A Texas Hill Country Christmas (7 page)

When Ace and Chance hurried out of the hotel a moment later, they saw Porter leaning casually against a lamppost a few yards away with a smile on his face.

“Blast it, you knew we were gonna come after you, didn't you?” Ace said.

“I had high hopes,” Porter replied. “As I mentioned previously, we're kindred spirits. I couldn't bring myself to believe that you wouldn't embrace this romantic adventure.”

“Yeah, well, let's hope it doesn't get us all killed. Our horses are in the corral back of the hotel. Get your mount and meet us there as soon as you can.”

“We'll settle up our bill and gather our gear,” Chance added.

“Success awaits us, gentlemen!” Porter said. “I can feel it in my bones!”

“Best hope you don't feel a .45 slug in your bones before this is over,” Ace warned him.

Porter wagged a finger at the brothers as he started along the street. He said over his shoulder, “You can't fool me. You're looking forward to this!”

Once Porter was gone, Chance said, “We didn't really want to just sit around Austin for the rest of the winter, did we?”

Ace chuckled and shook his head.

“No, I reckon not. We would have gotten bored. But it might have been nice to enjoy some peace and quiet for just a little bit longer!”

Chance waved a hand in dismissal and said, “Peace and quiet are overrated.”

It didn't take long to get their belongings from their room, pay what they owed, and head out to the corral to saddle their horses. They tightened the cinches and led the animals out of the enclosure. Ace shut the gate behind them. They waited for Porter to show up.

As Chance had mentioned in the dining room, the thick clouds had parted in a few places to reveal narrow stretches of blue sky. Sunlight slanted through those gaps. However, darker clouds loomed on the western horizon, and Ace cast a worried glance toward them.

“Looks like more storms moving in,” he commented. “And we'll be heading that way, I reckon.”

“Maybe it won't be too bad,” Chance said. “And we've been rained on before and will be again.” He sniffed. “Have to admit I don't much like being soaked to the bone, though. How long do you think it'll take us to get to Fredericksburg?”

“Never made the trip, but a couple of days, I'd guess.”

“If the stagecoach Miss Channing is on leaves this afternoon, we might beat it there.”

“So Will can be waiting for her when she steps off the stage.”

“Yeah, but Hudson likely will be, too.”

Ace nodded solemnly and said, “I know.” He pointed. “Here he comes.”

Porter was walking toward the corral leading a skittish-looking mare. The horse didn't strike Ace as being very strong, but Porter didn't weigh a whole lot, either. That might slow them down a little, since Porter wouldn't be able to push his mount as hard as Ace and Chance could with theirs.

But the whole trip was a bit of a fool's errand anyway, Ace reminded himself. If they weren't in time to stop Evelyn from marrying Oliver Hudson, maybe Porter would finally have to face facts.

Porter had traded his suit for workingman's clothes, although he still wore the straw boater that was more suitable for serenading young ladies than riding across central Texas in what might be building up to a gully washer. He had a carpetbag tied behind his saddle.

“Hope you've got a slicker in there,” Ace told him. “From the looks of those clouds, you're liable to need it before the day's over.”

“I do,” Porter said. “I have something else, too.” He opened the carpetbag, reached inside, and brought out a gun.

“Good Lord, Will!” Chance exclaimed. “Where'd you get that smoke wagon?”

The gun was a Colt dragoon revolver, probably more than thirty years old, a heavy, long-barreled weapon that packed quite a punch. Porter had to hold it with both hands to keep it from sagging toward the ground.

“It's a beauty, isn't it?” he asked with a grin. “I bought it a few days ago when I realized that I might have to fight for Evelyn's honor.”

“How are you gonna fight with it?” Chance asked. “You can barely lift it!”

“In fact,” Ace said as he put a hand on the dragoon's barrel and pushed it down, “why don't you point that cannon at the ground? We wouldn't want it to go off accidentally. That is, if it's loaded.”

“Oh, it's loaded, I assure you,” Porter said. “The fellow who sold it to me took care of that. I have a full six rounds.”

“You don't have any other ammunition for it?”

“No, I thought that would probably be enough.”

Ace tried not to roll his eyes. He said, “First of all, give me that thing.”

“It's mine,” Porter protested. “I bought and paid for it.”

“Yeah, but if you carry it around with the hammer resting on a full chamber, all it would take for you to shoot your foot off is a little bump.”

“And you'd be lucky if it was just your foot you shot off,” Chance added.

Reluctantly, Porter surrendered the revolver. Ace unloaded one of the chambers and carefully lowered the hammer on it.

“That's safer,” he said. “Put it back in your bag.”

“What if I need it in a hurry?”

Chance said, “That's too much gun for you to get out in a hurry, Will, no matter where you carry it. Might as well be where it's the safest.”

