. “The boss didn't try to kill anybody, old man. You're plumb loco. He's been right here in town all day. Plenty of folks have seen him.”

“What in blazes does that mean?” Corcoran asked. Immediately, he answered his own question. “I'll tell you what it means. Nothing! He gives the orders and sits back like . . . like a fat old spider in his web, just licking his chops and waiting to see what's going to happen!”

“Spiders don't lick their chops,” Bowler Hat said, still with that ugly smile on his face. “Maybe you better study up before you start making accusations again.”

Ace and Chance had been behind the three Corcorans where they couldn't be seen very well. They moved out into the open, Ace to the right and Chance to the left.

The sight of them caused the smile to disappear from Bowler Hat's face. His spine stiffened, and so did those of the other two gunmen. Clearly, they regarded the Jensen brothers as more of a threat than Bess, Emily, and their father.

“Who are your friends, Corcoran?” Bowler Hat asked harshly as he hooked his thumbs in the gun belt slanted across his hips.

“Never mind them, Buckhorn,” Corcoran snapped. “Where's Eagleton? I want him to look me straight in the eye and tell me he didn't have anything to do with my girls almost dying not once but twice!”

“The boss is up in his suite. He's already turned in for the night, and I'm not going to disturb him to make him listen to the rantings of a crazy man. Go on back to your little stagecoach office. You may have lost a coach, but your girls are fine. They're standing right there.”

Ace frowned and cocked his head a little to the side. “How did you know the stage line lost a coach, mister? We just rode into town and haven't told anybody except Mr. Corcoran what happened.”

Buckhorn's face darkened. He snapped, “Are you accusin' me of something, kid?”

“We're curious, that's all.” Chance's pose was casual, but his hand was close to his lapel where it could dart under his coat and, in the blink of an eye, pull the Lightning from the shoulder holster. “How do you know something you shouldn't know?”

Buckhorn's face twisted in a sneer. “I was on the boardwalk a few minutes ago and saw the four of you ride in on a couple horses. I knew Bess and Emily left town yesterday on the stagecoach, and they were comin' back riding double with a pair of strangers. How smart do I have to be to figure out something happened to the damn coach?”

That was a quick-witted answer, Ace thought. Buckhorn might not look very smart, but obviously there was a brain behind that brutal exterior. Ace didn't believe for a second, though, that Buckhorn's reply was sincere. The gunman knew about the wrecked coach because he worked for Samuel Eagleton and Eagleton's men had been behind the attacks on the Corcoran sisters.

Buckhorn went on. “Now do like I told you. Turn around and go home, Corcoran. We don't want any trouble with you, but by God, that's what you'll get if you don't back off.”

A footstep sounded in the doorway, and a new voice said, “I'm telling you the same thing, Brian. You won't accomplish anything by storming in here except to get somebody hurt, probably you or one of your girls.”

Ace glanced behind him and saw a thick-bodied, hatless man with wispy fair hair. The tin badge he wore pinned to his vest was much like the one Marshal Kaiser had sported back in Bleak Creek.

Corcoran said hotly, “If you'd do your job, Wheeler, citizens wouldn't have to take up arms—”

Corcoran breathed heavily for a few seconds, then said brokenly, “Damn it, I lost a coach and a team. Even worse, I . . . I almost lost Bess and Emily. I . . . I can't go on like this.”

Marshal Wheeler looked at the two young women and said gently, “Why don't you take him on home, girls?”

“We will,” Bess said as she and Emily finally succeeded in turning their father away from the confrontation with Eagleton's gunmen and toward the hotel's front door.

“But he's right, Marshal,” Emily snapped. “Most lawmen would want to get to the bottom of somebody trying to kill us twice in the past two days.”

Wheeler's fleshy features hardened. “You come to my office tomorrow, Miss Corcoran, and make an official report. I'll listen to whatever you have to say.”

Emily's disdainful sniff made it clear just how much she thought that offer was worth.

