Ride the Savage Land

by William W. Johnstone

  The trail ran almost due west through territory covered with small, grassy hills and stretches of woods, especially along the little creeks that trickled through the countryside every few miles. A line of thicker vegetation to the south marked the course of the Trinity River. They passed a number of farms and small ranches and rolled through a small settlement around midday.

  Not long after that, Ace spotted some dust rising behind them, and a few minutes later he heard pounding hoofbeats and the rattle of wheels. “Better pull off to the side where there’s a good level spot,” he told Agnes. “I think we’ve got a stagecoach coming up behind us, and the driver’s liable to be in a hurry to get through.”

  “We’ve got as much right to be on this road as any stagecoach does,” Chance protested.

  “Legally, maybe, but what’s the point in arguing? It’s easier just to let him by.”

  Chance snorted to show that he didn’t fully agree with his brother on the issue, but he didn’t argue as Agnes directed the wagon to the side of the road.

  Sure enough, a fast-moving stagecoach came into view less than a minute later. It was several hundred yards behind the wagon, but it covered that ground quickly.

  The driver was a white-bearded old-timer with the brim of his hat turned up in front. He hunched forward on the seat, popped his whip around the ears of his team, and yelled at the six-horse hitch. The coach swayed on its wide leather thoroughbraces as the horses thundered past without slowing down.

  The four women in the back of the wagon watched the coach race past. “Merciful heavens!” Jamie exclaimed. “I think I’d be positively ill if I was jolted around as much as the poor people in that coach must be.”

  “That’s one more reason I’m glad you ladies have your own wagon and can travel at a more leisurely pace,” Chance said as he unleashed a dazzling smile on the innocent-looking blonde. “Someone as beautiful as you should never have to worry about being sick.”

  “Good looks will ward off some of life’s hardships,” Lorena said, “but not all of them.”

  The stagecoach went around a bend in the trail and some trees cut it off from view. Agnes got the wagon moving again. They had been traveling at a decent rate of speed, but nothing like the breakneck pace of the stagecoach.

  Molly suddenly said, “You don’t suppose that coach was moving so fast because outlaws were chasing it, do you?”

  Ace noticed the expression of concern on her wholesomely pretty face and assured her, “I don’t see anybody else, Miss Molly. I reckon that driver was just in a hurry because he’s running behind schedule.”

  “Or else he just likes driving like a bat out of hell,” Chance added.

  Lorena laughed. “I’ve known plenty of fellas like that. Never want to slow down for anything.”

  “Their loss, I imagine,” Isabel said.

  Ace saw the quick look of veiled hostility that passed between the two women following Isabel’s comment. He wasn’t sure what was behind it—but maybe it would be better if he didn’t know for certain.

  As it was, he could guess that Isabel was hinting Lorena had something unsavory in her past. Lorena did have a sensuous, worldly air about her. It went along with a pragmatic fatalism, the kind of look and attitude that was common in women who had spent much time in saloons and sporting houses.

  In short, it seemed to Ace that she might have been a soiled dove at one time, maybe even recently. The fact that she was on her way to get married didn’t rule that out. On the frontier, plenty of ranchers and farmers married women they met in sporting houses. The relative scarcity of females made it easier to overlook what some might consider sordid pasts.

  Besides, Ace thought wryly, some of those hombres, especially the ones who sent off for mail-order brides, probably weren’t exactly prizes themselves.

  A while later, they reached a stone ranch house set in some trees atop one of the rolling hills. Lathered horses stood in the corral near a big barn off to the side and Ace realized they had come from the stagecoach. The driver had switched teams there, which meant the place was probably a regular stop.

  That guess was confirmed by a man who came out of the barn and gave the travelers a friendly smile. “Howdy,” he called. “Want to water your horses? I don’t think old Salty’s team drank the well quite dry.” He pointed to the well in front of the house.

  “We’re obliged to you,” Ace told him. “I’m sure the horses could use a drink, and some rest, too. We’ve been traveling all morning.”

