A Texas Hill Country Christmas

by William W. Johnstone

  “I always am,” he said. That had been a habit of his for a long time, and he hadn’t put it aside just because he had felt the calling and taken up preaching. As Delta clucked to her team and flicked the reins, he added, “I’ll see you and Charlie Sunday morning?”

  “We’ll be there, like always,” she promised.

  Seth watched as the wagon rolled on down the road toward the Kennedy farm. Delta was being careful now to stay in the middle of the path where the mud wasn’t as bad. With any luck she and Charlie would get home with no more trouble.

  As Seth turned toward his horse, he felt a drop of rain strike his cheek. He glanced up at the clouds and said, “More, Lord? Really?”

  Then he felt bad for doubting the Lord’s intentions, swung up into the saddle, and headed for the church, hoping he would get there before another downpour started.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Austin

  Ace and Chance were in the hotel dining room, just finishing up an enjoyable breakfast, when William Sydney Porter came in, spotted them, and started toward their table.

  “Uh-oh,” Ace said under his breath. “Here he comes. I was sort of hoping he’d forgotten about what happened last night.”

  “I don’t think he’s the kind of fella who forgets things,” Chance said. “Claimed he wants to be a writer, didn’t he? I’d think a gent like that would have to have a good memory.”

  “I don’t see why, just to make up a bunch of nonsense.”

  Porter reached the table, grinned, and said loudly, “Good morning, amigos. It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?”

  “Well, it’s not pouring down rain right now,” Ace said. “I reckon that’s an improvement.”

  “I think I even saw a sliver or two of sunshine,” Chance added. “Didn’t look like it was going to last, though.”

  Without waiting for an invitation, Porter pulled out one of the empty chairs at the table and sat down. A waitress in a starched white apron started toward him. He turned to smile at her and said, “Just coffee, my dear.”

  Narrow-eyed, Ace looked at Porter and said, “You don’t look much the worse for wear.”

  “Why would I be?” Porter asked, sounding genuinely puzzled.

  “Well, you put away a considerable amount of whiskey last night,” Chance pointed out.

  After the confrontation with Oliver Hudson and the brief meeting with Evelyn Channing, Porter, Ace, and Chance had spent some time in one of Austin’s saloons, Porter knocking back glasses of whiskey while the Jensen brothers stuck to coffee. Under the circumstances, they had figured it might be a good idea to keep an eye on Porter. They had just met the hombre and had no responsibility for him, of course, but Ace felt sorry for him and knew that Chance did, too.

  There was nothing like love to make a man act like a full-blown idiot. Unrequited love, which was apparently the case with Porter, was even worse.

  He had kept raving about how he was going to follow Evelyn to Fredericksburg and stop her from marrying Oliver Hudson. It would be a grand, romantic gesture, he proclaimed, and when he did, she would see how much he loved her and realize that she should have been with him all along.

  As gently as possible, Ace and Chance had tried to talk him out of that crazy idea, but they weren’t able to get through to him. Finally, in sheer frustration, Ace had said bluntly, “You show up at the wedding and try that speak-now-or-forever-hold-your-peace business, Hudson’s liable to put a bullet in you.”

  “I know that,” Porter had said as he poured another drink. “That’s why you two young cavaliers will be accompanying me.”

  “You want us to come along and protect you?” Chance had asked. “Sort of like bodyguards?”

  “Both of you wear revolvers. And I suspect you’re quite capable with them, because I know from the earlier altercation that you’re no strangers to violence.”

  “We’ve run into our share of trouble,” Ace had said with a frown, “but we’re not hired guns.”

  “Anyway,” Chance had added, “you don’t appear to be all that flush. You couldn’t afford to hire us.”

  “I thought I would prevail upon you to come with me as friends.” A thoughtful expression had appeared on Porter’s thin face. “Although . . . I do work in a bank and have access to a considerable amount of funds . . .”

  “Stop that,” Ace had said sharply. “You start talking like that and we’ll just leave you right here.”

