She jutted out her chin defiantly. “I’ll never go with you, Ripley. You’re a madman. You’ll have to kill me.”
“Well . . .” Kirkwood smiled. “I always said that if I couldn’t have you, no one else could.” He raised the gun in his hand.
“No,” Leon said.
Kirkwood glanced over at him and frowned. “What did you say?”
“No,” Leon repeated. “You’re not going to hurt that girl or even try to hurt her, ever again.”
Anger flushed Kirkwood’s face an even darker red in the firelight. “I think you’re forgetting that you work for me. You do whatever I tell you, damn it. Now go over there, get Isabel, and bring her to me.”
Slowly, Leon shook his head. “I didn’t help her get away from you back in New Orleans and then come all this way just so you could get your hands on her again.”
Isabel gasped. “That was you who unlocked my door? Why?”
“I figured you deserved better than this piece of scum.”
Kirkwood’s eyes widened. Rage made his voice tremble as he said, “How dare you! I won’t stand for this!” He jerked his gun away from the women, pointed it toward Leon, and pulled the trigger.
Leon was already moving, but he didn’t try to avoid the bullet. He grunted as the slug punched into him, dropped his own gun, and spread his arms wide as he lunged at Kirkwood.
The young man fired twice more, but the shots didn’t seem to have any effect. Leon caught him up in a crushing grip and lifted him off his feet.
Kirkwood screamed in pain and horror as Leon bore him backwards toward the brink.
The big man said, “There’s only one way . . . to make sure you never hurt anybody else . . . and I never help you . . . again!”
Kirkwood’s shriek rose as they both went over the edge. It continued for a couple seconds before it stopped with an abrupt finality.
Everyone was staring in shock at the spot where the two men had disappeared. Everyone except the Jensen brothers.
Chance leaped toward Shelby. From the corner of his eye, the gunman saw Chance coming and swung his gun around, but before he could fire, Chance tackled him and drove him off his feet. The revolver boomed, but the bullet went high in the air.
At the same instant Chance went into action, Ace’s hand dipped to the Colt still in his holster. The gun came up spitting flame and lead.
One of the men with Brock went down with a bullet in his heart before he could pull the trigger. The other got a shot off, and Ace felt the wind-rip of the slug as it passed his ear. He triggered again and saw the man’s head snap back as the .45 round bored between his eyes. His knees buckled and pitched him forward.
Despite being wounded, Earl Brock had his gun out, but it was in his left hand and he was slow bringing it to bear on Ace. Before he could pull the trigger, Molly leaped forward and grabbed his arm, forcing it up and throwing off his aim. He snarled and slashed at her, raking the barrel and the front sight across her face.
She had given Ace time to draw a bead, and when his Colt boomed again, Brock staggered as the bullet drove into his chest. The gun slipped from his fingers.
Molly scooped it from the ground, raised it in both hands, and fired it directly into Brock’s face from close range. The outlaw’s features disappeared in a bloody smear as he went over backwards.
While the shooting was going on, Chance and Lew Shelby rolled across the rough ground, wrestling over Shelby’s gun. Chance had his left hand locked around Shelby’s right wrist to keep the muzzle pointed away from him. He used his right to hammer punches into the gunman’s head and body.
They rolled into a clump of grass next to some rocks along the mesa’s edge. Chance heard a sinister buzzing sound, then Shelby suddenly screamed and jerked away from him. The killer leaped to his feet and fired down at the ground, blowing a thick, writhing shape into bloody pieces. Chance scooted away and looked around for something he could use as a weapon.
Shelby turned toward him, and Chance saw the angry red fang marks on the man’s cheek where the rattlesnake that had been coiled up against the rocks had struck him. Shelby screamed as he stumbled around, no doubt feeling the venom coursing through his veins. The way Shelby’s heart was pounding, the poison spread through most of his body quickly.
