LITMIR.BIZ

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this man Davencourt,” Smoke said. “If he is needing beef the way Montgomery says he is, then he’ll probably take at least fifteen hundred head.”

      “Maybe we shouldn’t have let all the cowboys go just yet,” Sally said as she continued to brush her hair.

      “We had to let them go now,” Smoke replied. “Most of them already have other jobs lined up that they need to get to. If they didn’t get there in time, they’d lose out. Why do you think we shouldn’t have let them go?”

      “If we do sell some cattle to Byron Davencourt—”

      “It’s not if, it’s when,” Smoke said. “We will sell him fifteen hundred head. I’ve no doubt about that.”

      “All right, let’s say we do sell him fifteen hundred head. So, the next question is, how are we going to get them over to Frisco?” Sally asked.

      “Up to fifteen hundred head is no problem,” Smoke said. “Pearlie, Cal, and I can take them over.”

      “Are you sure? Sally asked. “Maybe you ought to take Juan and Carlos with you.”

      “No need to take Juan and Carlos away from their families. I’m sure Pearlie, Cal, and I can do it,” Smoke replied. “Now, I have a question.”

      Sally turned toward him and as she did so, the silk nightgown clung to her figure, beautifully displaying every curve.

      “What is your question?”

      “Do you really want to talk business now? Or would you rather—” He left the question unfinished.

      “Would I rather what?” Sally asked. But her flirtatious smile told Smoke that she knew exactly what he was talking about.

      Returning her smile, Smoke folded the bedsheet back in invitation. “Would you rather—not talk?” he asked.

      Sally leaned over the dresser, blew out the candle, then crossed the room to crawl into bed with her husband.

      “Does this answer your question?” she asked.

      Chapter Three

      Colorado State Prison, Canon City, Colorado

      Reece Van Arndt, prison inmate number 2551, stood in the chamber just outside the warden’s office. Half an hour earlier, Van Arndt had taken off his black-and-white-striped prison uniform and was now wearing an ill-fitting, dark blue suit. The suit looked even darker when contrasted with Van Arndt’s alabaster complexion, for Van Arndt was an albino.

      “Prisoner Van Arndt,” the guard on duty said.

      “I ain’t a prisoner no more,” Van Arndt said. “I get out today.”

      “Van Arndt, you are a prisoner until you step outside to the other side of the penitentiary gate,” the guard said. “And we don’t have to let you do that until midnight tonight, so I’d watch my step iffen I was you.”

      Van Arndt glared at the guard, but didn’t say anything.

      “Go on into the office. Warden Parker will see you now,” the guard said.

      Van Arndt nodded, then stepped up to the door that led into the warden’s office. He put his hand on the doorknob.

      “Knock, damn you!” the guard said sternly.

      Van Arndt knocked.

      “Come in.”

      Van Arndt walked into the warden’s office, then stopped at the line on the floor beyond which no inmate was ever to pass. Parker was sitting behind his desk, and he leaned forward as Van Arndt came in.

      “Well, Van Arndt, you are leaving us today. I didn’t think you would make it. I thought you would do something dumb enough to get your sentence extended—or else, I thought someone might kill you. And to be honest, I was sort of hopin’ for the latter.”

      “Sorry to disappoint you, Warden,” Van Arndt said.

      “Yes, well, I don’t plan to be disappointed for long. If you aren’t killed within the next six months, you’ll be back,” the warden said. “And the next time you come back, I have no doubt but that you will be staying with us for the rest of your miserable life.”

      “You give that kind of enouragin’ talk to ever’ prisoner that leaves this place?” Van Arndt asked.

      “Not all of them,” the warden replied. “Just the no accounts like you.”

      Van Arndt shook his head. “Well, I hate to disappoint you, but you have seen the last of Reece Van Arndt. I ain’t never comin’ back to this hellhole.”

      “So you say, Van Arndt, so you say,” the warden said. He sighed, then shoved an envelope across the desk. “This is yours,” he said. “According to Colorado state law, I am required to give you a train ticket to wherever you want to go in the state. You said you wanted to go to Fairplay, so you got a ticket to there. I must say, though, pickin’ a place by the name of Fairplay for someone like you seems a little strange. You’ll find five dollars in there as well, which is also required by state law.”

      “Five dollars?” he said. “I’ve busted rocks and sweated in this hellhole for three years, and all I get from it is five dollars?”

      “Five dollars,” the warden repeated. “Don’t spend it all in one place,” he added, laughing derisively.

      Van Arndt picked up the envelope.

      “Smitty!” the warden called.

      The guard stuck his head into the warden’s office. “Yes, sir?”

      “Get this maggot-looking bastard out of my sight,” the warden said.

      “Let’s go, you,” the guard said.

      Van Arndt shifted positions in the hard seat of the day coach, then looked through the window at the wide-open spaces outside. No more than one hundred yards away he saw a couple of coyotes running parallel with the track, actually outpacing the train. Finally it grew dark outside and, passing through the car, the conductor began lighting kerosene lanterns, including the one just over Van Arndt. Van Arndt reached up and turned it off.

      “Thank you, sir, that was very kind of you,” the man in the seat across from Van Arndt said.

      “What?”

      “You saw that I was trying to sleep, so you put out the lantern so as not to keep me awake.”

      “Yeah,” Van Arndt said. He had actually put it out just to keep people from looking toward him and his chalk-white skin.

      The man stretched, then sat up and yawned. “But I can’t sleep none anyway.” He chuckled. “Don’t know why I can’t sleep. I stayed up pret’ nigh all night last night celebratin’ my good fortune.”

      “Your good fortune?”

      “Well, it might not be a fortune to most folks, but four hundred fifty dollars is a fortune to me.”

      Van Arndt had just been tolerating the man; now he began listening with interest.

      “Oh, I would say that four hundred fifty dollars is a lot of money to just about anyone,” Van Arndt said. “What did you do? Get lucky at cards?”

      “Oh, no, sir, my wife, Suzie, there is no way she would put up with my playin’ cards. There was a time when I gambled, but no more.” He stuck his hand out. “Gibbs is the name, Donnie G. Gibbs.”

      “Eddie Mason,” Van Arndt said, taking Gibbs’s hand and lying about his own name. “So, how did you come by so much money?”

      “Well, sir, I’ll tell you. Me and Suzie, we got us this real small little place just outside Como, you see. And for the last three years, Suzie and me have survived just mostly by raisin’ our own vegetables, sellin’ eggs, and the such. But all along what

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