A harsh laugh came from Colbert. “You may be some fancy gunfighter, but my thumb’s the only thing holding back the hammer on this gun. You’re not fast enough to keep me from killing the boy. And while you’re shooting me, Alma will put a bullet in your daughter. What’s it gonna be . . . gunfighter?”
For a couple of seconds that seemed longer, Smoke didn’t respond. Then he lowered the gun in his hand and tossed it to the side.
“You’d better shoot me here and now, mister, because I’m telling you . . . you’re making a mistake leaving me alive.”
“For two bits, I’d do it,” Colbert said. “Lucky for you, there’s a lot more than two bits riding on me getting to Reno, and with that old bastard dead, I need somebody to drive the stagecoach.”
Denny saw Smoke’s eyes cut over to the fallen jehu. “Salty!” he exclaimed.
“I think he’s alive, Pa,” Denny said. “I think I saw him breathing.”
Smoke nodded toward Denny and said to Colbert, “Let her go and check.”
Colbert looked like he was going to refuse, but then he shrugged and said, “All right, go ahead. But if you see her about to try anything, blow a hole in her, Alma.”
“You could thank me for helping you, Frank,” Alma said tightly without taking her eyes—or the gun—away from Denny.
“Oh, I’m obliged to you,” he said. “I’ll show you how much by cutting you in on the loot when we get to Reno, how about that? You’ll have more money than you’ve ever seen before.”
Alma frowned, causing Denny to wonder if money was actually what the woman cared about. But Alma said, “Go ahead and see how bad he’s hurt,” so Denny didn’t waste any time crawling over to Salty on hands and knees.
She put a hand on his bloody chest. It rose and fell in a ragged rhythm. He was alive, all right, but she wasn’t sure how badly he was hurt.
She pulled aside the heavy coat and the buckskin jacket, saw the hole in the cowhide vest and the flannel shirt underneath it. The bullet had hit Salty high on the left side of his chest, missing the heart by a handful of inches.
Carefully, Denny took hold of his shoulder and raised him enough to see the exit wound on his back. The slug had gone clean through.
That was good. It meant the blood Salty had lost was the main danger, and probably the reason he had passed out. His shoulder might be broken, too; Denny couldn’t tell about that. But she thought that if the wounds were cleaned and bound up and the arm put in a sling, Salty stood a good chance of surviving Colbert’s savage attack.
She looked up at Smoke and said, “He’ll be okay, Pa.”
A cruel grin stretched across Colbert’s face as he continued to hang on to the squirming Brad. “Maybe I don’t need you after all, then, Jensen.”
“Wait!” Denny said. “Salty can’t handle the team, if that’s what you’re thinking. Not with a bullet through his shoulder, thanks to you.”
“He’s lucky. I was trying to kill him. How about you? You tomboy enough to drive a stagecoach?”
“Me?” Denny forced herself to say. She swallowed as she thought fast. “I . . . I’m just a girl.”
Those words tasted bitter in her mouth, but she said them anyway. Anything was worth it to keep both her father and Salty alive, not to mention Louis and everybody else.
“I guess it’s up to you, then, Jensen,” Colbert went on. “I’m sure none of these other tenderfeet could manage, especially in bad weather.”
Smoke said, “You mean you want me to drive the coach through the mountains, through Donner Pass, and on to Reno?”
“You do that, and all these others live,” Colbert said. “I give you my word on that.”
“I reckon we’re past me putting much stock in your word, mister,” Smoke said. “But you don’t give me much choice.”
“Damn right I don’t.”
“Whatever’s in Reno must be mighty important.”
“Never mind about that,” Colbert snapped. “We’ve got a deal?”
Smoke looked at Denny and Louis and grimaced. “We’ve got a deal. Now you can let that boy go back to his mother.”
Slowly, Colbert shook his head. “I don’t think so. The brat stays with me. My gun’s never going to be more than a few inches away from him. You’d better keep that in mind all the time, Jensen.”
Things seemed to be settled for the moment, although not at all satisfactorily. Denny said, “I need some help with Salty.”
Louis said, “Mrs. Buckner used to be a nurse.”
