The Chuckwagon Trail

by William W. Johnstone

  Ace was more interested in the gun holstered on the man’s hip. In keeping with the rest of his outfit, that holster was black. The revolver was the only thing flashy about him. It was nickel plated and had ivory grips.

  However, the gun wasn’t just for show. Those grips showed the marks of a great deal of use. Maybe the man just practiced with it a lot—or maybe he actually was the gunslinger he obviously fancied himself to be.

  The man in black held the edge of a coin against the bar and gave it a spin. It whirled there for a long moment, so fast it was just a blur, but finally ran out of momentum and clattered on the hardwood.

  “I reckon my money’s good, Dugan?”

  “Sure, Shelby,” the bartender said. “You’re welcome to give it a try.”

  A spade-bearded man in a frock coat stepped up. He hooked his thumbs in the gold-brocaded vest he wore and said, “I have fifty dollars that says Lew can do it.”

  That wager was too rich for the blood of most of the patrons in this saloon in Fort Worth’s notorious Hell’s Half Acre, but the tinhorn gambler got a couple of takers. Coins and greenbacks were put on the bar for Dugan to hold while Shelby made his try.

  Ace nudged a bearded old-timer who stood next to him and asked, “Who are those two?”

  “The gun-hung feller in black is Lew Shelby,” the codger replied. “The one in the fancy vest is Henry Baylor.”

  “He looks like a card sharp.”

  “Good reason for that. He is. Or at least the rumor has it so. Nobody’s ever caught him cheatin’, though, as far as I know. Or if they have, they’ve had sense enough not to call him on it.”

  The old-timer licked his lips, tongue emerging from the shaggy white whiskers for a second.

  “Baylor might be even slicker at handlin’ shootin’ irons than he is at cards,” he went on. “Him and Shelby is two of a kind, and they run with a bunch just about as bad.”

  Ace nodded. Chance didn’t look happy about Shelby pushing in ahead of him, but for the moment at least, he was keeping his annoyance under control.

  Ace would say something to him if necessary, to keep him calmed down. They didn’t need a gunfight in the middle of this saloon—or anywhere else, for that matter. The Jensen brothers were peaceable sorts.

  That was what Ace aspired to, anyway. Oftentimes fate seemed to be plotting against them, however.

  Lew Shelby stood in front of the bar, feet planted solidly, hands held out in front of him and slightly spread. He rubbed his thumbs over his fingertips and took deep breaths, as if he were working himself up to slap leather against the snake, not hold his finger against a glass jar.

  The crowd began to stir restlessly.

  Shelby must have sensed that impatience. He glanced over his shoulder, sneered, and said, “Hold your damn horses.”

  Then he reached out and tapped the glass several times, fast and hard. He pressed his finger against the jar as the snake reacted, coiling tighter in preparation to strike.

  Everybody in the place knew it was coming. Nobody should have been surprised, least of all Shelby. But when the rattler struck with the same sort of blinding speed as before, Shelby jumped back a step and yelped, “Son of a bitch!”

  Several men in the crowd cursed, too. Others laughed, which made Shelby’s face flush.

  Dugan picked up the gold piece that was all he’d had riding on the bet, but the other men who’d placed wagers moved quickly up to the bar to claim their winnings. Shelby and Baylor both looked startled and angry.

  That anger deepened as Dugan smirked and said, “Told you so, boys. No man alive’s got icy enough nerves to manage that little trick.”

  Ace tried to get hold of Chance’s coat sleeve and pull him away, but Chance was a little too quick for him. He stepped forward and said, “I told you, I can do it.”

  Lew Shelby looked at him and scowled. “Run along, sonny. This business is for men, not boys.”

  Chance’s voice held an edge as he said, “I’m full-grown, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

  He moved his coat aside a little, revealing a .38 caliber Smith & Wesson Second Model revolver with ivory grips resting in a cross-draw rig on his left hip.

  Shelby’s dark eyes slitted, giving him a certain resemblance to the snake. He said, “You better walk soft, boy. I don’t cotton to being challenged.”

