A Jensen Family Christmas

by William W. Johnstone

  * * *

  Ace and Chance saw a small group of men on horseback in the road up ahead. It was easy to pick out Doc among them. He was the only one who looked awkward and uncomfortable in the saddle.

  That didn’t stop him from breaking away from the others and riding quickly toward the brothers.

  “Ace! Chance!” he called.

  They reined in and swung down from their saddles. As Doc brought his mount to a clumsy halt, he all but fell off. Ace and Chance were there to help him, though, and the three of them pounded each other on the back as they hugged roughly.

  “We ran into Smoke back down the road,” said Ace. “He told us you were all right. Is that true?”

  Doc nodded. “I’m fine now that you boys are here,” he declared as he stepped back to look them over from head to foot. “You haven’t changed a bit.”

  “You have, Doc,” Chance said. “You look worn out.”

  Doc sighed and said, “It’s been a rough few months, and the past week or so got even worse.”

  “What are you doing here on the Sugarloaf?” Ace asked.

  “It’s the proverbial long story. A man named Bill Malkin is after me. An outlaw who wants me dead. I . . . I knew you were planning to come here for Christmas, so I thought I might find you.”

  “We saw a fellow riding hell-for-leather away from here,” Chance said. “Was that the outlaw you’re talking about?”

  “That’s right. Did he get away?”

  “Don’t know. Smoke went after him.”

  Preacher spoke up, saying, “We’d best go see if he needs a hand, now that you boys are here to keep an eye on Doc. Pearlie, Cal, you fellas come with me. It’s good to see you boys again, by the way.”

  “You, too, Preacher,” said Ace. “And Pearlie and Cal.”

  The two cowboys nodded. Pearlie said, “Howdy, boys. Keep your smokepoles handy. Can’t never tell when hell’s gonna go to poppin’ around here.”

  The three of them galloped up the road in the same direction Smoke had gone. Ace took Pearlie’s warning seriously and studied the landscape all around them, looking for any sign of a threat. He didn’t see any, but that didn’t make him relax too much.

  Chance frowned and said, “Doc, your hands are shaking more than they used to, aren’t they?”

  “Yes, that’s been part of the problem. Some of the time, my muscles just don’t work like they should.” Doc smiled. “I don’t care about any of that right now, though. I’m just so glad to see you boys.”

  “And we’re glad to see you, too, Doc,” Ace said, “but you’re going to have to tell us about Malkin and why he was after you.”

  “Of course. It can wait, though. Right now, just let me look at you again. And tell me all about what you’ve been up to since the last time I saw you.”

  “Oh, all kinds of hell-raising,” Chance said with a grin.

  Doc said, “I don’t doubt it! You boys come by it honestly.”

  “What does that mean?” Ace asked quickly.

  Doc shook his head and said, “Never mind. Just tell me what you’ve been doing.”

  Doc dodged any further questions as they got caught up over the next fifteen minutes. Then Ace said, “We shouldn’t be standing out here in the cold. Look at the way you’re trembling, Doc.”

  “Not all of that is because of the weather, but I’ll admit there’s a chill in the air.” Doc held out a hand, which shook a little. “And something else, too. Look. It’s starting to snow.”

  He was right. Tiny flakes swirled down here and there. It was about as light a snowfall as one could find, but from the ominous way the clouds looked, this was just a precursor of something more significant.

  The sound of horses made them look around. A good-sized group of riders came toward them, with Smoke in front, leading another horse with a body draped over the saddle. Preacher, Pearlie, and Cal followed close behind.

  Doc’s eyes widened. He said, “Is that . . . ?”

  “It could be,” Chance said. “I didn’t hear any more shots, though.”

  “Malkin was wounded when he rode away from here,” Doc explained. “I didn’t know how badly, but maybe it was bad enough.”

  The three of them didn’t mount up but waited for Smoke and the others to reach them instead. As Smoke reined in, he said, “I found Malkin a ways off the trail. Looked like he tried to get away but fell off his horse and then died while he was sitting with his back against a tree.”

  “Died from being shot?” Doc asked.

