“Do I have to spell it out for you, Cal?” Pearlie said with a heavy sigh, speaking as if he were talking to someone not quite right in the head. “Who do you think Sally wants to spend time with right now, you or Smoke?”
Suddenly, it dawned on Cal what Pearlie was trying to hint at.
“But you don’t think they’re gonna . . . ?” he said, his eyes wide and his face flushing bright red.
Pearlie laughed. “Well, if’n I was Smoke an’ I hadn’t been with my wife in over six, seven months, I sure as hell would first chance I got.”
“But . . . but it’s daylight outside!” Cal argued, aghast at the very idea.
Pearlie sighed again and looked down into his coffee cup, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he smiled. “Boy, do you have a lot to learn, Cal, more than you can ever imagine.”
A couple of hours later, after Sally had heated enough water to fill the oversized tub they kept in their spare bedroom, and after they’d both managed to get freshened up from their trip and their rather exuberant welcome home, Smoke knocked on the bunkhouse door.
Pearlie answered it, since Cal was in the middle of trying to mend a hole in one of his socks that was almost big enough to put a fist through.
Smoke leaned inside. There was no one there except Cal and Pearlie, the other hands not in from the fields yet.
“You boys interested in some real home cooking for a change?” he asked.
Pearlie shook his head, a sorrowful expression on his face. “You don’t mean you’re gonna make Miss Sally cook her first night back home, do you, Boss?”
Smoke shrugged. “I offered to eat leftovers from Cookie’s dinner meal, but she insisted on cooking. Said it’d been a long time since she cooked for her family and she wanted to do it.”
“You sure she intended for you to ask Pearlie an’ me over too, Smoke?” Cal asked from his bunk.
Smoke grinned. “When Sally said she wanted to cook for her family, who the heck do you think she meant?”
Pearlie beamed at him and Cal being included in the term family by Sally, and quickly nodded. “You bet, Smoke. Give us a few minutes to clean up an’ we’ll be right over.”
Smoke looked back over his shoulder and sniffed loudly through his nose. “Well, don’t take too long. If my nose isn’t wrong, I think her fresh apple pie is just about ready.”
Pearlie’s eyes opened wide and he whirled around and headed for the pitcher and washbasin in the corner, already rolling his sleeves up. He hadn’t had any of Sally’s wonderful home cooking for a long time and he could hardly wait.
“Course you’re gonna have to wait until you finish the fried chicken and mashed potatoes and green beans and fresh-baked rolls before she’s gonna let you have any of the pie,” Smoke added from the doorway.
“Fried chicken?” Cal asked, licking his lips over the thought.
“And mashed potatoes and fresh green beans and oven-baked bread,” Pearlie finished, his eyes dreamy as if he were talking about a lovely woman who’d just asked him out.
“Outta the way, Cal,” Pearlie called as he hurried toward the door, “’less you want’a get runned over.”
SEVEN
Carl Jacoby carried Sarah’s luggage as she walked down Main Street until they came to a white clapboard building with a sign next to the front door that read ROGERS’ BOARDING HOUSE.
Sarah knocked on the door, and a rotund woman wearing a white apron sprinkled with flour answered it. She was wiping her hands on a cup towel, and looked angry at being interrupted.
“Yes?” she asked, irritation in her voice.
“Hello,” Sarah said. “My name is Sarah Johnson. Mrs. Sally Jensen referred me to you. She said you rent rooms to young single ladies.”
The woman in the doorway broke into a big smile, all traces of irritation vanishing immediately. “Well, howdy, Sarah,” she said, sticking out her hand. “My name is Melissa Rogers, but everyone calls me Mamma. Come on in.”
Sarah took the hand, which seemed as big as a ham, and shook it as she entered the door.
“You can just put the luggage down here in the parlor, boy,” Mamma Rogers said to Carl Jacoby, who grimaced at the term “boy” but kept his mouth shut as he unloaded the suitcase and valise.
Sarah stepped over to him and handed him a bit of change from her purse, as if she were tipping a stranger for carrying her bags for her. With her back to Mamma Rogers, she mouthed the words “I’ll see you later.”
After Sarah had told Mrs. Rogers the same lie about her reasons for coming to Big Rock as she’d told Sally, Mamma showed her to a room on the second floor overlooking Main Street.
“I’m sorry ‘bout this room, Sarah,” Mrs. Rogers said, moving over to open the drapes and let some light into the room. “It’s a mite noisy on weekends when the local cowboys are in town celebrating, but it’s the last one I have available, and you do catch a nice breeze through the window.”
Sarah stepped to the window and peered out. In her mind she could see herself taking careful aim with a rifle down at Smoke Jensen as he passed on the street below—it wouldn’t be as gratifying as looking into his eyes as she killed him, but it would do for a backup plan in case she wasn’t able to get him alone long enough to do it face- to-face.
She turned back around to Mamma, smiling, all traces of her murderous thoughts gone from her innocent visage. “Oh, this room will do nicely, Mamma, and I do like the view of Main Street.”
