Ride the Savage Land

by William W. Johnstone

  On the other side of the fire, Lew Shelby hunkered on his heels and nipped at a flask of whiskey he had taken from his saddlebags. He had come running up as Leon was leading the horses out of town and grabbed one of the mounts.

  Of the five gunmen, Shelby was the only one who had escaped from the unexpected gun battle. Leon had seen Henry Baylor killed, and Shelby claimed that Prewitt was dead, too, killed in the saloon when they confronted Chance Jensen. None of them knew what had happened to Jack Loomis and the Kiowa. It was possible Shelby was the only survivor.

  “You could use a doctor,” Leon told Kirkwood as he finished tying up the bandage he’d cut from one of Kirkwood’s clean shirts. “That wound needs stitches.”

  Kirkwood moved his hand back and forth. It hurt like blazes. “You bandaged it so tightly it should be fine. I’ll see a doctor once we have Isabel.”

  Shelby looked up from the flames. He had been glaring into them while he sipped the whiskey. “You’re still going after that girl?”

  “I set out to bring her to her senses or to see to it that she paid the price for turning her back on me. I don’t intend to give up on that goal now.”

  “But there are only three of us left!” Shelby dragged the back of his free hand across his mouth. “Henry dead, Prewitt dead, Jack and the Kiowa, too, for all we know. I still don’t know how the hell that happened.”

  “You were too confident and overplayed your hand,” Kirkwood said coolly as he tried to ignore the pain in his hand. “Instead of splitting up, you should have stayed together and concentrated on the wagon. Ace Jensen wouldn’t have been able to fight off all five of you.”

  Shelby grimaced. “If we’d all gone for Ace, Chance would have come running and hit us from behind. It was smarter to try to take care of both of them at the same time.”

  “Yes, well, we can all see just how well that worked out.” Kirkwood held up his hand with the bloodstained strips of cloth tied around it and cocked an eyebrow mockingly. The loss of his shirt was also damned annoying.

  “They’ll be going south toward Coleman,” Leon said. “It’ll still take them at least two days to make it to San Angelo, maybe three. We’ll have time to pick up their trail and try again.”

  Shelby said, “You’ll have to do it without me.”

  “Lost your nerve, eh?” Kirkwood said.

  The gunman’s face darkened with rage as he uncoiled from his position by the fire. His hand moved toward his gun, but he stopped before his fingers curled around the Colt’s ivory grips.

  Leon had moved smoothly to put himself between Shelby and Kirkwood. The big man’s hand was already inside his coat. He probably wasn’t as slick on the draw as Shelby, but anything less than a perfect shot would leave him on his feet long enough to get lead into the gunfighter.

  “All right, damn it,” Shelby spat. “There’s no point in us fighting among ourselves.” He paused. “Come to think of it, the rest of the money you owed us won’t have to be split five ways now.”

  “The money you’ll receive only if we’re successful in our mission,” Kirkwood said. “Don’t forget that.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Sure.” Shelby put the cork back in the flask and shoved it into his pocket. “We’ll pick up the trail tomorrow. We’ve still got time to get our hands on that girl for you—and to settle the score with those damned Jensen boys.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  By the next morning, a rider had already been sent to Baird, the county seat of Callahan County, to ask that the sheriff send some deputies to collect the prisoners and charge them with attempted murder and kidnapping.

  In the meantime, Jack Loomis and the Kiowa would remain locked up at Dawson’s undertaking parlor. The money that the Kiowa had stolen from Ace and Chance back in Fort Worth was not in the saddlebags on any of the gang’s horses that were recovered, so the Jensen brothers sadly figured that two hundred dollars was long gone.

  Lew Shelby was still unaccounted for. Ace figured he had gotten away, along with Ripley Kirkwood and Leon, and his gut instinct told him they had not seen the last of any of those three.

  After breakfast at the café, Ace and Chance were getting the team and the wagon ready to go when Dawson walked up. “I’m sorry your stay in Cross Plains wasn’t more pleasant, folks.”

