Bennett brushed sawdust off his clothes, then bent and picked up the derby that had come off his head. “You ain’t heard the last of this.”
“I sincerely hope I have.”
Chance had drawn his gun, and Ace still held his. The brothers backed off to cover Bennett’s battered henchmen as they climbed to their feet, shaking their heads and grimacing from bruises that were starting to form.
Bennett jerked his head toward the door, and with plenty of murderous glares directed at Ace and Chance, the men headed in that direction. Bennett followed them, muttering curses under his breath.
When the troublemakers were all gone, Drake looked over at the Royal Flush’s proprietor. “I’m sorry for the commotion. I’ll cover any damages—”
“No, you won’t,” the balding man said. “I owe you a lot more than got busted up in this fracas. Anyway, I figure I’ll send a bill to Joshua McIsaac. It was his men who started the trouble.”
“That’s true,” Drake said with a slight smile. He slipped his gun into a holster under his coat and turned to Ace and Chance, who pouched their irons as well. “It appears the game has broken up for the night. Gather your winnings, Chance. We’ll leave the rest of the pot here for those gentlemen to come back and collect later.”
“You could take the whole thing,” Chance pointed out. “They ran out and left you to face those bruisers.”
Drake gave a little shrug. “It wasn’t their fight. Nor was it yours and your brother’s, but I appreciate the help anyway.” He tucked away some of the money that had been scattered on the floor. “Let’s have another drink, then head back to the hotel.”
The bartender set shot glasses on the bar and splashed whiskey into them. “I figure you’re going to want something stronger than beer after that little dustup.”
Steve Drake nodded gratefully. “Thank you, Ben.”
Ace and Chance weren’t big drinkers, but they agreed the whiskey would have a bracing effect.
As they sipped the drinks, Chance asked, “What was that all about?”
“Probably none of our business,” Ace cautioned his brother.
“Perhaps not,” Steve Drake agreed, “but the way you boys stepped in to give me a hand, I think you’ve earned the right to know why you were fighting.”
“I know why,” said Ace. “Because you’re our friend.”
“Well, I appreciate that,” Drake said, smiling faintly. “But you probably heard enough of Bennett’s bluster to make a pretty good guess as to the rest of it, anyway.”
“That fella McIsaac thinks you proposed to his daughter and then backed out on it and broke her heart.”
“That’s right. That’s what Joshua McIsaac thinks. But it’s not what really happened. All I ever did was smile at the girl, make some pleasant small talk, and dance one dance with her at a party. Evidently she took that to mean a lot more than it actually did.”
“Is this girl an old maid?” asked Chance. “So homely she’s gonna have a hard time finding a husband?”
“On the contrary. Lydia McIsaac is quite beautiful. And her father has a great deal of money, to boot. She shouldn’t have any trouble at all making a good match with a suitable young man.”
Chance laughed. “Maybe you should introduce me to her.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t do that to you, my young friend. You see, while her father thinks of her as an angel, in reality Lydia is, well, a bit of the opposite. She tends to make life a living hell for any man who decides to court her. It didn’t take long for some of her disgruntled suitors to spread the word.”
Ace frowned. “I’m a mite confused about something. You said you danced with this girl at a party . . . ?”
“And you’re wondering how a disreputable fellow like me ever got invited to a soiree at the home of the richest man in town?” Drake threw his head back and laughed.
Ace looked a little embarrassed.
The gambler went on. “Don’t worry, Ace. I’m not offended. It’s true that I’m a drifting gambler, but back in Virginia, my family is quite the upper crust of society. I’m the proverbial black sheep. McIsaac knows that and probably hopes that the love of a good woman will reform me. Unfortunately, his daughter doesn’t fit that description.”
“But he believes you broke your word to her and now he’s going to force you to marry her.”
Steve Drake nodded slowly. “That’s just about the size of it, all right.”
“Shoot,” said Chance, “why don’t you just get out of town? You said yourself that you’re a drifter like us.”