  “We’ve run across some shady characters before,” Chance had said. “We throw in with an embezzler and we’re liable to wind up behind bars.”

  A shudder had run through both brothers at the thought of that prospect.

  “We don’t intend to be locked up,” Ace had said in a tone of finality.

  Porter hadn’t said anything more about getting money from the bank where he worked, but he hadn’t backed off from his determination to win Evelyn away from Hudson. That was the way it had been left when Ace and Chance walked him back to the house where he was living. Ace had hoped that when Porter woke up this morning, he would be hungover and would have forgotten the events of the previous evening.

  Obviously, that wasn’t the case. From the looks of it, Porter was one of those fellows who could get staggering drunk and then be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed the next morning.

  Porter sipped the coffee the waitress brought him and said, “It’s lucky I remembered you mentioning the hotel where you’re staying, or else I might not have been able to find you in a place the size of Austin.”

  “Yeah,” Ace said dryly. “Lucky.”

  “I’ve already been out and about this morning, doing some investigating. Evelyn has tendered her resignation at the café where she works. She’s taking the stage to Fredericksburg this afternoon, so we’ve no time to waste.”

  “How do you know that?” Chance asked.

  “I talked to the clerk at the stage line office,” Porter explained.

  “I didn’t think they were supposed to give out information like that,” Ace said.

  Porter smiled and said, “Well . . . when I told him that I was searching for my dear, sweet, innocent sister who had fallen under the spell of a dastardly, conniving, evil man who wished to lure her away and besmirch her honor, I was able to convince him to assist me. When I described Evelyn, he admitted that he had sold her a ticket for the Fredericksburg stage.”

  “You don’t need to be writing stories and essays,” Ace said. “You ought to write melodramas instead.”

  “Melodramas are the stuff of life, exaggerated for effect,” Porter responded with a smile.

  “What about Hudson?” Chance asked. “Is he going on the stage, too?”

  Porter shook his head.

  “Apparently not. I described him for the clerk as well, and the man claimed never to have seen him, let alone sold him a ticket. I believe the gentleman. He was eager to help. Most men live small, quiet lives and are happy to take part in grand, exciting adventures, even though it be vicariously.”

  “Hudson must have a horse and plan to ride to Fredericksburg,” Ace mused. “Could be he’s left town already.”

  Porter made a fist and thumped it on the table.

  “That’s exactly what I fear has happened,” he said. “He’s stolen a march on us, gentlemen, and we must act quickly to forestall him!”

  “What?” Ace said with a frown. “You can’t stop him from riding to Fredericksburg if he wants to. It’s a free country.”

  “And neither can he stop us. You have horses, I take it?”

  “Yeah, we have horses,” Chance said. “Do you?”

  “As a matter of fact, I have a saddle mount I sometimes take for rides in the country. The animal is stabled near here. I can go back to my boarding house, pack a few things, and be ready to ride in, say, half an hour?”

  Ace leaned forward, clasped his hands together on the table, and said, “Listen to me, Will. This is a bad idea you’ve got. You’re just going to get yourself in trouble. I didn’t like Huds
on, either, but if Miss Channing wants to marry him, that’s her decision to make.”

  “And he’s not going to put up with you making a pest of yourself,” Chance added. “You’ll be better off if you just forget about both of them and get on with your life.”

  Porter looked back and forth between the brothers as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. After a moment he said, “Have you no passion in your souls, my friends? Have you never been in love? Have you never had your heart broken?”

  “I’ve had my heart broken plenty of times,” Chance said. “It’s sort of like when a red ant bites you. Stings for a while, but then it gets better.”

  “Ace, surely you understand,” Porter said as he turned to the other Jensen brother. “I sense that you and I, we’re kindred spirits.”

  “I don’t hardly see how you get that,” Ace said. “We didn’t come to Austin to get mixed up in any trouble. We figured to just spend some time here taking life easy. Besides, it’s going to be Christmas in less than a week. It’s a time for celebrating, not fighting.”

  “Christmas!” Porter slapped the table. “The holiest time of the year. You’d allow a poor man to be emotionally devastated at Christmas?” He heaved a sigh. “What a bitter present the wise men doth deliver!”