  “You don’t have anything to apologize for, sir,” Ace told him. “We’re grateful for the way everyone pitched in to help us.”

  “Well, I suppose we could have gotten up a posse and gone after the three who got away,” Dawson mused. “But that seems more like a job for the sheriff. We’re not really lawmen, just citizens trying to do the right thing.”

  “Folks like that are the most important ones in the country. Without them, we wouldn’t even have a nation.”

  Dawson nodded. “You’re probably right.” He stuck out his hand. “Good luck to you.”

  Ace and Chance shook hands with the undertaker. He then tipped his hat to the ladies as they climbed into the wagon and Agnes took her usual seat on the driver’s box. The Jensen brothers swung into their saddles, and a minute later the group was headed southwest out of the settlement.

  The town of Coleman was about a day’s travel in that direction. They would make it by evening, if nothing else happened to delay them.

  If they were being honest with themselves, Ace and Chance would have had to admit they were surprised when the day passed peacefully. They didn’t run into any ambushes, and despite Chance’s frequent attempts to spot anyone on their trail, there didn’t seem to be any pursuit behind them.

  “If they’re coming after us, they’re hanging way back,” he told Ace late that afternoon as they approached the settlement.

  “Maybe they’ve gotten tired of banging their heads against a stone wall,” Ace suggested. “That has to be what it feels like to them.”

  “Maybe. But if that Kirkwood gent is as loco as Isabel makes him out to be, it’s hard to imagine him just turning around and going home. And we know that Lew Shelby, if he’s still alive, is carrying a mighty big grudge against us.”

  Ace knew his brother was right. Ripley Kirkwood and Lew Shelby still represented a threat, and they would until the wagon and its passengers reached San Angelo.

  Coleman was a little bigger than Cross Plains and had several saloons, but Chance wasn’t tempted by them. After everything that had happened, he had decided to stick close to his brother and the ladies for the rest of the journey, and Ace was glad of that.

  Nothing unusual happened that night, nor the next day as the wagon rolled on toward Hutchins City, the last settlement before they reached San Angelo. All the trouble they had encountered didn’t exactly fade from anyone’s memory, but at least those two days of uneventful, even monotonous, travel made the ladies relax a little.

  “This is how I expected it to be when we set out from Fort Worth,” Agnes commented from the driver’s box as Ace and Chance rode alongside late that afternoon. “I never thought we would run into so much . . . excitement.”

  “And by excitement you mean folks trying to kill us . . . at least Ace and me,” Chance responded with a grin.

  “Well . . . yes.”

  “Don’t worry, we’re used to it.”

  “How in the world do you ever get used to people shooting at you?”

  “You don’t,” Ace said. “Don’t listen to him. There’s nothing more nerve-wracking than hearing bullets zipping around your ears.”

  Chance said, “You just have to keep a cool, steady head. That’s what gives you your best odds of surviving.”

  “I believe that,” Agnes said. “I’d just as soon not be put in that position, though.”

  “Believe me, we feel the same way,” Ace said.

  The glance the Jensen brothers exchanged made it clear how unlikely they considered that possibility.

  * * *

  Neither of them saw the figure intently watching the wagon from behind a screen of mesquite on top of a ridge three hundred yards away. The copper-ski
nned, buckskin-clad young man had been keeping an eye on the wagon for the past couple hours. His keen eyesight allowed him to keep his distance so he wouldn’t be noticed.

  During that time he had seen the wagon stop and its occupants climb out to move around. The watcher expected to see men, but all the travelers appeared to be women except for the two outriders.

  And not old women, either. Sunlight reflected on fair hair, red hair, glossy dark hair. They did not hide their glories under bonnets like so many of the settler women did. The graceful way they walked also testified to their youth. Even at that distance, the watcher found them very pleasant to look upon.

  Up close—close enough to touch—they would be even better. He was certain of that.

  The wagon was near the settlement and would reach it soon. If that was their final destination, there was nothing the watcher and his companions could do about it. They numbered only fifteen men, led by the war chief Swift Pony.

