“I have several very handsome brothers,” Drew said. “I’m not impressed by Mr. Cole Benton.”
Twenty-two-year-old Matt was extremely handsome, but nineteen-year-old Will turned heads wherever he went. Then there were Chet and Luke. They had left the ranch, but she could still see their handsome faces, remember their sensuality. She wasn’t affected by it herself, but she understood how other women could be devastated.
“I thought you said you didn’t know him,” Myrtle said.
“I don’t, but he told me his name during the shooting, like I was going to want to know it afterwards. The man has a greatly exaggerated opinion of himself.”
“Looks to me like he’s got good reason.”
“Myrtle, will you stop drooling? He might be good-looking, even handsome, but he’s conceited. I wouldn’t be surprised to find he was trying to talk Earl into giving him a job.”
“Well, you have to admit he made the shooting competition more interesting. Usually there’s nobody who can come close to you. I still think it would be better if you missed once in a while.”
Drew took great pride in her accuracy. Even though she hadn’t missed a shot in the nearly two years she’d been with the show, she continued to practice daily, to develop new tricks and perfect them.
“I’m not going to miss shots just to make some man feel better,” she said.
“I wasn’t talking about the men,” Myrtle said. “I meant the show. It would be more interesting if there was a chance someone could beat you.”
“They pay to see me hit the targets,” Drew said. “Not miss.”
“I know,” Myrtle said with a shrug. “It’s a dilemma.”
“What is?”
“How to be perfect and yet seem human.”
Drew laughed and pointed to Hawk, who was doing one of his most popular tricks, leaning from the saddle at a full gallop to pick up three handkerchiefs dropped in a row. “If Hawk weren’t perfect, he’d kill himself.”
“That’s why he seems human,” Myrtle said. “If he or Zeke does something wrong, they fall, break an arm or a leg, get trampled on by the horse. If you miss a target, nothing happens.”
“You never mentioned this before.”
“I guess I never understood what I felt was missing until tonight. The two of you generated a kind of excitement I haven’t seen before. The audience felt it, too.”
Drew had felt it as well, but she refused to attribute it to anything more than Cole’s unexpectedly thrusting himself into the ring and proving himself a very capable shot. Okay, maybe a little had been due to his looks. If he hadn’t been so conceited and sure of himself, she wouldn’t have had so much trouble admitting she found him attractive.
Drew had been criticized before for not generating enough excitement. The boss wanted to make her more of an attraction. He said she was too mechanical, too lacking in emotional excitement. He wanted her to wear frilly dresses, put bows in her hair, skip about, do acrobatics, even wear a blond wig. Once she’d overheard two women in the Indian massacre say they didn’t know why the boss kept such a dull act as a headliner.
“How can I make my act more exciting?” Drew had never asked this question before, not even of Zeke or Hawk. She didn’t think she was dull, but she didn’t try to fool herself into thinking her act was as thrilling as the real crowd pleasers, the battles between the Indians and the settlers, and the Indians and the army. The audience loved to watch the bloodthirsty fights, with people seeming to die right before their eyes. The women and children screamed at the sound of gunshots when actors fell from their saddles, appearing to be dying from some horrible wound. Everybody shouted encouragement to the settlers or the Army. Nobody rooted for the Indians.
“You could smile more when you go into the ring,” Myrtle said. “Audiences like a pretty girl.”
“I’m not pretty,” Drew said. “I see proof of that every time I look in my mirror.” Something she did as seldom as possible.
“Even if you weren’t pretty, which you are,” Myrtle insisted, “people like watching a woman. You ought to skip into the ring, smiling and waving at the audience.”
Drew felt her stomach turn over. “I don’t skip anywhere. I’d quit first.”
“Okay, maybe skipping isn’t the best idea, but smiling and waving would make the audience like you more. You look too serious.”