  Ace stepped up next to his brother. He had been born a few minutes earlier than Chance, and he was slightly taller and heavier, too. Dark hair curled out from under a thumbed-back Stetson. He wore range clothes, denim trousers and a bib-front shirt, and his boots showed plenty of wear. He didn’t take the time or trouble to polish them up, the way Chance did with his.

  The walnut-butted Colt .45 Peacemaker leathered on Ace’s right hip was strictly functional, too.

  “Nobody’s challenging anybody,” he said. He had plenty of experience trying to head off trouble when Chance was in the middle of it.

  “That’s not true,” Chance said. “I’m challenging that rattlesnake, as well as Mr. Dugan here. I can hold my finger on the glass without budging when the snake strikes at it.”

  “If I can’t do it, kid, you sure as hell can’t,” Shelby snapped.

  “The two hundred dollars in my pocket says I can.”

  Ace bit back a groan. Actually, the two hundred bucks was in his pocket, not Chance’s, but they had that much, all right. They had worked for several months on a ranch north of Fort Worth to earn it, and now they were ready to take it easy and drift for a while, which was their usual pattern.

  They couldn’t do that, though, if Chance’s reckless stubbornness caused them to lose their stake.

  Things had gone too far to stop now. Chance had thrown the bet out there. Henry Baylor stroked his beard and said, “I’m down a hundred dollars tonight. Winning two hundred from you would allow me to show a profit for the evening, son.”

  “I’m not your son,” Chance said.

  In truth, he and Ace didn’t know whose sons they were. They had been raised by a drifting gambler named Ennis “Doc” Monday, after their mother died giving birth to them.

  Once they were old enough to think about such things, they had speculated about whether Doc Monday was really their father, but there was no proof one way or the other and they had never worked up the nerve to ask Doc about it, since his health had grown bad over the years and he was living in a sanitarium. A big emotional upset wouldn’t be good for him.

  “If you actually have the money,” Baylor said, “you have a wager.”

  “I’ve got it.” Chance glanced around at his brother. “Ace?”

  With a sigh, Ace dug out the roll of greenbacks and set it on the bar. He said to Dugan, “That’s our whole poke. We don’t have an extra five dollars to cover the bet with you.”

  The bartender laughed and waved a hand. “Hell, kid, I’ll waive that for the occasion. In fact, I’m so sure your—brother, is it?—can’t do it that if he does, I’ll add a nice new double eagle to your payoff. How’s that sound?”

  Chance said, “We’re obliged to you, Mr. Dugan. But get ready to pay up as soon as this fella”—he nodded toward Baylor—“proves that he can cover the bet.”

  Lew Shelby bristled at that. He tensed and started, “Why, you impudent little bas—”

  Baylor stopped him. “That’s all right, Lew,” the gambler said with an easy but insincere smile. “It’s fair enough for the lad to ask for proof, since I did.”

  He took a sheaf of bills from a pocket inside the frock coat and counted out two hundred dollars. He placed the money next to the Jensen brothers’ roll.

  “Satisfied?”

  “Yes, sir, I am,” Chance said. He turned to the bar and studied the snake in the glass jar. He asked Dugan, “His name’s Chauncey, you said?”

  “That’s what I call him,” the bartender replied. “Caught him in the alley out back earlier today. I started to kill him, then realized that maybe I could use him to make some money.”

  “All
right, Chauncey.” Chance leaned closer, putting his face almost on the glass as he peered at the rattler. “Get good and mad now, you scaly little varmint.”

  The snake stared back, as inscrutable as ever. The buzzing from its rattles sounded angry.

  Three times, Chance thumped his fingertip against the glass. With the last thump, he left his finger there, pressed hard against the jar. The snake didn’t waste any time. It uncoiled and struck furiously, jaws gaping wide to display wicked fangs dripping with venom.

  CHAPTER 2

  Just like the other two times, several men in the Lucky Panther let out involuntary shouts when the snake’s head darted at the glass. One gaudily dressed saloon girl pressed her hands to rouged cheeks and trilled a little scream.

  Then a few seconds of stunned silence ticked past before the place erupted in cheers.

  Because Chance Jensen was still standing there in front of the bar with his finger pressed against the glass. He hadn’t budged.

  Nor did he move now, remaining where he was in the middle of the excited commotion, other than to turn his head and smile at Henry Baylor.

