A Jensen Family Christmas

by William W. Johnstone

  “I see.” Mariana took another sip of her tea.

  Why, the little minx! Sally thought. She was fishing for information about what Smoke was doing to counteract her husband’s land grant claim. That was probably the only reason she had come out here today. The question was whether Aguilar had sent her or she had come on her own.

  And it didn’t matter, because either way she wasn’t getting any answers out of Sally.

  They chatted about other things for a few minutes. Sally changed the subject to Christmas, and Mariana praised the tree Sally had decorated.

  “In Mexico Las Posadas has already begun,” she said. “That is our Christmas celebration, and it lasts for nine days. It is so beautiful. We have trees like this and many lilies, and candles everywhere! And the children are so happy with their piñatas filled with sweets.”

  Sally managed to smile again as she said, “I can think of some cowboys who would like it if we had that tradition here. I don’t think anybody has a bigger sweet tooth than a young man who works for us named Cal.” A genuine laugh came from her. “He’d like it if you filled up a piñata with bear sign and let him bust it.”

  Mariana shook her head and said, “Bear sign? I do not understand.”

  “Doughnuts,” Sally explained. “Cowboys call them that because they’re round and look similar to the tracks that bears leave. I’m going to make a batch for Christmas, along with some pies and cakes.”

  “I am sure your servant will enjoy them.”

  Sally almost corrected her. Cal wasn’t a servant, any more than Pearlie or any of the other hands were. Employees, yes, technically, but anybody who rode for the Jensen brand was more than that. They were part of the family.

  Sally didn’t think Mariana would ever really understand that, and neither would Aguilar. But that was their loss.

  Mariana finished her tea and set the cup and saucer on the low table in front of her chair.

  “I should be going,” she said. “I would not want Sebastian to worry about me.”

  “He didn’t know where you were going?”

  “He knew, of course, but anytime I am out of his sight for too long, he becomes concerned. I suppose most older men would, if they were married to a younger woman.”

  “I suppose,” Sally said, although she didn’t really know. The gap in ages between her and Smoke was much smaller.

  “Thank you so much for your hospitality. I enjoyed our visit.”

  “I did, too,” Sally said. That might have been stretching the truth just a little . . . but Mariana’s visit to the Sugarloaf had been educational, at the very least. Her attempt at spying, feeble though it might have been, had taught Sally not to fully trust the young woman.

  Hinton must have been watching from the barn. He stepped out, leading his horse, as soon as Sally and Mariana emerged from the house onto the porch. A moment later, Enrique drove the buggy out of the barn. Skillfully, he brought the vehicle to a stop in front of the porch.

  Hinton helped Mariana into the buggy. She said, “Buenos días, Sally,” and waved a gloved hand as Enrique got the team moving.

  “Good-bye,” Sally called. She stood there while Hinton gave her a sardonic look, swung up into his saddle, and cantered his horse after the buggy.

  Sally wasn’t sorry to see any of them go.

  Especially the gunman.

  CHAPTER 25

  “God rest ye merry, gennullmunnn! Let nothin’ you dismaaay!”

  Pearlie looked over at Cal on the buckboard seat and said, “Will you quit that infernal caterwaulin’? You sound like a durn coyote with somebody a-steppin’ on its tail!”

  “You just don’t appreciate a good Christmas song,” Cal replied defensively. “I’m full of the Christmas spirit.”

  “You’re full of somethin’, all right,” Pearlie muttered as he flapped the reins against the back of the two horses pulling the buckboard toward Big Rock.

  Cal nudged Pearlie with an elbow and said, “What’d you get me for a Christmas present, Pearlie?”

  “I thought maybe I’d give you an extra hour off’a work. That’s more’n you deserve.”

  Cal laughed and said, “Just wait’ll you see what I got for you. You’re gonna like it.”

  Pearlie concentrated on his driving. Calvin Woods was just about his best friend in the world, other than Smoke, but when the boy was in one of his exuberant moods, he could be a sore vexation to a serious man.

  “You think Miss Sally’s gonna make enough bear sign for everybody?” Cal asked.