Both Zeke and Hawk had told her that, but she couldn’t bring herself to grin and wave like a silly female. Acrobats in circuses did that. So did the women who walked the tightrope. And those who rode the elephants. In fact, now that she thought about it, all circus performers smiled and waved.
“I suppose I could smile,” Drew conceded. “But I’d feel silly waving.”
“My Joe and I have been with some kind of show all our lives,” Myrtle said. “Take it from me, you’ve got to smile and wave at the audience. I’m surprised the boss hasn’t made you do it before now.”
In a way, Drew was surprised too. Though her act was popular, it was too short to warrant a featured place in the program. Yet Drew’s name and picture appeared on the handbills that circulated before they entered a town and on the posters put up after they arrived. The boss had made several suggestions, but he hadn’t insisted on her acting on any of them.
“You ought to make more of your figure,” Myrtle said. “There’s nobody in this show that’s got a better one.”
“I hope you’re not suggesting I wear tights.”
“It would appeal to the men.”
And make the women angry at her, which was exactly what she didn’t want. The women were the major source of her support. They didn’t have easy lives. Men held their wives, daughters, even their mothers, in virtual bondage. Drew’s victories over the men who challenged her were more for the women of the audience than for herself. The women knew their condition in life wouldn’t change, so they liked watching a woman who could meet men in their own arena and soundly defeat them.
That was one reason Drew never considered missing. Secondly, she didn’t want to be attractive to her opposition. She wanted to crush them.
“I’ll think about your suggestions,” Drew said. She turned back to watch the finale of the riding act, the exchange of spears between riders at a gallop.
“They’re coming over here,” Myrtle said.
“Who?” Drew asked, without taking her eyes off Hawk and Zeke.
“The boss and that man.”
“Cole,” Drew said, half turning. “Why?”
“I don’t know. I suppose the boss will tell us.”
Drew reluctantly turned away from the ring as noisy applause broke out. She compared Cole and her boss as they walked toward her. No one could disagree that the boss was better looking. But he was such a pretty man—his complexion and eyelashes were the envy of many a woman—that she sometimes wondered how he kept such tight control over the men in the show, many of whom were nearly twice his size. He looked very much her own height and weight.
Cole towered at least six inches over the boss. His well-muscled shoulders, arms, and legs contrasted with the boss’s slender build. Drew felt that tickle of interest stir once again. She angrily banished it. Cole Benton would soon be gone. And just as well. He made her feel uncomfortable.
“I’ve got good news,” her boss announced. “I’ve just hired Cole to become part of your act.”
Chapter Two
Cole could tell Drew didn’t like the news. She didn’t appear to be one who could—or would—hide her reaction to things she didn’t like.
“I don’t need anybody in my act,” Drew said. “I certainly don’t want him.”
She said him like it was a dirty word. That surprised Cole. Women who went bad were usually interested in almost any man as long as he was attractive. Their need for the company of the opposite sex was well known. If one part of a woman’s character was rotten, the rest usually was as well. In his experience, people who lived outside the law did so because they couldn’t control th
e passions that bubbled and boiled inside them.
Maybe Drew Townsend was a different kind of pigeon.
“I don’t mean he’ll be in the whole act,” the boss said. “Just the part where somebody from the crowd challenges you.”
“We don’t need him. There’s always somebody willing to volunteer,” Drew said.
“Cole livened things up tonight,” the boss said. “Did you notice how the audience loved it when he talked to them? Besides, he can give you a little competition.”
“I haven’t found the man yet who can give me competition,” Drew said.
“I intend to practice,” Cole said. “We can’t have you lording it over all the men in the country, can we?”
“I’m not lording it over anybody,” Drew stated. “I have a skill which I demonstrate through a series of planned shots. The boss is the one who insisted I let any man who wanted challenge me. It’s not my fault they can’t shoot as well as I can.”
“But you need the challengers to make it look legitimate,” Cole said.
She bridled. “What do you mean?”
“Like you said, they’re planned shots. People might think there’s a trick involved, that you aren’t really as good as you seem. In fact, you’re so good you make it seem too easy to be difficult.”