Chance surged up from the ground and launched himself at Shelby again. His shoulder rammed into the gunman’s belly and knocked him backwards. His knees hit the rock behind him, and in the blink of an eye, he flipped over it and was gone. Chance heard him hit the trail somewhere below, then Shelby screamed again. He’d bounced off and fallen the rest of the way to the ground.
Chance leaned on the rock for a second to catch his breath, then backed hurriedly away from it. Where there was one rattler, there might be another.
Ace came up beside him and grasped his shoulder. “Are you all right?”
With his pulse still hammering in his head, Chance nodded. “Yeah. How about you and the ladies?”
“We’re alive—and all the rest are dead.”
It was true. Corpses littered the mesa and the area around it. Despite the grim death that surrounded them, Chance laughed.
“What in the world is funny?” Ace asked.
“This is when . . . the rest of those damned Fairweathers ought to show up.”
“Don’t even think it,” Ace said, but he started reloading his Colt just in case.
* * *
By the light of the campfire Ace and Agnes built at the base of the mesa, Lorena cleaned and bandaged the wound on Molly’s face. It was probably going to leave a scar, but at least she was alive, which had looked pretty doubtful when they were prisoners.
* * *
The Fairweathers didn’t show up. Ace and Chance were both grateful for that.
The next morning, after the group had spent the rest of the night at the base of the mesa, Lieutenant Wingate and his patrol of buffalo soldiers did.
Ace saw the dust rising first and alerted Chance. Quickly, they got the ladies started up the trail, so they could take shelter on top of the mesa. The Jensen brothers intended to hold the trail against any attackers.
Ace used his field glasses and was able to make out the blue uniforms and the guidon, as had happened with the previous encounter, and he called them back down.
Wingate had his pistol in hand as he reined in. He looked around and exclaimed, “Good Lord! Are you ladies all right?”
“Molly and Agnes each have an ugly cut,” Lorena said, “but the rest of us are fine.”
Jamie said, “We’re a lot better now that you’re here, Lieutenant Wingate!” Her relief was obvious and heartfelt.
Chance gave Ace a wry smile. They had saved the women, but neither brother had any doubt that Jamie was going to carry on as if Wingate was responsible for their rescue. Chance no longer appeared to care what her attitude was, though, so that was an improvement, thought Ace.
In fact, Chance and Agnes had been talking together quietly and seemed to be enjoying each other’s company quite a bit.
Wingate dismounted. Jamie hugged him, but he looked around. “Are those bodies I see?”
“Yeah,” Ace said. He and Chance had dragged the bodies of Kirkwood, Leon, Shelby, and the Comanche guard into a crevice in the rock face. The other dead Comanches, along with Brock, Cooper, and Hawthorne, were still atop the mesa.
Wingate could bury them all if he wanted to. Ace and Chance weren’t going to that much trouble when there were plenty of coyotes and buzzards around.
“What are you doing here, Lieutenant?” Chance asked.
“Yesterday after we parted company from you, we heard shooting in the distance,” Wingate explained. “We doubled back and found the empty wagon, then followed the tracks from there. I’m afraid we, uh, lost our way for a time or we would have arrived before now. I’m relieved to see that we weren’t too late.”
“Well . . . too late to do any real good,” Chance pointed out, which earned him a quick glare from Jamie.
Ace nodded. “Those Comanche renegades are all dead, Lieutenant. You can go back to the fort.” Thinking about the Fairweathers, he added, “In fact, if you’d care to give us and the ladies an escort to San Angelo . . .”
“Of course. I’ll have to make a report on the incident, and that will give me plenty of time to find out all the details.” Wingate pinched the brim of his cavalry hat. “By tonight, ladies, you’ll all be safe in San Angelo. I give you my word on that!”
“I don’t reckon we ever really doubted it,” Lorena said with a smile, “since we’ll still be traveling with those Jensen boys!”
The smiles from the other ladies, even Jamie, made it clear that they felt the same way.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Since the mesa was considerably south of the route they had been following, the group had to backtrack some to retrieve the wagon before heading west again.
