The Smoking Iron Read Free

other communities, other men like Pat and his partners had been making other places safe for law-abiding people. The outlaws and gunmen had been driven to find refuge some place else. Places like the Big Bend of the Rio Grande where the proximity of the Mexican Border offered them refuge.
    Without quite realizing the import of her words, Sally said, “It’s too bad you and Sam and Ezra have broken up your threesome. Going to the rescue of Katie Rollins in the Big Bend is just the sort of thing you three would have jumped at ten years ago.”
    â€œI was sort of thinkin’ the same thing,” he admitted regretfully. “But I’m all settled down here with a wife that’s gettin’ old an’ with a growin’ boy.”
    â€œI’m not so old,” Sally flashed at him.
    Pat grinned slyly. “Too old to be sending yore husband off on any foolishment like that.”
    â€œOf course,” Sally agreed strongly. “It would be foolishness.”
    Pat slapped his lines on the backs of the sleek bays to speed their trot a little. He didn’t say anything.
    â€œBesides,” said Sally resentfully, “Sam Sloan is married now and hardly over his honeymoon. And he’s got an important job riding the Pony Express.”
    â€œThat’s right. Pore ol’ Sam. He’s hawgtied for sure.” Pat shook his head sadly from side to side.
    Sally darted him a quick glance, but his face expressed only sorrow for the plight of his one-time gun-partner.
    â€œAnd Ezra’s settled down and working too,” she reminded him. “Taking care of that Pony Express station, he can’t go traipsing off on any foolish adventures either.”
    â€œHe sure can’t. Not ’less he got somebody else to take his place at the station. Makes me feel kinda sorry for Ezra,” Pat went on feelingly. “He ain’t never been tied down like that before with a steady job.”
    â€œBut it’s good for him,” Sally said sternly.
    â€œSure it is,” Pat agreed in a meek tone. “I reckon.”
    Sally didn’t say anything for a long time. She sat erect in the seat, tapping her toe against the floor of the buckboard and staring straight ahead, her lips compressed tightly. Glancing aside at her from time to time, Pat couldn’t see her face, hidden as it was by the pink sunbonnet. He wondered what she was thinking about.
    He found out after a short time. In a curiously muffled voice, she asked hesitantly:
    â€œDo you still plan to pick up some two-year-old heifers to stock the south pasture this fall?”
    â€œI ain’t rightly decided. Not at the price a man has to pay hereabouts for heifers.”
    Another, shorter pause followed. Then: “Have you thought any more about picking up some cheap Mexican stock … from down on the border?”
    â€œI’ve been thinkin’ about it some,” he replied carefully. “I ain’t plumb sure it’s worth makin’ a trip that far just to see if a man can pick up a bargain.”
    â€œSeems to me,” said Sally strongly, “that it would be well worth it. That south pasture was hardly grazed at all last winter. It’s a waste to let the grass lie.”
    â€œThat’s right. I reckon it is.”
    â€œIf you’re hesitating about making a buying trip on my account, I wish you wouldn’t,” Sally told him primly. Dock and I will get along fine on the ranch without you.”
    â€œI sort of hate to go alone,” Pat confessed. “It’s a long ride down into Texas.”
    â€œYou could go by stagecoach.”
    â€œSure. An’ a goat could fly … if the Lord had given him wings.”
    â€œHow about … Ezra?”
    â€œI dunno as I should mention it to him. Oh, he’d go like a shot. But mebby he shouldn’t leave his Pony Express station. It bein’ the first steady job he ever held down.”
    â€œBut you