Those Jensen Boys! (8 page)

Figuring that Wheeler and Buckhorn were keeping an eye on them from the hotel as they crossed the street, Ace and Chance went into the saloon and had a beer, although they didn't hunt up the head bartender and tell him about Buckhorn's offer to buy the first round. Once they were finished, they sauntered over to a side door and let themselves out.

“Let's get back to the stagecoach office,” Ace said. “I want to talk to the girls and their pa and make sure they're all right.”

“And that Mr. Corcoran isn't about to do something loco again,” Chance added.

Even though they had never been in Palisade before, the town wasn't so big that they couldn't find their way through the back alleys to the rear of the stagecoach office. Ace knocked on the building's back door, and a moment later, Emily swung it open, standing with the coach gun her father had taken to the hotel. She looked like she was primed to blow a hole through somebody.

When she saw the Jensen brothers, she lowered the weapon. “Oh, it's you two.”

“And we're mighty glad to see you, too,” Chance said with a grin.

Emily stepped back and motioned with her head for them to come in.

“There you are.” Bess stood beside a desk. “We wondered what had happened to you, but it seemed like we needed to get Pa back here. . . .”

Her father sat in a chair, his shoulders slumped and his head hanging down. An uncorked bottle and an empty glass sat on the desk next to his elbow.

“Marshal Wheeler and that fella Buckhorn just wanted to give us a little trouble before they let us go,” Ace explained. “They wanted to spook us and convince us we shouldn't try to help you.”

“Joe Buckhorn is enough to spook anybody,” Bess said with a little shiver. “He's a cold-blooded killer.”

Emily said, “It looks like they didn't manage to scare you off.”

“We're pretty stubborn,” Chance said. “We don't give up easy”—he smiled again at the blonde—“no matter what we're trying to do.”

She rolled her eyes, turned away, and placed the coach gun back in a rack on the wall with a couple other double-barreled shotguns.

At the desk, Corcoran drew in a deep breath and then lifted his head with an obvious effort. He looked at Ace and Chance. “I'm sorry. I was rude to you boys earlier. I . . . I appreciate everything you've done to help my daughters. They told me all about it.” He forced himself to his feet and held out his hand. “I'm Brian Corcoran.”

“Ace Jensen.” He shook hands with the older man.

“And I'm Chance Jensen.” He gripped Corcoran's hand, too.

Corcoran nodded toward the empty bottle. “I'd offer you a drink, but we seem to be out.”

“There was only a little in it,” Bess said quickly. “Just enough for a bracer. Pa needed it.”

“No, what I need is for the Good Lord to strike Samuel Eagleton dead, him and all his hired guns.” Corcoran sighed. “But I don't think that's going to happen. God doesn't seem to take much of an interest in what happens in a hellhole like Palisade.”

“The town doesn't look that bad to me,” Ace said. “Maybe the people who live here just need to be more like you, Mr. Corcoran, and stand up to Eagleton.”

“And get themselves killed? That's happened before, you know. There were several smaller mines around here, starting out. They came in right after Eagleton made his strike. One by one their owners got scared off . . . except for the ones who died in cave-ins and so-called accidental explosions and the like.”

“That sounds like murder to me. Something the law ought to take an interest in.”

“No way to prove it,” Corcoran said glumly. “And when you're talking about crooked lawmen like Claude Wheeler or incompetent ones like Jed Kaiser over in Bleak Creek . . . well, it doesn't take long to realize you can't count on the law for much of anything around here.”

Emily said, “Maybe not, but we can't just give up, Pa. This stage line is your dream. We have to keep fighting for it.”

Corcoran's head jerked up and his eyes blazed with anger. “We Corcorans have never given up,” he snapped. “We've always been fighters, ever since we came over from the ould sod. But now—” The momentary anger seemed to go out of him, leaving him deflated again. “Now that it may cost you girls your lives, it's just not worth it anymore.”

“You can't think of it like that, Pa,” Bess said. “Emily and I know what the risks are. You know we've always been willing to help. That's why we volunteered to take the run to Bleak Creek.”