  “You’re welcome to stop a while,” the man said. “My wife’s got coffee and cornbread and beans ready in the house, if you and your, uh . . .” His voice trailed off as he looked at the five women—Agnes on the driver’s seat and the other four looking out around her. With a dubious frown, the man went on. “Are you fellas Mormons a long way from Utah, by any chance?”

  Ace laughed and shook his head. “No, sir. These ladies are on their way to San Angelo to marry up with men they’re supposed to meet there. My brother and I are guiding them and looking out for them.”

  Since Lorena was the one with the map, it could be said that she was the one doing the guiding, but Ace and Chance would handle any trouble that cropped up, so Ace didn’t think what he said stretched the truth too much.

  The man reached up and tugged on his hat brim. “You ladies light and set a spell, then. My name’s John Spencer. This is my ranch.”

  “We’re pleased to meet you, Mr. Spencer,” Lorena said without introducing herself or the others. They would likely never be back here, so it wasn’t really necessary. “We haven’t stopped for dinner yet, so your wife’s cornbread and beans sounds just fine. We can pay for our meals, of course.”

  “Four bits apiece, and worth every penny,” Spencer said proudly.

  Ace and Chance dismounted and helped the women down from the wagon. Again, Agnes made sure it was Chance who gave her a hand, even though he seemed more interested in clasping Jamie’s trim waist as he assisted her from the lowered tailgate to the ground.

  Lorena took Ace’s hand as she stepped down and seemed to hang on to it for a second or two longer than he thought was really necessary. Earlier, back in Fort Worth, she had been rather tart-tongued, but she smiled mighty nice at him as she said, “Thank you.” She must have decided that he was all right after all.

  “Glad to help, ma’am.”

  “I’ve told you about that ma’am business.”

  “Yes’m. I mean, Miss Lorena.”

  “Behave yourself, and maybe by the time we get to San Angelo you can forget about the miss, too, and just call me Lorena.” She went on into the stone ranch house with maybe just a tad more sway in her hips than she’d displayed before. Clearly, she had relaxed a bit now that they were actually on their way.

  Once all the women were inside, Ace and Chance moved to the well.

  “It looks to me like Miss Lorena might be a little sweet on you, Ace,” Chance said with a grin as they drew up the bucket from the well so the horses could drink.

  “I don’t think so,” Ace said. “She’s just being friendly.”

  Chance lowered an eyelid in an exaggerated wink. “I’ve got a hunch she can be real friendly, if you know what I mean.”

  “Blast it, Chance, she’s engaged to be married. You need to talk about her like she’s a respectable lady.”

  “So I’m not the only one who thinks that maybe she wasn’t always a respectable lady, eh?”

  Ace shot a glance toward the house. “Don’t you let her hear you saying things like that,” he warned. “Whatever Miss Lorena was—or wasn’t—is not any of our business.”

  “Well, I suppose you’re right about that.”

  “Anyway, she’s older than us—”

  Chance broke in with a laugh. “Yeah, a whole six or seven years older! I don’t think that makes a whole heap of difference, Ace, especially to her.”

  Ace started to say something about how Agnes had been looking at Chance, but he held his tongue. No
matter how oblivious Chance could be at times, he would figure it out sooner or later. And then he would have his own problem to deal with.

  When the horses had been watered sufficiently, the Jensen brothers left the team to rest and went into the house. The five women were sitting at a long table with Mr. and Mrs. Spencer. Ace and Chance said hello to Mrs. Spencer, a pleasant-faced, middle-aged woman.

  When she stood up to get them some coffee and food, Ace waved her back onto the bench next to the table. “We can serve ourselves, ma’am. No need for you to get up.”

  “You’re a very polite young man,” she said.

  “He is,” Lorena agreed, and that was enough to make Chance give his brother another sly grin.

  They lingered at the ranch/stagecoach station for an hour. The women were eager to reach San Angelo, but at the same time, allowing the horses to rest meant they could cover more ground overall.