  Smoke shook his head. “I don’t think so. You said he had a bad heart, Doc. I think it played out on him.”

  Doc sighed as he looked at the bulky figure tied onto the horse’s back.

  “That seems likely, all right, if he wasn’t wounded bad enough for that to have killed him. He had some sort of attack from it that night at the sanitarium when he tried to murder me. If it hadn’t happened then, I probably never would have gotten away from him.” Doc shook his head and murmured, “Now it appears to have ended his threat once and for all.” He lifted his head and added, “At least he doesn’t have to worry about his secret coming out anymore.”

  “No, but I reckon he’s taking another secret to the grave with him,” Smoke said.

  “The whereabouts of the money from that train robbery.” Doc’s words were a statement, not a question.

  “Yep.” Smoke turned in the saddle. “Pearlie, Cal, how about the two of you take Malkin’s body into town and turn it over to Tom Nunnley? And let Monte know what happened, too, will you?”

  “Sure, Smoke,” Pearlie replied as he took the reins from Smoke to lead Malkin’s horse.

  “Just be careful. We don’t know whether Aguilar’s hardcases might have another ambush in mind.”

  Cal said, “They’ve tried twice and failed both times. Even gun-wolves ought to have enough sense not to try again.”

  “Yeah, but you know how it is in that newfangled baseball game folks are playin’,” said Pearlie. “It takes three strikes to be out.”

  Cal just snorted in disgust and turned his horse toward Big Rock. He and Pearlie rode off to deliver the body to the town’s undertaker.

  Ace said, “Hold on a minute, Smoke. Who’s this fella Aguilar, and why does he have hardcases working for him?”

  “I’ll tell you about it on the way to the ranch.” Smoke smiled. “Sally’s going to be happy to see you two boys. It’s too bad you may just be riding into more trouble.”

  “Well,” said Chance as the snow began to fall harder, “there’s nothing new about that, is there?”

  CHAPTER 37

  The western range of the Sugarloaf

  “It’s snowin’ again,” Teddy announced from his perch on the wagon seat next to Luke.

  “Yeah, I can see that,” Luke replied. “Why don’t you get in the back and crawl under the blankets with your brother and sister?”

  “No, I want to see where we’re goin’.” Teddy reached up with both hands and pulled his hat down tighter on his head. “I’ll be all right. I don’t mind bein’ cold.”

  Luke smiled. The little boy’s voice held a certain amount of bravado, but Luke knew Teddy really was cold. All of them were. Bodie and Hannah were huddled in the wagon bed, under several blankets, where a layer of snow was beginning to collect. The flakes swirled and danced and already were falling thickly enough to make it difficult to see the trail in front of them. Luke’s experience and instincts told him it was going to get worse before it got better.

  It had been snowing, off and on, all during the journey from Amity. Luke had worried that they would run into an actual blizzard. If that happened, they would need to find shelter somewhere, either in a settlement or, if there weren’t any towns close by, a cave or some other refuge in the mountains.

  But fortune had smiled on them, and they had been able to keep moving steadily. Luke had a pretty strong hunch that they were already on Sugarloaf range, and he expected to reach the ranch headquarters sometime today.
It would be mighty nice for these kids to have somewhere warm and comfortable to stay for a while, and to be honest, he wouldn’t mind that himself.

  The snow fell heavier and heavier, whipped around by the gusting wind. There was enough on the ground now that even Luke’s keen eyes had trouble seeing the trail. They weren’t in a good place to stop, though, so he had no choice except to keep the wagon moving.

  “Mr. Jensen!” Teddy suddenly exclaimed. “Look! There’s a dog!”

  The boy pointed a finger excitedly, and as Luke’s gaze followed that indication, he caught his breath. The shaggy shape loping through the trees to their right might look like a dog at first glance, but Luke knew it wasn’t.

  That was a wolf pacing them, and where there was one of the cunning predators, there was likely to be another—or more.

  Luke’s head swiveled to the left. He thought he caught a glimpse of a second ghostly shape through the twisting, writhing clouds of snow. With an urgent note in his voice, he said, “Teddy, you need to get in the back now, under the blankets, and tell Bodie to come up here.”

