A Jensen Family Christmas

by William W. Johnstone

  “Non. The head is buried within me.”

  That was going to complicate things, but it could still be dealt with . . . if they could manage to get out of here alive.

  Problem was, Preacher didn’t see any way they could do that. They were still outnumbered by the Blackfeet, and when the warriors charged again, Preacher wouldn’t be able to hold them off by himself. Some of them would reach the rocks and overrun him and DuBois. There was no getting around it.

  He glanced at the cliff. Maybe there was one way....

  DuBois saw where Preacher was looking and said, “Go, my friend. Help me load my guns . . . and I will slow them down . . . give you a better chance . . .”

  “The hell with that,” Preacher responded. “Either we both get out of here or neither of us does.”

  “But I cannot . . . possibly survive . . .”

  “You don’t know that. But one thing’s for sure—we ain’t either one of us gonna survive if we stay here.”

  DuBois reached up and squeezed Preacher’s shoulder as he rasped, “My friend . . . mon ami . . .”

  A war whoop split the air.

  “Hang on,” Preacher said. “Lemme kill a few more of them sons o’ bitches ’fore we go anywhere.”

  He whirled back to his guns and snatched up the rifle. An arrow whipped past his ear as he drew a bead and drilled a lead ball through a warrior’s head, shattering the man’s skull like a dropped gourd. He pivoted the other way as he grabbed the pistols. The pair of shots crashed, and two more Blackfeet went down. Preacher rammed the pistols behind his belt, grabbed up the empty rifle, and turned to Pierre DuBois.

  The Frenchman had already shoved himself to his feet. Preacher looped his free arm around DuBois’s waist and held him up as both of them ran the few feet to the cliff. More arrows flew around them as they jumped. Preacher heard angry, disappointed shouts from the attacking warriors.

  Then he couldn’t hear anything except the air rushing past his ears and the involuntary yells that came from his and DuBois’s throats as they plummeted toward the sun-sparkling river far below....

  Denver

  Those vivid memories receded in Preacher’s mind as he looked across the table at Adelaide DuBois. No need to go through the plunge, which had taken only seconds but had seemed to last hours, before he and Pierre DuBois struck the surface of the icy river. Pure luck, and the fact that the river was deep at that point, had kept both of them from being killed in the fall.

  Preacher had lost his grip on DuBois and had to find him again in the fast-flowing river. Once he did, they rode its swift current for a mile or more before Preacher was able to get them to shore. He knew the Blackfeet might come after them, but they would have to go a long way around to do so. That gave Preacher time enough to find them a good place to hole up.

  That place turned out to be a cave, where they spent the next two weeks, while Preacher nursed his friend back from the brink of death. In order to keep from doing even more damage, he had to push the arrow on through DuBois’s body, break off the head, and then withdraw the bloody shaft. More than once, he thought that DuBois had slipped away, over the divide. But each time the Frenchman clung to life.

  Six months later, the man Preacher delivered to Adelaide Martinson in Philadelphia was a thin, pale shadow of who he had been . . . but Adelaide welcomed him, anyway, sobbing as she took him into her arms and cradled him protectively.

  Preacher didn’t stay for the wedding. He hated big cities, and he felt the high country drawing him back....

  But he saw the two of them a few times after that. They moved to St. Louis, where DuBois worked for one of the fur-trapping companies and even went on a few more expeditions himself, once he had recovered enough. He was never again the man he had been before the ordeal, though.

  “My goodness, Preacher, you look like you’re a million miles away,” Adelaide said.

  “Not that far. Only a few hundred miles. And a bunch of years.”

  “Did you hear what I said?”

  “About somebody wantin’ to kill you? That don’t hardly make sense. Who’d want to do somethin’ terrible like that?”

  “That’s the worst of it,” Adelaide said with a sigh. “It’s my own grandson.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Amity, Utah

  Despite the name of the settlement, this didn’t strike Luke Jensen as a very friendly place. As he rode in, icy gusts whipped through the single street, sweeping down from the snowcapped mountains to the west, but the wind wasn’t any colder than the stares he got from the townspeople.

