“Right neighborly of y’all. Little tradin’ post up ahead. Let’s stop. I’m out of the makin’s.”
While York was buying tobacco, Smoke sat outside, reading a fairly recent edition of a Denver paper. The city was growing by leaps and bounds. The population was now figured at more than sixty thousand.
“Imagine that,” Smoke muttered. “Just too damn many folks for me.”
He read on. A new theatre had been built, the Tabor Grand Opera House. He read on, suddenly smiling. He checked the date of the paper. It was only four days old.
“You grinnin’ like a cat lickin’ cream, Smoke,” York said, stepping out and rolling a cigarette. “What got your funny bone all quiverin’?”
“And old friend of mine is in town, York. And I just bet you he’d like to ride east with us.”
“Yeah? Lawman?”
“Businessman, scholar, gambler, gunfighter.”
“Yeah?” Who might that be?”
“Louis Longmont.”
“By the Lord Harry!” Louis exclaimed, standing up from his table in the swanky restaurant and waving at Smoke. “Waiter! Two more places here,
“What the hell did he say?” York whispered.
“Don’t ask me,” Smoke returned the whisper.
The men all shook hands, Smoke introducing York to Louis. Smoke had not seen Louis since the big shoot-out at Fontana more than a year ago. The man had not changed. Handsome and very sure of himself. The gray just touching his hair at the temples.
Smoke also noted the carefully tailored suit, cut to accommodate a shoulder holster.
Same ol’ Louis.
After the men had ordered dinner—Louis had to do it, the menu being in French—drinks were brought around and Longmont toasted them both.
“I’ve been reading about the exploits of you men,” Louis remarked after sipping his Scotch. York noticed that all their liquor glasses had funny-looking square bits of ice in them, which did make the drink a bit easier on the tongue.
“We’ve been busy,” Smoke agreed.
“Still pursuing the thugs?”
“You know we are, Louis. You would not have allowed your name to appear in the paper if you hadn’t wanted us to find you in Denver.”
York sat silent, a bit uncomfortable with the sparkling white tablecloth and all the heavy silverware—he couldn’t figure out what he was supposed to do; after all, he couldn’t eat but with one fork and one knife, no how. And he had never seen so many duded-up men and gussied-up women in all his life. Even with new clothes on, it made a common fella feel shabby.
“Let’s just say,” Louis said, “I’m a bit bored with it all.”
“You’ve been traveling about?”
“Just returned from Paris a month ago. I’d like to get back out in the country. Eat some beans and beef and see the stars above me when I close my eyes.”
“Want to throw in with us, Louis?”
Louis lifted his glass. “I thought you were never going to ask.”
Smoke and York loafed around Denver for a few days, while Louis wrapped up his business and Smoke sent and received several wires. Sally was fine; the baby was due in two months—approximately.
“What does she mean by that?” York asked, reading over Smoke’s shoulder.
“It means, young man,” Louis said, “that babies do not always cooperate with a timetable. The child might be born within several weeks of that date, before it or after it.”
Louis was dressed in boots, dark pants, gray shirt, and black leather vest. He wore two guns, both tied down and both well-used and well-taken care of, the wooden butts worn smooth with use.
York knew that Louis Longmont, self-made millionaire and world-famous gambler, was a deadly gunslinger. And a damn good man to have walkin’ with you when trouble stuck its head up, especially when that trouble had a six- gun in each hand.
“Do tell,” York muttered.
“What’s the plan, Smoke?” Louis asked.
“You about ready to pull out?”
“Is tomorrow morning agreeable with you?”
“Fine. The sooner the better. I thought we’d take our time, ride across Kansas; maybe as far as St. Louis if time permits. We can catch a train anywhere along the way. And by riding, we just might pick up some information about Davidson and his crew.”
“Sounds good. Damn a man who would even entertain the thought of harming a child!”
“We pull out at dawn.”
Sally had not shown her family all the wires she’d received from Smoke. She did not wish to alarm any of them, and above all, she did not wish to alert the local police as to her husband’s suspicions about Davidson and his gang traveling east after her and the baby. Her father would have things done the legal way—ponderous and, unknowing to him, very dangerous for all concerned. John
