The other smiled. “You reckon Hank Dale will be going along? If so, I might have the guts to go—”
“Guts?” Lynnie shuddered. “Ladies don’t say ‘guts,’ not even liberated ones.”
“You’re right.” Penelope turned toward the buggy. “Besides, Lynnie, you’re the only one I know who would dare go on a cattle drive with a bunch of men. It’ll be just miserable out there on the trail.”
“I’m willing to make the sacrifice so that Texas is represented at the meeting,” Lynnie said loftily as she walked toward the buggy. “Now let’s get back to the house and see if your brother has clothes that will fit me.”
“Oh, Lynnie, are you sure you want to chance this? When Ace Durango realizes you’re along, he’ll be madder than—”
“Won’t he, though?” Lynnie grinned and peered at the younger girl through her gold-rimmed spectacles. The thought of annoying that big rascal cheered her as the two got in the buggy and returned to the ranch house to make their plans.
Eight
Lynnie was certainly having misgivings as she dressed in Penelope’s younger brother’s clothes that early April dawn. They’d told Penelope’s mother that Lynnie was going home in the morning. Because of the chicken pox scare, it would be a few days before her big sister, Cayenne, came looking for her.
Now, as she pulled her Stetson over her eyes and swung up on Boneyard, she hesitated at the temerity of her undertaking. “Oh, Penelope, I’m not sure I’m brave enough to go through with this.”
“You sound terrible, Lynnie. Are you sick?” The other girl peered up at her anxiously.
Lynnie coughed and admitted, “I must be coming down with a cold or the grippe. My throat feels sore.”
“Your voice is as deep as a man’s,” Penelope said, “but maybe that’s a good thing.”
Lynnie nodded. “I might be able to pass myself off as a boy after all.” She peered down at the other girl, who looked a little out of focus.
“Are you able to see without your spectacles?”
Lynnie patted her shirt pocket to make sure the gold-rimmed glasses were there. “Not very well, but if I put them on, I’m sure to be recognized.”
The other chewed her lip. “Oh, Lynnie, don’t you want to reconsider? I can’t believe you’ll make it all the way to Dodge City without being found out.”
“It’s for the cause.” Lynnie squared her small shoulders and hoped her hair would stay secured up under her hat. “You’re sure no cowboys from your outfit are going?”
Penelope shook her head. “I told you, the whole bunch headed for the main pastures last night to fix fence.”
“Wish me luck. Maybe in all the confusion of getting the herd road-branded and started on the trail, nobody will pay any attention to me.”
“Oh, I almost forgot.” Penelope pulled a bunch of multicolored ribbons from her pockets. “If you make it to Dodge City, would you try to match some fabrics to these colors?”
Lynnie sighed. “Honestly, Penelope, you think I’ll have time to shop for dress goods?”
Penelope’s serious face fell. “It’s just that there’s never much to choose from here at the general store and if I’m ever to catch Hank—”
“All right.” She weakened at the wistfulness on the other’s face. “Put the ribbons in my saddle bags, and if I get there, I’ll see what I can do.”
Penelope complied happily. “Good luck.”
“Try to keep anyone from finding out as long as possible,” Lynnie ordered, and saluted. “For the cause,” she said grandly, and rode out, knowing she must make a sight in the faded boy’s clothes, with a Stetson pulled low over her eyes and riding a horse that looked as if it were ready to lie down and die. The other cowboys would hurrah her over her mount, she knew, but maybe that would take attention away from Boneyard’s rider.
In the early-morning dew, she loped to join up with the herd gathering in the grove a few miles to the east. She didn’t gallop Boneyard, because she wasn’t certain the horse wouldn’t collapse under her if she did. Frankly, she didn’t believe that preposterous story about her speed, but if the old bag of bones could really run, she might want to keep that little secret to herself until needed.
Just as she had expected, the meeting place that early April dawn in the grove near the spring north of town was sheer pandemonium: cattle bawling and milling about, nervous horses neighing and churning among the cowboys, and the crowds that had gathered to watch the send-off. The weather had been dry, and the animals were kicking up so much dust that even the most weathered cowboys were pulling their red bandannas up to cover their lower faces. They all looked like bandits, she thought, but Lynnie did the same, grateful that the kerchief hid most of her face. There was a branding fire going as the cowboys put a road brand on the left shoulder of every steer and cow. In case they got scattered along the way, they’d be able to recognize and recapture the stock this group was driving north.
