named Martha will be along presently. She had some foolish notion of traveling back west with you and Sally. She wants to teach school out there.”
“Fine with me.” He looked at Sally. “Has she got the sand and the grit to make it out there?”
“Yes. I believe she does.”
“Tell her to start packing.”
“But don’t you first have to get the permission of the school board?” Jordan asked.
“Ain’t got none,” Smoke slipped back into the loose speech of the western man. “Don’t know what that is, anyways.”
Sally laughed, knowing he was deliberately using bad grammar.
And cutting her eyes to her mother, she knew that Abigal did, too.
But her father appeared lost as a goose.
And so did her brothers.
“Well, sir,” Jordan began to explain. “A school board is a body of officials who—”
“—sit around and cackle like a bunch of layin’ hens and don’t accomplish a damn thing that’s for the good of the kids,” Smoke finished it.
Abigal smiled and minutely nodded her head in agreement.
With a sigh, Jordan shut his mouth.
Smoke looked at him. “Are you a lawyer?”
“Why, yes, I am.”
“Thought so.”
“Do I detect a note of disapproval in your voice, Son?” John asked.
“Might be some in there. I never found much use for lawyers. The ones I knowed, for the most part, just wasn’t real nice people.”
“Would you care to elaborate on that?” Walter stuck out his chin. What there was of it to stick out.
Smoke took a sip of coffee poured from the freshly made pot. Made by Sally and drinkable only by Smoke. Jordan said it was so strong it made his stomach hurt. Walter poured half a pitcher of cream in his, and John took one look at the dark brew and refused altogether.
“I reckon I might,” Smoke replied. But first he rolled another cigarette. “Man chooses a life of crime, he does that deliberate. It’s his choice. Hell with him. You ladies pardon my language. On the other side of the coin, a man breaks into another house and starts stealing things, the homeowner shoots him dead, and they’ll be those in your profession who’ll want to put the property-owner in jail. It don’t make any sense. And now, so I read and hear, you folks are beginning to say that some criminals was drove to it, and the courts ought to take into consideration about how poor they was. Poor!” he laughed. “I was a man grown at thirteen; doing a man’s work and going to school and looking after my sick mother, all at once. My daddy was off fighting in the war—for the gray,” he added proudly. “Not that he believed in slaves, because he didn’t. War wasn’t fought over slaves nohow.
“We didn’t have any money. Tied the soles of our shoes on with rawhide. Ate rabbit stew with wild onions for flavor. Shot them when we had the ammunition; trapped them and chunked rocks at them when we didn’t.
“Or didn’t eat at all,” he added grimly. “But I never stole a thing in my life. Some of our neighbors had more than they needed; but I didn’t envy them for it, and if I caught myself covetin’ what they had, I felt ashamed.
“Y’all got a big fine house here, and I ’spect you all got lots of money. But how many times have you turned a begger-man away from your back door without givin’ him a bite to eat? That don’t happen often out where me and Sally live. If that man is able, we hand him an axe and tell him to chop some wood, then we’ll feed him. If he ain’t able, we’ll feed him and see to his needs. There ain’t no need to talk on it a whole lot more. Y’all know what I’m talkin’ about. But if I find somebody tryin’ to steal from me, I’m gonna shoot him dead.”
Smoke stood up. “I’m gonna take me a ride around your pretty town.” He looked down at John. “We’ll talk after supper.”
He stepped off the porch and around the stables, his spurs jingling.
John smiled, then he laughed. “I like your man Smoke, Sally. I didn’t think I would, but I do. Even though, or perhaps because, he is a man of conviction.”
“And is more than willing, just anytime at all, to back up those convictions, Father.”
“Yes,” John’s words were dryly given. “I just bet he is.”
“That’s the way it shapes up, John Reynolds,” Smoke finished telling his father-in-law.
The men were in the study, the door closed. Sally was the only woman present. Her brothers had not been included in the discussion. It was after dinner, and the men had smoked their cigars and had their brandy.
John looked at York; the young Arizona Ranger met his gaze without flinching. He looked at Louis Longmont; the man was handling a rare book from John’s library, obviously enjoying and appreciating the feel of the fine leather. There was no doubt in John’s mind that the gambler had read it.
He cut his eyes to his son-in-law. “Of course you are going to inform our local police department of this?”
“No.”
“But you must!”
“No, I must not. I don’t want these men tried in some damn eastern court of law and have them serve five to ten years and then walk scot-free. And you know far better than I that is exactly what would happen, John.”
“Then what do you propose to do, Son?”
