“Why, what do you mean?”
“We’re gettin’ reports from all over about snow. I know it ain’t started snowin’ here yet, but it’s acomin’ down just real heavy in the mountains, they say. I’m surprised they even let the train leave.”
“Eddie, would you like to come inside and warm up a bit before you start back to town?” Smoke invited.
“No, sir. Thank you very much. If I come in and get warm, it’ll be that much harder to come back outside again.”
Smoke chuckled. “Young man, you are wise beyond your years.” He gave the boy a dollar and the pastry.
“Thank you!” the boy said with a broad grin. “There can’t nobody make bear claws as good as Miz Sally can.”
“Well, if you’re going, you’d better get on back into town before you freeze to death,” Smoke pushed. “It’s really cold, and I have a feeling it’s going to get a lot colder before this night is out.”
“Yes, sir, I do believe it is goin’ to do just that,” Eddie agreed as he turned his horse and started back into the night.
Smoke looked toward the mountains, thinking of the train traveling through Trout Creek Pass. It had snowed quite a bit in the last several days, and he could see the white, almost luminescent, snow-capped mountain peaks against the dark sky.
Once back inside the house, he opened the yellow envelope and read the message aloud. “In Pueblo boarding train nine p.m. Arrive Big Rock six a.m. tomorrow.”
“What time does that mean Sally will have to get up to go meet him?” Duff asked.
“I’d say about four-dark-thirty in the morning would get her there on time,” Smoke teased.
“What? Not on your life, gentlemen. I’ll have you know I will be warm in bed when you two go to town to meet him.”
“Is that the way it’s going to be? And here, I thought that being it is so close to Christmas, you’d have a little more compassion in your heart,” Smoke teased some more. “All right, if that’s the way it is, you can stay home. But there’s no sense in Duff and me both going to pick him up. I’ll go by myself.”
“I’ll be for goin’ with you, lad,” Duff offered. “I’d be glad to.”
“Did you hear that, Sally? He’s not only going to go with me, he’ll be glad to go. That’s what he said. He would be glad to go.”
“I heard.”
“Well, I think you should know it’s good to see that I can count on some people,” Smoke said pointedly.
“Try not to wake me when you leave,” Sally taunted.
“What do you mean, don’t wake you? Aren’t you even going to get up to make coffee for us?”
“Nope.”
“You are one cruel woman, do you know that?”
“So I’ve been told,” Sally replied with a laugh.
“Eddie said there’s been a lot of snow up in the mountains. I hope the train has no trouble getting through the pass,” Smoke said.
“Don’t they keep the tracks clear?” Duff asked.
“Well, yes, when they can.”
Sally walked over to the window and looked up toward the mountains. “I don’t know, Smoke, it looks like there might be a big storm brewing.”
“Could be,” Smoke agreed. “Sally, what was that poem about snow that Preacher liked so much? You remember, he was always asking you to say it to him. It was by . . . some poet. I can’t remember.”
“Ralph Waldo Emerson. ‘The Snow-Storm.’”
“Yes, that’s the one. Can you still say it?”
“Of course.”
“Say it for us. Listen to this, Duff. I swear, you could hear this poem in the middle of the summer and start shivering.”
Sally began to recite the poem, speaking with elegance, flair, and with all the proper emphasis.
“That was beautiful, Sally. You have quite a way with words,” Duff said.
“Thank you, but I only spoke the words. Emerson wrote them, and it was a loss to literature when he died.”
Smoke chuckled. “Until I married Sally, I had never heard of him. One of the advantages of marrying a schoolteacher is that you get an education.”
“I like to say I didn’t educate him, I trained him.” Sally grinned.
“Whoa, now. I wouldn’t go that far,” Smoke protested.
Sally and Duff laughed.
“I will say this, though. What Preacher didn’t teach me, Sally did.”
“Who is Preacher? You mentioned him before. He was the one who carved the creche, I believe.”
“Yes,” Smoke said. “Preacher didn’t exactly raise me, but he almost did.”
“He gave you your name, too,” Sally pointed out.
“That’s right. I was called Kirby until Preacher changed it to Smoke. Did you know that he killed a bear with just a knife when he was only 14 years old?”
“Och, ’twould take quite a man to do such a thing.”
“You’ve got that right. He was quite a man. You probably wouldn’t like him, though. He fought against the English at the Battle of New Orleans. He was just a boy, then.”
“I’ve no real love for the English, laddie, I can tell you that for sure,” Duff declared.
“But you are English,” Smoke argued.
“I’m a Scotsman, lad. We may be part of Great Britain, but there be no love lost between the Scots and the English, that I can tell you. ’Twill be another hundred years or more before the Scotts forgive the English for Flodden, and then forgiven it will be, but never will it be forgotten.”
“Flodden? Yes,” Sally said. “I think I once read a poem about Flodden.”
Duff cleared his throat and began to speak.
