“Great! It’ll probably start about seven or eight. You got a place to stay?”
“Not yet. Just pulled into town.”
“Well, you can get a room where I’m staying, maybe. But if s pretty full in all the hotels. You’d better call now, to be sure. Not pushing, you understand, but the town fills up during rodeo.”
“I’ll call as soon as we pay our fees.”
She spent the rest of the afternoon getting settled, and as Bake had said, getting a room was difficult. She got one only after Bake got on the phone and sweet-talked the girl at the desk, promising her a couple of tickets to the rodeo. Dani settled Biscuit, then went to her room, rested, and took a quick nap. When she awoke, it was still early. She showered, washed her hair, and worked on her nails as she listened to a teaching tape by a British Bible teacher. Finally she slipped into her new clothes, fancy-dress Western wear. She had gone to a store in New Orleans that specialized in that sort of clothing and bought two outfits.
Dani chose a pair of tight, hip-hugging, straight-leg pants and a frilly shirt. When she had protested to the clerk that it was too immodest, the young woman had grinned. “You want modesty, go to a bingo game, Honey. This one is modest, compared to most. You look great in it. Some of the girls who’ve peaked look awful in a thing like this. I can’t afford to tell them they look like overstuffed sausages, but they do. Still, this is what’s being worn in fancy western dress.”
Dani had not liked the outfit, but her experience told her that she needed to look the part she was playing, so now she stood staring into the mirror with distaste. “Looks painted on!” she objected in disgust, but there was no help for it. The pants were silver lamé, and she picked up the baby-blue western hat with rodeo-cowboy crush and tried it on. It made her face look square, but it was what was worn, the girl had said, so she sighed and gave up.
At seven Bake came by with two other cowboys and knocked loudly on her door. She was soon to learn that cowboys knew no other way to knock on doors. “Honey, this is Wash Foster and Fighting Bill Baker. This is Dani Ross, you birds, and don’t handle the merchandise,” Bake warned.
Baker was short, very muscular, and had a good-natured face that was considerably battered. He had a bullfrog voice and a pair of calico eyes. “Hi, Dani. Good to meet you.”
“Hello, Bill.” Dani smiled. His hand was hard as oak and calloused, but he didn’t try to hold hands with her the way some men did.
“How are you, Wash?” she asked.
“Mighty fine, fine as silk!” Wash Foster was about thirty, with a set of muddy brown eyes and a thatch of blondish hair. He was no more than medium height, and when he moved, Dani saw at once that he had a stiff right arm. She saw also that he was very perceptive, for though her eyes had rested on the bad arm for no more than a split second he caught the look. He said nothing more, but Dani realized that he was sensitive about the handicap.
“Well, guess we got to go.” Bake shrugged. “But if we had any sense we’d go to the library and read a book.” His dark blue eyes gleamed suddenly, and he laughed. “You don’t know where I’m from, do you, Dani?”
“No, Bake.”
“Bucksnort, Tennessee. Now go on and laugh! It’s an awful name, but nobody ever forgets it. Anyway, we had a guy who was the town drunk. Name was Tom Fender. Stayed drunk as much as he could, which was just about all the time. Well, one Saturday afternoon, when I was just a kid, I met him downtown. ‘Where you going, Tom?’ I asked him.” Bake shook his head slowly. “That was years ago, but I never forgot what Tom said. He gave me one of the saddest looks I ever saw on a man’s face, and he said, ‘I’m going to get drunk, Dempsey—and do I dread it!’”
Fighting Bill Baker laughed loudly. “Hey, I know what that’s like, I been there myself. But it ain’t rained wisdom in these parts for quite a spell, so let’s go get drunk. I shore hope I don’t have to whip J. D. Pillow! Hey, Bake, do you think I can whip him, or what d’ you think?”
They all wandered out to Baker’s car, a late-model red Cadillac, and as he drove recklessly to the Dome, he and Wash Foster carried on a long, involved argument about a horse named Frying Pan that had been dead for years. Dani sat with Bake in the backseat. Once he told her, “Ruby called me the Big Bad Wolf. I’m not—but there are plenty of that breed around.”
“You offering to be my big brother and keep them fought off, Bake?” she asked.
He gave her a swift grin, “Well, I ain’t that honorable yet!”
