My Foot's in the Stirrup . . . My Pony Won't Stand (Code of the West) (5 page)

Tap leaned back. “I’m sleepin’ on the floor in my be
droll, and I wake up about midnight coughin’ and hackin’. The stove got so heated that it melted the bolts on the red-hot iron door, which fell to the floor. Some coals flew out on the floor, and soon the room was filled with smoke.”

“What did you do then, Mr. Andrews?” Angelita asked.

“I pulled on my boots and ran for the door. I shoved it open, but I couldn’t get any windows open since they were all froze tight. I’d been sweatin’ a lot in the heat of that room, and the minute I stepped outside, my lids froze to my eyelashes.”

“That gives me the shivers just thinkin' about it.” Angelita  folded her arms over her head.

“I ran back in and roused the two gamblers. One of ’em slept in a cot, the other on the table. I had to lead them out through the smoke. We stood out there coughin’ our heads off. All the water was frozen, so we put out the smolderin’ floor by shoveling snow back into our cabin.”

“What about Miss LaFayette?” Pepper quizzed.

“She was in the top bunk, and the air is thicker up there. She had passed out, so I carried her outside—”

“I presume the gamblers didn’t want to get their hands ca
llused carrying a maiden in distress?”

“I didn’t ask. She was a little thing. Couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred pounds. I bet I could have stretched my fingers around her waist.”

Pepper tried to suck in her stomach.

“She didn’t seem like she was breathin’ when I toted her out. It must have looked a sight, a lady layin’ out there on a blanket in the snow next to a house boilin’ with smoke in 20
o
below zero weather and us tryin’ to revive her.”

“What did you have to do to revive her?” Angelita's eyes fixed on Tap’s.

“Never mind,” Pepper interrupted. “Did the young woman survive?”

“She pulled right out of it after we got her to breathin’. She was one grateful lady—huggin’ and kissin’ and .
 . . ”

“What about the cabin?” Pepper broke in. “Did it burn to the ground?”

“Nope. We shoveled snow on the hot spots, then mopped up the floor, and rebolted the stove door. It was like a steam bath the rest of the night as the snowmelt evaporated. Meanwhile, I gave up on Bodie a few days later and went to Arizona.”

"Alone?" Pepper asked.

"Yes, very alone."

“Whatever happened to the others?” Angelita prompted.

“Never saw ’em again. I heard one of the gamblers was shot dead in El Pueblo de las Reyna de los Angeles.”

“Where?”

“That’s a little Spanish town between Fort Tejon and San Diego in California. The other gambler got pneumonia and died before spring right there in Bodie.”

“I will probably regret asking this.” Pepper faked a grin. “How about Miss Posse LaFayette?”

“Got a letter from her one time. She wrote she was going to Montana to open her own place. That was years ago. But the point is—”

“You mean there is a point?” Pepper teased.

“If you want a cold place to live, move to Bodie. You’ll never have to fan yourself. As for me, I’ll take the summer heat over that bitter, killin’ cold any day.”

“Well, my brow is still perspiring, but it is nice to think of cool breezes. I wonder when the day will come that I’ve heard all your stories and adventures?”

“Probably about the time I’ve heard all of yours, darlin’.” Tap winked at Pepper.

“That will never happen. There is very little of my past I ever wish to remember. And much that I will never tell an
yone.”

“Why’s that?” Angelita asked.

Pepper turned her gaze to the road. “I think those two men in the carriage are coming to our house. Are you expecting company?”

“Are you changing the subject?” Angelita questioned.

“Yes. Do you know those men, Tap?”

“Looks like Tracker and Cabe. I met them at Tom’s this evenin’.”

“What do they want?”

“I reckon I’ll just mosey out there and ask.”

Pepper watched to see if Tap was going to buckle on his holster. When he didn’t, she sighed in relief.

Tracker had the bronzed face of a man who spent a lot of time outdoors.

Either chasing bovines or being chased himself.

