A Texas Hill Country Christmas

by William W. Johnstone

  They rode hard for half a mile before slowing to a walk. Evelyn’s hat had come off, and some of her hair had fallen loose around her face. Breathing hard, she looked over at Oliver and was shocked to realize that he was grinning.

  That was when the man who had seemed to be in charge pulled down his bandanna, returned Oliver’s grin, and asked, “How was that, boss? You reckon we fooled that jehu just like you wanted.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The manager at the stagecoach station in Fredericksburg assured Ace, Chance, and Porter that there was nothing to worry about, even though the coach should have been there already.

  “With the weather and the roads like they are, you expect it to be runnin’ late,” the man said. “Gil Burnley’s a good driver. He’ll bring the coach on through just fine, and it’ll be here in a little while. You just wait and see.”

  But another half-hour passed, and there was still no sign of the stagecoach.

  Porter was getting frantic by now, and Ace could tell by the look on the station manager’s face that he was worried, too. Ace asked the man, “There’s only one main road between here and Johnson City, isn’t there?”

  “Yeah, that’s right. The coach wouldn’t have had any reason to go any other way.”

  “Well, then, why don’t we ride back and see if we can find out why it hasn’t shown up yet?” Ace suggested.

  “Maybe it broke an axle or a wheel or something,” Chance added.

  Porter nodded eagerly and said, “Yes, I think we should go and look for it.”

  “You fellas do what you want,” the station manager said. “Actually, I’d be obliged to you. I hate to say it, but ol’ Gil’s late enough now that there really could be something wrong.”

  Ace, Chance, and Porter headed for their horses. Porter was more agitated, but the Jensen brothers had grim looks on their faces to show that they were worried, too.

  Before they could mount up and ride out, however, the station manager exclaimed, “Wait a minute! I think I hear the coach comin’.”

  The four men walked a short distance out into the street to look to the east where the street turned into the stage road. They spotted the vehicle coming toward them about a quarter of a mile away, moving fast.

  “Gil’s in a hurry for some reason,” the station manager commented. “And something about him doesn’t look right . . . Good Lord! I think he’s been hurt. Look at the way he’s driving with just one hand.”

  It was true. The driver was slumped to the side, too, as if he weren’t able to sit up straight.

  “Something’s happened, all right,” Ace said. “Maybe we’d better ride out and meet the coach.”

  “Time we get mounted up, it’ll almost be here,” Chance pointed out.

  “I don’t care!” Porter cried in a ragged voice. “I’ve got to see if Evelyn is all right!”

  He practically flung himself into the saddle and galloped toward the oncoming stagecoach. Ace and Chance exchanged a glance and then went after him. It wasn’t likely that Porter would need help, but the hombre did seem to have a knack for getting into trouble.

  They caught up with him by the time he reached the stagecoach. Ace and Chance saw that the driver was hurt, just as the station manager thought. The left sleeve of the jehu’s coat was red with blood.

  Porter reined his horse next to the coach’s windows and bent down to peer inside. He popped back up and said to the driver, “Your passengers! Where are your passengers?”

  “One’s in there dead,” the man replied. His strained voice showed the pain he was in from the wounded arm.

  “Dead!” Porter yelled. “Stop! Stop right here!”

  The driver kept the team moving. He said, “Mister, I’m gettin’ this coach to the station ’fore I pass out.”

  Ace moved his horse alongside the box, pulled his left foot out of the stirrup, and rested it on the floorboards. He grabbed hold of the railing at the edge of the box and pulled himself from the saddle onto the seat.

  “Take my horse, Chance,” he told his brother, then went on to the driver, “I’ve handled a stagecoach team before. Let me take them on into town.”

  “Normally, I wouldn’t do it, youngster,” the jehu said. “But this ain’t normal circumstances. I’ve lost more blood than I like to think about, and this arm hurts like blazes.” He passed over the reins. “I’m obliged to you.”

  “The passenger who’s dead,” Porter said. “Is . . . is it a woman?”

