Chapter 2

I was brought before the warden as I was being released. He complimented me on being a model prisoner. He asked what I was going to do.

"Go back to farming or riding, I guess. Stay out of trouble and if I get hungry, I'm going to starve." I grinned at him as I said this, for I knew he was aware of what brought me here. He shook my hand and told me to go into the supply room and pick out an outfit of clothes. Mine had been so bad they had been thrown away. I got five dollars from the territory and I had the sixty-seven cents that were in my pocket when jailed. My shell belt, holster and pistol were returned as well.

The warden met me again. "Mr. Jones, if there was someone to speak for Kenny Ryeback to the governor, it might be possible to get him a pardon. It would take a lawyer, though, and they cost money. Just a fact to file away in your mind. He is going to have a hard time without you in his cell. He is going to have to go back to pounding his own rocks from now on." He grinned this time and I laughed because I knew my cellmate's days in the quarry were over. He had been assigned to the kitchen.

I walked down the street of the town which serviced the prison. I found what I was looking for, stuck in the window of the freight company. "Help Wanted, no escaped prisoners need apply." That had to be a joke. Well maybe not, some fool must have tried it at some previous time. The prison had been here a long while.

I walked in and to the desk. "What's the job?"

"Guard for a load of freight. One way south, one hundred thirty-seven miles."

"What's the load?" I didn't want to be guarding anything that would be easily stolen. We would be going through some rough country.

"Load of rifles for the fort. The army already took off with two loads and hired us for the last one. We're a day late already."

"What's the pay?" I was down to horse trading now.

When I heard what the pay was to be, I almost walked. In fact I started for the door. There was a chalk board there saying the company was getting rid of some saddle horses and would dicker. When I climbed aboard that freight wagon, I was cradling a company ten gauge shotgun. There was a company rifle stacked behind me. I had food slips for every stop along the way and one slip that I was to have my choice of a mount in the company corral at the end destination. Not only this, I was only fifteen miles from where I had been found helping butcher the calf.

There was something that had come to mind as I remembered and examined every minute of the day of the mix-up two years before. I had the time. Two years of it. Maybe nothing could clear up my puzzlement but the thought was there. Why would Jimbo and Ronnie be traveling without much camp gear? The other parts of their outfit were well set up and yet they only had one fry pan and one beat up coffee pot. Those appeared to be more of a spare then they might carry regular. Must be they had gotten themselves run out of somewhere, sudden like. Me, I had nothing but a tin cup.

I still felt there was another set of saddlebags that were never mentioned or seen when I took the captives back to camp. I thought I had seen another pair as I pulled in. If I could get me a good traveling horse in this trade, I might investigate around that campsite. I was packing my own eats, though.

It took four days to the fort for the delivery of the rifles. Not one spot of trouble. We unloaded and headed to the company barn ten miles beyond the fort. It was dark and I wasn't about to go looking at no horses at night, so I crawled up into the top of the hay barn and went to sleep. Morning found me over to the diner for a thirty cent breakfast. The freight boss wanted to hire me as a relay driver. He had asked how I was coming down and the driver had said I pitched right in and helped hitch and unhitch the teams. Good at it too.

I went out and looked at the horses. Some of them appeared to be half broke broncs. There was one--a steeldust that I liked the looks of. He looked familiar, and I knew I had ridden him three years ago when I was working someplace. Yeah, the right brand was there. He had changed some. I don't imagine he approved of the change either. Now he was cut and wasn't a stallion no more. That must have pissed him off.

I climbed out of the corral. "I'll take the steeldust." The four or five freighters standing around watching me, laughed and the boss said he'd make out the bill of sale. The swamper sidled up to me and said I was going to find myself in the dirt damned sudden. That hoss was a mean one and the company would be glad to get rid of him.

"I'll bet you four bits I can ride him the length of Main Street and stay on him." I had just enough money from prison to cover the bets made. All the freighters knew I hadn't forked a horse for two years and my five dollars was in jeopardy. I walked uptown and bought five cents worth of sugar cubes. My bankroll was down to pennies.

I came back to the corral and asked for a currycomb. I spent thirty-five minutes with the comb. I'd work on his body and then make like I was smoothing the hair on his face. I'd slip a cube into his mouth. Funniest thing, most animals would chew a cube, not this one, he liked to suck on it. You never knew he had it in his mouth. Occasionally he would shake his head and I'd feed him another.

An old saddle with the leather most off, and with the wood showing, was given me to ride. I mounted him in the corral and asked someone to open the gate. I eased out into the street and cantered the length up and back. "I'll take my money now and I thank you." Quarters and fifty-cent pieces were handed up.

"Good hoss Jim, you remembered. Bow to the men who just bought you grain for a month." Jim lowered his front quarters and then came back up shaking his head as if laughing. I tipped my hat and rode away. I had found a friend from my past. Sometimes when you are someplace and the human beings around you ain't so nice, you can find what you need in the animal kingdom.

