Dani suggested, “Let’s see how good you are. You work this one, while I see how good your sister is at algebra.”
She found at once that both of the children were very bright. Maury buried himself in the puzzle books, yelping whenever he completed one, and demanding a gold star, which Dani affixed to each completed exercise.
Cindy was cautious at first, but Dani drew her out, and soon she and Dani were laughing together over the silly problems in the math book that Hank had bought. Dani stopped them after a time, bringing out the cookies she had brought, and they washed them down with soft drinks from the refrigerator. Maury went back to his puzzles voluntarily, and Dani led Cindy through some of the mysteries of algebra.
When Dani saw that the girl was getting bored, she exclaimed, “You have such pretty hair, Cindy! But you know what? I think it would be prettier if you fixed it differently. Let’s try it.”
When Hank came in an hour later, he found the three of them giggling and playing Monopoly. “Hey, you three are supposed to be studying!” he sternly took them to task.
“We are studying, Daddy!” Cindy nodded. “Dani’s teaching us about mortgages and stuff with Monopoly.”
Hank stared at his daughter. “What’d you do to your hair?”
“Dani fixed it,” Cindy’s eyes sparkled. “Isn’t it nice? And she says she’s going to take me to a store and buy me a new dress.”
“You have to go with us, Hank.” Dani nodded. “I know how badly men hate to shop with women, but Cindy and I need your money.”
Then Maury piped up, “Dani’s even better than Ruth in this ol’ stuff.”
Dani shot a look at Hank, noting that his face had sobered. “Well, wait until next time, Maury,” she warned. “I used up all my good tricks on this first one. Now, let’s go spend your money, Hank!”
Lowe took them to a department store, but later when he walked Dani back to her truck, he said, “Don’t know how you did it, Dani. I can’t get them to crack a book. Sure do appreciate it.”
Dani stopped beside her truck. “Oh, I’m new to them. They’ll holler loud enough next time. Now that I’ve won their confidence, I can afford to really pour on the work.” She laughed suddenly. “Now you know what a conniving female I am, Hank!”
He looked at her, slim and beautiful in the sunlight, and teased, “Sure, I can see you’re a hard number.”
She hesitated before mourning, “Terrible about Tarzan, wasn’t it?”
He nodded. “I’d like to get the guy who did it. Break his legs!”
“Clint’s all broken up about it.”
“Sure. Even a hairpin like Thomas grieves over losing a horse.” Dani did not miss the barbed reference concerning Clint, but said nothing. “Tarzan was past his prime, of course. It was his last year.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Oh, sure. Clint almost didn’t use him this year. Got a new horse last year. Not as good as Tarzan was in his prime, but he will be.”
“Hank, are you making a payoff to this man?” Dani questioned.
Lowe looked startled, then slowly he nodded. “A small one. Most people don’t know it, but a trained donkey is an expensive animal. After Tilman Yates’s horse got ruined, I caved in.” His eyes narrowed, and he explained, “It’s only a few bucks. Like paying insurance.”
“How many more do you think might be paying off?”
“Don’t know. This guy is pretty choosey, Dani. I make pretty good, and he don’t fool with little people. Guess you think I’m wrong, paying off?” he worried.
Dani shook her head. “I hate the idea, Hank, but I’m not in your shoes, so I don’t have any right to judge.”
“It’s not Ulysses I’m worried about so much,” Lowe admitted, biting his lip nervously. He hesitated, then plunged ahead. “Yates got busted up, and now Clint’s been knocked in the head. When he called, the guy said if I didn’t care about protection for the mule, I ought to think about my kids. He said, ‘What would happen to them if you got your legs busted and couldn’t do your job?’”
“He knows how to work people.” Dani nodded. Then she asked cautiously, “Hank, who is it? I mean, is it some Mafia hood who’s moving in on all of you?”
“No! It’s not a big enough operation for that bunch,” Lowe said, shaking his head. “And I don’t think it’s an outsider, either.”
“Why not?”
