The Smoking Iron Read online

“If you’re hesitating about making a buying trip on my account, I wish you wouldn’t,” Sally told him primly. Dock and I will get along fine on the ranch without you.”

  “I sort of hate to go alone,” Pat confessed. “It’s a long ride down into Texas.”

  “You could go by stagecoach.”

  “Sure. An’ a goat could fly … if the Lord had given him wings.”

  “How about … Ezra?”

  “I dunno as I should mention it to him. Oh, he’d go like a shot. But mebby he shouldn’t leave his Pony Express station. It bein’ the first steady job he ever held down.”

  “But you said he could likely get someone to take care of the station if he went away on a trip.”

  “Yeh. I reckon he could.”

  “Please, Pat.” Sally’s voice throbbed strongly. She laid her hand on his arm. “I think you should.”

  “Go on a buyin’ trip for heifers?”

  “Yes. Down to the Big Bend.”

  Pat said wonderingly, “I’ll never be able to figure you out, old lady. You’re always one jump ahead of me.” He put his arm about her shoulders and his palm against her sunbonneted cheek. He turned her, crushing her against him and forcing the sunbonnet back on her head while his lips sought hers.

  2

  There were still two hours of early summer sunlight when Sally Stevens finished her weekly shopping. While Mr. Winters was carefully placing the supplies in the back of the buckboard, she sent a boy to the Gold Eagle Saloon to tell Pat she was ready to go.

  Pat emerged through the swinging doors almost immediately and sauntered down the boardwalk to the store with a faint look of guilt on his face. Sally noted that look with a little inward smile. Though they’d been married twelve years she had never been able to convince him that she wanted him to meet his friends in the saloon and have a few companionable drinks while she was doing her shopping. Other husbands had to sneak into the saloon on like occasions, and Pat had never got rid of the feeling that he ought by rights to sneak in too.

  As he came up to her in front of the store, Sally took his arm and said gaily, “Don’t look like that, Pat, and don’t start telling me how many drinks you haven’t had. You ought to know by this time that I don’t care.”

  The storekeeper glanced over his shoulder at them as he placed the last case of canned goods in the buckboard and said disapprovingly, “I thought you two were married.”

  Pat put his arm about Sally’s slim waist and grinned at Mr. Winters. “You know we’re old married folks.”

  “I’ve been thinking that for a lot of years, but dogged if I’m not beginning to wonder but what you’re living in sin. No wife I ever knew treated a man like Sally treats you, Pat,”

  His grin widened and he swung Sally toward the loaded buckboard. “He’s just an old man with evil thoughts, Sally. Hop up an’ we’ll drive off ’fore we get insulted.”

  Sally bit her under lip to keep from laughing as Pat sat down beside her. She said, “We’re not going to be old married folks, are we? Ever?”

  “Not as long as you keep lookin’ like a gal that oughtn’t to be let out of her mama’s sight,” Pat assured her comfortably. “Nor as long as you send me off to help some gal ain’t neither of us ever seen.”

  “I thought you were going to the Big Bend on a buying trip for Mexican heifers,” Sally countered demurely.

  “Oh, sure. I’d mighty near forgot the heifers.” Pat Stevens paused, then added with a pleased smile, “Got to talkin’ to ol’ Jeff Harkness in the Gold Eagle. He’s agreeable to takin’ care of the Express Station for Ezra next two or three weeks.”

  Sally said, “You’re not wasting any time fixing things up.”

  “Can’t afford to. Not if I’m going to ride into Marfa before that stage gets there next Friday.”

  They were approaching a crossroads east of town where the road forked due south into the mountains. Sally turned in the seat to look back at the sun hanging well above the jagged Continental Divide, and suggested, “There’s enough time to drive out to the Express station if you want. Then we could take the shortcut direct to the ranch.”

  Pat nodded as though no such thought had been in his mind. “All right. If yo’re dead-set on it.” He pulled the team of bays into the right-hand fork.

  “I’d like to see how Kitty Lane has things fixed up at the station,” Sally murmured.

  “Kitty Sloan,” Pat reminded her. “Mrs. Kitty Sloan.”

  “Is Sam happy with her, Pat?” Sally’s voice suddenly became serious.

  “As happy as an old prospector that hits it rich after forty years of tryin’ an’ failin’.”

  “It seems so queer. I just can’t imagine Sam Sloan married.”

