Ace smiled. “I can’t argue with that.”
Other men slapped him on the back heartily and told him to pass along their good wishes to his brother, since they didn’t want to interrupt Chance in the middle of the game. Ace accepted the sentiments graciously, but he was just as glad when the poker game wrapped up and he and Chance were able to head back to the hotel.
They paused in the dimly lit upstairs hallway to look at the door of Ling’s room.
After a moment, Chance said, “I hope she’s doing all right in there.”
“She’s sleeping, more than likely,” Ace said. “We don’t want to disturb her.”
“Yeah, you’re right. I know that. I’d feel better if we were certain she didn’t need anything, but I don’t see how we can do that without waking her up.”
“Let’s just turn in,” Ace suggested. “You’ll see in the morning that everything’s fine.”
Chance shrugged and went on in when Ace unlocked the door of their room.
For somebody who had claimed to be worried, it didn’t take Chance long to fall asleep. He was snoring softly, but Ace lay there awake, thinking that maybe his brother had been right. Maybe they should have knocked on Ling’s door and called out to her to make sure she was all right.
If he did that now, though, Chance would never let him hear the end of it.
Eventually Ace dozed off, although his sleep was light and restless. He didn’t know how much time had passed when something roused him.
He opened his eyes. The room was still dark, with only a bit of faint starlight creeping in through the slight gap in the curtains over the window.
His eyes were adjusted to the darkness and were naturally keen enough for him to pick up a hint of movement over by the chairs where he and Chance had piled their clothes.
Ace’s gun belt was over there, but his Colt wasn’t. It lay on the small table beside the bed. Moving in absolute silence, he reached out and closed his hand around the revolver’s walnut grips then used his other arm to push back the covers.
A floorboard creaked, making a tiny sound as the intruder moved.
Ace might not have heard it if some instinct hadn’t already awakened him. He glanced toward the door. It was closed, but that had to be how their nocturnal visitor had gotten into the room. They would have heard the window being shoved up. The door had been locked when they turned in, but it wouldn’t take much skill to defeat that.
Ace had no idea who the intruder might be. A sneak thief, maybe. He decided that was the most likely explanation. It crossed his mind that Angus McPhee might have sent one of his gun-wolves after them to take revenge for his men being locked up but discarded that idea as too far-fetched.
Whoever the varmint was, he intended to get the drop on him. He sat up slowly so the bedsprings wouldn’t shift and make too much noise, and swung his legs off the mattress. Barefooted and wearing only the bottom half of a pair of long handles, he stood up and raised the Colt, ready to call out to the intruder and warn him not to move.
Ace sensed as much as heard the sudden threat beside him and tried to twist in that direction, thinking wildly, There are two of them!
Something crashed against his head with stunning force, driving him to his knees. He felt the gun slip from his fingers and heard it thud to the floor, then the second intruder hit him again and he pitched forward into oblivion.
* * *
The first thing Ace was aware of as consciousness seeped back into his brain was the sound of somebody moaning.
At first he thought maybe he was the one making that noise, but then he realized that wasn’t the case. It was coming from somewhere else in the room.
Ace tried to move. Pain exploded in his head and radiated out to fill his body. He had a terrible taste in his mouth that threatened to make him sick. He fought it down, thinking that if he had to throw up, it might just kill him.
Gradually, the pain and the sickness subsided. He risked opening his eyes and saw that he was still in the hotel room he shared with his brother. Gray light came in around the curtain. The hour was somewhere around dawn.
He remembered waking up to find someone in the room. As he recalled being hit on the head and knocked out, a feeling of alarm raced through him. He had to know if Chance and Ling were safe.
Ace was lying on the floor next to the bed. He moved his hands under him and pushed himself up. For a few seconds, the room spun crazily as if the world had started turning the wrong way. Then it settled down and he was able to lift his head and take a better look around.
Chance was sprawled on the bed, moving around a little as another moan came from his mouth. His eyes were closed. He was trying to regain consciousness but hadn’t quite made it yet.
