“I dunno, Sleepy. I ain’t been to church since Sittin’ Bull first sat down, but there’s somethin’ kinda helpless about a preacher—and Willer Crick is so —— ornery.”
“Was your folks religious?”
“I don’t reckon they was. Paw and maw split up when I was knee-high to a tall Injun, and paw took me with him. Paw thought he was a two-gun man and I becomes a orphing at a tender age.”
“You helpin’ out folks thataway is goin’ to stop me and you from ever seeing Alaska, Hashknife.”
He turns in his saddle and smiles at me. Hashknife ain’t no beautiful critter. He’s one of them hard-eyed, thin nosed and thin-lipped hombres. His cheek-bones are kinda high and his ears kinda bat out and his hair is roan. He’ll fight at the drop of the hat; fight with a foolish grin on his face, and he ain’t afraid.
That’s why I like Hashknife. I’m kinda scary, myself, and I need moral support as I trail through life. When Hashknife smiles, every dog within half a mile begins to wag its tail. Hashknife calls me and him, “cowpunchers of disaster.”
He turns and smiles at me.
“Sleepy, I see by the almanac that she’s goin’ to be awful cold in Alaska this Winter. Mebbe we better pick out one of their warm Winters.”
“I think,” says I, kinda mean-like, “I think you’re going into Willer Crick to see somebody—and she ain’t no preacher.”
“No-o-o, Sleepy. ’Course I’d like to see her and apologize for not marryin’ her that time. Girl kinda expects a apology in a case like that. Mebbe her uncle told her why, but he’d sure paint us black so that she’d be glad I left her at the altar.”