  That didn’t surprise him. As a bounty hunter, he was used to not exactly being welcome anywhere he went. Sometimes, people seemed to know his profession even before he told anyone about it. More than once, he had thought that he must have a scarlet letter sewn onto his coat that other people could see, even though he couldn’t. A B for bounty hunter or blood money, instead of the A that Hester Prynne wore in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel.

  Making it even worse in this case was the fact that Amity was a Mormon town and Luke was a Gentile. How they could tell that by looking at him, he wasn’t sure at first.

  But as he rode slowly toward the squat stone building with a sign out front proclaiming it to be the marshal’s office, he began to get an inkling. Everybody in town seemed to have the same sort of broad face topped by blond hair. It seemed far-fetched that the entire population might be related in some way, but he couldn’t rule it out. They could sure spot an outsider in a hurry, no doubt about that.

  Luke was dark, while the citizens of Amity were fair. That extended to his clothing, as well, since he dressed in black from head to foot. Even the sheepskin coat he wore was dyed black. The only things about him that stood out were the silver conchos that formed the band around his hat.

  His craggy, weather-beaten face was darkly tanned. A narrow mustache adorned his upper lip. His eyes were deep-set and intense, and yet the lines around his eyes and mouth showed that he knew how to laugh, too. Still, about him hung the undefinable air of a solitary man, accustomed to riding lonely trails.

  He pretended not to see the wary looks the townspeople gave him, and ignored the outright hostile ones, as well. When he reached the marshal’s office, he reined his horse to a stop and swung down from the saddle.

  The office door opened while Luke was still looping his reins around the hitch rail in front of the place. A man stepped out, rubbing bare hands together against the cold. He might have had blond hair like everybody else in town if he’d had any hair. His hat was thumbed back enough that Luke could see he was bald as an egg. His eyebrows were so pale and thin, they were barely there.

  “Howdy,” he greeted Luke. “Saw you through the window. New to Amity, aren’t you?”

  “That’s right. I rode in right this minute.” Luke nodded to the star the man wore pinned to the lapel of his coat. “You’d be the marshal?”

  “That’s right. Marshal Ed Rowan. Hope you won’t take it unkindly if I ask you what your business is in our town.”

  “I was on my way to talk to you about that very subject,” Luke said. “Why don’t we do it inside, out of this wind?”

  Marshal Rowan’s friendly demeanor dropped away and his voice hardened as he said, “I don’t recall invitin’ you in, mister.”

  Luke looked at him for a second, then nodded and said, “So that’s the way it is.”

  “Just tell me what you’re doin’ here, mister.”

  “Jensen is the name. Luke Jensen.”

  “Didn’t ask you that.”

  Luke suppressed the irritation he felt and said, “I’m looking for a man named Hank Trafford. He was headed in this direction.”

  Rowan stiffened.

  “I know who Trafford is,” he said. “He came from around here, a long time ago. But I haven’t seen him and don’t want to. The man’s an outlaw. We’re law-abidin’ folks hereabouts. His kind ain’t welcome.” Rowan paused, then added, “Your kind ain’t, either.”
r />   “I’m not an outlaw.”

  “You know what I mean,” the marshal snapped. He cocked his head a little and went on, “Are you a federal man? Deputy U.S. marshal? We don’t cotton much to federal men poking around. They ain’t needed here.”

  Luke wasn’t surprised to hear that. There was a long-standing history of hostility between the government in Washington and the Mormons. Quite a bit of blood had been shed on both sides.

  He shook his head and said, “No. I don’t carry a badge of any kind.”

  “You’d be a bounty hunter, then, after the price on Trafford’s head. Well, you won’t collect it here, so you might as well move on.”

  “Without even a hot meal?” Luke asked.

  Rowan glared at him and said grudgingly, “We’ll not turn away any man who’s hungry, even a Gentile. Even a bounty hunter. But I say again, you’re not welcome.”