“I hate to let anybody make me run, but it may come to that. In fact, there’s a riverboat heading up the Missouri in a couple days. I was thinking about taking it.”
“A riverboat, eh?” Chance looked at his brother. “We haven’t been on a riverboat since Doc took us on one when we were kids. Remember?”
“I do,” Ace replied with a nod. “He was just there to gamble, but it was sort of fun.”
“Why don’t we go along? We wanted to head back west when we left here anyway, and that would be one way to get back out to the frontier without having to ride horseback all the way.”
“Well, we haven’t been invited,” Ace pointed out.
Steve Drake waved a hand. “No invitation necessary, lads. Anybody can buy a ticket on the Missouri Belle. But for what it’s worth, I think it’s a fine idea. I plan to get off the boat in Omaha—have an old friend there I’m hankering to visit—but it goes all the way to Fort Benton in Montana. Quite a trip, if you’d like to make it.”
“Can we take our horses?” asked Ace.
“You’ll have to pay for space on the cargo deck for them, as well as their feed and care, but there are usually some animals on those boats. With Chance’s winnings tonight, you should be able to afford it.”
“And if the boat doesn’t leave for a couple days, I can win even more,” said Chance.
“Just don’t get too overconfident,” Drake said. “You’re a good player. Doc Monday taught you well, but luck can turn against anybody, anytime. The key is being able to spot it when it happens and get out before too much damage is done.”
“I’ll be careful,” Chance said.
Ace would have liked to believe that, but he knew his brother too well to be sure of it.
CHAPTER FIVE
The next night, when they returned to the Royal Flush, Ace was a little surprised to realize that Chance seemed to have taken Steve Drake’s advice to heart. He took some risks as he played—it wouldn’t have been called gambling if every hand was a sure thing—but he made his bets intelligently and didn’t plunge when he had no business doing so.
In the process, he won enough money to cover their passage and that of their horses on the riverboat departing for Montana Territory the next day, with enough left over for supplies whenever they got off the boat.
Ace kept his eyes open and was alert for trouble, thinking that Joshua McIsaac might send men after Steve Drake again, but somewhat surprisingly, nothing of the sort happened. Maybe McIsaac had given up on forcing anybody to marry his daughter, although from the sound of it that might be the only way Lydia ever found herself a groom, no matter how attractive she was.
* * *
The Missouri Belle was scheduled to depart from the docks at ten-thirty in the morning. Ace was at the offices of the riverboat line to buy the tickets early. Chance had stayed back at the Halliday House to finish packing their gear.
“Headed for Montana, eh, son?” the ticket clerk asked.
“Yes, sir. All the way to Fort Benton.” The Jensen brothers hadn’t decided where they would leave the boat, but they figured if they bought passage all the way to the end of the line, they would be safe. If someplace struck their fancy before they got there, they wouldn’t lose enough money to worry about.
Besides, Chance could always win more.
“Rugged country up that way,” said the talkative clerk. “Plan to do some prospectin’? Or maybe work on one of those b
ig cattle ranches they got up there?”
“Don’t really know yet,” Ace told him. “I reckon my brother and I will figure it out once we get there.”
The clerk sighed and shook his head. “Ah, to be young again! When my job here is finished for the day, you know what I’ll do?”
“No, sir.”
“I’ll walk home, eat supper, talk to my wife a little if she’s in a good mood, read the paper, and go to sleep. Then tomorrow morning I’ll walk back here, work all day, walk home and do the same things I’ll do this evening. It just all starts over again every morning. How’s that sound to you?”
It sounded like hell on earth, but Ace wasn’t going to say that. “Uh, fine, I reckon, if that’s what you want to do.”
The clerk laughed. “Most of the time, son, life doesn’t have a damn thing to do with what a fella wants. Enjoy it while you can.”
“Yes, sir.” As Ace left the office, he felt the weight of the clerk’s cloud of gloom lifting from his shoulders.
