A Texas Hill Country Christmas

by William W. Johnstone

  “Sounds like we’re in worse shape than I thought we were,” Ace said with a frown.

  “We would be if we stayed here. What we’re doing, though, is giving Brant enough time to get away with that boy. Then we’ll pull back and get out of here.”

  “Those outlaws are liable to come after us.”

  “If they want a running fight in weather like this, we’ll oblige them,” Luke said. He looked back over his shoulder. Even through the rain, he was able to see a huge, dark hump looming about a mile away. “I’ve even got an idea where we can make our stand.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  “Ever see rain like this before?” Matt asked as he and Smoke rode toward Enchanted Rock from the north.

  Smoke shook his head, which made water spray around him from the brim of his hat.

  “I’m not sure I have,” he said, raising his voice so his brother could hear him over the storm’s racket. “Sort of like riding through a river, isn’t it?”

  “We might as well head back to the ranch headquarters. We’re not gonna be able to find anybody in weather like this!”

  Smoke hated to admit defeat, but he had a hunch Matt was right. They had spent the previous day out here and hours today, and all they had done was gotten wet. They hadn’t found any sign of Chet Fielding.

  “This is no way to spend Christmas Eve,” Matt went on.

  “It won’t be much of a Christmas for Mrs. Fielding if we don’t find her husband,” Smoke pointed out.

  Matt looked a little crestfallen as he said, “Yeah, I know. I don’t mind staying out here as long as you want, Smoke.”

  Smoke thought it over and then said, “We’ll look a while longer.”

  There was stubborn, and then there was downright mule-headed, he thought. But he was going to err on the side of persistence.

  After a while he pulled out his rifle, aimed it at the sky, and fired three shots, spaced out regularly one after the other. Out of habit, he replaced the rounds he had fired, and he was sliding the Winchester back in its sheath when he suddenly heard something.

  The reports were faint and muffled by the rain, but they were unmistakable. Matt stiffened in his saddle just like Smoke did and exclaimed, “Those were shots, Smoke!”

  “Yeah, and it sounded like they were responding to the ones I fired,” Smoke agreed. He heeled his horse into motion. “Come on!”

  They rode toward the huge rock, urging their mounts to a faster pace that sent drops flying as the horses splashed through standing water. After they had covered several hundred yards, Smoke reined in, pulled out the Winchester, and once again let off three rounds.

  The answering shots were louder this time.

  “That way!” Matt said, pointing. They rode toward a thick stand of live oaks.

  The next time they heard something, it was a shout. A man limped into view, propping himself up by using the rifle he held as a crutch. He steadied himself, took off a black hat with a drooping brim, and waved it over his head.

  Smoke and Matt rode up to the man, who wore a big grin on his freckled face. Smoke could see now that the man had hurt his leg somehow. Broken branches were bound to it as crude splints.

  “Lord a’ mercy, I’m glad to see you fellas!” the man said. “Didn’t know whether I was gonna drown out here or starve to death first!”

  “Chet Fielding?” Smoke asked. The man was stocky and ruggedly built, a typical Texas pioneer cattleman.

  “That’s right,” he said. “Who might you be?”

  “Smoke Jensen,” Smoke said. “This is my brother Matt.”

  “Smoke—! Land’s sake, I didn’t expect to see you, Mr. Jensen, but like I said, I’m mighty glad to. Reckon you came down to see about buyin’ that ol’ bull o’ mine.” Fielding waved the hand he wasn’t using to brace himself on the rifle. “He’s around somewhere. I followed him down here, don’t know how come the wanderlust to get hold of him like it must’ve, but I was gonna haze him back closer to home when my horse dang near stepped on a rattler and spooked so bad he threw me off.”

  “A rattlesnake?” Matt said. “At this time of year?”

  “There are a few around,” Fielding said. “The ground’s so wet, the water must be runnin’ ’em out of their dens where they’d normally be holed up for the winter. Anyway, I busted my leg when I fell. Fixed it up best I could, but I knew I couldn’t walk all the way back to the ranch on it. Dang horse ran off and I ain’t seen hide nor hair of him since. I figured somebody’d come lookin’ for me sooner or later, though, if the whole country didn’t wash away, so I been waitin’ and stayin’ out of the rain as best I could.”

