Trouble Trail—
For Two
by Thomas Calvert
Radio Archives • 2012
Copyright Page
Originally published in the December 1943 issue of Rangeland Romances. Copyright © 1943 by Popular Publications, Inc. Copyright renewed © 1971 and assigned to Argosy Communications, Inc. “Rangeland Romances” and its distinctive logo and symbolism and all related elements are trademarks and are the property of Argosy Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved. © 2012 RadioArchives.com. Reprinted and produced under license from Argosy Communications, Inc. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form.
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Rangeland Romances
Although romance novels can be traced back to the 1700s, there was a groundswell of the material beginning in the 1930s when magazines began to reach a wide audience of women who yearned to escape into a fantasy romantic setting. One of the most popular settings was the old west, where men were men and women were women. As many a swooning damsel could attest, "There's something about a cowboy."
The western romance became one of the most popular types of magazines sold through the following three decades. Newsstands were filled to overflowing with titles like Western Love Romances, Romance Western, Western Romances, Western Romance Stories, Cowboy Romances, Ranch Romances, Far West Romances, Romantic Range, Romantic Western, Romance Round-Up, North West Romances, Rodeo Romances, Golden West Romances, Western Love Romances, Rangeland Love Stories, Real Western Romances, Fifteen Range Romances and yes, Rangeland Romances.
By today's standards, these stories may be considered sweet and wholesome, but there’s still a thrill to them, the excitement of action and love waiting along the next trail. A beautiful woman thrown into the arms of a handsome cowboy. A desert sunset as two lovers' lips meet. The wide-open spaces where two lonely hearts find unexpected romance. Stories of untamed country and love make Western Romances extremely popular.
This new series of Rangeland Romances brings back the best of those western romance stories. A short story — a quick read — and romance blooms among the tumbleweeds yet again.
Trouble Trail — For Two
By Thomas Calvert
Lovely Tess knew that big ranches weren’t built on promises and moonlight kisses. She wanted her future safe-guarded against the ravages of wild range life — and she poured her whole heart into that kiss she gave Dusty, a kiss meaning... good-by!
BART WILLIS rode into the Goodhue ranch for early Sunday supper, sasheying his new Morgan gelding a little just for show. In that country of rough and rugged brush broncs, its blooded beauty was a thing rarely seen. It would set Bart out as someday a little above the crowd.
The whole family stepped out into the beating golden light to watch Bart put his new possession through its paces. The horse had pride and rhythm and training. Being a full Morgan, nobody could say much more. At the end of his showing, Bart stepped out of the saddle with self complacency. He stood running a big thick hand over the animal’s sleek muscles with a justified air of pride.
He had the kind of low, heavy voice that rolled like organ notes even when he spoke in a whisper. It boomed now as he said in what he meant for a low, casual note, “I ordered this gelding’s sister come next fall. They will make a fine matched pair.”
He lifted his square, florid face and let his bold blue eyes slide across to Tess. She was a girl of strong, dark beauty, with contradictions in her face. She had both the freshness of youth, and the maturity of deep wisdom. There was recklessness in her, and there was keen skepticism, too.
She met his look square on. She met it levelly, and gave a small, cool smile, and then without haste, drew away her gaze.
Her father asked, “Bart, what in pot you figure to do with two blooded hosses out in this scrub country? Only good for ridin’. You can’t risk this kind of horseflesh in tough cow work!”
Bart grinned. He said, “You got the notion yore the only man ever got hitched, T. L.?”
“Well now,” T. L. Goodhue allowed, seeing the light. “There was this difference. In my case I was almighty popular among the womenfolks!”
“There were no other womenfolks in sixty miles!” his wife corrected. “Howbeit, you were too all fired popular with me for my good!” She pinned him with a peremptory eye. “Pa, you come along and get me some wood to finish supper!”
The girl moved beside a corral post as Bart unsaddled. She was tall, with lean lithe lines.
Bart came out of the corral and shut the gate. She felt his big bulk moving up behind her. He was not fat, but he breathed heavily. Everything he did was in a big and heavy way. He said after a space, “Tess, sometimes I have the feeling I’m not wanted.”
“You are wrong, Bart,” she said across her shoulder. There was no apology in her voice. It was a straightforward statement of an honest fact.
He scowled at the nape of her long, smooth neck. Touch her, he did not dare.
He said hesitantly, “I have no right to ask, but it would mean a great deal to me to know. Is it another man?”
For a moment she hesitated, then turned and looked him levelly in the eyes. She put a hand upon his thick upper arm and gave him a friendly squeeze. She lightly told him, “Bart, you’d like to stampede a gal!”
“It is just that?” he asked. “You have not yet made up yore mind?”
“Just that,” she nodded. “There are other men. I think it is an even half dozen cluttering up the landscape. But they are not often asked for supper. You rate high.”
His good self opinion came back onto his face. “Why then,” he said with only a note of wryness, “I will wait. If it is an open field, I will take my chance of winning!”
“Am I worth it?” she wondered.
