“No, I don’t think I do.”
“Frank Simmons is the normal shotgun guard on this run. He’s sixty-six years old and blind as a bat. Ordinarily it’s not a problem. About the only thing the stage ever carries is a mailbag with letters from grandparents, a few seed catalogues, and the like. But this? Well, Frank just isn’t up for the job.”
“I see what you mean,” Smoke said. “When do I go?”
“You can take the stage over Monday morning,” Matthews said. “The money will arrive by train Tuesday night. Marshal Goodwin and a couple of his deputies will meet the train with the banker just to make sure it gets in the bank all right. Then, Wednesday, you’ll take personal charge of it until you get it back here.”
“Sounds easy enough,” Smoke said.
Matthews laughed out loud. “For someone like you, I imagine it is,” he said. “But I’ll be honest with you, Smoke. If I had to guard that shipment, knowing that every saddle bum and ne’er-do-well from Missouri to California is after it, why, I’d be peeing in my pants.”
Smoke laughed as well. “I’ll have the money here Wednesday evening,” he said. “And I’ll be wearing dry pants.”
“You want me to go with you?” Pearlie asked over the supper table that night.
“No, why should you?”
“Well, if it’s like Mr. Matthews says, you’re liable to run into some trouble between here and Sulphur Springs.”
“No. I thank you for the offer, Pearlie. But I want you and Cal to stay here and look after what few cattle we have left. You’ll have to take hay out to them, since they won’t be able to forage. And you’ll have to watch out for the wolves, and any other creatures that might have a yen for beef. The only chance we have of saving Sugarloaf is to keep enough cows alive that I can sell to raise the two thousand.”
“All right, if you say so,” Pearlie said as he reached for the last of the bear claws.
“That’s four,” Cal said.
“What’s four?”
“That’s four of them things you’n has had.”
“Cal,” Sally said sharply.
“What? You think I’m lyin’, Miss Sally? I been a’countin’ them.”
“I’m not concerned about that. I’m talking about your grammar.”
“That’s four of those things you have had,” Pearlie said, correcting Cal’s grammar. “Not them things you’n has had.”
“Have you had four of them, Pearlie?” Sally asked.
“Well, yes, ma’am, but I believe these are somewhat smaller than the ones you usually make,” Pearlie replied.
Sally laughed, then got up from the table and, walking over to the pie saver, opened the door and pulled out an apple pie.
“Then you won’t be wanting any of this, will you?” she asked, bringing the pie to the table.
“I sure do!” Cal said, licking his lips in anticipation as Sally cut a large slice for him.
“Maybe just a little piece,” Pearlie said, eyeing the pie she was cutting. “With, maybe, a slice of cheese on top.”
That night, Sally cuddled against Smoke as they lay in bed.
“You take care of yourself, Smoke,” she said.
Smoke squeezed her. “I’ve spent a lifetime taking care of myself,” he said. “I’m not likely to fall down on the job now.”
“It was nice of Mr. Matthews to offer you the job,” Sally said. “He did say we would get the extension?”
“Yes.” Smoke sighed. “For all the good it will do.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’ve got thirty days until the loan is due, with the extension ninety days. Then what? We are still going to have to come up with the money.”
“You don’t think we’ll have enough cattle to sell?”
“What if we do?” Smoke said. “Then what? At best, we’ll just be buying time. A cattle ranch without cattle isn’t much of a ranch.”
They lay in the quiet darkness for a long moment before Sally spoke again.
“I know a way we might be able to come up with it,” she said.
“Oh, no,” Smoke said.
“Oh, no, what?”
“I’m not going to let you go on the line for me. I mean, I appreciate the offer, but I just wouldn’t feel right, you becoming a soiled dove.”
“What?” Sally shouted, sitting up in bed quickly and staring down at him.
Smoke laughed out loud. “I mean, I have given that very idea some thought too, but I wasn’t sure you would do it. Then I figured, well, maybe you would, but I just wouldn’t feel right about it.”
