A Death Valley Christmas

by William W. Johnstone, J.A. Johnstone

Genres: Action & Adventure; Historical Fiction; Westerns

Synopsis

A JENSEN CHRISTMAS SHOWDOWN



A JOHNSTONE TRADITION



Ace and Chance Jensen usually spend Christmas at the Sugarloaf Ranch. But this year, the brothers are heading to Death Valley to claim Chance's prize in a poker game: the deed to a silver mine. Sure, the mine is probably dried up and worthless, but what they don't realize is that half the deed belongs to a ruthless outlaw named Foxx, a rich vein of silver hasn't been tapped yet, and another wealthy mine owner is trying to crush the competition—by killing every miner in the valley . . .



The Jensen boys didn't plan on a Christmas gunfight. But when they show up at the mine—and learn that a charity worker is using the silver to fund an orphanage—Ace and Chance can't help but get into the holiday spirit. 'Tis the season of giving, after all. But instead of gifts, they're swapping bullets. And instead of Santa Claus, there's a surprise visitor coming to town. A man named Luke Jensen—Ace and Chance's gunslinging father—and he's here to spread peace and joy. With a double-barreled dose of holiday cheer—gunsmoke.

Release date: October 26, 2021

Publisher: Pinnacle Books

Print pages: 304

Sample

“I’ll take two cards,” Chance Jensen said.

The man directly opposite him at the table smiled as he dealt the cards. “You must have the makings of a pretty good hand.”

“We’ll find out, won’t we?”

Ace Jensen stood a few feet away, with his back to the bar and his elbows resting on the hardwood. The half-empty mug of beer he’d been nursing sat next to his right elbow.

From where he was, he couldn’t see his brother’s cards. Chance might have the makings of a good hand, as the other man had said—or he might be bluffing.

With Chance, anything was possible.

Ace and Chance were twins, but not identical. Ace was an inch taller, twenty pounds heavier, and had a rumpled thatch of dark hair under his pushed-back hat. Chance’s hair was sand colored. He wore a flat-crowned brown hat that went well with his tan suit, white shirt, and brown ribbon tie. Ace preferred range clothes: jeans and a denim jacket over a faded red bib-front shirt.

Both brothers packed guns. Ace carried a Colt .45 on his right hip, in a well-worn holster. Chance had a Smith & Wesson in a cross-draw rig under his coat.

They had ridden into the California settlement of Los Angeles earlier today. It was a fast-growing community. The railroad had arrived a few years earlier and brought a lot of new businesses with it.

However, this saloon on the old plaza was a throwback to the days when Los Angeles was a sleepy little hamlet that served the needs of the cattle ranchers in the nearby hills and valleys. The bar wasn’t crowded. Customers sat at about half the tables. The poker game in which Chance played was the only one going on.

In one corner, an elderly Mexican sat on a stool and strummed a guitar’s strings as he played a quiet tune. A few young women in low-cut gowns drifted around the room, delivering drinks and visiting with the customers.

One of those saloon girls came up on Ace’s right side and smiled at him.

“Hello, cowboy,” she said. “You look like you could use a drink.”

Ace tipped his head toward the beer mug beside his elbow. “Got one.”

“Well, you could buy one for me,” she suggested.

Ace considered that idea. She was a good-looking girl. Not short, not tall. Dark brown hair that spilled over her shoulders and a short distance down her back. Heart-shaped face. Painted cheeks, but Ace got the impression that they would be rosy even without the paint. Her brown eyes were almost as dark as her hair.

The gown she wore was tight enough and cut low enough to draw any healthy young man’s interest. Ace was plenty healthy. He knew all he’d be buying for her was a glass of watered-down tea, but he didn’t care. Saloon girls had to earn a living, too.

“Sure,” he said. He straightened from his casual pose and turned toward her. “What’s your name?”

She cocked her head a little to one side. “They call me Trixie.”

“Maybe that’s what they call you. I asked what your name is.”

She caught her lower lip between straight white teeth and hesitated for a second before saying, “It’s Myra. Myra Malone.”

“Hello, Myra. I’m glad to meet you.” He caught the bartender’s eye, slid a coin across the hardwood, and nodded toward the girl. “My name’s Ace.”

“Maybe that’s what they call you.” Her smile seemed more genuine as her words poked at him.

Ace laughed. “Yeah, I reckon I had that coming. My real name is William Jensen, but I’ve been called Ace since farther back than I can remember. My brother’s name is Benjamin, but he’s called Chance. That’s him at the poker table, in the brown hat.”