“Because he knows too much about us. Knew my kid’s names. Knew the times I worked.” He gave her a strange look, then lowered his voice, “Dani, he’s been inside my trailer.”
“What? How do you know, Hank?”
“Well, I can’t prove it, but when he called, he told me, ‘You can keep a picture of Lorrie over the couch, but a picture can’t watch your kids’” He looked directly at Dani. “Lorrie was my wife. She walked out on me.”
Dani consoled him, “I’m sorry, Hank. But I admire you for the job you’re doing with Cindy and Maury.”
“Do my best—but anyway, the guy knew about the picture. He’s either been in my trailer or he’s talking to someone who has been.”
Dani pondered this. “That narrows it down, Hank.”
“Not so much as you think. He may be connected with the rodeo, but this trailer’s been pretty popular. People drop by all the time, helping with the kids or just visiting. Could be any one of a hundred, Dani. It could be one of the losers.”
“Losers?”
“Sure. Lots of guys rodeo and never make any money. There ain’t no guarantees, Dani. There’s about two thousand members of the RCA—the Rodeo Cowboy’s Association. There’s about seven hundred of them here right now in Houston, with about five hundred in the bucking events alone. But there’s only a few like Clint Thomas making a hundred thousand a year. Behind him are a handful earning maybe fifty thousand and after that about fifty men making thirty thousand a year.”
“That’s a pretty small crowd, Hank.” Dani had not known those figures. “What about the others?”
“All strung out, winning a few thousand a year, struggling to stay on the circuit. Mostly living on canned goods out of grocery stores, traveling five and six to a car to cut expenses, staying in the cheapest motels, borrowing all the time just to pay their entry fees for that next show up the line. Some go on for years like that. Some have families and take temporary jobs during the off season, just livin’ for the next year.”
“And you think the Creep might be one of these?”
“Could be.”
Dani saw that Lowe was getting nervous, so she suggested, “I’ll pop in tomorrow for lesson number two, Hank.”
“Thanks, Dani,” Lowe said, closing the door for her. “Maybe we can go out and eat someplace. The laborer is worthy of his hire.”
Dani stared at him. “You know the Bible, Hank?”
He shook his head. “Know it a little—but don’t do it.” He stood there, watched her drive her truck out of the lot, then turned and walked slowly back to the trailer. On the way, Ulysses reached out and bit him on the arm. Yanking the hurt member back, he cursed the animal. He drew back his arm to strike the donkey, but then suddenly dropped it. “Why not you?” he muttered. “Everybody else does!”
Dani went to Ruth’s motel room at once, saying as soon as she was admitted, “Tell me about it, everything.”
Ruth stared at her, then sat down on the bed. “Clint didn’t get even a glimpse of whoever hit him. He was drinking and sort of dozed off. But he came out of it when he thought he heard somebody coming up from behind Tarzan’s stall. He got cracked on the head, and when he woke up, it was over. He couldn’t stand to see Tarzan in agony, so he shot him.”
At Dani’s insistence Ruth repeated what she could remember of the interview with Lieutenant Stark. “He kept asking questions like who could get in, stuff like that. Of course, just about anybody could—that’s what Clyde told him. There’s not much security—just one guy who makes the rounds every couple of hours.”
Dani pried at the girl until s
he got most of the information about the interview, then asked, “What did Lieutenant Stark say he was going to do?”
Ruth looked angry. “He kept asking Clint questions, and I could see he was suspicious. He asked if the horse was insured—stuff like that. He just about came out and said that he thought Clint shot Tarzan himself for the insurance money!”
“Was Tarzan insured?”
“Yes, we all insure our horses, but Clint loved that horse!”
Dani left that alone, knowing that any information she got out of Ruth would be colored by her feelings for Clint. Finally she queried, “Ruth, how much have you paid, and how did you deliver the money?”
“Only two hundred dollars,” Ruth replied. “It was just one time, two weeks ago. He called and said to leave the money in a purse on a park bench. He said there were two of them, that one of them would watch after I left. That was in El Paso. I did what they said. Took an old purse, put the money in it, and left it.”
