The Whippoorwill Trilogy - Sharon Sala Page 0,242

hung his hat on a wall peg and kissed the side of Letty’s cheek.

“I made some johnnycake,” Letty said.

Eulis lifted the lid on the pot cooking over the open fire in the fireplace.

“Snake. My favorite.”

Letty’s face was flushed from the heat of the fires, but she turned a little redder when she caught the teasing tone of his voice.

“So, I guess you saw the skin on the wall.”

Eulis arched an eyebrow. “Well, yes, ma’am, I did. A blind man couldn’t a’ missed it. Are you all right?”

Letty grinned. One of her favorite things about Eulis was his ability to overstate the obvious.

“I’m fine, of course. It was just a snake. Oh… you need to reload the rifle for me, too.”

“If you’re gonna go about shootin’ it off all the time, you oughta be learnin’ how to reload.”

“I guess,” Letty said, and kept stirring the stew.

Eulis knew that was the end of the conversation about the gun, and set about waiting for her to talk about the pup, but she didn’t.

“So… I understand how the snake come to be nailed on the wall, but I ain’t quite figured out how that greasy, half-grown hound figures into the situation.”

“He showed up about the same time as the snake.”

Eulis had known Letty for far too long to believe that was all.

“And… what? You just invited him to supper?”

She knew when she was being made fun of, but when it was Eulis, she never seemed to care.

“Of course not,” she said. “He earned it and then some. I rode into the yard at the new house. The workers were gone. The outside of the house is finished and the roof is on, but the windows still aren’t in. I didn’t get a chance to go in because the darned pup was thrashing about in the brush and scared my horse. I fell off and—”

Eulis grabbed her by the arm, his eyes wide with concern.

“You fell off? Are you all right, girl? Did you hurt yourself somewheres?”

Letty eased his fears with a smile and a touch of her hand against his cheek.

“I’m fine. The pup came crawling out of the bushes on its belly as the horse ran off. It was mangy and starving. I tried to run it off. Instead, it repaid my bad attitude by saving my hide from that snake. So it’s here. I named him T-Bone.”

Eulis laughed out loud.

“That’s a fine piece of meat, but I can’t say as I’ve ever heard it used as a name for a dog.”

Letty sniffed. “He’s a fine dog… or he will be when I get him healed and fattened a bit. Do you want to meet him?”

“I reckon I already did,” Eulis said, then pointed to the pot over the fire. “How long before the snake is done? I’m so hungry I feel like that dog looks.”

She smiled. “It’s all done. I was waiting on you.”

“Let me just wash up a bit first,” Eulis said, and went back out the door.

There was a bucket of water, a wash basin, as well as some lye soap and a rag on the bench outside the door. He poured water in the basin, splashed his face, wet down his hair, and then picked up the soap, scrubbing fiercely until the day’s dirt from the mine was gone from his face and hands.

He tossed the water onto a bush Letty was trying to grow and then began to dry off. The pup looked up from chewing on the elk bone long enough to growl beneath its breath.

Eulis hung up the rag and then looked down at the pup.

“Listen here, T-Bone. I don’t wanna hear no more of that. I was here before you, and you best not forget it.”

The pup cocked his head to one side, as if studying the wisdom of what Eulis had just said, then got up and sauntered over to Eulis’ feet, flopped down and rolled over.

Eulis shook his head and then grinned.

“One minute you’re tryin’ to eat me for supper and the next you want a belly scratch? You’re somethin’ all right.”

He leaned down, found a spot that was free of axle grease, and gave the pup a quick scratch. As he did, he saw knots on the pup’s ribs and realized that, at one time or another, those ribs had been broken.

“You know something, T-Bone? Danged if I ain’t been right where you are. However, all is not lost. You got yourself a really good woman. Take good care of her and