“And Clyde’s resentful, I think, of the riders,” Dani noted slowly. “They’re what he’s always longed to be.”
“Hey, I’m supposed to be the writer around here, with all the insight,” Megan spoke in mock anger. She lit a cigarette, let the smoke curl around her face, then nodded. “I never knew that about Clyde, but a thing like that happens often. That’s why you see a forty-year-old man at a high-school football game, wearing his old jacket.”
“And why you see a thirty-year-old woman wearing clothes that only look good on a twenty-year-old.” Dani suggested.
“Watch it, now! You might be stepping on my toes!”
They sat there, talking lightly, and Dani found that she liked Megan very much. As she spotted Bake coming across the room, dodging the heavy traffic, she asked, “Anything more you can tell me, Megan? I mean stuff I shouldn’t say out loud?”
“Lots! For one thing, you see that girl over there? Her name’s Ruby Costner. When Clint left Fran, he took up with her. They had a real hot thing going, and everybody expected them to get married. Trouble was, she was Clay Dixon’s girl, and Clay’s been running around looking for someone to bite ever since it happened. He’s a mean one, too. That’s him—over there talking to the young fellow with the black hair.”
“And now Clint’s got another girl? The one standing with him?”
“That he has. Her name’s Ruth Cantrell. So you have Ruby hating Clint for taking up with Ruth, and Clay sore at him for taking his girl away—not to mention the Lockyears wanting to eat his liver.”
“Sounds like a real bad soap opera.” Dani smiled, then reached up to take the Coke from Bake. “Thanks, Bake.”
The room seemed to swell with noise as more and more people filtered in. Dani met so many people she gave up trying to match names with faces. She spent considerable energy refusing drinks and more refusing invitations to leave the party and find a quiet spot. The smoke was thick enough to walk on after the first hour and a half, and most of the people were half-drunk. She was about to excuse herself when she saw Sixkiller walk into the room. He saw her at once, but did not allow a flicker of recognition.
Bake was hauled away by a pretty young woman with a shrill voice and an octopuslike grasp to where a few couples were dancing at one end of the room. Megan left the table, moving along the edges of the crowd, and Dani could almost see the notes going into her head as she observed the crowd.
Dani finally got up when she heard a loud yell and the crash of furniture breaking. At the far end of the room, near the dancers, she caught a glimpse of a man sailing backwards, propelled as if he were shot out of a cannon.
“Come on, Bill!” she heard Bake shout. “You can whip’im!”
When she moved in closer, she saw Fighting Bill Baker pick himself up and spit on his hands. Lowering his head, he charged a tall, wiry cowboy who met him with a flurry of blows. The crowd was yelling, and as the two men flailed away at each other, Dani saw that there were two reactions to the fight. The rodeo crowd loved it, but expressions of nervous apprehension covered the other guests’ faces. A balding man standing beside her cried, “I’m getting out of here!” and scurried out of the room.
The fight moved from one point to another as the battlers drove each other with wild punches, and finally the tall man went down, his frame collapsing in sections.
“You whupped him, Bill!” somebody shouted, and Baker lifted his hands in a gesture of triumph. “Anybody else want to fight?” he shouted in his bullfrog voice. But there were no takers, and there was a stampede back to the bar.
Dani moved toward the door, but her arm was caught by a strong hand. “Hey, we ain’t met, little lady.” A huge man, at least six feet four, with tremendous shoulders, pulled her toward him. Immediately she identified him as a real cowboy by his huge hands, scarred and calloused, and his face, which had taken punishment. He had a pair of pale blue eyes and a shock of yellow hair that had been roughly cut.
“I been watching you.” He grinned, and she smelled the potent whiskey on his breath. “I’m Clay Dixon. Guess you must be the new barrel racer Wash was tellin’ me about.”
“Yes. I’m Dani Ross.” His grip cut into her arm with unnecessary force, and she struggled to pull away. “I’m not going to run away,” she said with a smile.
“Shore not!” Dixon nodded. “Hey, you don’t have a drink. Let’s go to the bar and get you fixed up.”
“Thanks, I’m not having any.”
