He hauled her around, revealing himself to be the hombre from whose lap she had escaped. “You’ll get right back over to our table where you belong,” he said, giving her a shove in that direction. “If these saddle tramps don’t like it, that’s just too damn bad!”
CHAPTER THREE
Chance sprang out of his chair instantly, and Ace was just a second behind him.
“I don’t really care what you call my brother and me,” Chance said in a taut, angry voice, “but you’d better apologize to the lady for treating her so rough.”
“Lady?” the man repeated with a cocky, arrogant smirk on his face. “I don’t see no lady here, only a saloon floozy who ain’t no better than she has to be.”
Ace said, “Mister, you’re just making us like you even less.”
The man laughed. “You reckon I give a damn about whether you like me?”
The blonde said, “Please, Pete, I told you I’d come right back after I got these boys their drinks—”
“I don’t want any trouble in here, McLaren,” Hank Muller interrupted her from the bar.
So the hombre gazing defiantly at them was Pete McLaren, Ace thought. The old-timer at the livery stable had mentioned him. From the sound of what Crackerjack Sawyer had said, McLaren was the biggest troublemaker in Lone Pine.
“Stay outta this, Muller,” McLaren snapped. “This is between me and these saddle tramps.”
“Really,” Chance said. “Do I look like a saddle tramp?” He gestured to indicate his suit, which was of good quality even though it wasn’t particularly new.
McLaren sneered again. “No, you look more like a damn, four-flushin’ tinhorn, if you ask me.”
Chance clenched his fist as he took half a step toward McLaren.
At the same time, the four men who had been sitting with McLaren got to their feet. They had been content to let their leader—as McLaren seemed to be—sally forth alone, but now that combat seemed to be imminent, they clearly didn’t want to miss out on any of the action.
“Take it easy, Chance,” Ace said quietly.
Five to two wasn’t very good odds. They would buck those odds if they had to—they were Jensens, after all. Related to the famous clan or not, they didn’t run from a fight, but Ace understood why Hank Muller didn’t want such a ruckus breaking out in his saloon.
“As if the way you treated this girl isn’t bad enough, you ruined a beautiful song,” Chance said with a nod toward the piano and the lovely brunette who stood beside it.
She had stopped singing and the piano player had stopped tickling the ivories when the confrontation began, just like the rest of the saloon’s customers had halted their drinking and talking to watch the unfolding drama.
The brunette smiled at Chance’s compliment, but the expression vanished a moment later when McLaren chuckled coarsely and said, “Beautiful song? You mean that caterwaulin’ that was going on a minute ago?”
Ace heard the hiss of Chance’s sharply indrawn breath. McLaren had pushed him too far by insulting the singer.
Chance lunged forward, fist whipping up toward McLaren’s face.
McLaren was fast. A few years older, he had more experience at brawling and jerked his head aside so Chance’s punch went harmlessly past his ear. Stepping in, he hooked a left into Chance’s midsection and then hammered a right into his chest.
Chance went backwards, his legs tangling with his brother’s as Ace tried to charge into the battle. As they struggled to hang on to their balance, McLaren’s friends sprang to the attack. Hank Muller bellowed for everybody to stop, but they ignored him. Customers at nearby tables scrambled to get away from the violence.
Ace and Chance got loose from each other, but only in time to be hit again. McLaren bored in on Chance, pounding him and making him retreat against one of the tables, while one of McLaren’s companions punched Ace in the jaw and knocked him halfway around.
That gave one of the other men the opportunity to grab Ace from behind and pin his arms back. “Thrash him good, Lew!” the man called to his friend.
Grinning, the man who had already hit Ace once moved in, fists cocked to deal out punishment.
Ace was a little groggy from the blow to the jaw, but his instincts were still working. As Lew closed in, intent on handing him a beating, Ace jerked both knees up and lashed out with a double-footed kick that landed on the man’s chest and sent him flying backwards. Lew crashed down on a table that collapsed with a splintering and rending of wood.
Ace’s kick also made the man holding him stumble backwards in the opposite direction. He tripped and fell onto his back on the sawdust-littered floor, pulling Ace with him. Ace landed on top of him. Thinking clearly enough, he rammed an elbow into the man’s belly and rolled to his feet.
Chance had recovered his wits and pushed off the table he was leaning against. He lowered his head and tackled McLaren as the hardcase tried to crowd him. They staggered around in a circle as Chance smashed a couple punches into McLaren’s kidneys, figuring he ought to do whatever it took to win—especially when he and his brother were outnumbered more than two to one. He continued the punches, even though he knew Ace would have considered such blows to be dirty fighting.
