“I’m going to have a hard time talking you out of this, aren’t I?”
“More than likely,” Chance agreed. “Anyway, that troublemaker the old-timer mentioned—what was his name? McLaren? He’s probably not even there right now.”
CHAPTER TWO
Pete McLaren laughed. “Shoot, Dolly, you might as well stop tryin’ to get away. You know I like it when you put up a little fight.”
The blonde put her hands against Pete’s chest and pushed as she tried to squirm off his lap. He just tightened the arm around her waist, put his other hand behind her neck, and pulled her head down to his so he could press his mouth against hers.
Dolly Redding let out a muffled squeal and tried even harder to get away for a few seconds. Then she sighed, wrapped her arms around Pete’s neck, and returned the kiss with passionate urgency.
He let that continue for a minute or so and then pulled his head away and laughed raucously. “You see, fellas, I told you this little hellcat couldn’t resist me for long!”
The four other men at the table in the Melodian Saloon joined in Pete McLaren’s laughter. Like Pete, they were all young, in their twenties, and dressed like cowboys, although the lack of calluses on their hands indicated they hadn’t had riding jobs lately. Exactly how they got the money they spent there and in other saloons was open to debate, although nobody was going to question it too much if they knew what was good for them.
Dolly pouted. “Pete, you shouldn’t make sport of me. Just ’cause I work in a saloon don’t mean you shouldn’t treat me like a lady!”
“Nobody’s ever gonna accuse you of bein’ a lady, Dolly, but hell, if I wanted a lady, I’d be chasin’ after that Fontana Dupree. I like my gals, well, a little on the trashy side. Like you.”
That provoked more gales of laughter from Pete’s friends. Dolly just looked embarrassed as a blush spread across her face. She didn’t deny what Pete had said about her, though.
To tell the truth, Dolly Redding was a good-looking young woman, and she hadn’t worked in saloons long enough to acquire the hard mouth and the suspicious lines around her eyes that most doves displayed. She still had a faint flush of . . . well, innocence would be stretching it too far, but maybe remembered innocence would describe it.
Some of her thick, curly blond hair had fallen in front of her face while Pete was kissing her. She tossed her head to throw it back and told him, “I’m just sayin’ you should treat me a little better, that’s all. Maybe I ain’t a lady now, but I might be someday if I work hard enough at it.”
“Oh, you work hard at what you do. I’ll give you credit for that,” Pete said with a leer on his handsome young face.
The other men at the table thought that was hilarious, too.
The commotion in the corner drew a few disapproving frowns from the saloon’s other patrons. The hour was early, not even suppertime yet, so the Melodian was only about half full.
A burly, bald man in a gray suit leaned on the bar where he stood at the far end of the hardwood. He glared at the table where Pete McLaren and his friends were working on their second bottle of whiskey since they’d come in an hour or so earlier.
A young woman with light brown hair framing a face of sultry beauty came out of a door at the end of the bar and paused beside the bald man. The silk gown she wore wasn’t exactly churchgoing garb, but it was more decorous than the short, low-cut, spangled getups worn by Dolly Redding and the other girls who delivered drinks in the Melodian.
“What’s wrong, Hank?” the brunette murmured.
“Ah, it’s just that blasted McLaren kid and his pards again,” Hank Muller said as he continued to scowl. “I hate to see Dolly gettin’ mauled like that.”
“It sort of comes with the territory, doesn’t it?”
Muller looked sharply at her. “I make no bones about what goes on here. The girls know what’s expected of ’em, and they don’t kick about it. Pete McLaren’s too rough about it, though. Too sure of himself. Ah, hell, Fontana, maybe I just don’t like the kid and the rest of that bunch.”
“You’re not the only one,” Fontana Dupree said. “Want me to try to distract them?”
“Well . . . I don’t suppose it’d hurt anything to try.”
Fontana smiled and nodded. She left the bar and walked over to a piano sitting next to a small stage in the back of the barroom. At a table close by the piano, a small man with thinning fair hair sat reading a copy of the Police Gazette. An unlit store-bought cigarette hung from the corner of his mouth, bobbing slightly as he hummed to himself and studied the etchings of scantily clad women in the magazine.