  “I don’t want to! I want to ride with you, Mr. Jensen. I want to see that dog!”

  Teddy didn’t know it, but that “dog” was just about the last thing he wanted to see right now. And it might well be the last thing the boy saw if the pack that was trailing them was too large. Winter brought on desperation in the creatures. It might have been a while since they’d come across any prey. Luke knew that Smoke and his crew had hunted down many of the wolves that had once roamed this area, and had driven out others, but it was impossible to account for all of them.

  “Damn it, Teddy, just do what I told you!”

  Teddy stared up at him, bottom lip beginning to quiver. He said, “You . . . you used a bad word!”

  Luke wasn’t going to waste time apologizing for his language or for the harsh tone of his voice. He said, “Get back there, Teddy, and tell Bodie I need him.”

  Finally, Teddy scrambled over the back of the seat and dropped into the wagon bed. As Luke turned his head to the right to check on the wolf pacing them on that flank, from the corner of his eye, he saw Teddy clambering among what was left of their dwindling supplies. The boy lifted the snow-covered layer of blankets spread over an open space between several crates and ducked into the little fortlike area.

  The wind was blowing harder now, driving the snowflakes against Luke’s grizzled cheeks and into his eyes and nose. It made a howling sound.... Or was that something else? Luke didn’t know, but his mouth was a grim line under his mustache.

  Bodie threw a leg over the seat back and climbed down beside Luke. He said, “What is it, Mr. Jensen? Teddy said you were mad at him. He’s crying.”

  “No, I’m not mad at anybody,” Luke told him. “I’ll explain it to him later. But right now I need your help, Bodie. You’re going to handle the team.”

  He pressed the reins into the surprised youngster’s hands.

  A few times during the trip from Utah, Luke had allowed Bodie to drive the wagon. Bodie had done a good job of guiding the horses, but the conditions hadn’t been as extreme as this, nor the situation as dangerous.

  “Mr. Jensen, I . . . I don’t know if I can. There’s so much snow . . .”

  “Just keep them moving,” Luke said as he reached down to the floorboards for the rifle at his feet. “If I tell you to, whip them and yell and make them run. The trail’s hard to see, but I know you can do it.”

  “I . . . I’ll try. But what are you gonna be doing?”

  “Keeping us all alive, I hope,” Luke muttered.

  He worked the Winchester’s lever to jack a round into the chamber and lifted the rifle, but he didn’t place the butt against his shoulder yet. Instead, he stood up on the driver’s box and looked around.

  His jaw tightened as he realized he couldn’t see any of the wolves anymore. That could mean that the pack had decided to abandon its stalking. Luke didn’t believe that for a second, though. Those beasts had a hankering for horsemeat, and they wouldn’t turn their noses up at a taste of human flesh, either.

  “Mr. Jensen, the team’s acting up!” Bodie cried.

  Luke glanced at the horses, saw the way they were tossing their heads and jerking against the harness. They smelled the wolves and were panicking. That meant the wolves had to be close....

  A dark shape darted out of the snowy wasteland and leaped toward the right-hand leader. With blinding speed, Luke raised the rifle to his shoulder and fired. He didn’t have time to aim. It was pure reflex and instinct that guided his aim.

  The wolf yelped, twisted in midair, and dropped to the ground to writhe in pain from the bullet that had torn through it. Luke called to the youngster beside him, “Go, Bodie! Whip ’em up!”

  “Hyaaahhh!” Bodie cried as he slashed at the wheelers’ rumps with the lines. The horses lunged forward. The leaders took their cue from the wheelers and pulled harder, too.

  Luke knew that wolves attacked in numbers, rather than alone, so he was already turning back to the left. He spotted the one charging in on that side and fired just as the animal gathered itself to spring. The bullet took it in the chest and knocked it spinning.

  The skin on the back of his neck prickled. He turned on the driver’s box and saw a pair of wolves charging in from behind. The wagon bucked and swayed as it picked up speed on the rough trail, and the floorboards under Luke’s booted feet pitched like the deck of a ship at sea during a storm. He braced himself and fired over the wagon bed and saw one of the wolves go rolling through the snow, leaving red splashes of blood on the white.