“I suppose,” Porter said with a shrug.

“That's a percussion revolver,” Ace said. “Not as easy to find ammunition for it as it used to be, I imagine. But we'll stop at a store on the way out of town and see if we can buy some. That way you can get some practice with it while we're on our way to Fredericksburg.”

That made Porter grin again. He said, “You mean you'll teach me how to be a gunman?”

Chance said, “More likely we'll teach you how not to shoot yourself or anybody else you don't intend to . . . if we're lucky.”

 

 

The rain still held off as the three young men rode out of Austin a short time later. The storm building in the west didn't seem to be in any hurry to move in. The wind was almost still, barely stirring the chilly air.

Austin perched at the edge of the Balcones Escarpment. The terrain immediately became more rugged just west of town. The road was a good one, though, running almost due west. Ace wasn't sure how many towns were between Austin and Fredericksburg, but if they needed to, they could camp out that night. It would probably be cold, wet, and miserable, but it wouldn't be the first such night he and Chance had spent on the trail.

The hills were covered with junipers. Outcroppings of limestone and granite broke up the vegetation here and there. Deep, narrow canyons thickly choked with brush slashed through the landscape. The place had a wild beauty about it, and once Austin was a few miles behind them, the road was the only sign of civilization except for an occasional cabin clinging to the side of a hill. Now and then the land leveled out enough to support a small farm or ranch. The riders also passed what looked like some sort of fruit orchard, although the rows of trees were starkly bare at this time of year.

Ace told Porter, “You'd better start thinking about what you're going to say to Miss Channing the next time you see her, Will.”

“I've barely thought of anything else this morning,” Porter replied. “I'm going to declare my deep and abiding love for her, of course. I plan to wax eloquent about her beauty and pledge that my affection for her will be eternal. I'll promise to make something of myself and provide for her so splendidly that never again shall she know a single day of discomfort or doubt.”

“You figure on doing that by clerking in a bank or a drugstore?” Chance asked. “Isn't that what you said you've been doing? Or maybe if you make a hand at writing, you'll get rich doing that?”

“Doesn't seem likely,” Ace said with a dubious shake of his head.

“Whatever I do, all my efforts will be dedicated to making Evelyn happy,” Porter insisted. “What more could any woman ask for?”

Chance laughed and said, “In my experience, women aren't much on the idea of giving a fella credit for trying. They're more interested in what he can actually
do
.”

“I'll convince her. You'll see.”

“I hope you do,” Ace said. “Otherwise we'll have made this trip for nothing more than some good German food.”

“Not a bad reason in itself,” Chance put in.

They rode on, trying to avoid the worst mud. The wind picked up a little, but it still wasn't raining. When the time came to rest the horses and the three of them had dismounted, Ace took the dragoon revolver out of Porter's carpetbag and handed it to the young man.

“Let's see what you can do with this,” he suggested.

Porter took the gun eagerly. He wrapped both hands around the smooth walnut grips and asked, “What do you want me to shoot at?”

Chance pointed at a dead tree about fifteen feet from the edge of the road.

“That tree trunk's almost as wide as a man,” he said. “See if you can hit it.”

“That should be a simple task.” Porter stretched both arms out in front of him as far as they would go and pointed the revolver at the tree. The barrel wobbled up and down and side to side, despite his efforts to hold it still.

“Pull your arms back in a little,” Ace told him. “And that's a single-action revolver, Will. You've got to cock it before you can shoot it.”

“Oh. Yes. Of course.” Porter had to use both thumbs to pull the hammer back and lock it into place. He aimed again, and the gun was a little steadier this time. He still didn't squeeze the trigger. Instead he said, “I must admit, it's a bit unsettling to think about shooting at, well, a fellow human being. I mean, you said the tree is about the same size, Chance, and that made me reflect on what a deeply profound experience it must be to take aim at someone for the express purpose of doing them harm, nay, ending their very existence—”

“Just shoot the tree already,” Ace said.

“Very well.” Porter took a deep breath and squeezed the trigger.

The dragoon boomed like thunder and kicked up so hard that it flew out of Porter's hands as the recoil knocked him backward. Chance exclaimed, “Whoa!” and jumped forward to catch the revolver before it fell into the mud.

Nobody caught Porter. He wound up sitting in a puddle looking stunned and miserable. Ace managed not to laugh, but he couldn't keep from smiling and shaking his head.

Porter opened his mouth and then closed it again a couple of times. Chance grinned and said, “I reckon Will's been struck speechless for once in his life.”

Ace stepped forward to offer Porter a hand, but as he did, something whipped past his ear and thudded into the road. Ace knew instantly what had just happened.

Somebody was shooting at them.