  “He’s settled down to it like any hawse after he’s broke to harness. Kitty’s like you, Sally. She’s got sense enough to know a man don’t change his ways just because he’s stood up in front of a preacher. Only thing is, it’s sort of tough on Ezra livin’ there with ’em.”

  “I should think he’d like it. Having a woman to do the cooking and keeping house.”

  Pat grinned wryly. “He misses them topheavy flapjacks he used to line his belly with every mornin’. The ones Kitty makes are so light he can’t never get filled up. An’ she’s got a funny idee that a coffeepot had ought to be washed out an’ set away ever time it’s used. Never does give the coffee a chance to get strong an’ bitter like it does after three days of simmering with the old grounds left in.”

  Sally laughed musically at Pat’s description of the redheaded bachelor’s predicament. She knew that what he said was at least partially true. In the past, she had tried to persuade Ezra to come and live with them but had always received some evasive excuse from the one-eyed giant. She had a feeling, though, that it went much deeper than a mere liking for his own peculiar brand of cooking. Though Ezra was outwardly rough and uncouth, Sally knew that he was inwardly very sensitive about the ugly facial deformity that had taken one of his eyes and terribly scarred his face. He was conscious that his ugliness made him repulsive to most women and that he could never hope to have a wife and family of his own, and that very fact, Sally was sure, made it dreadfully hard for him to see his partners happily married. It hadn’t been so bad when he and Sam Sloan lived together after Pat’s defection; but now that Sam had gone and gotten married too …

  Sally compressed her lips and tried to keep from feeling sorry for Ezra. For all his huge frame and rough ways, he was gentle as a woman and as easily hurt as a child. This trip with Pat down into Texas would be good for him. She was glad that she had suggested it. It might be dangerous, but she had sublime confidence in the ability of Ezra and her husband to overcome any danger that might confront them.

  Sally aroused herself from her thoughts as the buckboard bounced up out of a deep gully onto the flat expanse leading to the Pony Express Station that was just a tiny black dot ahead of them in the last glow of the evening sun. “Will Sam be at the station when we get there?”

  Pat considered her question for a moment, then nodded. “I reckon. He should of made the trip back from Dutch Springs this mornin’.”

  “How’s he going to take it, Pat?”

  “Take what?” Pat Stevens glanced at his wife sharply.

  “You and Ezra riding off together on an adventure. Is he going to feel badly about being left behind?”

  Pat chuckled. “He’ll be as happy about it as a black bear with the itch. But he’s got to ride the Express route … an’ he and Kitty ain’t been married long enough for her to be tired of him bein’ around … like you’ve got of me.”

  “I guess not,” Sally responded tranquilly. She relaxed and leaned her shoulder against Pat, watched while the tiny black dot swiftly took shape and resolved itself into a lone cabin by the side of the lonely road leading south into New Mexico.

  Originally, it had been only a two-room shack, with corrals and sheds in the rear, but when Sam Sloan married the dance-hall entertainer and brought her to t
he station for her honeymoon he had expanded the building with two extra rooms and a lean-to kitchen.

  Ezra sat in a chair propped back against the front wall of the building as the buckboard pulled up. He was hat-less and his tousled hair was crimson under the dying rays of the sun. His single eye gleamed with surprised welcome and he rocked his chair forward onto four legs and got up, his voice booming out loudly in the afternoon hush:

  “Danged if we ain’t got city folks come fer a visit. Light an’ rest yore backsides, folks. Doggone, Sally, if you don’t look as pert as a new-borned colt in that there pink sunbonnet.”

  Ezra’s scarred face was wreathed with a huge smile of gladness as he advanced on the buckboard and held out his hand to engulf Sally’s and lift her down lightly.

  The front door of the station opened behind him and Mrs. Sam Sloan came hurrying out to greet them with outstretched hands. She was hatless and without rouge. Her corn-colored hair was arranged in two simple braids wound about her head and she wore a simple gingham dress with the sleeves rolled up above the elbows. Her hands were wet and there was a smudge of flour across her forehead and she looked a hundred times prettier than when she used to be all fixed up to entertain the boys at the saloon in town. And about twenty years younger, Pat Stevens thought confusedly, as she greeted him gaily and then went on to Sally.

  He and Ezra stood there awkwardly while Kitty and Sally exchanged greetings and then went inside, chatting happily together. Pat looked at Ezra significantly and winked toward the door through which the women had gone. “Looks like Sam did all right for himself, huh?”