  Three weeks earlier, in the dead of night, they had ridden away from the despised reservation up in what the whites called Indian Territory. Swift Pony and his warriors called it a prison, and they had been happy to escape from it.

  Since then they had made their way far south into Texas, lying low during the days, never showing themselves unless they came across some isolated farm or ranch where they could kill all the inhabitants and loot their belongings without being discovered.

  The young man watching the wagon had been sent out by Swift Pony to see if he could find any more suitable targets for their wrath. The scout knew that Swift Pony longed for a real battle with the soldiers, but he was also wise enough not to throw away his life, and the lives of his men, on a fight they could not win.

  Eventually they might raid all the way into Mexico. They might be killed along the way, but at least they would have known what it was like to ride free again, as their ancestors had done.

  And maybe, if they could take those women with them and actually cross the border where they would be safe, they could find a new home. Could raise fine sons to carry on the war against the invaders. It was a happy thing to think about.

  But first, the watcher told himself as he drifted back away from the crest and then turned to run to his horse, Swift Pony had to know about that lightly defended wagon full of women just ripe for the taking.

  * * *

  Riding through a gap with brushy, boulder-littered slopes on both sides, Earl Brock drew his lips drew back from his teeth as he grimaced at every jolt and sway of his horse’s gait. The movements made pain stab through his wounded right arm, which was bandaged and tied against his body to keep it stable.

  Cooper had done a pretty good job of cleaning up all the blood and then dousing the bullet holes with whiskey to make sure they didn’t fester. The slug had gone clean through, tearing up muscle but luckily missing the bone.

  The injury would heal in time, although that arm might not ever regain its full strength. It was Brock’s gun arm, too, and that was bad. He could shoot fairly well with his left hand, but he was thinking about starting to carry a sawed-off shotgun, just to make the odds a little more on his side.

  That was a worry for the future, he told himself. He had to concentrate on catching up to Molly and getting that fifty grand back.

  “How you doin’, Earl?” Hawthorne asked. He and Cooper flanked Brock, one on each side.

  He figured they were worried he might pass out and topple from the saddle. Having them believe he was that weak annoyed the hell out of him. “I’m fine,” he snapped, “but I’ll be a hell of a lot better once we get that damned loot back.”

  “Yeah, we’ve come a long way on Molly’s trail,” Cooper said. “She’s led us a merry chase.”

  “Nothing merry about it.”

  “Well, no, I reckon not. I just meant—”

  “That’s far enough!” a voice called from the left, taking the three outlaws by surprise. A second later a rifle cracked and a bullet kicked up dirt from the trail ten feet in front of them.

  The men yanked their horses to a stop. Cooper and Hawthorne grabbed for their guns. Brock couldn’t slap leather, and the frustration and anger he felt made him cuss a blue streak.

  Before Cooper and Hawthorne could clear their holsters, another shot blasted, coming from the right. Cooper flinched as the slug sizzled past, inches from his ear.

  “Next one goes right through your head,” warned a voice as cold as the grave. “Leave those guns alone.”

  “Damn it!” Cooper exclaimed. “Those Jensen boys have ambushed us!”

  Except for the fading echoes of the shots, silence hung over the gap for a long moment.

  Then the rifleman on the left called out. “What did you say, mister?”

  “Those aren’t the Jensens,” Brock said. “They sound like older men.”

  “Keep your hands away from your guns and don’t get spooked,” the cold-voiced hombre on the right warned again. “We’re stepping out into the open.”

  Armed with Winchesters pointing at Brock, Cooper, and Hawthorne, one man on each slope stepped out of the brush. The man on the left was dressed all in black range clothes, and his lean, lantern-jawed face had an evil cast to it.

  The one on the right wore a gray suit and bowler hat. Jug-handle ears stuck out from a blocky, expressionless face. He moved closer, the rifle rock-steady in his hands. “What’s your connection to Ace and Chance Jensen?”

  “I’d like to see both of those sons of bitches dead,” Brock said.

