Ambush of the Mountain Man

SIX

Sally too was anxiously scanning the crowd, looking for her husband as she stood on the platform, her heart beating a little faster than usual in her anticipation of seeing and holding him again.

Just as she was about to give up, thinking that perhaps he hadn’t gotten her wire stating her arrival day, she saw him on the edge of the crowd, leaning up against the wall of the station house.

Gosh, but he looks good, she thought, flushing at the sight of his wide shoulders, heavily muscled arms, and tanned, handsome face. Even though his ash-blond hair was beginning to be streaked with touches of gray at the temples, he was still the best-looking man she’d ever seen, and the most desirable to boot.

She was glad to note the way his eyes lit up and his lips curled in a wide grin when he spied her. She dropped her valise and ran into his arms, inhaling the musky man-scent of him and sighing deeply with contentment. She was where she belonged, finally, and it had been a long time since she’d felt so safe and happy. She wondered briefly if he could feel the way her heart beat wildly in her chest at the touch of his arms around her.

She leaned back and looked up at his hair. Usually unruly, with a lock or two falling down over his forehead in a most appealing manner, it was shiny and slicked back and smelled faintly of pomade.

She grinned at him. “I see you’ve changed your hair,” she said, running her hands through it and mussing it up just as she liked it.

He blushed. “Oh, I thought I’d get a trim in honor of your arrival, so I let the barber whack a little bit off the sides.” He winced. “He put that smelly stuff in it before I could stop him, and I didn’t have time to wash it out ’fore your train was due to arrive.”

She locked an arm in his and walked with him toward the baggage car to collect her luggage. “Well, don’t worry. I’ll heat us up some water when we get to the Sugarloaf and we’ll have a bath.”

He turned to her, a slight flush on his face. “We?” he asked.

She too blushed. “Of course. I have to wash the grime of my journey off, and you have to get that pomade out of your hair.” She hesitated. “If we share the bath, you won’t have to work so hard to bring extra water into the cabin,” she said, her face bright red at the brazenness of her proposal. Not that they hadn’t shared an intimate bath before. It was just that they didn’t usually discuss it out in public beforehand.

He smiled slowly. “So, I see that you’ve missed me as much as I’ve missed you.”

She cocked one eye up at him. “More!” was all she said, but her tone caused him to rush the porter to get her luggage and put it on the buckboard so they could get back to the Sugarloaf as soon as possible. He had some serious welcoming-home to attend to, and he wasn’t sure he could wait the few hours the trip home would take!

Sally looked around at the crowd of people near the baggage car, hoping to see Sarah. She wanted to introduce Smoke to her new friend, but Sarah was nowhere to be seen. Oh well, Sally thought, there’d be plenty of time for that later.

She made a mental note to tell Smoke to be sure and stop by the general store on their way out of town so she could tell Peg Jackson about the girl who wanted to work there. Peg would be ecstatic, since that would allow her more time at home with their children.

At that very moment, standing only a couple of dozen feet behind Smoke and Sally, Sarah put her hand in her handbag and closed her fingers around the butt of a snub-nosed Smith and Wesson .36-caliber revolver. Her eyes narrowed as she saw for the first time the man who’d killed her brother. Her heart beat fast, and she began to tremble at the sight of the monster who’d ruined her family. Perhaps it would be best to get it over with and kill him now. After all, she might never get a better chance.

She started to pull the weapon out and put a bullet in the back of his head, but a hand closed over her arm.

She whirled around, her hate-filled eyes glaring as Carl Jacoby whispered in her ear, “Not here and not now, Sarah. Don’t be a fool.”

She struggled against his grip for a moment, and then she relaxed as the killing fever left her. She slumped against him and let him pull her out of sight around the corner of the station building.

“You’re right, Carl,” she said as he leaned her back against the wooden wall. “A shot in the back with no warning would be too easy for that man. I want to look into his eyes when he knows he’s about to die and tell him just why I’m going to kill him. I want him to suffer, to think about never seeing his wife again, to know what his dastardly act in Pueblo cost him.”

Carl glanced around to make sure no one was watching. Sarah was really worked up, with her red face and animated talk. He knew he’d better get her out of sight before someone came up and asked what was going on.

“Come on, Sarah. I’ve got a room reserved for you at the hotel.”

She stopped him with a hand on his chest. Nice girls didn’t stay at hotels, especially by themselves without any other family around.

“Uh-uh, Carl. I think I’ll get a room at a boardinghouse Mrs. Jensen recommended to me.”

“What?” he asked, his eyes wide and his face paling at her words. “What do you mean Mrs. Jensen . . . ?”

Sarah smiled, calmer now that her thoughts of an immediate kill were over, and she began to walk up the street. “I’ll explain it all to you later, over dinner.” She looked at him. “This place does have an acceptable eating establishment, I take it?”

