A Lone Star Christmas

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“What are they doing?” Lovejoy asked.

“Looks like they’re getting ready to fix dinner,” Doyle said. “Should we stop them?”

“No, let ’em cook,” Lovejoy said. “After we take care of the others, we’ll be hungry. Might as well let them cook for us.”

The others laughed, and Lovejoy put his finger to his lips. “Shhh,” he said. “We can’t let them know that we are here.”

Rebecca moved steadily toward the wood line, picking up a piece of wood here, a stick there, discarding some and keeping others as if she were really gathering wood. She wanted to break and run, and had to fight with every ounce of her being not to do so.

Finally she reached the edge of the woods, went in, came back out, went in, and came back out again as if merely searching for the best pieces. Then, the last time she went in, she continued on until she was sure she was deep enough not to be seen. She dropped the wood she had gathered and began walking rapidly until she reached the top of the hill. Once there, she came out of the woods onto flat ground that was easier, and started running.

Rebecca ran at least two miles before she stopped running, then she walked until she regained her breath. That was when she saw the dust of the approaching herd, and that gave her the energy to run again.

Tom was riding point when he saw a young woman running toward them. Realizing at once that it was Rebecca, he urged his horse into a gallop and closed the gap between them in a few seconds.

“Rebecca, what is it? What is wrong?”

“Ambush,” Rebecca said, panting so hard that she could scarcely get the word out.

“My God! You were ambushed?”

“No,” Rebecca said. “You will be!”

“Get on,” Tom said, reaching down to grab her hand and help her mount the horse behind him.

Tom galloped back toward the herd. By now some of the others had seen what happened, and they were riding out to meet them. Once there, he helped Rebecca down.

“Water,” Rebecca said. “Please.”

Tom gave Rebecca his canteen and she drank deeply from it. By the time she finished drinking, she had recovered her breath enough to be able to talk.

“Seth Lovejoy is waiting on the other side of the river,” Rebecca said. “I know this man. I am sure he is waiting to get revenge.”

“Is he all alone?” Clay asked.

“No. He has some men with him, but I don’t know how many.”

“What about Sally and Maria?” Smoke asked anxiously.

“They are still there, preparing to cook the meal as if nothing is wrong. “Sally is the one who sent me to warn you.”

“Lovejoy doesn’t know he’s been seen?” Clay asked.

“I don’t think so.”

“Did he see you leave?” Duff asked.

“No. I pretended to be collecting firewood until I reached the woods. Then when I was deep enough that I knew I couldn’t be seen, I started running.”

“Good for you,” Falcon said.

“That was Sally’s idea,” Rebecca said.

“So, what do we do now?” Clay asked.

“Clay, you, Dusty, Tom, Dalton, and Rebecca stay with the herd,” Smoke said. “This the kind of thing that Matt, Falcon, Duff and I should handle. We will take care of Lovejoy.”

“Besides which, I’m the one he is after anyway,” Matt said.

“Are you sure you don’t want us to come along?” Clay asked. “You heard Rebecca. He has some men with him.”

“And there’s no telling how many he has,” Dusty added. “Lovejoy is a very rich and very powerful man. He could have thirty or forty men with him. If you ask me, we should all go.”

“Suppose he does have thirty men,” Matt said. “If all of us go to meet him, that would be his thirty against our seven. What do you think about those odds?”

“Not much,” Dusty admitted. “But thirty against seven is better than thirty against four.”

“Not necessarily,” Tom said. “I can see Matt’s point. According to Euripides, ten men wisely led are worth a hundred without a head.”

“You rip a what?” Dusty asked.

“Euripides. He was a Greek playwright about four hundred years before the birth of Christ,” Tom explained.

Falcon laughed. “Tom, is there anything you don’t know?”

“If there is anything Tom doesn’t know about, I don’t know what it might be,” Clay said. “He’s like one of those books, what do you call them, that has all the information in them?”

“That would be an encyclopedia,” Duff said.

“Yeah, he is like one of them.”