  “They ain’t friends of ours,” Cooper added. “I’m hopin’ the same goes for you fellas, seein’ as how you’ve got the drop on us and all.”

  “If you are working with the Jensens,” Brock said. “you’d better go ahead and shoot us. But there’s two of you and three of us, so don’t go thinking it’ll be easy, even with this wounded arm of mine. At least one of us will get lead in you.”

  The man in black laughed. “That’s mighty big talk for a man with a busted gun arm.”

  “It’s not busted. And I’ve got two arms.”

  The man in the suit said, “That’s enough bravado from both of you. We’re not friends of the Jensen brothers. In fact, we have scores to settle with them.”

  “So do we,” Cooper said with a note of excitement in his voice.

  “And they have something we want,” Brock added flatly.

  “Same here.” The cold-voiced gent lowered the barrel of his rifle a little. “It sounds to me like you need to have a talk with my boss. It might be a good strategic move for us to join forces.”

  “What the hell, Leon,” the man in black said. “What makes you think we can trust these hombres?”

  For the first time, a trace of an expression appeared on the stony face of the man called Leon. It might have been a smile. Maybe.

  “Because I know a killer when I see one,” he said, “and we all want those Jensen boys dead.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Hutchins City was located on the Colorado River, but the citizens had built a bridge over the stream. Fording it with the wagon wasn’t necessary. The settlement was hardly worthy of being called a city at the moment, but as the Jensen brothers and the ladies entered it at twilight, they saw that quite a few new lots had been staked out. Evidently the place was growing.

  The garrulous proprietor of the livery stable where they put up their horses and parked the wagon was glad to explain what was going on. “Railroad’s comin’ through in the next year or so. They’re talkin’ people into movin’ here. They got it in mind that they’ll make Hutchins City the county seat, ’stead of over to Runnels. Of course, there ain’t no tellin’ how the folks in Runnels will feel about that. Chances are, they won’t cotton to it. I’m hopin’ it won’t come down to a shootin’ war. That happens sometimes, you know, when two towns commence to arguin’ over which one should be the county seat.”

  “Really?” Agnes said in disbelief.

  “Oh, yes, ma’am. Civic pride is a powerful thin
g.”

  Lorena said, “The two settlements aren’t going to start shooting at each other tonight, are they?”

  “Ain’t likely. I reckon it’ll be a spell before the fussin’ gets too bad.”

  “Well, we’ll be long gone by then, thank goodness.”

  “Where are you ladies headed?” The middle-aged man had cast quite a few admiring glances at the five young women, but at least he tried to be somewhat discreet about it.

  “We’re going to San Angelo,” Jamie said.

  “Oh.” A worried-looking frown creased the stableman’s forehead under his mostly bald pate.

  Ace saw the reaction and asked, “Is that a problem?”

  “No, probably not. It’s just that we been hearin’ rumors there might be some renegade Injuns in these parts. You couldn’t prove it by me, mind you. There ain’t been nothin’ of the sort right here around town, but I heard that some fella was talkin’ about how a few ranches had been hit northeast of here.”

  “Savage Indians,” Jamie breathed. “My father warned me about that. He thought I was crazy to come here to start with, and that was one of the things he brought up.”

  The stableman waved a hand. “You shouldn’t have to worry, missy. Might not be anything to those rumors. You know how folks like to talk, and what they gossip about ain’t always true. Anyway, there are patrols from Fort Concho out and about, and that ought to keep those redskins spooked enough so they’ll steer clear o’ these parts. Assumin’ there really are any redskins lookin’ for trouble.”

  As they walked away from the stable, Isabel said, “If that man was trying to reassure us, he did not succeed very well.”

  “As if we didn’t have enough to worry about already,” Lorena said, “what with gunfighters and that madman from New Orleans and whoever those ruffians were who grabbed Molly.”

  “Don’t forget the Fairweathers,” Agnes said.

  “Thanks,” Lorena replied dryly. “Wouldn’t want to forget about a family of crazy hillbillies.”

  “We’ve had a lot on our plate so far,” Ace said, “but we’ve dealt with all of it.”