  The driver shook his head and said, “Nope, some old-timer who got on in Johnson City.”

  Porter closed his eyes, evidently almost overcome by the relief flooding through him.

  “What about the other passengers?” Ace asked as he kept the stagecoach rolling into the outskirts of Fredericksburg.

  “There were only two of ’em, a man and a woman. Married couple, I reckon.”

  “No, they’re not,” Porter snapped. “What happened to them?”

  “The same bunch of no-good owlhoots who killed the old-timer carried ’em off.”

  “They were kidnapped?” Porter looked stricken again now.

  “Yeah, I reckon that’s what you’d call it. They made ’em get off the stage and had a pair of horses waitin’ for them. Looked to me like the whole thing was planned out ahead of time.”

  “They say anything to give you any idea why?” Chance asked as he rode alongside the coach.

  The driver shook his head.

  “Nary a word. They shot that old man when he pulled a gun on ’em, threw his carcass back in the coach, then rode off into the hills after tellin’ me to get out of there.”

  “Which direction did they go?” Ace asked.

  “They headed north. Whether they kept goin’ that way, I don’t have no idea. I was too busy keepin’ the coach movin’ to pay any attention to the varmints after they rode off.”

  “Where did this happen?”

  “About five miles back.”

  “Come on,” Porter said to Ace and Chance. “We have to trail them. Maybe we can rescue Evelyn!”

  “I sort of had the same thing in mind,” Ace said. “But we need to get this coach to the station first and see that Mr. Burnley here gets some medical attention.”

  Nodding, the driver said, “I’m obliged to you for that, son.”

  Porter didn’t like it, but he said, “All right, we can do that. But then we go after those outlaws!”

  “Then we go after those outlaws,” Ace agreed solemnly.

  Evelyn could only stare in shock and horror at the man she had thought she knew.

  “You did a fine job, Tate,” Oliver Hudson told the now unmasked outlaw who had murdered the old man. “When the driver gets to Fredericksburg, he’ll tell everyone how you took us off the stage against our will. It might have been a little better if the old man was still alive to say the same thing, but I can’t blame you for what you did. He pulled iron on you, after all.”

  “Yeah, when I saw that gun o’ his come out, my gut told me to shoot him,” the man called Tate agreed. “I didn’t have time to think about anything else.”

  “Well, no matter,” Hudson said, his voice breezy and casual as if the old-timer’s death meant less than nothing to him.

  And that was the truth, Evelyn realized as sick astonishment hollowed out her insides even more. Oliver didn’t care that the old man had been gunned down. He didn’t care one little bit.

  That meant he was just as bad as these other men. No, worse, because he had pretended to be a good man. He had fooled her into believing that he was honest and upright and . . . and really wanted to marry her . . . and....

  He turned toward her, smiled, and said, “See, I told you everything would be fine, my dear. You are all right, aren’t you?”

  Evelyn gave him the only answer she could.

  Her hand flashed up and cracked across his face in as hard a slap as she could muster.

  Hudson’s head jerked back and anger flared in his eyes for a second before
he controlled it with visible effort. He lifted his reins and brought his horse closer to hers.

  “I understand why you’re upset, Evelyn, but I can’t have you doing things like that in front of my men. They’ll lose respect for me if I let my woman get away with such an insult.”

  His hand shot out and closed around her left wrist. A cruel twist sent pain shooting up her arm and brought a cry to her lips.

  “So let’s not have any hysterics, all right,” Hudson went on in a low, dangerous tone. “The last thing in the world I want is for you to be hurt. I don’t want to see you upset or unhappy, either. I promised you a comfortable life, and that’s what I intend to give you. But I can’t have you interfering in my efforts to do that, either.”

  She tried to pull away from him, but she couldn’t escape his grip. She said, “I . . . I’m not going to have any kind of a life with you, Oliver Hudson. Not after what I’ve seen today.”

  He let go of her wrist and smiled, but there was no warmth in the expression.

