There were three other stagecoaches in Chama when Ben hauled back on the reins and set the brakes at the conclusion of their journey. Like Pearlie’s coach, the other three coaches represented towns that had no railroad of their own, and so their main routes were back and forth from their towns to the depot in Chama.
A couple of hostlers who worked for Sunset met the coach as it arrived, then unharnessed the team and led them off for a twenty-four-hour rest. Before the coach started back, a new, fresh team would be connected.
Pearlie laughed the first day when they started back because, when Ben started talking to the teams, calling the horses by name, he saw that he was using the same names.
“They don’t mind, they’re just horses,” Ben explained. “And if I use the same names for all of them, it makes it easier for me to remember.”
Pearlie couldn’t argue with that.
The drivers and shotgun guards of the stagecoaches always took their lunch at the Railroad Diner. They were free to go somewhere else if they wanted to, but if they ate at the Railroad Diner, their meals were paid for by their respective stage lines.
The drivers generally ate at one table and the shotgun guards at another. Pearlie was neither the oldest nor the youngest of the guards, so he fit in well with them, and generally enjoyed his visits with them.
Today, two of the other guards were in the middle of an argument when Pearlie joined them.
“He ain’t nowhere near as good,” one of them said.
“The hell he ain’t,” the second guard said. “I’ve read books about my man. I ain’t never read nothin’ about your man.”
The guard shook his head. “First of all, he ain’t my man.”
“Well, he’s the one you’re sayin’ is so good.”
“Hello, Mack, Zeb. What are you two talking about?” Pearlie asked.
“Zeb says that Snake Cates is a better man than Smoke Jensen,” Mack said.
“No, now, I ain’t said no such a thing,” Zeb said, holding his hand out in denial. “I ain’t talkin’ about who is the better man. There ain’t no doubt in my mind but what Smoke Jensen is the better man. Fact is, I ain’t never heard nothin’ bad about him. All I’m a sayin’ is that iffen it was to come down to a gunfight betwixt the two of ’em, I think Snake Cates would win.”
“What makes you think that?” Pearlie asked.
“Well, think about it. Near’bout ever one knows that Snake Cates kills folks for a livin’. What I mean is, if somebody has someone he wants kilt, why, all he has to do is pay Cates enough money and Cates will do it. Hell, there ain’t no tellin’ how many men he’s kilt by now. But this fella Smoke Jensen, now, I’m sure he’s good ’cause I’ve heard a lot about him. But he don’t go around killin’ people as a job, does he? So, when you get right down to it, that means Snake Cates would more than likely kill Smoke Jensen if they was to get into an outright gunfight,” Zeb said, finishing his explanation.
“What do you think, Pearlie?” Mack asked. “Iffen the two of them was to get into a gunfight, which one do you think would win?”
“I don’t know,” Pearlie replied. “But I tell you this, don’t sell Smoke short.”
“What do you mean by don’t sell ‘Smoke’ short?” Mack asked.
“What do you mean, what do I mean?”
“I mean the way you said ‘Smoke’ as if you know him. You ain’t goin’ to try an’ tell us you know him, are you?”
“No,” Pearlie said. “I’m not going to tell you I know him. All I’m saying is, if it came right down to it, I wouldn’t bet against Smoke Jensen.”
“There you are, Zeb,” Mack said. “Pearlie agrees with me.”
“Ha! And that’s supposed to change my mind, because Pearlie agrees with you?”
For the rest of the meal, Pearlie made no more contributions to the conversation. He had never told anyone of his relationship with Smoke Jensen, and he really didn’t plan to tell anyone. He had no specific reason for keeping quiet about it, though he knew, intuitively, that if he did tell someone, he would face two types of people. The first group would be those who would attempt to get a rise out of him by heaping scorn on Smoke Jensen. The second group would be those who didn’t believe him, and they would be just as uncomfortable to be around as the first.
Because Pearlie did not participate in the conversation, the subject soon changed so that, by the time they were all ready to leave the diner to make their return run, there were no arguments and they were laughing and joking together.
“So, this here feller,” Zeb was saying, “went into a bank pullin’ his wife along with him. ‘Look here,’ he says to the bank teller. ‘Iffen I was to give you forty dollars, would you give me two twenties?’
“‘Why, yes, I would,’ this here bank teller answers.
“So this feller, what he done is, he pushed his wife up in front of the teller and he says, ‘This here woman is forty years old. I’d like me two twenty-year-olds, please.’”
Zeb laughed hard at his own joke.
“I don’t get it,” Danny said. Danny was the youngest of the shotgun guards.
Now all of them laughed even harder.
“Mack,” one of the drivers called from the other table. “Time for us to be gettin’ started back.”
“Yeah, us, too,” another driver said, and the four drivers and four shotgun guards left the restaurant to the good-byes of the regulars who ate there every day.
“Pearlie? Can I speak to you for a moment?” Ben asked as they walked from the diner back to the coach. The new team had been attached and the six horses stood waiting in their harness.
“Sure thing, Ben,” Pearlie replied.
“Can you use a gun?” Ben asked.
“Well, sure I can, if I have to,” Pearlie replied. He chuckled. “I wouldn’t be much good in this job if I couldn’t now, would I?”
“The reason I asked is, you might want to be particularly ready for this trip.”
“Why is that?”
“I’ve just been told that there is over ten thousand dollars in cash in the strongbox,” Ben said. “It’s for the New Mexico Mining Company, cash comin’ back to ’em for the last shipment of gold they sent out.”
“We’re goin’ to be carrying ten thousand dollars?”
“That’s what the dispatcher told me.”
“That’s a lot of money.”
“It sure is. Of course they’re tryin’ to keep it quiet, but when there’s that much money, it has a way of getting out. So I think you better be on your toes.”
“Thanks for the warning. I will be,” Pearlie said.
Pearlie thought about the money they were carrying. Ten thousand dollars was a lot of money, and the truth was, there was a time in his life, before he met up with Smoke, when ten thousand dollars would be a big temptation to him.
He looked over at Ben as the older man concentrated on driving the team.
Pearlie wouldn’t have to hurt Ben. All he would have to do is point his gun at the driver, reach down into the boot, pick up the strongbox, then jump off the coach.
“No!” he said aloud.
“What?” Ben asked, startled by Pearlie’s unexpected outburst.
“Oh, nothing,” Pearlie replied. “I was just thinking aloud, that’s all.” Thinking thoughts he had no business thinking, Pearlie told himself. There was no way he would ever do anything like that. In fact, there was no way he would have ever done anything like that, even when he was at his wildest.
Still, if he wanted to foil a holdup attempt, it probably didn’t hurt to think like the outlaws. Take this route, for example. He knew that if anyone had a notion to jump the stage, the best place to do it would just ahead of where they were right now, where the canyon walls squeezed in so tight alongside the road that the coach would have to move at a snail’s pace.