“How are we going to get there?” Langston asked. “The stagecoach is wrecked.”
In a voice bordering on hysterical, his wife said, “We’re stuck. We’re all going to die out here.”
“Don’t worry, Mrs. Langston,” Jessica said. “I’m sure we can figure something out.”
Pierce nodded. “Yes, ma’am, we sure can. I’ve already checked the axles on the coach, and neither of ’em is broken. If the horses didn’t run off too far, we can bring ’em back, tie them on to the side of the coach, and set it back up on its wheels. Got some work to do on the singletree, but I reckon I can fix it good enough to hold together until we get to the next stop. We’ll be all right, don’t you worry about that.” He glanced at Luke and Hobie. “That is, if these two fellas can see their way clear to helpin’ us out some more.”
“Whatever you need,” Hobie said without hesitation. “Just tell us what to do.”
Luke didn’t mind the young man pledging their assistance like that. He would have done the same thing, although maybe not so effusively.
He knew the reason for Hobie’s eagerness to help. Hobie was still sneaking looks at Jessica Wheeler. He was just trying to be more discreet about it. There wasn’t any doubt he was smitten with the young redhead.
Luke didn’t wait for Pierce to give them orders. “The first thing we need to do is find that team.”
“That’s right,” Pierce agreed. “While you’re at it, I’ll get my tools out so I’ll be ready to work on the singletree.”
Luke said to the gambler, “Kemp, you’ll need to stand guard while we’re looking for the team. If you see any dust clouds coming this way, fire three shots in the air.”
“I’m afraid I don’t have any ammunition left. I emptied my pistol at those outlaws.”
“It’s a thirty-two, right?”
“That’s right.”
“I don’t have any rounds that caliber—” Luke began.
“That’s all right. I still have bullets. If we need to signal you, Mr. Jensen, I can fire three shots.” As if to prove it, Jessica reached into her handbag and pulled out a gun, handling it like she knew how to use it.
Luke recognized it as a .32 caliber Smith & Wesson. He realized she had probably been one of the defenders shooting at the ambushers.
“All right, Miss Wheeler. You keep an eye out for trouble, too.”
“I intend to.”
Luke swung up into the saddle. “Which way did those horses take off when they bolted?”
Pierce pointed to the west. “You shouldn’t have too much trouble findin’ ’em. I’ll bet they didn’t go far.”
As Luke and Hobie set off in search of the runaway team, the young man said, “Did you see Miss Wheeler take that gun out of her bag, Luke? I never figured she’d be the sort to carry a revolver!”
“It’s not as if we’re well acquainted with her,” Luke pointed out. “We don’t actually know what she’s capable of.”
“No, I guess not. But she seems like such a lady, I just can’t imagine her shooting anybody.” Hobie paused. “I think maybe she’s the prettiest gal I’ve ever seen in my life.”
Luke grunted. He wanted to find those horses and get back to the stagecoach. Hobie could rhapsodize about how beautiful Jessica was some other time.
The team had run about a mile, then stopped to graze on some of the sparse grass that grew in those parts. Luke and Hobie were able to catch them without much trouble. Hobie’s experience working in the livery stable gave him a good touch with animals. He knew how to keep the horses from getting spooked and taking off again.
They rode back to the stagecoach leading the six horses. When they got there, Luke saw that Ben Wallace was still unconscious. His breathing was deep and regular, though, so Luke figured he had slipped into a sleep brought on by the whiskey he had guzzled down.
Kemp and Langston moved the guard away from the stagecoach while Luke and Pierce used lassos to tie the brass rail around the coach’s roof to the horses.
“Miss Wheeler, do you think you can lead those horses while the rest of us push on the coach?” Luke asked the redhead.
“Of course.”
Luke handed her the reins, and she led the horses away from the stagecoach until the ropes were almost taut. Luke, Hobie, Pierce, Langston, and Kemp got on the other side of the coach and positioned themselves to lift and push on the vehicle.
