A Texas Hill Country Christmas Read Online Free Page B

the face, gentlemen. I’m going to Fredericksburg, and I’m going to put a stop to this ill-fated wedding!” He looked back and forth between Ace and Chance. “And you two, my newfound friends, are going with me!”

C HAPTER F OUR
    San Antonio
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    That same night, the rain that was widespread over central Texas moved south into San Antonio and dumped a brief downpour on the city before moving on. Puddles covered the cobblestone street in front of the Menger Hotel as Luke Jensen stepped out of the entrance that led into the hotel bar. He glanced to his right. A block away stood the hulking building that had once been known as Mission San Antonio de Valera. The pediment at the top of its front wall was crumbling. Luke had heard that it was being used these days as a warehouse where grain was stored.
    People had once known it by another name: the Alamo.
    Luke’s eyes narrowed as he thought he spotted movement in the shadows next to the old mission. He didn’t see anything else, though, and decided it could have been anything—a drunk stumbling along, a tomcat on the prowl, a stray dog looking for food. It didn’t have to be anything to do with him.
    He left his black coat unbuttoned, though, so he could reach the twin Remington revolvers in their cross-draw rigs. He hadn’t lived this long in a dangerous profession by getting careless.
    Luke Jensen was a bounty hunter. He had made his living that way since the end of the Civil War. It was a bloody business, and he had long since accepted the fact that it would probably be the death of him, sooner or later.
    Later, if he had anything to say about it, he thought as he began to stride along the street.
    He was a tall man dressed in black from head to foot, the darkness relieved only by a silver concho on his hat band and the long-barreled, silver-plated, pearl-handled revolvers he wore at his waist. He was far from handsome. His features looked like they had been hacked out with a dull ax, in fact, but there was something compelling about them that women found attractive. A neatly trimmed mustache adorned his upper lip above a wide, expressive mouth.
    He had been in the Menger talking to a man who tended bar there. Clancy was a burly, gray-haired Irishman with an extraordinary memory for faces. If the man Luke was looking for had passed through San Antonio and spent the night at the Menger or even just had a drink at the bar, Clancy would remember him.
    Because of that, this had been Luke’s first stop. If he didn’t find out anything, he would move on to the Buckhorn and then to all the other saloons, gambling dens, and whorehouses in town.
    Sam Brant had been headed this way, and Luke didn’t think the outlaw would have gone around San Antonio without stopping. Brant had expensive taste, too, which meant it was more likely he would have stopped at the Menger. That tendency toward extravagance meant Brant needed a lot of money, which explained why he had turned to robbing banks and holding up trains. Because of that he had a five thousand dollar bounty on his head, and Luke intended to collect it.
    Luck was with him. Clancy had remembered the man Luke was looking for.
    â€œAye,” Clancy had said as he wiped the polished mahogany of the bar with a rag. “Sandy-haired fella with a little scar over his left eye. Bit of a lantern jaw. He was here, all right.”
    â€œHow long ago?” Luke had asked.
    â€œOh, ’tis nigh on to six months ago, I’d say. No, wait... Bless me, ’twas more like eight or nine.”
    â€œThat long?”
    â€œOh, my, yes. But I can see him plain as day, as if ’twas yesterday.”
    Luke had known that Brant’s trail was cold, but he hadn’t expected it to be that cold. Still, he had run into a man over in Refugio who had told him that Brant was headed in this direction, and now he had proof of that, so he asked Clancy, “I don’t suppose he said