The answer made him halt, and his pale eyes studied her. “Why, you can’t spoil a good party like this by not drinking!” He ignored her protest and, keeping his grip on her arm, hauled her across the room. Dani caught Megan Carr’s glance and saw her give a helpless shrug of her shoulders, as if to say, You may as well go with him.
Dani surrendered, going to the bar with him. There were no stools, and Dixon simply shoved two men aside as if they were furniture, not even aware of their hard looks. “Hey, Bar-keep, let’s have a couple of drinks!”
Dixon ordered two Bloody Marys, and when the bartender set them down, shoved one toward Dani, commanding, “Drink up, Dani. You’re way behind.”
Dani watched him drain the glass. When he looked at her, she confronted him, “I know it’s a shock to you, Clay, but I don’t drink. The way it works is like this—I don’t try to stop you from drinking, and you don’t try to make me drink. That way we’re both happy.”
Her simple logic seemed to stun the big man. He blinked his eyes, then shook his head in bewilderment. “Don’t make no sense,” he muttered. “What the use of a party, when you don’t drink?”
“We can talk,” Dani offered. “Let’s go sit down, and you can tell me about the kind of year you’ve been having.” She moved away from the bar, and after a moment’s hesitation, he followed her. They found a table at the far end of the room from the dancers, and when they sat down, she said, “Now, tell me about how you’re doing this year. Are you a saddle-bronc rider, or is it bulls?”
Dixon leaned back in his chair, studying Dani, his large frame relaxed. “Why, I ride them all, honey!” he told her. “Ain’t nothing with hair that I can’t ride—bulls, bareback, or saddle bronc.”
“Have you been riding long?” Dani managed to get Dixon talking. It was not difficult, for he was a man who liked to talk about himself. He rambled on for a long time about his career, rather often whistling for a waitress to bring him another drink. Dani listened, sorting out much of what he said, but as he poured drink after drink down his throat, she began to lead his loose talk into another channel. “It seems a shame that a fine rider like you can’t win the big money, Clay,” she commented innocently. “But I guess Clint Thomas has that all sewed up?”
A look of pure rage flamed in Dixon’s eyes. He shot a glance across the room to where Thomas was dancing with Ruth, and Dani saw his huge fist close around his glass, turning white with the pressure. Obviously the big cowboy would rather it had been Clint Thomas’s neck. He answered in a thin voice, “He’s had all the luck! They give him all the good mounts! But he won’t last forever! I’ll see him—”
He broke off suddenly, shook his head, and then got to his feet. “I don’t wanna talk about that imitation cowboy,” he announced. “Let’s go dance.”
“I’m not much of a dancer, Clay.”
“You’re good enough. Come on.”
He pulled her along, and Dani dangled at the end of his arm, having to scramble to keep from falling. His grip hurt her, and a small cry of pain escaped her lips.
“Dixon, you’re hurting that lady.” Tom Leathers had come out of the crowd, and the sound of his voice created a small pocket of silence that spread outward.
Trouble has a smell to it, Dani thought suddenly. And the men who ride bulls weighing almost a ton move in violence the way a fish moves through water. Now the crowd that had watched Fighting Bill Baker and J. D. Pillow pound each other were drawn almost magnetically toward Leathers and Dixon with Dani locked in Dixon’s grasp.
Dixon peered down at the smaller man, an ugly light in his eyes. “Tom, if you don’t git outta my way, you’ll get hurt.”
Leathers looked small and fragile as he stood looking up at Dixon’s massive hulk. He was no more than forty-five, but a life of getting pounded by bucking horses and bulls had marked him. He shook his head slightly. “Sure, Clay. You turn the girl loose, and I’ll be glad to move.”
Dixon cast a quick look around at the crowd, and his lips turned upward in a smile. He had to have fights just as he had to have liquor. But he knew that he could not crush the older man. Leathers was a popular cowboy, having the respect of everyone. So Dixon didn’t hit Leathers; he simply stepped forward and brushed him aside with his massive left arm.