“It's not a matter of whether or not you're willing,” Corcoran insisted. “I won't stand by and watch the two of you get hurt.” He nodded slowly but decisively as if his mind were made up. “Sam Eagleton gets what he wants. I'll go see him tomorrow and find out if he's still willing to buy the line. Chances are he won't pay as much as he offered before, but I don't care about that anymore.”

Bess and Emily stared at him as if they couldn't believe what they were hearing. Bess looked like she was about to cry, and Emily seemed to be on the verge of exploding in anger.

Ace and Chance looked at each other. Chance nodded, and Ace said, “Hold on a minute, Mr. Corcoran. I know you don't want your daughters risking their lives taking the stagecoach through anymore . . . but how do you feel about Chance and me giving it a try?”

The two young women looked at him in surprise, but Corcoran frowned and asked, “Are you saying you and your brother want to work for me, lad?”

“You need a driver and a guard,” Chance said. “There are two of us.”

“Have either of you ever actually
driven
a stagecoach?”

“Well, no,” Ace admitted. “But if—” He stopped as Bess glared at him.

“But if what? If a
girl
can do it? Is that what you were about to say, Ace?”

To tell the truth, it was, but he wasn't going to confess that, not with Bess staring daggers at him. “No, what I was about to say was that if Bess could give me a few pointers, I'll bet I could do it.”

“And I know how to use a shotgun just fine, so no problems there,” Chance added.

Bess said, “Handling a team isn't easy, especially on a road like the one leading down from Timberline Pass.”

The thought of taking a stagecoach down that zigzag road high above the valley was enough to make him nervous, but he said, “I'm willing to give it a try.”

Corcoran scratched his bearded jaw. “Let me think it over. The next run isn't scheduled for a couple days. That gives us some time.”

Emily said, “I think it's the craziest idea I've ever heard. You won't let us do it, your own daughters, but you'll trust the future of the line to a couple complete strangers?”

“Ah, but they're not strangers,” Corcoran pointed out. “You and Bess know them. And there's one more advantage to hiring them.”

“What's that?” Bess asked.

“When Eagleton has them killed, I'll be mighty sorry . . . but it won't break my heart like it would if it was you two girls.”

 

 

Joe Buckhorn had told Corcoran that the boss had turned in for the night. It was a convenient fiction. Rose Demarcus hadn't come down yet from Eagleton's second-floor suite. She always gave him a smile when she passed through the lobby on the way back to the house she ran.

Buckhorn knew Rose was just having a little sport with him—she was a lovely, middling-rich woman who had no real interest in an ugly half-breed gunfighter—but she was so blasted beautiful he always enjoyed their brief interaction anyway.

Knowing that she was still inside made him a little nervous as he approached the suite's door. He knew the boss wanted to be informed of what had happened, but he wouldn't like being disturbed while he was with Rose.

Of course, there was a good chance they were already finished with whatever they were doing in the suite's bedroom and were in the sitting room, enjoying a glass of brandy. Eagleton could even be smoking one of his expensive cigars.

Buckhorn came to a stop at the door and raised his left hand. He hesitated just a second longer, then rapped softly on the panel. The summons was quiet enough that if Eagleton and Rose were still in the bedroom, they wouldn't hear it, yet Buckhorn could honestly say he had tried to let the boss know what was going on.

The response from inside the suite was instant. Eagleton said in a loud, annoyed voice, “What is it? Who's out there?”

“Joe Buckhorn, boss,” the gunfighter replied.

Eagleton knew Buckhorn wouldn't disturb him if it wasn't important. His tone was slightly mollified as he said, “Come on in.”

Buckhorn opened the door and stepped into the opulently furnished sitting room. Eagleton stood next to a beautiful cherrywood sideboard pouring amber liquid from a crystal decanter into a snifter. He was a short man, mostly bald and almost as wide as he was tall, or at least that was the way he looked in the silk dressing gown he wore. He swirled the liquor around and then took a sip before he asked, “What is it, Joe?”