  “We figured you might need a mount, so we brought an extra with us,” Smoke said. “We’ve got a few supplies left, too, if you’re hungry.”

  “Gimme a knife and fork and that pesky ol’ Diablo Rojo bull, and I’ll show you how hungry I am!” Fielding said. Then he waved his hand again and went on, “Naw, I’m just joshin’. I’m too fond of the old boy to ever eat him. But I’m a mite peeved with him for gettin’ me in this predicament.”

  Smoke started to swing down from his horse but paused as more shots blasted through the air. They weren’t that close, but they weren’t evenly spaced signal shots, either. In fact, it was an explosion of gunshots that sounded like a dozen or more weapons going off.

  Smoke knew the sound of a desperate battle when he heard one, and so did Matt. They looked at each other. Matt said, “Am I crazy, or does it sound like all hell’s breaking loose on top of that big rock?”

  “That’s what it sounds like, all right,” Smoke agreed. “You know anything about that, Mr. Fielding?”

  “Not a blasted thing,” the rancher said, “but it sure sounds to me like somebody needs help.”

  “I was just thinking the same thing . . .” Smoke said.

  “Well, don’t hang around here!” Fielding exclaimed. He waved a hand toward Enchanted Rock. “I can tell you boys want to take cards in that game. I can wait a while longer to get rescued!”

  Smoke and Matt nodded to each other, then galloped toward the massive rock formation. With that much powder being burned close by, they had to see what it was all about.

  Jensens just couldn’t do anything else.

  Luke had been right about Oliver Hudson being smart enough to find some other way to get at them. Only a few minutes had gone by in the standoff when bullets began zipping into the rocks from a different direction. Some of Hudson’s gang had climbed up the bluff where horses couldn’t go, but men could.

  “Reckon we’d better get out of here,” Luke had said as he ducked a slug that whipped over his head. He cupped a hand to his mouth and shouted through the rain to the trio in the live oaks, “Give us some cover!”

  Chance, Porter, and Evelyn opened up with their guns, throwing as much lead as they could at the outlaws. Luke and Ace burst out of the rocks and sprinted toward the trees. They really didn’t have that much ground to cover, but the dash for timber seemed a lot longer than it actually was with all that lead flying around.

  Luke thought he spotted more muzzle flashes than he should have, and when he and Ace reached the trees he saw the reason why. Sam Brant was still there, joining in the fight with the others.

  Luke ducked behind the tree, pressed his back against the trunk, and called, “Where’s the boy, Brant?”

  “I sent him home to his ma!” the outlaw replied as he fired one of his Colts toward the edge of the bluff. “Do I know you?”

  “No, but I know you!” Luke said. He turned, thrust his rifle past the tree trunk, and cranked off three more rounds. “We’d better get out of here while we still can.”

  “Sounds like a good idea to me,” Chance agreed, “but we’re short one horse now.”

  “Evelyn can ride with me,” Porter said. “My horse can carry double.”

  “I hope you’re right, mister,” Luke said, “because we don’t have any time to waste. Let’s go!”

  Luke and Ace kept up the c
overing fire while the others got mounted. Then they swung up into the saddles, and they all took off at a gallop toward Enchanted Rock.

  “That’s mighty big to go around!” Ace called to Luke.

  “We’re not going around it! We’re going up it!”

  “Good idea!” Brant said. “I’ve been up there! We can stand off an army from the top!”

  From a distance, Enchanted Rock looked like a smooth dome, but as they drew closer to it, Luke saw that it was anything but. The massive hump-backed rock was littered with boulders, dotted with brush, and split by fissures. The cracks in the rock weren’t deep in most places, but they were big enough to break a horse’s leg and had to be avoided.

