Solomon himself came around the corner with a wide smile on his face. “Jason!” he said. “What can I do for you on this fine day?”
Jason grinned back at him. At least he wasn’t holding a grudge about the earlier lockup. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the letter, then into another and pulled out some change. “Got a letter to go out,” he said, sliding the envelope across the counter.
Solomon looked at it. “To Prescott?” he said. “Be thirty-five cents. Sorry it’s so much, but there’s hardly anything else goin’ out, and Grady won’t take his confounded horse out of the stable for less than a dollar.”
Grady was the young man who ferried the mail to Prescott and back.
“Well, you tell Grady that there’s another dollar in it for him if he gets that letter to Prescott in less than two days, all right?” Jason counted out the money.
“You’re paying?”
Jason laughed. “I’m paying.”
Solomon nodded. “I’ll tell him. And by the way, did I tell you? Rachael and I, we have a houseguest!”
“I’d hardly call your new daughter a house guest, Sol!”
“No, no.” Solomon laughed. “A real houseguest and a Jew to boot. He turned up this afternoon looking for something kosher to eat, and we asked him to stay. Rachael, she’s not up to cooking yet, but I made him the best and biggest kosher meal he’d had in a long time. We’re celebrating Sarah’s birth, you know,” he added, as if to excuse the excess.
Jason grinned at him. He knew that Solomon had been longing for some Jewish company, and he hoped this fellow would stay. He’d certainly perked Sol up, that was for sure!
He said, “Congratulations again, Solomon! Glad you finally have somebody Jewish to talk to. Well, you know what I mean. And you’ve already named the baby?”
“Yes, we have and I certainly do! And thank you, Jason, my friend.”
Jason nodded and grinned.
“She is quiet and calm, and he is a little on the quiet side at first, too. But I think he’ll eventually open up and be hearty company!”
“I’m sure he will.” Jason pushed the change for the letter across the counter, tipped his hat, and said, “We’ll be seeing you, Solomon! I’d best get home and see if Jenny remembered to fix me some supper.”
As he turned, Solomon called after him, “If she didn’t, you come back here. We have some fine kosher brisket left over, if I say so myself!”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Jason replied, turning slightly back to face him, then opening the door. “See you!”
He had walked halfway home before he realized he’d forgotten to ask Solomon what his guest’s name was.
Oh, well.
It’d wait till tomorrow.
When he walked in the front door, the first thing Jenny asked about was the Cohens’ baby, and Jason dutifully reported. He also reported that they had a houseguest, but couldn’t give any more information on the subject.
Jenny had been up to the wagon train, as had Megan, judging by Jenny’s pretty new hair bow and Megan’s new shoes. He said, “They let out school early today?”
Jenny grinned. “Yeah. Miss Electa Morton let everybody go at two-thirty—”
“—and I closed up the bank at three—”
“—so we went together!” Jenny finished.
“There’s still a lot we didn’t see,” Megan began.
“So we’re going back in the morning!” Jenny finished.
Jason clapped his hands over his ears. “You two don’t stop doin’ that, you’re gonna drive me to the asylum!”
Jenny just laughed and slid a plate of beefsteak in front of him. Megan sat across from him, chin planted primly on the backs of her hands, while she grinned.
“Very funny, the both of you,” Jason said before he sliced into his steak. It was cooked perfectly: pink and juicy on the inside, slightly charred on the outside. It seemed like everybody else in town liked their beef cooked to the consistency of shoe leather, but not him.
Home was the only place where he could get a steak cooked right!
Ezra had camped early again that night, satisfied that nobody was trailing him.
He’d already settled in his horse, and cooked and eaten his own supper—roasted jackrabbit, fresh biscuits, and canned peaches—and was presently engaged in nothing but watching the stars. He’d once ridden for a while with a man who said the old-time Greeks or Romans or somebody had made up pictures by drawing imaginary lines from star to star, but Ezra never saw the sense of it. How the hell did a bunch of dots of light in the sky look like a horse with wings or a dragon or a pretty woman, anyway?
Still, he liked looking at them. Sometimes, they seemed like the only constant thing in his life.
5
The next morning found Jason and Jenny and Megan all up bright and early, and outside the stockade, taking in the sights of the wagon train. Most of its members were just plain folks, trying to get back to Kansas City, but a few
