Ride the Savage Land

by William W. Johnstone

  “We don’t want to push our way in—”

  “You won’t be. We’re inviting you. Isn’t that right, ladies?”

  “It would be better if you joined us,” Isabel agreed, and Jamie nodded, too. Molly didn’t say anything, but she tended to be quiet. Ace had noticed that about her already.

  Ace and Chance tied the horses to several post oaks with thick trunks growing nearby. The trees would shelter the animals, and the ropes were sturdy enough that the horses couldn’t break them.

  As the brothers were finishing up that chore, the rain began to fall, occasional big heavy drops that landed with loud thumps on their hats. They trotted over to the wagon and climbed in. The ladies had cinched up the opening at the front as much as possible. Chance raised the tailgate and tightened up the cord running around the inside of the canvas.

  That didn’t close off the wagon bed completely. There were still gaps where the wind whipped in.

  With the overcast that had rushed in, it was fairly dark inside now that both openings were cinched up. Rain peppered the canvas over their heads, getting heavier and heavier until it was a dull roar.

  Ace and Chance sat on crates of supplies at the back of the wagon.

  Lorena asked, “How bad is it going to get?”

  “Hard to say—”

  That was as far as Ace got in his answer before thunder crashed and drowned out anything else he might have said.

  “Oh!” Jamie cried in alarm.

  Chance was beside her on the bunk by the time the flash of lightning that accompanied the thunder had faded. “It’s all right,” he told her as he put his arm around her shoulders in a comforting gesture. “You’re safe here inside the wagon.”

  Ace heard a sniff of disdain and figured it came from Agnes, who sat on one of the bunks with Molly.

  Rain began to pelt down even harder. Lightning lit up the inside of the wagon with a near-constant flicker. Thunder rumbled and boomed so loudly Ace felt the vibration coming up from the ground through the wagon wheels.

  “This is what they call a real gully-washer,” he commented in an attempt to lighten the strained mood.

  “Back home we called them toad-stranglers,” Lorena said.

  “Where’s that?” Ace asked.

  Earlier in the day, he and Chance had tried to find out where each of the ladies came from, but Lorena, Isabel, and Molly had all brushed aside the question. They weren’t rude about it, just didn’t really answer.

  This time Lorena said, “Mississippi. I was raised down on the coast, the daughter of a fisherman.”

  As if she didn’t want to be outdone by Lorena, Isabel said, “I am from New Orleans. My father was an . . . adventurer, I suppose you would say. A mad Irishman who went to Mexico to fight for one would-be dictator or another. He was never very clear about that. But he met and married my mother, and when they got out of the country, he was one step in front of a firing squad, or so he always claimed.” She laughed. “With my father, it was sometimes difficult to tell what was the truth and what was some flight of wild Irish fancy.”

  That was the most Ace had heard Isabel say at one time.

  Lorena evidently thought so, too. “Nobody asked you for your life story, honey.”

  “What about yours?” Isabel shot back in a challenging tone. “How does a fisherman’s daughter from Mississippi wind up being a mail-order bride on her way to marry a man in West Texas?”

  “Her father drowns when she’s fifteen and her ma dies six months later and she’s left to learn how to fend for herself,” Lorena snapped. “That’s how.”

  “I am sorry,” Isabel murmured. “I did not mean to bring up painful memories.”

  “Didn’t you?”

  A particularly hard gust of wind slammed against the wagon’s canvas cover at that moment and shook the whole vehicle, distracting everyone inside from the tense exchange between the two women.

  When the shaking stopped, Agnes asked, “The wagon’s not going to be blown over, is it?”

  “Not likely,” Ace said. “With the wind like this, though, it’s hard to say anything for sure.”

  The rain was falling so hard it was like a thick gray curtain outside. Through occasional gaps in the downpour, Ace caught glimpses of tree branches waving wildly in the wind.

  “Are the horses going to be all right?” Agnes asked.

  “They should be. Those draft horses may get spooked, but we tied them securely enough they shouldn’t be able to break free. If they do somehow, Chance and I can round them up once the storm’s over.”