When Ace was propped up in a stable sitting position, leaning against the bed, he raised his hand and tentatively explored the side of his head where the wallop had landed. He found a tender lump, but it wasn’t sore or swollen enough to explain why he had been out for hours. He should have come to in minutes after being knocked out.
The light at the window made it clear that wasn’t the case. What in the world had happened to him and Chance?
Carefully, Ace struggled to his feet. His head swam again. He swallowed hard, clinging to one of the posts at the foot of the bed until everything settled down.
Chance was lying on top of the covers as if he had been trying to get up but had collapsed back onto the bed. He had a small lump on his forehead where he’d been hit.
Ace reached down, grasped his brother’s bare foot, and gave it a good shake. “Chance. Hey, Chance. Wake up!”
“Wha . . . whazzat . . .” Chance struggled to open his eyes. When he had them half open, he tried to lift his head. He let out a loud groan as his head fell back.
“You’ll feel better in a minute,” Ace told him.
“I could feel better . . . and still be dying.” Chance’s voice was thick and sleepy.
“You’re not dying.” An idea occurred to Ace. “I think we’ve been drugged.”
“Drugged . . . ? What?” Chance opened his eyes, winced, and went on. “Feels like somebody . . . hit me.”
“Yeah. Somebody clouted both of us, knocked us out, then gave us something to make sure we stayed out for a while.” Ace’s voice was stronger, and he didn’t feel as much like he was about to collapse. “It’s nearly morning.”
“Who in blazes . . . would’ve done something . . . like that?”
“I’ve got an idea,” Ace said grimly. “You saw the way McPhee looked at Ling. What if he came back for her?”
“Son of a—” Chance rolled onto his side and then sat up to swing his trembling legs off the bed. He tried to stand up but swayed and would have fallen backward if Ace hadn’t caught hold of his arm to steady him.
“We’ve got to find out if she’s all right,” Chance said.
“Yeah.” Ace looked around for the gun he had dropped and spotted it lying on the floor. Bending over to scoop it up wasn’t easy, but he managed.
Chance’s shoulder holster and gun were with his clothes. He got the revolver and turned toward the door. Both brothers were clad only in their long underwear, but they didn’t want to take the time to get dressed. They were too worried about Ling.
The corridor was empty when they stepped out into it. Ace went across the hall and knocked on Ling’s door. He called her name and asked, “Are you in there?”
No response came from the room.
“Damn it!” said Chance. “Try the knob.”
Ace twisted the knob with his free hand. It turned, and the door moved in an inch or so.
Ace and Chance leveled their guns and moved back a little. Ace kicked the door open, ready to fire if anybody shot at them from inside the darkened room.
Nothing happened.
After a moment, he said, “I’ll go in first. You cover me.”
“Go ahead,” Chance told him.
Ace moved quickly into the room, crossed to the window, and
thrust the curtain back to let in more of the predawn light, then swung around toward the bed. It was empty, although the rumpled covers showed that someone had slept in it. The room wasn’t that big, and it took only a second to look around and make certain there was no sign of Ling. “Blast it! She’s not here.”
“McPhee got her,” said Chance as he lowered his gun. “That’s the only explanation.”
“It looks like all her things are gone,” Ace went on. “He must have had some of his men sneak into our room to take care of us, then grabbed her. He probably threatened to kill us to keep her from causing too much of a commotion.”
“Yeah, that makes sense.” Chance turned back to their room. “Come on. We need to get dressed and roust out the sheriff. Maybe we can pick up their trail before they get too far.”
Ace hoped so, but he knew the kidnappers probably had a pretty big lead on them already.
Still, where else could they have gone except McPhee’s ranch? The problem was that McPhee might be smart enough to hide her out somewhere else for the time being.
The Jensen brothers started to pull their clothes on, then Chance stopped abruptly. “Wait just a damn minute!”
“What is it?” asked Ace.