“Kirby Jensen!” Sally said, laughing at him as she realized he was teasing. She grabbed the pillow, then began hitting him with it.
“I give up, I give up!” Smoke said, folding his arms across his face as she continued to pound him with the pillow. Finally, winded, she put the pillow down.
“Truce?” Smoke asked.
“Truce,” Sally replied. Then, she smiled wickedly at him. “How much do you think I would make?”
“Sally!” Smoke gasped.
This time it was Sally’s turn to laugh. “Well, you are the one who brought it up,” she said between giggles.
Sally lay back down beside him and, again, they were quiet for a moment.
“How?” Smoke asked.
“How what?”
“You said you may have a way to raise the money. How would we do it?”
“Light the lamp,” Sally said as she got out of bed, “and I’ll show you.”
Sally walked over to the dresser and opened the top drawer. Removing a newspaper, she returned to the bed just as a bubble of golden light filled the room.
“Read this advertisement,” she said, pointing to a boxed item in the paper.
Smoke read aloud. “New York Company desires ranch land to lease. Will pay one dollar per acre for one-year lease.”
“If we leased our entire ranch to them, we could make twelve thousand dollars,” Sally said.
Smoke shook his head. “No,” he said.
“Why not?”
“Sally, you know why not. If we lease this ranch to some outfit like this”—he flicked his fingers across the page—“they’ll send their own man in to run things. We’ll be tenants on our own land. Only the land won’t even be ours, at least not for a year.”
“Smoke, you said yourself we are in danger of losing everything,” Sally said. “At least, this way, we could hang onto the ranch. All right, we won’t make any money this year because everything we get will have to go toward the notes. But next year, we could start fresh.”
“Start fresh with no money,” Smoke said.
“And no debt,” Sally added.
Smoke stared at the advertisement for a long moment. Then he lay back on the bed and folded his arm across his eyes.
“Smoke?”
Smoke didn’t answer.
“Smoke, you know I’m right,” Sally said.
After another long period of silence, Smoke let out a loud sigh.
“Yeah,” he said. “I know you’re right.”
“Then you’ll do it?”
“Is this what you want to do, Sally?”
“No, it isn’t what I want to do,” Sally admitted. “But I don’t see any other way out of this. At least think about it.”
“All right,” Smoke agreed. “I’ll think about it.”
The man standing at the end of the bar had a long, pockmarked face and a drooping eyelid. He picked up his beer, and blew the foam off before taking a drink. His name was Ebenezer Dooley, and he had escaped prison six months ago. He was here to meet some people, and though he had never seen them, he knew who the three men were as soon as they came in. He could tell by the way they stood just inside the door, pausing for a moment to look around the main room of the Mad Dog Saloon, that they were here to meet someone.
The room was dimly lit by a makeshift chandelier that consisted of a wagon wheel and several flickering candles. It was also filled with smoke from dozen
s of cigars and pipes so that it took some effort for the three men to look everyone over. Dooley had told them that he would be wearing a high-crowned black hat, with a red feather sticking out of a silver hatband. He stepped away from the bar so they could see him; then one of them made eye contact and nodded. Once contact was made, Dooley walked toward an empty table at the back of the saloon. The three men picked their way through the crowd, then joined him.
One of the bar girls came over to smile prettily at the men as they sat down. She winced somewhat as she got a closer look at them, because they were some of the ugliest men she had ever seen.
Dooley had been in town for a few days, so she had already met him. He was tall and gangly, with a thin face and a hawklike nose. He was not handsome by any standard, but compared to the other three, he was Prince Charming.
“Girlie, bring us a bottle and four glasses,” Dooley said.
The bar girl left to get the order, returned, picked up the money, then walked away. None of the men seemed particularly interested in having her stay around, and she was not at all interested in trying to change their minds.
