Cal blew out an exasperated breath and shook his head. “I should’ve known I couldn’t get a straight answer out of you.”
“Naw, really, what I done was open the shutter on the window and dug a tunnel out through the snow. Once I done that, I was able to dig a big ol’ ditch to the door so I could get in and out and take care o’ the stock like I was supposed to.” Pearlie nodded solemnly. “When a man’s got a job of work to do, he finds a way to do it.”
“Well, I hope the snow doesn’t get that high this time.”
Preacher said, “It prob’ly won’t, down here in the valley. I figure all those passes up in the mountains will be closed, though.”
“What about the one the railroad goes through?” asked Smoke.
“I wouldn’t count on it stayin’ open for long.”
If Preacher was right, it wouldn’t be the first time such a thing had happened. Smoke recalled other times when the railroad had been forced to suspend operations until the snow in the pass melted. The locomotives could force their way through if the snow wasn’t too deep, but sometimes it was better just to be patient and wait.
Anyway, he didn’t plan to go anywhere on the train, so he didn’t figure it really mattered to him.
They were getting close to the ranch headquarters. In fact, as they started down a long hill, Smoke spotted the yellow glow of lamplight in the gathering dusk. In a few more minutes, he could see the house itself, as well as the trail leading to it from the road to Big Rock. The sight put a warm feeling inside him, knowing that the woman he loved was safe and secure inside that house.
He sat up straighter in the saddle as he spotted movement on the trail. With the snow and the fading light, it wasn’t easy to make out details, but his eyes were sharp and he was pretty sure he saw three riders approaching the house along the trail.
“Riders comin’ in,” Preacher said at the same time. The old mountain man had noticed the men and horses, too.
Pearlie asked, “You didn’t send anybody to town today, did you, Smoke?”
“I sure didn’t,” Smoke replied. “With this bad weather coming in, I figured it was best to keep everybody close to home. I don’t recognize those hombres.”
“Well, then, let’s go see who they are,” Cal said.
“Good idea.” Smoke heeled his horse into a trot. His three companions did likewise.
Smoke wasn’t expecting any trouble, and for some reason, the snowy day just seemed peaceful. He had made a lot of enemies during his adventurous life, but to be honest, most of those enemies were dead . . . just not all of them.
Sally was down there, baking and looking forward to Christmas.
Smoke pulled out a little ahead of the others as he felt a growing urgency. They quickly closed the gap, and the four men were riding abreast as they reached the bottom of the slope and crossed an open stretch of snowy ground to reach the trail. The three strangers had seen them coming and had reined in about a hundred yards away from the house.
That was good, thought Smoke. He could find out what was going on while Sally was still out of the line of fire.
As he slowed his mount, something about a couple of the visitors struck him. One of them lifted a hand in greeting.
Smoke suddenly exclaimed, “Son of a gun. That’s Ace Jensen. Must be his brother Chance with him.”
“Those young fellers you met down in Texas last year?” asked Preacher. “The ones with the same last name?”
“That’s right.” With only about twenty yards separating the two groups of riders, Smoke recognized the grinning faces of Ace and Chance and wondered what the boys were doing on the Sugarloaf.
The man with them, who had had his head down, lifted it and bellowed, “Preacher! I’m gonna kill you, you old geezer!” He jabbed his heels into his horse’s flanks and sent the animal leaping forward. At the same time he put the reins between his teeth and pulled a pair of old-fashioned flintlock pistols from behind his belt.
“Oh, hell!” Preacher said. “Eagle-Eye!”
CHAPTER 23
The sudden attack didn’t take Ace completely by surprise. He had seen the look in the old-timer’s eyes back in Big Rock, as well as heard the tone in Eagle-Eye’s voice when he talked about Preacher. Obviously, there actually was a grudge between the two old mountain men.
Not far behind Eagle-Eye when he yanked out his pistols and charged, Ace galloped hard to catch up before the old man got himself into more trouble than he could handle. Chance didn’t react quite as quickly, so he brought up the rear, a few yards behind his brother.
