“I know,” Smoke said. “But one is all I need. In fact, I very specifically do not want more than one printed. This isn’t something I want anyone else to see, and I can control it much better this way.”
“What about the sheriff? What does Monte think about it?”
“I stopped by to see Sheriff Carson before I came here. Here is a note from him,” Smoke said.
Curly Latham shook his head in confusion. “All right, Smoke, if this is what you and the sheriff both want, I’ll do it. But I sure as hell don’t know what good just one of these things will do for you.”
“Thanks, Curly. Oh, and would you put in an envelope and have it waiting for me at the sheriff’s office? I have to get back out to the ranch, but I’ll be taking the late train out tonight and I want to take this with me.”
“It’ll be there waitin’ for you,” Curly promised.
Sugarloaf Ranch, adequately timbered and well watered, with ample grass, was the culmination of all Smoke’s dreams and aspirations. But he had not always been the “gentleman rancher.” There was a time when he had ridden what many might call “the outlaw trail.” And while he operated with equal alacrity between law and lawlessness, he had never crossed the line between right and wrong. Of course, there were some things that he considered right that might be questioned by others, such as hunting down and killing the men who had killed his father, then going on the vengeance trail yet again to kill those who had murdered Nicole and his young son, Arthur.
Most of the people who knew Smoke now thought they knew everything there was to know about him. But there were very few of his current acquaintances who knew there had been a wife before Sally. Smoke loved Sally, there was no denying that, but had Nicole not been murdered, he would have never even met Sally. Most of the time the shadows of his past remained just that, shadows. It served no purpose to bring those memories to the surface, but this telegram had done that.
It was funny. He had just had a dream about Nicole, which was unusual in more ways than one. It was unusual because, though she still occupied a part of his heart, he had managed, quite successfully until the dream, to put her out of his mind. And it was unusual because, in a way, his dream of Nicole seemed to presage this telegram from her brother.
Was it just a coincidence? Or had the dream been a warning of what was to come? He knew that the Indians put great store in the power of dreams, and, for that matter, so did Preacher. He had always respected Preacher, and if Preacher felt that way about dreams, then he figured there might be something to it—but until this incident, he had never encountered the power of the “dream spirit.”
When Smoke arrived at his ranch, he saw Pearlie sitting at an outside table just under a spreading oak tree. There was a saddle on the table in front of his foreman, and Pearlie was doing some repair work. A peal of laughter rang out from over by the little cluster of houses, where the families of some of his Mexican workers lived, and Smoke smiled when he saw Cal chasing after the laughing children as he swung a lariat over his head. In many ways, Cal was still a kid himself.
Both Pearlie and Cal waved at him, and he returned their wave, then went into the big house.
“Hello, darling,” Sally said, greeting him with a big smile. “How did you do at horseshoes?”
“I won.”
“I never had any doubt. By the way, I’m making a chicken pot pie for supper tonight. We’ll call it a celebration of your winning at horseshoes. I hope you are hungry.”
“How soon can you have it ready?” Smoke asked.
Sally laughed. “My goodness, I guess you really are hungry.”
“No it’s not that,” Smoke said. “I have to catch a train tonight.”
Sally’s expression changed from one of a smile to one of curious concern. “Is something wrong?”
Smoke showed Sally the telegram. She read it, then looked up at him with a quizzical expression on her face. “You are going to Nevada?”
“Yes.”
“That’s a long way to go, isn’t it?”
“Darlin', if they were about to hang Bobby Lee in China, I would go see what I could do to help.”
“That brings up the next question. Who is Bobby Lee Cabot?”
“He is Nicole’s brother,” Smoke said.
Sally nodded. No further explanation was needed.
“I’ll hurry supper, then I’ll pack your things,” she said.
Although Pearlie and Cal frequently ate with the other cowboys, they were more like family than hired hands, so just as frequently they ate with Smoke and Sally. They especially did so on nights like tonight when Sally had gone out of her way to fix something special.
It was Pearlie who noticed it first—Smoke’s saddlebags, neatly packed, as well as his rifle and canteen, over by the wall.
“Are we going somewhere?” Pearlie asked, nodding toward the gear.
“We aren’t,” Smoke replied. “I am.”
“Wait a minute,” Cal said. “That ain’t right, Smoke. We always go as a team.”
“That isn’t right,” Sally suggested.
“See, even Sally agrees.”
“I was correcting your grammar.”
“Oh.”