“Well, both Tom and Euripides are right,” Smoke said. “It would be best for just the four of us to go. Trust me, we’ve had a lot more experience in this sort of thing than the rest of you.”

“I think I should go,” Tom said.

“No, you would just ... ,” Smoke started but Tom held up his hand.

“Hear me out. I don’t mean go with you. I mean I should go to the wagons, just sort of ride up as if bringing some sort of message from Clay. That will do two things. That will make them think that we aren’t on to them, and while they are busy watching me, you four can do whatever it is you have in mind.”

“Take me with you,” Rebecca said.

“No, there’s no sense in putting you in danger again,” Tom said.

“They saw me leave,” Rebecca said. “If they don’t see me come back, but they see you ride up, they may get suspicious.”

“I hate to admit it, Tom, but Rebecca has a point,” Smoke said.

“All right, I’ll take you with me.”

“I’ll get you another horse,” Dalton offered.

“No,” Tom said. “If they saw her leave on foot, she needs to return on foot.” Tom remounted, then held his hand down to help her up. This time he slid to the back of the saddle and she sat in front.

“We’ll start back first,” Tom said. “They’ll see us and while they are trying to figure out what is going on, you four men will have freedom of movement.”

“Clay, you know this river,” Smoke said. “Is there another ford close by?”

Clay shook his head. “The nearest ford is about ten miles southeast,” he said.

“That ain’t entirely true,” Dusty offered.

“What do you mean? Do you know a closer ford?” Smoke asked.

“Not one that a herd of cattle can use. But I know one that a man on horseback can cross. Only thing is, even on your horse it’s going to get you wet about halfway up to your knees. And that water is going to be really cold right now.”

“Never mind that. How far away from the cattle ford is it?”

“It’s about a mile downstream.”

“That’s too close,” Matt said. “They could see us.”

“No, they can’t,” Dusty said, smiling.

“What do you mean?”

“Here, let me draw you a map on the ground. This will tell you how to get there. And I can also show you how it is that you won’t be seen.”

Finding a stick, Dusty scratched a map in the dirt. He drew the river, then showed a bow.

“See here?” he pointed out. “You’ll come across the river here. They’ll be waiting here. You’ll not only be across the river, you’ll be behind them because of the way the river bows here.”

“Any way to tell where this ford is, exactly?” Falcon asked.

“Yes, right at the edge of the water there are three large rocks, all lined up, flat on top and stair-stepped down from the biggest, to the next biggest. You can’t miss it.”

When Tom had picked her up the first time, Rebecca had merely ridden bareback behind the saddle. But that was only for a hundred yards or so. This was to be a much longer ride, so she was in the saddle with him, and as she knew it would be, it was a tight fit. She was pressed back against him so close that she could feel the warmth of his body, the hard ripple of his muscles, and the presence of his breath on her neck. He had to put his arms around her to hold the reins, and as she felt his strong arms on either side of her, a warm tingling passed through her.

The rhythmic motion of the horse, the closeness of his body behind her, and something else, the pressure of the saddlehorn against her pelvis, caused ripples of pleasure to move through her body. And yet, the pleasures she felt were bittersweet. Though she had professed her love for him, he had rejected it, and in doing so, rejected her as well.

“Rebecca,” Tom said. Her name on his tongue was charged with what? Passion? Remorse?

“Yes, Tom?” Rebecca’s voice was expectant, hopeful.

“I—uh,” he paused for a long time, as if trying to find the words. Then, in what was an obvious retreat from what he was feeling, he continued on in an entirely different vein.

“When we get there, I’ll let you down just this side of the woods. Then I’ll wait until you’ve come through on the other side before I appear. Don’t forget to carry some wood with you when you go back.”

“All right,” Rebecca replied, swallowing her disappointment.

Tom felt Rebecca trembling against him—or was he trembling against her? He had not experienced a craving this intense since Martha had died. And yet he dare not give in to it. He had made a commitment once, and what had it gotten him? A lifetime of remorse and pain.