HE CHUCKLED. “I have never yet set my eye upon anything not worth the gamble. And I have never played and lost. You would be a credit to a man, something to which he could point with pride.”
She gave him her ready smile. “There are nice things about you, Bart!”
“I am a good risk,” he agreed. “That is what the bankers call it. I will gamble high, but I will never stake my last dollar. There will always be enough to make a fresh start if I lose the pot.”
He could get a little gusty on that subject. From the purse of his lips, she knew the signs. She headed that off by taking his arm to walk up path. This took them through the sparse cactus and flower garden the hot suns permitted and that took most of the free time in her life. He gestured at it with an arrogant sweep of his hand.
He said, “There’s an example. I will bet you spend three hours a day just watering alone. As my wife, you could have a mestizo to tend yore garden for you!”
She looked up at him with speculation and started to ask a question, then carefully held it in her mind. His efforts in life he devoted to success. He did not waste them upon matters others could do better. He did not even break his own horses.
They had supper and then went and sat on the balcony. The heat of day had passed. Now the evening sky slanted in its warm blue and red and yellow light. The tints caught upon the dark beauty of her face. Her je
t hair was sharp against the white bloom of a yucca.
Bart was having his cigar with satisfaction. In that mood of well being, he studied her. He shook his head with conviction. “Yessirree, I will have to wait, but I will get you, Tess! There isn’t a purtier gal around, and Bart Willis will take nothing but the best!”
He removed his cigar to laugh largely at his quip. The girl gave her quiet smile. Maybe he was just more truthful than most. But that was about the way Bart thought. It was not particularly Tess Goodhue he wanted for a wife. It was the prettiest girl around; the one who would do most to flatter his pride.
He had more of his smoke and then asked, “You fixing to ride over to the trained horse contest at Spring, three weeks Satiddy?”
Her eyes came opened wide. “What do you think, Mister? That I’m going to miss the best show of the year? We’ve got box four, right in front!”
“I’m glad of that. You’ll be on hand to watch me win the big prize. There isn’t a horse in this country can outpoint that new Morgan of mine.”
“Why, I wish you luck, Bart,” she said. “But you have got some competition!”
“Scrub ponies,” he scoffed. “Good cattle workers. But no class. I will win every event I enter, saving mebbe the trick horse class. I will give Dusty Murdoch an even chance on that.”
“Why that is right handsome of you, Bart,” Dusty allowed from the far end of the balcony.
The girl swung her gaze in that direction. A faint flush rose up into her cheeks. He stood there long and limber as a bean, his lean face scrubbed almost raw, but even his Sunday pants shiny at the knees.
His wide blue eyes met hers and his broad lips quirked in a homely grin.
He swung his gaze back to Bart. “But I calculate I got an even chance in two more classes.”
Bart carefully knocked the ash from his cigar. He smiled with assured superiority. “Want to make a little bet?”
“Well,” Dusty drawled hesitantly. “Might bet you three longhorn yearlin’s.”
Bart lifted his laugh to shake the rafters. “What’s wrong with fifty dollars gold?”
Dusty moved uncomfortably in his worn boots. He passed it off the best he could. He said ruefully, “Brother, you are talking riddles!”
Ma Goodhue stuck her gray head out the door and commanded, “Dusty, you come help me do some lifting.”
“Why sure, ma,” he agreed. “But this doohicky I brought Tess needs something fast.” He brought his hand from behind his back. In a coffee can he had a small cactus with the most beautiful blue star flowers she had ever seen.
The girl gave a little gasp of pleasure. Bart looked at it with amusement. He himself had brought some real imported French sachet. He was less amused when the girl went off to replant and tend the cactus at that moment. He waited for her return, and spent another fifteen minutes, and then took his leave. One grace she had to acknowledge in him, he never overstayed.
SHE walked out to speed him on his way, and then moved lightly back through his eddying dust. Dusty was sitting upon the back of a chair in the kitchen jollying her mother into a good humor with a bit of gossip she had not heard. He glanced around and grinned. “That wizard hoss wrangler done gone?” Tess put her nose up at him, but her eyes were a-twinkle. She felt ten years younger with Bart out of the way. She felt as if she could yell.
Ma Goodhue said sharply, “Don’t get uppity on account of bein’ so pore you have to gentle yore own hosses, Dusty! That Bart Willis is going places, which is more than I can say for some!”
“That is the best news I’ve heard yet,” Dusty said. “Me, I’m stayin’ right here to court yore daughter.” He ducked ma’s dishrag and dragged out a harmonica. In two minutes he had the scowl off her face and had her singing.
Pa Goodhue came in and announced cantankerously, “Dunno but what it would be worth letting you have Tess jist to get you out of here!” His boot began to tap out time. “Let’s have that salivatin’ piece you play about the funeral of Jake Slade.”
It was dark and Dusty had about sung the old folks out when ma produced coffee and pie and then went off to bed. He sat stuffing down pie and watching the girl in the cone of smoky yellow lamplight. Still in his fresh mood he said, “What’s the use of money if you can’t have fun?”
