“The other horse is in the alley,” Chance said.
“You’d better ride it,” Emily snapped. “I figure a dude like you needs a saddle more than Ace or I do.”
Under other circumstances he might have defended himself and argued with her, but there wasn’t time for that. As he ran toward the alley, he wondered why the hell she seemed so irritated with him. As far as he could tell, the plan was working just fine. He had even spotted the mail pouch hanging by its strap over her shoulder.
There was only one explanation, he realized. Her prickly attitude had to be because of that kiss he had stolen earlier.
He would ponder that later. He grabbed the horse’s reins, led it into the street, and swung up onto its back. Ace was already mounted on the third horse.
Emily called, “Follow me!” and kicked her horse into a run.
The Jensen brothers were right behind her as she galloped out of Bleak Creek. Chance wasn’t sure, but he thought he heard a few gunshots popping behind them. Maybe some of the townspeople had realized there wasn’t a fire and figured out that a jailbreak was going on.
If anybody was shooting at them, none of the bullets came anywhere close. The three riders raced on into the night and soon left the settlement behind.
Emily didn’t slow down until they had passed through Shoshone Gap and ridden a mile or so into the valley beyond. When they stopped, Ace listened intently but didn’t hear any hoofbeats pursuing them.
The horses’ sweat-flecked sides heaved from the hard run.
As the animals rested and tried to catch their breath, Chance asked Emily, “Did you have any trouble getting the mail pouch?”
“No. No one was on duty in the station except one ticket clerk named Jeff Ramsey. I’ve known him for a while. He unlocked the cabinet the pouch was in and gave it to me.”
“Just like that?” Chance asked in astonishment.
“Well,” Emily said matter-of-factly, “Jeff’s been smitten with me ever since we moved to this part of the country. He was glad to do me a favor.”
“Even though it’s probably going to cost him his job?” Chance asked. “Did the poor varmint at least steal a kiss in return for that favor?”
“No,” Emily replied coldly. “Although maybe I wouldn’t have minded if he had.”
Ace sensed some tension between them and wondered what had happened. He had a hunch that Chance had given in to an impulse and done something to offend her. Actually, Ace was a little surprised something like that hadn’t already happened.
At the moment, he didn’t really care. “You’ve got a right to have that mail pouch in your possession, since your father’s company has the government contract, so nobody can claim there’s anything wrong about that. Marshal Kaiser will be pretty upset about you ringing that fire bell and helping us escape, though.”
Emily laughed. “I don’t think anybody saw me do it, so he can’t prove anything. And I didn’t steal these horses, either. They belong to the Corcoran Stage Line.”
“So you’re in the clear,” Chance said. “That’s good. Ace and I may have to hide out, though. I wouldn’t put it past Kaiser to bring a posse over to Palisade and try to arrest us.”
“Neither would I,” Ace agreed. “I figure Eagleton’s pet marshal would be inclined to help him do it, too.”
“You’re right about that,” Emily said. “You can’t expect any help from Claude Wheeler.”
“And your stagecoach is still in Bleak Creek,” Ace said.
Emily shrugged. “That’s not a problem. Bess and I can ride over and claim it tomorrow.”
“That puts you right back at risk from Eagleton’s men,” Chance pointed out. “He still wants to put your father’s operation out of business.”
“You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know.” She hefted the mail pouch. “But tonight we won. We’ve got this, and that means we beat Eagleton again. I don’t know how, but I’m convinced he had something to do with causing this whole damn mess.”
Ace was convinced of that, as well. He could have explained his suspicions to Emily but decided he would keep them to himself for the time being . . . until he figured out what to do with them.
She was right. They had won this round, and as the three of them rode toward the mountain road, Timberline Pass, and Palisade beyond that, Ace told himself to just enjoy the feeling of not being behind bars anymore.