His arms were around her now, holding the reins to be sure, but they were around her, and he could feel her against him, full body-to-body contact. Oh, how he wanted to pull her against him, kiss her neck, taste her lips. It took the last reserve of his strength to fight off that urge. He enjoyed what he could of the connection between them until her voice interrupted the dizzying pleasure he was experiencing.

“Here,” Rebecca said.

“What?

“This is the edge of the woods,” Rebecca said. I had better get down here.”

“This is the best place?”

“Yes.”

Tom put his hands on her sides and lifted her up and out of the saddle. Then, bending over, he set her down on the ground as easily as if she were a child. For a moment she looked up at him, putting her soul into her gaze. He leaned down and the distance between their lips closed. She pursed her lips, waiting for the kiss that was to come.

Suddenly a quail darted up beside them, the whir of his wings startling them both, and the mood was broken.

“You had better hurry,” Tom said.

“Yes.”

Tom sat his horse as Rebecca disappeared into the woods. He waited a few minutes before he rode ahead. When he crested the hill, he saw that Rebecca had already returned to the encampment, so he knew the others would be expecting him. He rode slowly and steadily toward the camp. Sally came out to greet him when he arrived.

The other side of the river

“Hey, who is that?” Morrell asked.

Doyle moved to where he could look over the berm that was providing them with both cover and concealment.

Doyle chuckled. “You ought to recognize him, Morrell,” he said. “He’s the one that proved you was lyin’ in the hearing. His name is Tom something.”

“Yeah,” Morrell said. “Yeah, that is him, ain’t it? Well, I’ll just settle accounts between me an’ him right now.”

Morrell jacked a round into his Winchester and raised it to his shoulders. Seeing him, Lovejoy reached out and grabbed the rifle from him.

“What the hell are you doing?” Lovejoy asked.

“That’s the son of a bitch that called me a liar in court,” Morrell said.

“If you shoot him now it will give us away. I’m only interested in one man, and that’s Matt Jensen, the one who killed Frank. Now if you can’t go along with that, then you can just leave now. Without the one hundred dollars.”

“No, no, that’s all right. I reckon there will be plenty of time to kill that fella after we kill Matt Jensen.”

“Where are the others?” Doyle asked. “Seems to me like those wagons have been there long enough now.”

“Maybe that’s what this fella, Tom, come up to tell them,” Morrell suggested. “Like as not he come up to tell ’em that the others would be along directly.”

Back at the herd, Dusty was the first to see a rider coming toward them.

“Clay, we got a galloper coming in,” Dusty called.

Pulling their guns, Clay and Dusty both rode toward the rider. The rider held one hand in the air as he approached.

“Is this the herd Matt Jensen is with?” the rider asked.

“Yeah, it is. What of it?” Clay asked.

“My name is Billy Lovejoy.”

“Lovejoy?” Dusty said. “Ain’t that the name of the man Matt kilt?”

“Yes,” Billy said. “Frank Lovejoy was my brother.”

“So what are you doing here? Have you come for revenge?” Clay asked.

“No, on the contrary. I’m here to warn you about my Pa. He is planning to set up an ambush at the Cimarron River.”

“We know,” Dusty said.

“You know?” Billy asked in surprise. “How do you know?”

“They were spotted on the other side of the river.”

“So, what are you going to do now?”

“We are already doing it. We sent someone to deal with it.”

“Let me go to my father,” Billy said. “Let me see if I can talk him out of it.”

“Why didn’t you try to talk him out of it before he came down here?” Clay asked.

“I did try. He didn’t listen to me.”

“What makes you think he would listen to you now?”

“I don’t know, maybe he won’t. But I feel like I have to try.”

“What do you think, Dusty?” Clay asked.

“How do we know he isn’t comin’ to warn his Pa that we are on to him?” Dusty asked.

“I’m not,” Billy said. “Please, you must let me go.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t take the chance,” Clay said.

Suddenly, and unexpectedly, Billy urged his horse into a gallop. By the time Clay and Dusty recovered, then got their horses turned around, Billy was sixty feet away. Clay aimed his pistol.

