Those Jensen Boys!

by William W. Johnstone

  When the horses were sufficiently rested, they pushed on and drove through Shoshone Gap about four o’clock in the afternoon. They would have plenty of time to drop off the mail pouch at the train station, pick up the pouch going to Palisade, and get back out of town before dark.

  Of course, that all depended on getting in and out of Bleak Creek without anyone—like Marshal Kaiser—trying to stop them.

  Both brothers had their hats pulled low as Ace drove into the settlement. He didn’t look to the right or left as he headed straight for the depot at the far end of town. It was like running a gauntlet, he thought, though no one seemed to be paying much attention to the stagecoach.

  He brought the team to a halt in front of the station and Chance hopped down to the ground without wasting any time. He got the mail pouch from the box while Ace dropped off the coach on the other side and stood next to the horses, using the big draft animals to obscure the view of anyone looking at him. Chance carried the pouch inside.

  A moment later, he surprised his brother by calling, “Hey, Ace. You’d better come in here.”

  Ace turned to look and stiffened as he saw Chance standing in the depot’s entrance, his hands in the air and men holding guns on either side of him.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Before Ace could react, he heard a soft footstep behind him and then hard metal poked into his back. He stiffened, his muscles tensing for action.

  “Don’t move, Jensen,” a stern voice ordered. “After what you pulled last time, I’m not taking any chances. Give me any trouble and I’ll shoot.”

  Ace bit back a groan of despair as he recognized Marshal Jed Kaiser’s voice and knew that was a gun the lawman had pressing painfully into his spine.

  Kaiser raised his voice. “Bring the other one out here, boys. I want these two locked up where they can’t cause any more trouble.”

  The men holding six-guns on Chance prodded him out of the depot. Each of them wore a deputy’s badge.

  Ace had known they were running a risk by coming back to Bleak Creek, but he never expected everything to go to hell quite so rapidly and disastrously. It was almost like Marshal Kaiser had known they were coming and had set up this trap for them at the train station....

  As that thought flashed through Ace’s mind, suspicion blossomed. If Kaiser had known they were taking over the stagecoach run and would be in Bleak Creek today, then someone in Palisade must have gotten word either to the marshal or to a confederate in the larger settlement who could pass the tip along. It was no secret in Palisade that the Jensen brothers were working for Brian Corcoran. Plenty of people could have sent such a message to Bleak Creek.

  Ace would have bet a brand-new hat that Samuel Eagleton was the culprit.

  Kaiser lifted Ace’s Colt from its holster as the deputies marched Chance out of the train station.

  Ace didn’t see any way out of the predicament, but if he and his brother were locked up, they’d never get the mail pouch back to Palisade. That would probably mean ruin for the Corcoran Stage Line.

  Somewhere down the street, a shotgun suddenly boomed like thunder, and people screamed and shouted.

  The gun moved away from Ace’s back as Marshal Kaiser jerked around instinctively toward the disturbance.

  Ace seized the opportunity to pivot and lash out at the lawman. He was going to wind up in more trouble for hitting Kaiser again, but there was nothing else he could do. He and Chance had to get away.

  Even if they did, they couldn’t complete their task and fulfill the requirements of the government mail contract.

  Kaiser reacted swiftly, darting aside so that Ace’s fist just grazed the side of his head. It was enough to make the lawman stumble and nearly lose his balance. Ace made a grab for his Colt, vaguely aware that more shooting and yelling was going on in Bleak Creek. He hoped Chance hadn’t been hurt.

  His hand closed around the cylinder of his Colt, but before he could wrench the weapon out of Kaiser’s grip, the marshal slashed at Ace’s head with his gun. The blow didn’t land cleanly, either, but it had the weight of a loaded revolver behind it.

  Pain exploded through Ace’s skull. Red starbursts ignited behind his eyes. He felt his knees fold up under him and knew he was falling. He made a grab for Kaiser, but the lawman walloped him again with the pistol.