  “You’re wrong about that, darlin’,” he drawled. “We’re still going to be married, just as we planned. Soon now, you’ll be my faithful wife, and we’ll be happy together.”

  She started to spit out a furious reply, but she thought twice about it and managed to stop before any of the angry words came out of her mouth. Her wrist already hurt, and there was no telling what else he might do to her if she continued to defy him in front of his men.

  And these outlaws were his men. There was no escaping from that conclusion. She had thought she was marrying an honest man, but in reality he was the leader of a bandit gang. Just the thought of that made her head spin. With no warning, her whole world had been upended in a matter of moments.

  She looked down at her horse without saying anything. After a few more seconds went by, Hudson said, “Well? Are you all right now?”

  “I’m fine,” Evelyn forced herself to say. “I . . . I was just confused, Oliver, that’s all.”

  Hudson sat back in his saddle and looked satisfied with himself. He said, “I knew you’d listen to reason. You’re a smart girl, Evelyn. You’ll see that I know what I’m doing. And when we’re rich, you’ll be glad that I took the necessary steps to accomplish that goal.”

  “Of course,” she murmured, still not looking at him. “I’m sure I will.”

  Hudson nodded as if the discussion was over, but it wasn’t, thought Evelyn. Not really.

  She didn’t intend to cooperate. As soon as she had a chance to get away from him and his murderous companions, she was going to seize it.

  She should have listened to Will Porter, she thought gloomily.

  Hudson turned to Tate and asked, “What about that other matter you were tending to?”

  “It took a while, but we found him,” Tate reported. “At least, we were pretty sure we had. Deke and Packy have been keepin’ an eye on him.” Tate turned in the saddle and waved over two of the other men. “Tell the boss what happened last night.”

  “We were watchin’ the fella’s place,” one of the men said. “Some cowboys came ridin’ up late and called him out. From what we could hear, there was some sort of bad blood between ’em. One of the punchers was up on the porch, and when he slapped leather, the hombre we’ve been keepin’ an eye on knocked him down and took his gun away. Snatched that Colt right outta the air, clean as a whistle. The other two opened up on him, but they didn’t come close. He drilled one and knocked the saddle horn into the other one’s belly.”

  “You ask me, that was a lucky shot,” the second outlaw said. “He was trying to feed that fella a slug in the guts.”

  Hudson nodded and said, “Of course he was. Once it came down to gunplay, everything was automatic for him. Did he kill all of them?”

  “Didn’t kill any of them,” the first man said. “He just sent ’em on their way.”

  “That’s odd,” Hudson said with a frown. “Not like him, either.”

  “I reckon he didn’t want to kill ’em, what with him bein’ a preacher and all.”

  Hudson’s eyebrows rose in surprise.

  “A preacher?” He sounded like he couldn’t believe it.

  “That’s right. We’ve done plenty of askin’ around. Calls himself Seth Barrett now. He’s the pastor of the Enchanted Rock Baptist Church.”

  Hudson sat there for a long moment, evidently digesting what he had just been told, before he finally threw back his head and let out a loud, raucous laugh.

  “A preacher!” he said. “That’s actually pretty smart. A church is just about the last place anybody would think to look for the likes of Sam Brant.”

  That drew chuckles from the rest of the men. Evelyn, still sitting there on her horse, didn’t see what was so funny about it, but the outlaws were certainly amused.

  Hudson turned his head and eyed her speculatively. He said, “You know, that gives me an idea. We’re going to need someone to perform our wedding ceremony and join us together forever as husband and wife. What better person to do that than my old friend and partner, since he’s gotten religion and become a sky pilot?”

  Evelyn didn’t say anything, didn’t tell him that she would die before she ever became his wife.

  It was easy to say things like that in the heat of anger, but she worried that when the time came, she would be too terrified to follow through on that resolve.

  “You really think he’ll do that, boss?” Tate asked.

