“Smoke?” York asked.
“Huh?”
“What’s a telephone?”
18
“They’re in Salina,” Sally read from the wire. “Smoke, York and Louis Longmont.”
“The millionaire?” John sat straighter in his chair. “Mr. Longmont is coming east by horseback!”
Sally put eyes on her father. She loved him dearly, but sometimes he could be a pompous ass. “Father, Louis is an adventurer. He is also one of the most famous gunfighters in all the West. He’s killed a dozen men on the Continent, in duels. With sword and pistol. He’s killed—oh, I don’t know, twenty or thirty or maybe fifty men out west, with guns. He’s such a gentleman, so refined. I’ll be glad to see him again.”
John wiped his face with a handkerchief. In one breath, his daughter spoke of Louis killing fifty men. In the next breath, she spoke of him being so refined.
Not normally a profane man, John thought: What kind of goddamned people are going to be staying in my house!
Louis lay on his blankets and watched Smoke unroll a warbag from the pack animal. He laughed aloud when he saw what his friend was unpacking: a buckskin jacket, one that had been bleached a gray-white and trimmed ornately by a squaw.
“You have a touch of the theatrical in you, my friend,” Louis observed.
“I got to thinking we might as well give the folks a show. I had it stored in Denver.”
“Going to be interesting,” Louis smiled, pouring another cup of coffee and turning the venison steaks.
York returned from his bath in the creek, his trousers on but shirtless. For the first time, Smoke and Louis noticed the old bullet scars that pocked the young man’s hide.
“You’ve picked up a few here and there,” Louis noted.
“Yeah.” York slipped into his shirt. “Me and another ranger, name of McCoy, got all tangled up with some bad ones down in the Dos Cabezas mountains; I hadn’t been with the Rangers long when it happened. McCoy got hit so bad he had to retire from the business. Started him up a little general store up near Prescott. But we buried them ol’ boys where they fell. I was laid up for near’bouts a month. ’Nother time I was trackin’ a bank robber up near Carson Mesa. He ambushed me; got lead in me. But I managed to stay in the saddle and rode on up into Utah after him. I nailed him up near Vermillion Cliffs. Picked up a few other scratches here and there.”
And Louis knew then what Smoke had already learned: York was a man to ride the river with. There was no backup in the Arizona Ranger.
York looked up from the cooking steaks. “Where you plannin’ on us pickin’ up the steam cars, Smoke?”
“I’ll wire Sally from Kansas City and see how she’s doing. If she’s doin’ all right and doesn’t feel like the baby’s due any day, we’ll ride on to St. Louis and catch the train there.”
The three waited in Kansas City for two days. Sally felt fine and the baby was not due for a month. She urged him to take his time.
Smoke, York, and Louis rode out of Kansas City the next morning, riding into Missouri. It would be days later, when the trio rode into St. Louis and Smoke wired Keene, that he would learn Sally had been taken to the hospital the day after his wire from Kansas City. Sally and babies were doing fine.
“Babies!” Smoke shouted, almost scaring the telegraph operator out of his seat.
“Babies?” Louis exclaimed.
“More ’un one?” York asked.
“Boys,” the stationmaster urged, “don’t shoot no holes in the ceiling. We just got ’er fixed last month.”
They arranged bookings for their horses and themselves, and chugged out of St. Louis the next morning. It was the first time Smoke or York had ever seen a sleeping car, and both were amazed at the luxury of the dining cars and at the quality of the food that was served.
When the finger bowl was brought around, Louis had to leave his seat to keep from laughing when York rolled up his sleeves and washed his elbows in it.
“Ain’t you got no soap to go with this thing?” York asked the colored man.
The Negro rolled his eyes and looked heavenward, maintaining his composure despite the situation.
The train stopped in Ohio and the three got off to change trains. It was an overnighter, so they could exercise their horses, get their ground-legs back, and take a genuine bath in a proper tub. All were getting just a little bit gamey. The three big men, broad-shouldered and lean-hipped, with their boots and spurs and western hats, twin six-shooters tied down low, drew many an anxious look from a lot of men and more than curious looks from a lot of ladies.
“Shore are a lot of fine-lookin’ gals around these parts,” York observed. “But kinda pale, don’t y’all think?”
Smoke and York stood on the shores of Lake Erie and marveled at the sight of it.
“Never seen so damn much water in all my life!” York said, undisguised awe in his voice. “And would you just look at them big boats!”
“Ships,” Louis corrected. He pointed to one flying an odd-looking flag. “That one just came down the St. Lawrence. That’s a German flag.”
“How’d it git here?” York asked.
“Across the Atlantic Ocean.”
“Lord have mercy!”
When they stomped and jingled back into the fancy hotel, a platoon of cops were waiting for them.
A captain of the police approached them, caution in his eyes and his step. “Lads, I can see that you’re U.S. Marshals, but are ye after someone in our city?”