  The sun was still up, but a darkness deep as the fall of night swallowed Ace and wouldn’t let go, dragging him down until it had swallowed him completely.

  Chance was trying to figure out a way he could get away from the deputies without getting himself shot, when all hell broke loose down the street.

  Ace started struggling with Marshal Kaiser, and Chance reacted just as quickly. He twisted to his right and swung his arm, knocking aside the gun held by the deputy on that side. Chance lowered his shoulder and bulled into the man, hoping that the left-side deputy wouldn’t shoot for fear of hitting his partner.

  The right-side deputy tried to grab Chance in a bear hug, but he was off balance and when Chance lifted his left fist in a short but powerful uppercut, the man went over backwards. Chance bounded over him and stumbled a little, which probably saved his life as the left-side deputy triggered a shot at him just then. The bullet whipped through the air mere inches over Chance’s head.

  Righting himself, Chance sprinted for the corner of the building. His instincts told him to stay and fight, but common sense said otherwise. He still had his Lightning—the deputies thought he was unarmed when they got the drop on him in the depot and hadn’t checked under his coat—but the idea of shooting it out with lawmen, even under the dire circumstances, didn’t appeal to him. Too many fellas wound up dancing on air for doing things like that.

  More shots blasted behind him as he darted around the corner. Bullets chewed hunks of brick from the depot wall and sent brick dust flying into the air. Chance looked around desperately for someplace he could hide.

  Hoofbeats pounded the ground somewhere close by. A horse lunged around the rear corner of the building. Chance skidded to a halt, thinking that he might have to fight after all, when a shock of recognition went through him.

  Long blond curls whipping in the wind, Emily Corcoran galloped toward him.

  “Come on!” she cried as she stretched out her left hand.

  Chance didn’t stop to think about what he was doing. He was operating mostly on instinct. He reached up, grabbed Emily’s wrist, and her hand locked around his wrist as he leaped up and swung his leg over the back of her horse.

  She hauled him in and he landed hard behind her, jolting most of the air from his lungs. He gasped for breath as he slid his other arm around her waist and hung on. It was reminiscent of when she had leaped off the stagecoach onto his horse, but a little different. She was the one saving his hide instead of the other way around.

  Emily veered her mount sharply to the right, away from the front corner of the building, as the two deputies charged into view. They jerked up their guns and fired, but the bullets screamed past Chance and Emily without hitting them.

  The horse stretched its legs, running fast and flashing past startled townspeople. Emily jerked the animal to the right again, into an alley. The horse faltered and almost went down, then recovered and lunged ahead.

  “Ace is back there!” Chance shouted.

  “I know, but we can’t help him now!” Emily replied without looking around. “We have to get out of here before they catch us!”

  Chance wanted to argue, but logically, he knew she was right. If they turned around and went back for Ace, they’d probably be gunned down by the trigger-happy deputies, not to mention the vengeance-seeking Marshal Kaiser. At best, he and Emily would be locked up, too.

  He couldn’t stand the thought of her behind bars.

  They emerged from the alley and galloped behind several buildings before she rode into another narrow passage, slowed the horse, and then stopped. Her mount’s sides heaved as it tried to catch its breath.

  Chance listened and heard
men shouting, but they sounded like they weren’t very close. But Bleak Creek wasn’t really a big town, and it was only a matter of time until the searchers found them.

  Chance took advantage of the opportunity to ask her, “Where in blazes did you come from?”

  “Don’t you mean thanks for keeping me out of jail?” Emily responded tartly.

  “Thanks. But we may wind up there anyway. I still want to know what you’re doing here.”

  “I followed the stagecoach. I wanted to make sure you got here all right.”

  “What do you mean, you followed the stagecoach? I kept an eye on our back trail, and I never saw you!”

  “Maybe you’re not as observant as you think you are.” Emily smirked. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

  Chance couldn’t argue with that. “Does your pa know about this? I’m betting the answer is no, since the whole idea of me and Ace taking over the stagecoach run was to keep you and your sister out of danger!”

