The Smoking Iron Read Free Page B

Lane has things fixed up at the station,” Sally murmured.
    â€œKitty Sloan,” Pat reminded her. “ Mrs . Kitty Sloan.”
    â€œIs Sam happy with her, Pat?” Sally’s voice suddenly became serious.
    â€œAs happy as an old prospector that hits it rich after forty years of tryin’ an’ failin’.”
    â€œIt seems so queer. I just can’t imagine Sam Sloan married.”
    â€œHe’s settled down to it like any hawse after he’s broke to harness. Kitty’s like you, Sally. She’s got sense enough to know a man don’t change his ways just because he’s stood up in front of a preacher. Only thing is, it’s sort of tough on Ezra livin’ there with ’em.”
    â€œI should think he’d like it. Having a woman to do the cooking and keeping house.”
    Pat grinned wryly. “He misses them topheavy flapjacks he used to line his belly with every mornin’. The ones Kitty makes are so light he can’t never get filled up. An’ she’s got a funny idee that a coffeepot had ought to be washed out an’ set away ever time it’s used. Never does give the coffee a chance to get strong an’ bitter like it does after three days of simmering with the old grounds left in.”
    Sally laughed musically at Pat’s description of the redheaded bachelor’s predicament. She knew that what he said was at least partially true. In the past, she had tried to persuade Ezra to come and live with them but had always received some evasive excuse from the one-eyed giant. She had a feeling, though, that it went much deeper than a mere liking for his own peculiar brand of cooking. Though Ezra was outwardly rough and uncouth, Sally knew that he was inwardly very sensitive about the ugly facial deformity that had taken one of his eyes and terribly scarred his face. He was conscious that his ugliness made him repulsive to most women and that he could never hope to have a wife and family of his own, and that very fact, Sally was sure, made it dreadfully hard for him to see his partners happily married. It hadn’t been so bad when he and Sam Sloan lived together after Pat’s defection; but now that Sam had gone and gotten married too …
    Sally compressed her lips and tried to keep from feeling sorry for Ezra. For all his huge frame and rough ways, he was gentle as a woman and as easily hurt as a child. This trip with Pat down into Texas would be good for him. She was glad that she had suggested it. It might be dangerous, but she had sublime confidence in the ability of Ezra and her husband to overcome any danger that might confront them.
    Sally aroused herself from her thoughts as the buckboard bounced up out of a deep gully onto the flat expanse leading to the Pony Express Station that was just a tiny black dot ahead of them in the last glow of the evening sun. “Will Sam be at the station when we get there?”
    Pat considered her question for a moment, then nodded. “I reckon. He should of made the trip back from Dutch Springs this mornin’.”
    â€œHow’s he going to take it, Pat?”
    â€œTake what?” Pat Stevens glanced at his wife sharply.
    â€œYou and Ezra riding off together on an adventure. Is he going to feel badly about being left behind?”
    Pat chuckled. “He’ll be as happy about it as a black bear with the itch. But he’s got to ride the Express route … an’ he and Kitty ain’t been married long enough for her to be tired of him bein’ around … like you’ve got of me.”
    â€œI guess not,” Sally responded tranquilly. She relaxed and leaned her shoulder against Pat, watched while the tiny black dot swiftly took shape and resolved itself into a lone cabin by the side of the lonely road leading south into New Mexico.
    Originally, it had been only a two-room shack, with corrals and sheds in the rear, but when Sam Sloan married the