Her vision was blurred without her spectacles, but she dare not put them on, for fear of being recognized. However, she breathed a sigh of relief as she looked about and was pleased that she didn’t see anyone from her immediate family there. Under a tree, Ace looked almost green, with one eye slightly blackened, as his mother scolded him. Good—he was in trouble, Lynnie thought, straining to hear. From Cimarron’s expression, she was giving him a dressing-down.
“Double damnation, son,” Cimarron snapped, “you’d think with the drive leaving this morning, you’d have known better than gettin’ yourself in a drunken brawl last night.”
“Sorry, Ma.”
Lynnie wondered if the señorita had been pretty and worth the fight. Ace looked as if he were ready to lie down and die and kept rubbing his head as if he had a bad hangover. The randy rascal.
“Ace,” his mother scolded, “your father will be so disappointed if you don’t behave like a Durango.”
“I told you I didn’t want to go on this silly cow chase,” Ace groaned.
“Your father would love to go along if he hadn’t fallen from that horse and broken some ribs.”
“Lucky Dad,” Ace said.
Cimarron looked disappointed in her son. “Why don’t you get over there and help Comanch and Pedro?”
Ace nodded, but he didn’t seem enthused as he took out his canteen and poured cold water over his head. Then reluctantly, it seemed, he tied up his horse and stumbled over to the branding fire while his mother got in her buggy and drove away.
“Hey,” Comanch, the half-breed kid, laughed, “Ace, you look like you’ve been rode hard and put away wet.”
Ace groaned. “I feel that way, too.”
The experienced Durango trail boss was a tough, swarthy Mexican. Pedro and some of the other cowboys were already at work by the branding fire. Even in this cool dawn, Ace’s shirt was soon wet with perspiration and sticking to his big, muscular body. He looked positively male and uncivilized as he tried to follow the Mexican’s orders. Lynnie also recognized a few very young and green cowboys from various ranches, but they were all too busy working to notice her. There must have been three or four thousand longhorns milling about the small valley, bawling and churning up dust, as well as a big remuda of extra horses. Off to one side sat the Durangos’ old chuck wagon, hitched to two lop-eared mules, with the cantankerous old Cookie seated on the driver’s seat, grumbling and scratching.
Dogs barked; whips cracked; cattle lowed and bawled as they were branded, while horses neighed and stirred up even more dust. She seemed to be the only one not intent on doing something. Lynnie felt very conspicuous. She dismounted, holding on to her reins and looking about, trying to decide how best to blend in. She needn’t have bothered hanging on to her reins; Boneyard appeared to be asleep standing up, completely ignoring the confusion around her.
“Hey, kid,” Ace yelled and motioned, “get the hell out of the way!” He made an ill-tempered gesture, and his voice rose. “Hey, you with the nag, get outta the way.”
Abruptly, she
realized he was addressing her, as a pair of cowboys bumped into her, dragging a bawling steer to the fire.
How dare he speak so to a lady. With a flush of indignation, she almost said something, but then remembered she was a cowboy now, and stepped to one side.
Ace appeared to be glaring at her. She couldn’t be sure without putting on her spectacles. Sweat dripped down his dark, handsome face as he pushed his hat back. His hangover must be making him short-tempered “Kid, ain’t you got any work to do? You look as useless as udders on a bull.”
The other cowboys chuckled, and she bridled at the insult, then realized she was the only one standing around doing nothing. What to do? She’d watched the cowboys at the Lazy M, but of course she’d never taken part. She strode over to the fire in her best masculine manner. “How can I help?”
Her low voice must be convincing, because Ace never looked up. “Hold on to this damned steer while I cut him.”
She felt her face go brick red as she realized what the cowboys were doing to the young male animal. Under Pedro’s directions, Ace turned the young bull into a steer and tossed his male parts into a kettle. “Good supper tonight,” Ace said, and the cowboys around the fire agreed with guffaws.