  “That was your idea, not mine,” she snapped. “And Pa went along with it because he worries about us. He didn’t stop to think that it was just going to cause more trouble.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  “The mail’s not going to get through now, is it?”

  Chance scowled. She was right. The stage line was going to be in breach of its contract if the mail pouch didn’t get back to Palisade by the end of the next day.

  When Chance didn’t say anything, because there really wasn’t anything he could say, Emily heeled the horse into motion again. She rode cautiously to the end of the alley, paused, and looked around. The shouting was nearer.

  “We’re going to make a run for the creek and try to get into the trees on the other side,” she told Chance.

  “I can’t abandon my brother.”

  “You’re not abandoning him. We’ll try to figure out a way to come back later and get him. But if we let Kaiser catch us, there’s nothing we can do for Ace, now or later.”

  She was right and Chance knew it. That didn’t mean he had to like it. He said roughly, “Fine. But we’re getting him loose. I won’t let him stay in jail.”

  “Let’s try to keep us out of jail first. Hang on.” With that, she jabbed her boot heels into the horse’s flanks and sent it leaping into the open.

  The pursuers heard the pounding hoofbeats and a moment later, guns began to boom behind them as they raced toward the creek. Water splashed high in the air as the horse charged across the shallow stream and into the trees on the far side.

  Chance looked back and saw men on horseback riding hard after them “Can you give them the slip?”

  “Damn right,” Emily said in a grim, determined voice.

  Ace groaned as he regained consciousness. He was lying on something hard, but it didn’t really feel like the ground. After a few moments, he realized it was a bunk with no mattress, only a folded blanket. He wasn’t surprised when he forced his eyes open and saw that he was in a jail cell. Iron bars surrounded him on three sides, and on the fourth side was a stone wall with a high, small, barred window set in it.

  He swung his legs off the bunk and sat up, making the world spin crazily around him for several seconds. When it settled down, he risked standing up and stepping over to the bars. He wrapped his hands around a couple iron cylinders and hung on in case another wave of dizziness hit him.

  The other cells in the cell block were empty, and a feeling of relief washed through him. Chance had gotten away somehow.

  That relief quickly disappeared and dread replaced it. Maybe Chance wasn’t there because he was dead and laid out down at the local undertaker’s parlor.

  He looked to his right. The heavy wooden door probably opened into the marshal’s office. Still clinging to the bars, he shouted, “Hey! Hey, is anybody out there?”

  A moment later, a key scraped in the lock and the cell block door swung open. Marshal Kaiser walked into the aisle between the cells, a self-satisfied smirk on his weathered face. “Not such a desperado now, are you, Jensen?”

  “I was never a desperado, Marshal. I’m sorry for the trouble, but all I was ever trying to do was keep you from arresting me for something I didn’t do.”

  “Attacking an officer of the law is a crime. You’ve done it twice now.”

  “There were”—Ace searched his mind for a word he had read in a book—“extenuating circumstances. There were extenuating circumstances, Marshal.”

  Kaiser stopped smirking at him and glowered. “You save that fancy legal talk for the judge,” he snapped. “He’ll be here, week after next. In the meantime, you can just cool your heels in there.”

  “All right,” Ace said. “The judge might find it interesting to hear that you interfered with delivering the mail, too. That’s a federal crime, you know.” Ace knew he shouldn’t have made that comment, but the startled look on the marshal’s face was worth it.

  Kaiser glowered at him. “You better be careful, boy.” He nodded as if to emphasize that, then added, “By the way, there’s somebody out here who wants to have a look at you. I can’t blame him for being curious.”

  Ace didn’t know what to say to that, so he didn’t say anything. He just stood there, gripping the bars while Kaiser went back into the office.

  The marshal returned a minute later, followed by a well-dressed man in his thirties. In a dark suit and hat, sporting a narrow mustache, the man looked like many of the gamblers Ace had seen over the years.

  The visitor was no gambler, though.