Fontana put a hand on his shoulder. “Come on, Orrie. It’s time to get to work.”
Quickly, he closed the Police Gazette and sat up straighter. “Uh, sorry, Miss Dupree. I didn’t figure we’d be starting this early—”
“It’s all right,” Fontana told him. “How about some Stephen Foster?”
“Sure.” Orrie stood up from the table and went to a stool in front of the piano. He put his fingers on the keys and looked up at Fontana as she took her place beside the instrument. When she nodded, he began to play, and a moment after the notes began to emerge, crisp and pure, she started singing a sad, sentimental ballad in a voice even more lovely than Orrie’s playing.
Chance Jensen stopped in his tracks. “I think I’m in love.”
He and Ace had just pushed through the batwings and stepped through the corner entrance into the Melodian. Ace almost bumped into his brother, then moved aside so he could look past Chance. He heard the singing, and judging by Chance’s intent, lovestruck expression, Ace figured he was staring at the singer.
She was worth looking at, Ace thought, slim and lovely in a dark blue gown. Creamy skin and features that compelled a man to look at them twice in appreciation. A small beauty mark near the corner of the young woman’s mouth gave her character and didn’t detract at all from her attractiveness.
“She sings like a . . . a nightingale,” Chance said.
“Just how many nightingales have you heard singing?” Ace asked.
“Well, then . . . a mockingbird. Only prettier.”
“She is prettier than any mockingbird I’ve ever seen,” Ace admitted.
“That’s not what I—Ah, just shut up and let me look at her and listen to her.”
That didn’t seem like such a bad idea. They had been in their saddles for quite a few miles and Ace wouldn’t mind sitting down. An empty table stood not far away, so he took hold of Chance’s arm and urged him toward it. “Come on. You can see and hear her just as well from over there.”
Chance didn’t argue. He went with Ace without taking his eyes off the young woman standing beside the piano in the back of the room.
Ace was more interested in taking in all their surroundings, however, not just one small part. As they sat down, he let his gaze travel around the saloon. Checking for trouble like that was just a habit he had gotten into. The Jensen brothers might be young, but they had run into more than their share of ruckuses.
Most of the customers in the saloon appeared to be townies, cowboys from some of the spreads to the east, or miners from diggings up in the hills.
A group of men at one table caught Ace’s eye. They wore range clothes but had a certain indefinable hard-bitten air about them that set them apart from the usual breed of puncher. For one thing, they all wore gun belts and holstered revolvers.
So did he and Chance, Ace reminded himself. That didn’t mean there was anything wrong with them, just that sometimes they needed to be armed.
The bunch at that table was loud and boisterous even though the young woman at the piano was singing. One of them had a blond saloon girl on his lap and was pawing at her as he laughed. She looked a little uncomfortable, but she wasn’t trying to get away from him.
The racket had started to annoy Chance and he frowned. “Don’t those fellows know you’re supposed to shut up and be quiet when a lady’s singing? How can they not be in awe of such a
beautiful voice?”
“They’ve probably guzzled down enough rotgut they don’t care,” Ace said.
“I don’t care how drunk they are, they need to pipe down.”
“Maybe so, but it’s not our job to make ’em do it.”
Chance looked like he wanted to argue, but he sighed and turned his attention back to the young woman. From time to time, he cast an irritated glance toward the noisy table across the room.
Chance wasn’t the only one whose nerves those hombres were getting on, Ace realized a moment later. A bald, broad-shouldered man standing at the bar was glaring at the rowdies, too. He caught the blonde’s eye, lifted a hand, and used his thumb to point at the table where Ace and Chance sat.
That had to be the boss. Crackerjack Sawyer had mentioned the saloonkeeper’s name, and after a moment Ace recalled it—Hank Muller.
The blonde finally managed to wriggle free of the man who had her on his lap. She said something to him and stepped back quickly out of his reach when he tried to snag her again. Picking up a tray from an empty table nearby, she hurried across the room toward the Jensen brothers, looking relieved and worried at the same time.