  Spencer helped pass the time by spinning yarns about life at the stage station, including antics from the colorful old jehu Salty Stevens, who had been at the reins of the coach that had passed the wagon earlier.

  Ace and Chance eventually introduced themselves, and when Spencer heard the brothers’ last name, he exclaimed, “Say, you boys aren’t related to Smoke Jensen, are you? I met him a couple years ago when he came through here, traveling on a stagecoach with his wife Sally.”

  “We’ve met Mr. and Mrs. Jensen,” Ace said. “A couple times, in fact. But we’re not blood kin as far as we know.”

  “He seemed like a fine man. I know there are some who still say he’s an outlaw, but I don’t believe it for a second. A gunfighter, sure, you can tell that about him, but he’s on the side of law and order.”

  Ace nodded. “We’ve always figured it the same way.”

  “I hear tell he’s got a brother who’s a bounty hunter.” Spencer frowned. “Never did cotton much to that sort.”

  “We’ve met him, too,” Chance said. “Luke’s not bad . . . for a bounty hunter.”

  “Of course, a couple drifters like us can’t exactly claim to be respectable,” Ace added with a smile.

  Lorena raised her cup of coffee as if toasting with a drink. “Respectability is sometimes overrated.”

  Ace didn’t know what to say to that other than, “Yes, ma’am. Miss Lorena.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Ace had been keeping an eye on the clouds in the west all day. They didn’t seem to be moving much, just hanging there and looking vaguely threatening, but an hour or so after the wagon left the Spencer place, the wind picked up and the clouds began edging closer and getting darker, shading from blue to gray to black. The sun was still shining brightly where Ace, Chance, and the women were, but it might not stay that way much longer.

  They were passing a fairly tall hill when Ace signaled for Agnes to stop the wagon. “I want to take a ride up there and have a look around,” he told Chance as he gestured toward the hilltop.

  “You’re worried about those clouds?”

  “A little,” Ace admitted. “It might not be a bad idea to find a place where we can hole up for a while, maybe all night.”

  From the front of the wagon where she looked out past Agnes, Lorena objected, “We haven’t come much more than ten miles from Fort Worth! You can’t be talking about stopping for the day already, especially when we got a late start.”

  Ace pointed to the west. “Those clouds may not look like much now, but I’ve seen some pretty bad storms blow up from clouds that didn’t look any worse.” He waved his hand to indicate the trail in front of them, which continued through open, gently rolling hills. “If we get caught out there in a storm, there won’t be any shelter. I don’t mind getting soaked by rain, but we have to worry about lightning and wind, too.”

  “Mr. Patterson said something about tornadoes,” Jamie put in. “I’ve seen what they can do, and I don’t want to be anywhere around one of them.”

  “You’re right about that,” Lorena admitted. “All right. We’ll wait here. Just don’t be gone too long.”

  Ace and Chance nudged their mounts into motion and rode up the hill that loomed to the north. The slope wasn’t too bad, but when they reached the crest about half a mile from where they had left the wagon, both brothers reined in and gazed in surprise at how the land fell away sharply into a thickly wooded valley several miles wide.

  “You think the wagon can get down there?” Chance asked.

  Ace pointed to a path that zigzagged down the slope. It had probably started as a game trail and been widened by men on horseback.

  “I wish that path was a little wider, but I think we’re going to have to try it,” he said as lightning flickered in the distant clouds. “I’ll drive the wagon. I don’t reckon Agnes needs to be tackling that chore.”

  “I won’t fight you for the job,” Chance said. “Remember that stagecoach line we worked on up in Wyoming? I got my share of hair-raising trails up there!”

  They turned their horses and rode back down to the wagon through the freshening wind, which was carrying a hint of coolness. Most times, that would be welcome, but not caught out in the open as they were.

  “Climb on in back, Miss Agnes,” Ace told her. “I’m taking the reins.”

  “Is there a problem?” Agnes asked. “You think I haven’t been handling the team all right?”

  “You’ve been doing a fine job,” Ace said. “But where we’re headed, the going will be a mite rougher.”

