CHAPTER 22
Big Rock, Colorado
The two men riding along the main street of Big Rock, Colorado, were no longer young. Soon after the first of the year, they would celebrate—or maybe that wasn’t exactly the right word—their fortieth birthday.
The very same day, in fact, since they were twins.
They didn’t look all that much like twins, since they weren’t identical, but there was a strong enough family resemblance to make it obvious they were brothers.
Nor did they appear to be as old as they actually were. There was an air of something eternally boyish about them, as if they had taken the prospect of growing old under advisement and decided against it.
William “Ace” Jensen was the bigger of the two, brawny and broad shouldered and dark haired. In his well-worn range clothes, he looked like a drifting cowpuncher, while his sandy-haired brother, Benjamin “Chance” Jensen, wore a brown suit, a tan planter’s hat, and was something of a dandy.
Both of them still used the nicknames given to them by the man who’d raised them, the gambler Ennis “Doc” Monday, and had never considered going by their legal names. If they ever did that, somebody might take it to mean they were ready to settle down, and that held no appeal at all to these Jensen “boys.”
“Big Rock hasn’t changed too much since the last time we saw it,” Ace commented as they rode.
“But it’s changed a great deal from the first time,” Chance said. “You remember that? It was at the same time of year.”
Ace chuckled. “Be hard to forget it, the way all hell broke loose that Christmas.”
Abruptly, a terrible racket rose into the air, causing the people in the street and on the boardwalks to look around hurriedly in surprise. Whatever it was continued popping and roaring and rumbling.
“Sounds like all hell’s about to break loose now,” Chance said wryly.
Somebody yelled in alarm, and a man ran out from one of the cross streets as if Satan himself were right behind him.
A moment later, the “devil” he was running from careened around the corner, throwing dust into the air and causing bystanders to leap out of its path. The thing lurched and jolted toward Ace and Chance, who sat on their horses in the middle of the street, staring at it in amazement.
“It’s a horseless carriage!” Ace exclaimed.
“An automobile!” Chance said. “I’ve read about them.”
A man sat atop the thing, on a seat that looked much like one found on a buckboard. He had a cap on his head and a pair of large, grotesque spectacles strapped over his eyes. He clutched a lever that he hauled back and forth with seemingly no effect on the horseless carriage’s path.
The man took one gloved hand off the lever and waved it at Ace and Chance as he shouted, “Out of the way! Get out of the way, you fools!”
“Why doesn’t he stop that blasted thing?” Ace said.
Chance’s eyes grew wider as he said, “I don’t think he can!”
With the horseless carriage bearing down on them, Ace and Chance hauled their mounts away from each other, Ace to the right and Chance to the left. The runaway contraption roared between them.
The terrible racket spooked both horses and made them rear up and dance around. For a minute, Ace and Chance had their hands full getting the animals under control again.
When they had done that, they turned to watch as the horseless carriage veered wildly back and forth across the street. It crashed into a hitch rail and knocked it down, then angled all the way to the other side and rammed its front end against a water trough.
That finally brought it to a halt. The terrible racket stopped.
The man slumped forward over the lever and didn’t move. Ace saw that and exclaimed, “I think that fella’s hurt!”
He heeled his horse into a run and pounded toward the now motionless machine.
Ace had heard about these horseless carriages but had never seen one until now. As he came closer, he caught a whiff of the stink that came from it and grimaced.
A man could get used to the smell of horse manure, but Ace wasn’t sure anyone would ever grow accustomed to the stench hanging over this thing.
He reined in and swung down from the saddle. By now the man had started moving again. He shook his head groggily as he tried to sit up straighter.
Ace gripped the man’s shoulder through the long duster he wore and said, “Mister! Mister, are you all right?”
The man turned his head to look at Ace. Those odd spectacles made his eyes seem so big he reminded Ace of a giant insect. The things were attached to a strap that went around the man’s head. He pulled them down so they hung around his neck. They left a bare pattern around his eyes in the dust-covered face.
“Good Lord!” the man said. “How thrilling! I haven’t felt so exhilarated in years!”
Ace frowned. “Wait a minute. Are you saying you nearly ran over those folks and caused this damage on purpose?”
“What?” The man stared at him for a second, then laughed and went on, “Oh, no, not at all! I just built up too much speed, and then something snapped in the brake and steering linkages, and I couldn’t stop the machine or control it to the necessary degree. But still, it was very exciting, don’t you think?”
Chance had followed Ace over to the wrecked contraption. From horseback, he said, “This is a gasoline runabout, isn’t it?”
“Indeed it is, my good man,” the driver answered in an eastern accent that got on Ace’s nerves. “A Haynes-Apperson Gasoline Runabout, to be precise. The finest automobile produced today.” He looked at the machine’s crumpled front end and added ruefully, “Well, perhaps not at the moment. I’ll have to have the brakes and steering repaired, and the suspension straightened out as well, but then she’ll be good as new. A competent blacksmith should be able to do the work. Do you know if such a person can be found in this hamlet?”
“Hamlet’s not a very good word to describe Big Rock,” Ace said. “This is a good-sized town.”
