“What’s your name?” Smoke asked.
“Nicole,” she said, then put her face in her small hands and began to weep. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t have any family to go back to. I don’t have anyone.”
Smoke put his arms around her. “Yes, you do, Nicole. You have us.”
“Just call me Uncle Preacher,” the mountain man said. “Plumb disgustin’.”
Smoke rummaged around the still smoldering wagon, looking for any of Nicole’s clothing that might have escaped the flames. He found a few garments, including a lace-up corset, which she quickly snatched, red-faced, from him. He also found a saddle that had suffered only minor damage. Everything else was lost.
“Now, how you figure she’s a-gonna sit that there saddle?” Preacher demanded. “What with all them skirts and petti-things underneath?”
“She’s not. She found a pair of men’s trousers that belonged to her uncle. She can ride a straddle.”
“That ain’t fittin’ for no decent woman. Ain’t nobody ‘ceptin’ a whoore’d do that!”
“What the hell d’you wanna do? Build a travois and drag her?”
Preacher walked away, muttering to himself.
Nicole came to Smoke’s side. “I can sit a saddle. I rode as a child in Illinois.”
“Is that where you’re from?”
“No. I’m from Boston. After my parents died, when I was just a little girl, I came to Illinois to live with my uncle and aunt. What’s your name?”
“Smoke. That’s Preacher.” He jerked his thumb.
She smiled. She was beautiful. “Just Smoke?”
“That’s what I’m called.”
“At a trading post, we heard talk of a gunfighter called Smoke. Is that you?”
“I guess so.”
“They said you’d killed fifty men.” There was no fear in her eyes as she said it.
Smoke laughed. “Hardly. A half dozen white men, maybe. But they were fair fights.”
“You don’t look like a gunfighter.”
“What does a gunfighter look like?”
She smiled, white even teeth flashing against the tan of her face.
“Carryin’ on like children at a box social,” Preacher muttered.
Nicole went behind a boulder to change out of her tattered and dusty dress. Preacher walked up to his young protege.
“What are you aimin’ to do with her?”
“Take her with us. We sure can’t leave her out here.”
“Well, hell! I know all that. I mean in the long run. Nearest town’s more’un a hundred miles off.”
“Well, I … don’t know.”
The mountain man’s eyes sparkled. “Ah,” he said. “Now I get it. Got your juices up and runnin’, eh?”
Smoke stiffened. “I have not given that any thought.”
Preacher laughed. “You can go to hell for tellin’ lies, boy.” He walked off, chuckling, talking to himself. “Yes, siree,” he called, “young Smoke’s got hisself a gal. Right purty little thing, too. Whoa, boy!” He did a little jig and slapped his buckskin-clad knee. “Them blankets gonna be hotter than a buffalo hunter’s rifle after a shoot.” He cackled as he danced off, spry as a youngster.
Smoke’s face reddened. What the young man knew about females could be placed in a shot glass and still have room for a good drink of whiskey.
“What is Preacher so happy about?” Nicole asked, walking up behind him.
Smoke turned and swallowed hard. Luckily, he did not have a chew of tobacco in his mouth. The men’s trousers fitted the woman snugly — very snugly. The plaid man’s shirt she now wore was unbuttoned two buttons past the throat, and that was about all the young man could stand.
Smoke lifted his eyes to stare at her face. She was beautiful, her features almost delicate, but with a stubborn set to her chin.
She had freshened up at the little creek and her face wore a scrubbed look.
“Uh …” he said.
“Never mind,” Nicole said. “I’m sure I know what he was laughing about.”
“Ah … I’ve saddled a little mare for you. She’s broke, but hasn’t been ridden lately. She may kick up her heels a bit.”
“Mares do that every now and then,” Nicole said coyly, smiling at him.
“Uh … yeah! Right.”
“Smoke?” She touched his thick forearm, tight with muscle. “I’m not trying to be callous or unfeeling about … what happened today. I’m just … trying to put it — the bad things — behind me. Out of my mind. Do you understand?”
