Ride the Savage Land

by William W. Johnstone

  “Anything going on?” Ace asked as he pulled on his boots.

  “Not a thing. Lorena dozed off a couple of times. I let her sleep.” Chance laughed softly. “I think she was a little annoyed with me for doing that, but shoot, I’m not going to wake a woman who’s sleeping. Doc raised us to be gentlemen.”

  “She’s gone to bed?”

  “Yep. But she said she’d wake Molly first.”

  Sure enough, Molly poked her head out of the wagon a minute or so later. When she climbed out, Ace saw by the light of the fire’s embers that she was fully dressed.

  “Do you want a rifle?” Ace asked her.

  “I wouldn’t be of any use with one if I had it,” she said. “I hope that’s all right.”

  “Sure.”

  Chance said. “Good night, you two,” and disappeared underneath the wagon to seek his bedroll and a few hours of sleep.

  “You can sit on the tailgate there if you’d like,” Ace told Molly.

  “What about you?”

  “I’ll sit some, but I’ll be up roaming around, too. You just keep your eyes and ears open.”

  “I can do that.”

  He tucked his Winchester under his arm and sat on the tailgate beside her for the moment. After a while he asked. “Who’s the fella you’re supposed to marry in San Angelo?”

  “His name is Jonas Blosser. He’s a blacksmith. From what I can tell, he’s a good, honest man, well respected in the community.”

  “Sounds like a hard worker,” Ace said. “I hope you’ll be very happy.”

  “I’m sure I will be. At least I won’t have to be around outlaws all the time.”

  Ace frowned and was about to ask her what she meant by that, then he remembered. “Oh, yeah, your father’s a lawman, right?”

  “That’s right. He’s the marshal in the town where we live. I used to bring meals from the café to the jail for his prisoners. I started doing that when I was twelve years old.”

  “That doesn’t sound like a job for a twelve-year-old,” Ace said.

  “Oh, I didn’t mind. I was glad to help out. A lot of the men who wound up in jail really weren’t that bad. They just had bad luck or made bad decisions.”

  “I suppose.” Ace didn’t say anything about how he and Chance had run afoul of small-town lawmen in the past and wound up behind bars, usually because of some misunderstanding.

  “Those prisoners weren’t very good husband material, though,” Molly went on. “That’s why I decided to leave. I’m sure Jonas will be much better.”

  “I hope so,” Ace told her.

  She sighed. “It would be hard for him to be worse than some of the men I met up there in Missouri.”

  Ace thought she was going to continue, but she fell silent.

  After a few minutes she went on. “How about you and Chance? Where are you from?”

  “From all over, really.” Ace told her about how he and his brother had been raised by Doc Monday. She was easy to talk to, and he kind of regretted it when he realized he needed to get up and walk around the camp to make sure no one was sneaking up on them.

  “Do you want me to stay here?” Molly asked.

  “That’d be best,” Ace said. “I can leave my Colt with you . . .”

  She shook her head. “I don’t want a gun. I’d be afraid I’d shoot somebody I wasn’t supposed to.”

  “All right. Just keep your eyes and ears open.”

  He slid down from the tailgate and walked out about twenty yards from the wagon, then began making a circle around the camp. A glance at the sky told him the overcast was beginning to break up. He saw a star peeking through here and there.

  The night seemed quiet and peaceful. He was about three-quarters of the way around the camp when a sudden flurry of hoofbeats somewhere nearby shattered the stillness. He stiffened for a second and then broke into a run toward the camp, carrying the Winchester at a slant in front of him.

  His first thought was that the surviving Fairweathers were attacking out of the darkness. As he pounded up to the wagon, he realized the hoofbeats were going away from the camp, rather than toward it. Somebody was lighting a shuck out of there.

  The noise had roused Chance from sleep. He rolled out from under the wagon and came up on a knee with the .38 in his hand.

  “Ace! What the hell?”

  “I don’t know,” Ace said. He hurried to the back of the wagon where he had left Molly.

