They chatted away the remainder of the morning. Sally fixed sandwiches for lunch, then the two went for a stroll around town. While resting on the cool banks of a creek, Buck said, “Sally, I want to tell you something.”
She glanced at him. “Sounds serious.”
“Might be. Sally, if I ever come to you and tell you to pack up and get out of town, don’t question it. Just do as I say. If I ever tell you that, it’s because a lot of trouble is about to pop wide open.”
“If there is an Indian attack, wouldn’t it be safer in town rather than outside of town?”
“It won’t be Indians, Sally.”
“There are children in this town, Buck,” she reminded him.
“I’m aware of that.”
“Are you saying the sins of the father are also on the head of the son?”
“No,” Buck’s reply was given slowly, after much thought. “Why would I think that?”
She touched his face with her small hand. “Who are you, Buck?”
And just before his lips touched hers, Buck said, “Smoke Jensen.”
“Well, this cinches it,” Richards told MacGregor. “I’ve got a man I can trust. You agree?”
“Oh, most assuredly,” the Scotsman said. “I like the young man.”
Richards gave his bookkeeper a sharp glance. Damned little sour man had never seemed to like anybody. But if MacGregor gave his OK to Buck West, then Buck was all right.
“Boss,” Jerry stuck his head into the office. “Some range-rider just reported a group of old mountain men’s gatherin’ south and west of here.”
“Mountain men?” Richards said. “That’s impossible. All those people are dead.”
“No, sir,” Jerry respectfully disagreed with his boss. “There’s still a handful of ’um around. They old, but they mean and crotchety and not to be fooled with. Dangerous old men. I’ve run up on ’um time to time. And Benson over to the general store reports that one was in his place ’bout three days back. Bought supplies and sich.”
“Mountain men,” Richards vocally mused. “Now why would those old characters be hanging around here?”
Neither Richards nor Jerry noticed the faint smile on MacGregor’s face. The Scotsman now knew what Buck/Smoke was up to. And it amused him. But, he cautioned himself silently, you damn sure don’t want to be around when Buck and his friends lift the lid on Pandora’s Box. Best start making arrangements to pull out. It isn’t going to be long.
“Don’t know, boss,” Jerry said. “Just thought you’d want to know about it.”
“Yeah, right, Jerry. Thanks.”
MacGregor watched the men leave the office. The under-cover federal marshal sat down at his desk and took up his pen, dipping the point into the inkwell. He returned to his company ledger book. But he had a difficult time entering the small, precise figures. His shoulders kept shaking from suppressed laughter.
“I must keep reminding myself that I’m a lady,” Sally told Buck. But the twinkle in her eyes told Buck that while a lady she might be, there were a lot of hot coals banked within.
“Aren’t you going to run away, screaming in fear?” Buck asked her. “After all, I’m the murderer, Smoke Jensen.”
“You took an awful chance, telling me that.”
“Maybe I have some insight, too.”
“Yes, I suppose you do. Now tell me about Smoke.”
She listened attentively for a full ten minutes, not interrupting, letting him tell his painful story, his way. Several times during the telling he lapsed into silence, then with a sigh, he would continue.
When he had finished, she sat on the cool creek bank, her long skirt a fan of gingham around her, and mentally digested all she had heard.
Finally she said, “And to think I work for those creatures.” She hurled a small stone into the water. “Well, I shall tender my resignation immediately, of course.”
Buck’s smile was hard. “Stick around, Sally. The show’s just about to begin.”
“What would you do if I told you…well, I am quite fond of you, Buck?”
“What would you want me to do?”
“Well,” she smiled, “you might kiss me.”
Just as their lips touched, a voice came from behind them. “Plumb sickenin’. Great big growed-up man a-moonin’ and a-sparkin’ lak some fiddle-footed kid. Disgustin’.”
Buck spun around, on his feet in a crouch, his hands over the butt of his guns. His mouth dropped open.
“Shut your mouth, boy,” Preacher said. “Flies is bad this time of year.”
“Preacher!” Buck croaked, his voice breaking.
“It damned shore ain’t Jedediah Smith,” the old man said drily. “We lost him back in ’35, I think it was. Either that or he got married. One and the same if’n you’s to ask me.”
Buck ran toward Preacher and grabbed him in a bear hug, spinning around and around with the old mountain man.
“Great Gawd Amighty!” Preacher hollered. “Put me down, you ox!”
Buck dropped the old man to the ground. His big hands on Preacher’s shoulders, Buck said, “I can’t believe it. I thought you were dead!”
“I damn near was, boy! Took this old body a long time to recover. Now if’n you’re all done a-slobberin’ all over me, we got to make some plans.”
“How’d you find me, Preacher?”
“Hell’s fire, boy! I just followed the bodies! Cain’t you keep them guns of yourn in leather?”
“Come on, Preacher! Tell the truth. I know you’d rather lie, but try real hard.”
“You see how unrespectful he is, Missy?” Preacher looked at Sally. “Cain’t a purty thang lak you do no better than the laks of this gunslick?”
“I’m going to change him,” Sally said primly. She was not certain just how to take this disreputable-looking old man, all dressed in buckskins and looking like death warmed over.
“Uh-huh,” Preacher said. “That’s whut that white wife of mine said, too.”
“White wife!” Buck looked at him. “You never had no wife except squaws!”
“That’s all you know, you pup. I married up with me a white woman that was purtier than Simone Jules Dumont’s mustache.”
“Heavens!” Sally muttered.
Simone Jules Dumont, also known as Madame Mustache, was either from France or a Creole from the Mississippi Delta region—it had never been proven one way or the other. She’d showed up in California during the 1849 gold rush and had soon been named head roulette croupier at the Bella Union in San Francisco. Eventually, Simone had moved on to a livelier occupation: running a gambling saloon/whorehouse at Bannack, Montana. It was there she is rumored to have taught the finer points of card dealing to Calamity Jane. And her mustache continued to grow, as did her reputation. She killed what is thought to be her first husband—a man named Carruthers—after he conned her out of a sizable amount of money. She moved on to Bodie, California, mustache in full bloom, and killed another man there when he and another footpadder tried to rob her one night. She lost most of her money in a card game on the night of September 6, 1879, and passed on through the Pearlies that same night after drinking hydrocyanic acid.
“Did you have any children from that union, Mister Preacher?” Sally asked.
“Durned if’n I know, Missy. I lit a shuck out of there one night. Walls was a-closin’ in on me. I heard she took up with a minister and went back east. I teamed up with John Liver-Eatin’ Johnston for a time. He lost his old woman back in ’47 and went plumb crazy for a time. Called him Crow Killer. He kilt about three hundred Crows and et the livers out of ’em.”
Sally turned a little green around the mouth. Buck had heard the story; he yawned.
“I didn’t think crows were good to eat, Mister Preacher,” Sally said.
“Not the bird, Missy,” Preacher corrected. “The Indian tribe. You see, it was a bunch of Crows on the warpath that kilt Johnston’s old woman. John never did lak Crows after that. Et a bunch of ’em.”