“I said I was sorry.” He managed to pull on his boots, which was difficult, considering that Lynnie was throwing everything she could reach at him. “I don’t like the idea of bein’ fenced in, and I reckon now that I’m obliged—”
“You’re not obliged for anything!” she shrieked. “And I wouldn’t have you on a silver platter!”
“Shh! You’ll wake the others. Let’s just pretend this never happened, okay?”
Lynnie glared at him a long moment, fighting back tears. Here she was having feelings for the big brute, and he’d only been doing what men did naturally, trying to top every female they met.
“Fine!” she snapped, and began to rummage around for her own clothes. “You keep your distance for the rest of this trip and we’ll pretend it never happened. Besides, I’ve got too much to do for women’s rights to end up cooking and slaving for some Texas cowboy.”
He paused. “You’re sayin’ that if I asked you, you’d say no?” He sounded as if he couldn’t believe his ears.
“I am saying no,” she sniffed, and began to dress as the first light broke over the eastern horizon. “You may think you’re God’s gift to women, Ace Durango, but you weren’t so hot.”
He looked first amazed, then disbelieving, and finally crestfallen. “Now, Miss Priss, since you never done it before, how would you know whether I was any good or not?”
It had been good—better than she’d ever dreamed it could be, better than in the romantic novels she had read—but she wasn’t about to admit that. Ace Durango had a big enough ego without telling him what a great lover he was. “I just guessed; that’s all. I felt nothing.”
“Nothin’?” He looked as if he couldn’t believe it.
“Yes,” she lied, “and it won’t be a problem forgetting about last night, because it was quite forgettable. Now, get your boots on; we’ve got cattle to drive.”
“Women!” He put on his boots, grabbed up his hat, and headed toward the camp, where the others were just waking up.
Lynnie watched him go, torn between the soft feelings she’d had felt for him last night, and the cold, hard reality of today. She’d only been an hour’s pleasure for the cowboy, and in a few days, when he hit Dodge, he’d be making love to every woman who smiled at him. The thought upset her so, she ignored Ace when she returned to camp. The icy chill remained in the air the rest of that long day as they drove the cattle on toward the northern border of Indian Territory. The sky clouded ominously, but no rain fell.
As the days passed, Lynnie could no longer remember what day it was—not that it mattered. Each day was like the last: hot, frustrating, and dull. It must be nearly the end of June. Lynnie was no longer sure she’d make it to Dodge in time for the big women’s convention on July Fourth, but it didn’t seem as important as it once had. She and Ace kept a polite, cool distance. If the other cowboys noticed, they said nothing.
One morning, Cookie squinted against the sun. “By my calculations, we ought to be gettin’ close to the Western Trail. After that, it’s only a few more days to Dodge City.”
Thank God for that, Lynnie thought. The sooner she was rid of the big Texan, the better off she’d be. They could both get on with their lives. Somehow, the excitement of the big women’s meeting in Kansas had dimmed, and she was annoyed that Ace Durango had been the cause of that. She had never dreamed she could find such ecstasy in a man’s arms, especially an untamed brute like the rough cowboy.
Late that afternoon, they reached a big wooden sign pointing the way to the Western Trail. Everyone reined in and looked.
“That’s funny,” Lynnie said to no one in particular. “The sign points straight up, but somehow, I think we should be turning toward the left.”
“Women’s intuition,” Ace growled, then took off his hat and scratched his head. “What do you think, Cookie?”
The old man reined in his mules and looked up at the sun. With heavy clouds blanketing the sky, it was difficult to tell directions now. “That sign has always been there; I don’t know.”
Lynnie ignored Ace and leaned on her saddle horn. “You know what I think? I think that polecat Forrester might have moved the sign.”
“Think so?” Ace said. “That would be rotten.”
The other cowboys murmured agreement.
“Well,” Lynnie said, “he moved the warning signs off the quicksand, didn’t he?”
Ace scowled at her. “I sure hate to take the advice of a woman.”
Lynnie ground her teeth. “Listen, you low-brained bronc buster, I got a woman’s intuition about this.”
The whole crew suppressed a grin.