CHAPTER TWENTY
It was close to midnight when Emily, Ace, and Chance rode into Palisade. Since the Golden Dome ran three shifts of workers per day, some of the miners had finished their shift not long before and were still blowing off steam in the saloons. The other businesses were dark, closed for the night, but the music and the hilarity in the saloons went on.
“It’s like this twenty-four hours a day,” Emily commented. “And it will be until that mother lode inside the mountain plays out.”
“When that happens there won’t be a reason for the town to be here anymore,” Ace commented. “Especially all the way up here at the top of that hellish road to Timberline Pass.”
“You’re right about that.”
“Folks might be able to make something out of that valley, though,” Ace said in a musing tone. “There’s not enough graze up here for cattle, but the valley has water and pretty of good grass. If somebody wanted to run some stock on it, it would be pretty good ranching country.”
“I suppose, but I’m not a rancher,” Emily said.
“Neither am I. Just thinking out loud is all.”
Chance said, “I’m thinking about a good night’s sleep. This may be the last one we get for a while if we have to go on the run from the law.” He sighed. “Doc would be ashamed of us, turning out to be common owlhoots.”
“We’re not fugitives yet,” Ace pointed out. “We’re not wanted anywhere except Bleak Creek, and all we did there was try to defend ourselves from unjust charges.”
“You know good and well Kaiser’s gonna come after us. The man’s got a real burr under his saddle where we’re concerned.”
Ace couldn’t argue with that. He fully expected Marshal Kaiser to bring a posse to Palisade and try to arrest them.
He and Chance just needed to dodge that fate a little while longer, so he’d have time to finish figuring things out—including what to do about it.
Lamps burned inside the stage line office. Bess and her father had been up pacing and worrying about Emily’s disappearance. As the three riders came to a stop in front of the office, the door burst open and Bess charged out onto the porch, crying, “Emily!”
Brian Corcoran followed his younger daughter as Emily slid down from her horse and hugged Bess, who threw her arms around her.
Corcoran leaned on the porch railing, his voice a mixture of relief and anger. “Saints be praised that you’re all right, girl. Now, where the hell were you?” He frowned as he switched his gaze to Ace and Chance, who were still mounted. “What are you boys doing coming in in the middle of the night like this? And where the hell is my stagecoach?”
The Jensen brothers dismounted.
Ace said, “Your coach is all right, Mr. Corcoran. It’s just, well, stuck in Bleak Creek, that’s all.”
“Stuck? You mean broken down?”
“No, we had to leave it there,” Chance said. “We, uh, sort of got arrested.”
“Arrested!”
“Well, Ace did,” Chance said hurriedly. “I never was, actually—”
“Only because I rescued you before Marshal Kaiser could throw you in the hoosegow,” Emily broke in.
Bess said, “What in the world are you talking about? Did you go to Bleak Creek?”
“Yes, and it’s a good thing I did, or else both of these boys would be behind bars now, and we’d be losing that mail contract.” Emily took the pouch off her shoulder and handed it to her startled father. “But the mail got through and Ace and Chance are free—for now, anyway.”
Corcoran shook his head slowly. “I’ll be damned
if I understand any of this.”
“Let’s all go inside, and I’ll explain everything,” Emily said.
It would be a good trick, Ace thought, if she could explain what they were going to do next.
As for him, he had no idea.
Buckhorn was lounging on the hotel porch when he saw the three riders come into town. It was late, but it wasn’t that unusual to see people coming and going at this hour. Something about them caught his interest, though. He moved into a patch of shadow so he could watch them ride past without being seen.
It was impossible to miss the Corcoran girl, of course. That mass of fair hair stood out like a beacon in the night. As the riders went through a ray of light slanting from a saloon window, he realized the two men with her were Ace and Chance Jensen.
Well, that was a surprise, the gunfighter thought—but not too much of one. Those two seemed to have as much luck and as many lives as a pair of cats. The boss had been confident he had things set up to take care of them and deprive Corcoran of his last allies. Clearly, that plan hadn’t worked out.
