The Smoking Iron Read Free Page A

said he could likely get someone to take care of the station if he went away on a trip.”
    â€œYeh. I reckon he could.”
    â€œPlease, Pat.” Sally’s voice throbbed strongly. She laid her hand on his arm. “I think you should.”
    â€œGo on a buyin’ trip for heifers?”
    â€œYes. Down to the Big Bend.”
    Pat said wonderingly, “I’ll never be able to figure you out, old lady. You’re always one jump ahead of me.” He put his arm about her shoulders and his palm against her sunbonneted cheek. He turned her, crushing her against him and forcing the sunbonnet back on her head while his lips sought hers.

2
    There were still two hours of early summer sunlight when Sally Stevens finished her weekly shopping. While Mr. Winters was carefully placing the supplies in the back of the buckboard, she sent a boy to the Gold Eagle Saloon to tell Pat she was ready to go.
    Pat emerged through the swinging doors almost immediately and sauntered down the boardwalk to the store with a faint look of guilt on his face. Sally noted that look with a little inward smile. Though they’d been married twelve years she had never been able to convince him that she wanted him to meet his friends in the saloon and have a few companionable drinks while she was doing her shopping. Other husbands had to sneak into the saloon on like occasions, and Pat had never got rid of the feeling that he ought by rights to sneak in too.
    As he came up to her in front of the store, Sally took his arm and said gaily, “Don’t look like that, Pat, and don’t start telling me how many drinks you haven’t had. You ought to know by this time that I don’t care.”
    The storekeeper glanced over his shoulder at them as he placed the last case of canned goods in the buckboard and said disapprovingly, “I thought you two were married.”
    Pat put his arm about Sally’s slim waist and grinned at Mr. Winters. “You know we’re old married folks.”
    â€œI’ve been thinking that for a lot of years, but dogged if I’m not beginning to wonder but what you’re living in sin. No wife I ever knew treated a man like Sally treats you, Pat,”
    His grin widened and he swung Sally toward the loaded buckboard. “He’s just an old man with evil thoughts, Sally. Hop up an’ we’ll drive off ’fore we get insulted.”
    Sally bit her under lip to keep from laughing as Pat sat down beside her. She said, “We’re not going to be old married folks, are we? Ever?”
    â€œNot as long as you keep lookin’ like a gal that oughtn’t to be let out of her mama’s sight,” Pat assured her comfortably. “Nor as long as you send me off to help some gal ain’t neither of us ever seen.”
    â€œI thought you were going to the Big Bend on a buying trip for Mexican heifers,” Sally countered demurely.
    â€œOh, sure. I’d mighty near forgot the heifers.” Pat Stevens paused, then added with a pleased smile, “Got to talkin’ to ol’ Jeff Harkness in the Gold Eagle. He’s agreeable to takin’ care of the Express Station for Ezra next two or three weeks.”
    Sally said, “You’re not wasting any time fixing things up.”
    â€œCan’t afford to. Not if I’m going to ride into Marfa before that stage gets there next Friday.”
    They were approaching a crossroads east of town where the road forked due south into the mountains. Sally turned in the seat to look back at the sun hanging well above the jagged Continental Divide, and suggested, “There’s enough time to drive out to the Express station if you want. Then we could take the shortcut direct to the ranch.”
    Pat nodded as though no such thought had been in his mind. “All right. If yo’re dead-set on it.” He pulled the team of bays into the right-hand fork.
    â€œI’d like to see how Kitty