Ace recognized Smoke and figured the scrawny figure in a buckskin shirt beside him had to be Preacher. Who the other two men were, Ace didn’t know. Probably some of Smoke’s ranch hands.
All had instinctively yanked out guns, and in another second Eagle-Eye was liable to ride right into a storm of hot lead if he continued his attack. He had the pistol in his right hand leveled at the four men on horseback.
Ace brought his horse even with Eagle-Eye’s, reached over, and knocked his arm up just as Eagle-Eye pulled the trigger. The flintlock boomed, but the heavy lead ball arched harmlessly into the sky.
“Damn it, Eagle-Eye, stop that!” Ace shouted at the old man. He didn’t like treating one of his elders so disrespectfully, but he wasn’t going to let Eagle-Eye provoke a possibly fatal shootout. He yelled, “Hold your fire!” at Smoke and the others.
Chance pulled up on Eagle-Eye’s left side and grabbed the gun in that hand, closing his hand around the lock so Eagle-Eye couldn’t fire. He wrenched the weapon out of the old-timer’s grasp.
Smoke wheeled his horse around so that he was between them and the other men and added his own command. “Hold your fire!”
Ace grabbed the headstall on Eagle-Eye’s mount and hauled back on it, slowing the animal.
Eagle-Eye struck at him with the empty pistol he still held and bellowed, “Let me go, damn it! I got to kill that old geezer!”
“Stop it!” Ace responded as he dragged Eagle-Eye’s horse to a halt and reined in his own mount. “Have you gone loco? I thought you said you and Preacher are friends!”
“There was a time we once were!” Eagle-Eye cried. “Until the treacherous old goat tried to steal my woman away from me!”
Preacher leaned over in his saddle to yell around Smoke. “You dang crazy old coot! I never done any such a thing! Your wife Louisa was one o’ the finest women on the face o’ the earth. There was never a blasted thing between us. Nothin’!”
“You didn’t read her letters—”
“Because she never sent ’em to me!”
“She couldn’t have made all those things up,” Eagle-Eye forged ahead stubbornly. “The things she talked about wishin’ that . . . that you and her had done!”
“Maybe she wished for ’em, but I never knew nothin’ about it!” Preacher insisted. “Stop and think about it for a minute, you tarnal idjit! If we’d really done anything, she wouldn’ta been wishin’ that we had, now would she?”
Bushy white eyebrows bristling, Eagle-Eye glared at Preacher. After a second, he snapped, “Stop tryin’ to confuse me!”
“I ain’t tryin’ to confuse you. I’m tryin’ to make you see straight for once in your goldang life!”
Smoke lifted a hand. “Both of you just hush up for a minute. Ace, Chance, what are you boys doing here?”
Since the gun Eagle-Eye still held was empty and couldn’t be reloaded without the rest of them seeing what he was doing, Ace figured it was safe to answer Smoke’s question. “We ran into Mr. Callahan a few days ago, a ways north of here. Some owlhoots had jumped him and were trying to rob and probably murder him, so we figured we ought to take a hand.”
“We chased those fellas off,” Chance added, “then the three of us decided to ride together for a while.”
“Mr. Callahan was headed this way to look for Preacher, so we thought we might as well ride along with him.” Ace looked over at the old-timer. “He never said anything
about wanting to kill anybody, though!”
Chance said, “I’m still not sure I know what this is all about.”
“It’s about betrayal.” Eagle-Eye leveled a finger at Preacher. “It’s about that varmint goin’ behind my back and doin’ things no man should ever do to a friend!”
Preacher let out a disgusted snort. “I give up. I can’t say it no plainer ’n I already did. There was never anything goin’ on betwixt your wife an’ me! Never! And I ain’t to blame for whatever was inside her own head.”
“That seems reasonable enough,” Smoke said. “Why don’t we all go inside, out of this snow, and warm up some? A cup of coffee might make everything seem a lot clearer.” He paused, then added with a smile, “I might even be able to talk Sally into letting us have a few of those bear sign she’s been making.”
“Now you’re talkin’!” Cal said.
Eagle-Eye stuck behind his belt the empty pistol he was still holding, then crossed his arms, glared haughtily at Preacher, and declared, “I ain’t sittin’ down at no table with that man.”
