West of Nowhere

by Alan Lemay

  Rowdy Kate studied her in some bewilderment. "Too much Lois Bart," Kate decided. "And on top of that, you're gone on Pete Reese, that's the trouble with you! Don't go trying to kid me, either... I know. He started working on you 'way back in the middle of last season, the first time he ever seen you. And he could have scooped you in easy as dabbing a rope on you... or you him, if you'd known it. Then you threw in with this Lois Bart, and she sets right to work prying him loose."

  "They don't make 'em like Pete," Glory said steadfastly.

  "Let me tell you this.. .the rider don't live that's worth a good snap in the pants with a romal! I know, honey... I know."

  Glory said: "It isn't true Pete blows his money on toots in old Mex'. Mexico gets his money, all right, but it's land and cattle it goes into."

  "I expect you and I are about the only ones know that, honey," Kate agreed. "The kid'll be a big man in the Southwest someday... or sure would... if your belief in him counted in the score. About the pick of the crop, such as it is. But I'm sorry you're gone on him so."

  Glory Austin surrendered; you couldn't hide anything from old Kate. "I can't help it, Kate."

  "I know." Rowdy Kate had watched riders come and go. She had known a hundred Lois Barts before now, and perhaps one or two other Glory Austins. Glory's father had been a cattle king. Kate perceived in the girl a valid aristocracy, of a kind never known to any other country than this Western country an aristocracy of thousand-mile ranges, dusty, bellowing herds, and wild horses.

  Yet Kate understood how the spectacular, free-and-easy Lois Bart could rope and tie a whole parade of men or even take a man away from Glory Austin. Behind Glory's eyes gray gates could close. But Lois Bart's eyes were different warm, sidelong eyes, and behind them were no gates, at all.

  "Men are all saps," Kate said, "and that little hooker is too fast for you, kid."

  Glory did not seem to hear. "I've got to get out of this. I can't ever forget him, Kate, if I keep seeing him around."

  "Maybe," Kate admitted moodily, "that would be the best thing. Though if it was me...." She broke off abruptly.

  The color had gone out of Glory's face again, and Kate could make out the hoof scar on the tough black broadcloth below Glory's knee it had a wet look. Kate rapped the top of Glory's half-boot with the butt of her quirt. Glory flinched, and the leg gave under her.

  "Uhn-huh," Kate said, holding her up. "I knew I seen that bronc' whale you. Prob'ly split wide open!" Kate swept an arm under Glory's knees and picked her up.

  "Let me down! I tell you I'm...."

  "Yeah, you're all right. You told me that already." Kate shouldered her way out the riders' gate. "Now, will you shut your fool head, or will I bust you one?"

  Glory Austin walked into rodeo headquarters that evening trying hard not to favor the leg Murdershot had kicked. There were seven stitches in that leg, and from knee to boot heel the whole thing seemed numb except for the aching beat of the pulse, but she wouldn't limp.

  Tomorrow would be the second of the three days, and one of the exhibition features would be a special ride by one of the girls on a horse that had distinguished itself the first day. Whoever wanted the ride had to draw for the horse tonight, and it was like drawing for money, for twenty-five dollars went with the ride, scratch, grab, or thrown, with seventy-five dollars more if the ride qualified.

  The girl who rode would have her stirrups hobbled out of their free swing, making it easier to stay, and there would be no flank strap. Under these conditions Jake Hutchinson had named Murdershot as the logical horse.

  Rodeo headquarters had been set up in Billy Weston's saddle shop. When the rodeo people were gathered there, they overflowed down the little frame structure. Just now, though, a big dance was going on over at Miners' Hall, and nearly all the riders were over there including Pete Reese. Jake Hutchinson was here, however, with Rose Moran, a buxom girl who rode the bronc's by main strength, and Bess Oliver, a dark, hawk-faced girl, flat and hipless as a cowboy.

  "Where's Lois Bart?" Jake asked. "Glory, are you going to draw for Lois?"

  "I don't run Lois Bart," Glory said. "Go ahead and put her in the draw, if you want. I figure to draw for myself."

  "That isn't right," Bess Oliver contended hotly. "Glory and Lois is partners, and they split the money. Why should they get two draws for their money, and we all get one?"