Melanie had stopped screaming when it became obvious Colbert wasn’t going to kill Brad right away, but she was still sobbing. Denny said sharply, to get through to her, “Mrs. Buckner! Melanie! I need some help here.”
Louis asked Colbert, “Can I get up?”
“Don’t try anything,” the man warned.
Louis got to his feet and held up his hands, palms out. “No tricks, I promise.” He went over to the crying woman and bent to put an arm around her shoulders. “Come on, Melanie,” he urged. “Let’s go give Denny a hand with poor Mr. Stevens.”
Melanie sniffled and wiped the back of a gloved hand across her nose. “All . . . all right,” she managed to say. She let Louis help her up. They walked slowly toward Denny and Salty.
Melanie’s face was bright red from both the crying and the cold. She looked like she might fall down if not for Louis’s support. She kept turning her head to look at Colbert and Brad.
Then Salty began to stir. He groaned and muttered, “Jehoshaphat! Wha . . . what in tarnation . . .”
Denny put a hand on his uninjured shoulder. “Just lie still, Mr. Stevens,” she told him. “You’ve been shot.”
“I . . . I remember! That no good skunk Colbert—”
“Shut him up and tend to him,” Colbert barked. He looked at Smoke. “Climb up there on the driver’s box. But don’t even think about driving away with the coach. That won’t stop me from killing this boy.”
“You’re the boss . . . for now,” Smoke said, his face and voice grim.
Salty’s obvious pain finally seemed to penetrate Melanie’s fear for her son. She swallowed hard and said, “We need to get him to sit up. Can you do that, Mr. Stevens?”
“I . . . reckon I can,” Salty said.
“I’ll give you a hand,” Louis offered.
They got Salty into a sitting position and pulled away his clothing enough to reveal both of the ugly wounds. He began shivering and his teeth chattered.
“M-mighty cold out here,” he said.
“It is,” Melanie agreed, “and the blood you lost makes it feel worse. But the cold helps keep the blood from flowing quite as freely, too, and that’s good. We need something to clean the wounds. Maybe some hot water?” She looked at Louis. “Can you build a fire?”
Colbert said, “We don’t have time for that, damn it. Get some handfuls of snow and use them, if you have to. Then bind up the wounds and let’s get out of here.”
“We’ll have to stop when it gets dark,” Louis said quietly. “I’ll build a fire and we’ll tend to Salty’s injuries better then.”
Melanie nodded. “If that’s all we can do.”
Smoke had climbed onto the driver’s box, as Colbert had ordered. He sat there looking like a leashed tiger that wanted to break free and go on a rampage at any moment. Denny thought about what her father had said about Colbert making a mistake by leaving him alive.
The same thing held true for her. Colbert didn’t have just one Jensen who wanted his hide.
Now there were two Jensens who had a score to settle.
CHAPTER 27
Smoke sat on the driver’s box and seethed with anger as he watched Denny and Melanie clean the blood away from Salty’s wounds as best they could. Denny tore strips of cloth from her petticoat to serve as makeshift bandages. Melanie bound up Salty’s shoulder with them.
Alma Lewiston kept Salty’s gun pointed at the women as they dealt with the wounded jehu. Louis had remained close by after helping Melanie over there, so h
e was under the gun as well.
Smoke was proud of the way both of his children had leaped into action without hesitation, even though they hadn’t succeeded in stopping Colbert’s rampage. That was just bad luck. They hadn’t known that Alma would back Colbert’s play.
Although what did she have to lose by doing so? Smoke asked himself. And the fact that she might be able to take some revenge on him for her husband’s suicide was just a bonus for her.
Colbert had drawn off a short distance. He didn’t have a stranglehold on Brad’s neck anymore, but his left hand was still clamped on the boy’s shoulder and the gun wasn’t far from Brad’s head, as Colbert had threatened.
When Smoke first met Colbert, he had felt an instinctive dislike for the man, and now he knew why. Colbert was an outlaw; there was no doubt about that in Smoke’s mind. He had some sort of crooked scheme brewing in Reno, and he had to be there before Christmas to pull it off. That was why he was willing to risk going through Donner Pass.