“I ain’t over-fond o’ the idea my own self,” said Preacher. “I don’t gen’rally sit around and chew the fat with somebody who just took a shot at me!”
“I would’ve hit you, too, if it hadn’t been for this young whippersnapper interferin’!” Eagle-Eye glowered at Ace.
“You wouldn’ta hit me,” Preacher said confidently. “Eagle eye, my hind foot. Hell, you’re so old you’re prob’ly half blind by now and couldn’t hit the side of a barn if you was a-standin’ next to it!”
“Old! Why, I’m not as old as you, you . . . you relic!”
“You got a mighty bad habit o’ callin’ folks names,” Preacher cautioned. “I don’t cotton to it.”
“I don’t care what you cotton to—”
Smoke lifted his voice. “Blast it, that’s enough. Both of you!”
Preacher pointed at Eagle-Eye. “Why’re you yellin’ at me? He’s the crazy one.”
Ace said, “I think Mr. Jensen is right. We should all go inside, sit down, and hash this out peacefully.”
“Peaceful?” Preacher frowned. “Are you sure your last name’s really Jensen, boy? Things ain’t never been peaceful for very long around any o’ them Jensens!”
Chance said, “We don’t know that we’re part of the same bunch. Ace thinks so, but I’m not convinced.”
Smoke lifted his reins. “Come on. Let’s do our jawing out of the weather.”
Eagle-Eye looked over at Chance and asked, “How about givin’ me back that gun o’ mine?”
“I don’t think so. Not just yet, anyway.”
“You ain’t got no right to do that!”
Ace told him, “Let’s just say we’re trying to keep you alive for a while longer.”
Eagle-Eye muttered unhappily, but he went along with the decision. The men all turned their horses toward the ranch house.
Sally had heard the shot and stood on the porch wearing a heavy coat over her dress and apron. A Winchester was in her hands, but she relaxed as she recognized everyone except Eagle-Eye. “Ace! Chance!” she called with a smile of welcome. “Is that really you?”
“Yes, ma’am, it is,” Ace replied as he reached up and tugged on the brim of his hat. “Sorry if we’re intruding on you—”
“Nonsense. You boys are our friends and could never intrude, especially at this time of year when guests are always welcome. Come on inside. I think I can spare a few fresh bear sign.”
Pearlie groused to Cal, “She offers bear sign to those young fellas, but if the likes o’ you or me reaches for any, we get our hands slapped with a big ol’ wooden spoon.”
“You’ll have plenty of bear sign at the Christmas Eve party,” Sally told the foreman with a smile. Her sharp ears had overheard what Pearlie said. “Anyway, you’re included in the invitation now.”
“Yes’m,” Pearlie said quickly. “And Cal an’ me, we’re much obliged to you, too.”
A couple other hands had emerged from the bunkhouse to see what was going on. Smoke, Ace, Chance, and the others swung down from their saddles and turned their mounts over to the punchers, who took them into the barn and unsaddled them.
As the men climbed the steps to the porch, Ace watched Eagle-Eye to make sure the old-timer didn’t try anything else. Chance was equally alert.
They all made it inside without any further incidents, although Eagle-Eye kept his distance from Preacher and continued to send hostile glares toward him.
Sally put the rifle back on the rack where she had gotten it and turned to Eagle-Eye, still wearing a smile on her beautiful face as she said, “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”
Even as upset as he was, his frontiersman’s chivalry made him reach up and snatch his battered old hat from his head. “Beggin’ your pardon, ma’am. My name’s Callahan. Eagle-Eye, they call me.”
“Well, Mr. Callahan, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Mrs. Smoke Jensen.” There was a twinkle in her eyes as she added, “They call me Sally.”
Eagle-Eye held his hat over his heart. “It’s an honor, ma’am.”
“Are you one of Preacher’s old friends?” she asked.
Ace waited for Eagle-Eye to blow up in anger at Sally’s question, but other than a tightening of the grizzled jaw, the old man didn’t show any reaction. He managed to nod and say noncommittally, “We’ve knowed each other a heap of years, we sure have.”