  “I reckon with all the cookin’ and bakin’ she’s plannin’ on doin’ between now and Christmas, ain’t none of us gonna go hungry,” Pearlie said.

  “You ever had a Christmas goose?”

  Pearlie looked at Cal again and saw the mischievous smile on the young cowboy’s face. He gave Cal a stern look and said, “Don’t you even think about it, boy. I’ll kick you right off this buckboard.”

  Cal laughed. “Don’t worry, Pearlie. I’m not gonna—”

  The sharp crack of a gunshot interrupted him, followed instantly by the thud of a bullet hitting the edge of the seat, only inches from Cal’s hip. He yelped in alarm as splinters sprayed up from the impact.

  Pearlie had been shot at plenty of times in his life. He didn’t stop to think. A moving target was harder to hit, so he slapped the horses with the reins again and shouted, “Hyaaahhh!” at them. The horses lunged forward so violently that both Pearlie and Cal were thrown back against the seat.

  Another shot blasted. This time the slug came so close to Pearlie’s ear that he felt as much as heard it whip past him.

  There were trees and rocks up ahead on both sides of the trail. Pearlie heard more shots over the thunder of the team’s hooves, but he couldn’t tell if they were coming from just one side of the trail or if he and Cal were caught in a cross fire.

  Either way, if he slowed the horses in an attempt to turn the buckboard around, they would get picked off, he was sure of that. The only way through this ambush was straight ahead, as fast as possible.

  “Keep your head down, kid!” he called to Cal. “We’re goin’ through!”

  Cal hunkered lower on the seat, but he wasn’t exactly keeping his head down. Instead, he had his Colt in his hand now and blasted away at the trees, triggering twice at the growth to the right and then swinging the gun to the left and blazing two rounds at the trees in that direction. Pearlie didn’t know if he had spotted any real targets or was just firing blind.

  Cal answered that by shouting, “I saw powder smoke on both sides of the trail!”

  Pearlie bit back a groan.

  “That’s what I was afraid of!” he yelled as he whipped the team again.

  The buckboard was going fast enough by now that if the bushwhackers shot the horses, the vehicle would wreck, probably with disastrous results. At the very least, the two cowboys would be thrown off and would be easy targets for the hidden riflemen, if they didn’t break their necks when they landed.

  So far the horses were running strong and steady. Cal emptied his Colt and reached over to pluck Pearlie’s revolver from its holster. He slung more lead on both sides of the trail. Maybe that forced the bushwhackers to keep their heads down and threw off their aim. Pearlie hoped that was the case, anyway.

  The buckboard flashed between the clumps of trees. Up ahead, about fifty yards away, the trail curved around a large rock. If they could reach that point, thought Pearlie, they would have some cover from the ambushers and might actually have a chance of getting away.

  But then, as the buckboard raced ahead, half a dozen men on horseback rounded that bend and galloped toward Pearlie and Cal, smoke and flame spurting from the guns they triggered at the two cowboys.

  “Lord have mercy!” Cal shouted as he saw this new danger.

  Pearlie bit back a curse and glanced to the left and right. The ground was too rugged to the right; the buckboard would never be able to negotiate it.

  But to the left the terrai
n was flatter and mostly covered with dead grass, with a few small upthrusts of rock here and there.

  Pearlie didn’t hesitate. There was only one way he could go.

  He swung the buckboard to the left, off the trail, and charged across that open country.

  The ground might have looked level, but it really wasn’t. The buckboard bounced and jolted heavily as Pearlie continued whipping the team. Beside him, Cal was trying to reload the guns, but he kept dropping bullets when he was forced to grab hold of the seat to keep from being thrown off.

  Pearlie glanced over his shoulder. The gunmen who had attacked them head-on were now giving chase, and their ranks had been swelled by a couple of other riders. Those were the varmints who had been hidden in the trees, Pearlie decided.

  He believed there was a gully up ahead, maybe a quarter of a mile away. The buckboard wouldn’t be able to get across it. His eyes searched desperately for some place where he and Cal could make a stand against the men trying to kill them.

