Ride the Savage Land

by William W. Johnstone

  “What’s wrong?” Chance asked, knowing his brother well enough to recognize when Ace was surprised.

  Ace shoved his hand into the pocket to make sure, then checked all his others as well. He didn’t find the money in any of them and realized that while he was being choked, the Kiowa had slipped his other hand in his pocket and taken the roll of greenbacks.

  “It’s gone,” Ace said in a hollow voice. “Our money is gone. The Kiowa stole it.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The loss of the stake for which they had worked so hard made things different, and Ace and Chance were willing to swear out a complaint. Of course, that didn’t make it any more likely Marshal Courtright would be able to find and arrest the Kiowa. In all likelihood, that two hundred dollars was gone and the Jensen brothers would never see it again.

  The night clerk, looking unhappy that his sleep had been disturbed, came upstairs to make sure the shooting hadn’t done any damage to the hotel. Some of the other guests peered curiously out of their rooms as well.

  As Courtright was leaving, he told them. “Go on back to bed, folks. All the excitement is over. And to tell you the truth, it wasn’t all that exciting to start with.”

  Maybe it hadn’t seemed that exciting to the marshal, Ace thought, but when he’d been battling for his life, it had been pretty doggoned pulse-pounding.

  “When are you boys planning on leaving town?” the clerk asked when Courtright was gone.

  “Figured we’d ride out in the morning,” Ace replied.

  The clerk grunted. “Probably be a good thing if you do. This is a respectable, law-abiding establishment.”

  “I didn’t know it was against the law to defend yourself from somebody who’s trying to kill you,” Chance snapped.

  “Some guests just seem to attract trouble,” the man said, scowling. He left the room and headed back downstairs.

  Chance went to close the door behind him and glared at the other guests who were still looking toward the room where the shooting had taken place. He slammed the door a little more forcefully than was absolutely necessary. “Damn buzzards,” he muttered as he turned back to Ace. “Always interested in somebody else’s bad luck.”

  “We’ve had our share tonight, that’s for sure.” Ace held up the twenty-dollar gold piece they had gotten from Dugan. “This is all the bankroll we have left, Chance. We’re going to have to pay some of it to the hotel and the livery stable before we leave town, too. Not to mention we haven’t stocked up on supplies yet, and we’ll have to do that before we ride out.”

  Chance shrugged. “You’re saying we’ll be leaving town flat broke.”

  “Pretty close to it. In a few days, maybe a week, we’ll have to stop somewhere else and start looking for jobs again.”

  Chance winced as if Ace had struck him. “We can stay around here for a few more days and see if I can run us up a better stake at the poker tables.”

  “If we do that, it’s liable to mean a shooting scrape with Shelby and Baylor.”

  “I’m not afraid of those two,” Chance said with a snort.

  “Neither am I,” Ace said.

  That was true. He knew that he and his brother were fast and accurate enough with their guns to stand an even chance with most men, even the ones who were supposed to be dangerous pistoleers like Lew Shelby. Men such as Smoke Jensen, Falcon MacCallister, John Wesley Hardin, Ben Thompson, and Frank Morgan occupied a different level when it came to gun-handling, but Ace and Chance were more than good enough to get by.

  Problem was, with Loomis, Prewitt, and the Kiowa backing Shelby and Baylor, it wouldn’t even be close to a fair fight. The Jensen brothers might be able to shoot it out with the five hardcases and survive, but even if they did, it was likely Marshal Courtright would throw them in jail.

  Chance was smart enough to know that, too. He sighed and said, “What are we going to do, then? Turn outlaw and rob a bank so we’ll have enough money to ride out of here and keep going for a while?”

  “We both know good and well we’re not going to do that. I reckon we’ll just have to wait and see how things look in the morning. Who knows, maybe Marshal Courtright will recover our money.”

  Chance just shook his head. Both of them knew that wasn’t going to happen.

