Shootout of the Mountain Man

“Cal, this is something personal,” Smoke said. “Very personal. It concerns something that happened before you, before Pearlie, even before Sally.”

“Well, yeah, but I mean—”

“You heard him Cal,” Pearlie said, interrupting the younger cowboy. “Some things are, like Smoke said, personal.”

Looking around, Cal saw the expressions on the other faces, and those expressions told him he was in the wrong.

“Oh, uh, yeah, I see what you mean,” Cal said. “I’m sorry, Smoke. You go on by yourself if you want to. You won’t hear nothin’ else from me.”

Sally drew a breath to correct his grammar yet again, but she left the words unspoken. She was not a schoolteacher anymore, and she had about decided that Cal was a lost cause anyway. Besides, he was obviously feeling rejected right now, so there was no need to add to his discomfort by more grammatical corrections.

Smoke smiled at Cal. “I’m glad I have your permission.”

“My permission? No, I didn’t mean it like that. I mean, of course you can go anywhere you want. You don’t never need my permission a’tall.”

“Oh. Well, I’m glad to hear that.”

Smoke laughed, as did the others, at Cal’s reaction. Smoke reached out and ran his hand through Cal’s hair.

“I was teasing you, Cal,” he said. “Look, ordinarily I would want Sally, Pearlie, and you with me. But trust me, this isn’t a normal thing. Besides, you and Pearlie have that rodeo to go to, remember?”

“Oh, yeah, I nearly forgot that.”

“How can you nearly forget that?” Pearlie challenged. “We just been practicin’ for it for near a month now.”

“Well, I didn’t really nearly forget it, I just nearly forgot it is all,” Cal said, as if his explanation made any sense at all.

“Smoke has a train to catch tonight,” Sally said. “What do you say that any more conversation we have, we have while we are eating?”

Chapter Six

Sally, Pearlie, and Cal rode with Smoke into town. There, they stopped by the sheriff’s office to pick up the document Smoke had printed, then went on to the railroad station so they could see Smoke off on the train.

“If you would, Charley, book me only on trains that have an attached stock car. I plan to take my horse with me.”

“All right,” the stationmaster replied. He worked on the tickets for a few moments, then handed a packet of them to Smoke.

“You’ll leave here at eleven tonight,” Charley explained. “You will arrive in Colorado Springs at one in the morning, where you will change trains, then depart Colorado Springs at two a.m., arrive in Cheyenne, Wyoming, at eleven tomorrow morning. Because you will need a stock car, you won’t be able to depart Cheyenne until three o’clock tomorrow afternoon. Then comes the long ride, from Cheyenne to Battle Mountain, Nevada. You will reach Battle Mountain at eight a.m. the next day. I’m afraid you are going to have to spend the entire day in Battle Mountain, because you won’t leave until ten that evening. You’ll reach Cloverdale at eight o’clock on the following morning. It will be an all-night trip, but your passage should be quite comfortable, as the train is equipped with Pullman cars.”

“It’s good to see that you have it all worked out for me,” Smoke said.

“Oh, and Smoke, I don’t know how dependable the shipping people are at all these stations, so if I were you, I would keep an eye on your horse at each place.”

“Thanks, Charley, I intend to,” Smoke replied.

Tickets in hand, Smoke sat inside the depot with Sally and his two friends as they waited for the midnight special. It was called that, even though most of the time it was scheduled to arrive at about eleven.

“What kind of a fella is this Bobby Lee?” Cal asked.

“I’m not sure,” Smoke said. “He was not much more than a kid the last time I saw him, but he was as fine a kid as I’ve ever known. I’ve only heard from him once or twice since Nicole died. I think he rode shotgun on a stage for a while, and was a deputy somewhere up in Wyoming. I don’t know how he got to this place in Nevada, and I have no idea why they are about to hang him.”

“Do you think he is innocent?” Cal asked.

“I don’t know. But I don’t care whether he is innocent or not.”

“You mean, even if he was guilty, you would go try to rescue him?” Cal asked.

“I’m not going to try to do anything,” Smoke said. “I am going to do it.”

“Cal, quit asking such dumb questions,” Pearlie said. “You mind how when I was in jail that Smoke come to rescue me?”³

“Yeah, but you hadn’t been convicted yet,” Cal replied.

“Do you think that would have mattered?”

“No,” Cal said. “I don’t reckon it would have mattered. Smoke would have rescued you, just like he’s going to try to rescue this fella Cabot.”