A Texas Hill Country Christmas

by William W. Johnstone

  Smoke nodded. It was the best plan they could come up with. He still wished he knew exactly what was behind the attempt on Roland’s life, though.

  Unfortunately, the man on the ground wasn’t going to be volunteering any answers.

  Harlan Gunderson wanted to take a gun butt to his brother’s head and bash it in, but he had promised their ma on her deathbed that he would take care of his little brother, so he couldn’t do that. He settled for backhanding Karl instead, a hard enough blow to knock the smaller man off his feet.

  “You were supposed to be standin’ guard!” Harlan roared at Karl. “What’n blazes did you do, sleep all night?”

  “I . . . I might’a dozed off a mite,” Karl said as he cringed backward on the ground as if afraid that Harlan might kick him. That seemed to be a distinct possibility.

  “You must’ve been sound asleep, Karl,” Grady said. “Otherwise you would’ve heard Tioga when he saddled his horse and lit a shuck.”

  Harlan cast an angry glare at Grady that made the other outlaw look down at the ground. Harlan was not only the boss of this outfit, he was Karl’s brother and would deal with what had happened.

  “Go see if you can pick up the kid’s trail,” he ordered coldly. “Find out which way he went.”

  “What does it matter?” Jed Lavery asked. “He’s gone, and it’s not likely he’s coming back. I’d say we’re lucky he didn’t steal all our horses.”

  Harlan Gunderson let out a disgusted snort.

  “He knew better than that. He knew I’d track him down and make sure he died slow and painful-like if he double-crossed us like that.”

  “Maybe he decided he just didn’t want any part of that robbery,” the middle-aged, normally quiet Simon Dawson suggested.

  “Not want a share of ten grand?” Grady said. “That don’t seem likely.”

  “Jed’s right, it doesn’t matter why he ran out on us or where he went,” Gunderson said. “What’s important is that there’s still five of us, and that’s plenty to hold up that stagecoach.”

  “So you don’t want us to look for Tioga’s trail after all?” Grady asked.

  The anger inside Harlan Gunderson had blazed so fiercely for a few minutes that it had burned itself out. He shook his head and said, “No, to perdition with it. And to perdition with the kid, too. It’s his loss.”

  Karl picked himself up and used his hat to slap dirt and dead leaves off his trousers. He said, “So we’re still stoppin’ the coach and takin’ that money?”

  “You bet we are. Get a fire going, Karl. We’ll have some coffee, and then we’ll find a good spot for the ambush.”

  “Might not be easy to find enough dry wood for a fire,” Karl began. The drizzle that had fallen most of the night had stopped, but things were still wet. When his brother frowned at him, though, he went on hurriedly, “But I’ll manage, Harlan, you can sure count on that.”

  They all put Tioga and his disappearance out of their minds. Whatever the young outlaw’s fate might be, it was no longer any of their business.

  The rest of the night passed quietly at the stagecoach station. Smoke got enough sleep in the hayloft during his turn to nap that he wasn’t too tired the next morning. He was glad to see that the rain had stopped and that not enough had fallen during the night to make the roads much muddier than they had been to start with.

  Bertha refused to take any payment for Smoke and Sally’s breakfast. She gave them a sackful of biscuits to take with them as well.

  “That ain’t hardly enough to even start repaying the debt I owe you, Mr. Jensen,” she told Smoke as the passengers began loading onto the coach in front of the station. “C’mere.”

  He grinned as she pulled his head down and bussed a rough kiss on his cheek. She hugged Sally, too, while Smoke shook hands with a cleaned-up and much more composed Roland.

  “Thank you for savin’ my life, Mr. Jensen,” the young man said politely.

  “I’m glad I was able to help, Roland,” Smoke assured him. “You take care of your ma now.”

  “Yes, sir, I sure will.”

  A few minutes later, Floyd Horton cracked his whip and yelled to his team, and the stagecoach rolled out of Morgan Mill, following the road into the hills that rose south of the settlement.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  As the coach rocked along, Arley Hicks was still excited about what had happened the night before and kept talking about the killing. Finally, Donald Purcell glared at the young cowboy and snapped, “Can’t you just shut up about that dreadful business? You’re upsetting my wife.”