Leathers was driven to one side, falling hard on the tile floor. At once a young cowboy with black hair stepped up, needling him, “You’re tough on old men, aren’t you, Dixon?” Then without hesitation he sent a tremendous blow right into Dixon’s face.
Dixon was driven back a single step. He released Dani’s wrist and raised that hand to touch his mouth. He looked at the blood on his palm, then with a cry of rage, plunged at the smaller man, his huge fists striking like pistons. The two blows simply destroyed the boy—and he seemed no more than that to Dani—who collapsed with blood streaming down his face from a cut over his eyebrow, laid open to the bone.
Dixon looked at the boy, who didn’t move, saying, “Punk kid!”
A flash of motion caught Dani’s eye. She only had just enough time to turn her head and see Clint Thomas pick up a wooden chair. Lifting it high, he brought it down with all his might on Dixon’s unprotected head. The chair struck with a dull clunking sound, then broke into pieces. Dixon collapsed in a heap, his head split in a gash that ran from front to back, exposing the white gristle of his scalp.
Thomas tossed the wreckage of the chair on the floor, then stood looking down at Dixon’s still form. “Well, I didn’t make it.”
Wash Foster stared at him. “Didn’t make what, Clint?”
A smile appeared like a white slash across Thomas’s wedge-shaped face. “Why, I thought I could drive him through the floor up to his knees,” he drawled, his eyes bright with what seemed to be enjoyment. “Maybe next time I’ll use a bigger chair.” He turned and walked away, not even breathing hard. He spoke lightly to Ruth, who came to hold his arm, her face pale and her hands trembling.
Dani moved to kneel beside the boy whom Dixon had struck. Pulling her handkerchief out of her jeans, she tried to staunch the blood that welled up from the cut. His eyes opened, and she saw the blankness in them fade as consciousness returned. “You’re going to have to have that cut stitched,” she said.
He stirred, shook his head, then sat up. His eyes focused on Dixon, where he lay with his bloody scalp exposed. “What happened to him?” the cowboy asked.
“Clint Thomas hit him with a chair after you went down.”
A strange light flickered in the boy’s dark eyes. Instant outrage filled his voice, “I don’t need his help!” He struggled to his feet, and Wash Foster came over. “Boone, you got to get that cut taken care of. Come on.”
He led the young man out of the room, and Dani asked Bake, who had come to stand beside her, “Who is he, Bake?”
“Name’s Boone Hardin,” Bake replied. A puzzled look filled his eyes, and he shook his head. “Seemed to make him mad that Clint took Dixon out. You’d think he’d be grateful, now wouldn’t you? He’s a funny one, anyway. Don’t mix with folks much.”
“I want to go, Bake.”
“Sure, I guess the fun’s about over.” They picked up Wash Foster and left the Corral Club. When Bake stopped at the door of Dani’s room, he took off his hat and asked, “Well, how do you like the social life on the rodeo circuit?”
“Too rich for my blood, Bake.” Dani smiled but a troubled look remained in her eyes. “Won’t Clay try to get even with Clint for what happened?”
Bake thought for a moment, then shook his head. “Nope. He’d have to get in line to even the score with Clint. The fellow on top, he’s the target.”
“Good night, Bake, See you in the morning.”
“Yeah, sure.”
Dani showered and went to bed, shocked at how the violence at the party had shaken her. She lay there for a long time, reading her Bible, but her mind dwelled on the people she had met.
Somewhere among them, she felt sure, was the man she was looking for. But how to find him? Finally she turned out the light and closed her eyes. For one moment apprehension that the dream of the shooting might return filled her—until she realized it had not come since she had thrown herself into the job. She smiled, saying, “Thank you, Lord—” and fearlessly plunged into the warm darkness.
6
Second Warning
* * *
Dani got up before dawn, dressed, and left the motel. She drove around aimlessly, then went into Denny’s and ordered a big breakfast. But she felt too nervous to eat more than a few bites, so after drinking three cups of coffee, she left and went to the Astrodome.
Biscuit whickered when Dani came to the holding corral, and she rubbed his velvet nose, feeding him some of the sugar cubes she kept in her pocket. “You’re not nervous, are you?” she muttered. “Good thing one of us has some confidence.”