5
The Corral Club
* * *
The Corral Club was a private club on one level of the Astrodome, used by sponsors, their guests, and other dignitaries of the city and the rodeo. When Dani entered the main lounge, which was furnished in a Western decor complete with the huge heads of mounted longhorns on the wall, she saw that the party was already in full swing. Some of the women were young and pretty, others were not, but all of them wore Western wear. And the clerk who had sold her the two outfits had been right; all the women’s clothing was skintight, and most women wore either gold or silver lamé pants.
Scattered around the room were a number of contestants, easy to identify by their Wranglers and their youth and health. The others were better dressed, mostly overweight, and were somehow less used than the men who actually rode the bulls and the horses. Four bartenders were busy behind the long bar, and several pretty girls dressed in very short skirts and Western shirts moved around the crowd. Everyone seemed to talk loudly, perhaps to override the stereo, which played country-Western music.
Dani saw Ruth with Clint in the center of an admiring group of fans but made no attempt to go to her. Bake took her arm and guided her into the room, threading the way toward an open space along one wall. A man and two women had watched them approach, and Dempsey greeted them loudly, “Hi, Clyde. Hey, Fran, you’re looking good!” He hauled Dani around by the arm to face them. “This is Dani Ross. Dani, this is Clyde Lockyear. He’s the stock contractor who furnishes the sorry animals us poor cowboys have to ride. And this is his wife, Fran.”
Fran Lockyear was an attractive woman of about twenty-eight. She had a Southern look somehow, with red hair and greenish eyes. Although she was beginning to lose the fresh glow of youth, Dani knew she must have been stunning at eighteen—the tall, shapely type that became Miss Mississippi or Miss Alabama. She was wearing a pair of light green pants and an emerald shirt decorated with silver thread. Despite the fact that she was not as slim and firm as some of the other women, her lush figure would catch the eyes of most men.
“Hello, Dani.” Fran had a husky voice, and her smile seemed genuine. “Are you from Houston?”
“No, from New Orleans.”
“She’s starting a new career, Fran,” Bake volunteered. “This is her professional debut—riding the barrels.”
“Is that right?” Clyde Lockyear’s blue eyes showed immediate interest. “You’d better get with Fran here. She was one of the best, when she was competing.” He was a small man, no taller than his wife’s five foot eight. His round face, coupled with a pug nose and a small mouth, gave him a boyish look. He was overweight, but all the excess flesh was in his potbelly, as symmetrical as a cannonball. Dani noticed that he didn’t try to hide it, but let it hang over his belt, and from time to time he ran his hand over it with a caress, as if it were a valued old friend. As he thrust his hand through his thinning blondish hair, Clyde remarked, “Glad to have you in the arena.”
“Thank you, Mr. Lockyear.”
“Oh, just Clyde,” he said with a friendly smile. “Guess there aren’t any Misters in rodeo.”
Fran gave him an odd look, before performing an introduction, “Like you to meet Megan Carr, Dani. Better be nice to her, or she’ll ruin your good name.”
Dani gave the woman standing beside Fran a startled look, wondering what Fran could mean. Dani nodded. “Well, I’m glad to know you, Megan—I think . . . ?”
Megan Carr was a small woman in her late twenties. She ha
d a pair of very direct dark blue eyes and a shock of black hair, cut very short in a boyish style. “Don’t pay any attention to Fran, Dani,” Megan advised, putting out her hand in a masculine gesture.
“She’s a journalist.” Clyde Lockyear eyed Megan with respect. “Writing a book all about the rodeo and the riders. Better watch out for her, Dani. She carries a tape recorder and a blasted video camera everywhere she goes. She’ll have you taped before you know it.” His small mouth pursed into a grin. “She’s found plenty of color, I guess. More stuff going on among rodeo folks than on a soap opera. Glad I don’t have any skeletons in my closet for you to dig out, Megan.”
“Oh, I expect there are a few dingy sheets you wouldn’t want hung out in public, Sweetheart!” Fran smiled, but Dani thought her tone held a barbed threat. Then Fran laughed and squeezed Clyde’s arm. “Don’t worry, it’s just the stars Megan wants to get the dope on. Isn’t that right?”
“Not really, Fran.” Megan Carr shook her head. “What I’m after is the essence of the thing. Sure, the most colorful people are the performers, like Bake here, but there are others, you know.”