  Rifle shots cracked behind the riders as they started up the slope. Bullets whined off the rocks. Luke and Ace fell back a little behind the others and twisted in their saddles to return the fire. They weren’t going to hit anything from the backs of struggling horses, but maybe their shots would make the outlaws leery and cause them to hang back for a few more seconds.

  Luke halfway expected their horses to collapse underneath them from the strain of climbing the rock. Somehow all the animals made it to the top with their riders.

  “Here!” Brant cried. “This is as far as we can go. If we start down the far side, they’ll have the high ground and be able to pick us off!”

  Luke agreed. He dismounted and handed his reins to Will Porter.

  “You and the lady will have to hold the horses,” he said. “Can you do that?”

  “We can,” Porter said. “Can’t we, Evelyn?”

  “Will, you wouldn’t be in the middle of this mess if it weren’t for me!” she said as he helped her down. “Can you ever forgive me for being so stupid?”

  “There’s nothing to forgive,” Porter told her. “We all make mistakes about people.” He looked at Luke. “We’ll hold the horses, sir, don’t worry.”

  Luke just grunted.

  A little ridge of rock near the top was the only cover up here. Luke motioned Ace, Chance, and Brant over to it. The four men knelt there and reloaded their guns.

  “You seem to know this part of the country, Brant,” Luke said to the outlaw. “Do you think Hudson will split his forces and send some of them around behind us?”

  “I don’t think he can,” Brant replied. “There’s a creek that runs along the base of the rock in places, and it’s bound to be flooded by now. I’m not sure they can get behind us with all that high water in the way.”

  Luke grinned tightly.

  “Looks like it’s gonna be a head-on fight then,” he said. “A fight to the finish, more than likely.”

  Brant looked over at him and said, “I reckon you know me from wanted posters.”

  “That’s right.”

  “You’re a lawman?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “A bounty hunter, then.”

  Luke shrugged.

  “I don’t care,” Brant said. “If Charlie got back to his mother all right, that’s all that matters.”

  “Made friends with some of the folks around here, have you?” Luke asked.

  “It’s a long story.”

  “Maybe I’ll get to hear it when this is all over. Right now—” Luke brought the Winchester to his shoulder. “Here they come!”

  Hudson was canny, Luke saw as he opened fire at the muzzle flashes coming from below. Instead of a foolhardy charge up the rock on horseback, the outlaws had dismounted and were using every bit of cover they could find as they advanced. They took turns dashing from boulder to boulder, from gully to clump of brush, and the ones who weren’t moving kept up a steady fire toward the defenders at the top of the slope. So many bullets buzzed through the air that it sounded like someone had disturbed a hornet’s nest. They wouldn’t be able to hold off the outlaws for long, Luke realized. When Hudson and his men reached the top, it would be a close-quarters shootout as the defenders were overrun . . . a shootout that Luke and his companions would almost certainly lose since they were outnumbered more than two to one.

  The battle seemed to last a lot longer than it really did. Blood dripped from a bullet crease on Brant’s cheek, and the bandage around Chance’s leg was red with blood where the wound had broken open again, but other than that the four men were still unscathed. That wouldn’t hold true for much longer, because the outlaws were almost right in their laps by now. One more barrage of covering fire, one more rush, and it would all be over....

  Luke wasn’t aware that it had stopped raining until a gap suddenly appeared in the clouds overhead. Brilliant rays of sunshine slanted down and illuminated the top of Enchanted Rock. For a moment the battle paused as men squinted and let their eyes adjust to the unexpected light.

  Then Hudson bellowed, “Wipe ’em out!” and guns began to roar again.

  Seth didn’t know what prompted him to turn his head and look over his shoulder at that particular moment. Divine guidance, maybe. But he saw the two tall, stalwart figures striding out of the light. For a second he would have sworn he saw wings behind them, and he couldn’t help but think that somehow a pair of guardian angels had found their way to the top of Enchanted Rock.

  But those weren’t wings. They were slickers that had been thrown back to give the two men better access to their guns, and those revolvers leaped into their hands and began to roar. He heard Luke Jensen exclaim, “How in the world—!” then Luke was up on his feet, as were Ace and Chance, and Seth joined them, the Colts roaring and leaping in his hands, and a storm of lead unlike any ever unleashed in this part of the country swept the rocks clean of evil.