Something had sure as hell happened, though. The Jensen boys had left Palisade on the stagecoach, and they were coming back in the middle of the night without it. Not only that, but one of them, as well as the girl, were riding unsaddled draft horses, probably from the stage line’s barn in Bleak Creek. A faint smile tugged at Buckhorn’s mouth. Whatever the story was, he figured it might be pretty interesting.
He watched Emily and the Jensens ride along the street to the stage line office, where Bess Corcoran and her father came out to meet them. They stood around talking for a few minutes, then went into the building.
The question was whether Buckhorn waited until morning to inform the boss of the development or went up to the suite and told him right away.
Rose was still up there, Buckhorn thought. Something twisted in his guts.
Earlier, when she’d arrived, Eagleton had told him to go down to the lobby and wait there. That was their usual practice. Eagleton felt safe in the hotel, for the most part, but he wanted Buckhorn on the premises most of the time, even if he wasn’t right in the suite. He had sat in the lobby for a while, reading old newspapers and smoking cigars, but he’d grown bored of that and stepped outside for a breath of fresh air. He’d still been there when Emily, Ace, and Chance had ridden into town.
Rose ought to be down pretty soon, he thought. He would wait until then to decide what to do.
He didn’t have long to wait. The hotel door opened and she stepped out onto the porch, pausing to say, “Oh, there you are, Joseph. I didn’t see you at your usual post in the lobby.”
“Seemed a little close in there to me tonight,” he explained.
She laughed as she closed the door and walked closer to him. “Goodness, I know what you mean. It’s good to get out in the fresh air, isn’t it? Have you ever ridden up higher on the mountain, past where the mine entrance is?”
“Can’t say as I have.”
“I did, once. I couldn’t take my buggy, of course. I had to ride horseback, and then I went even higher on a path where the horse couldn’t go. The place where I finally stopped, I was up so high I could look back to the east and see for what seemed like forever. It must have been fifty or sixty miles, at least. Far past Shoshone Gap and Bleak Creek, certainly. And the air! It was so cold and clear, it was like . . . like breathing wine. It was beautiful.”
“Sounds like it,” Buckhorn said. What was really beautiful was her face in the golden light coming through the hotel’s front window as she described the place.
“We’ll have to go up there together sometime, you and I,” she said. “I’m sure I could find it again.”
“That would be mighty nice,” Buckhorn agreed, “but I figure the boss wouldn’t like it.”
“Well . . . I didn’t say we’d ask Samuel, did I? Surely you have some time to yourself now and then, time when you don’t have to account for your whereabouts.”
“I could probably arrange that,” Buckhorn said cautiously.
“And I told you before, Samuel doesn’t own me or my business. If I want to take a ride up onto the mountain with a friend, he can’t stop me.”
Buckhorn wondered if she was really that naïve. Palisade was Eagleton’s town, Eagleton’s mine, Eagleton’s mountain. The man could stop any damn thing he pleased. And Buckhorn was fairly confident Eagleton wouldn’t like the idea of his own private woman spending that much time alone with his half-breed bodyguard.
Rose was just having some sport with him, Buckhorn suddenly told himself. That had to be it. A chill went through him. Even if she wasn’t Eagleton’s property, she could have just about any man she wanted. All she had to do was smile and crook one of her pretty little fingers. She couldn’t really be interested in somebody as poor and common and ugly as him.
Rose came close enough to reach out and rest her fingers on his arm. He seemed to feel the warmth of her touch through his clothes. He smelled the delicious scent of her.
“What do you say?” she asked quietly. “Shall we do it?”
“I can’t.” He had to force a note of harshness into his voice. If he showed any weakness, she would keep at him until she wore him down—and then she would laugh in his face because he had fallen for it. “I’ve got to stay closer to the boss than that.”