  Marshal Kaiser said, “This is one of the fellas who ambushed you the other day, Mr. Tanner.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Jacob Tanner said. “He looks like an owlhoot.”

  So that was Jacob Tanner, thought Ace. He suspected the man of bushwhacking him and Chance in Shoshone Gap, then reporting just the opposite to the marshal. Tanner was a railroad surveyor, Ace recalled.

  “I’m glad to see you’ve got him safely locked up,” Tanner went on. “What about the other one?”

  “My deputies have a posse out looking for him right now,” Kaiser said. “I’d like to be on the trail myself, but this bad hip of mine won’t let me sit a saddle for hours at a time like I used to.”

  “That’s all right, Marshal. The people of Bleak Creek have every confidence in you and your men. I’m sure your posse will catch the other one and they’ll get everything they deserve.”

  “You can count on it,” Kaiser declared.

  Tanner stepped closer to the bars, slipped a slender black cigarillo from his vest pocket, and put it in his mouth. He snapped a lucifer to life with his thumbnail, lit the stogie, and puffed on it for a second before he took it out of his mouth and looked directly at Ace. “I would like to know why you shot at me, son. I never did anything to you and your brother.”

  “Not for lack of trying,” Ace said.

  “Here now!” Kaiser said sharply. “Watch your mouth, Jensen.”

  Tanner turned and waved the hand holding the cigarillo. “That’s all right, Marshal. The young man’s bravado doesn’t bother me.” He looked back at Ace. “There’s not a damn thing he can do to hurt me now.”

  Tanner was taunting him, Ace realized, with his words and with that stogie. Ace was more sure than ever that the surveyor was the one who had tried to kill him and Chance.

  And he thought that he finally had a pretty good idea why.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  True to her word, Emily left the pursuers from Bleak Creek far behind as she angled to the west, back into the foothills of the mountain range that divided the broad flats where the settlement was located from the valley beyond.

  She was riding one of the draft horses, so it wasn’t very fast, but the animal was strong enough to carry double without getting worn out. She seemed to know all the narrow, twisting trails, too, which certainly helped them elude the posse.

  “How did you learn your way around this country?” Chance asked as they rode along the foot of a towering bluff.

 
“We came to Palisade right after Eagleton founded the town several years ago. Not much was there then, just a couple tent saloons and a little store that didn’t have much in the way of supplies. If we wanted meat, somebody had to hunt it. I was always a good shot with a rifle and a decent rider, so I roamed all over this part of the country looking for game. Pa said it wasn’t very ladylike for me to be doing that”—she snorted—“but hell, he’d given up on that a long time ago.”

  “So you never grew out of being a tomboy.”

  “I reckon not. Anything wrong with that?”

  Chance shook his head. “Nope, not as far as I’m concerned. Who’d you shoot back there in Bleak Creek to start such a ruckus?”

  “I didn’t shoot anybody. Do you think I’m loco? I just fired in the air, and that was enough to start folks running around and yelling. That was all I wanted, just something to distract Kaiser and his deputies.”

  “You did a good job of that. How did you know they were going to arrest us?”

  “I didn’t. But when I rode into town the first thing I spotted was the marshal with his gun in Ace’s back, and I knew things had gone to hell.” She turned her head to look back at Chance. “Did you at least deliver the mail pouch from Palisade before the deputies threw down on you?”

  “As a matter of fact, I did. I had just given it to the stationmaster when those star-packers moved up on either side of me and stuck guns in my ribs. So half the job was finished.” His eyes narrowed. “You wouldn’t happen to be thinking the same thing I’m thinking, would you?”

  “The pouch going to Palisade must still be in the train station,” Emily said. “If we could get our hands on it and take it back with us . . .”

  “I’m more interested in getting Ace out of jail,” Chance said sharply.

  “Maybe we can do both.”

  “Maybe,” he allowed but thought that if it came down to choosing, he was going free his brother before he worried about delivering the mail pouch to Palisade.