I stepped down in front of the sheriff's office and surveyed the town where I had been on trial. I doubted anyone would recognize me. Now I stood tall and looked people in the eye while talking to me. I shaved every day and somehow I was going to have my hair trimmed often and not let it go wild. I was forty pounds heavier and muscled with no fat about me anywhere. I could speak well and on several subjects. I could smile when it was needed. It took some doing for Kenny to teach me to do that, but I did make it.

I pushed open the door and went inside to where the sheriff was seated in the corner. "Howdy Sheriff Colson, I came by to pick up my saddle."

"And you would be?"

"Sam Jones." He studied me for a moment.

"Saddle not worth coming after. You in town to make trouble?"

"Nope. I may hang around until I see someone and then I'm leaving."

He surprised me with, "She is married now you know. She'll be having his baby in another month. I think you better not see her."

"Sheriff, understand I'm not chasing her. In fact if she hadn't written me, I would have forgotten her by now. It was at her request that I come back to this town to see her. It will be the last time. I'm not coming between a man and his wife. How did you know about this anyway?"

"She has been checking in here lately when it was about time for you to be released. If the warden hadn't wired me that he was some impressed with you while under his charge, you would be back there in a cell right now. Not charged, but to keep you from meeting her. Jessie is like a daughter to me and I don't want her hurt. I must say you have shaped up and look like a decent man."

"Thanks Sheriff. You know she saved me back at the time I met her?"

"I know. That was after you got the ball rolling to save her and Gramps. I tell you what, why don't you lay down on the bunk back there and when she comes into town, I'll send you a visitor. She is usually in shortly after noon. She sure has acquired a taste for tea. Better she skip it today and come to see me."

He sounded sincere, so I did as he suggested. He could have come and slammed the cell door on me. He didn't.

"Mr. Jones. The sheriff said you were here. Why didn't you meet me in the tea room?"

"Better to meet here out of the public eye. You don't need a scandal." I raised off the bunk and faced her. I looked her over. I couldn't help it, I exclaimed, "You're more beautiful than I remembered."

"I'm way pregnant, Mr. Jones. How can you say that?"

"I stand on what I said."

She was looking me over as well. "You've changed. I thought you would be as scruffy looking as ever, but I did want to say thank you and offer to get you back on your feet. I was going to suggest you come by the ranch and ask for a job. I would have made sure you got hired."

"Mrs. Wilcox, was this really for me or for yourself?"

"Seeing you again, I can't tell. I don't love my husband. He treats me just like I was one of his horses. Something to own. He is all feathers and no turkey. I listened to Papa and followed his wishes. Even he knows it was all a mistake. Papa has threatened to horsewhip my husband if he ever abuses me."

"Mrs. Wilcox, you know I can't do anything. I can't come live that close to you. I'd see your husband do or say something to you and I'd be back here in this cell with the door closed on me."

"I know. I was saved by you once. I should have listened to my heart and waited for you to get out of prison. I didn't and now I'm paying big time. Do you have a place to live? Where will you go?"

"I'm going up to the northern part of the territory where a friend is hoping we can get into the cattle business. He has some land. He has been away and hasn't seen it for awhile."

"He was a prisoner just like you, wasn't he?"

"He still is, but what you see before you is what he made me."

"Shake his hand for me. Will I be seeing or hearing from you ever again?"

"I don't think that would be wise. I'll let the sheriff know where I'm located, though. I might write to him occasionally."

"Please do. I guess I should be going. I can't get over the change in you. Not only how you look, but how you speak and act. We have missed a life together, haven't we?"

"It looks that way. Trouble has become a way of life for me, but I still wake up in the morning with renewed hope everyday. We are from two different worlds and it was just so improbable for us to have a life together. You are so beautiful." I wanted to say more, but knew it wasn't wise. What more I would say, could only bring sadness to this situation.

"Can I do anything for you at all? Except for the husband I have, I can do most everything I want to."

"No. I couldn't take anything from you. If you find something I can do for you, please let the sheriff know."

"I will. Would you kiss me before I go?"

I was longing to, but I felt this was a sure way to lose her respect even when it was she who asked. "No. You are another man's wife and it wouldn't be right."

"Good-bye then. I will still think about you sometimes and will always wish I had waited to marry." She turned and went down the aisle between the cells and out the door. I watched her cross the street. Just as she stepped up onto the boardwalk, a man came out of the saloon and took her arm.

The sheriff spoke from behind me, "That's her husband. I bet he is half drunk and probably broke. He gambles all the time. His folks swear they are going to cut him off, but they won't.

"Funny thing, back a couple of years or more ago, he ran up a hell of a bill with some gamblers that were hanging around. All of a sudden they were paid off and left town. No one could ever figure where he got the money from. Right after that he began sparking Jessie. Everyone figured he had straightened up, but he hasn't, and Jessie is caught in a terrible fix."

"Sheriff, I told her that I would help her if I could, but I'm not going to mix into her marriage no way, no how. Tell you why. My cell mate did that and all he got for thanks was twenty years in prison. He is an educated man, too. He owned a going ranch and he doesn't know for sure, but that may be all gone as well. That's where I'm going when I leave here."

"I guess I see your point, but God my heart goes out to that young woman." I said nothing, because mine did too.

We stood staring out the office window. "Hey Sam, here comes someone you might remember."