CHAPTER 13
By the next morning, a thin layer of white lay over the capital city. It had stopped snowing sometime during the night, but from the looks of the clouds looming over the mountains in the distance, the terrific blizzard that had buried Donner Pass was still going on up there.
From the letters Smoke had exchanged with his old friend Fred Davis, Smoke knew the name of the street where the man lived, and a helpful desk clerk gave him directions to the neighborhood. Smoke found a livery stable several blocks from the hotel and rented a horse and tack.
It felt good to be in the saddle again, he thought as he rode toward Davis’s house. He spent too much time sitting behind the desk in his office at the Sugarloaf.
Calvin Woods handled the foreman’s duties these days, and Pearlie, although retired from that job, was still around to give Cal a hand with advice or whatever else needed doing.
Smoke had to take care of all the ranch’s paperwork, though, and it seemed like the longer he lived, the more of that pestiferous stuff there was.
One of these days—and it wouldn’t be that long from now if Smoke had his way—Louis would be wrangling all those papers, and Denny could make the decisions regarding the day-to-day running of the ranch. She was smart enough to rely heavily on a top hand like Cal, and Smoke knew his daughter’s own instincts were good to start with.
That would leave Smoke and Sally free to enjoy life without any real responsibilities for the first time in years. They could ride up into the high country, just the two of them, along with their mounts and a packhorse, and spend some time surrounded by beautiful isolation.
He might even take an ax with him, Smoke mused, so he could fell some trees and build a small cabin by hand, just like in the old days. He was only in his fifties, still the prime of life as far as he was concerned, and could handle that without any problem.
As long as the world was big enough for him and Sally, that was plenty big enough as far as Smoke was concerned.
Fred Davis lived in a residential area a good distance away from the capital and the businesses in the middle of town. Davis was a widower, Smoke knew, but the small house where he reined in was neatly kept, with flower beds in front of the porch even though they were empty at this time of year.
Smoke swung down from the saddle and wrapped the rental horse’s reins around one of the gateposts.
The jowly, elderly man who opened the door to Smoke’s knock had thinning gray hair and wore a simple shirt and trousers with suspenders. A pair of spectacles had slid down on his nose until they seemed to perch at the very end of it. He looked over the top of them and said, “Yes, what can I do for—” He stopped short, pushed the spectacles up with one finger, and exclaimed, “Good Lord! Is it really . . . Smoke Jensen?”
“It is,” Smoke replied with a grin. He had taken off his gloves as he waited for Davis to come to the door. He stuck out his right hand and went on, “It’s been a long time, Fred.”
“By God, it sure has!” Davis gripped Smoke’s hand with the strength of a man who had hitched and unhitched thousands of teams of stagecoach horses, and then the two of them roughly embraced and slapped each other on the back. “What in blazes are you doing here? Wait, never mind that right now. Come on in here out of the cold!”
Davis ushered Smoke into the house, which was as neat inside as it appeared from the outside. He took Smoke’s hat and sheepskin jacket and hung them on a rack inside the door.
“There’s coffee on the stove,” he offered.
“With snow on the ground, this is a mighty good morning for it,” Smoke agreed.
When the two men were sitting in the parlor with their coffee, Smoke in an armchair and Davis in a rocker, the older man said, “How many years has it been?”
“Since we shook and howdied? Ten, I’d say. And a little more than double that since I rode shotgun for you.”
“You sure saved my bacon that time,” Davis said. “Hell, you saved the whole hog! What brings you to Sacramento? Just passing through? I’m sure you didn’t come all the way from Colorado just to see an old pelican like me.”
“Well, I might have. We had some high old times back then that would be good to revisit.” Smoke sipped his coffee. His expression grew more serious as he went on, “But to tell you the truth, Fred, I actually was just passing through, on my way home from San Francisco. You remember me mentioning my boy, Louis, in my letters, I’m sure. Well, he has some health problems, and we were seeing a doctor in San Francisco about them. His twin sister, Denise, is with us, too.”
“Sorry to hear about the boy having trouble. Doesn’t seem right, any son of Smoke Jensen not being as hale and hearty as his pa.”
“Sickness doesn’t care who you are or where you come from. It can ambush anybody.”
Davis nodded solemnly and said, “Aye, that’s true. It took my Emily without much warning.”
“You know how sorry I am about that, Fred.”
Davis waved a hand. “We don’t need to make a gloomy day even darker. You said you were on your way home. Trying to get there before Christmas, I expect.”
“That’s right,” Smoke said, “only we ran into trouble.”
“Donner Pass.”
“I’m not surprised you guessed it. You had to deal with it often enough during winters past.”
“I surely did! Nothing more unpredictable than a Sierra Nevada snowstorm. I hadn’t heard that the pass was closed, but I’ve been smelling snow in the air for the past couple of days.”
“The telegraph lines are still up, or at least they were yesterday,” Smoke said. “Word from the Summit Hotel is that an avalanche collapsed a long section of snowsheds and blocked the pass. Christmas will be over before it ever gets cleaned up enough for the trains to get through.”
“So you can’t get home to Sally. That’s mighty bad luck, all right.”