Wrinkled, leathery skin framed the man’s eyes, but not the deep hardened creases that would reveal days of staring across a hot, r
elentless summer desert and into blowing freezing snow. There was a toughness of smile, but not the chiseled look that comes from pushing yourself beyond exhaustion time and time again. The hands weren’t overly callused. There was no missing thumb of a dally man. No rope burns at all.

’Course, nowadays anyone can call himself a cattleman.

The other man was easy to read, too. Wesley Cabe stood three or four inches shorter than Tap’s six-foot frame. Hard,  expressionless eyes, fixed in a permanent inspective gaze. Pale face. Soft right hand. Mouth set in a firm line.

Gambler and gunman. He’s no attorney. ’Course, I’ve known a few gunmen who knew the law books. Carries his .45 too low to be comfortable. There’s only one reason to wear your gun that low: to use it.

“Evenin’, Andrews.” Tracker swung down off the carriage. Cabe stayed seated, reins in hand.

“Evenin’.” Tap tipped his black hat. “What can I do for you boys?”

“I have a business proposition for you. I’d like to hire you for a couple of weeks to guide us up to the Old Woman Creek area.”

“I’m much obliged to you for the confidence you have in me, but as I mentioned down in Tom’s office, I just don’t know that country very well. Besides, I’m drawin’ my pay from the stock association.”

“I checked this out with Mr. Slaughter. They’re curious about what brands are runnin’ north of the Platte, so he’d take care of things down here if you wanted to go north.”

“Are you tellin’ me the association will keep paying my wages even though I guide you up there?”

“That’s what he said. He figured guidin’ us would give you an excuse for nosin’ around.”

“That might work. And you’d pay me on top of that?”

“Fifty a week. Just think of it as a hundred-dollar bonus.”

“I confessed full up I didn’t know the territory.”

“Frankly,” Tracker glanced back at Pepper and Angelita on the porch. “the country between here and there has a reputation for being kind of wild—horse thieves, rustlers, and bank robbers on the run. What I want from you more than anything is another gun to ride with us.”

“Can’t Cabe protect you?”

Wes Cabe’s right hand dropped down to his revolver.

“He's a lawyer.”

“Let’s get this out in the open. Cabe has spent most of his life behind a Faro table. The barrel of that .45 has shot a few bullets, and some of them put men down. I know that. Cabe knows that. So don’t waste time with this lawyer stuff.”

A wide smile broke across Tracker’s face. “Now I know for sure I want to hire you. How’s sixty dollars a week sound?”

“You still haven’t explained Cabe.”

“He's a friend and business associate. And a gambler. There’s no one more steady with a gun in a room full of sneakthieves and foo
tpads. But out here on the prairie, it’s a different matter. To be honest, we heard about your work with that ’73 and long-range sight and figured it would be a good addition to our contingent.”

Tap shoved his hat back. He noticed Tracker kept gazing out at the prairie behind the house. “I’ll protect you if we’re fired on, but I’m not a hired gun. I won’t fight your fights, and I won’t do your shootin’ for you.”

“Fair enough.” Tracker scratched the back of his neck and re-sat his wide-brimmed gray hat. “I hope none of us have to fire a shot. Have we got a deal then?”

“I haven’t heard anything out of Cabe. You don’t mind Tracker’s lack of confidence in your gun?”

“I didn’t say that,” Tracker insisted.

“Mister, I don’t care if Tracker hires an army," Cabe r
eplied. "I’m lookin’ to make some dollars. Don’t hurt me none not to draw guard duty at night." He paused.  "Have you ever worked west Texas? You sure do remind me of an old boy I used to know down there.”

“I’ve spent the past few years mostly in Arizona.”

“You don’t say?” Tracker intruded. “I was just down there last year and bought some Mexican beef from Stuart Brannon. You know Brannon?”

“Not personally. We ran in different circles. But ever’one in Ar
izona’s heard of him. I hear he rides a big black horse that can outrun the wind.”