  “Now, dadgum it—”

  Porter held up both hands, palms out, to stop anything else Ace and Chance had to say.

  “Never mind,” he said. “I understand. We barely know each other. I have no right to ask you to inconvenience yourselves by helping me.” He scraped back his chair and stood up. “I’ll deal with this matter myself.”

  “Hold on a minute,” Chance said. “You’re still going to try to stop Miss Channing from marrying that fella Hudson?”

  “I have no choice in the matter,” Porter declared. “A man must follow the dictates of his heart.”

  He turned and walked out of the hotel dining room, head held high.

  Chance looked across the table at his brother and said, “Ace, you know he’s going charging off to get himself killed, don’t you?”

  Ace sighed and said, “Hudson didn’t strike me as the sort of hombre to put up with anybody interfering with his plans.”

  “He’s a gun wolf, and you know it. We’ve seen plenty like him.”

  “We have,” Ace agreed soberly.

  “And Will, there, he’s just hopeless. He wouldn’t stand a chance against Hudson.”

  “Not a chance in the world. But he’s not our responsibility, either.”

  “We can’t let a poor fool go off and get shot to pieces at Christmastime.”

  “A man’s not any deader from getting shot at Christmas than he is any other time of the year.” Ace put his hands flat on the table and pushed himself to his feet. “But you’re right. Let’s go after him.”

  Chance grinned as he stood up.

  “You heard what he said about Fredericksburg. Place is full of Germans. I’ll bet they celebrate Christmas mighty fine up there in the Hill Country!”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  When Ace and Chance hurried out of the hotel a moment later, they saw Porter leaning casually against a lamppost a few yards away with a smile on his face.

  “Blast it, you knew we were gonna come after you, didn’t you?” Ace said.

  “I had high hopes,” Porter replied. “As I mentioned previously, we’re kindred spirits. I couldn’t bring myself to believe that you wouldn’t embrace this romantic adventure.”

  “Yeah, well, let’s hope it doesn’t get us all killed. Our horses are in the corral back of the hotel. Get your mount and meet us there as soon as you can.”

  “We’ll settle up our bill and gather our gear,” Chance added.

  “Success awaits us, gentlemen!” Porter said. “I can feel it in my bones!”

  “Best hope you don’t feel a .45 slug in your bones before this is over,” Ace warned him.

  Porter wagged a finger at the brothers as he started along the street. He said over his shoulder, “You can’t fool me. You’re looking forward to this!”

  Once Porter was gone, Chance said, “We didn’t really want to just sit around Austin for the rest of the winter, did we?”

  Ace chuckled and shook his head.

  “No, I reckon not. We would have gotten bored. But it might have been nice to enjoy some peace and quiet for just a little bit longer!”

  Chance waved a hand in dismissal and said, “Peace and quiet are overrated.”

  It didn’t take long to get their belongings from their room, pay what they owed, and head out to the corral to saddle their horses. They tightened the cinches and led the animals out of the enclosure. Ace shut the gate behind them. They waited for Porter to show up.

  As Chance had mentioned in the dining room, the thick clouds had parted in a few places to reveal narrow stretches of blue sky. Sunlight slanted through those gaps. However, darker clouds loomed on the western horizon, and Ace cast a worried glance toward them.

  “Looks like more storms moving in,” he commented. “And we’ll be heading that way, I reckon.”

  “Maybe it won’t be too bad,” Chance said. “And we’ve been rained on before and will be again.” He sniffed. “Have to admit I don’t much like being soaked to the bone, though. How long do you think it’ll take us to get to Fredericksburg?”

  “Never made the trip, but a couple of days, I’d guess.”

  “If the stagecoach Miss Channing is on leaves this afternoon, we might beat it there.”

  “So Will can be waiting for her when she steps off the stage.”

  “Yeah, but Hudson likely will be, too.”

  Ace nodded solemnly and said, “I know.” He pointed. “Here he comes.”

