can you go to work?”
“When does the coach leave?”
“In about ten minutes.”
“If you hire me, I’ll be on it.”
Montgomery pointed to a cabinet. “There’s a twelve-gauge double-barrel and a .44-.40 Winchester in there. Take one or both.”
“I’ll take ’em both,” Pearlie said. He started toward the cabinet, then stopped and looked back toward Montgomery. “Mr. Montgomery, I think I need to tell you—I don’t plan to be here for a very long time.”
“Oh? Why is that?”
“After my wife was—uh, after she died, I felt like I needed to get away. Everything back there reminded me of her and the hurt was just too much. But the time is going to come when I want to get back and be around my own friends and people.”
“I understand. Pearlie, is it?”
“Yes, sir, folks call me Pearlie.”
“Do you have a last name, Pearlie?”
“Do I need one?”
Montgomery paused for a moment; then he chuckled. “No, I guess not. All right, Pearlie, you can work for me as long as you want, as long as you keep your nose clean, and as long as Ben is comfortable with you. When the time comes that you feel like you want to go back home, tell me. There will be no hard feelings.”
“Thanks, Mr. Montgomery, I appreciate your understanding,” Pearlie replied.
Montgomery stepped up to the door, then called outside. “Ben?”
“Yes, Mr. Montgomery?” Ben’s voice floated in from the stable area.
“Come in here and meet your new shotgun guard.” “I already met him,” Ben replied. “If he’s been hired, tell him to get his ass out here and climb aboard.”
Montgomery turned toward Pearlie. “Oh, uh, I didn’t tell you. Ben is pretty much of what I think you would call a curmudgeon.”
“A what?”
“A grouch.”
Pearlie laughed. “That’s all right, I like grouches. You always know where you stand with a grouch.”
Pearlie grabbed the two weapons, then walked outside. The coach had been pulled into position and Pearlie put the two guns on the seat, then climbed up. Once up on the seat, he laid the guns down in the foot well, then scooted over to the left side.
“Hrmmph,” Ben said. He spit out a quid of tobacco. “At least you got enough sense to know which side of the seat to sit on.”
When all of the passengers were on board, Ben clambered up onto the driver’s seat, spit out another quid of tobacco, then snapped the long whip over the head of his team. The pop of the whip was as loud as a pistol shot, and the coach started forward.
They had been on the road for about fifteen minutes without either of them saying a word.
“How come you ain’t asked me?” Ben asked.
“Asked you what?”
“Asked me how long it’s goin’ to be before we get to where we’re goin’.”
“You’re the one drivin’,” Pearlie replied. “All I have to do is just sit here. I figure we’ll get there when we get there.”
Ben chuckled, and it was the first time since they had met that Pearlie had seen anything other than a frown on his face.
“You figure we’ll get there when we get there,” Ben repeated. “Yes, sir, Pearlie, I think you may just work out all right.”
Chapter Two
One hundred and seventy-five miles southeast of Sugarloaf, at a ranch called the Tumbling Q, near the small railroad town of Santa Clara, a meeting was being held. Attending the meeting were all the ranchers whose own spreads lay within a twenty-mile radius of the Tumbling Q. The breed of choice for the ranchers was the Texas longhorn. Most had been running the longhorn ever since they started ranching. The longhorn was a hardy breed, a breed that could survive drought and find something to eat where little forage seemed available.
Today, the ranchers were complaining bitterly over the fact that the market for longhorns was dropping. The meeting had been called by Pogue Quentin, the biggest rancher in the county and owner of the Tumbling Q.
“It’s these damn Herefords,” Peters said. Peters owned a neighboring ranch. “That’s all the slaughterhouses is wantin’ now, and they ain’t willin’ to pay enough for our cows for us to make any money at all. In fact, at the way this is goin’, by the time it’s all said and done, we’ll be lucky to hang on to our ranches.”
Gillespie held up his hands to quiet the group; then he nodded toward Quentin, who had been watching and listening to the whole thing. So far, Quentin had said nothing.