“You can’t have much fun with no money!” she pointed out. Her head was turned along the line of her shoulder. She held her eyes upon the floor. He could not be sure, but he thought he saw a single quiver of her lips.
He said, “Yeah. But I’m gettin’ there too. Only, kind of easy like.”
She turned and looked at him with a mixture of understanding and reproach. She cried with disturbance, “Dusty, why don’t you really work that herd and get a start? You don’t half work it, and you know it.”
“Well, it’s like this,” he said, and scratched his head. His gaze centered on the open door. “You see, there’s always something more important happening. Like right now, there’s that big dusty golden moon bucking over the mesa there.”
She took a long breath of exasperation, and glared at him. But he was grinning in his quiet, shy way. Feelings stirred within her and put a brightness into her eyes. She made a gesture of his hopelessness and they drifted out and walked up onto a bluff.
Dusty’s mesa was a block of dark mystery rising against the gold washed night. The yucca and agave were in bloom. Their smells mixed with the pungent scent of sage and cedar and pine that drifted on the slow warm wind down range. He sprawled beside her bringing forth occasional bursts of music, without beginning and without end. Notes and chords simply expressive of their random happiness.
The night was filled with peace. A faint excitement, and romance drifted on the lazy air. He could feel the heat and nearness and the vibrancy of the girl. She sat in the pool of her wide skirts cutting a silhouette against the moon, and the moon put a mist-blow through her raven hair.
He said abruptly, “Yore mighty purty tonight, Tess. But I sure wish we were sittin’ on our own balcony over on the mesa rim.”
She laid her hand upon his brow. “Have you built it, Dusty?”
“No,” he admitted. “But I got the plans all set.”
She gave his hair a vexed tousle. A little note of exasperation came from her throat. She said with sudden misery, “Yore just no plumb good, Dusty! A woman wouldn’t know where she stood. Even if she went and built yore balcony herself, you’d like to get tired of her and just forget to come home sometime.”
He broke off in the middle of a piece and looked up. “You don’t really think that?”
She shrugged unhappily. “What can a girl think? You been sparkin’ me four years. I’m getting on nineteen, now. That’s darned near an old maid in this country!”
“Is it you or yore folks,” he asked, “that’s down on me?”
She looked sharply away to hide the sudden wash of tears. “They just don’t want to see me starve to death is all!”
She wheeled and bent her head suddenly over his. “I don’t ask a fortune, Dusty! All I want is just to be sure of getting along!”
“Yeah,” he nodded. “Only trouble is, for a woman, that takes hard cash!” He was instantly optimistic. “But tell you what. I’ll get down to real hard work tomorrow!”
“You won’t!” she cried bitterly. “You know you won’t!”
“Look,” he said and drew down her head. His arms were strong and his lips tender. The way he made her feel was the thing that hurt her most. Suddenly, she came unleashed and kissed him with a fierce passion such as she had never shown him in her life.
The moon was high overhead when they sat up. He ran his hand back through his unruly mane of hair. He sat with his elbows upon his knees and a kind of incredibly surprised look on his face. After a space he said, “Then it is all set. When will it be?”
She bit her lower lip. She looked at him with the most poignant sadness he had ever seen. Catchily, she told him, “Nothing is set, Dusty!”
“But that kis
s —” he muttered.
“That was good-by,” she answered sadly. “You give a woman too much misery. There’s no answer, and there’s an end to what a girl can take!”
“Yore serious!” he gasped.
“Dead serious!” she nodded. “Don’t you come around again until you can bring a ring that ma won’t squint at and test in vinegar!”
He started to speak, then looked at her and grimly closed his mouth. She was right and he knew she was right. What more was there to say?
THE trained horse contest was as important as the fall rodeo. The country turned out to see it whooping, and the man who came off tops was king. The Goodhues went over in a dollie shaded buckboard, starting before dawn and stopped at Clear Creek for breakfast.
On trail, Pa Goodhue got the breakfast. Turning bacon, he looked at his daughter across the wisps of bluish smoke. He said, “Tess, there is going to be high feeling over this year’s contest. You see you don’t add to it none.”
A line of puzzlement came between her eyes. “There always is high feeling. Why this year, particularly?”
“I’m just telling you,” he said. He grew very busy with the bacon and biscuits and the coffee.
It did not take long on the street of Spring to find out what her father meant. It was bitterly poor Texas country. What few luxuries there were, the men and women fashioned from the things at hand. In fifty years that range had produced a few great horses, but none of them had been blooded stock. A horse such as Bart Willis’ pure Morgan had a start on the boys before it even entered the show ring.
They met Bart out by the waiting pens at noon. His face was ruddy with excitement, and his eyes were flashing with his blustery pride. He said boastfully, “From the line-up, saving one event, I could win every contest in the show!”
She twirled her parasol and studied him from its shade. Then she turned her gaze away. “Bart,” she murmured. “You’ve got other good horses here. Why not give the boys a break?”
Rangeland Romances #2 Page 1