“Ace and Chance,” Myra repeated. “Your mother must have been a gambler.”

“No, but a gambling man raised us. Our mother passed away when we were born. We’re twins, although you wouldn’t know it to look at us.”

Myra’s smile dropped off her face.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said. “Not about you being twins, but about . . . I mean . . .”

“It’s all right,” Ace told her. “I know what you mean. I’m sorry we never got to know her, but you can’t miss what you’ve never had.”

“No, I suppose not.”

The bartender put the drink he had poured for Myra on the bar in front of her. His hand swooped over the coin Ace had laid down and made it disappear. Myra picked up the glass and raised it to Ace, who lifted his beer mug in response.

“I’m glad to know you, Ace Jensen—” she began.

She stopped short as a man said in a loud voice, “You bluffed me with a hand like that?”

He sounded more surprised than angry.

Ace looked around. Whatever was going on, more than likely Chance was involved in it.

Sure enough, Chance had leaned forward in his chair to rake in the pot from the center of the table. It was a good-sized pile of coins and greenbacks. What looked like a folded piece of paper was mixed in with the money.

The man across the table from him stared at Chance for several seconds, then leaned back in his chair, shook his head, and laughed.

“Well played, young man,” he said. “I figured you had at least three of a kind.”

“I know,” Chance said. “That’s what I wanted you to think.”

Over at the bar, Ace leaned closer to Myra and said, “Do you know the fella my brother bluffed out of that pot?”

“I do,” she said, nodding. “His name is Tom Bellamy.”

“He’s not the sort who’s going to get mad and pull a hideout gun or a knife because he got beat, is he?” Ace set his beer down as he asked the question. His hand moved to hover near the butt of the holstered Colt on his hip.

“I don’t think so,” Myra said. “If your brother bluffed him and beat him fair and square, I think Tom’s more likely to admire that than to get mad.”

The way she said the man’s name made Ace feel that she was well-acquainted with him. That was a reasonable assumption, since both of them no doubt spent a lot of time in this saloon.

Chance sorted the greenbacks from the pile, squared them up and tapped them on the table to even them out.

Bellamy said, “You’re going to give me a chance to win some of that back, aren’t you?”

“My brother and I just got into town earlier and haven’t had supper yet,” Chance replied. He grinned. “There’s enough here to buy us some mighty nice steaks.”

“There’s more than that.”

“Yeah, I know.” Chance tucked away the folded money inside his coat. He picked up the folded piece of paper. “When you threw this into the pot, you said it’s the deed to a silver mine?”

Bellamy’s lean, dark face grew solemn. “That’s right. It’s up in the Panamint Mountains, over on the western edge of Death Valley. Nothing you’d be interested in, kid.”

“I don’t know about that,” Chance mused as he unfolded the deed and studied it. “I’ve never owned a silver mine.”

Ace listened to this conversation with great interest. Chance was right. Neither of the Jensen brothers had ever owned much of anything other than the clothes on their backs, some good guns, and a pair of good horses.

That was all they needed, because they never stayed in one place for very long. They had been born with the urge to drift. It might wear off one of these days, but until it did, they didn’t want anything tying them down.

On the other hand . . . a silver mine . . . It was hard to turn down an opportunity like that.

Bellamy spread his hands and shrugged.

“If you’re sure,” he said. “I still think it’s only fair that you give me a chance to win back some of what I lost, though.”

“Maybe another time.”

Chance folded the deed and put it in his coat pocket with the money. He took off his hat and raked the coins into it. Then he stood up, nodded to the men sitting around the table, and said, “Good game, gentlemen. I enjoyed it.”

“You should have,” one of the men said. “You ’bout cleaned us all out.”

“No hard feelin’s, though,” another man added. “You’re good, kid.”

“I had a good teacher,” Chance said.

He didn’t explain that he and Ace had grown up under the care and tutelage of Ennis “Doc” Monday, a professional gambler who had been in love with their mother and had promised her when she was on her deathbed that he would look after the boys. Doc wasn’t their father, not by blood, but he had raised them.

Their real father was someone totally different.

Chance carried the hat over to the bar and set it on the hardwood. The coins inside it clinked.

“You reckon you could turn those into bills for me?” he asked the bartender.

“Sure, I suppose so,” the man said. He started digging the coins out of the hat.

Chance turned to Myra and smiled. “Well, hello there. I see you’ve met my brother.”