As she came up to the table, she put a smile on her face. “Hello, boys,” she said, trying to sound bright and cheerful but not quite managing it. “What can I get you to drink?”
Ace could tell that took an effort. “Beer for both of us.” It was all they could really afford, and besides, neither of them was much of a heavy drinker, although Chance had cultivated a fondness for fine wine when they had enough dinero for it.
The blonde nodded. “I’ll be right—”
A heavy footstep sounded behind her and she let out a little gasp as a man’s hand grabbed her shoulder.
He hauled her around, revealing himself to be the hombre from whose lap she had escaped. “You’ll get right back over to our table where you belong,” he said, giving her a shove in that direction. “If these saddle tramps don’t like it, that’s just too damn bad!”
CHAPTER THREE
Chance sprang out of his chair instantly, and Ace was just a second behind him.
“I don’t really care what you call my brother and me,” Chance said in a taut, angry voice, “but you’d better apologize to the lady for treating her so rough.”
“Lady?” the man repeated with a cocky, arrogant smirk on his face. “I don’t see no lady here, only a saloon floozy who ain’t no better than she has to be.”
Ace said, “Mister, you’re just making us like you even less.”
The man laughed. “You reckon I give a damn about whether you like me?”
The blonde said, “Please, Pete, I told you I’d come right back after I got these boys their drinks—”
“I don’t want any trouble in here, McLaren,” Hank Muller interrupted her from the bar.
So the hombre gazing defiantly at them was Pete McLaren, Ace thought. The old-timer at the livery stable had mentioned him. From the sound of what Crackerjack Sawyer had said, McLaren was the biggest troublemaker in Lone Pine.
“Stay outta this, Muller,” McLaren snapped. “This is between me and these saddle tramps.”
“Really,” Chance said. “Do I look like a saddle tramp?” He gestured to indicate his suit, which was of good quality even though it wasn’t particularly new.
McLaren sneered again. “No, you look more like a damn, four-flushin’ tinhorn, if you ask me.”
Chance clenched his fist as he took half a step toward McLaren.
At the same time, the four men who had been sitting with McLaren got to their feet. They had been content to let their leader—as McLaren seemed to be—sally forth alone, but now that combat seemed to be imminent, they clearly didn’t want to miss out on any of the action.
“Take it easy, Chance,” Ace said quietly.
Five to two wasn’t very good odds. They would buck those odds if they had to—they were Jensens, after all. Related to the famous clan or not, they didn’t run from a fight, but Ace understood why Hank Muller didn’t want such a ruckus breaking out in his saloon.
“As if the way you treated this girl isn’t bad enough, you ruined a beautiful song,” Chance said with a nod toward the piano and the lovely brunette who stood beside it.
She had stopped singing and the piano player had stopped tickling the ivories when the confrontation began, just like the rest of the saloon’s customers had halted their drinking and talking to watch the unfolding drama.
The brunette smiled at Chance’s compliment, but the expression vanished a moment later when McLaren chuckled coarsely and said, “Beautiful song? You mean that caterwaulin’ that was going on a minute ago?”
Ace heard the hiss of Chance’s sharply indrawn breath. McLaren had pushed him too far by insulting the singer.
Chance lunged forward, fist whipping up toward McLaren’s face.
McLaren was fast. A few years older, he had more experience at brawling and jerked his head aside so Chance’s punch went harmlessly past his ear. Stepping in, he hooked a left into Chance’s midsection and then hammered a right into his chest.
Chance went backwards, his legs tangling with his brother’s as Ace tried to charge into the battle. As they struggled to hang on to their balance, McLaren’s friends sprang to the attack. Hank Muller bellowed for everybody to stop, but they ignored him. Customers at nearby tables scrambled to get away from the violence.
Ace and Chance got loose from each other, but only in time to be hit again. McLaren bored in on Chance, pounding him and making him retreat against one of the tables, while one of McLaren’s companions punched Ace in the jaw and knocked him halfway around.