“The money belt’s gone!”
Ace stiffened in surprise. “Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure!” Chance pointed at the chair. “It was right there, along with the rest of my things.”
“And all of our stake was in it?”
“Yeah, except for a few bucks in my pocket and whatever you’ve got on you.” Chance checked his coat. “That’s still there, but the rest of our money’s gone!”
Ace felt almost as disoriented as he had when he first regained consciousness. The theft didn’t make sense . . . but then it did. “After they knocked us out, McPhee’s men must have grabbed the money belt, too. McPhee sent them after Ling, but that made a nice little bonus for them.”
“Yeah,” Chance agreed. “That’s one more reason to go after them as fast as we can.”
They didn’t waste any more time and pulled their clothes on. As they clattered down the stairs, the noise made the clerk dozing behind the desk start awake. Ace would have asked the man if he’d seen anything but figured that would be futile. McPhee’s men would have gone in and out the hotel’s rear entrance, and the clerk would have slept through the whole thing.
As they emerged from the building, Ace said, “You go to the sheriff’s office and let whoever’s on duty there know what happened. I’m going to head for the livery stable and get our horses saddled. We may not wait around for Maddox to form a posse.”
“Good idea,” Chance agreed. He trotted off toward the sheriff’s office.
Ace hurried to the livery stable. The big double doors were closed, but he pounded on them with his fist and called, “Open up!”
After a couple minutes of knocking, one of the doors swung back a foot or so. Joe Patterson, a lanky, rawboned man with a thatch of dark, gray-shot hair peered out sleepily. “What in tarnation do you want, son? Do you know how early it is? How many times am I gonna get dragged outta bed this mornin’?”
“My brother and I need our horses.”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s the life of a liveryman, I reckon. Any hour o’ the day or night, we get folks needin’ their horses.” Patterson swung the door open wider. “Well, come on in.” He pulled his suspenders up over the red long handles he was wearing. “I’ll give you a hand gettin’ ’em saddled.”
Ace started into the barn, then stopped short as something the livery owner had said soaked into his brain. “This isn’t the first time somebody woke you up this morning?”
“Naw.” Patterson scratched his beard-stubbled jaw. “O’ course, the first time wasn’t ’cause somebody knocked on my door. My dog pitched a fit in the middle o’ the night and woke me up when somebody rode by. I looked out anyway, just to make sure it wasn’t anybody lookin’ to stable their horses.”
“It was some of Angus McPhee’s men, wasn’t it?” Ace asked excitedly. “How many of them were there? Did they have a girl with them?”
Patterson held up his hands. “Slow down there, young fella, slow down. It was only a couple o’ riders, and neither of ’em work for McPhee.” The liveryman frowned. “One of ’em was a girl, though. How’d you know that?”
“Never mind that,” said Ace. “Who was she with?”
“Some well-dressed fella. Must’ve been middle-aged, ’cause he had white hair and a little mustache.”
That description rocked Ace back on his heels. It matched Jack Haggarty, who they hadn’t seen since the fire on the Missouri Belle the day before.
“Haggarty,” Ace said. “He came back and kidnapped her.”
“Kidnapped?” Patterson shook his head. “I reckon you got that wrong, kid. The way those two were laughin’ and talkin’ together as they rode by, I’d say they was the best of friends.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
By the time Chance reached the livery stable with a sleepy-looking and clearly angry Sheriff Maddox accompanying him, Ace was sitting on a stool just inside the doors with a glum look on his face.
“What are you doing?” demanded Chance. “You were supposed to be getting the horses ready so we can go after McPhee!”
“The horses are saddled,” Ace said, “but we’re not going after McPhee.”
“What are you talking about? He kidnapped Ling, or at least he had his men kidnap her!”
Ace shook his head. “Nobody kidnapped her, Chance. She double-crossed us.”
“Double-crossed us? What in blue blazes are you talking about?”