“Quite right. A beautiful mount.”

“What’s the name of that horse? I forget,” Tap baited. “It’s a Spanish name, isn’t it?”

Tracker hesitated. “Eh, he calls him Diablo.”

“Yeah, that’s it. I always figured if I got a long-legged black stallion, I’d name him Diablo.”

“Have we got a deal then? I’d like to leave in the mornin’,” Tracker added.

“Well, sir, I’m a family man, so I’ll need to talk it over with them first. How about me meeting you at Tom Slaughter’s office about seven in the morning?”

“All right, but we’ll need to leave soon after that.”

“That’s the best I can tell you,” Tap insisted. “If you want a quicker decision, maybe you ought to keep lookin’.”

“No, no. That will be fine.”

Cabe pulled off his hat and wiped his sweating pallid forehead with the sleeve of his suit coat. “I was wonderin’, are you Mexican?”

“Not that it matters, of course,” Tracker quickly added.

“My mama was a Métis, half-French and half-Assiniboin, if you’re talkin’ about my
bois brulé
skin color.”

“Your pretty daughter must take after that side of the family.” Tracker waved his hat at Pepper and A
ngelita.

Tap thought about correcting the man and then decided it wasn’t worth it. By the time he marched back to the front porch, the ca
rriage had swung around and rolled toward the center of town.

“That took awhile. What did they want?” Pepper kept busy with her needlework.

“To hire me for two weeks at sixty dollars a week.” Tap stooped to unfasten his spurs.

Pepper sat straight up. “That’s twice what you’re making now. To do what?”

“Guide them up past the Platte to look at some ranches. The one doin’ the main talkin’ is a Texas cattleman lookin’ to buy some summer grazin’, I reckon.” He hung the pair of spurs on a nail by the door.

“How about the other one?”

“He’s a, eh, business partner of sorts. Tom told ’em he’d pay me to scout around that country, too. So I could make double salary.”

“We could use the money in the ranch account, but would that mean you wouldn’t be home for two weeks?”

“Yep. What do you think, darlin’?” Tap plopped down in the chair next to Pepper, reached over, and rubbed the back of her neck.

“Sounds lonely.”

“Here’s what I’m thinkin’. How about us puttin’ the hundred dollars in the bank, and you two take twenty dollars for a trip to Boulder so you can visit Baltimore.”

“Go see my daddy?” Angelita squealed.

“If you think you’re up to it. It might be a little cooler there, and I’ll be out of town anyway.”

“Could we take the train?” Angelita asked.

“Yep.”

Pepper swiped her forehead on her sleeve. “I think we just might do that, Mr. Andrews. It would ce
rtainly beat sittin’ here bakin' like a potato. A very plump potato.”

“Are you sure it won’t be too hard a trip for you?”

She looked down at her very round stomach. “What do you think, Lil’ Tap? You want to go on a ride on the train?”

“What did he say?” Angelita asked.

“He said anywhere it’s cooler is fine with him. But I do wish you were coming with us.”

“I’ve got to go earn the money to send you.”

“When will we leave?” Angelita asked.

“I’ll be headin’ north first thing in the mornin’. You two might as well catch the 9:00
a.m.
train to Cheyenne. You’ll have to change trains there, but you know your way around that station.”

“Don’t remind me.” Pepper stood and stretched her arms. “Come on, honey, we’ve got to pack.”

“I can’t believe this,” Angelita giggled. “It’s like an answer to my prayers, that is, if I prayed as much as you two.”

“So you aren’t the praying type?” Tap asked her.

“I’m very self-sufficient, so I don’t need to bother the Lord very often.”

“How about when your daddy was shot? Did you pray then?”

“Okay, so most of the time I’m self-sufficient.”

“And what about when Del Gatto used you for a shield?”

“I did pray that he wouldn’t shoot me when I dropped to the ground.”

“Maybe this trip is an answer to your prayers.”

“I suppose.” She wrinkled her nose. “There’s a possibility you could be right.”