It was after dark before they rolled into San Angelo, accompanied by Lieutenant Wingate’s patrol. The lieutenant had to take his men on to Fort Concho, but he lingered long enough to say good-bye to Jamie and promise that he would come back to check on her the next day.
Agnes commented to Ace and Chance, “I think that rancher who was supposed to marry Jamie is going to be disappointed. She’s set her cap for a dashing young cavalry officer, and I have a feeling she’s going to get what she wants!”
“I wouldn’t be a bit surprised,” Chance agreed.
Molly stood nearby. She put a hand to the bandage on her cheek and said, “I doubt if Jonas Blosser will want to marry me now. Not as ugly as I’ll be with this terrible scar.”
“That’s crazy,” Lorena said. “If he’s got any sense, he won’t let that bother him.”
Isabel said, “The fact that you have fifty thousand dollars of stolen money might put a crimp in your plans.”
Molly sighed. “I’ve already said I’d return the money. I didn’t steal any of it, you know. Earl and his men did that. I kind of . . . took it with me . . . when I ran away from him, but I’d just as soon it go back to where it belongs.”
“Easy to say, now that your secret has been revealed,” Isabel pointed out.
“Well, at least I didn’t have a lunatic chasing me.” Molly paused. “Well, maybe Earl was a little bit loco. But it’s not really the same thing.”
Lorena put a hand on her arm. “Come on, honey. Let’s go find the doctor’s office so he can take a look at that cut. I’m engaged to him, you know—”
“Molly!” bellowed a big man with a large voice.
Everyone turned sharply toward the sound. Ace and Chance moved their hands toward their guns.
Three men were walking quickly toward the wagon. One was tall and brawny, dressed in rough work clothes. The other two were smaller and wore suits. None of the trio appeared to be armed.
One of the men took his hat off and said, “Miss Hutton?”
“That’s me,” Lorena told him.
He smiled as he said, “I’m Lawrence Madison. Dr. Lawrence Madison. We’ve exchanged letters—”
“Larry!” Lorena threw her arms around him. “It’s so good to finally meet you.” She planted her lips on the startled medico’s lips in a big kiss.
Madison was surprised, but he got over it quickly.
“Isabel?” said the other well-dressed man.
“Mr. Gilpin?” she replied. “I mean . . . Abner?” She held out a hand, and he took it.
“You’re even more beautiful than I expected. We were all commiserating with each other over coffee at the café, wondering if the ladies we’d pledged our troth to were ever going to arrive, when someone came in talking excitedly about a cavalry patrol riding in with a wagon full of women, and we just knew it had to be the ladies we’d been waiting for!”
Smiling, Isabel said, “Do you always talk so much, Abner?” She leaned her head toward Lorena and the doctor. “You’re being given a good example to follow right there.”
Abner Gilpin took her into his arms.
A few feet away, the big man who had to be blacksmith Jonas Blosser had both hands wrapped around one of Molly’s. “I can’t believe a gal as little and pretty as you would want to marry a big ol’ ox like me—”
“Wait, Jonas,” she said.
Blosser’s expression plummeted. “I knew it. You’ve changed your mind.”
“No, but there are some things you need to know. There are some . . . legal matters . . . that will have to be cleared up before we can be married.” Molly turned her head to look at Ace. “The money’s hidden under the wagon, you know, in that storage area.”
“That’s what you were doing messing around the wagon that night!” Ace exclaimed. “The night that I—”
He had started to say grabbed you when you were mostly naked then decided that might not be the best thing to talk about in front of Molly’s future husband. She could decide what she wanted to tell Jonas about her past and everything that had happened on the trip between Fort Worth and San Angelo.
Molly, Lorena, Isabel, and their prospective bridegrooms drifted off down the street toward Dr. Madison’s office. Jamie went into the hotel, saying something about getting word to the rancher she was supposed to marry, but Ace wasn’t sure she would get around to doing that. Not with Lieutenant Wingate having promised to come see her the next day.
