Read Online Those Jensen Boys! by William W. Johnstone - Free Book Online Page B

asked.
    Emily shook her head. “Not that I’ve ever heard of. The men who work for him are pretty tough. That’s how come he can use them for things like harassing honest business owners who don’t want to be gobbled up by his little tinpot empire.”
    Ace looked over at his brother and knew that Chance was trying to figure it out, too. Maybe there was no connection between Eagleton, Tanner, and the ambush in Shoshone Gap . . . but that seemed like too much of a coincidence to the Jensens.
    As they rode west across the valley, the talk turned to other things. Chance wanted to know more about the Corcoran sisters, and while Emily was taciturn, Bess was willing to fill in some of their background.
    â€œPa worked for the Butterfield line and for Wells Fargo for a long time. He started out as a hostler and worked his way up to managing stage stations. Emily and I were born at stage stations, different ones because Pa had been transferred in the time between. Emily was born in Julesburg, and I was born in Silver City, both down in New Mexico.”
    â€œWe’ve been to both places,” Chance said. “The fella who raised us moved around a lot, too.”
    â€œPa said he wanted to settle down in one place, but I’m not sure he really did. Our ma would have liked it, though.”
    Emily said, “Too bad she died before she ever got to.”
    â€œYes, that seemed to change Pa,” Bess said with a sigh. “He regretted that he never gave Ma what she wanted, but he knew she thought Emily and I should have a real home, so he decided he wanted to start his own stage line, someplace with a fairly short route so he could run it and still have time for us. He saved his money, and when he heard about the boom in Palisade he moved us there right after it started and established his business. Mr. Eagleton probably would have started his own stage line when he got around to it, but Pa beat him to it.”
    â€œThat’s one more reason Eagleton’s so damn determined to take us over,” Emily put in. “The man can’t stand losing out on anything, even if it’s something that really doesn’t matter that much to him.”
    â€œWhat about you two?” Bess asked. “You said you never knew your real folks, and you were raised by a gambler, but surely there’s more to your lives than that.”
    â€œNot much,” Ace said with a shrug. “Doc Monday brought us up the best he could. I’m not sure he was really cut out to be raising kids, but he tried hard, I’ll give him that. We always had plenty to eat, decent clothes, and a roof over our heads. He made sure we got an education, too.”
    â€œThat’s right,” Chance said. “By the time I was four years old, I could shuffle a deck of cards better than most. You should’ve seen the way I handled those pasteboards!”
    â€œI was thinking more of the way he always made sure we went to school, wherever we were. He said our mother had been a schoolteacher at one time, so he figured it would be important to her for us to learn as much as we could. We both like to read, so I reckon we probably got that from her.”
    â€œYour father might have liked to read, too,” Bess suggested.
    Ace shrugged. “Maybe. We don’t know a thing about him. I’m not sure Doc ever knew anything about him, except that his name was Jensen.”
    â€œLike Smoke Jensen,” Emily said. “The gunfighter. I’ve heard of him.”
    Chance groaned. “Don’t get Ace started on Smoke Jensen. As it happens, we actually met that hombre not that long ago, and he has been wondering ever since then if we might be related.”
    â€œYou met Smoke Jensen?” It was the first time in the relatively short time they had known Emily that she actually seemed impressed by something about the brothers.
    â€œYeah, just briefly,” Ace said. “We got in a little