By James
As the two express riders made their way into the cozy restaurant, they discovered Cody sitting alone at one of the tables. He was enjoying a plate full of eggs, bacon, and toast. After spotting his friends watching him, Cody motioned for them to join him.
“Bout time you two got here,” Cody teased. “Food’s great.”
“Looks like it,” Lou commented as she stared longingly at his breakfast. She was starved! “Let’s order,” she suggested to Jimmy.
“Excuse me,” Jimmy called to a passing waiter. “We’d like to order.”
“Certainly,” the waiter said politely. “Would you like a menu?”
“We’ll have what he’s having,” Lou said eagerly. Realizing she had just ordered for Jimmy, Lou threw him an apologetic smile.
“You heard the lady,” Jimmy teased with a smile. Once the waiter left to fulfill their orders, they turned their full attention back to Cody. However, he was too busy devouring his food to speak.
“So?” Lou demanded finally. “How’d it go?” She sat close to Cody as if anxious to hear everything.
“Well,” Cody answered after swallowing a big bite of eggs down. “Callahan started discussing his business with me.”
“What exactly is his business?” Jimmy inquired curiously. He couldn’t help but noticed how unusually close Lou was positioned beside their blond friend.
“He didn’t quite say,” Cody began with his mouth still full of food. If his companions weren’t so accustom to his eating habits, they might have been offended. Luckily, they were forgiving people. “But he thinks I’d be very interested in it.”
“What exactly did he say?” Lou asked before carefully snitching a strip of Cody’s bacon. Surprisingly, he didn’t catch her mischievous trick.
“Just that he thinks we have similar interests,” the lead man in their masquerade answered. “We really didn’t get to talk long.”
“Why’s that?” Jimmy asked partly because he wanted to know and partly because he wanted to create a distraction for Lou.
“Some letter came for him and he excused himself,” Cody answered. Once again he missed Lou’s cute new trick.
“You don’t suppose it had anything to do with the army documents, do you?” Lou inquired after she had already slipped another strip of Cody’s bacon under the table to Jimmy. While Cody turned his attention to Lou, Jimmy munched away the crispy bacon.
“If not, it’s something of equal importance.” Suddenly, Cody stared down at his plate, and the most bewildered look came over his face. He looked at Lou’s suspiciously after noticing that several pieces of bacon were missing. At Lou’s angelic reaction, Cody’s confusion mounted. Had he ate all his bacon with out realizing it?
“Well at least we’re getting somewhere,” Jimmy said to take the heat off Lou. In his opinion, Lou had done a beautiful job of playing innocent.
“Yeah,” Lou agreed. When the waiter finally arrived with their food, Lou’s excitement grew.
Cody, still hungry for the delicious bacon the restaurant served, eyed Lou’s plate. “Mind if I have some of your bacon, Lou?”
“You already had several pieces of your own,” Lou scolded. Jimmy had to stifle a rising laugh. “But, I guess you can have one.”
“Much obliged,” Cody responded as he removed two strips from her plate.
“I said one.” Quickly she slapped Cody’s hand. However, the young man refused to release the second piece. “Fine, have two.”
“Kid’s in town,” Jimmy informed Cody. “The others should be by now too.”
“Let’s go see,” Cody suggested. Catching the annoyed look Lou threw him, he added “once you’re finished.”
Rumors
Lieutenant O’Malley was starting to doubt his brilliant plan. Maybe he shouldn’t have interfered. But if his plan went well, then Callahan’s mysterious messenger would pass his boss a very untrue Rumor about a Mr. William F. Cody. O’Malley didn’t have much choice. Somehow he suspected that Callahan’s rat knew the army was sending in spies. However, there was no way the little rat could no who they were. That information was held closely in his head, and no one else in the whole army knew of it. No one. In order to throw Callahan off, O’Malley had been openly complaining about Cody’s cunning trickery. He stated that he suspected that Cody was behind a recent heist of gold shipments. Soon the rumors were flying that Marcus had competition. If Marcus’s little snitch got drift of these evil rumors, he’d inform his boss of Cody’s deeds. Then Marcus Callahan wouldn’t suspect Cody’s group as the army’s spies. The Lieutenant prayed he was right.
Suspicious Mind
Callahan paced back and forth across the floor in his nicely furnished hotel room. So the army had resorted to sending in spies. How very clever. Marcus began to draw up a mental list of who the army’s helpers could be. The new trio came immediately to mind, but Callahan wasn’t dead sure. After all, why weren’t they making advances to get close to him? So far, his new associates seemed to prefer their distance. He would have to keep a close eye on them for now until his little birdy could find out more information for him. Also, he would have some of his cronies notify him of any new faces that seemed to be a bit too curious about matters that go on in Needle Rock. Yes, a man could never be too careful. In fact, maybe what he needed was a little reassurance to prove who he could and couldn’t trust. A test to show where Mr. Cody’s interests really reside.
On To Chapter Five