Wheeler stepped aside to let the Corcorans leave. When Ace and Chance tried to follow, he put out a hand and moved to block their path. “I don't recall seeing you fellas in town before. Who might you be?”

“Law-abiding citizens, Marshal,” Chance said. “You've got no call to stop us from going with our friends.”

Buckhorn and the other two gunnies came across the lobby and moved up closer behind Ace and Chance.

Buckhorn said, “You didn't answer the marshal's question, mister. You got something to hide?”

“We don't have anything to hide,” Ace said, which wasn't exactly true. He wasn't going to volunteer any information about the ambush in Shoshone Gap the day before or the run-in with Marshal Kaiser in Bleak Creek. “Our name's Jensen. I'm Ace, and this is my brother Chance. We ran into the Corcoran sisters out on the trail yesterday and since they were having trouble, we decided they needed somebody to give them a hand, that's all.”

“And it's a good thing we did,” Chance added, “because somebody's got it in for those girls. Yesterday some no-good polecats tried to spook the stagecoach team into stampeding right off the side of the mountain, and today they used an avalanche to wreck the coach and nearly kill Bess and Emily, not to mention my brother and me.”

“This is the first I've heard about it,” Wheeler insisted. “I can't do anything about a problem if nobody reports it.”

“Consider it reported.” Ace was uncomfortably aware of Buckhorn and the other two men crowding them from behind. It was possible the gunmen were trying to goad him and Chance into a fight. That would be a good excuse for killing them and depriving the Corcorans of a couple potential allies. He hoped Chance would keep a cool head.

For once that seemed to be Chance's intention. “We're not looking for trouble, Marshal.” A cocky grin appeared on his face. “Shoot, we just ran into a couple really good-looking fillies and wanted to help 'em out. Get on their good side, you know what I mean?”

Buckhorn chuckled. “I sure do. The Corcoran sisters are mighty easy on the eyes, even if they
are
a mite proddy, especially that Emily.”

Wheeler grunted. “Yeah, I suppose so. But listen, you two are strangers here, and you might not know what you're getting into. That whole family tends to be troublemakers, always upset about something and trying to stir up a ruckus. So, pretty or not, you might want to give some thought to steering clear of those girls.”

“We'll think about it, Marshal,” Chance promised. “Anyway, I suppose there are plenty of other good-looking gals here in Palisade.”

Wheeler finally seemed to relax. He smiled slightly. “You're right about that, my young friend. Go on over to the Three Deuces Saloon and you'll find some of the prettiest women in the whole territory.”

Chance slapped his brother on the shoulder. “We'll take you up on that suggestion, Marshal. Won't we, Ace?”

“Sounds good to me,” Ace agreed, playing along with what Chance was doing. “I could use a drink, too.”

Buckhorn said, “Tell the head bartender over there, fella named Carlsby, that the first drink's on me. I'd like to sort of pay you back for our little misunderstanding earlier.”

“Yeah, we were about to get off on the wrong foot, weren't we? We're much obliged to you, Mr. Buckhorn.”

The gunman waved that off. “Forget about it. Glad to do it.”

Wheeler got out of their way as Ace and Chance moved to leave the hotel. The marshal nodded to them. “You fellas have a good night.”

“Thanks, Marshal,” Ace said.

He and Chance stepped down from the hotel porch. The Three Deuces was easy to spot on the other side of the street in the next block. It appeared to take up almost the entire block, and its batwinged entrance was on the corner.

As the brothers angled toward it, Ace said quietly, “You think they bought that whole act?”

“Well, they pretended to, anyway,” Chance said. “That gave Wheeler and Buckhorn the opportunity to let us go without it looking like they were backing down. That would be important to a couple hardcases like them.”

“It looks like the odds are really stacked against Bess and Emily and their pa.”

“Yeah, but things are different now that you and I are here.”

“You really think we can take on Eagleton's whole gun-crew, plus his tame lawman?”

“Why not?” Chance said. “We're Jensens, aren't we?”

“Yeah, but right now, I wouldn't mind if old Smoke was here, too, relative or no relative!”