“Take ’em on out!” Luke called to Jessica.
The ropes tightened and quivered under the strain. The five men heaved against the stagecoach. Luke felt the vehicle begin to shift position.
As the coach rose, Luke said, “Get under it!” He changed his grip, as did the others, and they all lifted. The stagecoach came up farther, its balance shifted, and it fell onto its wheels in an upright position again, rocking a little on the broad leather thoroughbraces underneath as its weight settled.
Pierce hurried around the coach to check all the wheels for damage. “They’re all right,” he reported. “Now all we got to do is fix that singletree, mend the harness, and hitch up the team, and we’ll be ready to roll again.”
With Luke’s help, Pierce vandalized both doors of the coach to fashion braces for the broken singletree, nailing it together so that it would hold long enough to reach Harkerville. That was the plan, anyway. They wouldn’t know how well it was going to work until they tried.
It was late afternoon before all the work was finished. When Pierce declared that he had done all he could do, the men carefully lifted Ben Wallace and placed him on the floor inside the coach, so his splinted leg could remain straight.
Although mostly pale and tight-lipped, he woke up and grunted a few colorful curses because of the pain in his leg.
Pierce pointed out with Wallace on the floor of the coach, there wasn’t room for all the passengers.
Hobie said, “You can ride with me if you want, Miss Wheeler. My horse can carry double just fine.”
“That’s all right, Mr. McCullough. I believe I’ll ride on the seat with Mr. Pierce if he’s agreeable to that.”
The driver said, “You ride wherever you’ll be the most comfortable, miss. I’m just sorry for all the trouble we’ve had this trip.”
“It’s not your fault,” she assured him. “You did your best to get away from those awful men.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t make it, did I? The varmints could’ve killed us all.”
Luke still wasn’t convinced of that. He believed the men had been after one of the passengers. Langston, maybe, who had the look of a prosperous businessman. He doubted if any of the others had enough money to make kidnapping them worthwhile.
Jessica climbed to the seat with Pierce while Aaron Kemp agreed to ride on top of the coach.
“Don’t get so rambunctious that I get bounced off,” the gambler said with a smile.
“Don’t worry,” Pierce said. “With that busted singletree, I’ll have to take it slow and easy to make sure the repair job don’t come apart.”
The coach set off for Harkerville with Luke and Hobie riding alongside. Hobie said quietly, “I sure am glad we decided to stop and help these folks.”
Luke glanced at Jessica Wheeler and knew why Hobie felt that way. He supposed he agreed, although given the difference in their ages, Jessica didn’t hold the same fascination for him that she did for Hobie.
Luke just hoped the whole affair wouldn’t delay their pursuit of Gunner Kelly and Dog Eater for too long.
It was well after dark before they reached the settlement. Luckily, Jim Pierce had been driving that run long enough that he had no trouble following the trail even after night fell.
The repaired singletree held together, but as Pierce brought the team to a stop in front of the local stagecoach station, he said, “I’m mighty glad we didn’t have to go another five miles, or even two. I don’t know if we’d have made it.”
“We’re here now,” Luke said. “That’s all that matters. Is there a doctor in this town?”
The station manager had already come out of the building. “Jim, what the hell happened? You should have been here hours ago. I was just about ready to send somebody out to look for you.”
“We ran into some trouble,” Pierce explained as he climbed down from the seat. “Reckon it’s pretty lucky we made it here at all.”
Hobie dismounted hurriedly and stepped over to the coach. He looked up at the young woman on the seat. “I’ll give you a hand, Miss Wheeler.”
Jessica looked like she wanted to tell him she could manage just fine by herself, but then she nodded. “All right. Thank you, Mr. McCullough.”
She stepped down onto one of the wheel spokes. Hobie put his hands on her waist to steady her as she climbed the rest of the way down to the street. When both feet were on the ground, she cleared her throat. Hobie let go of her and stepped back hurriedly. In the light that came through the station’s front window, his face burned a bright red.