Dani questioned her for a long time, then got up, observing, “I don’t think the police will do much. But what will Clint do now?”
“He’ll kill whoever put Tarzan down!”
Dani gave her a careful look. “That won’t be easy, Ruth. He can’t carry a gun, and this man is smart. The Creep won’t give anyone a chance to corner him.”
As she turned to go, a thought came to her. She said in an offhanded manner, “I spent some time with Cindy and Maury today. They’re nice kids, aren’t they?”
Ruth’s cheeks flushed and she admitted, “I—I miss them a lot, Dani. But after I started going with Clint, I just couldn’t—”
She couldn’t finish, and Dani explored tentatively, “Ruth, you and I haven’t known each other long, but—”
“I know!” Ruth snapped. Her lips drew together in a tight line, and she shook her head. “Ben tried to talk to me about Clint. How he’s always been a woman chaser. But he’s different now, Dani. I know he is!”
How many other women have said that? Dani wondered, but knew that it was useless to talk of it. “I’ll see you later, Ruth,” she finally broke off. “You haven’t told anyone about Luke and me have you?”
“Oh, no!”
“It might get us killed,” Dani warned. “Anyone who’d break a horse’s legs is hard enough for anything. Be careful.”
Ruth sat on her bed, watching the door close, then fell face down on the bed and wept. On the small bedside table the picture of Clint showed the rider in a serious mood, his eyes dark and brooding; they seemed to rest on the shaking body of the girl as she lay there, weeping.
8
Sixkiller’s Roommate
* * *
The dream came again, not as before, in a series of events—but fragmented. At first only a vague sense of fear, such as one gets when the doctor says soberly, We have a little problem here, touched her. Then a sharp picture followed of the faces of people, all filled with fear.
Dani saw Ben springing up and down on the trampoline, his body arching in a series of turns. Then she saw herself standing by a swamp, holding a gun, and she heard the thunderous roar of the weapon and saw the fragments of a cypress tree as the slugs tore into it. In the silence that followed Ben warned, “Shooting at a tree’s not like shooting at a man, Dani. Nobody knows what he’ll do when he’s got to shoot someone.”
Then she saw the face of the man she killed—not grotesque, as it had been when she first saw him, wearing the stocking mask, but as she had seen it later, when the police had pulled off the stocking and she had stood looking down at him. The blood soaked the black T-shirt, but none touched his face. In her dream she again saw the face of a man who lay in a grave because of the bullet she had put in his chest.
His eyes were open, just as when she had last seen him, but then they had been blank, without expression. In her dream the eyes were alive and staring at her with a terrible intensity. All the other features were dead, but the eyes glared at her and seemed to grow larger—much larger than any eyes she’d ever seen. They swelled up like dark balloons, carrying some sort of terrible indictment.
Dani tried to run, but was frozen, and the eyes grew into flat and ugly oceans. Then a maelstrom, a whirlpool with smooth, black lustrous sides, formed. And she found herself drifting on the flat surface, struggling to keep away from the deadly center. The sides grew steeper, and she began to weep and cry as she slid toward the pit. A dead silence was broken by a thin cry; as she was sucked by the oily, black waters, which had become almost perpendicular, she could see what lay at the bottom of the vortex.
It was the face of the man she had killed, the eyes now glowing with an inhuman light. As she began to scream, he lifted a thin hand, with fine fingers like those of a concert violinist, motioning her toward the cerulean depths—
Dani woke up with a violent start, her entire body jerking, and her outflung arm knocked the lamp from the table beside the bed. As it crashed to the floor, she cried out loudly and sat bolt upright in the darkness. She was weeping, and her breath came in short, painful gasps, as if she had been in a terrible accident.
Just as consciousness came, driving the scenes from her mind, the phone rang.
The suddenness of the loud sound so nearby caused her to give an involuntary jerk and one short, sharp cry. As the phone kept up an incessant ringing, she put her hands to her face, holding them there tightly until the trembling that racked her body abated.
Lowering her hands, she took a deep breath, then picked up the phone. “H-hello?”
“Dani? Is that you?”