She thought she was going to be sick, even though she’d grown up on a ranch. Ace nodded to her. “Hey, kid, take this kettle to Cookie and see if he needs a hand.”
Calf fries—a very popular dish in the West. For the moment, Lynnie was grateful that her bad vision didn’t give her a very good view of what was in the pot. She swallowed hard and picked up the kettle, almost staggering under its weight. For a long moment, she waited for some cowboy to come gallantly forward and offer to carry her burden.
Ace glared up at her. “You got lead in your butt, kid?”
Damn him, she hoped he choked on his calf fries tonight. She struggled carrying the heavy load over to the sour-looking old cook.
Cookie only nodded to her, and she sniffed a strong smell of vanilla as he wiped his mouth and hastily put a small bottle in his shirt pocket. He climbed down off the wagon and took the kettle of male bovine parts, smacking his lips. “Good eatin’ tonight.”
“Yep,” she agreed, and almost ran to get back to her horse. There was no getting around it: tonight she would have to eat something she had always turned up her nose at around the ranch as an uncivilized, barbaric feast.
Boneyard was definitely asleep on her feet, her ugly head drooping. The only sign of life from the bedraggled gray was the occasional flick of her tail at a fly buzzing about, and the flutter of long eyelashes. Lynnie mounted up and rode about, trying to look busy. Everyone else seemed to have a job to do and paid no attention to her.
As the sun moved toward noon, the people who had come to see the herd off gathered in the shade of the trees, the ladies protecting their delicate complexions under lace parasols. The Durangos’ main wrangler, Pedro, was definitely in charge, shouting orders, half in border Spanish. Ace looked as miserable as she felt, and his face still had a greenish hue. His dark eyes squinted in the sun, and occasionally he wiped his perspiring brow. He’d gotten hot enough to pull off his wet shirt, and from her perch on her tall horse, Lynnie could watch his muscles ripple as he worked. She had never noticed how much muscle there was to the man. Were those scratch marks on the broad back?
Lynnie squinted and looked closer, imagining Ace’s last evening in a cantina with some spicy señorita enjoying that virile male body. The images that came to her mind shocked her. A lady certainly shouldn’t be imagining such things. Still, it was hard to look at that big brute and not think about those rippling muscles and those scratches on his back. Lynnie wrinkled her nose in disgust. If and when she finally picked a mate, it would be a well-mannered, civilized gentleman who would do nothing that would cause a woman to behave in such a wild, primitive manner.
Finally, all the road branding was done, and the sun’s angle made it nearly noon. The cowboys were now all mounted up, Ace having put on a fresh denim shirt. Pedro and Ace had ridden to the front of the herd, trying to get it moving, but the noise and barking dogs, whips cracking, and all the lowing and neighing and shouting were adding to the confusion. Men yelled “good luck,” and ladies waved lace handkerchiefs as the herd began to move. It seemed to Lynnie that an unusually large number of women were waving at Ace, who bowed low on his mount and grinned and winked, doubtless loving all the sighs and coos directed toward him. There was not the slightest doubt that every one of the maidens—and some of the married ladies—would love to be the next to put scratches on that muscular back.
The brute. Lynnie gritted her teeth at the thought of such silly women and nudged her sleepy horse awake. At least with all this excitement, no one had paid the slightest attention to her. She fell in alongside the herd, and it began to move out slowly.
“Head ’em up and move ’em out!” Ace shouted. “Old Twister is ready one last time to lead this herd to Dodge City!”
The cowboys took off their hats and cheered, waving their Stetsons in the air to hurry the beeves along. Lynnie almost took hers off, too, so caught up in the moment was she, then remembered that her hairpins might come loose. If a red length of hair cascaded down her back, she’d be noticed for sure. “Hurray!” she shouted in her strained, deep voice, “Hurray for Dodge City!”
A cheer went up all around as the brown sea of cattle began to move. Everyone down to the smallest child seemed to sense that this was a historic moment. Some of the elderly cowboys on the edges of the crowd took out big bandannas and wiped their eyes. Lynnie herself was awed by the thought. She was a woman and she was going on one of the last of the big cattle drives that were so much a part of Texas legend.
