“Yes.”
“Mr. Jensen, the telegrapher is looking for you. He stopped by the marshal’s office about ten minutes ago, askin’ if we knew where you were.”
Smoke didn’t even bother to answer the deputy. He took off on a dead run toward the railroad depot.
“Don’t worry none about this!” the deputy called to him. “Ain’t goin’ to be no charges!”
Smoke did not stop running when he went inside the depot. He ran through the waiting room, and to the back corner where there was a Western Union sign.
“My, you seem to be in quite a hurry,” the telegrapher said. “Is what you have to say that important ?”
“I’m Smoke Jensen. Do you have a telegram for me?”
“Oh, yes, Mr. Jensen. Just a moment.” The telegrapher leafed through some of the messages he had on the counter in front of him, then came up with what he was looking for. “Here it is.”
SMOKE CAN YOU COME HOME QUICK MISS SALLY IS TOOK SOME WORSE
PEARLIE
“Any reply, Mr. Jensen?” the telegrapher asked.
Hastily, Smoke wrote out an answer, then left it and the money on the counter in front of the telegrapher. He didn’t bother to wait for his change.
I AM COMING NOW
Luckily, both Parlin and Big Rock were on the railroad, which meant Smoke could be back home much faster than if he returned by horseback. But the next train wasn’t due for four more hours, then it would be three hours on the train until he reached Big Rock.
The printer took the first impression off his press and looked at it.
WANTED
FOR MURDER
SMOKE JENSEN
$5,000 REWARD
DEAD OR ALIVE
“You sure I’m not going to get into trouble for this?” the printer asked.
“Get in trouble for what?” Dinkins replied.
“You know for what. I don’t believe for one minute that Smoke Jensen is wanted for murder.”
“What difference does it make to you whether he is wanted or not? How much would you normally get for printing five hundred of these things?”
“Five dollars,” the printer admitted.
“I’m giving you one hundred dollars,” Dinkins said. “Seems to me like anyone getting one hundred dollars for a five-dollar job would not be all that anxious to look a gift horse in the mouth.”
“What are you going to do with these posters?”
“That’s none of your concern,” Dinkins answered.
“Just don’t tell anyone where you got them,” the printer said as he accepted five twenty-dollar bills.
With the five hundred wanted posters in hand, Dinkins rode back out of town where the others were camping. He had not told them why he was going into town so they were curious when he returned.
“We’ve got some work to do,” Dinkins said as he opened the package containing the posters. He pulled one out and held it up to show to the others. “We are going to plaster these posters all over the place.”
“Whoa, we can’t pay no five thousand dollars just to have Jensen kilt,” Travis Slater said. “I thought you said we was only goin’ to pay one thousand dollars.”
“Yeah, but that’s before I got the idea of having the state pay for it,” Dinkins replied.
“What do you mean? Is Jensen wanted for murder?”
“Not as far as I know,” Dinkins said.
“But that’s what this poster says.”
Dinkins chuckled. “Yeah, don’t it?”
“But if he ain’t wanted for murder, and somebody kills him and brings him in, there won’t be no money paid at all.”
“There you go, Travis. You’re smarter than I thought you were,” Dinkins said.
“Ha! Good idea, Little Brother,” Harley said. “There are bounty hunters all over the state who will shoot first, and ask questions second.”
“Let’s get these things posted,” Dinkins said, dividing them up and passing them out to the others.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Nervously, Smoke paced up and down in the train, going from the front car to the rear car, two or three times during the trip. What, exactly, did Pearlie mean when he said she was “took some worse?”