  “I believe you owe me two hundred dollars, my friend,” Chance said.

  Baylor smiled in return, but his lips were tight and his eyes hooded. He said, “It appears that I do.”

  A few feet away, the bearded old-timer Ace had been talking to earlier tugged on his sleeve. Ace had to lean down to make out what the old man was saying.

  “Better collect your winnin’s and get outta here in a hurry, kid! And keep your eyes open! Baylor won’t like losin’ that money, and Lew Shelby sure as hell will be mad about your brother showin’ him up.”

  Based on the expressions on the faces of Baylor and Shelby, Ace agreed with the old man. He reached out, scooped up their roll from the bar, and shoved the stack of greenbacks from Baylor into his pocket as well. Dugan grinned ruefully and handed him the double eagle he had promised as an extra payoff.

  “Come on, Chance,” Ace said. “Time for us to drift.”

  Chance still hadn’t taken his finger away from the glass. He did it leisurely, mockingly, then lifted the finger to his lips and blew across the top of it, as if he were blowing away a curl of smoke from a gun muzzle.

  “Wait just a damn minute,” Shelby rasped.

  “Why? You’re not going to claim that I cheated, are you? That would have been hard to do with this many people watching me the whole time.”

  “But were they watching you the whole time?” Shelby turned to the bar. “Dugan! Did you have your eye on this kid? You didn’t look away any?”

  “I don’t think so,” the bartender said.

  “You didn’t even blink when the snake struck?”

  “Well . . . I was trying to watch pretty close . . .”

  Shelby glared as he jerked his gaze around the room.

  “I’ll bet everybody in here blinked just then! Nobody was watching the kid the whole time. He could’ve taken his finger off the glass for a split-second, and nobody would have noticed.” When nobody spoke up to agree with him, he scowled even more and demanded, “Isn’t that right?”

  Shelby had a reputation here in Fort Worth as a gunman. Nobody wanted to disagree with him. Some men shuffled their feet and looked down at the floor in obvious discomfort. Others started edging toward the door, figuring it was better to leave than to wait and see how this played out.

  But then one grizzled hombre who looked like a successful cattleman, the sort who didn’t take any guff from anybody, said, “I was watching the whole time, and I didn’t blink. The kid’s finger didn’t move.”

  Emboldened by that blunt declaration, several other men muttered agreement.

  “You know I didn’t move my finger,” Chance said to Shelby. “You’re just mad because I was able to do it and you couldn’t.”

  A feral hatred came into Shelby’s eyes as he said, “I can do it! By God, double or nothing! I’ll show you.”

  “Lew, I’m not sure that’s wise,” Baylor cautioned. “We’ve already lost enough tonight.”

  “I’m not gonna let this damn kid think he can get the best of me!” Shelby’s jaw jutted out as he said to Chance, “How about it? You willing to bet the four hundred that I can’t do it?”

  “Chance . . .” Ace said.

  “Relax, Ace,” Chance said with a smile. “If we lose, we’re no worse off than we were before.”

  “Yeah, we are. Two hundred bucks worse!”

  “Life would be mighty dull without a little risk now and then to spice it up.” Chance nodded to Shelby. “We’ll take that bet, mister. Go ahead.” He glanced at Baylor. “I won’t even ask if you can cover it.”

  The gambler was grim-faced now. His friend had put him in a bad position. But he jerked his head in a nod, said, “Go ahead,” and made a little gesture with his slender, long-fingered hand.

  As Shelby faced the jar, Dugan said, “I don’t know about this. Chauncey’s been banging his head against the glass every time he strikes. He’s liable to be gettin’ a little addled by now. I don’t want him to hurt himself.”

  “You gettin’ soft on a rattlesnake, Dugan?” one of the customers asked with a jeering grin.

  “No, but if he bashes his brains out, he can’t win me any more bets, can he?”

  “Does a snake even have a brain?” another man asked.

  “Got to,” his companion said. “Ever’thing that’s alive has got a brain. Don’t it?”

  “Don’t know. I never studied up on snakes. Just shot ‘em or chopped their heads off with a Bowie knife.”