  “How do you know your horses won’t run away?” Jamie asked.

  “Oh, they’re used to loud noises,” Chance told her. “Although usually it’s gunshots, not thunder. Not much difference to a horse, I suppose.”

  “So your horses are used to gunfire,” Lorena said. “Just how much trouble do you boys get into?”

  “More than our share,” Ace said.

  Isabel said. “That means either we should not have chosen you to be our guides and protectors . . . or else we could not have picked more wisely.”

  Ace grinned. “I reckon we’ll have to wait and see which one it turns out to be.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Storms that violent usually didn’t last very long, so Ace wasn’t surprised when the rain began to taper off an hour later. The wind stopped blowing quite as hard, too, and the thunder and lightning moved slowly off to the east.

  As the sky lightened, he looked outside. “I can see all the horses. None of them broke loose and stampeded. We had a little luck on our side there, I guess.”

  “It’s going to be too late to travel any farther today, isn’t it?” Lorena said.

  “I’m afraid so.” Ace moved the canvas cover a little so he could see better and watched water cascading down the hill in several miniature rivers. “Anyway, it’s likely that trail is too muddy right now and won’t dry out enough for the wagon to make it up the hill until sometime tomorrow—if it stops raining pretty soon.”

  Molly said, “You mean we may be stuck here for a day or even longer?” She sounded worried.

  Maybe even more than worried, Ace thought. She almost sounded scared.

  “We’ll get started again as soon as we can,” he promised. “If all the storms have blown over by tomorrow, we might be able to find an easier way out of this valley. Today we were hurrying, just trying to get to some shelter before that squall hit.”

  “It’s a good thing we did, too,” Chance added. “The way the lightning was popping and crackling all around us, if we’d been out in the open one of those bolts probably would have struck the wagon. And a man on horseback would be a natural target to get hit.”

  “I guess it’s also a good thing we didn’t start off by ourselves the way we talked about doing,” Lorena said. “I’m not sure any of us would have known what to do when that storm came in.”

  Jamie said, “You may have saved our lives already, and it hasn’t even been twelve hours since we met you!”

  “You’re our heroes,” Agnes said.

  Ace didn’t care for such effusive praise, but Chance grinned and basked in it. With a certain degree of false modesty, he said, “Just doing our job, ladies.”

  “Our job is going to be getting out and checking on those horses pretty soon,” Ace said. “And I’ll bet your slicker is in your saddlebags, like mine is.”

  “Well, yeah, but we can wait for it to stop raining, can’t we? Or at least until it lets up some more.” Chance beamed around the inside of the wagon. “Right now I think we should all just sit here and enjoy the company. It’s cozy, right?”

  “Very cozy,” Agnes agreed immediately, but Chance didn’t turn away from Jamie to respond to her.

  It was still pretty gloomy inside the wagon, but Ace could see well enough to take note of Agnes’s expression, which was a mixture of irritation and disappointment. He had never understood why some women fell so hard, so fast, so completely, for his brother, but C
hance’s appeal to the ladies was undeniable and always had been.

  They chatted idly while the storm continued to weaken.

  When the rain was just a patter on the canvas, Ace lowered the tailgate and climbed out. “Come on, Chance.”

  Obviously reluctant to leave the company of the women, especially Jamie, Chance got out of the wagon, too, and the brothers walked across to the horses. The ground was slick with mud, and runoff still gurgled through several nearby channels that had washed out during the storm. They funneled together at the bottom of the hill to form a fast-flowing, temporary stream a foot deep and several feet wide that dropped down over several smaller limestone ledges into a deep gully, forming miniature waterfalls.

  The animals appeared to be unharmed. There hadn’t been any hail as far as Ace could tell, just wind and rain, thunder and lightning, and none of the horses had pulled against the ropes hard enough to cause injuries.

  A break suddenly appeared in the clouds to the west. The low-hanging sun blazed through it like a torch, sending a giant shaft of light slanting along the length of the valley, illuminating it dramatically. The glow made the clouds that had moved off to the east look even blacker than they really were. A rainbow appeared, arching through the sky with its myriad of colors.