“Lordy, girl,” Ace sighed, “there’s no tracks leadin’ off in the direction you’re suggestin’.”
“If you’ll take a good look, there’s none straight up, either.”
A murmur of agreement from the cowboys, and Hank said, “You know, Ace, she might be right.”
Ace’s nostrils flared like a wild mustang’s. “Okay, I’ll admit she’s smart; but she ain’t that smart.”
“Isn’t,” Lynnie corrected without thinking. “Give me a few minutes to prove my point.” And without waiting for agreement, she took off at a canter in the direction she thought the trail should lead.
“Lynnie, damn it, come back here!” Ace yelled after her, but she ignored him. She was still angry and hurt over his horror at having made love to her. Besides, she wasn’t going to let a man boss her when he was so clearly wrong.
Behind her, she heard Ace lashing his horse, galloping after her. She ignored him and kept riding. He caught up with her. “Damn it, Missy, what is it you’re tryin’ to prove?”
“That I’m not stupid just because I’m a woman.” She kept her face turned stubbornly toward the trail and didn’t look at him.
“You’re still mad about our tumble in the dirt?”
“Only you could be so crude as to call it that.” She kept riding. “I’m mad that you regret it.”
He hesitated. “I didn’t perzactly regret it; I just figured I’d made a mess of things.”
“Oh, shut up.” She blinked back tears.
He cleared his throat as if to say something but seemed to think better of it.
She admitted to herself then that she was angry with herself because she was falling in love with this untamed brute and he wasn’t the kind of mate she had always dreamed of. He didn’t have good manners, his grammar was atrocious, he wasn’t sophisticated, and the only poetry he knew was the kind that cowboys wrote on an outhouse wall.
“Back to the problem at hand,” she said coldly. “Didn’t it occur to you that there were no tracks or cow pies either direction?”
“What?” Obviously it hadn’t.
“Look up ahead.” Lynnie pointed. “Plenty of both. I figure Forrester carefully wiped out his tracks and cleaned up behind his cattle for a few hundred yards.”
“Why, the low-down snake.” Ace reined in and whistled low. “You’re right, Lynnie.”
She looked at him. She ought to feel triumphant that she had made him yell “calf-roped,” but somehow, humiliating him didn’t feel all that good. “All right, let’s get back to the herd.”
“I ain’t never been bested by a woman before,” Ace said, and his voice was cold.
“The kind of women you choose aren’t smart enough to go toe to toe with you—big-breasted girls like Emmalou Purdy, who can’t seem to graduate from school no matter how hard I try to help her,” Lynnie snapped. She was still smarting from having been used as a plaything like all the other women Ace had bedded. She was nothing more than another notch on his pistol. Well, maybe not his pistol but his ...
“Emmalou,” Ace sighed as if remembering, and grinned.
At that point, she came close to hitting that insolent, grinning face with her quirt, but she decided that if she made that rash move, Ace might pull her off her horse and spank her. He was just the kind of uncivilized brute who’d do it, too. Oh, Percival, my gallant knight, where ar
e you when I need you so? Ace would beat him up and shove his book of poetry down his throat if he showed up, she decided.
They rode back to the herd. As they approached the outfit, Ace cleared his throat. “I’d be much obliged if you didn’t make me look like a fool before my men.”
She smiled maliciously. Here was a perfect opportunity to show how much smarter a woman was, and what a hardheaded idiot he was. Still, she looked into his eyes and softened. As the pair approached the crew, Lynnie yelled, “Ace found the trail. Forrester’s herd did go this way after all.”
Ace glanced at her, surprise on his features that she was saving face for him. “I didn’t do much; Lynnie was right after all.”
“Thank you for that,” she whispered.
“I figure I owe you for what I did back at the Cimarron,” he muttered back.
Damn him for feeling guilty and making her feel like a slut because she’d enjoyed that night. She determined to make the rest of this trip even more miserable for him if possible.
They reined in, and Ace explained to the cowboys about Forrester’s trick. “If it hadn’t been for Lynnie helpin’ me find the trail, I reckon we would end up in Wichita, where they don’t want us.”