Turning from the horse, she wandered through the large doors in the rear of the Dome, walking around aimlessly. Even empty and slightly ghostly as it was, there was something deadly that one didn’t find in other large arenas. It was, she decided, the fact that other large arenas were for games—but a rodeo was not a game. This was more like the ancient gladiator spectacles in the coliseum, in Rome, where men met not to settle which one could run the fastest or throw a javelin the farthest, but to settle which one would live and which one would die.
A tractor was chugging along under the dim lights, pulverizing the earth into powder, and she paused to watch the geometrical patterns it created in the dirt. The driver was an older man with a shock of white hair and a drooping mustache, and as he spotted her watching him, he lifted one hand in a languid gesture of friendship. She waved back, and thought, He’s not worried. Nobody could get hurt doing groundwork like that. But if he were going to get on top of a fighting Brahma bull in a little while, he’d be worried that he might get his lungs punctured with a horn or his head smashed by a hoof.
The danger woven into rodeo inhabited the place, specter-like and ominous, Dani decided. Slowly she continued her walk, wondering, as most people do, why men would risk everything for such a cause.
As she saddled Biscuit, she wondered if the cowboys did it just to tackle something bigger than themselves. In life challenges are often vague and unexciting, such as getting up and going to work day after day. But in a rodeo arena it’s compacted and concentrated, and she concluded that to escape boredom, men sought out the danger that comes rising up from that powdered dirt, the cattle pens, and the chutes and their gates.
“You have to pick everything to pieces!” she admonished herself and forced her mind away from speculation. After riding Biscuit slowly around the stadium, she dismounted and walked him behind the chutes, which would be filled in a few hours with cowboys waiting to make their rides. At the side of the chutes were pens for cattle and horses: calves for roping in one pen, the dogging steers in another, then closer in, the three groups of animals used for the bucking events—the bareback horses, the horses used in the saddle-bronc event, and the bulls. Some of them were already in place, eating slowly and contentedly. A huge Brahma lifted his head and studied her, not looking very dangerous, all slack-mouthed and benign.
“Don’t look too mean, does he now?”
Dani turned quickly to find a man of about forty watching her. He was of average height, very wiry, and dressed in worn jeans and a checkered shirt that had lost all color. Two children stood beside him, a girl of about ten, with auburn hair, and a boy no more than six, with a thatch of tow-colored hair and countless
freckles. Both children studied her watchfully.
“Well, no, he doesn’t.” Dani smiled at the children and introduced herself, “I’m Dani Ross.”
“Hey, the cat got your tongue?” the man questioned sharply, when neither child spoke up. He hitched his pants up and came forward to offer one calloused hand. “I’m Hank Lowe,” he said easily. “This here is my kids, Cindy and Maury.” He nodded as he added, “Guess you’re gettin’ a little nervous about your ride this afternoon.”
“How’d you know that?” Dani wanted to know. “I must look scared to death—which I just about am.”
Lowe smiled again. “Nope, you look cool as a cucumber. But Ruth told me about you. Said you’d just decided to rodeo, and today was your maiden voyage.”
“Oh, you know Ruth?” Dani saw Lowe’s face change slightly at the question and wondered what it meant. “Well, that’s right. But right now I’d like to run back home and forget the whole thing!”
“My daddy’s the most important man in the whole rodeo!” Maury stared at her with defiance, his brown eyes serious.
Dani replied, “You know, Bake Dempsey says the same thing, Maury. He told me he wouldn’t even think about getting on a bull if Hank Lowe wasn’t there to keep him from getting hurt.” The answer pleased the boy, she saw, and she looked with admiration at Lowe. “I don’t see how you do it night after night, Hank.”
Lowe’s weather-beaten face flushed slightly, and he pulled off his hat, slapping it against his thigh to cover his embarrassment at the compliment. “Aw, well, it’s a living.” He shrugged, then gave her a keen look, a thought coming to him. “Don’t guess you’re good at arithmetic, are you?”
Revenge at the Rodeo Page 8