“Are you going to do it?” Elmer asked, after reading the letter when Duff showed it to him.
“Aye, that’s three dollars a head more than I can get anywhere else,” Duff said. “But he is wanting to start a herd so he wants only bulls and heifers, so I’ve only got about fifteen hundred head that I feel like I can ship.”
“You could ask Smoke Jensen to add some of his cattle to the shipment,” Elmer said. “You might recall that he started running Black Angus after he lost so much of his cattle in the big freeze and die-out a couple of years ago.”
“That’s right, he did,” Duff said. “I’ll ride into town tomorrow and send him a telegram.”
“Will you be callin’ on Miss Meghan when you go into town?” Elmer asked.
“And why wouldn’t I be calling on her, she being my business partner?”
“It ain’t just the business that has you sniffin’ around her all the time, my friend,” Elmer said.
Duff laughed. “Sure, Elmer, ’n you remind me of a Scottish laird, brokerin’ a marriage for his tenants. ‘Tis no doubt but that I’ll be seeing her. But don’t be ringing the wedding bells just yet, my friend.”
Smoke Jensen was in Longmont’s saloon sitting at a table with two of his closest friends in town, Louis Longmont, the owner of the saloon, and Sheriff Monty Carson.
“How long are you going to be in Cheyenne?” Louis asked. “I ask only because I want to know if there will be enough time for me to use my French charm to win the beautiful Madame Sally away from you.”
Sheriff Carson laughed. “Louis, if you had until the Second Coming, you couldn’t win Sally away from Smoke.”
“One can always try,” Louis said. Louis winning Sally away from Smoke was a running joke, and everyone knew that it was. But his admiration for her was genuine; aboveboard, but genuine.
“I’m not sure how long I’ll be there,” Smoke said. “Just long enough to conclude some business, or at least, discuss the business if not conclude it.”
“Who are you meeting with?” Sheriff Carson asked.
“Duff MacCallister,” Smoke said. “He is a cousin of Falcon’s, not too long a resident of the U.S. He is the one I bought the Black Angus from, after the great die-out.”
“Oh, yes, I remember that,” Sheriff Carson said. “How are the cows working out?”
“Great. I’ve got quite a large herd now. Not as many as I had when I was running Longhorn, but more than I would have thought by now. In fact, I have enough to be able to help Duff out with his project.”
The whistle of the approaching train could be heard and Smoke stood, then reached down for his grip. Not until he stood could someone get a good enough look at him to be able to judge the whole of the man. Six feet two inches tall, he had broad shoulders and upper arms so large that even the shirt he wore couldn’t hide the bulge of his biceps. His hair, the color of wheat, was kept trimmed, and he was clean-shaven. His hips were narrow, though accented by the gunbelt and holster from which protruded a Colt .44, its wooden handle smooth and unmarked.
Fifteen minutes later, Smoke was on the train, headed for a meeting in Cheyenne with Duff MacCallister.
As Smoke rode the train through the night toward Cheyenne, 430 miles away, in Dodge City, Kansas, Rebecca Conyers, who was now calling herself Becca Davenport, was sitting in her mother’s darkened room over the Lucky Chance Saloon. In the quiet shadows, she listened to her mother’s labored breathing.
Rebecca had been in Dodge City for four months now. During that four months she had written three letters to her father just to let him know that she was safe and well. She had not received any replies from him, nor could she, because she had not let him know where she was. And in order to hide her whereabouts from him, she had implored friends who were going to be out of town to post the letters for her from other locations.
“Becca? Honey, are you here?” The voice, weak and strained, brought Rebecca back to the present.
Though Janie had been strong and well when Rebecca first arrived, two months later she had taken ill, and her decline had been very rapid from that time.
“I’m here, Mama,” Rebecca said. Her hair, which once fell luxuriously down her back, was just now beginning to grow back. Though much shorter than it had been, it was still long enough come to her shoulders, and to require her to brush some errant tendrils away from her face.
“Move your chair next to the bed,” Janie asked.
Rebecca did as asked, then she reached out to take her mother’s hand. The hand was small and the grip was weak. Neither Rebecca nor her mother knew when she arrived four months ago that her mother’s death warrant had already been signed. She had something that the doctor called cancer, and although he had been treating her illness with compounds of potassium arsenate, the cancer continued to advance, and Rebecca knew now that her mother did not have long to live.
“I want you to know what a joy it has been to have you here,” Janie said.
“I am glad that I came,” Rebecca said.
“I know you would much rather be back at Live Oaks with your young man, but I’m selfish enough that I will take you any way I can have you.”
“Even if I were back home, I wouldn’t be with my young man,” Rebecca said. “He has already made it clear that he wants nothing to do with me. And even if he did, Papa wouldn’t allow it.”
Rebecca had told Janie about Tom, and how she had declared her love for him on the day before she left home, only to have it spurned. She also told Janie about her father’s reaction.
“I can’t believe that this man, Tom, whom you profess to love, does not love you back. More than likely, he is just unsure of himself, and when he realizes that you are serious, he will have more confidence. And I wouldn’t worry about Big Ben either. He is a good man, Becca,” Janie said. “If you give him another chance, I’m sure he will come around. He was a good man and I hurt him, just as I have hurt everyone else who has ever been close to me. You are the one I hurt most of all. But I also hurt your Papa, my own parents, and my brother. How sorry I am that I hurt my brother. The two of us share a past that no one else can, and yet, for twenty-five years, we have been strangers to each other.”
“You have a brother?” Rebecca reacted in surprise. “I didn’t know you had a brother. You have never mentioned him.”
“I thought it best not to, but as I think more about it, you have the right to know about him. He thinks I’m dead,” Janie said. “He thinks I died a long time ago.”
“And you have never told him other wise?”
“No, it is much better that he thinks I’m dead. I’m afraid I was quite a disappointment to him,” Janie said. “No man wants a whore for a sister.”
“Mama!”