Getting old had its disadvantages, Luke thought as he tried not to grin, but so did being young.
A big barn stood next to the station. The manager sent one of the hostlers running down the street to the doctor’s house. While they waited, Pierce explained about the attack and the running battle that had ended with the crash near the mesa.
“I reckon they were after the express box,” the manager said. “I don’t think there’s much money in it, but those outlaws wouldn’t have known that.” He turned to the passengers and went on. “I’m mighty sorry about what happened, folks. We’ve got a hotel here in Harkerville, and while it’s not the fanciest place in the world, the company will put you up there for the night. I’ll have my men working all night to replace that singletree, and by tomorrow morning you’ll be able to continue your journey. If there’s anything else you need, you just let me know.”
Pierce gestured toward Luke and Hobie. “Does that offer extend to these two fellas here? If it wasn’t for them, there’s a good chance we never would’ve made it out of that ambush alive.”
The station manager didn’t look happy about that, but said, “Of course. The company is grateful for your help, gentlemen.”
Luke’s mercenary side, ingrained in him by years as a bounty hunter, was tempted to suggest that if “the company” was really grateful, it could express that gratitude with a reward. But he supposed a night’s lodging at the local hotel would have to do. It was certainly better than nothing.
The local sawbones and the hostler who had gone to get him showed up with a stretcher. The men loaded Ben Wallace onto it. The doctor examined Wallace’s leg briefly by the light of a lantern and said, “It appears that whoever set this man’s broken bone did a good job of it.”
“That’d be Mr. Jensen here,” Pierce said.
“If Wallace is able to walk normally again, he’ll have you to thank for it, sir,” the doctor told Luke. “Do you have medical training?”
Luke smiled faintly and shook his head. “No, Doctor, just more than my share of experience with trouble.”
“It came in handy this time. Some of you men, get hold of that stretcher. Carefully, now . . .”
They carried Wallace down the street, leaving Luke and Hobie at the station with the passengers. The manager pointed out the hotel, a two-story frame structure, and told them to explain the situation to the clerk when they checked in.
“You fellas can leave your horses here in our barn tonight if you want,” he added to Luke and Hobie.
“We’ll do that,” Luke agreed.
They led the animals into the barn, unsaddled and rubbed them down, and made sure the horses had plenty of grain and water before heading to the hotel.
Taking care of that chore meant the other passengers had already checked in by the time Luke and Hobie got there. As they went in, Hobie muttered, “I was hopin’ I’d know which room Miss Wheeler is in.”
“I don’t think the young lady will be in any mood for visitors tonight,” Luke said. “It was a rough day.”
“Oh, I know that,” Hobie said quickly. “I just kind of wanted to keep an eye on her room, in case there’s any more trouble.”
“There shouldn’t be any problems here in town,” Luke told the young man.
They couldn’t be absolutely sure of that, though, he mused as they went upstairs after checking in. Those bushwhackers had been after somebody on that stagecoach, and even though it seemed unlikely their quarry had been Jessica, Luke supposed it was possible.
He was in room twelve, Hobie in eleven. As usual, Luke had brought his rifle and saddlebags with him from the stage line’s barn. He lit the lamp in the room, propped the Winchester in the corner, and draped the saddlebags over the back of the room’s lone chair. As the station manager had said, the place wasn’t fancy, but after several days on the trail, the bed looked pretty comfortable to Luke.
First, though, he wanted something to eat. The hotel had no dining room, he had noticed, but there was a café across the street.
Hobie was coming out of the next room as Luke stepped into the hall. “I was going to get something to eat. . . .”
“Great minds think alike,” Luke said. “Come on.” They went downstairs and walked across to the café, where the proprietor and his wife fed them tortillas, beans, and bowls of savory stew full of chunks of meat and chili peppers. They washed the meal down with several cups of coffee.
“Do you think Miss Wheeler got anything to eat?” Hobie asked as they were finishing up.