And quite a risk it would be. Colbert was right about the old wagon road not following the railroad tracks exactly. But the avalanche that had blocked the tracks probably had the entire pass closed off.
Throw in the blizzard still going on up there, and the chances of surviving such a trip and actually making it to Reno ranged from slim to none.
“That’s enough,” Colbert told Denny and Melanie. “Get the old bastard up. We’ve wasted plenty of time already. I should have just left him here to freeze . . . if he didn’t bleed to death first.”
Denny and Melanie positioned themselves on either side of Salty, grasped his arms, and lifted him to his feet. Louis made a move to help, but Denny waved him off.
Smoke frowned as he looked at his son’s face. Louis’s features had a gray cast to them. Smoke hoped that the brief flurry of action earlier hadn’t further damaged Louis’s heart.
As the women approached the stagecoach with Salty, Peter Stansfield climbed out and held the door open for them. From the corner of his mouth, Smoke said quietly to the reporter, “Stansfield, have you got a gun?”
Stansfield twisted his head around to look up at Smoke. “What? No. No, of course not. I . . . I’m not armed.”
“What about Kellerman? Has he said anything about having a gun?”
“Not at all. We’re not . . . notorious pistoleers . . . like you, Mr. Jensen.”
Alma was coming closer as she covered Denny, Melanie, and Louis, so Smoke didn’t say anything else. He hadn’t really expected any help to be forthcoming from the reporter or the banker, so he wasn’t disappointed.
He was just mad, mostly at himself for letting Colbert wallop him like that.
There had been a time when the fella never would have been fast enough to get away with such a thing. As the years had rolled past, Smoke hadn’t been aware that he was slowing down, but maybe he was. The serious wound he had suffered earlier in the year hadn’t helped matters any.4
His reflexes and reactions were still faster than those of at least nine out of ten normal men. He was convinced of that. But Colbert possessed unusual speed and strength, too. Life as an owlhoot had hardened the man, although Colbert’s underlying pallor hinted that he had gotten out of prison only recently.
Well, prison was no walk in the park. A man who went in there as a deadly killer usually came out even more dangerous. That seemed to be true in Frank Colbert’s case.
Smoke felt the stagecoach shift underneath him as Salty climbed in, helped by Denny and Melanie. He heard the old man groan and knew Salty had settled down on one of the seats. The others followed him into the coach.
Colbert put the gun muzzle against Brad’s head again. Melanie saw that and cried out in fear.
Colbert ignored her and said, “Get in the coach now, Alma. Nobody will try anything unless they want me to kill this boy.”
“No, please, no,” Melanie begged. “Everyone, please do what he says.”
“Alma, sit on the backseat,” Colbert went on. “Everybody else crowd onto the front, or sit in the floor between the front seat and the bench in the middle. Once you’re inside, Alma, keep them covered while the boy and I join you.”
“I understand, Frank,” she said.
They got loaded up. Smoke couldn’t see how everything was arranged inside the coach, but Colbert seemed satisfied as he looked in through the open door.
Then the outlaw looked up at him and said, “The boy’s gonna be sitting between me and Alma, Jensen. If you or anybody else tries any tricks, one of us will kill him. You can count on that.”
“No trouble,” Smoke said flatly.
For now, he added to himself.
“You’re going to drive at a nice, steady pace. You know the trail through Donner Pass?”
“I know it. It’s been a long time since I went through there, but I can find my way.”
“Good. You take the route that’ll get us through the mountains and on to Reno the fastest. If I get even the smallest suspicion that you’re trying to double-cross me, the boy dies.”
“I’m getting mighty tired of that threat,” Smoke said.
“It’s not a threat,” Colbert responded with a leering grin. “It’s a promise. We clear about everything?”
“We’re clear.”
“Good. You know what to do.”
Colbert pushed Brad into the coach and climbed in after him. Smoke’s jaw was so tight as he took up the reins, it seemed like his teeth might crack.
But he got the team moving again and started the stagecoach up the slope, following the old wagon road between the thick growths of pine. As he looked at the snow-mantled trees, they were a reminder of the season and how close Christmas was.
It might be a bloody Christmas this year, he thought grimly.
Because he didn’t believe for one second that Frank Colbert intended to leave any of them alive after he got what he wanted.
