smaller sign beside it of a mug of beer, gold at the bottom and white foam at the top.
Smoke pushed his way through the batwing doors, then stepped quickly to one side so that his back was to the wall as he looked the place over. The bar ran perpendicular to the door from the front to the rear of the building along the right side of the room. There were several bottles of spirits sitting on glass shelves behind the bar, their numbers doubled by the mirror at their backs. Nearly a dozen customers stood at the bar, a few of them engaged in animated conversations, but most nursing their own drinks in privacy. Several of the tables had two or more customers, and at least one table had a card game in progress. A group of young women were standing next to the empty piano in the back. One of them was crying, and the others were trying to console her.
“He never did nothin’ but get drunk a few times and get into fights. But he never really hurt nobody, he never stole nothin'. He was a good man, a hardworking cowboy,” the sobbing woman was saying. The others in the saloon looked toward the girls now and then, the expressions on their faces indicating some sympathy for the plight of the one who was crying.
Smoke selected an empty table near the center of the room.
Seeing him sit down alone, one of the girls who had been standing by the piano came over to talk to him.
“Hi, cowboy,” she said. “Something I can get you?”
Smoke nodded toward the weeping young woman. “What’s wrong with her?”
“That’s Janet Ferrell. Her boyfriend was just killed,” the girl said.
“Would her boyfriend be Andy Emerson?”
The girl looked surprised. “Yes. Did you know him?”
Smoke shook his head. “I didn’t know him, but I was an accidental witness to the shooting.”
“What do you mean you were an accidental witness to the shooting?”
“I had just arrived by train, was seeing to my horse being offloaded from the stock car when it happened. The man Emerson ran up onto the track just behind the train. That’s where he was shot.”
“Oh, that’s right. I heard that the train was still standing in the station when it happened,” the girl said. “Tell me this, mister. Was Andy shooting back at the sheriff?”
“No. He didn’t have a gun.”
“I knew it. Andy never carried a gun. But I know just as sure as God made little green apples that Sheriff Wallace is going to try and claim that he shot Andy in self-defense. Andy wouldn’t walk away from a fight. Fact is, he sometimes started them,” the girl said. “But not once, in all the time I knew him, did I ever see him with a gun.”
“I got the idea from the sheriff that he was always in trouble.”
“He was never in any real trouble, and anyone you ask will tell you that. It’s just that Sheriff Wallace is a man who likes to boss people around, and Andy didn’t take all that kindly to it. The sheriff hated him for that.” The girl looked back toward the weeping woman. “Janet is taking this really hard. She blames herself for it.”
“Why does she blame herself?”
“Janet was always trying to get Andy to be less belligerent around the sheriff, but Andy wouldn’t listen to her.”
“She has no reason to blame herself,” Smoke said.
“I know it. We all know it, and that’s what we’ve been telling her.” The girl looked toward the street. “And now they’ve got poor Andy trussed up in the window of the hardware store like he’s a side of beef or something. If you ask me, what that sheriff did by shooting him when he wasn’t even carrying a gun wasn’t much more than outright murder.”
The girl dabbed her eyes, then added, quietly, so quietly that Smoke barely heard it, “And he is about to do the same thing again, come Friday.”
“You are talking about the hanging?” Smoke asked.
“Yes. Bobby Lee Cabot is innocent. And I could have proved it, if the court had let me testify.” She wiped her eyes again, then put on a smile for Smoke. “But I know you didn’t come in here to listen to me prattle on so,” she said. “What can I do for you?”
“I’m new in town,” Smoke replied. “And I need a friend.”
The girl smiled, then leaned over, putting her hands down on the table in such a way as to afford him a very generous view of the cleavage exposed by her low-cut dress.
“Honey, as I am sure you can tell by the way that I am dressed, that’s what I do for a living,” she said, now completely back in character. “I am always friendly to handsome men.” She laughed, a self-deprecating laugh. “The truth is, they don’t even have to be handsome. All they need is money. It just works out nice when they are handsome, like you are.”
“Then tell me, my new friend. Where can I find Minnie Smith?”
The smile left the girl’s face, and she looked around the saloon anxiously before turning her attention back to Smoke.
“What do you want with her?” she asked.
“I received a message from her,” Smoke said without providing any more information.
The girl gasped, then covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh, my God, I didn’t think you would come. You are Buck West, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Smoke answered. At the moment, he thought it would be easier to say that than to explain who he really was. “Am I correct in assuming that you are Minnie Smith?”
“Yes, I’m Minnie Smith.”