Chance said, “We need to get that money and see about having the sheriff lock it up until everything is settled.”
“Yeah, we may have brought it this far, but I don’t want the responsibility for it,” Ace agreed.
Chance turned to Agnes and went on with a trace of reluctance, “You’ll have to get in touch with your fella, too, and let him know you made it.”
“Well . . .” Agnes cocked her head to the side and frowned. “That’s going to be a little difficult to do, since I don’t, uh, don’t actually have a fella who was supposed to meet me here.”
That revelation took both the Jensen brothers by surprise.
Ace said, “What are you talking about? You’re a mail-order bride.”
“Actually, I’m the one who paid Mr. Keegan to arrange for my trip out here. I let him believe the money came from one of his clients, but that fellow never wrote back to me. I wanted to come anyway, so I used the money I had saved to start a new life. I thought it could pay for an adventure instead.” She smiled in the light that came from the nearby buildings. “And it was an adventure, there’s no doubt about that.”
“So you don’t have a husband waiting for you,” Chance said.
Agnes shook her head and smiled. “Not a husband in sight, prospective or otherwise.”
That was certainly true, Ace thought—but he had a hunch his brother and Agnes might enjoy getting to know each other better before the day came when the Jensen brothers went on the drift again.
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National bestselling authors William W. Johnstone and J. A. Johnstone spin a breakneck tale about a heroic chuckwagon cook who knows just what to do when cowboys get hungry—for revenge . . .
THE CHUCKWAGON TRAIL
Framed for murder, Dewey “Mac” McKenzie is running for his life. Though Mac’s never even made a pot of coffee, he talks his way onto a cattle drive heading west—as a chuckwagon cook. Turns out he has a natural talent for turning salt pork and dried beans into culinary gold. He’s as good with a pot and pan as he is with a gun—which comes in handy on a dangerous trail drive beset with rustlers, hostile Indians, ornery weather, and deadly stampedes. Mac can hold his own with any cowboy twice his age. At least until the real showdown begins . . .
Mac’s trail boss, Deke Northrup, is one mean spit in the eye. Before long, he’s made enemies of all his men. Mac learns that Northrup is planning to double-cross the herd’s owner, Mac stands up to the trail boss and his henchman. He might be outgunned and outnumbered, but Mac’s ready to serve up some blazing frontier justice—wi
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by WILLIAM W. JOHNSTONE
with J. A. Johnstone
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CHAPTER ONE
Dewey Mackenzie shivered as he pressed against the wet stone wall and blinked moisture from his eyes. Whether it came from the chilly rain that had fallen in New Orleans earlier this evening or from his own fear-fueled sweat—or both—he didn’t know. He supposed it didn’t matter.
Right now, he just wanted to avoid the two men standing guard across the street. Both were twice his size, and one had the battered look of a boxer. Even in the dim light cast by the gas lamp far down Royal Street, Mac saw the flattened nose, the cauliflower ears, and the way the man continually ducked and dodged imaginary punches.
At some time in the past, those punches hadn’t been imaginary, and there had been a lot of them.
A medium-sized young man with longish dark hair and what had been described by more than one young woman as a roguish smile, Mac rubbed his hands against the sides of his fancy dress trousers and settled his Sunday go-to-meeting coat around his shoulders.
Carrying a gun on an errand like this was out of the question, but he missed the comforting feel of his Smith & Wesson Model 3 resting on his hip. He closed his eyes, licked his lips, and then sidled back along the wall until he reached the cross street. Like a cat, he slid around the corner to safety and heaved a huge sigh.
Getting in to see Evangeline Holdstock was always a chore, but after her pa had threatened him with death—or worse—if he caught him nosing around their mansion again, Mac had come to the only possible conclusion. He had been seeing Evangeline on the sly for more than two months, reveling in the stolen moments they shared. Even, if he cared to admit it to himself, enjoying the risks he was running.
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