  Porter was walking toward the corral leading a skittish-looking mare. The horse didn’t strike Ace as being very strong, but Porter didn’t weigh a whole lot, either. That might slow them down a little, since Porter wouldn’t be able to push his mount as hard as Ace and Chance could with theirs.

  But the whole trip was a bit of a fool’s errand anyway, Ace reminded himself. If they weren’t in time to stop Evelyn from marrying Oliver Hudson, maybe Porter would finally have to face facts.

  Porter had traded his suit for workingman’s clothes, although he still wore the straw boater that was more suitable for serenading young ladies than riding across central Texas in what might be building up to a gully washer. He had a carpetbag tied behind his saddle.

  “Hope you’ve got a slicker in there,” Ace told him. “From the looks of those clouds, you’re liable to need it before the day’s over.”

  “I do,” Porter said. “I have something else, too.” He opened the carpetbag, reached inside, and brought out a gun.

  “Good Lord, Will!” Chance exclaimed. “Where’d you get that smoke wagon?”

  The gun was a Colt dragoon revolver, probably more than thirty years old, a heavy, long-barreled weapon that packed quite a punch. Porter had to hold it with both hands to keep it from sagging toward the ground.

  “It’s a beauty, isn’t it?” he asked with a grin. “I bought it a few days ago when I realized that I might have to fight for Evelyn’s honor.”

  “How are you gonna fight with it?” Chance asked. “You can barely lift it!”

  “In fact,” Ace said as he put a hand on the dragoon’s barrel and pushed it down, “why don’t you point that cannon at the ground? We wouldn’t want it to go off accidentally. That is, if it’s loaded.”

  “Oh, it’s loaded, I assure you,” Porter said. “The fellow who sold it to me took care of that. I have a full six rounds.”

  “You don’t have any other ammunition for it?”

  “No, I thought that would probably be enough.”

  Ace tried not to roll his eyes. He said, “First of all, give me that thing.”

  “It’s mine,” Porter protested. “I bought and paid for it.”

  “Yeah, but if you carry it around with the hammer resting on a full chamber, all it would take
for you to shoot your foot off is a little bump.”

  “And you’d be lucky if it was just your foot you shot off,” Chance added.

  Reluctantly, Porter surrendered the revolver. Ace unloaded one of the chambers and carefully lowered the hammer on it.

  “That’s safer,” he said. “Put it back in your bag.”

  “What if I need it in a hurry?”

  Chance said, “That’s too much gun for you to get out in a hurry, Will, no matter where you carry it. Might as well be where it’s the safest.”

  “I suppose,” Porter said with a shrug.

  “That’s a percussion revolver,” Ace said. “Not as easy to find ammunition for it as it used to be, I imagine. But we’ll stop at a store on the way out of town and see if we can buy some. That way you can get some practice with it while we’re on our way to Fredericksburg.”

  That made Porter grin again. He said, “You mean you’ll teach me how to be a gunman?”

  Chance said, “More likely we’ll teach you how not to shoot yourself or anybody else you don’t intend to . . . if we’re lucky.”

  The rain still held off as the three young men rode out of Austin a short time later. The storm building in the west didn’t seem to be in any hurry to move in. The wind was almost still, barely stirring the chilly air.

  Austin perched at the edge of the Balcones Escarpment. The terrain immediately became more rugged just west of town. The road was a good one, though, running almost due west. Ace wasn’t sure how many towns were between Austin and Fredericksburg, but if they needed to, they could camp out that night. It would probably be cold, wet, and miserable, but it wouldn’t be the first such night he and Chance had spent on the trail.

  The hills were covered with junipers. Outcroppings of limestone and granite broke up the vegetation here and there. Deep, narrow canyons thickly choked with brush slashed through the landscape. The place had a wild beauty about it, and once Austin was a few miles behind them, the road was the only sign of civilization except for an occasional cabin clinging to the side of a hill. Now and then the land leveled out enough to support a small farm or ranch. The riders also passed what looked like some sort of fruit orchard, although the rows of trees were starkly bare at this time of year.