Too Soon to Die

The young man named Lester was dozing in the telegraph office inside Big Rock’s railroad station. It was the middle of the day, and the chief telegrapher had gone to lunch, leaving Lester in charge. He was normally a diligent young man and wouldn’t have been caught dead sleeping on the job, but he’d been up most of the night before with his pa, helping one of the family’s cows give birth to a balky calf, so he was unusually tired.

The sudden chattering of the key made him jump. Instantly, he was wide awake, his instincts making him snatch up a pencil and pull a pad of paper to him. He had spent hundreds of hours practicing until the fast-paced dots and dashes were just as plain as day to him, as if someone were standing there speaking to him. His fingers worked smoothly, printing the letters, but his brain really didn’t pay that much attention to the words they were spelling until the dots and dashes for the word OUT came over the wire and the message ended.

Then he stared at what he had written on the paper, his eyes widening until it seemed like they were about to pop out of his head.

Lester shot up out of his chair. Any drowsiness he’d felt a few moments earlier was completely gone. He looked around wildly as he tried to figure out what to do next. He’d been left in charge of the office, so he wasn’t supposed to leave, but it was important that this message be delivered as soon as possible. Mighty important.

He looked through the wicket into the station lobby and saw one of the porters passing by. “Clarence!” he called. “Clarence, come over here!”

“Yeah? What you want, Lester?”

“You’re gonna watch the telegraph office,” said Lester as he tore the sheet with the message printed on it off the pad.

The porter stared, too. “I can’t do that. I can’t work one o’ them blasted telegraph doodads. And all that clickin’ is just noise to me!”

Lester yanked the door into the lobby open. “You don’t have to send or receive any telegrams. If anybody wants to send a wire, tell them they’ll have to wait a few minutes until I get back. And if one comes in, the operator on the other end will send it again when I don’t acknowledge.”

Clarence was still protesting when Lester ran out of the station. As soon as the young man was on the street, he looked back and forth, hoping to see Sheriff Monte Carson. The sheriff was nowhere in sight, though. Lester was going to have to find him. He broke into a run toward Carson’s office, ignoring the startled looks that people on the street gave him.

As Lester ran, it occurred to him that he could have stayed in the office and asked Clarence or somebody else to go look for the sheriff. He had been so excited once he realized what the message said, he had never even thought about doing that.

Dodging around pedestrians, he was almost at the sheriff’s office when the door swung open and Monte Carson stepped out onto the boardwalk. “Whoa there, Lester,” Carson said as he held up a hand. “You’re gonna run over somebody. What’s the big rush?”

Lester skidded to a halt and thrust out the paper in his hand. Panting, he said, “This . . . this wire just came in, Sheriff! It’s from Miss Jensen!”

Carson scanned the words, then exclaimed, “Good Lord! I’ve got to tell Smoke!” He jammed the paper into his pocket, practically leaped to the hitch rack in front of the office, and yanked loose his horse’s reins.

That was a stroke of luck. He didn’t normally keep a saddle mount tied in front of the office. But he had just gotten back into town from a trip out to one of the nearby ranches and had stopped at the office before going on to the livery stable to put up his horse.

Lester didn’t know that, of course. He just watched openmouthed as Carson hauled his horse around, then called, “Thanks, Lester!” before urging the animal into a gallop that carried him toward the edge of town.

Lester closed his mouth, but only to gulp as he heard a train whistle in the distance.

* * *

Louis Jensen noticed that his wife was peering pensively out the window at the beautiful Colorado scenery through which the train was rolling. “Aren’t you glad to almost be home, Melanie?”

“What?” She turned her head to look at him. A smile flashed across her pretty face. “Oh! Of course I’m glad. I can’t wait to see Bradley, and everyone else on the Sugarloaf, of course. It’s just . . . this was such a wonderful trip. More wonderful than I ever could have hoped or dreamed. Even with the delays the past few days, it’s been an experience I’ll never forget.”

Those delays had just been their luck averaging out, thought Louis. Up until then, the trip had been everything that Melanie was gushing about. He was happier than he had ever been. With his poor health growing up, he had often thought that he wouldn’t even live to be this age, let alone be married to such a beautiful woman. But his condition was improved, Melanie was his wife, and he even had a son. He was eager to see Brad again, too. Some missing bags that had ultimately been found and a broken carriage axle that had caused them to miss a train and take a later one couldn’t even begin to compare to all the good fortune that had come to him. Nothing was going to ruin his fine mood.