  “I suppose I’ll just have to live with that. What’s the best place to eat around here?” Luke doubted there was actually more than one in a settlement of this size.

  Wordlessly, Rowan pointed across the street. Luke turned and saw a sturdy-looking building made of thick, rough-hewn beams, topped with a wooden shingle roof. A sign that read simply CAFÉ was nailed to the wall beside the door.

  Luke nodded to Rowan and said, “I’m obliged to you.”

  “Not necessary. Take your horse with you, so you can leave quicker once you’re done eating.”

  Luke untied the reins and led his mount across the street. After tying the animal to the hitchrack there, he went into the café.

  Inside, the air was warm and had the savory smell of stew hanging in it: beef, onions, spices. The hour was past midday, but the café still had several customers, some seated at tables, others at a counter along the right-hand wall. There were three empty stools at the near end of the counter. Luke took the one closest to the window, figuring the other customers would prefer that he keep his distance as much as possible.

  He was a naturally polite man and didn’t care for poking his nose in where it wasn’t wanted, but that was something he had to do fairly often, and he didn’t let it bother him, either. He didn’t go out of his way to look for trouble, but he didn’t back away from it.

  Right now he wanted a bowl of that stew he smelled. He knew there was no point in asking for a cup of coffee in a Mormon town. He gave a polite nod to the woman who came up on the other side of the counter, but didn’t smile at her. Mormons were touchy about outsiders coming in and being too friendly to their women.

  This woman was young, probably in her early twenties, but thin faced and already careworn. Luke figured she was married to one of the local elders, with a bunch of sister wives and a gaggle of children in the house. He said, “I’d like to have some of the stew, if there’s any left, please.”

  “Still plenty in the pot,” she told him. She went through an open door into the kitchen and came back with the stew. As she set the bowl in front of him, he saw the quick worried glance she sent along the counter. Luke waited until she had walked down to the other end of the counter, then looked in the same direction the woman had.

  The man sitting on the other side of the empty stools was glaring at him. He was fairly young, too, and had a short, curling blond beard. He was thickset, and his shoulders were massive, stretching the fabric of his cheap coat.

  Luke gave him a curt nod and then dug into the stew.

  It tasted as good as it smelled, but he had taken only a couple of bites when the man along the counter stood up from his stool and sauntered toward him.

  The man didn’t say anything, just stood there too close, scowling at him. Luke had another spoonful of stew and savored it for a moment before swallowing. Without looking at the young man, he said, “Something I can do for you, friend?”

  “You’re not anybody’s friend,” the man said. “Not in this town. You don’t belong here.”

  “I think you’re right about that.”

  The scowl on the young man’s face turned into a frown of confusion. He said, “You do?”

  “I don’t have any desire to intrude on you folks. I’d just as soon conduct my business without any delays and leave you alone to go about your lives in peace.”

  “No Gentile ever felt like that about Mormons!”

  “You might be surprised. Plenty of people just want to be left alone.”

  The curling beard jutted out on the man’s defiant jaw as he asked, “What is your business here?”

  “Your town marshal asked me the same thing. He wears a badge, so I thought it best to answer him, but I don’t see one on you.”

  The man crossed his arms, which were almost as brawny as his shoulders, over his chest and said, “I’m used to getting an answer when I ask a question, mister.”

  The thin-faced woman on the other side of the counter had drifted up again while Luke and the young man were talking. She said, “You know your pa won’t like it if you start a fight in here, Eli.”

  “My pa’s at the ranch.”

  “Yes, but nothing happens in town that he doesn’t know about.”

  The heavy shoulders went up and down in a shrug. Eli said, “He can’t stomach Gentiles any more than I can.”

  Luke had continued to eat, seemingly not paying much attention to the young man. In reality, though, all his senses were alert. If Eli actually tried to start anything, Luke would be ready.

  Maybe trouble could still be headed off, though. He said, “You want me to get out of town, don’t you?”

  “You talking to me?” Eli demanded. “That’s right. I want you to get out of town. We don’t want you here.”