“Better not, Clay!” Dusty shouted. “If this herd gets spooked into a stampede now, with only the three of us, we’ll never get it stopped!”

Clay lowered his pistol without firing.

“I think maybe the fella came to do just what he said he came to do,” Dusty said. “And if he can get there in time to stop any shootin’, well that would be better all around, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes,” Clay agreed. “But I doubt he will get there in time.”

“This looks like the place,” Smoke said, pointing to three rocks which, as Dusty had indicated, were stair-stepping down.

Matt walked down to the edge of the water and stuck his hand into it. “Damn, it’s cold,” he said. “Couldn’t we just come back in the summertime?”

“Americans are always complaining about the cold,” Duff said. “If you want cold, sure ’n you should come to Scotland.” Duff rode down into the water. “Och!! ‘Tis cold!” he said, and the others laughed.

All four rode down into the river and, just as Dusty had promised, the water was deep enough to come up on their legs. The water was cold, cold enough that the horses didn’t have to be prodded to cross quickly. Fortunately, the ford wasn’t too difficult.

When Smoke, Falcon, and Duff got across, they looked around to see Matt coming behind them. Unlike them, Matt had not kept his feet in the stirrups. Instead, he lifted them up and wrapped them around the saddlehorn. As a result, unlike the others, he didn’t have cold, wet legs.

“Would you look at that?” Falcon said. “What’s the matter, can’t take a little cold?”

“You just wish you had thought of it,” Matt said. “Let’s face it, sometimes being young and innovative counts more than experience.”

“Let’s find them and get this done,” Smoke said.

Deadly serious now, the four men quit teasing and went to work. Because of the way the river made a big U right here, when they crossed they were not only on the same side as the ambushers, they were behind them as well.

Ground-tying the horses, the four men snaked their Winchesters out of their saddle-sheaths then moved quickly, on foot, until they came up behind the would-be ambushers. Smoke counted nineteen of them. All were well-armed, and all were in position behind a berm that would shield them from observation and protect them from return fire.

That is, if the return fire was coming from the other side. In this case, they were on the same side of the river with them, and they were behind them, which meant that the cover and concealment the Back Trail riders had picked for themselves were absolutely useless against Smoke, Matt, Falcon, and Duff.

“Where the hell are they? What’s takin’ ’em so long?” one of the Back Trail riders asked, his question clearly heard by Smoke and the others as they came up on them.

“Maybe them Black Angus cows just take longer to drive than any other cow,” one of the others suggested.

“I don’t know, I’m beginnin’ to get a bad feeling about this. I think we should just ride across the river, kill them three women and that fella that’s with them, then go out and meet the herd.”

“No need to go out looking for us. We are right here,” Smoke called out to them.

“What the hell?” Seth Lovejoy shouted, whirling around to see Smoke and the others standing about fifty yards behind them. The first thing Seth Lovejoy noticed was that the four men behind them were at the outer edge of pistol range. On the other hand, they were well within rifle range, and all four the men were holding Winchester rifles.

“They’re behind us!” Lovejoy shouted. “Shoot them! Kill them!”

Duff raised his rifle and with the first shot took down Morrell, who was the only one of the bunch who had a rifle in his hands.

The others began firing their pistols. Smoke, Matt, Falcon, and Duff could hear the bullets whizzing by. It wasn’t that the pistols couldn’t shoot that far, it was that it took an extremely skilled marksman to be accurate at that range.

“Lovejoy is mine,” Matt said, and even as he spoke, Lovejoy went down.

Birds and animals ran in terror as the gunshots roared. Gunsmoke rolled over the ground between them. Although Smoke and Matt had been in many gunfights, only Falcon and Duff had actually experienced war, Falcon during the Civil War and again during the Indian campaigns when he was with Custer. Duff had fought in the Battle of Tel-el-Kebir in Egypt as a member of the famed Black Watch Regiment. And the conditions here, with the number of men engaged, the sound of multiple shots being fired, and the billowing cloud of gunsmoke that rolled across the field, gave them both a sense of déjà vu.