“Like me!” Clyde grinned. “Like to see what would happen if I didn’t bring the bulls and the bucking horses along. That’s right, ain’t it, Bake? You boys can’t ride bicycles, can you?”
Bake scowled at him. “I been on some bicycles that got more buck in them than some of them scrubs you been giving me, Clyde,” he complained. Then he said thoughtfully, “You know, you got a point there, Megan. Most important man in the show, you know who he is?”
“Who’s that, Bake?” Megan asked instantly, her dark eyes alert.
“Why, Hank Lowe!” Bake nodded emphatically. “He’s the bullfighter, or the clown,” he explained. “And you wouldn’t have no bull ridin’ if Hank—or somebody like him—wasn’t there.”
“Oh, come on, Bake!” Clyde protested.
“Fact. You can get a rider off a bucking horse with pickup men, but them bulls ain’t afraid of no horse. They go for one just as quick as they’ll go for a man. And when a man gets on a bull, two things are sure.” He counted them off on his fingers, his face very serious. “One, he’s gonna get bucked off or jump off. That ain’t no maybe, honey; that’s a hard fact of life! And number two, when he does hit the dirt, that bull’s gonna try to stomp him into jelly, and that’s likewise a fact, as you well know, Clyde! So I’m servin’ notice right now that I’m not climbing on no bull, no way—except ol’ Hank is standin’ right there to get that critter off me!”
Clyde flushed slightly, and he shook his head. “Well, I guess old Hank does earn his keep. . . .”
Megan nodded, her eyes glowing with interest. “Exactly what I need! One of the unsung heroes, the little people who keep the wheels turning. I did my last book on auto racing, and it’s the same. Mario Andretti or Al Unser may get the glory, but if some little guy doesn’t come out and change his tires, the hero’s just another guy.”
Clyde regarded her with sharp attention. “Well, maybe you’ll put me in your book.” He looked down at his ostrich boots thoughtfully, and when he lifted his head there was a wistful look in his light blue eyes. “When I was a kid, there was only one thing I wanted to do,” he shared quietly. “The other guys switched around, changing their dreams every time a new thing hit TV. One week they were gonna be private eyes, the next week it was fast-gun test pilots or pop singers. But not me! From the time I could walk, I just knew there was one thing to be—a bronc rider!”
“I never knew that, Clyde,” Bake marveled.
Clyde shrugged and came up with a sour grin. “No reason you should, Bake. I guess every kid gets hooked on something. Other guys knew the batting averages of baseball players or who was gonna win the Heisman Trophy. I was a walking encyclopedia on rodeo. Still am.” He nodded. “I can reel off just about any info about riders.”
Wash had said nothing during the conversation, but now demanded, “Name a cowboy who won the bareback championship and the saddle bronc title the same year.”
“Casey Tibbs, 1951,” Clyde shot back promptly.
“You and I had better get together, Clyde,” Megan suggested, patting his arm with a warm smile. “I’ve been spending hours poring over all the books on rodeo I can find, and here I’ve got a walking history book right under my nose!”
“He’s that all right!” Fran said with a frown. “Can’t carry on a normal conversation without dragging a bull or a horse into it!”
“Well, it put those diamonds on your hand,” Clyde contended, with a sharp light in his eyes. His mouth drew down in a pout. “And Megan’s got the right idea about her book. Most of the stars aren’t much when they’re off a horse.”
“What about Clint Thomas?” Dani asked, glancing over toward where the cowboy was holding court with an admiring group of fans. “Didn’t I read an article that said he had a pretty high IQ?”
An awkward silence fell, so heavy that Dani felt that she had committed some sort of terrible social blunder. Clyde Lockyear’s face reddened, and his wife’s lips drew into a hard line. Dani felt Bake shuffling his feet, and glancing at him, saw that he was staring down at the floor. He looked up and interjected, “Hey, let me get you a drink, Dani. What’ll it be?”
He was trying to break the rigidity of the moment, Dani saw, and decided, Got to keep my mouth shut until I find out what’s going on! But she said, “Just a Coke for me, please.”
Bake stared at her in surprise, and Wash snorted, “Well, now, you ain’t no Sunday-school teacher in disguise or a temperance woman, are you, Dani?”