“I suppose I was just thinking about the future,” Melanie went on. “And if anything, I’m a little worried for you.”

“For me?” said Louis. “Why would you be worried about me? I’m the luckiest man in the world. Don’t you know that?”

“You’re going to have to tell your mother that we’re leaving again in just a couple of months, so you can start your classes at Harvard.”

Maybe something could dampen his mood a little after all. He and Melanie had been ready to rush back when they’d gotten the telegram from his father saying that his mother had fallen ill, but it was soon followed by another wire letting them know that the crisis was over. Sally was improving, and she insisted they continue with their trip.

“I’m not sure I should break the news to her so soon after she’s been sick,” Louis said. “It might cause her to have a relapse.”

“Well, you should wait and see for sure how she’s doing, “but you can’t delay too long, Louis. You don’t want to tell her one day and have to leave the next.”

He sighed. “No, I suppose not. Perhaps she’ll take it better than I expect. After all, it’s not as if we’re leaving forever. In fact, once I’m practicing law in Big Rock, we won’t ever have to leave again.”

“I’m looking forward to that. The day when you have your profession, and we have our own home, and . . . perhaps . . . some little brothers and sisters for Bradley . . .”

Louis smiled and slipped his arm around her shoulders. “What you’re describing sounds perfect. And we’re not going to let anything ruin that beautiful life.”

The Sugarloaf

Smoke and Pearlie had just ridden in from checking some of the summer range in the hills at the edge of the valley. The errand hadn’t really been a crucial one, but the two old friends had seized on it as an excuse for a leisurely ride on a pretty day.

As Pearlie had put it, “A fella’s got only so many pretty days in his life, so it’d be a plumb shame to waste one of’em.”

Smoke couldn’t argue with that, and since Sally was almost back to normal, he had agreed with his former foreman’s suggestion.

Pearlie was complaining at the moment, though. “Bet we’re gettin’ back too late for lunch,” he said as he and Smoke rode into the ranch yard. “Took a mite longer to get up there and back than I expected. And that ain’t right, Smoke. I know ever’ foot of this ranch, like you do, and I shouldn’t ought to make mistakes like that. My brain’s gettin’ plumb ossified, I reckon.”

“Your brain’s fine,” Smoke told him. “And we’re not that late. I’ve got a hunch Inez will have saved something for us and kept it warm.”

“I hope so. That woman sure can cook, as well as bein’ mighty handsome.”

Smoke grinned over at his friend. “When are you going to make an honest woman of her, Pearlie?”

“What? An honest—Dadgum it, Smoke, nobody said nothin’ about such a thing! Why, I’m too old and set in my ways to ever settle down. It just wouldn’t be fair to a woman to saddle her with an ol’ mossback like me!”

“If Cal was here, I suspect he’d agree with you,” Smoke said, “but I think the only one whose opinion really matters is Inez.”

“Well . . . we ain’t talked about it . . . exactly . . . but I, uh, she’s given me to understand that, uh . . . she wouldn’t exactly object to such an arrangement—” With a note of relief in his voice, Pearlie changed the subject. “Look there, Smoke. Miss Sally’s sittin’ out on the porch, takin’ the air. All the boys sure are happy that she’s doin’ better.”

“So am I.” Smoke and Pearlie rode up to the porch and reined in. Grinning at Sally as she sat in a rocking chair, he said, “Good afternoon to you, Mrs. Jensen.”

“And to you, Mr. Jensen,” she said, returning his smile. “Did you boys enjoy your ride?”

“We did. Pearlie’s a little worried about his stomach, though. He seems to think that Inez is going to let him do without his lunch, so he’ll starve.”

Sally laughed. “I don’t think there’s any chance of that happening. The two of you go on inside. There’s food in the oven for you.”

“That’s mighty good news,” said Pearlie as he started to swing down from the saddle.

He hadn’t made it when a rifle cracked somewhere in the distance, a bullet ripped through the air, and with a curse Pearlie fell from his horse.