  “Of course he will, if he wants to live a little longer,” Hudson replied. “But once the ceremony is over—and once he’s told us what we want to know—he’s going to die anyway, and I’ll take great pleasure in killing him.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Holding his black bag, the doctor was already waiting at the stagecoach station when Ace brought the vehicle to a stop in front of the building. The station manager had sent someone running to fetch the physician.

  Ace and Chance helped Burnley down from the box. He grumbled, “I don’t know why ever’body’s makin’ such a fuss over me. I just got a bullet hole in my arm, that’s all.”

  “Take him inside and put him on the sofa in the office,” the manager said. “You’ll be all right, Gil.”

  “I know that, dadblast it. But the fella who shot me won’t be, happen I should ever catch him in my sights.”

  Porter didn’t dismount while Ace and Chance half-carried the wounded jehu into the station. He was walking his horse back and forth impatiently when they emerged from the building a couple of minutes later.

  “Now can we go?” he asked.

  The Jensen boys swung up into their saddles. Ace said, “Yeah, let’s go see what we can find out.”

  The fact that the outlaws had kidnapped Evelyn Channing and Oliver Hudson was pretty troubling, Ace thought as he, Chance, and Porter rode out of Fredericksburg. Road agents hardly ever did that. They just robbed their victims of any valuables and left them with the stagecoach.

  The only reason Ace could think of why outlaws would carry off a couple of passengers would be to hold them for ransom. That seemed unlikely in Evelyn’s case. If she or her family had enough money to make that feasible, she wouldn’t have been working as a waitress at that café in Austin.

  That left Hudson. He’d been well-dressed, but he hadn’t struck Ace as a rich man.

  There was really only one way to find the answers, he told himself, and that was to track down the outlaws and their prisoners.

  It wasn’t difficult to locate the spot where the gang had stopped the stagecoach. No other traffic had come along the road since then, and the welter of hoofprints in the mud told the story well enough to the Jensen brothers’ eyes.

  “Is this where it happened?” Porter asked as he reined in, following the lead of Ace and Chance.

  “Yeah,” Chance said, pointing to the tracks. “You can see where they rode out and blocked the stagecoach.”

  “We’ve come about five miles from town, too, and that matches what Mr. Burnley told us,” Ac
e added.

  “What else can you tell?” Porter asked.

  Chance pointed at the road and said, “Bootprints there, and some smaller prints, too. Looks like a lady’s shoes.”

  “Those have to be Evelyn’s prints,” Porter said grimly.

  “Yeah, but there’s not very many of them,” Ace said. “Of course, we already knew from what Mr. Burnley told us that they put her on a horse and rode off with her, but this confirms it.”

  Chance had reined his horse to the side of the road. He said, “Looks like here’s the trail where they headed north.”

  “Can we follow it?” Porter wanted to know.

  “I don’t see why not,” Chance told him. “The ground’s soft enough from the rain that the horses left a lot of prints.”

  The three young men started north. As they rode, Chance commented, “You know, with everything that’s going on, we forgot about getting something to eat.”

  “Yeah, and we didn’t have much of a breakfast, either,” Ace added.

  Porter glared at them and said, “How can you be worried about your bellies when the woman I love has been kidnapped?”

  “Just because we’re hungry doesn’t mean we don’t care about Miss Channing,” Chance said. “We’ll do everything we can to rescue her from those owlhoots. But you’ve got to remember, Will . . . she’s a grown woman. It was the decisions she made that got her into this mess.”

  “So you’re saying it’s all her fault!” Porter responded indignantly.

  “Nope, not at all. I’m just saying I wish we’d had a chance to try that schnitzel the fella was talking about before we rode out on this rescue mission.”

  “I suppose I can’t be too upset about that,” Porter said with a shrug. “Evelyn’s not the future wife of either one of you, after all.”

  Ace and Chance exchanged a glance without Porter seeing. They weren’t convinced that Evelyn was Porter’s future wife, either, but no purpose would be served by pointing that out. Anyway, the young lady’s matrimonial plans were irrelevant right now, while she was in the hands of bandits. Saving her life was a lot higher priority.