“He’s a fine man, Miss Sally,” Pearlie said around a mouthful of bearsign. “And got more cold nerve than any man I ever seen.”
“Can we win this fight, Pearlie?”
The cowboy pushed his battered hat back on his head. He took a slug of coffee and said, “You want a straight-out honest answer, ma’am?”
“That’s the only way, Pearlie.”
Pearlie hesitated. “It’ll be tough. Right off, I’d say the odds are slim to none. But there’s always a chance. All depends on how many of them nester friends of yourn will stand and fight when it gets down to the hardrock.”
“A few of them will.”
“Yes’um. That’s what I mean.” He stuffed his mouth full of more bearsign.
“Matlock will, and so will Wilbur. I’m pretty sure Colby will stand firm. I don’t know about the others.”
“You see, ma’am, the problem is this: them folks you just named ain’t gunhands. Mister Tilden can mount up to two hundred riders. The sheriff is gonna be on his side, and all them gun-slingin’ deputies he’ll name. Your husband is pure hell with a gun—pardon my language—but one man just can’t do ’er all.”
Sally smiled at that. She alone, of all those involved, knew what her husband was capable of doing. But, she thought with a silent sigh, Pearlie was probably right…it would be unreasonable to expect one man to do it all.
Even such a man as Smoke.
“What does Mister Franklin want, Pearlie…and why?”
“I ain’t sure of the why of it all, ma’am. As for me, I’d be satisfied with a little bitty part of what he has. He’s got so much holdin’s I’d bet he really don’t know all that he has. What does he want?” The cowboy paused, thinking. “He wants everything, ma’am. Everything he sees. I’ve overheard some of his older punchers talk about what they done to get them things for Tilden Franklin. I wouldn’t want to say them things in front of you, ma’am. I’ll just say I’m glad I didn’t have no part in them. And I’m real glad Mister Smoke gimme a job with ya’ll ’fore it got too late for me.”
“You haven’t been with the Circle TF long, then, Pearlie?”
“It would have been a year this fall, ma’am. I drifted down here from the Bitterroot. I…kinda had a cloud hangin’ over me, I guess you’d say.”
“You want to talk about it?”
“Ain’t that much to say, ma’am. I always been mighty quick with a short gun. Not nearabouts as quick as your man, now, but tolerable quick. I was fifteen and workin’ a full man’s job down in Texas. That was six year ago. Or seven. I disremember exact. I rode into town with the rest of the boys for a Saturday night spree. There was some punchers from another spread there. One of ’em braced me, called me names. Next thing I recall, that puncher was layin’ on his back with a bullet hole in his chest. From my gun. Like I said, I’ve always been mighty quick. Well, the sheriff he told me to light a shuck. I got my back up at that, ’cause that other puncher slapped leather first. I tole the sheriff I wasn’t goin’ nowheres. I didn’t mean to back that sheriff into no corner, but I reckon that’s what I done. That sheriff was a bad one, now. He had him a rep that was solid bad. He tole me I had two choices in the matter: ride out or die.
“Well, ma’am, I tole him I didn’t backpaddle for no man, not when I was in the right. He drew on me. I kilt him.”
Pearlie paused and took a sip of coffee. Sally refilled his cup and gave him another doughnut.
“Whole place was quiet as midnight in a graveyard,” Pearlie continued. It seemed to Sally that he was relieved to be talking about it, as if he had never spoken fully of the events. “I holstered my gun and stepped out onto the boardwalk. Then it hit me what I’d done. I was fifteen years old and in one whale of a pickle. I’d just killed two men in less than ten minutes. One of them a lawman. I was on the hoot-owl trail sure as you’re born.
“I got my horse and rode out. Never once looked back. Over in New Mexico two bounty hunters braced me outside a cantina one night. I reckon someone buried both of them next day. I don’t rightly know, seein’ as how I didn’t stick around for the services. Then I was up in Utah when this kid braced me. He was lookin’ for a rep, I guess. He didn’t make it,” Pearlie added softly. “Then the kid’s brothers come a-foggin’ after me. I put lead in both of them. One died, so I heard later on.
“I drifted on over into Nevada. By this time, I had bounty hunters really lookin’ for me. I avoided them, much as I could. Changed my name to Pearlie. I headed north, into the Bitterroot Range. Some lawmen came a-knockin’ on my cabin door one night. Said they was lawmen, what they was was bounty hunters. That was a pretty good fight. I reckon. Good for me, bad for them. Then I drifted down into Colorado and you know the rest.”
“Family?”
Pearlie shook his head. “None that I really remember. Ma and Pa died with the fevers when I was eight or nine. I got a sister somewheres, but I don’t rightly know where. What all I got is what you see, ma’am. I got my guns, a good saddle, and good horse. And that just about says it all, I reckon.”
“No, Pearlie, you’re wrong,” Sally told him.
The cowboy looked at her, puzzlement in his eyes.
“You have a home with us, as long as you want to ride for the brand.”
“Much obliged, ma’am,” he said, his voice thick. He did not trust himself to say much more. He stood up. “I better get back on the Sugarloaf East, ma’am. Things to do.”
Sally watched him mount up and ride off. She smiled, knowing she and Smoke had made yet another friend.
12
Surprisingly, Smoke noted, the election went smoothly. There was one central voting place, where names were taken and written down in a ledger. There was no point in anyone voting more than once, and few did, for Tilden Franklin’s men were lopsidedly out in front in the election count, according to the blackboard tally.
By noon, it was clear that Tilden’s people were so far ahead they would not be caught.
Hunt, Haywood, Colton, and Ed had voted and vanished into the surging crowds. Preacher Morrow stayed with Smoke.
“You’re not voting, Preacher?” Smoke asked.
“What’s the point?” Ralph summed it up.
“You’re a quick learner.”
“It’s not Christian of me, Smoke. But I took one look at that Tilden Franklin and immediately formed an acute dislike for the man.”
“Like I said, a quick learner.”
“The man is cruel and vicious.”
“Yes, he is. All of that and more. Insane, I believe.”
“That is becoming a catch-all phrase for those who have no feelings for other men’s rights, Smoke.”
Smoke was beginning to like the preacher more and more as time went by. He wondered about the man’s past, but would not ask, that question being impolite. There were scars on the preacher’s knuckles, and Smoke knew they didn’t get there from thumping a Bible.
Then the call went up: the other candidates had withdrawn. Tilden Franklin’s men had won. Within minutes, Monte Carson was walking the streets, a big badge pinned to his shirt.
Smoke deliberately stayed away from the man. He knew trouble would be heading his way soon enough; no point in pushing it.
He felt someone standing close to him and turned, looking down. Billy.
“What’s up, Billy?”
“Trouble for you, Smoke,” the boy said gravely.
Preacher Morrow stepped closer, to hear better. Haywood and Hunt were walking toward the trio. Smoke waved them over.
“Listen to what the boy has to say,” Smoke said.
Billy looked up at the adults standing about him. “Some of the Circle TF riders is gonna prod you, Smoke. Push you into a gunfight and then claim you started it. They’re gonna kill you, Smoke.”
“They’re going to try,” Smoke said softly correcting him.