For a moment she didn’t say anything. Then her hand fell away from his arm and she said, “All right.” Her voice was cool and reserved. “It’s a shame you feel that way. I think you would have enjoyed seeing the place.”
“Maybe. But I’m meant to be down here, not up there.”
She gathered her shawl closer around her shoulders. “Good night, then, Joseph.”
“Good night, Miss Demarcus.”
She didn’t correct him, didn’t remind him that he was supposed to call her Rose.
As she started to turn away, he remembered what her flirting had driven clear out of his thoughts for a few minutes. He called her back. “Miss Demarcus?”
She looked over her shoulder at him and said coolly, “Yes?”
“How did the boss seem when you left him?”
“Quite satisfied.” There was an edge to her voice.
“No, I mean, did he say whether he was tired, was he going to be awake for a while, anything like that?”
“As a matter of fact, he mentioned that he was rather weary. I imagine he went straight to bed and is probably sound asleep by now.”
“All right,” Buckhorn nodded. “Thanks.”
“Why do you ask?”
“Oh, I, uh, have some news for him. I reckon it’ll wait until tomorrow, though. It’s not important enough to wake him up.” Buckhorn hoped he was making the right decision. Short of going over to the stage line office and killing the Jensen brothers, he didn’t see what could be done immediately about the problem.
“Very well,” Rose said. “Good night again.”
Buckhorn touched the brim of his hat. “Ma’am.”
Even after everything that had just happened, he watched her all the way back to her house, keeping a close eye on her to make sure she got home safely.
He wondered if she felt his eyes on her, all the way down the street.
Marshal Jed Kaiser sat at his desk and held a wet rag to his head where that damn Jensen boy had pistol-whipped him. It didn’t help much with the pain. It didn’t do a thing to ease the fury that threatened to consume the lawman, either.
On the other side of the marshal’s office, Deputy Andy Belmont sat on the old sofa with bad springs and groaned as he held his head in both hands. “I swear, Jed, it feels like I’ve been hit with an ax handle! He about busted my head wide open.”
“Oh, shut up,” Kaiser said sourly. “He knocked me out, too, you know. You don’t hear me whining.”
Belmont glared down at the floor and settled for muttering something under his breath. Kaiser didn’t catch the words, but he didn’t ask his deputy to repeat them. He knew they were probably cu
rses directed at him, as well as at the Jensen brothers.
After a moment, Belmont asked, “When we catch those two, can’t we just go ahead and string ’em up right then and there?”
“That wouldn’t be legal,” Kaiser snapped. “They’ll get a trial. I’m not sure what they’ve done would be considered a hanging offense, though, no matter how much I’d like to see them dancing on air.” He looked up as the door opened.
Jacob Tanner came into the room with a concerned expression on his handsome face. “I heard there was some trouble here, Marshal. Your prisoner got away?”
“Yeah, Jensen’s brother busted him out of here,” Kaiser answered.
“So they’re both on the loose again,” Tanner commented in a taut voice.
Kaiser could tell that Tanner was worried and figured he knew the reason why. “You don’t have to worry. We’ll round them up again. They’ll be behind bars before you know it. They won’t get a chance to come after you.” He paused. “You still don’t have any idea why they tried to bushwhack you the other day?”
Tanner had taken one of his customary cigarillos from his vest pocket and put it in his mouth. His teeth clenched on it as he said, “Sorry, Marshal. It’s as much a mystery to me as it ever was. I never saw those two until they tried to kill me.”
“Well, we’ll get to the bottom of it sooner or later,” Kaiser promised. “They left here with one of those Corcoran girls whose pa owns the stage line, so they probably went back to Palisade with her. I’m taking a posse over there first thing in the morning. I know Marshal Wheeler. He’s a good man. He’ll cooperate.”
“Are you going to arrest the girl?” Tanner asked.
“I damn well might,” Kaiser blustered. “She helped a prisoner escape from my jail. That’s a crime right there.”
Those Jensen Boys! Page 15