Cartridges banged and bullets whizzed as the battle continued. Then Doyle realized that Lovejoy was down. And not only that, the four men shooting at them had cut the number of Back Trail riders in half, without sustaining one casualty. Doyle threw his pistol down and put his hands up.

“Stop shooting!” he called to the others. “Stop shooting and get your hands up in the air!”

“I ain’t givin’ up to those sons of bitches,” one of the others said.

“Yeah, you will,” still another said, and this time he was pointing his pistol at the protestor. “Because if you don’t, I’ll shoot you myself.”

“Jensen!” Doyle shouted, for Matt Jensen was the only name he knew. “Jensen! Stop your shootin’! We give up! We give up!”

Matt, Smoke, Falcon, and Duff came walking toward them, all four men holding their rifles at their waists, but pointing toward Doyle and what was left of the Back Trail riders.

“What was this all about?” Smoke asked. “Were you planning on taking our herd?”

“No, no,” Doyle said. “We ain’t cattle rustlers.”

“I see. Just murderers,” Smoke said. “Is that it?”

Doyle didn’t answer.

“Mr. Lovejoy was wantin’ to get revenge for you killin’ his boy,” one of the others said.

“That’s what this was all about? Revenge? For all of you?” Matt asked. “You,” he said, pointing to Doyle. “You were there. You saw what happened. I mean, what really happened, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, I seen it,” Doyle said.

“Whose fault was it?”

“It was Frank’s fault,” Doyle admitted.

“Did you ever tell Lovejoy the truth?” Matt asked.

“Yeah, I told him. But it didn’t make any difference to him. He wanted revenge anyway.”

“What about the rest of you? Was Frank Lovejoy such a friend of yours that you all wanted revenge?”

“I didn’t even like the son of a bitch,” one of the other men said. “I was doin’ it for the money. Lovejoy said he would give us a hunnert dollars apiece if we come with him.”

“Did you get your hundred dollars?” Falcon asked.

“No. We was supposed to get it when we went back and the killin’ was done.”

“So, you didn’t get your money and you got ten or more killed. Wasn’t such a good bargain, was it?” Duff asked.

At that moment two riders crossed the ford. Neither Smoke nor the others recognized the rider in front, but they all recognized Tom Whitman, who was riding behind. Tom had his pistol drawn, so that it was obvious that the rider in front was his prisoner.

“Who is this?” Falcon asked.

“This is Seth Lovejoy’s son,” Tom said.

“Billy? What are you doing here?” Doyle asked. “I thought your Pa said you wasn’t going to come.”

Seeing his father, Billy dismounted and walked over to look down at him. Squatting down, he put his fingers on his father’s neck, then shook his head.

“He’s dead,” Billy said.

“How long is this vengeance trail?” Matt asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Your Pa died avenging his son. Do you have revenge in mind too?”

“No,” Billy said. “In fact, when I learned that Pa really had come out here to do this—this foolish thing, I came out here to try and stop him. But I got here too late.”

“He’s tellin’ the truth,” Doyle said. “He didn’t want none of this from the first.”

“Billy, is it?” Smoke asked.

“Yes,” Billy replied.

“Take them home,” Smoke said. He pointed to Doyle. “What’s your name?”

“Doyle. Marcus Doyle.”

“Doyle, if we see you again, you will be the first one we kill.”

“You ain’t goin’ to see us again,” Doyle promised.

“Take the bodies with you,” Smoke said. “As a reminder.”

Billy, Doyle, and the others draped the bodies over the backs of their horses and started back. They rode across the ford, then passed the women at their encampment.

“How long before the herd comes up?” Sally asked as they rode past her.

“We’ll send them on,” Smoke said. “I think Falcon and I will ride with these scum until they are well clear of the herd.”

After the cowboys had their lunch, Clay took the herd on across the river because there was ample water and grass, then made the decision to camp there overnight.