  Mildred Purcell’s face was pale and drawn, and her lips were pursed in disapproval, Smoke noted, but she didn’t seem that much more upset than usual. From what he had seen, that was pretty much her normal expression and attitude.

  “Beggin’ your pardon, ma’am,” Arley said to Mildred as he took his hat off.

  “That’s quite all right, Mr. Hicks,” she told him without looking at him.

  “It’s just that Mr. Jensen here’s famous, and now I get to tell folks I was there—or at least close by—when Smoke Jensen killed a no-good owlhoot. You can’t blame a gent for bein’ a mite excited about somethin’ like that. I’ll have me a good story to tell in the bunkhouse—”

  “You’re still going on about it,” Purcell gritted.

  “Oh. Yeah, reckon I am. Beg pardon again.” Arley swung around so he was facing Smoke and Sally. “Just how fast was your draw when you shot that fella, Mr. Jensen?”

  “Fast enough to save Roland’s life,” Smoke said. “That was all I was worried about.”

  “Yeah, from what Floyd and Tom said, that varmint was about to slice the poor feller open from gizzard to gullet!”

  Purcell reached out, grabbed Arley’s shoulder, and jerked him around.

  “That’s enough!” he exclaimed. “I’ve asked you politely—”

  “You best take your hand off me, mister,” Arley said quietly. Smoke heard the menace in the young cowboy’s deceptively mild tone. He saw Arley’s hand move toward the opening of his coat and figured there was a knife or a pistol in his waistband. The worried frowns on the faces of Langston and Mrs. Carter told him they had the same hunch.

  “That’s enough, both of you,” Smoke said, his voice firm with command. “Arley, we’ve hashed it all out enough. And Mr. Purcell, you need to understand that we’re not back East now. Folks have different attitudes about most things out here.”

  “Including life and death?” Purcell asked in a challenging tone.

  “Yes, sir. Maybe that more than anything else. Westerners know how many things there are in the world that can kill you, and we’re used to running into them from time to time.”

  “I prefer civilization, where life is safe,” Purcell said stiffly.

  “Oh, it’s not safe there, either,” Smoke said with a smile. “Folks just do a better job of pretending it is.”

  A strained silence descended on the coach. Herman Langston broke it a few minutes later by asking Arley to name all the spreads where he had worked. The young cowboy seemed glad to do so, and he had a colorful story about every ranch.

  With that tension eased, the journey went more pleasantly again. The coach’s motion even began to lull Smoke into a half-sleep.

  That drowsy state was shattered by the sudden blast of gunfire.

  The terrain was so hilly through here that when the road had been built, the men who’d put it in had used dynamite to blast openings through some of the ridges that left steep banks on both sides, mostly fifteen to twenty feet tall. The different layers of earth could be seen in those ridges, which were topped by juniper, mesquite, scrub brush, rocks, and cactus.

  On top of the west bank of one of those cuts, Karl Gunderson swallowed and asked nervously, “You sure about this, Harlan?”

  “What? Yeah, of course I’m sure. I ever steer you wrong, Karl?”

  As a matter of fact, Harlan had made a number of questionable decisions over the years, but ther
e was no way Karl was going to bring those up to his brother. Harlan was still a mite touchy about Tioga deserting them. Karl didn’t want to give him an excuse to really get mad.

  “No, no,” Karl said quickly. “Your plans always work.”

  Harlan nodded, completely confident that this robbery would go off just fine.

  He and Karl were on this side, hunkered far enough back from the cut’s edge so they couldn’t be seen. Jed Lavery and Simon Dawson were on the east bank. Grady Kirk was up ahead, waiting in some trees just past the cut.

  The plan called for the men on the banks to open fire on the stage as it rumbled through, killing the driver and guard, then Grady would spur his horse out into the road and catch the team’s harness before the horses could bolt. Once the coach was stopped, Harlan would call on the passengers to throw out their guns and get out, and if they refused, the men on the banks would just pour lead through the vehicle’s flimsy walls until everyone inside it was dead.