  "I don't know anything about that," said Jake. "This is the way we always done it."

  As it turned out, it made no difference. Glory Austin drew Murdershot, as somehow she had known she would.

  Three cowboys tried to date her for the evening before she got away. She turned them down.

  She went back to her room at the edge of town. Most of the rodeo people booked space in the hotels, but, in Las Cruces, Glory was always taken in by a half-Mexican woman who had once worked for Glory's mother. The old adobe was clean and unpretentious; its little windows looked out upon the desert.

  Lois Bart had not come in. In her cool room, faintly lighted by an old-fashioned hand lamp, Glory Austin suddenly felt terribly alone. Until there was nothing to do but go to bed with the ache of her injury. She had not realized how much she had hoped to meet Pete down at headquarters.

  She went to bed and allowed herself to weep a little, until the breeze off the desert brought her the far-off whimper of a coyote. Then she felt better, and presently went to sleep.

  Lois Bart came in at two o'clock, exuberant and noisy. Glory was sitting up by the time Lois had lighted the lamp.

  That old adobe room was kind to Glory Austin, unkind to Lois Bart. In the yellow kerosene light Lois looked tired and a little hard. But Glory Austin, with her soft dustcolored hair about her shoulders, had the glow of soft platinum and old gold. In this room she was a different, softlined, white-shouldered Glory a Glory such as Pete Reese had never seen.

  "Where was you?" Lois demanded. "Pete Reese hauled me to the dance."

  "Well, of course, Lois. I never yet knew you to miss a throw of your loop."

  Lois Bart grinned and stretched luxuriously, shaking out her red hair. "Pete'll be all right, once I get shoes on him," she said. "Can I help it if he runs after me? What do you care?"

  "I don't care."

  "Say, I heard you drew me that Murdershot ride. That's swell! I can ride that Drone' from...."

  "You heard wrong," said Glory.

  "Huh? Why, Rose Moral said you talked Jake Hutchinson into letting both our names in the hat, and you drew...."

  "I drew Murdershot for myself."

  "For yourself? Say, you don't want to ride Murdershot!"

  "That's the way the draw went."

  "Draw? Since when have they made a rule against swapping draws? We're partners, ain't we? I'll ride that...."

  "I think," said Glory, "you'll do nothing of the kind."

  Lois Bart changed her tactics. "Look here, Glory. I'm not saying you can't ride. You can take a tough broomtail and make a good Indian of him quicker than anybody can. But this rodeo riding is different. There's no use...."

  "Don't worry about splitting the hundred," Glory said. "I'll qualify, all right."

  "It isn't that. I heard you got hurt this afternoon. I heard you had to have your leg sewed up."

  "A little hoof cut isn't anything," Glory said stubbornly.

  "Glory, it isn't fair! That isn't what we agreed to when we went partners. I'm supposed to do the bronc' riding, and you're supposed to do the other stuff. What will people say if...?"

  "You're worrying about missing a chance to astonish Pete Reese," Glory said disgustedly.

  "Well, maybe I am," Lois admitted. "I'm the one that can make a show of it, ain't I?"

  They argued while Lois was dressing, and they still argued after the light was out, Glory sticking doggedly to her right to make the ride. But in the end it was Glory who gave in. She gave in because she was weary and disgusted, and the kick Murdershot had given her hurt miserably, but mostly because she was sick of the whole policy of show-off
that was Lois Bart's stock in trade. She had begun to see the motive behind her own stubbornness for what it was which was nothing more than a desire to make a flash ride for Pete's benefit.

  "Take the horse and ride him to hell and back, if you can," she said at last.

  "Atta-girl!"

  To win second-day money in the trick riding took everything Glory Austin had. After it was over, she found it so hard to dismount that she feared she would stumble and go down if she tried it. So she sat her lather-splashed pony near the chutes, waiting for the hammering in her hurt leg to ease. It was time for Lois Bart to make her ride. Murdershot was already in the chute, and the announcer's loudspeaker was blaring: "Yesterday you saw Murdershot fight a good man to a standstill. Today...."

  With her eyes set on the distance, trying to make sure that her head was going to stay clear until the effect of her hard riding had worn off, Glory Austin did not see Pete Reese come up until he was at her stirrup.