“That’s right, Benjamin,” she said.

He frowned at Ace. “You told her our real names?”

“I sort of had to,” Ace said. “It was only fair.” He didn’t explain. Instead, he nodded toward the girl. “This is Miss Myra Malone, sometimes known as Trixie.”

“Myra is a much prettier and classier name,” Chance said as he took her hand. Ace thought for a second Chance was going to kiss the back of it, but he just clasped it instead. “And as such, it suits you much better.”

From the corner of his eye, Ace watched the bartender count the coins and then take some greenbacks out of the till. He didn’t have any reason to believe the man might try to cheat them, but it never hurt to be careful.

When they had their money, Chance said, “We were about to get some supper. How would you like to join us, Myra?”

She shook her head and sounded genuinely regretful as she said, “I can’t. I have to work the rest of the evening. But I recommend that you go along the street a couple of blocks, turn right, and eat at Howell’s Café. The food is good, and it’s not terribly expensive.”

Chance took his hat back from the bartender, put it on, and pinched the brim as he nodded to her. “Much obliged to you for the suggestion,” he said. “Maybe we’ll see you again.”

“I’m here most of the time,” she told them.

The brothers walked out of the saloon. The game had resumed at the table, but Tom Bellamy wasn’t playing the next hand, Ace noted as they left. He had gotten up and appeared to be headed toward the bar. Myra looked like she was waiting for him.

None of his business what she did, Ace told himself.

“I like Los Angeles so far,” Chance said. “Winning a silver mine and meeting a pretty girl in the same evening! What are the odds?”

“Yeah,” Ace said. “I reckon this town is just full of luck.”

Howell’s Café turned out to be a frame building with a homey atmosphere inside. Delicious aromas floated in the air. Ace and Chance sat at a table with a blue-checked tablecloth. A waitress with blond braids and dimpled, smiling cheeks came over to take their order.

“We’ll have two thick steaks with all the trimmings,” Chance told her. “And plenty of coffee.”

“I’ll tell the cook and then bring you your coffee,” she promised.

The Jensen brothers took their hats off and set them aside on the table. Ace said, “Let’s see the deed to that mine.”

“You heard that conversation, did you?”

“I’m in the habit of keeping an eye—and an ear—on you.”

Chance scoffed. “That’s right. You have to look out for me, don’t you, big brother? How many minutes older than me are you? Five?”

“That’s enough to make me the responsible one.”

Chance looked like he might dispute that. Then he shrugged and said, “It’s not worth arguing about.” He reached inside his coat, took out the folded paper, and tossed it in front of Ace. “I would have showed it to you, anyway.”

Ace picked up the deed. He unfolded it and read everything on it, paying close attention to the description of the mine’s location.

“Surprise Canyon,” he said. “Ever heard of it?”

Chance shook his head. “No, and I hadn’t heard of the Panamint Mountains, either. I’d heard of Death Valley but didn’t know there were any mountains there. We’ve never managed to get over into those parts.”

“That’s one of the intriguing things about this silver mine, isn’t it? It’s an excuse to go somewhere we haven’t been.”

Chance leaned back in his chair and grinned. “Yeah, I thought about that. I also thought about the possibility of that mine making us rich. How would you like that, big brother?”

“I’m not sure I’d know what to do with a lot of money if we had it,” Ace replied honestly.

“Oh, I’ll bet we could figure it out.”

They fell silent for a moment as the blond waitress returned with cups, saucers, and a coffeepot. She filled their cups, then said, “The cook’s out now, killing a cow for you boys.”

“Tell him to make it a good-sized one,” Chance joshed back at her. He had never met a woman he couldn’t flirt with. “We’re growing lads, you know.”

She eyed both of them with appreciation and said, “I’m sure you are.” She turned and went back to the counter with a little extra added sway to her hips.

“So, about this mine,” Ace said as he tapped the paper with his index finger. “The deed’s registered in the land recorder’s office in Panamint City. We’ll have to figure out how to get there. I suppose when we do, whoever runs the place can tell us exactly where to find the mine.” He frowned. “Do you know anything about mining for silver?”

Chance smiled, shook his head, and said, “Not a blessed thing.”

“But you think it’s going to make us rich.”

“I think it might. That’s what I’m hoping, anyway.” Chance spread his hands. “How hard can it be? You dig the ore out of the mine and see if there’s any silver in it.”

Ace had a hunch the actual process would turn out to be a lot more difficult than that. But first things first, and that meant getting to Panamint City.