He stuck the tickets and the receipt for them and the space on the cargo deck for the horses into his pocket and headed for the hotel. His step was lighter as he reached the Halliday House. Anticipation for the journey filled him. It always felt good to be on the move again, going new places and seeing new things.
When he went upstairs, he found that the room he and Chance had shared for the past two nights was empty, although their rifles and warbags were still there. Chance might have gone down to the dining room, or he might be in Steve Drake’s room, which was on the other side of the upstairs hall, three doors down. Ace decided to check there first.
When he rapped on the door of the gambler’s room, at first there was no response.
Then Steve Drake’s voice asked cautiously, “Who’s there?”
“It’s me, Mr. Drake. Ace Jensen. Is Chance in there?”
Before Drake could answer, Chance shouted, “Don’t come in, Ace! Run!”
Ace could tell that his brother was in trouble, so he wasn’t about to run. He reached for the doorknob with his left hand while his right dropped to the butt of the holstered Colt on his hip.
A gun blasted inside the room. Ace felt the wind-rip of a bullet past his ear as the slug punched through the door and nearly hit him. A split second later his hand closed around the knob and twisted it, but the door was locked.
He heard the sounds of a struggle inside the room. A piece of furniture crashed on the floor as somebody knocked it over. Another shot rang out, but the bullet didn’t come through the door.
Maybe because it had lodged in the body of either Chance or Steve Drake.
Ace lowered his shoulder and rammed it against the panel with as much strength as he could muster. Wood splintered as the lock tore out from the jamb and the door flew open. He stumbled a little as his momentum carried him into the room.
He caught his balance, looked around, and saw Steve Drake wrestling with a woman. She had the gun, but the gambler had hold of her wrist and kept the weapon pointing toward the ceiling.
Chance stood to one side with a worried expression on his face. Ace didn’t see any blood on his brother’s clothes, but he gripped Chance’s arm anyway and asked, “Are you all right?”
“Yeah, that second shot of hers went into the ceiling,” Chance replied. “But what about you? She fired right through that door at you!”
“It missed . . . by a whisker. Is that—?”
“Yeah. Lydia McIsaac.”
Drake got an arm around the young woman’s waist and twisted her so that she was facing away from him. He bent the arm of her gun hand until she finally cried out and dropped the gun. A kick from Drake sent it sliding across the floor toward the Jensen boys. Chance bent and scooped it up.
“If I let go of you, are you going to behave yourself?” Drake asked his captive.
“Go to hell!” Lydia screamed. “If you think I’m going to let you get away with humiliating me, you’re crazy!”
As Drake had said, she was beautiful, or at least she would have been if her face hadn’t been so contorted with rage. Glossy black hair whipped around her head as she struggled to break free, writhing in the gambler’s grip.
“How in blazes did this happen?” asked Ace.
Chance looked and sounded annoyed. “It was my fault. I’m the one who opened the door. I was in here talking to Mr. Drake when she knocked and said she was one of the maids from the hotel. I reckon she was trying to disguise her voice, but Mr. Drake caught on anyway and tried to warn me. It was too late. I opened the door and she stuck a gun in my face.”
“And just think, night before last you were saying you wanted Mr. Drake to introduce you to her.” Ace couldn’t resist needling his brother.
Chance winced. “Don’t remind me.”
Steve Drake said, “Are you two going to stand there jawing all day or are you going to give me a hand here?”
“What do you want us to do?” asked Ace.
“Come grab hold of this hellcat and hang on to her so I can try to talk some sense into her head.”
“I’ll never forgive you for this, Steve!” Lydia cried. “Never!”
“Well, I reckon I’ll just have to live with myself,” the gambler said. “Now settle down!”
Ace and Chance moved in, each of them taking hold of an arm. Ace didn’t like manhandling a woman, even one who was loco, but Lydia McIsaac wasn’t giving them much choice.
Once the Jensen boys had hold of her, Drake let go and moved around in front of the distraught female so he could look into her eyes. “Lydia, you’ve got to understand. I never had any intention of marrying you.”
“Then why did you court me?” she demanded, a little breathless. “Why did you propose to me?”
