“Let’s just say I respect my elders,” Smoke said.
“Do you now?”
“And I respect them more when they’re clean,” Smoke added with a chuckle.
“All right, all right, you don’t have to hit me on the head with it,” Preacher grumbled. “Your woman wants me clean, so I’ll clean up. But it ain’t for you, you understand. It’s for your woman.”
“I understand,” Smoke said with a smile.
Preacher reached down to pick up his Sharps .50 caliber.
“You need a rifle in the bathing room, do you?” Smoke teased.
“I don’t go nowhere without I have this with me. You know that.”
Smoke held up his hands. “Take it. You never can tell but what you might run into a grizzly in there.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time I seen a grizzly while I was bathin’,” Preacher said.
Smoke chuckled. “Considering where you do your bathing—that is, when you do bathe—that’s not particularly surprising.”
Angus and Moe were in the lobby of the hotel.
“I seen him headed toward the bathing room just a couple of minutes ago,” Angus said. “By now he’s prob’ly in the tub, and, more ’n likely, he took his money in there with ’im.”
“How do you know he took his money with ’im?”
“You don’t think he’d just leave it in his room, do you?”
“No, more ’n likely he wouldn’t.”
“That’s why, it won’t be nothin’ to take it from ’im.”
“You know he ain’t goin’ to just be quiet about it,” Moe said.
“They’s two of us, only one of him. He’ll be nekkid in the tub. All we got to do is hold his head under water till he stops movin’. Folks don’t make a lot of noise while they’re drownin’. And once he’s drowned, why we’ll get his money and slip out just real quiet-like.”
Angus and Moe looked over toward the check-in clerk, and when they saw him step away and walk into a room just behind the desk, they moved quickly to the steps and hurried up to the second floor.
The bathing room was at the back end of the corridor and Angus and Moe walked quickly down the carpeted hallway until they reached the door. They stood there for just a moment, listening.
“Yeah, he’s in the tub, all right. I can hear the splashin’,” Angus said. “Let’s go in.”
Angus tried the doorknob, found that it wasn’t locked, then pushed it open and stepped inside.
“This ain’t the one,” Angus said when he saw the old, white-haired and white-bearded man sitting in the tub.
Smoke stepped out of his room just in time to see two men going toward the bathing room. He didn’t know who they were, or what they wanted, but he was absolutely certain that Preacher wouldn’t welcome their presence. And, because it was hard enough to get Preacher to take a bath anyway, he figured he had better see what’s going on.
Smoke started toward them, and saw them open the door then step inside. He figured he would hear Preacher’s bellow any moment now. And he wasn’t disappointed.
“Get the hell out of here! Can’t you see that I’m takin’ a bath?” The words were loud and angry.
The two men who had stepped into the bathing room had their pistols in their hands, pointing them at Preacher.
“Where’s the young one? The one with the gold?” one of the two men asked.
“That would be me,” Smoke said from behind them.
Spinning around, they saw Smoke. They also saw that he wasn’t wearing a gun.
One of the two men smiled. “Well now, Angus, look at this. Looks like these two men have got their selves into a situation. One of ’em is nekkid, ’n the other ’n ain’t got hisself a gun.”
“Tell you what, Moe. You go with this feller to get the money. I’ll stay here and keep a gun on the old man,” Angus said. “If you ain’t back with the money in one minute, I’ll shoot the old man.”
“Yeah,” Moe said. “Good . . .”
Whatever Moe was about to say was cut short by Preacher. While Angus’s and Moe’s backs were turned, Preacher had picked his rifle up from the floor, stood up quietly, then drove the butt of the rifle into Moe’s back, between his shoulder blades.
The commotion distracted Angus and when he looked toward Moe, that gave Smoke all the opening he needed. He brought down the would-be thief with a hammerlike right cross.
“What do we do with ’em now?” Preacher asked.
Smoke took the pistols away from the two men and handed them to Preacher.
“When they come to, keep them covered until I get back. I’m going to get the marshal.”
Sugarloaf Ranch
Unlike the cabin he had personally built for Nicole, Sally had wanted a house, and Smoke bought the material and hired two carpenters to build it for him. The main house, or “big house” as the cowboys called it, was a rather large, two-story Victorian edifice, white, with red shutters and a gray-painted porch that ran across the front and wrapped around to one side. The bunkhouse, which was also white with red shutters, sat halfway between the big house and the barn. The house was so new that it still had the smell of fresh-cut wood about it, though for the moment, the most predominate aroma was that of Sally’s cooking.
“My, Preacher, I don’t believe I have ever seen you looking so handsome,” Sally said, greeting the two when they arrived.
“Hrrmph,” Preacher said. “It ain’t natural being all spiffed up like this.”
“Oh, pooh,” Sally said, kissing him on the cheek.
“’Course now, if I’m goin’ to get a kiss from a pretty woman, and get fed to boot, why, it’s worth gettin’ unnatural ever’ now ’n then,” Preacher said. “Could that be apple pie I’m smellin’?”
“It could be,” Sally said.
“I don’t rightly recollect the last time I had me an apple pie. I hope you made one for you ’n Smoke too. I’d sure hate to be eatin’ in front of you without you two didn’t have no pie of your own.”
Sally laughed. “Don’t worry, I made more than one. How long will you be staying with us?”
“I don’t know. Three, maybe four days. But if that’s too long, why you can kick me out anytime you want . . . after the pie is all gone.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Arrow Creek, Montana
Whips His Horses gave the reins of his pony to another man, then he climbed to the top of the hill. He knew the warrior’s secret of lying down behind the crest of the hill so that he couldn’t be seen against the skyline, so he lay on his stomach, then sneaked up to the top and peered over. There, on the valley floor below him, he saw the three wagons. It was obvious that the whites had no idea they were in danger. It would be easy to count coups against them.
Whips His Horses smiled, then slithered back down the hill into the ravine where the others were waiting.
“Did you see them?”
“Yes,” Whips His Horses answered.
“When do we attack?”
“Now,” Whips His Horses replied. He pointed down the ravine. “We will follow the ravine around the side of the hill. That way they will not see us until it is too late.”
For the moment the three wagons were stopped, because one of them had a broken front wheel. A long pole had been put under the front part of the wagon. Using a rock as the pivot, two men were using the pole as a lever to hold the wagon up. A third man had crawled under the wagon with a jack and, as soon as the wagon was high enough, he was going to put the jack in place.
“Can you get it, Dan?” James asked. His voice was strained because he and Steven were struggling at the end of the long pole.