Enos slid off his horse and handed the reins to Charley. “Hold on tight. Some of these nags might spook when Clarabelle goes off.”
“You named your rifle?” Melissa said.
“Why not? Lots of runners do. It was good enough for Davy Crockett, wasn’t it? He called his Old Betsy.” Enos caressed his Sharps. “Mine is named after a fallen dove I took a shine to in St. Louis. The greatest gal who ever lived. She could go all night and half the next day and still have enough steam in her engine for a wild night on the town.”
Charley coughed and nodded at Melissa to remind Howard yet again that there was a lady in their midst. But he’d have done better taking a sledgehammer to Howard’s thick skull.
“Yessir,” Enos said fondly, “Clarabelle was a real peach. I wanted to take her for my wife. I visited her every chance I got and asked her every time, but she kept tellin’ me I could do better. Damn her and her hard head anyhow.” He scowled.
“What happened?” Melissa inquired.
“She came down with consumption and died on me. I wanted to die too. Instead, I bedded every other gal in the boardin’ house in Clarabelle’s honor.”
“I’m sure she would have appreciated that,” Charley said and was disappointed no one seemed to realize he was poking fun.
Enos nodded. “That she would, boy. Clarabelle had a zest for life no woman has ever matched. She could see beauty in little things, like the flutter of a moth at the window or the warblin’ of a bird. Sunsets about put her in deliriums of joy.” His eyes were misting over. “She was one of a kind, a marvel of nature, and I miss her every hour I draw a breath.”
“How romantic!” Melissa gushed.
“In the Old Country we would say you were struck by the lightning bolt,” Tony remarked.
Enos glanced at him. “That’s exactly what it was. When I was with her, I felt tingles where I’d never felt tingles before. That gal could curl my toes with a look and a wink. It’s the only time I think I’ve ever truly been in love. Although there have been six or seven other times I’ve come close.”
“Do you make it a habit to visit boardin’ houses?” Charley’s parson back in Kentucky had regularly denounced harlots and those who visited them as lewd and sinful. Truth was though, he had thought about visiting a bawdy house himself but had never mus tered the nerve. One time he got as far as the walk leading up to a fancy house in Denver when a vision of loveliness in a second-floor window whistled at him and waved a little pink handkerchief. It scared him so, he went and sat on a bench near the creek until his blood stopped boiling in his veins.
“Sure,” Enos answered. “Doesn’t everyone? We’re human, ain’t we? We’ve got needs. When we’re hungry, we need to eat. When we’re thirsty, we need to drink. When we’re cravin’ companionship, we need to—”
“That will be quite enough,” Charley said.
Enos chuckled. “You’re sure a caution. I like you, pup, but you’ve got a heap of learnin’ to do. Life ain’t no fairy tale with ladies in castles waitin’ for their knights in shinin’ armor to come sweep ’em off their dainty feet. Life is sweat and misery and more sweat and joy, and anything else is dribblin’s from the pie.”
Much to Charley’s annoyance, Melissa was gazing at Howard as if he were a fount of worldly wisdom. “That’s your opinion. Folks are entitled to opinions of their own, last I heard.”
“No need to get all frothy on me. Sure, a man can have all the opinions he wants. But opinions are like buffalo chips. There are a million of ’em, and it doesn’t do to say one is any better than the other. They’re all made of the same manure.”
Melissa and Tony burst out laughing, but not Charley. He would never share the buffalo hunter’s sour outlook on things. There had to be more to life than Enos let on. There just had to. “Shouldn’t you take a shot at those antelope before they wander clear to Texas?”
“Is that your way of tellin’ me I’m afflicted with leaky mouth?” Enos grinned. “I reckon I am at that. But that’s why God gave the rest of you ears.”
Melissa raised a hand to shield her eyes. “That will be quite a shot.”
“Hardly, Missy. Not when they’re so close you can practically reach out and touch ’em. Any runner worth his salt could pick those critters off without half tryin’.” Turning to his horse, Howard opened a saddlebag, took out a spyglass, and handed it to Charley. “Do the honors. Let me know exactly where the slug hits.”
Charley extended the telescope to its full length and pressed it to his right eye. The eyepiece was adjustable, permitting him to focus on the pronghorns with perfect clarity. There were eight all told, each with the distinctive markings of their kind: reddish-brown on their upper bodies and along the outside of their legs, white across their lower sides, their chests, and their rumps. Something peculiar struck him. “I don’t see any males.”
Enos had taken a box of shells from a pocket in his buffalo coat and set it on the ground. “You won’t. This time of year, bucks and does keep to themselves. In the fall, when the males are in rut, they’ll get together again. Come wintertime, there are herds of a hundred or more.” He squinted toward the antelope. “I’ll pick a big doe. No sense in deprivin’ a young one of the few years of life it might have left.”
“How thoughtful of you, Enos,” Melissa said.
“The young ones don’t have much meat on ’em anyway.” Howard opened the box and removed a linen cartridge. “Most runners don’t mind buyin’ a rifle off a store rack, but not me. Clarabelle here is custom-made. I got tired of shootin’ buffs and not havin’ ’em drop. The calibers most rifles are made in just don’t have enough wallop. So I had Clarabelle made in .45-90.”
Charley had used a .36 caliber rifle to hunt deer, so he had a fair inkling of how powerful Clarabelle must be and said so.
“She gets the job done, that’s for sure. But if I had it to do over again, I’d have her made in .50-90 or more. There’s been a few times when she’s taken two shots to drop a buff, which is one too many.” Enos worked the trigger guard, which doubled as a lever, lowering the breechblock. He inserted the long cartridge and moved the trigger guard back in place.
“Why does your rifle have two triggers?” Tony asked. “It only has one barrel.”
Enos held out Clarabelle so they could all see. “After I thumb back the hammer, I squeeze the second trigger, which sets the first to what runners call a ‘hair trigger.’ The slightest squeeze and Clarabelle will go off. Makes it a lot easier to hit what I aim at.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” Melissa said. “How does that help you be more accurate?”
“Most triggers, Missy, have a lot of pull to ’em. You have to squeeze sort of hard. That tends to make a gun jerk, and that’s the last thing you want in a huntin’ rifle.” Enos patted his Sharps. “With Clarabelle’s, there’s no jerkin’ when I squeeze the hair trigger. The barrel stays nice and steady.”
“Whenever you’re ready,” Charley said. He hadn’t taken his eye off the antelope. Every twitch of an ear, every blink of an eye, was as plain as if he were standing next to them.
Enos tucked the Sharps to his shoulder and elevated the rear sights. “At this range I don’t hardly need to bother,” he bragged and sighted anyway. He stood rock-still. His breathing slowed. The hammer made a loud click when he pulled it back. He curled his forefinger around the rear trigger and squeezed, setting the first, then slid his finger to the first trigger but was careful not to touch it.