While Patterson was doing that, another man came into the stable. Preacher thought he looked vaguely familiar, but couldn’t place him or recall his name, if indeed he even knew it. The man asked about renting a saddle mount, and Patterson told him he’d tend to that just as soon as he finished getting the buggy ready for Preacher and Adelaide.
Preacher drove the buggy out of the stable a few minutes later, handling the pair of matched grays pulling it with an expert touch on the reins. He had always preferred a saddle and going horseback, but he had driven buggies before, and once he learned how to do something, he never lost the knack of it. At least, he hadn’t so far.
The bags were loaded in the area behind the seat. There had been a thick flannel lap robe back there, but now it was spread over Adelaide’s legs. She tried to get Preacher to wrap up in it, too, but he shook his head and said, “Naw, I’m fine. The air’s a mite chilly—”
“Chilly?” Adelaide repeated. “It’s not far above freezing! Do you see the snow melting?”
That was true—the shallow layer of snow on the ground didn’t seem to be going anywhere. It would be a lot deeper than that before the winter was over, though.
“I’m used to it. Spent a lot of winters in the high country, where it gets a lot colder than this. Why, I recollect one time me and ol’ Polecat was camped up there, and he built a fire and brewed a pot of coffee. He picked up the pot and started to come around the fire so’s he could pour some in my cup, but then he tripped on somethin’ and like to fell down, and when he flung his arm up in the air, the lid come off that pot and all that boilin’ coffee flew out. I thought it was gonna go all over me, and I sorta flinched, but then I heard this thud, and when I looked, there was this hunk of somethin’ black layin’ in front of me. It was that coffee! It had done froze solid before it could ever hit me or the ground!” Preacher shook his head. “Now that’s cold.”
Adelaide laughed and said, “I knew exactly how that story was going to end, Preacher, and I don’t believe a word of it.”
“Well, I can understand how you wouldn’t, since you wasn’t there to see it with your own eyes. But it happened, sure enough.”
“I’ll take your word for it. And if you’re determined not to wrap up in this robe with me, I’ll just have to scoot a little closer to you. You may not need the body warmth, but I do.”
“You go right ahead and do that,” Preacher told her. He wasn’t going to complain at all.
* * *
It had been a long time since Doc had ridden very far on horseback. Within a mile of leaving Big Rock, he was beginning to regret his decision to do so today. There was nothing else he could do, though, so he clung to the saddle horn, clamped his aching legs tighter on the horse’s body, and kept the animal moving.
This was why he had always traveled by train or stagecoach. He wasn’t cut out for this.
The older couple who had left the livery stable in front of him in the buggy were headed in the same direction he was. He spotted them from time to time up ahead of him as the vehicle topped a rise. They didn’t seem to be getting in a big hurry, but he wasn’t catching up to them.
He wondered idly where they were going. There had been something very companionable about them. Maybe they were an old married couple and had a ranch out here. Maybe they were headed home.
Doc wondered what that would be like. He’d never had anything like that since he was a boy, and even then, his life had been far from blissful with a drunken father and a slatternly mother and older brothers whose chief pleasure had been beating the hell out of him.
As an adult, he had known many women, but he hadn’t been involved with any of them for any length of time. The months he had spent with Lettie Margrabe had been the only real relationship he’d had that might have turned into something more. The two of them might have wound up together for the long haul, if she had lived. At least, he liked to think so.
But she hadn’t survived giving birth to the twin boys. Before passing on, she had made him promise not to hold that against Ace and Chance, and he had honored that pledge, devoting himself to raising the brothers as best he could, which, Lord knew, wasn’t any too well!
Having a drifting gambler for a surrogate father wasn’t a good thing, but thankfully, due to the fine natures they had inherited from Lettie and from their real father, they had turned out all right. Better than all right, mused Doc. He had never known any better young men than Ace and Chance.
He wasn’t a praying man, but if he were, he would have sent up a plea to heaven that they were there at the Sugarloaf, and that soon he would be with them again.