  She was gone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  The women had been awakened by Chance’s shout. Lorena pushed aside the canvas at the back of the wagon and peered out at the Jensen brothers. The other three tried to look over her shoulders.

  “What is it?” Lorena said. “What’s wrong, Ace?”

  “Molly’s gone,” Ace replied.

  “Gone! What do you mean, gone?”

  Ace didn’t bother answering that question since it seemed pretty obvious to him.

  The question that mattered was—had Molly run away on her own . . . or had someone taken her?

  Ace rushed over to the horses and saw that his chestnut and Chance’s cream-colored gelding were still there, tossing their heads a little because of the commotion. So were the four big draft horses. If Molly had left on her own, she would have taken one of the saddle mounts.

  That meant someone had slipped into the camp and grabbed her, then gotten her away from the wagon without making a sound. Ace’s first thought was that one of the Fairweathers had kidnapped the young woman.

  The other four ladies chattered in excitement and worry as Ace swung back to his brother. “Stay here. I’ll go after them.”

  “Them?”

  “It sounded like more than one horse to me,” Ace said grimly.

  “That damned Fairweather bunch!”

  “More than likely.” Ace couldn’t think of who else it might have been.

  “I’m coming with you,” Chance said.

  “No, that could be just what they want. They might have grabbed Molly in order to lure us both away from the wagon, so they could swoop in and grab the rest of the ladies.”

  “Let them try!” Lorena said from the wagon, her eyes flashing with anger and defiance in the dim light. “We’ll meet them with hot lead if they do.”

  “We can’t risk it,” Ace said. “And we’re wasting time arguing.”

  “You’re right,” Chance admitted grudgingly. “Go on. I’ll see to it that nothing happens to the others, and we’ll all wait right here for you to get back with Molly.”

  “I appreciate the vote of confidence,” Ace said as he leaned his rifle against the wagon. He began saddling the chestnut.

  Already the hoofbeats that had fled away from the camp had faded away, but Ace knew which way they had been headed—north along the base of the ridge. He would start in that direction and hope for the best.

  The alternative was to wait until morning and try to track the kidnappers then, and he wasn’t going to do that. He slid his rifle into its scabbard, then swung up into the saddle and turned the chestnut north.

  Behind him, Lorena called, “Good luck! Be careful!”

  Ace intended to use caution—but rescuing Molly was more important. He would run whatever risks he needed to.

  More stars had emerged, which gave him enough light to see where he was going. He had to maintain a fairly slow pace because of the rough terrain. It wouldn’t do Molly any good if the horse stumbled and broke a leg or even just lamed itself.

  Ace followed the ragged edge of the escarpment. It wasn’t likely the kidnappers would try to climb it in the dark. And if the Fairweathers were responsible for grabbing Molly, their camp was probably back to the east somewhere. Finding tracks at night was very difficult, and Ace wished the moon would come out so he could at least make the attempt.

  As if the moon had read his mind, it sailed out from behind the thinning clouds and cast a silvery glow over the landscape. Ace reined in and intently studied the ground ahead of him. After a while
he dismounted, hunkered on his heels, and snapped a match to life with his thumbnail.

  His instincts had guided him well. He was looking at the tracks left by three horses. That matched up with what he had heard back at the camp. They were definitely headed north, not swinging back to the east.

  Ace followed on foot, leading the chestnut. Now that he had found the sign, he didn’t want to lose it.

  That made for slow going. The delay chafed at Ace, but staying on the right path was more important than hurrying.

  He covered several miles in that fashion. A few times he believed he had lost the trail, but diligent searching and some carefully shielded match light turned it up again.

  The ragged edge of the escarpment still loomed on his left. It struck him as odd that the Fairweathers would continue in that direction, but there was no telling what those loco hombres might do.

  The eastern sky held the faintest tinge of gray, heralding that dawn was a couple hours away, when Ace suddenly stopped and sniffed the air. He thought he had just caught a whiff of wood smoke, and sniffed again. Somebody not too far away had a fire going.

