“He might not live to be a man, thinking like that.” Charlie’s eyes lit up as he spotted the bearsign in Smoke’s sack. “Say, now!”
Smoke halved his doughnuts and Charlie put them aside for dessert. “Much obliged, Smoke. Have some coffee.”
Smoke filled his battered tin cup and settled back to enjoy his lunch among the mountain’s flowers and trees and cool but pleasant breezes.
“You wonderin’ why I’m squatted on your range?” Charlie asked.
“Stay as long as you’re friendly, Charlie.” Smoke spoke around a mouthful of beef and bread.
Charlie laughed. “And you’d brace me too, wouldn’t you, young man?”
Younger eyes met older eyes. Both sets were flint hard and knowing.
“I’d try you, Charlie.”
Charlie chuckled and said, “I killed my first man ’fore you was even a glint in your daddy’s eyes, Smoke. Way before. How old do you think I am, Smoke?”
“You ain’t no young rooster.”
Again, the gunfighter laughed. “You shore right about that. I’m fifty-eight years old. I killed my first man when I was fourteen, I think it was. That’s be, uh, back in ’36, I reckon.”
“I was fourteen when I killed an Indian. I think we were in Kansas.”
“You don’t say? I’m be damned. Some folks would say that an Injun don’t count, but I ain’t one of them folks. Injuns is just like us…but different.”
Smoke stopped chewing and thought about that. He had to smile. “You don’t look your age, Charlie.”
“Thank you. But on cold mornin’s I shore feel it. Seen me a bunch of boomers headin’ this way. They made it to No-Name yet?”
“No-Name is now Fontana. Oh, yeah, the boomers made it and are still coming in.”
“Fontana,” Charlie said softly. “Right pretty name.” His voice had changed, becoming low-pitched and deadly. “Fontana. Now what do you think about that.”
Smoke said nothing. Preacher had told him the story about Charlie’s girl, Rosa Fontana, and about Tilden Franklin killing the girl and dragging Charlie.
The men ate in silence for a time, silently enjoying each other’s company. While they ate, they eyeballed each other when one thought the other wasn’t looking.
Smoke took in Charlie’s lean frame. The man’s waist was so thin he looked like he’d have to eat a dozen bearsign just to hold his britches up. Like most cowboys, his main strength lay in his shoulders and arms. The man’s wrists were thick, the hands big and scarred and callused. His face was tanned and rugged-looking. Charlie Starr looked like a man who would be hard to handle in any kind of fight.
Then Smoke had an idea; an idea that, if Charlie was agreeable, would send Tilden Franklin right through the roof of his mansion in fits of rage.
“You always sit around a far grinnin’, boy?” Charlie asked.
“No.” Smoke had not realized he was grinning. “But I just had me an idea.”
“Must have been a good’un.”
“You lookin’ for work, Charlie?”
“Not so’s you’d notice, I ain’t.”
“My wife is one of the best cooks in the state.”
“Keep talkin’.” He picked up a doughnut and nibbled at it. Then he stuffed the whole thing in his mouth.
“Wouldn’t be a whole lot to do. I got one hand. Name’s Pearlie.”
“Rat good with a gun, is he?”
“He’ll do to ride the river with. Some of Tilden’s boys hung a rope on him last week and dragged him a piece.” Smoke kept his voice bland, not wanting Charlie to know that he knew about the bad blood between Starr and Franklin. Or why. “Then they shot him in the head. Pearlie managed to live and get lead in two of them. He’s back working a full day now.”
Charlie grunted. “Sounds like he’ll do, all rat. What is he, half ’gator?”
“He’s tough. I’ll pay you thirty and found.”
“Don’t need no job. But…”
Smoke waited.
“Your wife make these here bearsign now and then, does she?”
“Once a week.”
“I come and go as I please long as my work’s caught up?”
“Sure. But I have to warn you…they’ll probably be some shooting involved, and…well, with you getting along in years and all, I wouldn’t blame you if you turned it down.”
Charlie fixed him with a look that would have withered a cactus. Needles and all.