  * * *

  The next morning, five women dressed in traveling outfits emerged from a different, somewhat fancier hotel in Fort Worth and stood on the porch while a porter carried out their bags and stacked them. Each woman had two bags, one small and one larger. That was all they were allowed to bring with them on the journey they were about to undertake.

  Four of them were quite young, a year or so on either side of twenty. The fifth woman was older, around thirty. She had honey-blond hair done up in swirls under her hat and a small beauty mark on her cheek. Her name was Lorena Hutton, and as she stood there she began to grow angry.

  “Where the devil is Cyrus with that wagon?” she asked the others, even though she knew logically they wouldn’t have the answer to that question any more than she would. In the time they had been together, they had learned that Lorena was the most plain-spoken among them.

  “He is only a little late,” Isabel Sheridan replied with a slight trace of an accent that seemed to go with her dark, sultry good looks.

  “He probably overslept,” Jamie Gregory added. “He’s getting old, you know.”

  Like Lorena and Isabel, Jamie was a beauty. The youngest of the group at eighteen—almost nineteen—she had thick blond hair so pale it was almost white.

  The other two young women didn’t say anything because they tended to be quiet and keep to themselves.

  Molly Brock wasn’t as pretty as the three who had spoken up, but her red hair, green eyes, and a scattering of freckles across her face gave her a wholesome attractiveness that was more evident when she was away from Lorena, Isabel, and Jamie.

  The fifth member of the group didn’t have the beauty, grace, or elegance of the others. An ungainly air clung to her. Her clothes didn’t fit her as well, and when she walked across the porch her heavy shoes clunked on the boards. Her best feature was her long, dark hair, but it was done up in braids and wrapped around her head at the moment. Her name was Agnes Hampel, and if ever a name fit its owner, this was one.

  Lorena grew more impatient as the minutes passed. The streets of Fort Worth were getting busier.

  Finally, she said, “The hell with this. I’m going down to the wagon yard to look for him. He had to go there before he came here to pick us up.”

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Jamie asked. “Mr. Keegan told us we ought to stick together.”

  “Nothing’s going to happen to any of us in broad daylight, in the middle of town.” Lorena laughed. “Believe me, darlin’, I’ve been in plenty of worse situations than this and taken care of myself just fine.”

  “Yes, I can believe that you would take care of yourself,” Isabel said, her voice a slightly sharp-edged purr.

  Lorena frowned at her. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Nothing,” Isabel said, waving a slender hand. “Perhaps we should all go to the wagon yard?”

  Molly spoke up for the first time since they’d come out of the hotel. “And leave our bags here?” She looked and sounded as if she didn’t care for that idea at all.

  “I can stay and watch them,” Agnes suggested. “I won’t let anybody bother them.”

  The others thought about that. They knew Agnes had grown up on a farm, which meant she was used to hard work and was the strongest, physically, of all of them. She would be able to protect the bags.

  “All right. That’s what we’ll do,” Lorena decided. “Come on.”

  “I can stay with you if you’d like,” Molly offered to Agnes.

  “No, that’s not necessary. I’m fine. Really.”

  With obvious reluctance, Molly went down the steps behind Lorena, Isabel, and Jamie. The four of them turned and walked west along the street toward the livery stable
and wagon yard where they were supposed to meet Cyrus Keegan, the man accompanying them on their trip.

  In wetter times, the streets of Fort Worth were seas of mud churned up by horses’ hooves and the wheels of countless wagons. It had been a fairly dry spring, however, so the footing wasn’t too bad. In fact, the air would get dustier from the traffic as the day went on.

  Patterson’s Stable and Wagon Yard was on a cross street between Throckmorton and Houston, not far from the courthouse. The proprietor, a stocky man with a rust-colored beard, was standing in the open double doors of the livery barn when the four women approached. He frowned as he saw them coming.

  “Keegan’s in the office,” Patterson said, pointing with a thumb to a smaller door beside the large ones. “I’ve already sent for a doctor.”

  “A doctor!” Jamie exclaimed. “Oh, my Lord. What happened?”