  What could possibly go wrong with that?

  Harlan cocked his head to the side and said, “Listen. Hear that?”

  Karl licked his lips and asked, “Hear what?”

  “The stagecoach,” Gunderson replied impatiently.

  Karl frowned for a couple of seconds, concentrating so hard he looked like something was paining him. Then he nodded and said, “Yeah. Horses. And wheels. Got to be the stagecoach.”

  Harlan looked away so his brother wouldn’t see him roll his eyes. He checked his Winchester. Fully loaded, with a round in the chamber.

  They had to time this properly. The cut was at the top of a slope, so the stagecoach wouldn’t be traveling very fast when it got here. The outlaws hidden on top of the banks had to stay out of sight until they were ready to open fire, so the driver wouldn’t spot them and whip up the team to a faster pace as he went through the cut. But they couldn’t wait until the coach had gone past them. Harlan listened intently, knowing that he had judged the right moment to strike by the sounds.

  “Harlan, I—” Karl began.

  “Shut up,” Harlan snapped. “Not now, Karl.”

  “Sorry,” Karl muttered.

  Harlan heard the thud of hoofbeats getting louder, the creak of the wheels, the rattle of harness....

  “Now!” he called. He leaped to his feet, rushed forward to the bank’s edge, brought the rifle to his shoulder, and started shooting.

  Mildred Purcell screamed as the gunshots boomed. So did her husband. Smoke was sitting on the left-hand side of the coach, on the forward-facing seat, and his Colt was already in his hand as he leaned toward the window.

  “Arley, if you’ve got a gun, cover the other side!” he barked.

  The young cowboy reached inside his coat and pulled out an old Colt Navy. He lunged across the middle seat to the window on the right-hand door.

  Smoke looked up, spotted two men on the cutbank on his side blazing away at the stagecoach with rifles. He leaned out far enough to draw a good bead and fired three swift shots that were deafening inside the coach.

  One of the men on the bank dropped his rifle, doubled over as he clutched his belly where a slug had ripped into him, and plunged over the edge. He turned a somersault in midair and crashed onto the road on his back about ten feet behind the coach.

  The other man on that side spun halfway around from the impact of a slug and stumbled back out of sight.

  On the right side of the coach, Arley had just opened fire when he suddenly grunted and fell back from the window. He dropped the Navy, which clattered onto the floorboard.

  Without hesitation, Sally bent down and scooped up the gun. Arley lay on his side on the bench, right hand pressed to his left shoulder where blood welled between his fingers. Sally leaned forward and to the side, in front of Mrs. Carter, and thrust the revolver’s barrel out the window. She fired off the remaining rounds as fast as she could cock the gun and squeeze the trigger.

  Smoke heard Floyd Horton yelling at the team, urging them on to more speed. He knew what was going on as well as he would have if he could see the whole thing. Outlaws had laid an ambush on both banks, intending to murder Horton and Burke and stop the stage. Possibly because of the rapid way Smoke had cut down their numbers, the desperados had failed so far. Horton was still alive.

  And now it was a race.

  Harlan Gunderson cursed sulphurously as the stagecoach swept past the spot where he and Karl were standing and blasting away at it. The coach hadn’t stopped, hadn’t even slowed down. In fact, it was going faster now as the jehu shouted at his team and slashed at them with his whip.

  Harlan hadn’t counted on somebody inside the coach being such a gun wizard. Lavery was lying dead in the road, and Dawson was down on the far bank, badly wounded from the looks of him. And somehow the driver on the coach seemed to be untouched by all the lead that had flown around him.

  The guard couldn’t say the same thing. He was slumped on the seat, the side of his head covered with blood where he’d been hit.

  “Come on!” Harlan shouted to Karl. “We gotta catch up!”

  He turned and started running along the top of the bank with the rifle held at a slant across his chest. His long legs carried him swiftly and kept him not far behind the coach. The problem was that he couldn’t shoot at the driver while he was running like this.

