cattle in. I’ll count them, then I’ll issue the receipt.”
Smoke nodded, then left.
Pardeen came out of the back room then. “So that was the great Smoke Jensen,” he said.
“That is how he identified himself,” Williams, who had been posing as Cephus Malone, said. “I have no way of knowing for sure, since I’ve never met the man. But I have no reason to doubt that he is who he says he is, especially as he has delivered the herd.”
“Not yet he ain’t delivered it,” Pardeen said.
“Oh, he’s delivered it all right,” Williams insisted. “He just hasn’t put them in the feeder pens for us.”
“Yeah, well, you’d better keep an eye on that one,” Pardeen said. “He’s as slick as they come.”
“No,” Williams replied. “It isn’t my job to keep an eye on him. That’s your job.”
“Oh, you don’t worry about that,” Pardeen said. “I have something special in mind for him just as soon as all this is over.”
The town of Sorento existed for the sole purpose of providing a railhead to ship out cattle for the neighboring ranches. Because of that, the facilities at the depot were equal to those of cities much bigger.
Included in the facilities were two very large feeder lots, and Smoke used both of them. While Cal, Billy, Mike, and Jules pushed the cows into the two large pens, Pearlie and Smoke sat on the top rail of the pens, counting them. Smoke had one pen and Pearlie the other. They counted the cows by the simple method of making a knot in a string of rawhide for every fifty cows that passed through the gate. This controlled counting method allowed them to arrive at a much more accurate number than the hasty count that had been taken in the field after the attempted rustling.
“I make if thirteen hundred and forty-two, Pearlie said.
“I’ve got fourteen hundred and eleven,” Smoke said.
“That’s twenty-seven hundred and fifty three,” Pearlie said. He shook his head. “I didn’t think we had lost that many.”
“Pearlie, when you consider everything that we went through, I’m very pleasantly surprise we didn’t lose more,” Smoke said.
“Yeah, I guess you are right,” Pearlie said. He smiled. “But I reckon it’s enough to make the drive worth it, don’t you think?”
“Oh, yes, it’s more than worth it,” Smoke agreed. “Especially considering that we might have as bad a winter as we did before.”
“Here comes our man,” Smoke said when he saw Trent Williams, the man he thought was Cephus Malone, coming toward him. Williams was carrying two pieces of paper.
“Well, you got them all counted, I see,” Williams said.
“Twenty-seven hundred and fifty-three,” Smoke said.
“Two thousand, seven hundred, and fifty-three,” Williams repeated. “All right, all I need you to do is sign this bill of sale over to me, and I’ll give you your receipt.”
Smoke nodded, then signed the bill of sale.
Williams handed him a receipt. “Send this in to Washington, friend, and you’ll be a rich man,” he said. “And may I say that it was a pleasure doing business with you?”
“Thank you,” Smoke replied. “Now, I want to treat my cowboys to the best dinner in town. Where do you recommend I take them?”
“Oh, well, I wouldn’t presume to recommend one place over another,” Williams said. “But knowing cowboys, I imagine anyplace that would let them in would be a welcome change to men who are used to nothing but whorehouses and saloons.”
Smoke glared at Williams. “I don’t think of my cowboys in that way, mister,” he said. “I consider them to be good men. In fact, I would go so far as to say that I consider them to be among the finest men I have ever met.”
Williams cleared his throat. “Well—uh—certainly I meant no disrespect to either you or your men,” he said.
Sally came up to Smoke as Williams was walking away.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing’s wrong,” Smoke replied. He held up the receipt. “We have the receipt, but I’ll tell you the truth, Sally, if it weren’t for the money, that’s a fella I’d just as soon avoid.”
Sally smiled. “Well, after this, we can avoid him,” she said.
As it turned out, the hotel had a banquet room and Smoke rented it for the evening. He ordered a dinner to be prepared for his men, and all showed up, freshly scrubbed and wearing their best clothes.
As the wine was poured, Smoke lifted his glass to propose a toast.
“Sally, men,” he said. “I would like to drink a toast to ones who didn’t make it here with us but who, by their effort and their sacrifice, enabled us to make it. Here’s to Dooley, Andy, Hank, and LeRoy.”
“Hear, hear,” Pearlie said, and all of them drank.
“And I’d like to propose a toast to the man who led us,” Billy said.
“And to the woman who led him,” Cal added, eliciting laughter as he held his glass toward Sally.
Again they drank a toast. Then waiters began bringing in the food.