  “See for yourself,” the stableman said. He walked over and opened the office door.

  “We intend to.” Lorena strode into the office, followed by the other three women.

  A man lay stretched out on a ratty old sofa on the other side of the room. It was hard to say what was more shocking about him, the odor of whiskey that filled the air around him, even early in the morning, or the way his right leg was bent at a painfully unnatural angle.

  “Good Lord, Cyrus!” Lorena said. “What happened to you?”

  “I think”—he stopped to hiccup—“I think my leg is broken.”

  “Aren’t you in terrible pain?” Molly asked.

  “To tell you the truth, my dear”—again he paused . . . to giggle—“I don’t feel a blessed thing!”

  “That’s because he’s drunk as a skunk.” Lorena blew out a disgusted breath. “Of all the damned bad luck—” She turned to look at Patterson, who stood in the doorway with a shoulder propped against the jamb. “What happened?”

  “He came in to get the wagon, and since I was busy with somebody else just then, he decided to hitch up the team himself. He was so drunk he made a bad job of it, though, and spooked the horses so much that one of ’em kicked him.” Patterson shook his head. “I was on the other side of the barn, but I heard the thigh bone snap. It was that bad.”

  On the sofa, Keegan began to sing a bawdy song. Lorena’s mouth tightened. She had heard the song before, and much worse besides, but she wasn’t in the mood for it right now. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Patterson stepped aside as she led the other three women out of the office. A block up the street, a man in a suit, carrying a black medical bag, hurried toward the stable. That would be the doctor Patterson had summoned.

  “What are we going to do?” Molly asked, practically wailing.

  “Can the doctor fix Mr. Keegan up well enough that he can drive the wagon?” Jamie added.

  Lorena said. “Honey, with a leg busted that bad, Cyrus is going to be laid up for weeks. He’s not going anywhere.”

  “Then neither are we,” Isabel said. Her lips compressed into a thin line. “This is unacceptable.”

  “Just because Cyrus isn’t going doesn’t mean that we aren’t.” Lorena frowned in thought for a moment, then went on. “I’d be willing to bet a new ostrich feather for my hat that Agnes can drive a wagon.”

  Patterson said, “Wait a minute. You ladies ain’t thinkin’ you’ll travel all the way from Fort Worth to San Angelo by yourselves, are you?”

  “I don’t see why not,” Lorena said.

  “Would it be safe to do something like that?” Jamie asked.

  “As a matter of fact, it sure wouldn’t,” the stableman said. “You’d be liable to run into all kinds of trouble along the way. Bandits and other sorts of rough hombres, for sure. Comanche renegades who’ve jumped the reservation and gone out raiding. And this time of year there’s always a chance of a tornado or a storm with hailstones big enough to bust your head open. To tell you the truth, I was worried about the five of you ladies goin’ that far with just Keegan to look out for you. By yourselves”—Patterson shook his head—“I can’t allow it.”

  Coldly, Lorena told him. “You don’t have anything to say about it, Mr. Patterson. Your bill’s paid up, isn’t it?”

  “Well, yeah, but—”

  “Then there’s nothing stopping us from taking that wagon, is there?”

  “Just the fact that it doesn’t belong to you. I could send for the marshal.”

  “Oh, really?” Lorena smiled. “You think I can’t go in there and convince Cyrus to give me his permission, in writing if necessary, to take the wagon?”

  “That wouldn’t count. He’s drunk!”

  “As a skunk,” Lorena said again. “But if he signs his name to a piece of paper, it’ll hold up in court, and you know it.”

  Patterson’s frown deepened. He was perplexed and didn’t know what to do; then an idea occurred to him. “Maybe you could get somebody else to go with you and make sure you get there safe.”

  “And who would we get to do that?”

  Patterson looked around, and his expression brightened.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The Kiowa hadn’t come back during the night.

  Ace and Chance had taken turns staying awake and standing guard over each other, but it left both young men a little more tired and out of sorts than they would have been if they’d gotten a full night’s sleep.