  Pete's height made her feel as if she were on an under sized pony, which she was not. As he looked up at her, she had a sudden impulsive desire to let herself keel out of the saddle into his arms. But she sat stiffly, poker-faced.

  "Say, look here," Pete said. "I heard you got hurt yesterday. What kind of fraud is that?"

  The gray gates closed behind Glory Austin's eyes. "Just one of those rumors, Pete."

  "I knew that," he said, "when I saw you trick ride. You sure rode like a streak! But last night I kind of worried. I looked all over for you."

  "I was well hid," Glory said. "I was at rodeo headquarters."

  "Well, I missed you, then. This morning, after I heard you'd given Lois your Murdershot ride, I thought you must be hurt for sure."

  "Well, we figured Lois could do better with it than I could."

  "I never heard such bunk," said Pete. "You can outride Lois or any other girl that ever saddled a bronc', and you know it. I'll say more than that... you can outride me, or any man."

  "I wouldn't last long on Murdershot, I guess."

  "If you couldn't, nobody could." Glory said nothing, and after a moment Pete went on: "Still, I don't know. I don't blame you for shying off of Murdershot. I don't trust him much."

  "You don't blame me for... what?"

  "Shucks, I'm afraid of that horse myself. Seems like the flanker puts him clean out of his head. If you were coming out on the bronc' with a flank strap, I'd sure raise hell. Don't know but what I would anyway."

  Glory Austin demanded outright: "Pete, you think I'm afraid of that bronc'?"

  "Sure not, child! But anybody has a right to be. I'm afraid of him myself."

  Glory looked away. She didn't notice that one of the judges was shouting for Pete, or that he moved away, until she looked around for him and he was gone. A crazy notion was hammering into her head, beating upward from the mark Murdershot had put on her. Pete Reese thought that she was afraid afraid to ride the red bronc', with no flanker and hobbled stirrups. The notion hurt worse than the wound.

  For a moment Glory Austin felt infinitely discouraged and a little sick. It seemed to her then that nobody understood anything she did, ever, and never would. Then abruptly her temper broke.

  Glory Austin's temper was slow in starting, but now it snapped as if a cartridge had exploded in her head. It suddenly came over her that she had stood enough from Lois Bart and Pete Reese and rodeos, and from them all. And all in a moment she went crazy mad. She spurred the steeldust pony close against chute number five, where Murdershot stood. She dismounted on the run, and, although she winced and dropped to one knee as her weight came upon her hurt leg, she recovered instantly.

  Lois ran up, shouting: "See they get that hull screwed down right, will you, Glory? I got to see the announcer!"

  Glory said: "I'll take care of it, all right." She was pokerfaced, but there was a blaze behind her eyes as she turned to the chutes.

  Lois went running down the chutes to the announcer's stand. That was an old trick of hers at the last minute she was always on hand with some gag for the announcer to give out, with a little extra publicity to her name as a rodeo girl.

  Lois Bart's saddle was already on Murdershot, and the stirrups would be, too, but there was no time to change that now. Glory ran a quick eye along the chutes. Nearby loitered a big Indian bulldogger.

  Glory called sharply: "Jose! iAqui!"

  Jose responded with alacrity, and Glory spoke under her breath, in Spanish. "Get up on that chute, and let that flanker down!" She inspected the cinch and saw that the handlers had already whipped it tight. She snapped her knife open, and, reaching under the red horse through the bars, she slashed through the stirrup hobbles, so that both stirrups swung free and clear. She reached under for the flank strap and passed the end up to Jose, then climbed the chute.

  Tom Hansen, who had cinched Lois Bart's saddle on Murdershot, suddenly woke up. "Here, what are you doing? Lois don't want any flanker! Lois said...."

  Glory Austin eased into the saddle. "To hell with Lois Bart! I drew this horse, and I'm riding him!" She spoke over her shoulder to Jose. "Give him the flanker," she said between her teeth. "Cut him in two...you hear me?"

  Jose heaved upward, and the flank strap smoked through its buckle, biting deep as the big Indian almost lifted Murdershot off the ground. The red horse slammed his heels into the planking, and half reared in the chute. Glory Austin shouted: "Swing that gate!"