  Could be an isolated farm, he told himself. Or a line shack on some ranch. Or it might be that the men who had kidnapped Molly had gone to ground with their prisoner, thinking they were safe from pursuit until the morning.

  The smoke was easier to follow than the hoofprints had been. Ace just let his nose guide him. When the smell was strong enough to convince him the fire was close, he tied his horse to a sapling and catfooted ahead.

  A faint, flickering glow appeared to his left about a hundred yards away. His quarry had made camp in a narrow canyon formed by two smaller ridges that protruded from the main escarpment. Ace crept closer until he could peer through a gap in the brush and see the fire itself.

  The wooded slopes pressed in close on both sides of the camp, but there was room for the fire, three horses, the three men who had ridden them—and Molly Brock.

  Ace’s eyes narrowed in surprise as he saw that all three men were clean-shaven except for some stubble. They weren’t any of the Fairweather brothers. He had never seen them before.

  Molly sat on a slab of rock with her head down and her hands clasped around her knees. Her shoulders were hunched over as if she expected a blow.

  The man looming over her looked mad enough—and mean enough—to hit her. He was a big man, tall and broad through the shoulders, with a black hat pushed back on a thatch of curly blond hair. His lantern-jawed face wasn’t exactly ugly, but he was far from handsome.

  The other two men, in well-worn range clothes, resembled dozens of hardcases and outlaws the Jensen brothers had encountered over the past few years as they drifted through the West. All three were armed and looked like they knew how to use the guns.

  As Ace watched from the brush, the big man said to Molly. “I’m tired of talking to you. You’d better give me what I want, or you’ll be damned sorry.”

  That son of a bitch, the normally mild-mannered Ace thought. Even most owlhoots wouldn’t talk like that to a woman, and they sure wouldn’t threaten her. If the man made a move toward her, Ace would have to shoot him.

  But he didn’t want to do that. Not out of any compassion for the brutal kidnapper or fear for himself, but if he downed the man threatening Molly, the other two would grab their guns and open fire. The way they were positioned, Molly would be right in the way of those bullets. The likelihood of her catching a stray slug would be high.

  He had to do something else. Had to think of some sort of distraction that would allow him to get Molly away from her captors before any shooting started.... An idea popped into his head. It seemed like a long shot, but it might be the only chance he had to rescue her without putting her too much at risk. Carefully, silently, he backed away toward the spot where he had left his horse.

  When he had put enough distance between himself and the camp, he circled to the north, then onto the ridge that stuck out from the higher escarpment. The slope was steep, but he managed to move along it without falling. He couldn’t get in a hurry without making the brush crackle, so he had to be patient.

  Ace heard the sound of voices from the camp below him, but he couldn’t make out the words. He could tell by the rising tone of the big man’s words that time was running out. The man was about to lose his patience, and that didn’t bode well for Molly.

  Ace went farther up the little canyon, then stopped. He took a couple deep breaths then threw back his head and howled.

  It wasn’t a dog-like howl. More the shrill, snarling cry of a mountain lion. As kids, Ace and Chance had practiced making animal sounds until they were experts. They could imitate any birdcall that was out there, as well as the chuffing snorts of a bear, the bellow of a moose, even the chittering of squirrels.

  The uncanny shriek echoed between the slopes and seemed to grow louder. As Ace fell silent, he heard shouts of alarm coming from the men and frightened whinnies from the horses.

  Somebody yelled, “Grab those horses before they pull loose and bolt!”

  Another man said, “Get your rifles and go find that panther! Those big cats love horse meat. We can’t afford to lose any of our mounts.”

  “Damn it, Earl—” That was the voice of the third man.

  Ace realized the name belonged to the big man. Clearly he was the boss of the trio.

  “Kill it if you can find it, but even if you don’t, fire some shots in the air and run it off. We can’t have it hangin’ around here. The horses are already spooked.”