  The strikingly beautiful scene drew several exclamations of awe from the ladies as they climbed out of the wagon and stood carefully on the muddy ground.

  “I see what you mean about not going anywhere today,” Lorena said to Ace. “That trail’s like a river, even though the rain has stopped.”

  “It’ll take a while for all the water to run off, but we should be able to get back on the road to San Angelo again tomorrow.”

  “I suppose we made a good enough start.” Lorena smiled. “We’re still alive.”

  * * *

  The storm moved into Fort Worth in the late afternoon, and the clouds were so dark that in a matter of minutes it looked almost like night. Lights glowed from the saloons and gambling dens and bawdy houses of Hell’s Half Acre. Sheets of rain swept through the streets and chased nearly everyone inside. Only a few people ran here and there, most with coats pulled up over their heads in a futile effort to keep from getting soaked.

  Few riders—only three in fact—rode on that stretch of Throckmorton Street. They pulled their tired mounts to a halt in front of a saloon.

  All three men wore yellow oilcloth slickers, but the rain was so hard that water inevitably seeped in under the garments. They weren’t soaked to the skin yet but were getting there in a hurry. Rain trickled in streams off the brims of their pulled-down hats.

  They dismounted and tied their horses at a half-empty hitch rail. The animals stood with drooping heads and let the rain pelt them.

  The men stepped up onto the boardwalk, under the awning and out of the downpour. Gusts of wind tugged at their slickers.

  Earl tipped his head forward to let more of the water run off his hat. “My God, this is miserable weather!”

  Cooper’s wet face creased in a grin. “Just a little spring shower.”

  A bright flash and a deafening clap of thunder followed his words.

  The third man, Hawthorne, jumped a little. “Damn. Spring shower, my hind foot.”

  Earl stepped over to the saloon’s entrance. The doors had been closed to keep rain from blowing in. The batwings were swung in and latched back, he saw as he went inside with Cooper and Hawthorne behind him. Hawthorne closed the doors.

  Two men sat playing cards at one of the tables. From the looks of the coins in front of them, the stakes in the game were so low as to be almost nonexistent. Four more men stood at the bar nursing beers, and a single bartender was behind the hardwood, polishing glasses.

  He nodded to the three newcomers as they stepped up to the brass rail. “Nasty day to be outside. Want a drink to cut the chill a mite?”

  “Three whiskies,” Earl said. “Leave the bottle, and give us three mugs of beer, too.”

  “Sure thing, mister.”

  Water dripped steadily from the slickers and formed little puddles before the sawdust on the floor soaked it up.

  Earl picked up the glass the bartender put in front of him and threw back the whiskey in it. He grunted as the welcome burst of fire hit his belly. Next to him, Cooper and Hawthorne put away their slugs, too.

  Earl snagged the bottle and refilled the glasses, then alternated sips of whiskey and swallows of beer. The warmth inside him grew and he began to feel better.

  They had been in the saddle for most of the day as they rode from Dallas, and the men were almost as tired as the horses that had carried them. Earl had pushed them hard, himself included.

  “Don’t recall seein’ you fellas around here before,” the bartender commented. His brown hair was parted in the middle and slicked down. His weak chin and prominent Adam’s apple gave him a funny in-and-out look.

  “We’re new to Fort Worth.” Earl fought down the impulse to be curt. He hated small talk—but he needed information. The only way to get it was to talk to people, so he went on. “Came to see an old friend of ours. Fella name of Cyrus Keegan. Maybe you know him?”

  “Keegan, Keegan,” the bartender repeated in a musing tone. “Knew a Jim Keegan once. Don’t think he had any relatives named Cyrus. And this was back in Wichita, so it wouldn’t be likely any of old Jim’s kin would be down here in Fort Worth. Not impossible, though.”

  Cooper and Hawthorne exchanged a glance. They saw the look of dark fury stealing over Earl’s face and knew that his patience was nearing an end.

  Cooper nudged the glass of whiskey closer to Earl’s hand and said, “Drink up, boss, and then maybe you’d like to sit down for a spell. It’s been a long day.”

