outlook on things.
“Well, well,” a cowboy said, stepping back and eyeballing Smoke and his fancy getup. “If you jist ain’t the purtiest thing I ever did see.” Then he started laughing.
Smoke gritted his teeth and started to brush past the half-drunk puncher.
The puncher grabbed Smoke by the upper arm and spun him around, a startled look on his face as his fingers gripped the thick, powerful muscles of Smoke’s upper arm.
Smoke shook his arm loose. Remembering all the grammar lessons Sally had given him, and the lessons that the urbane and highly educated gambler, Louis Longmont, had taught him, Smoke said, “I say, my good fellow, unhand me, please!”
The cowboy wasn’t quite sure just exactly what he’d grabbed hold of. That arm felt like it was made of pure oak, but the speech sounded plumb goofy.
“What the hell is you, anyways?”
Smoke drew himself erect and looked down at the smaller man. “I, my good man, am an ar-tist!”
“Ar-tist? You paint pitchers?”
“I sketch pic-tures!” Smoke said haughtily.
“Do tell? How much you charge for one of them sketchies?”
“Of whom?”
“Huh?”
Smoke sighed. “Whom do you wish me to sketch?”
“Why, hell…me, o’ course!”
“I’m really in a hurry, my good fellow. Perhaps some other time.”
“I’ll give you twenty dollars.”
That brought Smoke up short. Twenty dollars was just about two thirds of what the average puncher made a month, and it was hard-earned wages. Smoke stepped back, taking a closer look at the man. This was no puncher. His boots were too fancy and too highly shined. His dress was too neat and too expensive. And his guns—two of them, worn low and tied down—marked him.
“Well…I might be persuaded to do a quick sketch. But not here in the middle of the street, for goodness sake!”
“Which way you headin’, pardner?”
Smoke gestured with his arm, taking in the entire expanse. “I am but a free spirit, a wanderer, traveling where the wind takes me, enjoying the blessing of this wild and magnificent land.”
Preacher, Smoke thought, wherever you are, you are probably rolling on the ground, cackling at this performance.
Smoke had no idea if Preacher were dead or alive; but he preferred to believe him alive, although he would be a very old man by now. But still?…
The gunfighter looked at Smoke, squinting his eyes. “You shore do talk funny. I’m camped on the edge of town. You kin sketch me there.”
“Certainly, my good man. Let us be off.”
Before leaving town, Smoke bought a jug of whiskey and gave it to the man, explaining, “Sometimes subjects tend to get a bit stiff and they appear unnatural on the paper. For the money, I want to do this right.”
The man was falling-down drunk by the time they got to his campsite.
Smoke helped him off his horse and propped him up against a tree. Then he began to sketch and chat as he worked.
“I am very interested in the range of mountains known as the Sangre de Cristos. Are you familiar with them?”
“Damn sure am. What you wanna know about them? You just ax me and I’ll tell you.”
“I am told there is a plethora of unsurpassed beauty in the range.”
“Huh?”
“Lots of pretty sights.”
“Oh. Why didn’t you say so in the first place? Damn shore is that.”
“My cousin came through here several years ago, on his way to California. Maurice DeBeers. Perhaps you’ve heard of him?”
“Cain’t say as I have, pardner.”
“He stopped by a quaint little place for a moment or two. In the Sangre de Cristos. He didn’t stay, but he said it was…well, odd.”
“A town?”
“That’s what he said.”
“There ain’t no towns in there.”
“Oh, but I beg to differ. My cousin wrote me about it. Oh…pity! What was the name? Dead something-or-the- other.”