  Then Grady Kirk spurred out into the road at the end of the cut and opened fire on the stagecoach with his pistol. The driver’s instincts made him haul back on the reins in the face of this unexpected attack. The coach slowed, allowing Harlan and Karl to catch up with it. Karl had lagged several yards behind his brother, and he was puffing and panting like a steam engine as they slowed.

  Harlan brought the Winchester to his shoulder again and was about to drill the driver, who seemed unsure what to do as Grady charged the coach. Before Harlan could pull the trigger, though, the guard suddenly reared up on the seat. That took Harlan by surprise, because he’d thought the man was dead.

  Before the outlaws could react, the guard thrust his weapon toward them one-handed and fired both barrels of the coach gun. Beside Harlan, Karl said, “Uh!” and took a quick step back.

  Harlan looked over at his brother, saw the bloody ruin where the buckshot had caught Karl in the belly and chest, and roared, “No!”

  “H-Harlan . . .” Karl managed to say before he sat down hard and then died, rolling onto his side.

  Down in the cut, the guard had dropped the shotgun and collapsed again. A man stood in the open doorway on the coach’s far side, leaned out, and blew Grady Kirk out of the saddle with a well-placed shot.

  “Go!” he shouted to the driver, who whipped the team again and made the coach surge forward as Kirk’s horse danced out of the way.

  “No!” Harlan yelled again. They weren’t going to get away with this, not with killing Karl. He dropped the rifle and sprinted along the bank after the coach. The fury he felt gave him incredible speed. He was about to run out of bank, so he did the only thing he could.

  He left his feet and sailed out over the cut in a desperate leap, his long duster catching the air and billowing out behind him like the wings of a giant bird.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Smoke had holstered his gun and was about to climb out of the coach and up to the driver’s box to check on Tom Burke and give Floyd Horton a hand when he saw the huge shape plummeting down from the sky. The man’s boots struck the coach roof and jolted it so hard because of his weight that Smoke’s grip on the side of the door was knocked loose. Off balance the way he was, he toppled out of the coach.

  The only thing that saved him from falling in the road was a desperate grab with his other hand that caught the handle of the door as it flapped back and forth in the wind. Smoke twisted and hung there with just the toes of his boots still inside the coach. That and the perilous one-handed grip was all that held him up.

  The outlaw who had jumped from the cut bank to the stagecoach had fallen to his knees when he landed on the roof. He
lunged forward, wrapped his arms around Horton’s neck from behind, and started choking the driver. Horton dropped the reins and pawed at the arms clamping down on his throat like iron bands, but he couldn’t budge them.

  The team had never come to a complete stop. Now, spooked and wild-eyed from all the gunfire, they started running hard again. As the road came out of the cut, it sloped downhill, so the coach began to pick up speed.

  “Smoke!” Sally cried. He looked up and saw her leaning toward him as she held out a hand. Herman Langston was behind her with his arms wrapped around her waist. That familiarity with a married woman, normally unforgivable, was understandable under these circumstances. They were trying to get Smoke back into the coach.

  Smoke flung his other hand up and clasped wrists with Sally. She was a strong woman, and with the drummer bracing her she was able to haul Smoke up from his precarious position. He got his feet inside the coach and wrapped his arm around the window frame as he let go of Sally’s wrist.

  They weren’t out of danger, though. The way the stagecoach was careening down the hill with no hand on the reins to slow the horses, the vehicle might veer off the road and crash at any time. That outlaw was doing his best to choke the life out of Floyd Horton, too.

  Smoke pointed up to let Sally know what he was doing, then reached for the brass rail that ran around the edge of the coach roof. He couldn’t try a shot because there was too great a risk of hitting Horton. Instead he got a foot in the window, held on to the rail, and heaved himself on top of the coach.

  A few pieces of baggage were lashed in place up here. Smoke clambered over them, drew his gun, and struck at the man who was attacking Horton. The coach lurched just as the Colt fell, and instead of hitting the man in the head and knocking him out, as Smoke intended, the blow slammed into his shoulder instead. The man bellowed in pain and anger, let go of Horton, and twisted around to swing a powerful arm at Smoke in a swift backhand.