A short time later, the blonde returned with big platters filled with steaks, potatoes, greens, and huge fluffy biscuits. She fetched a gravy boat from the counter, added more coffee to their cups, and brought bowls of deep-dish apple pie to round out the meal.

As she was about to leave the table again, Ace asked her, “Do you happen to know how to get to Panamint City?”

“Well, a stagecoach runs between here and there a couple of times a week. You could take it.”

Chance said, “There must be a good road, then, if the stage uses it.”

“Well, there’s a road,” the waitress said. “I don’t know how good it is. I’ve never traveled over there myself.” She shook her head. “Goodness, it’s hot enough here in Los Angeles. I’ve heard stories about Death Valley. It’s hard to even imagine how hot it must be. I’ve heard some old desert rats say that it’s the hottest place they’ve ever been. The hottest this side of Hades!”

“It’s probably not that hot in the mountains that run around the valley, though,” Ace said.

“Maybe not, but I’m still all right staying here.” The young woman laughed. “I never lost anything in Death Valley!”

Neither had he and Chance, Ace thought, but the likelihood was that they were going there, anyway.

The food was good, as Myra had told them it would be. As they ate, Ace said, “What about Luke?”

“What about him?” Chance replied.

“Well, we wrote him that letter and said we might meet him here in Los Angeles for Christmas . . .”

“You wrote him a letter and told him that. Anyway, you sent it, what, six months ago and never heard one word back from him.”

“More like five months, I’d say. Maybe a little longer.”

Chance snorted. “Which doesn’t really change a thing. Anyway, I like Luke, but spending Christmas with him versus claiming a silver mine that could make us tycoons . . . I’m not sure that’s really much of a choice.”

“He is our father,” Ace pointed out.

“Yeah, and how many years did we get along just fine without knowing that?”

“He didn’t know it, either. Even after we met him, he didn’t have any more idea we’re related than . . . well, than we did!”

Ace spoke the truth. They had been acquainted with Luke Jensen for several years, but other than having the same last name, they hadn’t been aware of any connection. In their wanderings, they had met Smoke Jensen, the famous gunfighter and Luke’s younger brother, first. They had even joked about the possibility of being related to somebody as well known as Smoke.

The idea that he was actually their uncle had never entered their heads.

Over time, they had gotten to know Smoke pretty well and had spent time at the Sugarloaf, his ranch in Colorado. They had met Luke, as well as Smoke’s adopted younger brother, Matt Jensen; and Smoke’s mentor, Preacher, the old mountain man. By then, Ace and Chance had been regarded as good friends and honorary members of the family and had always been welcome at the Sugarloaf, whether it was a holiday or not.

Then, almost a year earlier, at the previous Christmas gathering at Smoke’s ranch, Doc Monday had shown up, and the truth had come out at last: Ace and Chance were members of the family. Back in the Missouri Ozarks, in the days when the Civil War was erupting to tear the country apart, a young Luke Jensen was in love with the local schoolteacher, Lottie Margrabe. Unknown to Luke, when he went off to enlist and fight the Yankees, Lottie was carrying his children—twin sons.

Life had taken a lot of tortuous twists and turns since then. For many years, Smoke had believed that Luke himself was dead, murdered through treachery during the last days of the war, over a shipment of Confederate gold.

For his part, Luke had used the last name Smith and avoided his family, as he had lived the dangerous life of a bounty hunter, a profession that many folks regarded as disreputable and shameful.

In recent years, some of that had changed. Luke had reunited with his family and had started using the name Jensen again. And then, as much of a surprise to him as it was to them, he’d discovered that he was a father and had a pair of tough, strapping, gun-handy sons. And like him, Ace and Chance had been born to wander, too. None of them were likely to settle down anytime soon.

Because of that, the idea of getting together to celebrate Christmas in Los Angeles this year had been a shot in the dark. With the holiday only three weeks away, Ace and Chance had planned to tarry here until after the first of the year.

But that was before they had found themselves the owners of a silver mine.

Well, legally, Chance was the mine’s owner, Ace reminded himself, but the brothers had always shared most things. He figured the mine would be the same. Chance hadn’t said anything to make him think otherwise.

Chance took a drink of his coffee and went on, “If you want to wait here until after Christmas, just in case Luke shows up, I don’t suppose I’ll argue with you. But I have to admit, I don’t much like the idea of letting that mine just sit there. Somebody else might move in and claim it. We might have a fight on our hands.”