What instinct warned him just then, he never knew, but he stiffened suddenly in the saddle and turned to look back over his shoulder. He could see the road rising and falling over the rolling hills, and there, about half a mile behind him, visible in the wan late afternoon sunlight, was a lone rider coming hard in this direction.
Doc’s heart gave a painful leap in his chest. That horseman was too far away for him to make out any details about the man, but he didn’t need to be able to see him to know who he was.
Fate had caught up to him, thought Doc. Fate in the deadly person of Bill Malkin. Doc was sure of it.
With his pulse hammering in his head, he jabbed the heels of his shoes into the horse’s flanks and urged the animal ahead. The horse broke into a run. Panting, Doc leaned forward and hung on for dear life as shudder after shudder quivered through him.
CHAPTER 29
Preacher sat up straighter in the buggy seat as his still-keen hearing detected the swift rataplan of hoofbeats coming up fast on the road behind them.
Feeling him grow tense beside her, Adelaide asked, “What is it, Preacher?”
“I don’t know,” he said. He hauled back on the reins and brought the team and buggy to a halt. “Listen.”
Adelaide’s eyes widened in recognition of the sound. She said, “My, someone is really in a hurry, aren’t they?”
“Yeah,” Preacher said, “and out here on the frontier, anybody who’s in that much of an all-fired hurry is usually carryin’ trouble with ’em.” He listened intently to the rapid hoofbeats as they came closer. “Just one rider, I think. Reckon it could be that no-good grandson of yours?”
“I . . . I don’t know.” Adelaide sounded frightened now. “I don’t think that George would be likely to ride at such a breakneck pace, but I really can’t be sure anymore what he’s capable of.”
“Well, if it is him, he shouldn’t have come after us by himself.”
“Preacher, you can’t fight him. It’s too dangerous.”
“For me or for him?”
“I’m worried about you, of course. George is in the prime of life. You might get hurt.”
The old mountain man snorted and took up the reins. He flapped them and got the horses moving again.
“We’ll just see about that,” he said as he drove toward a large rock that sat to the left of the road ahead of them. When he circled the buggy behind the rock, he knew the pursuer galloping after them wouldn’t be able to see the vehicle until he came even with it.
He stopped the buggy again and told Adelaide, “You stay right here. Don’t budge out of this seat, and be ready to hunker down if you need to.”
She clutched at his arm and said, “Preacher, what are you going to do?”
“I’m fixin’ to see who’s followin’ us like a bat outta hell.”
He pulled loose from her grip, stepped down from the buggy, and pushed his coat back so he could reach underneath it and pull out the Colt he had stuffed under his belt. He had been carrying the gun, being careful not to let Adelaide know about it, ever since they had set out from Denver, just in case the scoundrel George DuBois caught up with them. Preacher’s caution might be about to pay off, as it always did, sooner or later.
“Preacher, wait!” Adelaide exclaimed at the sight of the gun. “If . . . if that is George following us, you can’t kill him. No matter what he’s do
ne, he’s still my grandson . . . and Pierre’s.”
Preacher scowled as his hand tightened on the Colt’s grips. She was tying his hands with that plea, and he didn’t like it. As far as he was concerned, George DuBois had forfeited any rights as family when he tried to have Adelaide killed. But if that was what she wanted, he would try to abide by it.
As long as she didn’t expect him to stand by and do nothing while George hurt her. He wasn’t capable of that.
He nodded his agreement and motioned for Adelaide to bend down lower on the buggy seat. The way the vehicle was parked, its frame and the back of the seat would provide some protection if any bullets came her way.
He stood there with his thumb looped around the. 45’s hammer as he held the gun beside his right ear, with the barrel pointed skyward. The hoofbeats thundered closer and closer. Preacher waited until he judged the rider had almost reached the rock; then he stepped out into the open and leveled the revolver.
“Hold it right there, mister!” he called in a loud, commanding voice.