“Ben!” she gasped. The sound of Savage’s cheerful voice brought a sudden flood of relief. To cover her weakness, she barked, “Why are you calling at this time of the night?”
He didn’t answer at once, and when he did, there was concern in his voice. “What’s the matter?”
“Matter? You call me in the middle of the night, then want to know what’s the matter with me!”
“You weren’t asleep,” he observed flatly. “When people try to talk over the phone after waking up suddenly, they’re all fuzzy and confused. What’s wrong? You having trouble sleeping?”
Dani gripped the phone tightly. “Stop playing detective, Savage. I’m fine.”
“I hate it when people say that,” Savage enlightened her. “You ask how they are, and even if their lives are falling to pieces, they say, Oh, I’m fine! Just fine! Look, you can tell me. This is Savage’s Psychological Service. Hours twelve to twelve, we never close.” Then his jocular tone grew gentle, and he asked, “You still having a bad time?”
“Yes,” Dani whispered, and the tears came to her eyes. She dashed them away and forced herself to say resolutely, “But it’s all right, Ben. I’ll get over it. Thanks for—for caring.”
“No extra charge.” He paused. “I just wanted to tell you not to worry about the office. Your dad’s doing fine, looking great. Angie fusses over him like a mother hen with one chick. Sends him home at noon, happy as a clam.”
“What about you, Ben?”
“Aw, I’m too dumb to hurt, Boss,” he quipped lightly. “Guess I fell on my head too many times when I was in the circus. Doctor says I’m okay. Just a little stiff, is all. Now, what’s with Ruth?”
“Ben, whoever is doing this thing injured Clint’s horse last night.” She quickly gave him all the facts, then ended, “I think he’s pretty rough, the Creep, as Clint calls him.”
“You’re right there. What have you two come up with? Any goodies?”
“Not much. Luke found the sap that took Clint out. He’s sending it to New Orleans to check for prints. Says it probably won’t help.” They talked a little more, then Dani cautiously admitted, “Ben, I’m not too happy about Ruth and Clint.”
He responded at once, “He’s got a bad record with women. I tried to warn Ruth, but a woman in love doesn’t want to hear things like that. She’ll change him, she says.”
“I know. But maybe’s she’s right. I hope so, Ben. She’s a fine woman, and she
deserves a good man.” When he didn’t answer, she asked tentatively, “Was she serious about Hank Lowe?”
“Yeah—and I wish she’d stayed serious. He’s a good guy.”
The conversation bogged down, and Dani ended, “Thanks for calling. Do it again, will you? And I’ll be calling to let you know how things are going.”
“Sure—but one thing, Boss—”
“Yes?”
“I’ve been meaning to tell you—about that Sixkiller hanging around with you—he’s a slick operator with women. Keep your powder dry.”
Dani laughed. “It’s funny, Savage, but he said exactly the same thing about you!” She hung up the phone and got out of bed. As she peeled off her gown and put her shower cap on, she was thinking, Savage’s Psychological Service—not bad for a beat-up acrobat! As the warm water ran down her body, it seemed to sluice away not only the sweat but the tension that the nightmare had brought. But a nagging thought surfaced as she dried with the skimpy motel towel, How do I get rid of this thing for keeps ? Will I have to live with it—like someone who loses an arm and is never complete? But there was no answer, and as she dressed she forced the memory of the dream into a small closet in her mind, slammed the door, then locked it firmly.
When the voice woke him, Boone Hardin sat bolt upright and stared wildly around. His back was stiff from slumping down in the uncomfortable chair, and it took him a few seconds to recognize the room clerk standing in front of him.
“What—what’s that?” he mumbled, getting to his feet.
The middle-aged man with thick glasses and thinning blond hair smiled apologetically. “Didn’t mean to scare you, Son,” he said quietly. “But you can’t sleep here anymore.”
Hardin’s back stiffened, and he objected angrily, “It’s a lobby, ain’t it?”
The clerk shook his head. “Just for paying guests, Son. And you’re not registered.”
Revenge at the Rodeo Page 11