Even if Sally failed to note how evasive that answer was, Preacher’s disgusted snort made her aware that something was wrong. Ace could feel the tension in the air himself, so he was sure she could, too.
But her gracious smile never wavered as she said, “Why don’t all of you gentlemen go on into the dining room and sit down? I’ll bring coffee and something to eat. Just enough to tide you over until supper,” she added with a warning glance at Pearlie and Cal, who were known far and wide as chowhounds. “You’re all staying for supper and spending the night. In weather like this, I won’t take no for an answer.”
Chance grinned. “We weren’t figuring on saying no, Miss Sally. Isn’t that right, Ace?”
“It sure is.”
Preacher and Eagle-Eye still kept their distance from each other as the men took off their coats and hung them on hooks near the door, then filed into the dining room and took places around the long table. The two old-timers were as wary as a couple animals who might tear into each other with fang and claw at any second.
When they were all seated, with Smoke at the head of the table as he ought to be, he said, “All right, you two. Do you want to talk about this now or wait until Sally gets back? Might be a good idea to get a woman’s perspective on this argument.”
Preacher and Eagle-Eye looked at him as if he had gone insane.
Preacher said, “This ain’t the sort o’ thing that ought to be talked about in front of no woman.”
“She wouldn’t know nothin’ about it, anyway,” added Eagle-Eye. “A lady couldn’t understand a matter of a man’s honor.”
“I think you’re underestimating the fairer sex, Mr. Callahan,” Smoke said.
Eagle-Eye looked down at the table. “I ain’t talkin’ about it.”
“Neither am I.” Preacher snorted again. “Ain’t nothin’ to talk about, anyway, ’cept the crazed rantin’s of an old fool.”
Eagle-Eye started to scrape his chair back, but Smoke said sharply, “That’s enough. You two aren’t going to try to kill each other in my house.”
The two old mountain men settled for glaring darkly at each other.
Smoke turned to the brothers. “What have you boys been up to since we all saw each other down in Texas?”
“Just drifting,” Ace replied with a shrug. “Same as always.”
“You haven’t run into any trouble?” Smoke said with a knowing smile.
“Well, we didn’t say that,” answered Chance. “There was a ruckus or two along the way.”
“There always is,” Smoke said.
“They do seem to go with the name, like Preacher said.”
“Speaking of that,” Ace said, “how’s Matt doing?”
“Just fine, the last I heard. I think he’s out in California.”
“What about your older brother? Luke, right?”
Smoke shook his head. “Luke’s out there in the wind somewhere. I don’t hear from him very often. He’s a man who goes his own way, and we don’t usually know where he is or what he’s doing.” Smoke paused. “You know, in that respect, he sort of reminds me of you fellows. Like being fiddle-footed is just in his nature.”
“Yeah, that’s us, all right,” Chance agreed. “Never stay in one place for too long.”
Carrying a tray full of bear sign, Sally came into the room in time to hear that last statement. “I trust you’ll stay around long enough to finish these off.”
“If they don’t, Miss Sally, I will!” Cal said.
CHAPTER 24
Like a monster crawling out of its cave, the storm continued making its way down the mountains from the north, drawing ever nearer to the Colorado valley that was home to the Sugarloaf Ranch and the town of Big Rock. As darkness settled over the landscape, the snow began falling a little heavier and the wind picked up. The temperature slid down a few more degrees. It was already below freezing, and skin didn’t have to be exposed for very long for frostbite to be a danger.
The people inside the ranch house didn’t have to worry about that. Between the fireplace in the main room and the big stove in the kitchen, the place was toasty warm and comfortable.
The same was true out in the bunkhouse, where Pearlie and Cal had retreated with the other hands after supper in the house, which had been the usual boisterous meal around the long table. Not even the continuing animosity between Preacher and Eagle-Eye had spoiled the mood of the Sugarloaf cowboys, who were in high spirits because Christmas was fast approaching. Smoke kept only a skeleton crew on hand during the winter, trusted men who had worked for him for quite a while. All of them got along well, so the jokes and the laughter flew back and forth rapidly.
A Colorado Christmas Page 16