Read Online Shootout of the Mountain Man by William W. Johnstone, J. A. Johnstone - Free Book Online Page B

him with a big smile. “How did you do at horseshoes?”
    “I won.”
    “I never had any doubt. By the way, I’m making a chicken pot pie for supper tonight. We’ll call it a celebration of your winning at horseshoes. I hope you are hungry.”
    “How soon can you have it ready?” Smoke asked.
    Sally laughed. “My goodness, I guess you really are hungry.”
    “No it’s not that,” Smoke said. “I have to catch a train tonight.”
    Sally’s expression changed from one of a smile to one of curious concern. “Is something wrong?”
    Smoke showed Sally the telegram. She read it, then looked up at him with a quizzical expression on her face. “You are going to Nevada?”
    “Yes.”
    “That’s a long way to go, isn’t it?”
    “Darlin', if they were about to hang Bobby Lee in China, I would go see what I could do to help.”
    “That brings up the next question. Who is Bobby Lee Cabot?”
    “He is Nicole’s brother,” Smoke said.
    Sally nodded. No further explanation was needed.
    “I’ll hurry supper, then I’ll pack your things,” she said.
    Although Pearlie and Cal frequently ate with the other cowboys, they were more like family than hired hands, so just as frequently they ate with Smoke and Sally. They especially did so on nights like tonight when Sally had gone out of her way to fix something special.
    It was Pearlie who noticed it first—Smoke’s saddlebags, neatly packed, as well as his rifle and canteen, over by the wall.
    “Are we going somewhere?” Pearlie asked, nodding toward the gear.
    “We aren’t,” Smoke replied. “I am.”
    “Wait a minute,” Cal said. “That ain’t right, Smoke. We always go as a team.”
    “That isn’t right,” Sally suggested.
    “See, even Sally agrees.”
    “I was correcting your grammar.”
    “Oh.”
    “Cal, this is something personal,” Smoke said. “Very personal. It concerns something that happened before you, before Pearlie, even before Sally.”
    “Well, yeah, but I mean—”
    “You heard him Cal,” Pearlie said, interrupting the younger cowboy. “Some things are, like Smoke said, personal.”
    Looking around, Cal saw the expressions on the other faces, and those expressions told him he was in the wrong.
    “Oh, uh, yeah, I see what you mean,” Cal said. “I’m sorry, Smoke. You go on by yourself if you want to. You won’t hear nothin’ else from me.”
    Sally drew a breath to correct his grammar yet again, but she left the words unspoken. She was not a schoolteacher anymore, and she had about decided that Cal was a lost cause anyway. Besides, he was obviously feeling rejected right now, so there was no need to add to his discomfort by more grammatical corrections.
    Smoke smiled at Cal. “I’m glad I have your permission.”
    “My permission? No, I didn’t mean it like that. I mean, of course you can go anywhere you want. You don’t never need my permission a’tall.”
    “Oh. Well, I’m glad to hear that.”
    Smoke laughed, as did the others, at Cal’s reaction. Smoke reached out and ran his hand through Cal’s hair.
    “I was teasing you, Cal,” he said. “Look, ordinarily I would want Sally, Pearlie, and you with me. But trust me, this isn’t a normal thing. Besides, you and Pearlie have that rodeo to go to, remember?”
    “Oh, yeah, I nearly forgot that.”
    “How can you nearly forget that?” Pearlie challenged. “We just been practicin’ for it for near a month now.”
    “Well, I didn’t really nearly forget it, I just nearly forgot it is all,” Cal said, as if his explanation made any sense at all.
    “Smoke has a train to catch tonight,” Sally said. “What do you say that any more conversation we have, we have while we are eating?”

Chapter Six

    Sally, Pearlie, and Cal rode with Smoke into town. There, they stopped by the sheriff’s office to pick up the document Smoke had printed, then went on to the railroad station so they could see Smoke off on the train.
    “If you would, Charley, book me only