  In the morning they’d packed their gear and gone downstairs to settle up. They owed for two more nights, which cost a couple dollars out of the twenty they had.

  The clerk was not the man who had been unhappy with them the night before. “I heard about all the troubles you boys had. Sorry for your misfortune, but can’t say as I’m unhappy to see you go.”

  “We’re not unhappy to leave this place, either,” Chance said. “I’ve slept on trails that had less lumps than that mattress.”

  Actually, the mattress hadn’t been that bad.

  Ace knew his brother was just in a bad mood. “I don’t suppose Marshal Courtright has been around looking for us?”

  The clerk shook his head. “No, I haven’t seen him. Could be he’s still asleep. The marshal’s job keeps him out and about more at night, if you know what I mean.”

  Ace understood. There was more trouble at night for a lawman to deal with. For that matter, according to some of the things Harley Greendale had said, Jim Courtright preferred spending his time in saloons, gambling dens, dance halls, and the like.

  The brothers walked out of the hotel with their saddlebags slung over their shoulders. Each carried a Winchester in his left hand.

  They headed for the livery stable a block and a half away, around the corner on a cross street. It was run by a friendly hombre named Patterson. They owed him for the last two nights their horses had spent at the stable, which would account for another dollar and a half out of their dwindling funds.

  By the time they bought food and ammunition, they would be lucky to be leaving Fort Worth with ten dollars to their name.

  As they walked, Chance said. “Do you think there’s any point in waiting around to see if Courtright caught that Indian and recovered our money?”

  “If he had, he would have sent word to the hotel or come himself,” Ace said. “We’re just going to have to accept that those two hundred dollars are gone.”

  Chance cursed bitterly. “I know. I just don’t like the idea of having to look for another job in a week or so.” He sighed. “I suppose we might as well enjoy our freedom while it lasts.”

  “We’re talking about a job, not being locked up in prison,” Ace said with a smile.

  “Not that much difference as far as I’m concerned.”

  As they approached the livery barn, they saw Patterson going into the office with several women. Having no idea what that was about, Ace and Chance walked into the barn and went to the stalls where their mounts were. It didn’t take long to get blankets, saddles, and the rest of their gear on Ace’s big chestnut and Chance’s cream-colored gelding. Holding the reins, they led th
e animals up the aisle and out of the building.

  As they emerged into the street, Ace heard Patterson say. “How about those Jensen boys?”

  Chance heard it, too. He looked in the direction of the stableman and his companions, and stood there with his eyes slowly widening as he said under his breath. “Good Lord, Ace. Would you look at that?”

  “I see them,” Ace replied, trying not to stare. Actually, he had seen the women a few minutes earlier when they were going into the office with Patterson, but he was getting his first good look at them.

  It was a sight that no red-blooded young man was going to forget any time soon.

  If somebody had set out to assemble a collection of different types of beautiful women, those four might be the result. Two blondes, one exotic-looking brunette, and a mighty cute redhead.

  All of them looked to be about the same age as the Jensen brothers except the one with honey-colored hair, who was a few years older but still as lovely as her companions. They wore nice traveling outfits and hats, stylish and well cared for but probably not luxuriously expensive. The women just made the clothes look that way.

  Patterson beckoned Ace and Chance. “Come over here, fellas. These ladies have a business proposition for you.”

  “We didn’t agree to that at all,” the honey-blonde said. “Who are these young men? What do you know about them?”

  Ace and Chance led their horses closer while the woman was asking her questions.

  Stopping, Ace pinched the brim of his hat and nodded politely. “Ma’am. My name is Ace Jensen, and this is my brother Chance.”

  “Those can’t possibly be your given names,” the sultry brunette said.

  “No, ma’am, but they’re all we ever go by.”

  The honey-blonde said. “Don’t call us ma’am. None of us is your mother. My name is Lorena Hutton. Miss Lorena Hutton.” She introduced the others. “Miss Isabel Sheridan, Miss Jamie Gregory, and Miss Molly Brock.”