“Yahoo, boys!” Smoke said. “She’ll be back home next Tuesday!”
“Reckon we’ll be through ridin’ bog by then?” Cal asked.
Pearlie chuckled. “You ain’t never really through ridin’ bog, Cal. You know that.”
“Yeah, I know, but it’s generally worse right after winter is over,” Cal said. “Then it starts easin’ up some.”
Another necessary, but unpleasant job, would be cleaning out the water holes. It would require a team of horses and a scraper. Depending on the size of the hole, and how much weed, mud, and cow-dung there were in the water, it would sometimes take up to a week just to clean one hole.
Of course, even before the general roundup was done, there would be a roundup of all the newly born calves, so they could be branded. This was the kind of work that was keeping Smoke, Pearlie, Cal, and the other cowboys, those who had been present all winter, and those who were newly signed on for the spring roundup, busy.
CHAPTER TWO
When Sally Jensen stepped down from the train it was nearly midnight. Dark and cold, the little town of Big Rock was a windy emptiness under great blinking white stars. “What ever do you see in that wild and wooly West?” Molly Tremaine had asked, during Sally’s recent visit with her. Molly was an old schoolmate, now married to a Boston lawyer.
“It isn’t something that can be explained,” Sally replied. “It is something you have to experience. There is nothing more beautiful, nothing more vibrant, than to live in that wonderful country.”
Sally wished Molly could be here, right now, to get a sense of the magnificent wonder of the place—high and dry, with the stars so huge it was almost as if she could reach up and pluck one from the sky.
Sally had written to Smoke telling him she would arrive mid-morning Tuesday, but when she was in St. Louis she took advantage of a faster connection, which caused her to arrive in Big Rock almost twelve hours ahead of her schedule. At first she thought only of the time she would be saving, not realizing it meant she would arrive in the middle of the night. She was alone on the depot platform and there was no one to meet her.
Behind her the engineer blew his whistle twice, then opened his throttle to a thunderous expulsion of steam. The huge driver wheels spun on the track, sending out a shower of sparks until they gained traction. With a series of jerks as the slack was taken up between the cars, the engine got underway puffing loudly as it did so.
As the train pulled out of the station, Sally watched the cars pass her by. Most of the windows were dark because the passengers were trying to sleep. But the windows of the day cars were well lit, and she could see the tired faces of passengers who were either unable or unwilling to pay for more comfortable accommodations.
As the train left the station, she turned to walk toward the depot. Because there would be no more arrivals or departures until the next morning, the waiting room, which was dimly lit by the yellow light of an oil lantern, was empty. The ticket window was open, but there was no one behind the counter. She could hear a telegraph instrument clacking from the telegrapher’s office, so she assumed someone was there.
“Miss,” someone said from behind her.
Thinking she was totally alone, Sally was startled by the voice and she jumped at the sound.
“Sorry, ma’am, didn’t mean to ... ,” the man started, then stopped in mid-sentence. “Why, Mrs. Jensen, what are you doin’ here at this hour of the night?”
“Hello, Mr. Anderson,” Sally said to the baggage and freight agent. “I wasn’t supposed to get here until tomorrow morning, but I took an earlier train out of St. Louis. I don’t know what I was thinking. Of course there was no way of letting Smoke know in time to meet me, so I haven’t gained a thing. It would appear that I have been hoist by my own petard.”
“You been done what, ma’am?” Anderson asked.
Sally laughed. “I’m just commenting on how foolish I was to change trains, is all. Did my baggage get off?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ve got it out on the platform right now.”
“Could you keep it until tomorrow morning for me? I’m going to have to get a hotel room, I’m afraid.”
“Yes ma’am. Well, if you’ll wait until I get your baggage put away, I’ll walk with you to the hotel. It’s not all that good for a lady to be out on the street in the middle of the night, alone.”
Sally started to tell him he needn’t bother. She could shoot a gun as well as any man, and better than most, having been taught by her husband, who was one of the most proficient men with a rifle or pistol in the whole country. But even as she harbored that thought, she was aware she was not armed. In fact, she was wearing a traveling dress. It was stylish enough to have drawn many an admiring eye—though her delicate features and svelte womanly figure would have drawn as many admiring glances no matter what she was wearing. She was not wearing the more practical clothes she wore at the ranch.
“I would be happy to have you accompany me, Mr. Anderson,” she said.
She waited a moment longer, then after closing and locking the door to the baggage and freight room, Anderson came back to join her.
As Sally walked down the street, escorted by Mr. Anderson, she pulled her shawl more tightly around her. The moisture clouds of her exhaled breath were almost luminescent in the dark night. From down the street a short way, she could hear the tinkling sound of an out of tune piano, loud male voices, and a woman’s high pitched laugh. The noises came from the Brown Dirt Cowboy Saloon, a business that had been established within the year, and already was the scene of at least three shootings. She knew Sheriff Carson was contemplating closing it, if there were too many more shooting incidents there.
They reached the McKinley Hotel, a three-story brick structure, one of the finest buildings in Big Rock, which had a very nice restaurant on its ground floor. Inside, a dozing clerk sat behind the desk in an empty lobby. In the middle of the lobby a wood burning stove roared, and glowed red as the fuel burned.