The rider was no more than twenty feet away from where Preacher stood. He jerked back hard on the reins, and the horse didn’t take kindly to it. The animal skidded to a halt, reared up, and pawed at the air. Unprepared for such a thing, the rider yelped in alarm and slid backward in the saddle. He grabbed for the saddle horn, but his fingers slid off it.
“Kick you feet outta the stirrups!” Preacher yelled at him. If the man fell with one or both feet hung up and the horse bolted, he would be dragged to death. Preacher still didn’t know if this hombre was George DuBois, and Adelaide had begged that her grandson’s life be spared.
The rider was saved from falling off when the horse dropped its forelegs back to the ground, but only for a second. Then the horse reared again, and this time the man went out of the saddle. He had gotten his feet loose from the stirrups in time, though. He fell and landed with a thud and a grunt on the hard-packed dirt of the road. The spooked horse danced skittishly around him, putting him in danger of being stepped on.
Preacher saw the man’s gray hair and weathered, lined face and knew he couldn’t possibly be Adelaide’s grandson. He was too old for that. Still holding the gun, Preacher dashed forward and used his left hand to grab hold of the dangling reins. He hauled down on them and brought the horse under control while still keeping the fallen man covered. Just because he wasn’t George didn’t mean he wasn’t a threat.
The man sat up, grimacing. His face was gaunt, haunted. He looked sick.
Preacher aimed the gun in his general direction and said, “Just stay right where you are, old son, until we get this sorted out.”
“I . . . I don’t think I could do anything else right now.” He panted as he struggled to catch the breath the fall had knocked out of him.
“Who are you, and why were you chasin’ us?”
“Ch-chasing you?” The man shook his head stiffly, as if it hurt his neck to do so. “I wasn’t chasing you. I was trying to get away from the man who’s chasing me.”
Preacher had considered the possibility that the rider didn’t have anything to do with him or Adelaide. He knew if that turned out to be the case, he was going to feel plumb foolish. But he wasn’t convinced of that yet.
“Is this fella who’s after you some sort of holdup man?”
“A holdup man? You could certainly say that. But he doesn’t intend to rob me. I don’t have anything he wants—except my life.”
“You mean he figures on killin’ you?” asked Preacher.
“That’s right.” The man looked back up the trail toward Big Rock, then turned his attention to Preacher again. “You and your wife had better get out of here, my friend. If he finds you with me, he’ll kill you, too, to cover his tracks.”
Preacher snorted in contempt and said, “He might try. But he’d find it a heap bigger chore than he’d expect. And the lady ain’t my wife. She’s a friend who’s goin’ with me to visit another friend who has a ranch near here.”
A startled expression appeared on the man’s face. He said, “A ranch? You don’t mean Smoke Jensen’s ranch, do you? The Sugarloaf?”
The man didn’t look any more surprised than Preacher felt just now. The old mountain man said, “That’s right. Do you know Smoke?”
“I’ve never met him, but we have some mutual friends. And it just so happens that’s where I was headed. I . . . I hoped he would help me.”
“You never told me your name.”
The man glanced nervously back up the road again, then said, “It’s Ennis Monday. But my friends call me—”
“Doc,” Preacher finished for him.
Doc Monday stared at him for several seconds, then said, “Good Lord. You’re him, aren’t you? You’re Preacher.”
“Guilty as charged, I reckon.”
“Ace and Chance have told me about meeting you. And, of course, I’ve heard of you. You’re a legend everywhere west of the Mississippi.”
“Those two youngsters have mentioned you, too. You’re the fella who raised ’em after their ma died. But I thought you was in some hospital, in bad health.”
Doc raised a trembling hand to show Preacher and said, “It was a sanitarium. And my health isn’t good. But it’s going to be a lot worse if Bill Malkin catches up to me.”
“He’s the varmint who’s after you?”
“That’s right. And he can’t be very far behind now.”
Preacher’s brain worked quickly as he reached a decision. He stuck the Colt back in the waistband of his trousers and extended his right hand to Doc Monday. The man hesitated, but only for a second. His tremor lessened as he tightly clasped Preacher’s hand, and Preacher helped him to his feet.