The crack of the shot came almost at the same time as Ace sensed the slug passing by his ear, with just enough delay to tell him that the bushwhacker was a little distance away. That meant a rifle. He had a split-second while the would-be killer levered the weapon, so he lunged forward, grabbed Porter's collar, and hauled the man to his feet.

“Run!” Ace snapped.

Chance was moving, too, grabbing the horses' reins and pulling them toward the far side of the road. The trees and brush there were thick enough to provide some cover.

Ace gave Porter a shove in the same direction. Porter stumbled but stayed on his feet and hurried toward the trees behind Chance and the horses.

Another bullet whined past Ace's head. This time the sound of the shot gave him an idea where the bushwhacker was, and he yanked out his Colt and triggered three fast rounds in that general direction. He didn't expect to hit anything, especially at long range, but he wanted to give the rifleman something to think about.

Chance and Porter vanished into the cedars. Ace's long legs carried him into the trees as well. A third shot ripped out from the hidden gunman. The bullet clipped a tree trunk and showered Ace with splinters as he darted past it.

Then he was in relative safety with a lot of those trunks between him and the rifleman. He stopped and pressed his back against a tree. Several yards away, Chance had stopped with the horses. Porter's mare was spooked, and Chance had to struggle to keep the animal under control. Porter, his clothes smeared with mud from his fall, stood nearby, wide-eyed with fear.

“Anybody hit?” Ace called to the other two.

“We're fine,” Chance said, then he cursed and thrust the mare's reins into Porter's hands. “Hang on to her, blast it!”

The brothers' mounts were more accustomed to gunfire, so they weren't causing any trouble. Chance could drop their reins and be confident that they wouldn't go very far. He did that and started dragging out the Winchesters from their saddle boots.

The bushwhacker couldn't see them anymore, but that didn't stop him from spraying lead through the stretch of woods where they had taken cover. Bullets tore through tree trunks and rattled through branches. Just by sheer luck, a few of them came a little too close for comfort.

Chance tossed Ace's Winchester to him. Ace plucked the repeater out of the air and said, “We need to discourage that varmint.”

“That's just what I was thinking,” Chance agreed. “Will, stay here.”

“I . . . I can assure you that's precisely what I intend to do!” Porter responded with a gulp.

Ace and Chance split up and began working their way back toward the edge of the trees. When Ace reached a spot where he could see the road again, he watched the slope on the other side and waited for some telltale sign of the rifleman.

After a few moments his keen eyes spotted movement in the brush at the mouth of a gully about two hundred yards away. Ace concentrated on that location and saw a muzzle flash.

“I see him!” he called to Chance. He couldn't see his brother anymore but knew he wasn't far away.

“I do, too!” Chance said. “Want to make it hot for him?”

“Bet a hat I do,” Ace replied. He brought the Winchester to his shoulder, braced its barrel against the trunk of the tree where he had taken cover, and opened fire.

The shots were like a long roll of thunder as the Jensen boys poured lead at their attacker. Ace fired seven times as fast as he could work the rifle's lever, and Chance loosed a similar number of rounds. Squinting through the haze of powder smoke, Ace saw the brush in the gully's mouth whipping around under the onslaught.

They held their fire. The gun-thunder echoed in the hills for several seconds before fading. As it did, Ace heard the faint sound of a horse crashing through brush in the distance.

Chance laughed and called, “He's lit out! Reckon we blistered him a little?”

“I hope so,” Ace said.

From deeper in the woods, Porter called, “Is . . . is it safe to come out now?”

“Stay right where you are, Will,” Ace told him. “We want to make sure he's gone and not just trying to pull some sort of trick.”

They waited and listened for a good five minutes before Ace was willing to accept that the bushwhacker had fled. He and Chance went to get their horses and told Porter to come with them.

As they emerged onto the road, Ace looked around warily. Everything seemed peaceful again.

Chance had shoved Porter's big revolver behind his belt. He pulled it out and put it in the carpetbag again.

“I think that's enough practicing for now,” he said dryly. “I'd rather put some distance between us and this place. Will, this was the first time you'd ever been shot at, wasn't it?”

“How . . . how did you know that?”

Chance chuckled and pointed, said, “By the seat of your britches.”

Porter flushed and said, “You know I sat down in the mud when I fired that gun. That's all this is.”

“Sure it is.”

“As a matter of fact, this was indeed my first experience at being under fire, but I think I acquitted myself rather well. I didn't lose my head, did I?”

“No, you didn't,” Ace agreed. “You moved quick and did everything we told you. Keep that up and you might live through this.”

“You make it sound almost as if you expect us to come under attack again.”

“There's a good chance of it,” Ace said. “Who do you think was shooting at us?”