  Shelby snapped, “Shut your damn yammering! A man can’t hear himself think.”

  Once again he went through the routine he had performed earlier. Silence descended on the saloon, broken only by the sound of men breathing. Even that seemed to die away as Shelby hunched his shoulders a little. He was ready.

  His hand stabbed forward. His finger shoved hard against the jar. He didn’t even have to tap on the glass this time. The snake was so keyed up it struck immediately.

  Shelby’s finger jerked back as the fangs hit the inside of the jar. He didn’t flinch much, maybe half an inch, but his fingertip definitely left the glass and everybody who was watching saw that. Shelby tried to press his finger against the jar again, but it was too late.

  “That’ll be another four hundred dollars,” Chance said into the awed hush that followed.

  Shelby took a quick step back, away from the bar. A stream of obscenity poured from his mouth as his hand dropped to the fancy gun on his hip. Ace grabbed the back of his brother’s coat collar and yanked Chance out of the way as he used his other hand to grab his Colt.

  The gunman wasn’t aiming to shoot either of the Jensen brothers, however. Instead, he was still facing the bar when his gun leaped up and spouted noise and flame.

  The first bullet shattered the jar and sent glass shards flying through the air. The second swiftly triggered round whipped past Chauncey’s weaving head and blew a bottle of busthead on the backbar to smithereens. The snake shot out of the wreckage, slithered across the bar, and dropped writhing to the sawdust-littered floor, the thick body landing with what must have been a thump.

  Nobody could hear it, though, because the saloon still echoed from the reports of Shelby’s gun. At least half the people in the Lucky Panther started yelling and screaming when they realized the big rattler was loose.

  “Chauncey!” Dugan bellowed. “You bastard, you tried to kill my snake!”

  Shelby snarled and shouted, “Get outta the way! I’m gonna blast the damn thing!”

  Dugan reached under the bar, came up with a bungstarter, and raised it as he leaned across the hardwood. Another second and he would have brought the bungstarter down across the wrist of Shelby’s gun hand, probably breaking the bone.

  Before the blow could fall another pistol cracked, this one a small weapon that Henry Baylor had grabbed from concealment under his frock coat. The slug tore through Dugan’s forearm
and made him drop the bungstarter and howl in pain.

  The Lucky Panther, which sat on the corner of Throckmorton and Second Streets, had two entrances, the bat-winged main one facing Throckmorton and a regular door on the side. The customers stampeded for both of them. The furious gunman and the equally agitated rattlesnake had everybody scrambling to get out of there before they caught a bullet or got bit.

  Everybody except Ace and Chance Jensen. Ace knew Shelby was liable to hurt an innocent person if he kept flinging lead around like that.

  Ace scooped up the beer mug he had emptied a few minutes earlier and heaved it at Shelby’s head. The heavy glass mug struck the gunman a good enough lick to stagger him.

  At the same time, Baylor swung his gun toward Ace. Acting instinctively to defend his brother, Chance tackled the gambler before he could fire.

  The collision drove Baylor’s back against the bar. He grunted and swiped at Chance’s head with the pistol. The blow knocked off Chance’s flat-crowned brown hat but missed otherwise.

  Earlier, Shelby and Baylor had been sitting at a table with three other men, probably the bad bunch the old-timer had warned Ace about. Two of them charged into the fray now. The third man, an Indian by the looks of him, drew a knife from his belt and stalked across the room, ignoring the rapidly developing brawl.

  Getting walloped by the beer mug had stunned Lew Shelby enough to leave him stumbling around in aimless circles. One of his friends took up the battle for him and went after Ace. The other man looped an arm around Chance’s neck from behind and dragged him away from Baylor.

  Ace ducked a roundhouse right that his attacker threw at him. He brushed his hat back off his head so it hung from its chin strap behind him. He crouched even lower and waded in, hooking punches to the man’s soft-looking belly.

  That paunch was deceptive. Hitting it was like hammering his fists against the wall of a log cabin, Ace discovered.

  The man hit Ace a backhanded blow with his forearm. The impact knocked Ace halfway across the bar. He caught himself and managed not to slide all the way over. As his opponent charged in, he raised both legs and straightened them in a double kick to the chest.