My Foot's in the Stirrup . . . My Pony Won't Stand (Code of the West) Read Online Free PDF Page B

somewhere?”
    “Here’s the thing. The wind and snow blow across the mountains at Bodie for six months at a time. It’s about 20 o below on a good day. It’s killin’ country. Forty men died one winter ’cause there wasn’t any timber around for fires. Anyway, these two gamblers started up a game playin’ for firewood. You couldn’t buy a cord of wood for a hundred dollars, gold.”
    Pepper pulled her curly blonde hair on top her head to cool her neck. “So you stayed warm by stoking the fire with profits from the poker game?”
    “Most of the wood was probably taken from someone else’s woodpile, but the evidence was burned up before anyone could complain. One time they won ten big rounds of unsplit oak. I don’t know who in the world hauled that valley oak up the mountains, but there it was. So the gamblers decided I ought to go out into the freezing weather and split those rounds. They didn’t figure on getting calluses on their gamblin’ hands, and of course we didn’t want to send Posse out there.”
    “Posse?” Pepper asked.
    “Yeah, the Calico Queen—her name was ‘Posse’ LaFayette.”
    “I can see why you certainly didn’t want to send her out into the cold,” Pepper sniped.
    “Yeah. That oak was so tight that it took me ten hours to split ten rounds. I’d swing that splittin’ maul for one hour and sweat right through my clothes. Then they’d freeze solid ’til I was afraid of bustin’ ’em. So I’d go thaw out my britches by the fire, then go back outside. Kept that up all day. When we finally turned the lantern out at night, Posse stuck about five of those big pieces of oak in the potbellied stove.”
    “She sounds quite considerate.”
    “You’d like her, darlin’. She reminded me a lot of Selena.”
    “If you remember, Selena and I didn’t get along at all.”
    “Oh, yeah. Maybe I shouldn’t have started this story.”
    “I’ll leave if you want me to,” Angelita offered.
    “No, the story isn’t, eh, delicate.”
    “Finish this wonderful tale, Mr. Andrews,” Pepper insisted. “Miss Posse was just stoking the fire, something she undoubtedly had pra ctice doing.”
    Tap leaned back. “I’m sleepin’ on the floor in my be droll, and I wake up about midnight coughin’ and hackin’. The stove got so heated that it melted the bolts on the red-hot iron door, which fell to the floor. Some coals flew out on the floor, and soon the room was filled with smoke.”
    “What did you do then, Mr. Andrews?” Angelita asked.
    “I pulled on my boots and ran for the door. I shoved it open, but I couldn’t get any windows open since they were all froze tight. I’d been sweatin’ a lot in the heat of that room, and the minute I stepped outside, my lids froze to my eyelashes.”
    “That gives me the shivers just thinkin' about it.” Angelita  folded her arms over her head.
    “I ran back in and roused the two gamblers. One of ’em slept in a cot, the other on the table. I had to lead them out through the smoke. We stood out there coughin’ our heads off. All the water was frozen, so we put out the smolderin’ floor by shoveling snow back into our cabin.”
    “What about Miss LaFayette?” Pepper quizzed.
    “She was in the top bunk, and the air is thicker up there. She had passed out, so I carried her outside—”
    “I presume the gamblers didn’t want to get their hands ca llused carrying a maiden in distress?”
    “I didn’t ask. She was a little thing. Couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred pounds. I bet I could have stretched my fingers around her waist.”
    Pepper tried to suck in her stomach.
    “She didn’t seem like she was breathin’ when I toted her out. It must have looked a sight, a lady layin’ out there on a blanket in the snow next to a house boilin’ with smoke in 20 o below zero weather and us tryin’ to revive her.”
    “What did you have to do to revive her?” Angelita's eyes fixed on Tap’s.
    “Never mind,” Pepper interrupted.