“Miss Lynnie’s smart,” Comanch said, “smarter than most men. I reckon women like her ought to be allowed to vote.”
There was a murmur of agreement among the cowboys, but Ace made a choking noise.
It gave her a momentary thrill of triumph to hear that from the men, but Ace’s expression told her he still couldn’t stomach the idea of women in government.
“All right, boys!” Ace shouted, “move ’em out!”
They turned their cattle to the left and soon picked up Forrester’s trail again. Lynnie tried to be gracious in accepting congratulations from the crew, but Ace spurred his big black horse and rode off to check on the herd.
Lynnie stared after him. Well, what had she expected? She wasn’t the kind of girl that Ace was attracted to; she had known that from the start. She’d caught him in a weak moment when there weren’t any other women around to make love to, and she’d become the object of his passion. Well, at least she had that memory of a few magical hours to remember.
That night when the sky cleared and the stars came out, Cookie reaffirmed that they were on the Western Trail, no matter what the wooden sign had said. Forrester had behaved like a ornery polecat in doing whatever it took to win. They bedded the herd down, Ace and Lynnie avoiding each other as much as possible because it felt so awkward for both of them. The cowboys were sitting around the fire just at dark, with Lynnie reading to them, when they heard a shout.
“Hallo the camp!”
Lynnie and the others looked up in surprise. Two riders were approaching from the northwest. What the . . . ? She was as shocked and speechless as the wranglers when Willis Forrester and Nelbert Purdy rode into camp.
Nineteen
Willis Forrester leaned on his saddle horn and surveyed the scene: that worthless rascal Ace Durango, a bunch of very young, greenhorn cowboys, one old drunk of a cook who reeked of vanilla, four beribboned calves and some cows that wore matching dainty ribbons on their horns, and that homely girl of Joe McBride’s, who seemed to be reading to the crew. The young cowboys’ pink faces were clean-shaven and washed up like they were attending a tea party. Over near the chuck wagon, the ugliest gray horse Willis had ever seen was sharing cornbread from an iron skillet along with an elderly steer with twisted horns.
Ace Durango seemed to recover from his shock first and came to his feet, reaching for his pistol. “Forrester, what are you doin’ here? Come to gloat?”
Willis threw back his head and laughed. “Why, no, I figured your novice crew might be in trouble, and I came back to see if we could offer some assistance—right, Nelbert?”
Nelbert nodded his fat head. “Sure as shootin’.”
Durango frowned at the pair. “You’ve got more nerve than a loaded skunk to come ridin’ in here after movin’ those signs.”
“Signs?” He raised his eyebrows and pretended to be puzzled. “Don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, and I’d be much obliged if’n you’d apologize.”
“You ain’t foolin’ us,” one of the others said. “We know you moved the signs on the Cimarron and the Western Trail marker.”
Willis Forrester didn’t want to get into gunplay with Ace Durango. Everyone knew the two Durangos, father and son, were the fastest in Texas. Willis grinned and pushed his Stetson back. “Good thing I’m in such a great mood; otherwise, I might ask you to back that play for insultin’ me.”
Ace’s hand clicked back the hammer on his Colt, but the red-haired gal grabbed his arm. “Let’s have no gunplay, Ace.”
Willis glanced sideways. Purdy’s fat face was dripping sweat. He wasn’t any good with a gun. Willis suddenly regretted riding into camp to gloat over the green crew’s misfortune. It had been a loco idea. “Now,” he said, “let’s not get hasty. A man would have to be a low-down snake to move those signs for the herd comin’ along behind.”
Durango looked tougher and older than Willis remembered. “I’d say ‘low-down snake’ might be a pretty good description.”
The boy had matured into a man, a tough Texan, Willis thought. He remembered the Durango heir as a worthless, womanizing, drinking gambler. “I swear to you on my honor”—Forrester held his hand up—“that we didn’t move the signs. Maybe the weather blew them down.”
“Why are you so edgy, Forrester?” Durango asked. “Why, you’re as nervous as a whore in church on Sunday.”
Willis Forrester frowned at him. “That ain’t fittin’ talk in front of a woman.”