“You would be Cletus, I take it?” Dooley said to the oldest of the three men. Cletus had white hair and a beard and, as far as Dooley could tell, only one tooth.
“I’m Cletus.”
“A friend of mine named McNabb told me you would be a good man to work with,” Dooley said. “And that you could get a couple more.”
“These here are my nephews,” Cletus said. “This is Morgan.” Morgan had a terrible scar that started just above his left eye, then passed down through it. He had only half an eyelid, and the eye itself was opaque. Morgan stared hard at Dooley with his one good eye.
“And this here’n is Toomey,” Cletus continued. “Neither one of ’em’s too quick in the mind, but they’re good boys who’ll do whatever I tell them to do. Ain’t that right, boys?”
“Whatever you tell us, Uncle Cletus,” Toomey said. “Mama said to do whatever you tell us to do.”
“His mama is my sister,” Cletus said. “She ain’t none too bright neither, which is why I figure she birthed a couple of idiots.”
Neither Morgan nor Toomey reacted to his unflattering comment about them.
“Can I count on them to do the job I got planned?” Dooley asked.
“I told you,” Cletus said. “They’ll do whatever I ask them to do.”
“Good.”
“You said this would be a big job?”
“Yes.”
“How big?”
“Twenty thousand dollars big,” Dooley said.
Cletus let out a low whistle. “That is big,” he said.
“The split is fifty-fifty,” Dooley said.
“Wait a minute, what do you mean, the split is fifty-fifty? They’s four of us.”
“I set up the deal, I’m in charge,” Dooley replied. “I take half, you take half. How you divide your half with your nephews is up to you.”
Cletus looked at his two nephews for a moment; then he nodded.
“All right,” he said. “That sounds good enough to me. Where is this job, and when do we do it?”
“Huh-uh,” Dooley replied.
Cletus looked surprised. “What do you men, huh-uh? How are we goin’ to do the job iffen we don’t know what it is we’re a’supposed to be doin’?”
Dooley shook his head. “I’ll tell you what you need to know when the time comes. I wouldn’t like to think of you gettin’ greedy on me.”
“Whatever you say,” Cletus replied.
Chapter Three
Even though Smoke had nothing to do with the money yet, he was in the Sulphur Springs Railroad Depot when the eleven o’clock train arrived.
The depot was crowded with people who were waiting for the train. Some were travelers who were holding tickets, and some were here to meet arriving passengers, but many were here for no other purpose than the excitement of watching the arrival of the train.
They heard the train before anyone saw it, the sound of the whistle. Then, as the train swept around a distant curve, the few people on the platform saw the headlamp, a gas flame that projected a long beam before it.
The train whistled again, and this time everyone could hear the puffing of the steam engine as it labored hard to pull the train though the night. Inside the depot, Smoke stepped over to one of the windows, but because it was very cold outside, and warm inside, the window was fogged over. He wiped away the condensation, then looked through the circle he had made to watch the train approach, listening to the puffs of steam as it escaped from the pistons. He could see bright sparks embedded in the heavy, black smoke that poured from the flared smokestack. Then, as the train swept into the station, he saw sparks falling from the firebox and leaving a carpet of orange-glowing embers lying between the rails and trailing out behind the train. They glimmered for a moment or two in the darkness before finally going dark themselves.
The train began squeaking and clanging as the engineer applied the brakes. It got slower, and slower still, until finally the engineer brought his train to a stop in exactly the right place.
Much of the crowd inside went outside then, to stand on the platform alongside the train as the arriving passengers disembarked and the departing passengers climbed aboard. But Smoke and three men remained inside the depot. Smoke had met with the others earlier in the day when he had presented them with the letter from Joel Matthews, authorizing him to take possession of the money.
“Well, Mr. Jensen,” the banker said, noticing Smoke for the first time that night. “On the job already, I see.”
“I just came down to see if I would actually have a job tomorrow.”