  She looked like she wanted to argue with him, but after a moment she shrugged and stood up to climb over the seat and into the wagon bed with the other four women.

  Ace handed the chestnut’s reins to Chance and then stepped directly from the saddle onto the driver’s box. He settled himself on the seat, took up the reins, and swung the team to the north. The horses plodded up the hill.

  When they reached the top, Ace brought them to a stop. “I hate to say this, ladies, but I think it would be best now if you got down and walked.”

  “Why is that?” Lorena asked.

  “Because if this wagon turns over and goes tumbling down the hill, it’ll be better if you’re not in it.”

  “No one with any sense can argue with that,” Isabel said. “Come on, ladies.”

  Lorena frowned. Ace thought there was a good chance she and Isabel were vying for unofficial leadership of the group. Lorena probably believed that was her right, since she was the oldest. but it appeared Isabel might not agree with that.

  At the moment, the rivalry between the two women— if indeed there was one—didn’t matter. Ace was more concerned about the weather.

  While Chance helped the ladies out of the wagon, Ace watched the clouds, which were scudding through the sky faster. He saw more lightning in the gathering gloom, and he thought he heard a faint rumble of thunder to go with it.

  Agnes heard it, too, and smiled. “Tater wagon’s rolling over. That’s what my pa always told us kids every time we heard thunder.”

  “I don’t know about the tater wagon,” Ace said. “I just hope this wagon doesn’t roll over.”

  When the ladies were clear, he lifted the reins and got the horses moving again. The trail, such as it was, angled sharply to the right as it started down the slope, making the wagon lean slightly to the left. Ace shifted on the seat to keep the weight balanced as much as he could.

  It was a nerve-wracking few minutes before he reached the point about a third of the way down the hill where the trail turned back on itself. Since the turn wasn’t as sharp nor the angle quite as steep, he risked taking his eyes off the ground in front of the horses for a second and glanced back up the trail. Chance had dismounted and was leading the saddle horses down, bringing up the rear behind the five young women. With the exception of Agnes’s shoes, none of their footwear was made for walking, so they stepped gingerly along the trail.

  As he neared the bottom of the trail, still without incident, Ace saw a limestone ledge thrusting out from the hillside to his left. The outcropp
ing was large and slanted enough at the bottom to create an overhang. The ledge would offer some protection from the rain and wind, and under it there would be less danger from lightning as well.

  Thinking there was room for the wagon and the horses, Ace swung the team off the trail and drove over rough, rocky ground, taking it slow so the jolting wouldn’t damage the wagon. He glanced back to make sure Chance and the women were following.

  The wind picked up and began to moan. They hadn’t looked for shelter any too soon, Ace realized. If they had waited much longer it would have been too late.

  The limestone outcropping cut off some of the wind’s force as he drove in front of it and brought the wagon to a stop. Chance and the women were right behind him. He set the brake, put a hand on the end of the seat, and vaulted to the ground.

  “We need to get these horses unhitched and tied up good and secure,” Chance said. “That storm will be here in just a few minutes.”

  “I can help,” Agnes offered.

  Ace was about to tell her to climb into the wagon with the other women, then he remembered that Agnes had been a good hand with the team so far. He nodded and said. “Thanks.”

  Maybe she just wanted to impress Chance, but the assistance would be welcome either way.

  With the Jensen brothers and Agnes busy tending to the horses, Lorena and the other three women had to climb back into the wagon without any help.

  Ace paused in what he was doing to tell them, “Once Agnes is inside, you’ll want to close the flaps and cinch in those openings at the front and back of the wagon bed as much as you can. That’ll help keep the rain out.”

  “What about you and Chance?” Lorena asked.

  “We can wait it out underneath the wagon.”

  Chance grimaced at that, but Ace figured it would be too crowded inside the wagon if they climbed in there, too.

  Lorena agreed with Chance. She said briskly, “Nonsense. You’ll come inside. If it rains, water will run under the wagon and you’ll get soaked. There’s no need for that.”