Durango frowned. “My apologies to Miss Lynnie. She’s been with us so long, I think of her as just one of the cowboys. You swear on your honor as a Texan that you didn’t mess with those signs?”
“I already said I swore,” Willis answered crossly.
The crew looked doubtful and turned toward Ace. He had become a leader, a real trail boss, Forrester thought.
The girl said, “Well, I reckon since you swore on your honor, we ought to give you the benefit of the doubt.”
How naive the girl was, and it was evident by the way she looked at the half-breed Durango that she cared about him. Forrester relaxed and nodded. “What’s going on here?” he asked. “Looks like a nancy-boy outfit with everyone cleaned up, the lady readin’ poetry, and the calves wearin’ ribbons, to say nothin’ of that crowbait eatin’ cornbread.”
Durango frowned, and he gestured with his pistol. “Watch your mouth.”
“Meant no harm,” Forrester said, and started to dismount. “Coffee smells good.”
“We didn’t ask you to stay,” Durango said, his face grim. “As I recall, there’s always been bad blood between our two families.”
Forrester nodded. “Maybe it’s time we ended that feud.”
“When I’m satisfied that the Forresters aren’t as rotten as I’ve always felt they were.” Ace slid his weapon back into its holster.
Willis Forrester gritted his teeth. Even as he swallowed back his rage, he forced a smile. He didn’t want to get into either a fistfight or a gunfight with Ace Durango; he couldn’t win either one, and he knew it. Instead, he turned his attention to the sunburned, red-haired girl. “Well, if it ain’t Joe McBride’s girl. What you doin’ here, honey?”
“My name’s not ‘honey,”’ she snapped, “and for your information, I’m helping bring in this herd.”
“Yeah,” said the old cook, “and we’re all right glad to have the lady along.”
“Lady?” Purdy snorted. “Now, my sister’s a real lady, pure as the driven snow.”
“Hmm, she may have drifted a bit,” Lynnie murmured under her breath.
“What was that?” The fat man peered closely at her.
Ace shook his head. “Don’t pay no never-mind to her.”
Purdy sneered as he looked at Lynnie. “Reckon everyone knows about the scandal at
tached to this gal. What kind of lady would lose her job and end up in Durango’s bedroom?”
Ace started for Purdy, but the girl grabbed Ace’s arm. “Don’t,” she said. “I don’t want any gunplay on my account.”
Forrester smiled. “Right smart girl, even if she has lost what’s left of her reputation travelin’ with a bunch of men—”
“Forrester,” Durango snarled, “you and your fat sidekick there had better hightail it back to your own camp before me and these so-called nancy-boys pull you two off your horses and wipe up a few cow pies with you.”
There was an angry murmur of agreement from the others. Obviously, this crew thought the world of the plain, scrawny redhead, and Ace Durango was ready to get violent over her. Willis had made a bad mistake.
“Okay.” Forrester backed his horse away. “We just came over to see how our fellow Texans were doin’—afraid with all these green hands and a gal, you might not finish this drive.”
The spirited gal stepped up and put her hands on her hips. “We’ll make it to Dodge just fine.”
Oh, this was so sweet. Forrester leaned on his saddle horn and grinned. “Wouldn’t like to make a small wager on that, would you, honey?”
Durango pushed his hat back on his black hair. “Now, that interests me. Maybe a friendly little game of cards . . .”
“No.” Forrester shook his head. “My mama taught me not to play cards with a man called ‘Ace,’ and I’ve lost too much money to you before.” He looked around the silent, hostile circle of faces and chewed his lip, setting up his trap. “Maybe a horse race. The Forresters own the best quarterhorses in the state.”
“The Durangos own the best horses in the state,” Ace rebutted. “Everyone knows old Nightwind’s bloodlines. Yep, I’ll agree to a race. Now, my black—”
“Uh-uh.” Forrester shook his head, amazed at his own cleverness. “I get to pick who I race against. Our two crews could meet out on the plains between the two herds late tomorrow.”
Ace seemed to be considering. Forrester knew many of these cowboys were expert horsemen, and most riding fine horses. “Agreed,” Ace said. “Our boys are great riders.”
To Tame A Texan Page 26