“That’s probably not a bad idea,” the young deputy said. “Coming down here now to watch us can give you a few pointers.”
“Ha,” the marshal said, laughing. “I can see Smoke Jensen picking up some pointers from the likes of us.”
“Everybody can learn something,” Smoke said.
The station manager stuck his head inside the door then.
“Mr. Wallace, you want to come sign for this now? The railroad is anxious to get rid of it.”
“I’ll be right there,” the banker said.
The marshal and his deputy both drew their pistols, then followed Wallace out to the mail car. Smoke went outside with them, and he turned up the collar of his sheepskin coat as he watched Wallace take the money pouch from the express messenger. Then he followed the banker and his two guards down to the bank, where the money was put into the safe.
“There you go, Mr. Jensen,” Wallace said when the money was put away. “All safe and sound for you tomorrow.”
“Yes, well, I’ll feel a lot better when it is safe and sound in the bank back in Big Rock,” Smoke said.
Smoke was just finishing his breakfast the next morning, sopping up the last of the yellow of his egg with his last biscuit, when someone walked over to his table.
“You’re Mr. Jensen?”
“Yes.”
“I’m from the bank, Mr. Jensen. Mr. Wallace said to tell you to come over and get that . . . uh . . . package now,” he said cryptically.
“All right,” Smoke said, washing down the last bite with the end of his coffee. He put on his coat, turned up his collar, and pulled his hat down, then followed the messenger back to the bank.
“I didn’t think the bank would be opened yet,” Smoke said, his words forming clouds of vapor in the cold morning air.
“It isn’t open yet,” the young man said. “Mr. Wallace thought it would be better to give it to you before we had any customers.”
“Sounds sensible,” Smoke said.
Smoke thought they would go in through the front, but the young man walked alongside the bank until they reached the back. Then, taking a key from his pocket, he opened the back door and motioned for Smoke to go inside.
Wallace was sitting at a desk in his office when the young man brought Smoke in. The pouch that the money had come
in was open, and there were several bound stacks of bills alongside.
“You want to count this money?” Wallace asked.
“It might be a good idea,” Smoke replied.
“Jeremiah, pull that chair over here for Mr. Jensen.”
“Yes, sir,” the young messenger said.
Thanking him, Smoke sat in the chair and began counting. When he finished, half an hour later, he looked up at Wallace. “I thought it was supposed to be twenty thousand dollars.”
“How much did you come up with?” Wallace asked.
“Twenty thousand four hundred and twelve dollars,” Smoke replied.
Wallace smiled, and slid a piece of paper across his desk. “That exact amount is recorded here,” he said. “It’s good to see that you are an accurate counter. Sign here, please.”
With all money accounted for, Smoke took the pouch and walked down to the end of the street to the stage depot. The coach was already sitting out front and the hostlers were rigging up the team.
Although it had not snowed in nearly a week, there were still places where snow was on the ground in many places, some of which could not be avoided. As a result, Smoke had snow on his boots, but he stomped his feet on the porch, getting rid of as much as he could.
The stage depot was warm inside, and he saw five people standing around the potbellied stove, a man, two women, and a young boy. There were three more men over by the ticket counter and one of them, seeing Smoke, came toward him. He was an older man, with white hair and weathered skin. He stuck his hand out.
“Good morning, Mr. Jensen. I’m Frank Simmons.”
“Call me Smoke,” Smoke said. “You would be the shotgun guard?”
“Yes, sir, normally that would be me,” Simmons said.
“Normally?”
“Well, the truth is, if you have that much money to look after, ever’one figures it’d be better if you’d just go ahead and ride shotgun yourself.” Simmons held out his hands and both were shaking. “I got me this here palsy so bad, why, I couldn’t no ways hold a gun to shoot. Only reason I go along now is to keep Puddin’ company. We don’t never carry nothin’ worth stealin’. That is, until now.”
Betrayal of the Mountain Man Page 2