* * *
Inside the stagecoach, Denny and Melanie sat on the rearward-facing front seat with Salty propped up between them. They pressed in close against him so the coach’s motion wouldn’t jostle him around too much. Louis was crowded in next to Denny.
Stansfield and Kellerman were forced onto the floorboards in the cramped area between the front seat and the bench in the middle of the coach. The ones on the seat pulled their legs in close as much as possible, but it was still crowded and uncomfortable for the two men.
The heavyset banker had it the worst of them all. He didn’t make the situation any better for himself by clutching the flat leather case. His carpetbag was back in the boot, but he had insisted on keeping the case with him.
“I’ll never be able to get out of here,” Kellerman complained as the coach rocked along. “I’m stuck!”
“The others can grease you up and use a horse and a rope to pull you out,” Colbert joked. “You’ll pop out of there like a seed out of a watermelon!”
Kellerman just glared at him.
Alma sat on the right side of the rear seat, Colbert on the left, with Brad between them. The youngster was pale and scared looking, but he was more composed than his mother was. Melanie still sobbed quietly from time to time.
“Don’t worry, Ma,” Brad told her. “It’ll be all right.”
“Sure it will,” Colbert said. “I don’t have anything against you folks. I just need to get to Reno, that’s all. Once I’m there, you can go on about your business.” He laughed. “Hell, you might even thank me for getting you there sooner than if we’d gone that other way.”
Denny knew good and well Colbert was lying about letting them go. He had tried already to kill Smoke and Salty, and whatever his reason was for wanting to reach Reno, obviously he was up to no good. He was a criminal . . . and criminals didn’t like to leave witnesses behind them.
Salty said, “If this shoulder o’ mine didn’t hurt so much . . . I’d be plumb tickled to be stuck betwixt two pretty gals like this. Derned near . . . the best stagecoach ride I ever had. Course, I ain’t rod
e inside that many. I was always . . . up on the box, handlin’ the team.”
“Do you think my father will do all right with the driving?” Louis asked.
“Smoke?” Salty grunted. “Son, I don’t reckon Smoke Jensen ever set his hand to anything without windin’ up better at it than pert near ever’body else.”
Colbert said, “You’d better hope he’s good at it, old man; otherwise you’ll be back up there, busted shoulder and all. I don’t have time to waste.”
Denny looked out the window at the gloomy day and said, “We’ll have to stop in a couple of hours. It’ll be too dark to go on.”
Colbert gestured with the gun in his hand and asked, “How about that, old-timer? Stagecoaches sometimes keep going at night, don’t they?”
“On a good road that the driver knows like the back of his hand, with lanterns on the coach to help light the way?” Salty said. “A fella might risk that, especially on a clear night with a big moon and a lot of stars. But with them clouds up there, there ain’t no moon nor stars, and there ain’t no bein’ sure what sort of shape the road’s in farther up. A fella would have to be a plumb fool to risk travelin’ through these mountains after dark.”
“What’s the worst that could happen?” Colbert wanted to know.
“You mean besides drivin’ off a cliff and fallin’ two or three hunnerd feet?” Salty shook his head. “Nothin’, I reckon.”
Colbert’s lips drew back in a grimace. “All right,” he said. “You’ve had your sport, old man. Quit your japing, or I’m liable to forget to respect my elders.”
“I’d say it’s a mite too late for that,” Salty muttered.
A tense silence fell over the coach. The vehicle leaned slightly to the side as Smoke reached the first of the switchbacks and wheeled the coach around the sharp turn. The pace slowed even more as they spent the next hour ascending that steep, zigzag path up the side of a mountain.
Colbert’s impatience grew visibly, but he seemed to understand there was nothing he could do other than put up with their progress.
Finally, the ground leveled off. Smoke slowed the stagecoach and gradually brought it to a halt.
Denny felt the vehicle shift on its thoroughbraces as her father leaned over to call through the windows, “We’ve reached a little bench that would be a good place to make camp for the night. There’s only about half an hour of light left, so it doesn’t make sense to go on. This’ll give us a chance to build a fire and heat some food and coffee.”
A High Sierra Christmas Page 20