  The other wolf sailed through the air and struck the wagon’s tailgate. Clawed rear feet scratched at the closed gate and powered the wolf up and over.

  Hannah and Teddy might not know what was going on, but they had heard the shots, and both screamed in fright. The wolf was about to leap on the pile of blankets when Luke palmed out one of his Remingtons. For close work like this, the revolver was better than the Winchester.

  The gun roared and bucked a couple of times in his hand. The bullets struck the wolf and drove it back against the tailgate. It flopped and shrieked madly, adding to the children’s terror. Luke fired again. This time the slug crashed into the wolf’s brain, stilling it forever.

  Luke twisted from side to side, searching for more threats. He didn’t see anything except the swirling snow. A glance at Bodie showed him the boy’s pale, strained face. Bodie was handling the team with grit and determination, though.

  Luke holstered the Remington and sat down beside Bodie again. He lowered the Winchester to the floorboards and took back the reins.

  “You did a fine job, son,” Luke said. “You helped me save your brother’s and sister’s lives, and probably our own, too.”

  Bodie twisted around on the seat and stared in horror at the wolf’s carcass lying just in front of the tailgate.

  “Were . . . were those wolves?” he asked.

  “They sure were.”

  “Teddy said they were dogs!”

  “Maybe they were related a long, long time ago, but those varmints were nobody’s pets.”

  “They would have killed us!”

  “And eaten us,” Luke said. Bodie gulped, and Luke thought maybe he shouldn’t have been so blunt about it. But on the other hand, it wouldn’t hurt anything for Bodie to learn that the world was a harsh, merciless place at times, even during a holiday season like this one.

  Actually, mused Luke, since Bodie was the son of a no-good outlaw like Hank Trafford, he probably already had a pretty good idea how rotten the world could be.

  “Climb back there and see if you can get Hannah and Teddy to settle down,” Luke went on.

  “Wh-what about that wolf?”

  “He’s dead. He can’t hurt you or anybody else anymore.”

  “But he’s right there.”

  Bodie had a point. Luke handed him the reins again, stepped over the seat, moved around the blanket-covered shelter, and be
nt to grasp a couple of the wolf’s legs. With a grunt of effort, he lifted the carcass and heaved it out. It landed in the snow and soon disappeared behind them.

  Luke returned to the driver’s box and took back the reins. “Go on back in there with your brother and sister,” he told Bodie. “We should be where we’re going pretty soon.”

  “Everything’s gonna be all right now?”

  Luke hated to make that broad of a statement. It was a lie, because in all the history of the world, there had never been a time when everything was all right.

  But he was dealing with youngsters, he reminded himself, and adults always had to walk a fine line between protecting them from the truth and making sure they understood how the world really worked.

  It was probably a good thing he’d never had any kids of his own, he told himself. He didn’t think he would have made a very good parent. Too likely to lay the facts out there, unpleasant though they might be.

  Right now, though, he made himself nod and say, “Yeah, everything’s going to be all right.”

  And considering they would soon be at the Sugarloaf headquarters, maybe this time that far-fetched notion was true.

  * * *

  It took longer to reach the ranch house than Luke expected. As the late afternoon darkened until it was almost like night, he began worrying that he had lost his way somehow. He had visited Smoke and Sally a number of times and had even approached from this direction more than once, but that had been in better weather, in broad daylight, and while riding horseback instead of driving a wagon. The kids were cold and hungry, and Luke was, too. They probably believed he was lost.

  Luke Jensen wasn’t the sort of man to allow despair to take hold of him, though, or one to sit still and feel sorry for himself. He liked to keep moving, so that was what he did.

  Hannah stuck her head out from under the blankets and asked, “Mr. Jensen, when are we gonna get there?”

  “Soon, honey, soon,” he told her.

  “I need to pee!” Teddy announced. Luke didn’t want to stop, but the note of desperation in the boy’s voice made him decide that it was advisable.