  “Yep. Kitty’s a fine wife.” Ezra disconsolately spat a stream of tobacco juice at a green lizard scurrying across the hard-baked ground. “Mighty fine,” he added in a tone that was almost a groan.

  “You don’t sound none too happy about it.”

  Ezra twisted his head to glance over his shoulder. In a low fierce tone he explained, “It’s drivin’ me crazy, Pat. That’s what it’s doin’. I don’t hardly see Sam no more. When he ain’t ridin’ the mail or sleepin’, he’s lally-gagging aroun’ Kitty. I might’s well be a hitchin’ post fer all the attention anybody pays to me aroun’ here.”

  “Look like yo’re gettin’ fed good.” Pat surveyed his huge frame dispassionately. “I can’t see no signs of with-erin’ away or decay.”

  Ezra sighed deeply. “Shore, I’m gettin’ fed plenty. No work to take it off me neither.”

  “Take care of the hawses, don’t you?”

  Ezra snorted angrily. “Feed an’ water a dozen hawses twicet a day. Now I ask you, Pat, is that any job fer a growed up man?”

  “You knew what it’d be when you took it.”

  “Yeh, but I didn’t know you was gonna play cupid an’ help ol’ Sam get married,” Ezra grumbled. “Figgered we’d play some euchre an’ cribbage to pass the time away. Ain’t had a game with him since she moved in here. Know what him an’ her do when they’re not kissin’ or somethin’?”

  “What?” asked Pat with a delighted grin.

  “Play hearts. That’s what. It’s a silly card game that she taught him. No guts to it like euchre or cribbage.”

  “That’s too bad.” Pat squatted down on his heels with his back against the front wheel of the buckboard. He got cigarette papers and tobacco from his shirt pocket, carefully fashioned a cigarette. As he licked it, he asked, “Ain’t thinkin’ of quittin’, are you?”

  “I ain’t thinkin’ of nothin’ else.” Ezra turned away with a sour grunt. He settled himself into the creaking chair and rocked it back against the wall on its two rear legs. “I get to thinkin’ about the old times while I’m settin’ here doin’ nothin’. Things has turned mighty tame, Pat. What’s the use a man livin’ any more? Nothing to do.”

  “We’re getting old,” Pat reminded him comfortably. “Time we was settlin’ down and lettin’ the young bucks have their turn.”

  Ezra snorted fiercely. “Mebby yo’re gettin’ old. You an’ Sam. Getting married ages a man, I reckon.”

  Pat said, “I reckon.” He blew out a contemplative puff of blue smoke. The sound of animated woman-talk floated out to them through the open door of the cabin.

  The front legs of Ezra’s chair thumped down on the hard dirt. His one eye glared at Pat and the jagged scar down his cheek was an angry red. “But I ain’t married,” he declared loudly.

  “Nope. You sure ain’t.”

  “What’s more, I ain’t studyin’ none about gettin’ married.” Ezra was breathing loudly.

  “Well, now, mebby you had ought to. I heard tell of a widder woman the other day …

  “Don’t you spring no widder woman on me, Pat Stevens. I’ve seen too much of marriage. Makes a man old an’ lazy. I figger I’ll take out of Powder Valley an’ leave you an’ Sam here to rot.”

  “Where to?”

  “What’s it matter?” Ezra made a wide gesture with a clenched fist the size of a small ham. “Anywheres, I reckon, will be better’n this.”

  Pat took a last draw on his cigarette and spun it away. “I been thinkin’ about taking a little trip. Heifer buyin’.”

  “Up to Denver, I reckon. Or Pueblo maybe.” There was a sneer in the words.

  “Why no. South. Down into the Big Bend country.”

  “To buy heifers?” Ezra looked at him incredulously.

  Pat nodded. “I’ve heard there’s some bargains down there if a man plays his cards right.”

  “Mexican stock? Smuggled ’cross the Border?”

  Pat shrugged his wide shoulders. “Ain’t no need for a man to ask where they come from nor how if he runs onto a bargain.”

  Ezra slapped his thigh with a delighted oath. “Sounds like a good deal. When do we start?”

  Pat said, “I didn’t reckon you’d want to go along with an old duffer like me.”

  “Shore I’ll go along. To pertect you.”

  “How about the station? I’m leavin’ tomorrow.”