“It’s not just Sally. My brothers and nephews are supposed to join us for the holiday.”
“And now you’re stuck in Sacramento, so you decided to pay a visit to an old man.” Davis cocked his head a little to the side. “Don’t try to fool me, Smoke. That’s not the only reason you’re here. You’ve got something else on your mind.”
“I never thought for a second I could fool you, Fred,” Smoke said with a smile. “What I’ve got in mind is the McCulley Cutoff.”
Davis’s bushy gray eyebrows rose. “Nobody uses that anymore. No need to.”
“But it was a good road in its day. Better for stagecoaches than Dutch Flats ever was. The only reason the stage lines used Dutch Flats was because it was shorter and faster . . . when it wasn’t covered up with snow.”
Davis chuckled. “Always struck me as funny how the highest trail over the mountains got named after some flats, but that’s the way it worked out. I’m sure you know there’s no stagecoach running through the Sierra Nevadas anymore, not over Dutch Flats or McCulley or anywhere else.”
“No . . . but there could be.”
That left Davis frowning in puzzlement even more. “What are you getting at, Smoke? Spit it out, boy.”
“You’ve got a stagecoach,” Smoke said as he spread his hands. “I need to get to Reno.”
Davis’s eyebrows climbed higher this time. “You’re talking about that old coach I couldn’t bear to part with because I’m a foolish, sentimental old man?”
“I’d take good care of it and make arrangements for it to be brought back to you,” Smoke promised.
“It’s just been sitting in the barn out back for a couple of years. And I don’t have a team.”
“I can rent or buy a team. Fact is, I ought to have two teams, so I can switch them out and keep them fresh. There are no stage stations along the way to get relay teams.”
“These days, there sure as blazes aren’t.” A calculating look appeared on Davis’s weather-beaten face. He was starting to really consider the idea and not finding it as far fetched as he’d thought at first, Smoke told himself.
“You think it could be done, don’t you?”
“Don’t know. Probably been a lot of snow even on the cutoff, but it never was bad about drifting too much through there. If a man had two good sturdy teams and didn’t get in too much of a hurry . . . You say you want to get to Reno?”
“By Christmas,” Smoke said.
“You’d be cutting it close, but you might could do it. Not without a good driver, though.”
“I can handle the teams.”
Davis shook his head. “Under good conditions, you sure could. I don’t doubt it for a second. But setting out across the Sierra Nevadas in the middle of winter, even on an easier route, would be plumb foolish without an experienced hand on the reins.”
“You know where I can find one?”
“Happens that I do. You remember old Salty Stevens?”
The name brought back memories, all right, and surprised a question out of Smoke. “That old codger is still alive?”
“And kicking.”
Smoke chuckled and said, “Well, he would be, if I recollect what Salty was like. He’s here in Sacramento?”
“Yeah. He got into town a while back. I know because he came to see me. Of course, it wasn’t just a social call. He wanted to borrow money. Sort of how you came looking for a favor today.”
“You’re right, Fred. If I hadn’t been caught up in trying to get home before Christmas, I would’ve made time to stop and visit with you.”
“Remember that next time,” Davis said.
“What’s old Salty been doing?” Smoke asked.
“He went up to Alaska, of all places, to hunt for gold. Ran into some gunfighter while he was there and partnered up with him for a while. The way Salty tells it, they had some wild times. The other fella had to go off on his own to take care of some business, though, and that left Salty by his lonesome again, so he decided to hunker down here for a while.”
“In Sacramento?”
“He kept talking about how he wants to go on down to Mexico and spend the rest of his life there, but he ran out of time this year. He swears he’ll get there next year, though.”
“Salty was as good at handling a team as anybody I’ve ever seen,” Smoke said. “But he’s got to be getting on up in years by now.”
Davis grunted. “Aren’t we all? He doesn’t seem like he’s aged much since the last time I saw him, though, and I’ve got a hunch he can still do it. Plus, it would probably be a good idea to give the old rapscallion some honest work before he gets himself in trouble!” He leaned forward in the rocker and clasped his hands between his knees. “I’ll make a deal with you. Get Salty to sign on as jehu, and you can have the loan of my stagecoach. He can even bring it back when you’re done with it. I don’t reckon he’d mind spending some time in Reno until the weather gets better. How does that sound to you?”
“It sounds like you’ve got a deal,” Smoke said as he stood up. Davis got to his feet as well, and the two men shook hands again to seal the agreement.
Davis pointed over his shoulder with a thumb and said, “The coach is in the barn out back. I’ll go over it and make sure everything is in top shape. When do you want to leave?”
“As soon as possible,” Smoke said. “Which means I’d better go hunt up Salty right now. Do you know where I might be able to find him?”
“I can give you a pretty good idea,” Davis said dryly. “There’s a saloon not far from here called the Rusty Hinge. Salty spends a lot of time there.”
“You reckon he’d be in a saloon this early in the day?”
“I’d say there’s a good chance of it. He’s sweet on a gal who works there.”
It was Smoke’s turn to lift his eyebrows. “He’s still chasing women at his age?”
“You know Salty. He’s always been determined to live up to his name!”