  The buckboard went over a little hump and suddenly was airborne for a second. When it came down, a sharp crack sounded. Pearlie knew one of the axles had cracked. An instant later, the right front wheel went out from under the buckboard. It tipped, and that corner dug into the ground. Pearlie yelled, “Watch out, Cal!” Both of them went flying wildly into the air.

  Pearlie slammed to the ground with bone-jarring, tooth-rattling force. The thin, dead grass provided no cushion. His momentum sent him rolling over and over.

  He came to a stop on his belly and raised his head to look around for Cal. The youngster lay a few yards away, shaking his head groggily.

  A bullet kicked up dirt between them. Gun thunder still rolled from the approaching riders. Even though he was still a little stunned, Pearlie scrambled to his feet and ran over to Cal. He bent over to grab the young cowboy’s arm and haul him upright.

  One of the rocky outcroppings was nearby. Pearlie shoved Cal toward it and said, “Get behind those rocks! That’s the only cover around here!”

  Both of them raced for the scanty protection of the little upthrust. Bullets whined around them. They threw themselves forward and landed on the ground behind the rocks. Slugs began thudding into those rocks.

  The two of them were safe, Pearlie thought—but only for a few seconds.

  Because after that, the bushwhackers would surround them, and since both of their Colts had gone flying off the buckboard, too, they had no weapons with which to fight off those killers.

  * * *

  Smoke was in a bad mood as he rode toward the Sugarloaf. The snow had stopped, and although the temperature was still cold, a few bits of blue sky were beginning to appear in the gray overcast that had lingered over Colorado for days. Normally, a break in the weather like that would have raised his spirits. Today, though, he was too preoccupied with the problem represented by Don Juan Sebastian Aguilar to think about much of anything else.

  He had never been the sort who liked to wait around while trouble was hanging fire. He preferred to battle his foes head-on. So far in this case, the challenge had been a legal one, and so he’d been forced to fight it by legal means.

  Sending telegrams wasn’t nearly as satisfying as settling things the old-fashioned way, with fists or guns or knives. On the other hand, nobody died from using a telegraph key, so he supposed that was better in the long run.

  Anyway, this clash was going to come down to violence again before it was over. Smoke was convinced of that. He could feel it in his bones.

  As if to prove his hunch right, the distant crash of gunfire made him lift his head and straighten in the saddle. The shots came from somewhere ahead of him, not too close but not too far away, either.

  He was nearing the edge of Sugarloaf range, so he didn’t hesitate to heel his mount into a run. Whatever was happening up there, he considered it his business. Even if he hadn’t been in such close proximity to the ranch, he would have investigated, anyway. From the sound of the shots, somebody was in trouble, and he wanted to help if he could.

  His horse’s hoofbeats drummed steadily on the trail. The animal was big and sturdy and had considerable speed and stamina when called upon. Smoke leaned forward in the saddle and reached for the Winchester that rested in a scabbard strapped under the fender. He pulled the rifle free and worked the lever to load a round into the chamber.

  The trail twisted back and forth, around and between rocks and clumps of trees. Smoke’s horse took those turns in sure-footed fashion, guided by his expert touch on the reins. He rounded one such bend in time to see several riders galloping after a buckboard cutting across open country. Shots blasted from those horsebackers as they fired at the vehicle.

  The buckboard was moving so fast that it bounced crazily. Two figures perched on the seat, in constant danger of being thrown off. Smoke’s heart slugged in his chest as he recognized not only the two men but also the buckboard itself.

  That was Pearlie and Cal, on the Sugarloaf’s buckboard, and they were in deadly danger!

  Smoke was in rifle range now, and none of the men seemed to have noticed him. He could have blown several of them out of their saddles before they knew what was going on, but he waited for a second to see if Pearlie and Cal were going to get away.

  The next instant he grimaced as he saw the wagon tilt badly and then overturn in a splintering crash. The team pulled loose and kept running, taking the buckboard’s broken singletree with them.

  Pearlie and Cal flew in the air, thrown clear of the crash, but they landed hard, and the attackers were still charging toward them, firing their guns as they dashed toward their intended victims.