“I’m sure if she was hungry, she managed to find something,” Luke said. Thinking of the gun she had taken out of her handbag, he added, “She strikes me as a capable young woman.”
“And a mighty pretty one.”
“That goes without saying.”
“I wonder where she’s bound for,” Hobie said. “You think she’s going to visit relatives?”
Luke shook his head. “I don’t have any idea. And it’s not really any of our business, is it?”
Hobie grinned. “We keep saying that, but somehow we get mixed up in one ruckus after another, anyway.”
“Yes, I’ve noticed. And it’s a disturbing trend, in my opinion.”
They went back across the street to the hotel. As they entered the lobby, Hobie said, “Maybe I’ll ask the clerk about Miss Wheeler—”
Luke put a hand on the young man’s arm and steered him toward the stairs instead of the desk. “Go get some sleep, Romeo. We need to make an early start in the morning.”
Hobie looked like he wanted to argue, but said, “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” They started up the stairs. “We still need to track down those two bank robbers—”
He stopped short as the sound of a woman’s scream came from somewhere on the second floor.
CHAPTER 16
Hobie stood still only for a second, then exploded into motion again, lunging up the stairs as he shouted, “That’s Miss Wheeler!”
Luke thought he was right, although it was difficult to tell one woman’s scream from another. He charged after Hobie, drawing his right-hand Remington.
They reached the second-floor landing together, turning to their right as the screams continued. Two men were at the far end of the hallway, one of them struggling to drag Jessica down the rear staircase, the other bringing up the rear with a gun in his hand.
She was putting up quite a fight, Luke saw in the brief glimpse he caught before the man with the gun fired at him and Hobie.
Luke’s instincts had already taken over. As the gun was coming up, he grabbed Hobie’s shoulder and shoved the young man to the left, toward the wall. At the same time, Luke darted right.
The bullet sizzled through the air between them.
A fraction of a second later, Luke’s Remington blasted. He couldn’t afford to get fancy and try for a disabling shot that might miss and hit Jessica instead. He aimed for the gunman’s body.
The slug smashed into the man’s chest and drove him backward, crashing into the two people wrestling at the top of the stairs. A shout of alarm came from the second gunman as he and Jessica toppled out of sight.
“No!” Hobie yelled. He sprinted along the hall toward the rear stairs, fear for Jessica’s safety making him move so fast Luke couldn’t keep up with him.
Hobie disappeared down the stairs. Jessica had stopped screaming, which was a good sign—or a bad one.
Luke reached the far landing, stepped past the body of the man he had just shot, and looked down to see Hobie at the bottom of the stairs, locked in desperate combat with the second gunman. Jessica lay sprawled at their feet, apparently unconscious.
Hobie’s opponent had lost his hat, but he’d held on to his revolver. He had it in his hand, fighting to bring it to bear on Hobie.
The young man had both hands wrapped around the would-be kidnapper’s wrist, holding the gun muzzle away from him. He ducked his head as the man threw a punch with his other hand. The blow glanced off his skull. He brought his head up and used it as a weapon, butting the gunman in the face.
Blood spurted as the man’s nose flattened under the impact. He yelled in pain and hauled Hobie around, smashing the young man into the wall. The impact knocked loose his grip on the kidnapper’s gun hand and the man jerked back, flinging the gun up.
Luke had the Remington already leveled. Having only a small target, and aiming down at an angle made the shot trickier. He had only a split second to save Hobie’s life. At point-blank range, the gunman couldn’t miss.
Luke fired.
The gunman’s head snapped back as the slug caught him in the forehead and bored on into his brain. A dying reflex made him jerk the trigger, but his gun had already swung out of line, and the bullet struck one of the stair risers. The gunman’s legs folded up, dumping him on the floor next to Jessica.
Luke’s shot was deafeningly loud in the close confines of the narrow stairwell. His ears rang, but he still heard Hobie desperately calling Jessica’s name as he dropped to his knees beside her and gathered her up into his arms.
Luke Jensen Bounty Hunter Dead Shot Page 12