“That’s true,” Ace admitted. He frowned in thought. “Why do you reckon Bellamy is over here in Los Angeles, playing poker in a saloon, if he’s got a silver mine in the mountains?”

“I don’t have any idea. Maybe he came to buy supplies and left some fellas there to work the mine while he was gone. I didn’t think to ask him. I was more concerned with making him think I had good cards in my hand, instead of no two alike and the highest one the nine of hearts!”

“That’s what you bluffed him with?”

“Yeah,” Chance said with a smile.

“But . . . I was watching. You bet just about everything we had on that hand.”

Chance tapped his coat where he had cached the money and the deed. “And it paid off, didn’t it?”

“But if he hadn’t folded—”

“We’d have done something else. That’s the good thing about living the way we do. Every day’s a new adventure, isn’t it?”

Ace nodded. “You’re right about that.”

“So . . . are we going to Death Valley?”

“I reckon we are.”

Chance picked up his coffee cup, then raised it, as if he were making a toast.

“To becoming silver tycoons.”

“Silver tycoons,” Ace repeated. He clinked his cup against his brother’s.

Myra Malone looked across the table at Tom Bellamy and asked, “Are you broke, Tom?”

“Broke?” Bellamy repeated. He sounded like the very idea was ludicrous and more than a little offensive. “Of course I’m not broke. Only a fool throws his last cent into a pot.”

“So . . . almost broke? Down to your last cent?”

“It’s not that bad.” Bellamy hesitated. “Not quite.”

Myra sighed, leaned back in her chair, and shook her head.

“I was counting on you, Tom,” she said.

“And you still can,” he assured her. “I’m going to get you out of here, never you fear about that, my lovely girl.”

“Don’t start talking flattery. It’s nice to hear, but it doesn’t mean anything.”

Myra picked up the glass in front of her. It had about an inch of amber liquid in it, and unlike the tea she sipped when customers bought her drinks, this was the real thing. She swallowed about half of what was in the glass and felt the bracing warmth as it went down.

She and Bellamy sat at a table tucked away in a rear corner of the saloon’s main room. The hour was late, and the place was half-empty now. The Mexican with the guitar still plucked idly at the strings. The tune he played was a mournful one. It fit Myra’s current mood quite well.

She had known Tom Bellamy for a couple of months. She’d met him soon after he drifted into Los Angeles. He was a lean, dark-haired man, handsome in a slick way, and he wore his clothes well. Myra had caught his eye, and vice versa. They got along well. He was in his midthirties, a good fifteen years older than her, but she didn’t care about that. As a good-looking girl who’d been on her own since she turned thirteen, she figured that by now she was considerably older than her years.

And seven years of doing whatever was necessary in order to survive was plenty. More than enough. So when he had suggested that she come with him when he left Los Angeles, so they could make a fresh start somewhere else, she had agreed without hesitation. He had even offered to marry her, if that was what she desired.

Myra hadn’t made up her mind about that, but the idea of a fresh start was the best thing she’d ever heard.

The only problem was that Bellamy wanted a good stake first. He planned to build that up by gambling.

So the days had turned into weeks, and the weeks into a couple of months, and they were still here.

She set the whiskey glass on the table and said, “What’s this about a silver mine? If you had something like that—”

He stopped her with a wave of his hand and a chuckle.

“Don’t worry your pretty head about that,” he told her. “That so-called silver mine is worthless! Another fellow and I worked that claim for months. Oh, we got some color out of it, all right. But never very much, and it wasn’t high-grade ore. We didn’t break even on the cost of supplies. And then what was there played out. I knew it was time to move on.”

“What about your partner?”

“What about him? He talked like he might stay on, but if he wanted to be stubborn and break his back for nothing, that was his business and none of mine.”

Myra frowned at him. “But you had the deed.”

“Well . . . I decided to bring it with me. I thought I might, ah, get some other use out of it.”

“Like using it in some sort of swindle,” Myra said. “Or betting it in a poker game when you’d run out of cash.”

“I wasn’t out of money,” Bellamy snapped. “I’m not out of money.” He reached in his vest pocket and brought out a five-dollar gold piece. “But why throw in your last coin when you have something else you can use?”

With a snap of his thumb and forefinger, he spun the half eagle on the tabletop.

He sighed and added, “I really thought that kid had a good hand. I never would have believed he had the guts to run a bluff like that.”

“Well, he did, and now we’re right back where we . . .