  The man on the gate rope was Shorty Ferris, naturally a pop-eyed little man, but immensely more so now. "Hey, look.. .wait a minute! I thought...."

  Glory did not know where Rowdy Kate came from, but suddenly she was there beside the chute. "If Glory says open it," Rowdy Kate bellowed, "damn it, you open it, you little squirt!"

  The gate swung. With the flank strap a good six hundred pounds tight, the stirrups unhobbled, Glory Austin came out on Murdershot.

  For an instant then, as Murdershot went into his first savage twisting plunge, Glory realized what she had done. For just an instant she glimpsed herself in cool perspective-a girl rider with one leg half useless, who had gone crazy mad long enough to put herself on an outlaw that the best of the men could hardly hope to stay with, and she knew that she was a fool.

  The next instant she was fighting as if for her lifeperhaps in truth fighting for her life, for all she knew. It seemed to her that the first rocketing twist and shock as good as broke her back. But she set her teeth hard and swung both spurs high and free, raking Murdershot's neck, left side, right side, and left again.

  The horizon pitched crazily. On her left, the sun-blasted earth swung up suddenly so near and close that she flung out her arm to save the impact, then abruptly the earth dropped away again, and somehow she had stayed. In the instant that she was upright she snapped off her hat and threw it downward at Murdershot's pinned-back ears with all her strength, then swung her spurs high to rake him again left side, right side, high, loose, and handsome.

  The arena was reeling, and the earth was reeling. Murdershot screamed like a trumpet. On her right the hazy form of a rider drifted close, then suddenly shot backwards out of sight as the earth whirled. For an instant she glimpsed the face of Pete Reese close to her on her left. Pete's face was curiously expressionless, but his eyes for once were not laughing. She felt his fingers streak across her back as he tried to pick her up and missed.

  Glory Austin's breath caught and strangled in her throat as Murdershot snapped her as if he would jerk out her life. She could not ride this horse. The smashing impacts were sending her blind and dazed, and she reeled to the twists.

  Blindly she scratched Murdershot's neck once more, high and handsome, because Pete was there, and it was not true that she was afraid. Then the whole world upset, and, although saddle and horse seemed still between her knees, the flat earth struck upward mightily, and that was the end.

  Glory Austin said dimly: "I shouldn't have done that."

  "I'll say you shouldn't," said Rowdy Kate.

  Glory could see the sunligh
t now, and she recognized the smell of hay. She could make out the figures of cowboys standing nearby. It was several minutes before she could decide that she was on some hay bales back of the bronc' corrals.

  "I shouldn't have done it," said Glory again. "Lois could have rode him. She could have rode him, and got her split of a hundred. In place of just the twenty-five."

  "You get the hundred, so far as that goes," said Rowdy Kate. "Your hoss let go all holts and somersaulted...but that was after the whistle blowed."

  "I kind of figured that was a bad horse," Glory said.

  "You figured right! Murdershot jumped up and whirled on you, but Pete Reese drove his hoss head-on into Murdershot, and both hosses went down, then, when the dust cleared, Pete was sitting on Murdershot's head."

  "Pete's a good boy," Glory said. "They don't make 'em like Pete any more."

  Pete's voice said: "Glory, you mean that?"

  "'Course to hell, she don't mean it," said Kate angrily. "She's out of her head. Now, you clear out of here, you bum! I'm going to tote her over to my car and take her back to town."

  "I'll tote her myself," said Pete.

  "Who says you will?" Lois Bart cut in. "Kate and I...."

  "Go chase yourself," said Pete shortly. "Where's your flivver, Kate?"

  Pete Reese rode into town with them, to make sure Glory didn't go out again, and fall off the back seat.

  "By God," Pete said when they were halfway back to town, "I'll kill the Indian that put that flank strap on. If ever I find out who cut loose those stirrup hobbles...."

  Glory said: "I cut loose those hobbles."

  "Dear God," Pete whispered. "It serves me right for letting you get anywhere near that red devil in the first place."

  "I'd like to know," Glory said, "what business it is of yours what I ride?"

  Pete said with surprising gentleness: "Now, you wait. You listen here to me."

  Glory flared up at him. "I don't want to listen to you. I won't listen to you! You can go to hell, Pete Reese!"