He nodded, his expression worried. He still couldn’t believe she’d been talking to Smoke Jensen’s wife on the train. He hoped she hadn’t given anything away. He knew that if the people of this town thought that anyone was going to try and harm their favorite son, Smoke Jensen, they’d most likely string them up from the nearest maple tree.

Cal and Pearlie were lying around the bunkhouse, mending socks and sewing buttons on shirts and doing all the things that needed doing after a few months away from home, when they heard the buckboard pull up in front of the ranch house.

Cal jumped to his feet and looked out the window. “Hey, Pearlie,” he called, turning with a big grin on his face as he headed for the door. “It’s Smoke and Sally.”

“Hold on, pard, just where do you think you’re goin’?” Pearlie drawled from his place at the table next to the potbellied stove.

Cal stopped and looked back over his shoulder. “Didn’t you hear me, Pearlie? Miss Sally’s back from her trip,” he said. “I’m gonna go out there an’ tell her hello.”

Pearlie grinned and shook his head. “No, you’re not, young’un,” he said firmly.

Cal put his hands on his hips. “And just why not?” he asked angrily. “It’s been almost a year since I seen her and I want’a tell her how much I missed her.”

“Son, I know you ain’t had a whole passel of experience with womenfolk like I have, so I guess I’ll just have to excuse your ignorance on the subject and maybe try an’ explain a few things to you.”

Cal raised his eyebrows and moved toward Pearlie. “And just what does my experiences with females have to do with anything, ‘ceptin’ your dirty mind?”

Pearlie sighed and took a drink from his coffee mug that was sitting on a small pine table next to his bunk, along with some spare change, a pocketknife, and his tobacco pouch and papers.

“Think about it, Cal. Smoke and Sally have been away from each other for the better part of a year now, and they’re fixin’ to be alone together for the first time in a lot of months.” He raised his eyebrows as if that explained everything to the young man.

“So?” Cal asked, clearly not getting Pearlie’s drift. “That’s what I been sayin’. Miss Sally’s been gone a long time an’—”

“Do I have to spell it out for you, Cal?” Pearlie said with a heavy sigh, speaking as if he were talking to someone not quite right in the head. “Who do you think Sally wants to spend time with right now, you or Smoke?”

Suddenly, it dawned on Cal what Pearlie was trying to hint at.

“But you don’t think they’re gonna . . . ?” he said, his eyes wide and his face flushing bright red.

Pearlie laughed. “Well, if’n I was Smoke an’ I hadn’t been with my wife in over six, seven months, I sure as hell would first chance I got.”

“But . . . but it’s daylight outside!” Cal argued, aghast at the very idea.

Pearlie sighed again and looked down into his coffee cup, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he smiled. “Boy, do you have a lot to learn, Cal, more than you can ever imagine.”

A couple of hours later, after Sally had heated enough water to fill the oversized tub they kept in their spare bedroom, and after they’d both managed to get freshened up from their trip and their rather exuberant welcome home, Smoke knocked on the bunkhouse door.

Pearlie answered it, since Cal was in the middle of trying to mend a hole in one of his socks that was almost big enough to put a fist through.

Smoke leaned inside. There was no one there except Cal and Pearlie, the other hands not in from the fields yet.

“You boys interested in some real home cooking for a change?” he asked.

Pearlie shook his head, a sorrowful expression on his face. “You don’t mean you’re gonna make Miss Sally cook her first night back home, do you, Boss?”

Smoke shrugged. “I offered to eat leftovers from Cookie’s dinner meal, but she insisted on cooking. Said it’d been a long time since she cooked for her family and she wanted to do it.”

“You sure she intended for you to ask Pearlie an’ me over too, Smoke?” Cal asked from his bunk.

Smoke grinned. “When Sally said she wanted to cook for her family, who the heck do you think she meant?”

Pearlie beamed at him and Cal being included in the term family by Sally, and quickly nodded. “You bet, Smoke. Give us a few minutes to clean up an’ we’ll be right over.”

Smoke looked back over his shoulder and sniffed loudly through his nose. “Well, don’t take too long. If my nose isn’t wrong, I think her fresh apple pie is just about ready.”

Pearlie’s eyes opened wide and he whirled around and headed for the pitcher and washbasin in the corner, already rolling his sleeves up. He hadn’t had any of Sally’s wonderful home cooking for a long time and he could hardly wait.

“Course you’re gonna have to wait until you finish the fried chicken and mashed potatoes and green beans and fresh-baked rolls before she’s gonna let you have any of the pie,” Smoke added from the doorway.

“Fried chicken?” Cal asked, licking his lips over the thought.

“And mashed potatoes and fresh green beans and oven-baked bread,” Pearlie finished, his eyes dreamy as if he were talking about a lovely woman who’d just asked him out.

“Outta the way, Cal,” Pearlie called as he hurried toward the door, “’less you want’a get runned over.”