“She left here of her own free will,” Ace explained. He had gotten enough of a description from Joe Patterson to be sure that the young woman the liveryman had seen was indeed Ling. “From the sound of it, the man she rode out with was Jack Haggarty.”
“Haggarty!” Chance looked stricken as he immediately grasped the implications of what his brother was telling him.
Sheriff Maddox spoke up. “Haggarty’s the gambler from the boat, the one you figure started that fire so he could get away from you, right?”
“That’s right,” said Ace. “It looks like he and Ling were working together all along.”
Chance held up a hand, palm out. “Wait just a damn minute. You don’t know that. After Haggarty made it off the riverboat, he could’ve lurked somewhere around here until last night, then snuck into the hotel and kidnapped Ling. Maybe we were right about what happened but were wrong to blame it on McPhee.”
Patterson was standing nearby, leaning on the jamb of the open door that led into his office and living quarters. A big yellow dog sat at his feet, tongue lolling from its mouth. “That gal I saw didn’t look to me like she’d been kidnapped. The fella she was with wasn’t forcin’ her to do anything against her will.”
“You can’t know that for sure,” insisted Chance. “He could’ve had a gun on her . . .” His voice trailed away as he saw the way Patterson was shaking his head.
“I know you don’t want to believe it,” Ace said. “Neither did I, at first. But there’s really no getting around it, Chance. That was Ling and Haggarty sneaking around in our room. Haggarty knocked us out and drugged us—although I guess it might have been her—and then they stole our money belt.” A bitter note crept into his voice as he added, “She probably felt you wearing it when she hugged us and figured that’s where most of our stake would be. Haggarty knew it was a pretty good amount of money, too. He’d seen how much you won on the riverboat.”
“But . . . but blast it, that would make her nothing but a thief!”
Ace nodded glumly. “I reckon that’s about the size of it.”
“That business about how she was Haggarty’s slave . . . ?”
“Probably just a lie, so she could get close to us, find out where we kept our money, and steal it.”
Chance looked a little sick. “I believed her. I believed every word out of her mouth.”
“So did I.”
“Yeah, well, that doesn’t make me feel any better about being tricked!”
Sheriff Maddox said, “A kidnapped woman’s one thing. A thief’s another. I’m not sure I can round up a posse that’s willing to go after somebody who stole a little money from a couple foolish youngsters.”
“It wasn’t just a little money,” said Chance. “It was two thousand dollars.”
Patterson let out a low whistle of surprise. “That’s a heap of dinero.”
Maddox shook his head. “Doesn’t matter,” the sheriff declared. “It’s still just theft. I’ll file a report, but I’m not about to go chasing across the territory after a couple thieves.”
“What about the fact they knocked us out?” asked Ace. “That’s assault, isn’t it?”
“Legally, I suppose it is. Most folks in these parts don’t rely on the law to handle problems like that, though. They stomp their own snakes.”
“We know that,” Chance snapped. “We’re not greenhorns, no matter what you think of us, Sheriff.”
Maddox shrugged. “Then you understand why I’m not gonna get all worked up about this. You track those two down and bring ’em back here, I’ll lock ’em up for you and put ’em in front of a judge. That’s about all I can do.”
“You mean all you’re going to do.”
“Same difference,” Maddox said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, the sun’s nearly up, and I ain’t had any coffee yet.” He stalked off, leaving Ace and Chance at the livery stable.
The brothers looked at each other.
Chance said, “We’re going after them, aren’t we?”
“We’re sure going to try.” Ace turned to the liveryman. “Mr. Patterson, did you see which way they went when they left town?”
Patterson shook his head. “No, not really. After they rode by, I closed the door and went back to bed, where I stayed until you came along and started bangin’ on the door.”
“Did they notice you looking at them or that the stable door was open?”
“Well, now, I can’t really answer that, can I? I don’t know what they saw and didn’t see. But I’ll say that they didn’t act like they knew anybody was watchin’. In fact, the gal leaned over in the saddle and gave the fella a little kiss.”
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