Free A Rocky Mountain Christmas by William W. Johnstone

flashing blue eyes and an engaging smile, walked over to join the conversation. So far, the dissipation of her trade had not diminished her looks.
    “Lucy, our friend is leaving us today,” Trebor said.
    Lucy leaned over Matt’s table, displaying her cleavage. “Are you sure I can’t talk you into staying with us?”
    Matt laughed. “No, but you can sure make it damn tempting.”
    “I will play something for you before you leave,” Trebor said. “I will play Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto Number One. It is not something the average saloon patron would like but you, mein freund , I know, will enjoy it.”
    “Thank you,” Matt said. “I am sure I will enjoy it.”
    Trebor moved over to the piano and played the piece, losing himself in the sweep and majesty of the concerto. Matt enjoyed it, but knew Trebor enjoyed it more. He used any excuse to play the classical music he loved, rather than the simple ballads he was forced to play night after night.
    After his breakfast Matt told his friends good-bye and left the saloon. He’d walked about a block when a man suddenly stepped in front of him and pointed a gun.
    “Give me all your money,” the armed man demanded.
    “Now why would I want to do that?”
    “Why? Because if you don’t, I’ll blow a hole in your stomach big enough to let your guts fall out.” To emphasize his threat, the man thrust the pistol forward until the barrel of the gun was jammed into Matt’s stomach.
    That was a mistake. Matt reached down and clamped his hand around the pistol, locking the cylinder tightly in his grip.
    His assailant tried to pull the trigger, but it wasn’t possible with the cylinder locked in place. He looked down in surprise, and Matt brought his left fist up in a wicked uppercut. The man relaxed his grip on the pistol as he went down, and it wound up in Matt’s hand.
    Bending down to check the robber’s pulse, Matt saw the man was still breathing. He waited until the man came to, then walked him, at gunpoint, down the street to the office of the Claro City Marshal.
    “Well, now, hello Percy,” the marshal said when Matt turned his prisoner over to him. “It didn’t take you long to get back in jail, did it? I just let you out this morning.”
    “What was I supposed to do?” Percy complained. “I didn’t even have enough money to buy breakfast.”
    “If you had asked me for enough money to buy breakfast, I would have given it to you,” Matt offered. “But pointing a gun at me doesn’t put me in the sharing mood.”
     
     
    When Matt went to the depot later that day, he found there was, indeed, a telegram waiting for him.

    DUFF MACALLISTER AT SUGARLOAF STOP COME
SPEND CHRISTMAS WITH US STOP SMOKE

    Matt had to pay for only two words in his return telegram.
     
    WILL DO
     
    He smiled at the thought of spending Christmas with Smoke, Sally, and Duff. Sally was a very good cook, particularly bear claws, an almond flavored, yeast-raised pastry that was the best Matt had ever tasted. He turned his thoughts to Christmas, which was supposed to be spent with family. But he had no family.
    His parents and sister had been murdered when he was a boy. After spending some time in a brutal orphanage, he ran away in the dead of winter and would have frozen to death if Smoke Jensen hadn’t found him and taken him in. Smoke was the nearest thing to a family Matt had, so much so that he had taken Smoke’s last name as his own.
    It would be good to spend Christmas with his old friend, and Sally’s home-cooked meals would make it even nicer.
    Matt extended his ticket from Denver to Pueblo, putting him in Pueblo at eight o’clock in the evening on the nineteenth, just in time to connect with the last train to Big Rock. That trip would require going through Trout Creek Pass over the Mosquito Range, a part of the Rocky Mountains.
    He boarded the train at ten o’clock on the morning of the 17th of December for what the schedule said would be a two-and-a-half-day trip to