  Charging outlaws suddenly spun off their feet as bullets ripped through them. Others doubled over as lead punched into their guts. They fell and rolled back down the slope.

  Seth found himself facing Oliver Hudson. The leader of the gang was already bloody where he had taken some hits, but he stalked inexorably toward Seth, roaring blasphemies as he triggered his guns. Seth felt the hammer-blow of a slug rock him back, but he stayed on his feet. He knew that within moments he would die, knew that his soul would plummet to the depths of the fiery pit where it belonged, but at least he would take Hudson to hell with him. Both of Seth’s Colts blasted as another bullet hit him, but even as he toppled back into the waiting darkness he saw Hudson’s face turn into a smear of red as the bullets bored through his diseased brain.

  Seth looked up into the sun shining in his face but didn’t see the brightness of the Lord’s promise, didn’t see the rainbow arcing across the sky as the clouds began to clear.

  He saw the faces of Delta and Charlie, and that was enough to take with him as he began his descent into eternal damnation.

  Let the Devil do his worst.

  Seth Barrett was at peace.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  “He’s alive,” Evelyn Channing said as she looked up at the men standing anxiously around her. “But I don’t know how long he’ll stay that way. He was wounded several times.” She paused for a second. “Do any of you have any experience at dealing with bullet wounds?”

  Smoke, Matt, and Luke Jensen all nodded. So did Ace and Chance Jensen.

  “Matt, give me a hand,” Smoke said. “Let’s get to work.”

  “I’ll check that bunch, make sure none of them are in any shape to cause more trouble,” Luke said. He looked at his brothers and shook his head. “If this doesn’t beat all. You two, showing up out of nowhere on top of a big rock in the middle of Texas, just in time to help us wipe out those outlaws.”

  “Jensens are drawn to trouble like iron to a lodestone,” Smoke said with a smile. He nodded to Ace and Chance. “Including you two. I remember you from that dust-up in Wyoming a while back. But I sure didn’t expect to run into any of you when Matt and I started up that slope.”

  It had taken only that flash of recognition for the two of them to know which side they were on in this fight, though, Smoke reflected as he started patching up the wounded man as best he could with Matt’s help. He
didn’t know who the hombre was, but if he was fighting side by side with Luke, Ace, and Chance, that was good enough for Smoke and Matt.

  Half an hour later, they had the man’s wounds roughly bandaged and the bleeding slowed down. The outlaws who were still alive were tied securely and wouldn’t be going anywhere until Luke brought lawmen out here from Fredericksburg to collect them.

  “We’ll put this fella on a horse and see if we can’t get some real help for him,” Smoke said as he straightened from his task. “He needs some dry clothes and a warm bed.”

  “I saw a church a few miles from here,” Luke said. “Reckon he can make it that far?”

  “He’ll have to,” Smoke said.

  They gathered their horses and set off, with Luke leading the procession. As they rode down from the top of Enchanted Rock, Smoke looked out over the miles and miles of countryside spread around them. It was a spectacular vista, although a soggy one at the moment because of all the standing water that shone in the late afternoon light. The Hill Country would be weeks in drying out, but the storms finally appeared to be over. There was more blue sky overhead now than clouds.

  “Christmas Eve,” Matt said as he looked up, too. “Don’t know that I’d call it a miracle, but after all that rain it sort of feels like one.”

  Smoke looked at the wounded man, who was still unconscious, as he rode in front of Ace, who held him carefully upright on the horse.

  “If there’s going to be a Christmas Eve miracle, that’s the fella who needs it,” Smoke said.

  As they approached the church, Luke saw a lot of horses and wagons outside the building, as well as people milling around. The nearby creek was out of its banks, but a wall of sandbags had stopped the water from reaching the church.

  He also spotted four men sitting on the muddy ground with their hands evidently tied behind their backs. Several men stood nearby, holding shotguns.