  “And I don’t want to be here. So tell me what I need to know, and I can be gone that much sooner.”

  Eli looked confused again. Thinking didn’t seem to be his strong suit. He said, “What is it you want to know?”

  “Where can I find Hank Trafford?”

  “What do you want with him?”

  “That’s between him and me,” Luke said.

  Eli stared at him for a couple of seconds, then said, “You’re some kind of lawman. You think we’d betray one of our own to some Gentile star packer?”

  “Eli . . . ,” the woman said in a warning tone.

  “Hush up, Ruth,” he snapped. “You may be one of Pa’s wives, but you don’t tell me what to do. You’re not my mother.”

  Well, that clarified the relationship, anyway, thought Luke as he spooned up another mouthful of the stew.

  Eli poked his shoulder as he was bringing the spoon to his mouth, jostling him enough that some of the stew spilled onto the counter.

  “You didn’t answer my question. Why are you looking for Hank Trafford?”

  “He’s wanted. I intend to take him in. I’ve been on his trail for a while, and he was reported to be headed in this direction. He grew up around here, so it’s not surprising this is where he’d go to ground.”

  “And it never occurred to you that he might have friends here?”

  “Friends?” Luke repeated. For the first time since riding into Amity, he allowed some of the anger bubbling under the surface to come out. “Do you know why Trafford is wanted by the law, Eli? Because he’s an outlaw and a cold-blooded killer. He’s held up stagecoaches and banks and gunned down four men who got in his way. And the last time . . .” Luke’s voice was rising now. “The last time he hit a bank, he shot a woman and her four-year-old son on his way out of town. Murdered them both for no good reason except to slow down pursuit.” Luke turned on the stool and stared coldly at Eli. “Now, is that the sort of man you want to shield from justice simply because he once went to the same church you do? He probably hasn’t set foot in a tabernacle in years!”

  Ruth had gasped in horror when Luke recounted Hank Trafford’s crimes, and for a second, he thought he had gotten through to Eli, as well.

  But then the young man’s features hardened, and he said, “Get out of Amity now and don’t come back!”

  Lu
ke shook his head, not arguing, just expressing his disgust, and turned back to the bowl of stew.

  Even so, from the corner of his eye, he saw Eli’s thick shoulders bunch, and the next second, the young man’s right fist rocketed toward Luke’s head.

  CHAPTER 9

  The young man was undoubtedly strong, as evidenced by his heavily muscled arms and shoulders, but he wasn’t very fast. Luke had plenty of time to twist around on the stool and lean away from the punch. Eli’s fist missed entirely, and that caused him to stumble against the counter.

  “Eli, stop it!” Ruth yelled.

  He ignored her, pushed away from the counter, and charged Luke, who had slipped off the stool and now stood ready to meet the attack.

  Eli swung a wild looping blow, which Luke ducked underneath easily. Stepping in, Luke hammered two short, powerful punches to the young man’s ribs.

  It was a little like hitting the thick wall of the café. Eli didn’t seem to even feel the blows. He lurched toward Luke and tried to catch the older man in a bear hug. Luke darted out of reach. He knew that if Eli ever got those tree-trunk arms around him, their crushing grip would probably break his ribs.

  Eli charged him again. At least none of the other men in the café were taking a hand in the fight, so far, anyway, so Luke had to worry about only one opponent. He stepped aside and snapped a punch to Eli’s jaw. Luke had a little more luck with that one. It rocked Eli’s head to the side.

  Eli roared in anger and swung an arm in a backhanded blow. Luke couldn’t avoid it entirely, but he took the brunt of it on his left shoulder. That arm went numb for a second and then didn’t want to work very well.

  But the right arm still worked fine, so Luke used that fist to pound two more punches against Eli’s jaw. The young man’s eyes were starting to get a little glassy now. He windmilled a couple of punches. Luke weaved between them and got close enough to land a hard jab on Eli’s nose. Blood spurted hotly against his knuckles. Eli groaned and staggered.