  Smoke had seen more than enough. He hauled his mount to a stop, snapped the Winchester to his shoulder, drew a bead, and squeezed the trigger.

  The riders might not have noticed the crack of his rifle over the sound of their own horses’ hoofbeats and the shots they were firing, but they saw one of their own number suddenly fling his arms out to the sides, topple forward over his mount’s neck, and then slide off to the side to land in the path of another horse.

  That rider tried to swerve his mount around the fallen man. Instead, the animal’s forelegs tangled up, and it plunged forward, headfirst into the ground. The rider flew over the horse’s head, then screamed as the horse rolled over him.

  Smoke had already worked the rifle’s lever and tracked the barrel to the right. He fired again. His horse, like all the horses Smoke rode, was trained to stand still even when guns were going off around it, so he had a steady platform from which to shoot. His second shot caught a rider in the side just as the man was trying to pull his horse around. The bullet caused him to twist in the saddle as it ripped through him, but he managed to grab the saddle horn and hang on instead of falling off.

  The others forgot about their pursuit of Pearlie and Cal. With this new threat to deal with, they wheeled their horses around and charged Smoke.

  One of them rode right into a bullet, which knocked him backward off his horse. That left four of them, and they must have decided that they didn’t want to ride directly into more fire from Smoke’s rifle. They veered their horses to Smoke’s right and dashed for some timber about fifty yards away. Smoke heard them yelling and saw the muzzle flashes from their handguns, but they were far enough away that the shots weren’t any real threat, especially being fired from the backs of galloping horses.

  He hurried them on their way with a couple more rounds, but all four fleeing men made it to the trees and disappeared into the growth. Smoke didn’t know if they planned to keep going or if they might be regrouping for another attack, but he wanted to check on Pearlie and Cal while he had the chance, so he rode swiftly toward the rocks where his friends had taken cover.

  The two cowboys ran out from behind the rocks and scooped up the Colts they must have dropped when the wagon crashed. Pearlie waved Smoke on. The horse thundered up, and as Smoke hauled back on the reins, he called, “Are you two all right?”

  “Ba
nged up a mite, but we’ll live,” Pearlie replied. He was thumbing fresh cartridges from his shell belt into the revolver with practiced efficiency. Cal was busy reloading, too. Pearlie went on, “Did those varmints light a shuck?”

  “I don’t know,” Smoke said. He peered into the trees as he held the Winchester ready for more action. He didn’t see any movement, and as he listened intently, he heard the swift rataplan of hoofbeats fading into the distance. “I reckon they decided they’d had enough. You boys be ready to duck back behind those rocks if you need to, though.”

  “What are you gonna do, Smoke?” asked Cal.

  “Check on the ones I ventilated,” Smoke said grimly.

  He turned his horse and rode back to the scattered motionless bodies. He had glanced at them as he galloped past, to make sure none of them represented an immediate threat. Now, as he took a closer look, he saw that none of them would endanger anyone again.

  The horse that had fallen had gotten up and bolted off after the others, but the man it had rolled over was crushed into a shapeless bag of bones. Two of the men Smoke had shot were dead. He had wounded one of the men, who had gotten away, probably pretty badly.

  Satisfied, but not pleased by what had happened, he rode back to Pearlie and Cal. The two horses that had been hitched to the buckboard were grazing about a hundred yards away. They hadn’t gone very far, dragging the broken singletree.

  Smoke said, “I’ll go round up those two horses, and you can ride them back to the ranch. We’ll deal with the buckboard later.”

  “Did you recognize any of those sons o’ bitches who got left behind, Smoke?” Pearlie asked.

  “I did,” Smoke said as he nodded. His face was as hard and bleak as stone. “They’re some of those gunmen who work for Don Juan Sebastian Aguilar.”

  CHAPTER 26

  It was afternoon before Smoke rode into Big Rock for the second time today. Pearlie was with him on this trip. They went straight to Sheriff Monte Carson’s office, swung down from their saddles, and looped their reins around the hitch rail in front of the stone building.