  “Yeah,” Earl rasped. “A real long day.” He downed the slug and took his beer over to a table in the corner, where he slumped down in one of the chairs and thrust his long legs out in front of him.

  “Fellas,” the bartender said quietly as he leaned toward Cooper and Hawthorne, “did I say something to make your friend upset? He looked a little mad there.”

  “He’s just tired,” Cooper said, “and he really wants to find his old pard Cyrus. You positive that you don’t know any Keegans in these parts?”

  “Nope, I sure don’t. Sorry.” The bartender brightened. “Tomorrow you could go to the courthouse. They ought to have a city directory there, and you could look and see if this fella Keegan lives around here. Handy thing, those city directories.”

  That actually wasn’t a bad idea. Cooper and Hawthorne looked at each other and nodded. That late in the day, in bad weather, there wasn’t much they could do, anyway, except wait out the storm. They took their glasses, the bottle, and their beers over to the table and sat down with Earl.

  Cooper said, “No luck, boss. But the drink juggler said we could go to the courthouse tomorrow and check the city directory for Keegan. Then we can find him, and he can tell us where your, uh . . . wife . . . went.”

  “Yeah,” Earl said as he picked up the bottle and tipped more busthead into the glass Cooper had set in front of him. “My sweet little wife. I’ve got a score to settle with her, so I reckon that makes fifty thousand and one good reasons to find the lying, stealing, redheaded bitch.”

  * * *

  Finding enough dry wood for a fire was impossible, so the Jensen brothers and the five young women made a cold camp that night. They had brought sandwiches—thick slices of roast beef and bread—from the hotel dining room, intending to make a midday meal of them, but the stop at Spencer’s meant they had been able to save the food for supper. That was a stroke of luck, since under the circumstances, they couldn’t cook anything.

  One sandwich had been intended for Cyrus Keegan. Ace and Chance would have been satisfied to split it, but Agnes and Jamie insisted on giving part of their meals to Ace and Chance so the brothers would get enough to eat. That prompted the other three women to tear off part of their sandwiches and pass the pieces over, as well.
/>   “This is mighty kind of you ladies,” Ace told them.

  “You deserve it after you kept us from getting caught in that storm,” Lorena said.

  Isabel chewed daintily and swallowed. “The two of you can’t sleep out on the ground tonight. It’s too muddy.”

  Ace smiled. “This won’t be the first time we’ve slept on muddy ground, Miss Isabel. We’ll be fine.”

  “Surely we could make room in here,” Agnes suggested.

  Jamie frowned. “I’m not sure that would be . . . proper.”

  “It didn’t get as wet over under the trees,” Chance said. “Don’t worry about us. We’ll find a good spot.”

  “Are you sure?” Lorena asked. “I don’t really give a damn about propriety.”

  “This we know,” Isabel said.

  Lorena narrowed her eyes and leaned forward on the bunk where she was sitting. “If you’ve got something to say, honey, it might be best for you to go ahead and spit it out.”

  With a cool smile on her face, Isabel shook her head. “I have nothing to say . . . honey.”

  Ace figured the women had stayed in separate rooms at the hotel in Fort Worth. Now that they would be spending all their time together in such close quarters, he wondered if Lorena and Isabel would make it all the way to San Angelo without winding up rolling around on the ground, pulling hair, and trying to claw each other’s eyes out.

  He hoped that wouldn’t happen. He hated having to break up a catfight. Such things tended to be even more dangerous for anybody who tried to interfere.

  The stars were beginning to come out and the last shreds of wispy clouds were blowing away as Ace and Chance carried their bedrolls into the trees and searched for a relatively dry spot to spread them. They found a place that wasn’t too damp where they still had a good view of the wagon sixty feet away.

  “You think we need to take turns standing guard?” Chance asked.

  “I’m not sure that’s necessary,” Ace said. “It’s been a long time since any hostile Comanches ventured this far east . . . if there are even any left. Texas has been pretty quiet in the past few years as far as Indian trouble goes.”