  Ezra’s face fell. He muttered, “Yeh. Thass right. Somebody’s got to feed these damn cayuses.”

  Pat offered, “I talked to Jeff Harkness in town.”

  “Jeff? What’s that old coot want?”

  “A job.”

  “He ain’t wuth … say! You reckon he’d take this job off my hands, Pat? You reckon he would?”

  “I told him to be here tomorrow.” Pat grinned at the big red-headed man.

  “By Gawd, Pat!” Ezra stared at him in speechless wrath. “Some day I’m gonna take yore scrawny neck in my hands an’ twist it apart. Eggin’ me along that-a-way.”

  Pat stood up and stretched with his arms over his head. He yawned and said mildly, “I wanted to make sure you hadn’t got soft sittin’ around this station eating Kitty’s good cookin’.” He paused. “Sam asleep?”

  “Yep.” Ezra chuckled delightedly. “He’ll be plenty mad when we go ridin’ off to the Border without him.”

  “I don’t think so,” Pat protested. “Kitty’ll make him glad he stayed behind.” He turned to the buckboard as Kitty and Sally came out arm in arm. “We’ll be goin’ along, Ezra. I’ll ride by for you tomorrow ’bout noontime.”

  “I’ll be waitin’.

  “Wear yo’re guns,” Pat said casually. “Might be we’d have a little trouble roundin’ up a herd.”

  Ezra grinned happily. “Sounds like old times, right enough.” Then he came close as Sally got in the buckboard and asked Pat in a hoarse undertone, “What about that there sheriff’s star you’ve been wearin’?”

  “What about it?”

  “You wearin’ it with you to the Big Bend?”

  “I’ll keep it out of sight,” Pat promised him. “No use us gettin’ shot ’fore we even start buying steers.”

  As they wheeled away from the station toward the shortcut leading across country directly to the Lazy Mare ranch, Pat sighed and muttered, “I can’t help feelin’ sorry for Sam. He’s gonna feel mighty bad that we didn’t even ask him to go with us.”

/>   “Don’t feel sorry for Sam Sloan,” said Sally contentedly. Her tone of dreamy placidity brought Pat’s gaze around sharply.

  “What do you mean?”

  “He wouldn’t want to be asked,” she told him with conviction. “Kitty’s going to have a baby.”

  Pat opened his mouth to say something. It stayed open a long time. Then he said, “I’ll be damned. Ol’ Sam … a pappy.” Then he doubled forward with a convulsive howl of mirth.

  3

  Marfa, Texas, was a straggling little cow-town lying on the sun-baked flats between the Davis Mountains on the east and the broken region of the Big Bend south and west. Lying on the stagecoach route south from El Paso, it was the trading center for that vast no-man’s-land formed by the sweeping arc of the Rio Grande where it cut sharply into Old Mexico beyond the forbidding lava rimrocks. In years to come the Southern Pacific would build a railroad through Marfa, and it would become a bustling center of commerce; but now it was just the jumping-off place for men who had reasons to lose themselves in the untamed country southward.

  But it looked good to the two riders who approached it on the road from Fort Davis early Thursday evening. Pat Stevens and Ezra had made a hard ride from Powder Valley to this stagecoach junction to reach it ahead of Ben Thurston on the Friday stage.

  Ezra didn’t know why Pat had pushed the going so hard, because Pat had given no reason for the trip other than that it was a heifer-buying expedition. In the beginning, Ezra had started in a sort of holiday spirit, in a jubilant mood of anticipation, but the first day’s ride had shown him that Pat was grimly serious about making horse-killing time across country.

  Ezra hadn’t bothered Pat with any questions. In the past, he’d been content to let Pat do the leading, and it was pleasant to fall back into that role again. He sensed an urgency in the ride that didn’t quite tie up with Pat’s announced reason for the trip, and he knew that he’d find out the truth in good time—when Pat was ready for him to know.

  They were riding their third change of horses as they approached the end of the trip, and these mounts were slowed to a walk with more than a hundred miles behind them that day. The sun was well below the rims of the Huachuca Mountains when they first glimpsed the collection of adobe houses and unpainted frame shacks on the mesquite-dotted plain ahead of them. They had ridden for hours in wordless silence in the midst of a cloud of alkali dust that boiled up from under the hoofs of their horses, and Pat broke the long silence with a wave of his hand ahead as the little town came into view.