The Trail West Read Free Page A

dog whined.
    “Wait your turn.” Monahan inched the biscuit closer to his mouth.
    The dog’s gaze followed that biscuit like a man’s eyes, when he’s fresh off a long trail, will watch a pretty woman.
    “Oh, hell,” Monahan grumbled, and tossed the little sandwich arcing over the fire. The dog caught it in his mouth, chewed twice, then swallowed. He licked his chops and stared again at Monahan.
    “Don’t try to fool me,” Monahan said sternly. “I know how you dogs are. Even if you’d just ate a whole steer, you’d still be beggin’ for cake.”
    The dog stared at him expectantly across the fire, a string of the ever-present drool slowly dripping from one corner of its mouth.
    Monahan fixed a second biscuit, then averted his eyes and ate it himself . . . and damned if he didn’t feel guilty!
    “I just got enough for two more, dog.” He looked at its face more closely. The light had come up enough that he could see faint grizzle on the dog’s muzzle. It was old, or at least middle-aged . . . kind of like him. He figured it had to belong to somebody.
    “They’re little!” he said in his defense for wanting to eat both sandwiches when the dog lifted a paw and whined. “What do you weigh, anyhow? Can’t be more ’n fifty, sixty pound. I’m three times bigger ’n you!”
    He fixed a third biscuit with bacon and ate it, at which point the dog sat straight up on his haunches and waved his front paws in the air. Monahan heaved a sigh, fixed the last one, and tossed it to the dog, who caught it in midair.
    “Happy now?”
    Two chews and a gulp and the biscuit was gone. Its front feet on the ground again, the dog looked at him expectantly.
    “Ain’t no more.” Monahan poured himself a cup of coffee.
    The dog whined softly in anticipation and shifted its weight from one front foot to the other.
    “That’s all there is,” Monahan said more firmly.
    The dog whined again, a high-pitched sound winding down three or four octaves to a low, rumbling groan.
    Monahan shook his head. “I ain’t never heard anything so pitiful! Dang it, anyhow! If I feed you full, will you go on home and let an old man be?”
    Ever since his old yellow dog Two-Bits died, Monahan hadn’t had the urge to own another. Two-Bits had got something terrible wrong with his hindquarters. First it was just a little limping now and then, but over time the poor critter howled every time he so much as stood up or took a step.
    One morning, Two-Bits couldn’t get up at all, anymore. Monahan had to shoot him to put the poor thing out of his misery. A whole decade later, he still felt awful bad about it. He couldn’t remember what he’d been calling himself then, or what state or territory they’d been in, but he still dreamed about it sometimes. Those brown eyes had stared up at him right until the end, full of trust and terrible pain. He didn’t want to go through that again. “Will you leave?” he asked the blue dog again.
    The dog huffed quietly and waited.
    “Hell’s bells!” Monahan muttered, and dug into his grub sack for more biscuit-makings and bacon.
    After he’d fried up and fed the dog nearly a pound of bacon and a full pan of biscuits—good ones, whose dough had been rising all night beside the fire—and the dog showed no signs of decreasing hunger, Monahan finally threw up his hands. “You’re a bottomless pit, that’s what you are, dog. I believe you’d like me to fry up General Grant and serve him on cornbread! Well, I ain’t gonna waste no more vittles on you.”
    He drank his final cup of coffee and dumped the last of the pot on the fire, then walked down to the stream cutting through the center of the meadow. He rubbed the skillets clean with cold, clear water and a handful of weeds, packed up his cooking things, and moved on to General Grant, who’d been grazing quietly. In the clear light of full morning, he brushed down, then tacked up the horse, and made ready to leave.
    The dog had followed him from