“I never did any such thing. I didn’t court you, either. We talked for a few minutes and I danced one dance with you. That’s all.”
“You know as well as I do that it was love at first sight!”
Drake sighed and shook his head. “That’s not the way it happened, and I think you know that, deep down. I’m sorry that things in your life haven’t gone the way you wanted them to, but you can’t run around trying to force men at gunpoint to get them to marry you!”
“I’ll do whatever I have to,” she said as she strained against the grip of the brothers on her arms.
The broken door still stood open. A heavy footstep from that direction made Ace turn his head and look over his shoulder.
The big man named Bennett stood there with a scowl on his face. A tense second ticked by, then Bennett roared, “Let go o’ her!” and charged toward Ace and Chance.
“Hang on to her!” Ace snapped at his brother, then released Lydia’s arm and turned to meet Bennett’s charge. He ducked under the man’s roundhouse punch and jolted a left and a right to Bennett’s ribs. The punches slowed the big man down a little but didn’t stop him.
An uppercut caught Ace on the chin and rocked his head back. Bennett crashed into him and wrapped him up in a bear hug.
Ace felt his ribs creak as Bennett applied incredible pressure to them. With his arms pinned to his sides, the only way he could strike back was by lifting his knee into Bennett’s groin. Ace didn’t like fighting like that, but the alternative was broken ribs.
Bennett groaned in pain and his grip slackened. Ace tore his right arm free and rocketed a punch into Bennett’s face. The big man let go of him completely and roared furiously, like a maddened bear. He swung wild punches, first a right and then a left, and Ace managed to avoid both of them by the skin of his teeth. He chopped the sides of his hands against Bennett’s bull-like neck where it met the broad shoulders.
That seemed to paralyze Bennett momentarily. Ace snapped a left jab into the man’s face then lifted an uppercut of his own that smashed against Bennett’s jaw. Bennett went to one knee, then slewed on over and fell to the floor, breathing harshly, seemingly too stunned to rise.
Ace stepped back. His fists ached from the pounding and he was breath
less from having most of the air squeezed out of him. But the big man was down and didn’t seem on the verge of getting up again anytime soon.
Bennett was able to lift his head and peered around, his gaze unfocused until it landed on Lydia McIsaac, who was still being held firmly in Chance’s grip. Bennett lifted a trembling hand toward her.
“Miss . . . Lydia,” he gasped, “I . . . I’m sorry . . . Gimme . . . a minute . . . I’ll wallop these varmints . . . who hurt you.”
The dog-like devotion in the man’s eyes as he looked at Lydia made Ace realize something that hadn’t occurred to him before. Bennett had feelings for Lydia McIsaac. It was possible he had fallen in love with his employer’s daughter . . . a relationship that more than likely a man like Joshua McIsaac would never endorse.
More heavy footsteps sounded in the corridor outside the broken door. Ace tensed, thinking that it might signal the arrival of more of McIsaac’s men, but it was a pair of uniformed police officers who peered through the opening.
“What the devil is going on here?” demanded one of them. “We’ve had reports of gunshots, not to mention one that said it sounded like somebody was trying to tear down the place!”
“Arrest these men!” Lydia cried. “They’re trying to hurt me!”
The way the officer looked at her and said, “Uh . . . Miss McIsaac, isn’t it?” indicated that he had had dealings with her before. The man glanced over at his companion, who shrugged. Clearly, both of them wished they hadn’t landed in the middle of whatever was going on, but they couldn’t very well ignore the ruckus.
The one who seemed to be in charge frowned at Chance. “You there, let go of that young woman.”
Chance frowned back at him. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea—”
“I said let go of her!”
“All right.” He let go of Lydia’s arms and stepped back quickly away from her, in case she turned around and came after him.
She whirled and flung herself at Drake with hands upraised and fingers hooked to claw out the gambler’s eyes. Ace was ready for that and made a leap, catching her around the waist and hauling her back before she could reach her target. Her arms still flailed in Drake’s direction.
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