“Why . . . some highwayman out to kill us and rob our corpses, no doubt.”

“What about Hudson?” Chance asked.

Porter's eyes got big again as he said, “Do you really think the man would stoop to murder?”

“Maybe he's worried about you and Evelyn,” Ace said. “Could be he was keeping an eye on you and saw us leave Austin this morning, headed toward Fredericksburg. He could have gotten ahead of us and set up this ambush.”

“He might not have been trying to kill you,” Chance added. “Maybe he just wanted to scare you off, make you give up and turn back.”

Ace said, “I don't know. Those bullets were coming mighty close for warning shots.”

“Yeah, but at that range, it's hard to cut things too fine.”

Ace shrugged and said, “It's possible.”

Porter looked back and forth between them and exclaimed, “Good Lord, you're both so casual about someone nearly killing you!”

“It's not like this is the first time it's happened,” Chance said.

“And he missed, so there's no point in getting worked up about it,” Ace said. “No matter who that bushwhacker was or why he was shooting at us, the most important thing is that none of us were hit.”

“Yes, I can see that,” Porter said, nodding. “I'm not sure I'll ever be as blasé about a brush with death as you two are, though.”

The three of them mounted up and rode on. Ace and Chance flanked Porter now, and their eyes never stopped moving as they watched the slopes around them. Ace didn't think it was likely the bushwhacker would make another try right away, but there was no guarantee of that. He hoped that one of the bullets he and Chance had thrown at the man might have tagged him, so he wouldn't be interested in any more ambushes, but there was no way of knowing that, either.

Late in the afternoon, they came to a settlement along the banks of a river that twisted through the hills. A sign at the edge of town announced that the place was called Johnson City. One of the first buildings Ace saw was a stage line office.

The stagecoach from Austin hadn't overtaken them during the day, but it probably wasn't very far behind them now. Ace pointed out the stage station to the other two and said, “The coach will probably stop there for the night.”

Eagerly, Porter said, “So I'll have an opportunity to speak to Evelyn and persuade her to abandon her plan to marry Hudson. I might convince her to turn back before she even reaches Fredericksburg!”

“Yeah, if you think that'll do any good,” Chance said.

“Hope springs eternal!” Porter cried.

A low rumble sounded. To the surprise of Ace and Chance, the storm had lurked in the west all day without moving in to drench the already soaked landscape any more. The thunder meant that respite might not last much longer, though, and so did a sudden gust of cold wind.

“Let's find a stable for these horses and a place to get in out of the rain if it starts to pour,” Ace suggested.

There was a stable on the other side of the street from the stagecoach station. The garrulous old man who ran it introduced himself as Carlton. He gushed over what fine horses Ace's chestnut and Chance's cream-colored gelding were and told them that the Pedernales Hotel, named after the nearby river, was the best hotel in town.

“Of course, it's also the
only
hotel,” he added with a chuckle. “But they'll take good care of you there. One of my brothers runs the place. Got a fine barbecue pit, too, so you'll want to eat in the dining room.”

“You happen to know what time the stage from Austin gets in?” Ace asked.

“I know when it's scheduled to come in, since my other brother manages the station. Ought to be close to on time, since the good weather's held today. I sure didn't expect it to. I been givin' some thought to how maybe I ought to start buildin' me a big boat.”

“So what time does the stagecoach get here?” Chance asked.

“Oh, I didn't say, did I?” Carlton took a turnip watch out of his pocket, flipped it open, stared at it, and said, “Right about now. Fact is, I hear it comin'.”

So did Ace and Chance. They turned toward the stable doors as the stagecoach came bumping and splashing along the street.

Porter hurried out, unable to contain his eagerness. The brothers trailed him. Across the street, the Concord coach had rocked to a halt in front of the stage line office. A couple of hostlers came out of the barn to tend to the team. A man in a white shirt, vest, string tie, and sleeve garters emerged from the office. He was probably the stableman's brother, the station manager, thought Ace.

The driver and guard climbed down from the box. The driver grasped the door latch, twisted it, and swung the door open.

“Johnson City, folks,” he announced. “We'll be over-nightin' here. The roads ain't in good enough shape these days to risk travelin' in the dark.”

Porter came to a stop a few yards away and waited with a look of breathless anticipation on his face for the passengers to emerge. Ace and Chance came up behind him.

Two men in cheap suits got off the stage, both of them obviously traveling salesmen. Porter began to look worried.

But then Evelyn Channing appeared in the coach's door like a blond vision, and with a glad cry, Porter started toward her. She saw him coming and paused, a look of complete surprise on her face.

Suddenly a hard voice ordered, “Not another step, Porter!” and the command was punctuated by the unmistakable metallic sound of a revolver's hammer being eared back.