Buckhorn couldn't help but notice that Rose wasn't in the sitting room. The door to the bedroom was closed, so he supposed she was in there. Getting dressed, maybe. Or still lounging in the big four-poster bed . . .

Buckhorn shoved those images out of his head. “The Corcoran girls got back into town a little while ago.”

Eagleton took another sip of the brandy. “I thought they were going to have trouble on their way back from Bleak Creek.”

“They did . . . but they had help from a couple kids who like to stick their noses in other people's business.”

Eagleton scowled. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Two young fellas named Jensen. The coach was wrecked, but thanks to them, Bess and Emily got out alive.”

As Buckhorn spoke, something nagged at his brain. It took him a second to realize that it was relief. As odd as it sounded, considering that Sam Eagleton paid his wages, he was glad the Corcoran girls hadn't been killed. He had gunned down plenty of men . . . hell, he had shot a few unlucky ones in the back . . . but something inside him didn't like the idea of killing women. Especially young, pretty women.

He would never say anything about that to Eagleton. And if the boss ever gave him a direct order to handle something like that personally . . .

Well, Buckhorn hoped it never came to that. So far, his job had been to see to it that Samuel Eagleton remained alive, and he'd been good at it. Some of the other men had been given the job of handling the Corcoran problem, and that was just fine with him.

Eagleton was too upset to continue sipping the brandy. He tossed back what was left in the snifter and set it down on the sideboard. “You say Corcoran lost the coach, anyway?”

“That's what I was told,” Buckhorn replied. “And the team, too, of course.”

“Well, that's something, anyway.”

“And when he left the hotel, he sounded like he was just about ready to give up.”

Eagle stiffened. “Corcoran came here?”

“Yelling and waving a coach gun around,” Buckhorn said with a nod.

Eagleton stared at him for a few seconds, then burst out, “You fool! You damn fool!”

Buckhorn was a little taken aback. “Boss, he never got anywhere near the suite—”

“That's not what I'm talking about! You had a chance to kill him, and you didn't. For God's sake, Buckhorn, what were you thinking? A man busts into my hotel and threatens me, and you don't gun him down? You even had Starkey and Byers with you. Corcoran wouldn't have stood a chance. It would have been self-defense, everything legal and aboveboard.”

Especially with your own pet lawman in the marshal's office, thought Buckhorn. Claude Wheeler would never question anything Eagleton or any of Eagleton's men told him.

“I'm sorry, boss. I didn't think of it. Corcoran's daughters were with him—”

“And you didn't want to kill a man in front of his children? That never stopped you when you were working as a regulator up in Montana Territory.”

Buckhorn struggled to keep a tight rein on his temper. He'd been tempted at times to tell Eagleton to go to hell, saddle his horse, and put Palisade behind him. The problem with that was that Eagleton paid so damn well. Unlike a lot of rich men, he wasn't miserly with his money . . . only with power.

Before either of them could say anything else, the bedroom door opened and Rose came out. She wore a simple blue dress that she managed to make look elegant and expensive and a lace-trimmed shawl around her shoulders. Due to the elevation, the evenings could get pretty chilly, even in the summer. Not a bit of the sleek, dark brown hair that curved around her face was out of place.

As she smiled at Buckhorn, he felt his heart slug harder in his chest. The small scar that just touched her upper lip on the right side of her mouth made her stunningly beautiful, a tiny bit of imperfection that made a man realize just how lovely the rest of her was.

Buckhorn was glad to know he wasn't the only man she affected that way. Dozens of men in Palisade would have cut off an arm if she'd asked them to. They had to content themselves with the girls who worked in the house she ran, though. The only man she went with was Samuel Eagleton.

“Hello, Joseph,” she said in the husky voice that drove most gents half-crazy.

Buckhorn touched the brim of his bowler hat. “Miss Demarcus. It's good to see you, as always.”

Rose pulled on a pair of soft leather gloves as she turned to Eagleton. She wasn't a particularly tall woman, but she had an inch or two advantage in height over him. She leaned forward, kissed him on the cheek, and murmured, “Good night, Samuel.”