  The horses would settle down soon enough, once they realized they had only heard a mountain lion and couldn’t smell one. But the three men who had kidnapped Molly didn’t know that.

  A racket came from the brush below him as the two men tramped through it in search of the “panther” they had heard. Ace heard some grumbling from them as well. Despite their displeasure, they weren’t going to defy the big man’s orders.

  Ace waited until they were past, then began easing back along the slope toward the camp. The light from the fire was brighter. Somebody had thrown more wood on it to make the flames blaze up, probably in hopes that it would keep the big cat away.

  Faintly, he could still hear the two men crashing around up the canyon. If there really had been a mountain lion in the vicinity, it probably would have run off already . . . or eaten the two hardcases.

  All Ace cared about was that they were out of the way. Crouching low so the brush would conceal him, he crept closer until he could see the camp again.

  Holding a rifle in his hands, the big man stood looking up the canyon. His back was to the fire, so Ace couldn’t make out his expression, but his attitude was one of tense anticipation. If a mountain lion came bounding out of the shadows, he was ready.

  But he wasn’t prepared for a human antagonist.

  Ace slipped his Colt from its holster and stepped out of the brush. “Drop that rifle, mister, and get your hands in the air!”

  Behind the man, Ace had the drop on him, but that wasn’t enough to make him surrender.

  The man whirled. Bent low, he brought the rifle around. Ace caught a glimpse of a snarling face above the swinging barrel.

  He had given the man a chance to cooperate. He wasn’t going to wait until the kidnapper opened fire on him. Anybody who would grab a woman and threaten her didn’t deserve a whole heap of consideration, anyway.

  Ace’s gun boomed.

  The man flew backwards, the rifle sailing out of his hands as he fell. He clawed at his upper right arm where Ace’s slug had ripped a deep crease.

  “Molly, run!” Ace shouted at her.

  It was good that they hadn’t tied her up. She lunged to her feet and dashed away from the camp. Ace knew that path would take her toward his horse. He intended to be close behind her.

  The big man landed hard on the ground but rolled over and came up clawing at his holstered revolver with his left arm. His right hung useless for the moment, dripping blood from the bullet w
ound. He gave up trying to draw his own gun and threw himself to the side as Ace fired again. He saw the man’s shirt jerk where the bullet tugged at it.

  The man’s headlong dive carried him into the bushes at the edge of the camp. Ace snapped another shot in that direction then ran after Molly. The muscles in his back were tense as he halfway expected to feel a bullet smash into him.

  Shadows closed in around him. No more shots roared. A couple hundred yards up the canyon, the other two men shouted. They would be on their way back in a hurry to see what all the shooting was about.

  “Ace!”

  The low-voiced cry made Ace veer toward it. A dark shape loomed up in front of him. It was his horse, he realized. Molly had hold of the reins and was leading the animal.

  “Thank God he didn’t kill you!” she exclaimed.

  Ace took the reins from her, grabbed the saddle horn, stuck his foot in the stirrup, and swung up. The chestnut danced back and forth a little, but Ace tightened the reins and calmed the horse. He reached down with his other hand. Molly grasped his wrist with both hands. He pulled her up behind him. She put her arms around his waist and held on tight.

  He heeled the horse into a run and galloped out of the canyon, onto the flats again. They turned south toward the camp where he had left Chance and the other ladies.

  Ace didn’t hear any more guns go off behind them, but he knew better than to believe they were in the clear just yet.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Earl Brock clambered to his feet and stumbled out of the brush as Cooper and Hawthorne ran up. Both men looked spooked, but their rifles were ready if they needed to fire.

  “Earl, what happened?” Hawthorne asked.

  “That was no damn mountain lion doin’ that shootin’!” Cooper said. “I never saw one yet that could use a gun.”

  “You’re hit,” Hawthorne added as he looked wide-eyed at Brock’s bloody sleeve.

  “Shut up and let me get a word out, you damn fools,” Brock said, tight-lipped with rage. “I know I’m hit. He shot me and took off with Molly.”

  “Who?”