From the first, Dani had known that this moment—or one like it—would come. It always did. Most people drank, and the rodeo crowd, she knew, was a hard-drinking crowd. Her father had put his finger on the problem as they had discussed the undercover assignment. “You’re going to stand out like a sore thumb, if you don’t drink, Dani,” he had opined. “Matter of fact, you’ll probably have every sort of fleshly delight pushed at you. What will you do about that?
“I knew a fine Christian policeman. Name was Charley Sutter. He went into undercover, working with the vice squad. Well, he was in a tight spot. If he got caught, it was his life. He had to fit in, so he did what the rest of them did—all of it, including drinking and sex.”
“What happened to him, Dad?” Dani had asked.
“He went wrong. I tried to tell him it wouldn’t work, but he insisted it was part of the job. He got on dope, and it was downhill.” Daniel had had a look of sadness in his fine eyes as he concluded, “You can’t fool with sin, can you? No matter how noble your motives, there’s always a harvest.”
Fleetingly Dani thought of that conversation as the others regarded her. But she had already made her decision. “Guess I’m just an old fuddy-duddy, Wash.” She smiled. “Maybe I saw too many old Shirley Temple movies, but somewhere along the line I decided it wasn’t worth it. I won’t give any lecture or anything like that,” she added quickly. “But I’ve seen too much grief come from it.”
They were all staring at her strangely, and Fran asked suddenly with a hard edge in her tone, “I wonder, if you don’t drink or smoke, what do you do?”
Dani gave her a level look responding easily, “Not that either, Fran.”
Lockyear got a kick out of that. He giggled wildly, then gasped, “Well, you’re going to be a mighty small minority around this bunch!”
Megan told her, “Maybe I better put you in the book, Dani—a natural curiosity.” But her tone was kind, and she suddenly remarked, “There’s a couple of chairs at a table. Get the Coke, Bake. We’ll be over there.”
Dani was relieved as Megan pulled at her, and she parted from the others with the words, “Glad to have met you, Fran—and you, too, Clyde.”
“Sure, Dani,” Fran said, “I’ll be interested to see how your experiment works.”
“Experiment?”
“Trying to keep pure and rodeo at the same time. Don’t think it’s ever been done.”
Clyde gave Megan a sharp look but had a smile for Dani. “Stick to your guns, kid!”
When the two women were seated, Dani asked at once, “What did I say wrong, Megan?”
“You mentioned Clint Thomas’s name, honey.” Megan smiled. “Might as well put a torch in a powder keg. But I guess you didn’t know.”
“Know what?”
“Why, Fran was married to Clint.” She laughed, a tinkling sound in the loud room, and put her hand on Dani’s arm. “Don’t worry about it, Dani. It’s just that you’ve got to get your players straight. Like in a ball game,” she explained thoughtfully. “When you first go, the players are all alike to you. But you get a scorecard and learn their numbers, and you listen to what the guy in the next seat says about number 17. Only this is a little bit more touchy than a ball game.”
Dani sat back and watched Clyde and Fran as they moved around the room, then let her eyes go back to Clint Thomas. “Maybe you could give me a few hints, Megan,” she suggested. “I don’t want to put my foot in another bear trap.”
“That could happen.” Megan shrugged. She sipped the martini she held and thought about it. It was, Dani understood, a habit with her—thinking and analyzing things. She’s probably a good writer, Dani thought as she waited for Megan to speak.
“I don’t have any rodeo background,” Megan explained, “so I had to pick up on what was going on from other people. Fortunately, rodeo people like to talk—especially about each other! First, get this straight, Dani. Rodeoing isn’t a sport, it’s a business. And that means money is at the center of it. Well, there’s ego, too,” she said. “Everybody wants to be number one, the star. But it’s jungle, red in tooth and claw.”
“They all seem pretty friendly to me,” Dani objected, drawing her out.
“Oh, sure, but it’s a small world, very small, and there are feuds that go back for years. Like the one between the Lock-years and Clint. The best I can make of it, Clint dumped Fran, which means she hates his guts. She’d have to, wouldn’t she? Then there’s Clyde. He got Fran on the rebound, but he thinks—along with everyone else—it was his money Fran took him for. So he watches her like a hawk when Clint is around, and I guess he’s sore at Fran because she’s still got a yen for Clint, and he can’t forget that Clint was number one in Fran’s life.”
Revenge at the Rodeo Page 7