The man smirked and said, “Perhaps by the primitive standards of the frontier. But to someone from New York, the greatest city in the world, this is a mere flyspeck of humanity.”
“A lot of good people live here, mister,” Ace began hotly, “and I don’t reckon they’d appreciate—”
Chance interrupted him and asked the stranger, “When you get it fixed, you think I could try my hand at driving it?”
The man gave him a disdainful stare and arched one eyebrow. “Allow a mere cowboy to take the controls of a Haynes-Apperson? I think not!”
Chance frowned. The man’s attitude rubbed him the wrong way, too. Now both of the Jensen brothers were angry.
Some of the townspeople had recovered from their shock and fear by now. A few of them curiously approached the runabout and stared at it in amazement.
A boy stepped forward and said, “Hey, mister, is that critter really dead? Or is it gonna start growlin’ and runnin’ around again?”
One of his companions called, “Touch it, Alby! I dare you!” Some of the other boys took up the cry.
The one named Alby lifted a hand and stretched it tentatively toward the rear corner of the runabout.
“Here now,” the driver exclaimed as he swung down from the seat. “Get away from there, you urchin! Keep your filthy paws away from this vehicle.”
The boy jerked back.
“Take it easy,” Ace told the man in a hard voice. “The boy wasn’t trying to hurt anything.”
“Yes, but in his stupidity, he might do so anyway.”
One of the boys said, “I think that gent just called you stupid, Alby.”
The gathering crowd moved back a little to let a man in late middle age through. He had a badge pinned to the vest under his coat. Ace and Chance both recognized him.
“What’s going on here?” Sheriff Monte Carson asked. He stared at the wrecked automobile. “What in blazes is this thing?”
“It’s a Haynes-Apperson Gasoline Runabout,” Chance said dryly.
“A horseless carriage, Sheriff,” Ace added.
“Yeah, I figured that out.” Carson glanced again at the Jensen brothers, then grinned. “Ace and Chance! Good to see you, boys! The other day when Sally was in town, she mentioned that you were coming for Christmas.” The lawman shook hands with both of them. “Matt and your pa, too, I think she said.”
“That’s right,” Ace said. “A gathering of the whole Jensen clan.”
“Except Preacher,” Chance said.
“Yeah, except Preacher,” Ace repeated solemnly.
“Well, nobody lives forever, not even that old scudder,” Monte Carson said. “Nobody ever saw him again after he went off into the mountains by himself that last time, did they?”
“No. Smoke said that was the way Preacher wanted it.”
“I hate to break up this little reunion,” the stranger said, his sneering tone making it clear that he didn’t hate it at all, “but is there a blacksmith in this town who can be trusted to repair my vehicle?”
The sheriff said, “Yeah, two blocks down and around the corner to the right. Patterson’s Blacksmith Shop. He can fix that . . . whatever you call it . . . if anybody can.”
“I thank you, Sheriff. I’ll go see if he has a wagon with which he can retrieve my poor wounded steed.”
“If he doesn’t, his cousin will. He owns the wagon yard.”
“My thanks.” The stranger started to turn away.
“Hold on a minute,” Carson said. “You knocked down a hitch rail and maybe damaged this water trough. You’re responsible for what this contraption did—”
“Say no more,” the man broke in. He unbuttoned the duster and reached inside it to take out a wallet. He extracted a greenback and extended it toward the lawman. “Will this be sufficient?”
“Uh . . . yeah, I reckon. But I really ought to charge you with disturbing the peace and let the judge set the fine—”
“It wouldn’t be more than a hundred dollars, including the damages, would it?” the man said. That was the denomination of the bill he was holding out.
“No, I suppose not.” Carson took the money. “I’m gonna talk to him, though, and you may get some of this back.”
“No need,” the stranger said with an airy wave of his hand.
“One more thing. What’s your name, mister?”
“Collinsworth,” the man replied. “Edward Collinsworth.”
Chance said, “Of the New York City Collinsworths?”
“Why, yes, I’m surprised that you’ve heard of us, all the way out—” He stopped short and frowned at Chance. “You’re having a bit of sport with me, aren’t you, chum?”
Chance just shrugged.
“You may come to discover that’s not a wise thing to do.”
“Neither is driving a devilish contraption like this through streets where people are trying to walk,” Ace said. “I still think you could’ve hurt somebody.”
Collinsworth rested a hand on the runabout’s frame. “People are going to have to get used to watching out for these. They’re the coming thing, you know. Soon they’ll be in the streets of every city in the country.”
“Lord help us,” Monte Carson muttered under his breath.
Collinsworth lifted his head slightly in a listening attitude, then said, “In fact, I believe I hear the rest of my party coming now.”
Ace heard the popping and sputtering and rumbling growing louder in the distance and bit back a groan.
“There are more of you?” he asked.
“Yes. My automobile club is making a cross-country motor expedition.”
“Lord help us, is right,” Ace said, echoing the sheriff’s words. He looked at his brother and went on, “Let’s go to Longmont’s and get a drink before we ride out to the Sugarloaf. The stink from this thing has put a bad taste in my mouth.”