McLaren bellowed in pain and anger, got his hands on Chance’s chest, and shoved the younger man away. He threw a roundhouse punch that Chance leaned away from.
Getting his feet back under him, Chance put his own experience to work. He jabbed a right into McLaren’s mouth that made blood spurt. He followed it a split second later with a left that rocked the man’s head back, turning the tide of battle for a moment.
One of the other men snatched up a chair and brought it down on Chance’s head. The crashing blow sent him to his knees. McLaren caught his balance, kicked Chance in the chest, and knocked him over on his back.
Ace grabbed the chair-wielder by the shoulder, jerked him around, and slammed a right to his jaw. The other man in McLaren’s bunch clenched his fists together and swung them in a clubbing blow to the back of Ace’s neck, knocking Ace off his feet. He landed facedown next to his brother, who was lying on his back.
“A nice, peaceful-looking town, you said,” Ace groaned as he tried to push himself up.
Chance rolled onto his side. “How was I to know we’d wind up in a fight?”
Ace didn’t bother answering that. He climbed onto his feet and helped Chance up. McLaren and the other four men were all standing, too, bunched together about fifteen feet away with angry glares on their bruised, bloody faces.
That pause was just a breather. The battle was about to resume.
“Everybody hold it right where you are, damn it!” The bellowed command came from the saloon’s entrance, where a man stood just inside the batwings, which were still swinging back and forth a little behind him. As if his loud, harsh, gravelly voice wasn’t enough to attract attention, the twin barrels of the shotgun he held looked as big around as cannons to anybody unlucky enough to be in front of them.
“Thank God you’re here, Marshal,” Hank Muller said. “I’ve already had a table and a chair busted up. There’s no telling how much damage these hellions might have done if they’d kept fighting.”
“Who are you calling hellions?” Chance asked resentfully. “We were just trying to help that girl who works for you.”
Before Muller could reply, the newcomer stalked farther into the saloon, keeping the scattergun leveled in front of him. The customers who had tried to get away from the fight shrank back farther to make sure they were out of the line of fire.
The lawman was a medium-sized man of middle age. His clean-shaven face was tanned to the color of old saddle leather and seamed with numerous wrinkles, especially around the mouth and eyes. Thick white hair stood out in sharp contrast to the old black hat he wore. A marshal’s badge was pinned to his vest. All it took was a glance to see that he still had all the bark on him, despite his years.
“I want to know who you hellions are,” he said to Ace and Chan
ce. “I know McLaren and his pards, but I don’t reckon I’ve ever seen you two before.”
Ace did the introductions. “I’m Ace Jensen and this is my brother Chance. We just rode into town a while ago. Mr. Sawyer down at the livery stable will confirm that, and so will Colonel Howden at the Territorial House.”
“Didn’t take you long to start trouble, then, did it?”
The young woman at the piano spoke up. “They didn’t start it, Marshal Dixon. McLaren and his friends did.”
“That’s a damn lie,” McLaren said.
The brunette’s face flushed angrily and she took a step forward.
The marshal told her, “You’d best just stay out of it, Miss Dupree.”
Chance nodded toward the blond saloon girl. “McLaren was roughing up that young lady, Marshal. My brother and I wouldn’t have stepped in otherwise.”
McLaren sneered. “There you go with that lady business again. You see any ladies in here, Marshal?”
Dixon didn’t answer that.
McLaren went on. “Anyway, I didn’t hear Dolly complainin’ about the way I was treatin’ her. Did you need somebody to protect you, Dolly?”
The blonde swallowed hard. “I . . . I guess it was all right . . . What you did, I mean, Pete. I know you wouldn’t really hurt me.”
“Damn right I wouldn’t.” McLaren cupped a hand under her chin. “You’re my gal, ain’t you?”
“I—Sure I am, Pete.”
A disgusted look crossed Chance’s face. Ace felt the same way. Even though the girl called Dolly hadn’t liked the way McLaren was holding her on his lap, she was still smitten with the handsome young hardcase. Both Jensen brothers could tell that by the look in her eyes.
“Muller, who threw the first punch?” Marshal Dixon asked the saloonkeeper.
Muller didn’t look happy about it, but he couldn’t very well refuse to answer the lawman’s question. Besides, there were plenty of witnesses who had seen the same thing he had. “That young fella there did”—Muller pointed to Chance—“but McLaren provoked him by insulting Fontana.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Dixon said. “Nobody appointed these two the defenders of fair womanhood.” He jerked the barrels of the Greener to motion Ace and Chance toward the entrance. “You two are gonna spend your first night in Lone Pine in the calaboose.”
Hate Thy Neighbor Page 26