“Climb in the back of the buggy there. It’ll be kinda crowded there behind the seat, but I don’t reckon you’ll mind bein’ a little uncomfortable.”
Doc nodded and said, “Under the circumstances, I won’t mind a bit.”
Preacher kept a hand on Doc’s arm, but the man made it to the buggy largely under his own power. Adelaide looked at him curiously.
“When I didn’t hear any shooting, I knew it must not have been George following us,” she said. “Who is this, Preacher?”
“His name’s Doc Monday. We ain’t been acquainted until now, but him and me both know a couple of fine young fellas who should be on their way to Smoke’s ranch, too.”
“I’m pleased to meet you, Dr. Monday,” Adelaide said, still looking confused but polite, anyway.
“I’m not a doctor. That’s just a nickname. But the pleasure is mine, madam,” Doc said as he clambered awkwardly into the cramped space behind the seat.
“We got to get movin’,” Preacher said briskly. “No time to explain any more. Did you rent that hoss from Dicky Patterson in Big Rock?”
“That’s right,” said Doc.
“It’ll go on back to the stable, then.” Preacher swung onto the seat and gathered up the reins. “Hang on, both of you.”
He slapped the reins against the horses’ backs and called out to them. The team lunged ahead and broke into a run. The buggy bounced a little, but the road was in pretty good shape, so the passengers weren’t jolted around too much.
Adelaide held her hat on with her left hand, although, pinned in place as it was, there wasn’t much danger of it flying off. She clung to the edge of the seat with her other hand and exclaimed, “My goodness!”
“Any sign of the fella who’s chasin’ you, Doc?” asked Preacher.
Doc leaned to the side to peer around the black canvas cover over the rear of the buggy. He said, “No, I don’t . . . Wait! I do see him now. He’s about three hundred yards back.”
The horses were running flat out now. They couldn’t maintain that pace for very long, Preacher knew. A lone man on horseback could move faster. Malkin would catch up to them sooner or later, if the chase lasted long enough.
But the trail that led to the Sugarloaf’s headquarters was less than a mile away. Preacher was sure
of that because of the landmarks they had passed. He never forgot things like that.
Not only were they fairly close to their destination, but there was always a chance, too, they would run across some of the cowboys who rode for the Jensen brand. If that happened, most of the members of Smoke’s crew would recognize Preacher and come to his aid. Any owlhoot with murder on his mind was liable to regret it if he tackled that salty bunch.
“He’s getting closer!” Doc called over the hoofbeats from the team.
“You know how to use a gun?” Preacher asked over his shoulder.
“Some. I’m no gunfighter!”
Preacher held on to the reins with one hand and used the other to pull the gun from his waistband. He turned on the seat enough to pass the Colt back to Doc.
“You don’t have to be a gunfighter to slow a varmint down! If he gets close enough to be in handgun range, take a few potshots at him! That’ll worry him.”
“Maybe I’ll get lucky and put a hole in him,” Doc said.
“I ain’t never opposed to good luck,” Preacher said as he continued urging the team on. He could tell that the horses were already getting tired. Another few minutes and they would slow down, whether he wanted them to or not.
The inevitable occurred. The horses began to falter. The pursuit closed in from behind. Doc leaned out again, steadied the Colt with both hands, and fired twice. The loud booms made Adelaide gasp and cry out involuntarily.
“Get him?” Preacher called.
“No! He’s still coming!”
Doc took aim and triggered another pair of shots as Preacher spotted the Sugarloaf trail up ahead. The horses were already slowing, so he didn’t have to pull back much on the reins. But the turn was going to be a sharp one, so he shouted again, “Hang on!”
The buggy careened to the left as Preacher tugged on the reins and turned the horses to the north. For a second, he thought the vehicle might overturn, but then it righted itself, the wheels coming down with a thump on the trail.
A Jensen Family Christmas Page 20