That gave one of the other men the opportunity to grab Ace from behind and pin his arms back. “Thrash him good, Lew!” the man called to his friend.
Grinning, the man who had already hit Ace once moved in, fists cocked to deal out punishment.
Ace was a little groggy from the blow to the jaw, but his instincts were still working. As Lew closed in, intent on handing him a beating, Ace jerked both knees up and lashed out with a double-footed kick that landed on the man’s chest and sent him flying backwards. Lew crashed down on a table that collapsed with a splintering and rending of wood.
Ace’s kick also made the man holding him stumble backwards in the opposite direction. He tripped and fell onto his back on the sawdust-littered floor, pulling Ace with him. Ace landed on top of him. Thinking clearly enough, he rammed an elbow into the man’s belly and rolled to his feet.
Chance had recovered his wits and pushed off the table he was leaning against. He lowered his head and tackled McLaren as the hardcase tried to crowd him. They staggered around in a circle as Chance smashed a couple punches into McLaren’s kidneys, figuring he ought to do whatever it took to win—especially when he and his brother were outnumbered more than two to one. He continued the punches, even though he knew Ace would have considered such blows to be dirty fighting.
McLaren bellowed in pain and anger, got his hands on Chance’s chest, and shoved the younger man away. He threw a roundhouse punch that Chance leaned away from.
Getting his feet back under him, Chance put his own experience to work. He jabbed a right into McLaren’s mouth that made blood spurt. He followed it a split second later with a left that rocked the man’s head back, turning the tide of battle for a moment.
One of the other men snatched up a chair and brought it down on Chance’s head. The crashing blow sent him to his knees. McLaren caught his balance, kicked Chance in the chest, and knocked him over on his back.
Ace grabbed the chair-wielder by the shoulder, jerked him around, and slammed a right to his jaw. The other man in McLaren’s bunch clenched his fists together and swung them in a clubbing blow to the back of Ace’s neck, knocking Ace off his feet. He landed facedown next to his brother, who was lying on his back.
“A nice, peaceful-looking town, you said,” Ace groaned as he tried to push himself up.
Chance rolled
onto his side. “How was I to know we’d wind up in a fight?”
Ace didn’t bother answering that. He climbed onto his feet and helped Chance up. McLaren and the other four men were all standing, too, bunched together about fifteen feet away with angry glares on their bruised, bloody faces.
That pause was just a breather. The battle was about to resume.
“Everybody hold it right where you are, damn it!” The bellowed command came from the saloon’s entrance, where a man stood just inside the batwings, which were still swinging back and forth a little behind him. As if his loud, harsh, gravelly voice wasn’t enough to attract attention, the twin barrels of the shotgun he held looked as big around as cannons to anybody unlucky enough to be in front of them.
“Thank God you’re here, Marshal,” Hank Muller said. “I’ve already had a table and a chair busted up. There’s no telling how much damage these hellions might have done if they’d kept fighting.”
“Who are you calling hellions?” Chance asked resentfully. “We were just trying to help that girl who works for you.”
Before Muller could reply, the newcomer stalked farther into the saloon, keeping the scattergun leveled in front of him. The customers who had tried to get away from the fight shrank back farther to make sure they were out of the line of fire.
The lawman was a medium-sized man of middle age. His clean-shaven face was tanned to the color of old saddle leather and seamed with numerous wrinkles, especially around the mouth and eyes. Thick white hair stood out in sharp contrast to the old black hat he wore. A marshal’s badge was pinned to his vest. All it took was a glance to see that he still had all the bark on him, despite his years.
“I want to know who you hellions are,” he said to Ace and Chance. “I know McLaren and his pards, but I don’t reckon I’ve ever seen two before.”
Ace did the introductions. “I’m Ace Jensen and this is my brother Chance. We just rode into town a while ago. Mr. Sawyer down at the livery stable will confirm that, and so will Colonel Howden at the Territorial House.”
“Didn’t take you long to start trouble, then, did it?”
Twelve Dead Men Page 2