Now most of the cattle were in motion. Slowly at first, and then one by one, they fell in behind old Twister, the Durango lead steer with the twisted long horns, that was famous throughout the county because he had led so many of the Durango drives north. With thousands of cattle stirring up the dust, and the remuda of extra horses rearing and stamping, it took a while to get the whole herd moving.
Lynnie rode along one side as they began their slow, dusty walk north. Behind her, from the chuck wagon, she could hear the crusty old cook grumbling about the rutted trail.
The dust seemed so thick, she was choking as she looked back at the crowd of well-wishers waving good-bye. Up ahead of her, she could see Ace Durango’s broad back. Even if he hadn’t been riding one of the famed black quarter horses the Durango ranch was famous for, she would have known him from his muscular frame and shoulders so much wider than the average man’s.
Abruptly, Ace turned his horse and galloped back along the herd, looking things over, motioning to a cowboy to stop a stray from bolting away. He didn’t look quite so green as he had earlier in the day. Then he fell in next to her. Oh, thunderation. Had she been discovered already? She’d hoped to make it at least a few miles before she was caught in this masquerade.
“Hey, kid,” Ace yelled, “you look familiar. What spread you from?”
“Uh ...” She took a deep breath, then remembered the brand on the horse she rode. “Double X.”
Ace pushed his Stetson back and scratched his head. “Never heard of it.”
“From the Panhandle,” Lynnie kept her voice gruff.
His dusty, handsome face turned incredulous. “You come that far on that old nag?”
She almost corrected his grammar but caught herself. “I—I wanted to be in on this drive.”
“I sure as hell didn’t.” Ace groaned and rubbed his forehead as if in pain, cursing in Spanish as he did so. “It was my dad’s idea. They say the Forrester outfit is a day ahead of us; looks like we’ll be eatin’ their dust the whole way.”
Lynnie nodded and ducked her head. He galloped on, and she couldn’t help but turn in her saddle and watch him ride. He might be a woman-chasing hooligan, but the Cheyenne blood in him was apparent from the way he sat a horse. Maybe that was the reason silly girls kept sighing over the big
brute, even though he had the manners of a caveman.
Halfway through the afternoon, Pedro sent word down the line of riders to stop the big herd to graze a little. That gave the cowboys a few minutes to get a drink of water from the big barrel on the side of the chuck wagon and eat a cold biscuit and beef that Cookie handed out. Lynnie kept her hat low over her eyes and didn’t say anything, leaning against a big rock. Now most of the men were taking a chaw of tobacco or rolling a cigarette. Lynnie seemed to be the only one not smoking.
Ace ambled up to her, his expression still quizzical. “You ain’t smokin’ or chawin’?”
Lynnie kept her head low. “I—I forgot my makin’s.”
“Here.” Ace handed her his little sack of tobacco.
“Much obliged.” She took it and the little paper he handed her. Her hands trembled as she tried to roll it.
“Lordy, kid, you’re wastin’ tobacco,” Ace grumbled, and he took the makings from her and expertly rolled a cigarette.
Lynnie took it and stuck it in her mouth. Maybe he wouldn’t have a light.
But Ace struck a match across the seat of his pants and lit it for her. Even as he did so, he stared hard. “I swear I know you from somewhere, kid.”
“Uh, don’t think so.” She fought off a fit of coughing as she inhaled the acrid smoke. To her, it tasted like burning hay.
“What’s your name?”
“Ly—Lee. Lee Smith.” She didn’t look up at him.
“Okay, Lee, we’ll take a leak and then we’ll mount up and see how far we can get before sundown.”
“What?” She looked around in horror, realizing some of the cowboys around her had their pants unbuttoned. She’d never seen a full-grown man with his plumbing on display for everyone to see. “I—I already went.” She took her cigarette and stumbled toward her horse in confusion.
Ace Durango didn’t have any modesty about him at all. As she glanced back in embarrassed horror, he unbuttoned his pants and pulled out his ... My goodness, that was a big one! Ace Durango had a manhood on him like a stallion. She knew she shouldn’t look, but it was difficult not to, with him making a pattern in the dust with the stream. He appeared to be spelling out his first name. She’d seen Cayenne’s little boys do that. Well, some things about males never changed, she thought with disgust as he buttoned his pants, swung up on his black stallion, and galloped to the front of the herd.
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