“Yes, she did.” She’d smiled and given a clap as they’d ridden up from their tour of the ranch. Ben’s chest had swelled. A yearling buck, already gutted, lay across the back of the sorrel. Ben strung it up in the shed, then stripped the animal of its hide after carving a thick slice of fresh venison for Cora to fry. “She’ll be busy brining the meat today.”
“I helped you spot it.” Charlie puffed out his chest.” Maybe next time, I can take the shot.”
“We’ll see.” Ben blinked as they stepped into the dimly lit store. The sweet smell of leather filled his nostrils. Harnesses, horse collars, bridles, and their various parts hung on pegs along the barn-like walls. Saddles straddled narrow benches, and strips of leather, both wide and narrow, lay haphazardly on a long table with a draw knife on the end.
A balding man with spectacles sat on a stool on the other side of the counter. A smudged leather apron covered his chest. “Can I help you?”
Charlie halted inside the door and knelt by a long-eared bloodhound stretched out on the worn plank floor.
Ben tipped his slouch hat back and strode over to the counter. “My name’s Benjamin McKenzie. I’m helping managethe Scott place. Mr. Dawson over at the livery thought you might be able to point me in the direction of Mr. Charles Goodnight.”
“I thought I recognized the boy.” He lifted his chin toward Charlie. “Isn’t he the one the Scotts kept at their place?”
Kept? As if he were a discarded pup? “That’s Charlie Scott.” Was that really his last name? The father probably hadn’t even given him that.
“Scott? Is that so?” The man cocked his eyebrows at Ben and picked up an awl. “You wouldn’t be one of those Yankee carpetbaggers would you, trying to take Miss Scott’s land?”
“Just the opposite. Mister…?”
“Mr. Stein.”
“Well, sir, I was a good friend of Mr. Jeb Scott. Came here to help Miss Scott manage her ranch, but what I need to know is if you have any idea where I might find Goodnight.”
The man looked him over. “What business you got with him?” Stein tacked a leather strip to the wooden counter and stretched it taut.
Ben discharged a grunted breath. “That’s between me and Mr. Goodnight. It’ll be a profitable meeting for him if I find him, but if you don’t have any information, I won’t waste any more of your time.” He rolled his shoulders beneath his suspenders and turned to go. “Good day, Mr. Stein.”
“Hold up there, Mckenzie. Didn’t say I didn’t know.” Awl in hand, Stein bored a hole in the leather. “Just thought there might be something in it for me.”
Ben hooked his thumbs around his gun belt. “You give me good information, and next time I pass through Weatherford, I’ll bring you a smoked venison roast. The boy and I got ourselves a deer yesterday.”
“Did you, now?” The man looked up over his spectacles. “If I was that Scott girl. I’d send the boy back to his kind.”
Ben narrowed his eyes. “His sister isn’t going to send him anywhere.”
“Sister? Yeah, I heard that. That pa of hers…” He leaned over and aimed a spew of tobacco toward the spittoon.
Ben’s fingers curled inward. “Charlie, let’s get out of here.” He pivoted toward the door.
“What about my venison?” Stein called after him. “Goodnight rode off to find horses. I could tell you where?—”
Ben slammed the door behind him as he pushed Charlie into the street.
The boy looked up at him. “I don’t like that man.”
“Never mind him. We’ll head over to the dry goods store. Dawson said Mr. Miller might know.” Ben ground his molars and steered toward the main street. With folks around like Dawson, no wonder Cora had felt less than welcome in town.
Past the town square with its two-story brick courthouse, then the doctor’s office and the attorney’s, he kept his eyes straight ahead, not daring to venture a look down the lane that led to the druggist. After a couple more blocks, Ben slowed his step to a steady pace better suited for Charlie’s shorter legs. A smattering of folks filtered by.
A carriage spurred ahead of a heavily laden ox cart loaded with barrels. At the end of the street, three prairie schooners, filled to the rim beneath their canvas bonnets, sat lined up in front of the Carson and Lewis House. Pioneers spending one last comfortable night at the fanciest hotel in town before heading off into the frontier?
“Howdy.” A gray-haired man with his beard down to the top of his trousers sat smoking a pipe in front of Millers’. The rocker creaked back and forth.
“Good day.” Ben tipped his hat and moved aside as two ladies stepped out of the store.
The dark-haired one wore a beautiful tapestry of a shawl over a blue cotton dress. She beamed down at Charlie. The honey-blond one, who hung on the other’s arm, smiled and dug a peppermint stick out of a small sack. “May I give it to the boy?”
Ben nodded. “Certainly, ma’am. I’m sure he’d appreciate it.”