He didn’t mind flattering her, especially when he was telling the truth. He hadn’t thought more than two or three men in the country could shoot like that, certainly no woman. He’d been stunned to discover she was so young and attractive.
He’d never expected to find himself so strongly attracted to her. She wasn’t pretty in the style of the Memphis belles his mother kept pushing at him. Her attraction came from her strength, her directness, her honesty. She was a woman who knew herself and didn’t care if people liked her or not. Cole liked that kind of raw strength, the kind he’d found in Texas when he was a Texas Ranger.
But if the evidence against her could be believed, she was one of the cleverest thieves in the West.
He’d known when he stepped into the ring, he’d lose. He was good, the best shot on the force when he’d been in the Rangers, but he didn’t compare to this young woman. It hadn’t been easy to walk into the ring knowing she would beat him—he did have his pride—but his challenging her had been an essential part of his strategy.
“It was real smart of you to let me use your rifle,” he continued. “That removed any doubt that you were as good as you seemed.”
“There never was any doubt about my ability,” Drew stated, her back rigid with outraged pride.
“You can never tell what’s in people’s minds.” He hadn’t meant to rile her. He was trying to get in the show, and it would be easier if she accepted him willingly. Every word he said seemed to make her more determined to dislike him.
“I don’t care about all that,” the boss said. “All I care about is the audience reaction, and they reacted more tonight than they ever have.”
“We were talking about that,” Myrtle said. “Drew has a few ideas about how to liven up her act.”
Cole could tell the old lady was against him, too.
“Good,” the boss said. “I’ll be glad to see them, but I’m still going to have Cole come out of the stands to challenge her.”
“What if somebody else stands up first?” Drew asked.
“Get rid of them as quickly as you can so Cole can move in. The audience really liked him.”
“I’m not surprised, considering the way he shamelessly played up to the men in the crowd.”
“It was only natural to talk to them,” Cole said. “Besides, if I hadn’t, you wouldn’t have let me shoot.”
“Do it again tomorrow tonight,” Earl said. “It was great.”
Drew turned to her boss. “Do you expect me to stand around every night while he makes a spectacle of himself?”
“I’d like it better if you livened up your part of the act to match his,” Earl said. “I’ve given you one of the top billings because you’re really good. You can become one of the real draws for this show, but you have to be willing to make some changes. Myrtle says you’re working on some new ideas. Good. Listen to her. She’s been around shows for fifty years. She knows what works. I have to go with what we have, and Cole is it. Why don’t you two get to know each other?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Drew said.
Cole hadn’t expected she would.
“Why?” the boss asked.
“He’s supposed to be a stranger,” Drew explained. “The audience will suspect a plant if we act too familiar.”
“Then don’t act familiar,” the boss said.
Shouts of applause signaled the beginning of the mock battle between the Indians and the cavalry.
“I’ve got to go,” the boss said. “Talk it over with your brothers.”
Cole looked up to see a half-breed Indian and a black man approaching—the trick riders. He’d almost forgotten them. A foolish thing to do. Drew needed help. She couldn’t carry off all those robberies by herself. He’d lay odds these two men were expert shots themselves. The eyewitness accounts hadn’t agreed on all points. In fact, sometimes he wondered if people didn’t make up things just to get their names in the newspapers. But three things had appeared in every account.
First, the leader of the group was an attractive woman. The second fact on which everyone agreed was that the woman was a crack shot. She was so good she’d been able to disable anyone foolish enough to attempt to stop her by shooting him in the arm, shoulder, or leg. The wounds hurt, but they weren’t life-threatening. Because no one had died in these robberies, they hadn’t received high priority. Tracking down the robbers had been complicated by the fact that no two robberies ever took place in the same town. When police tried to follow up, the trail had gone so cold it seemed to have disappeared altogether.
The only lead they’d managed to come up with so far was that the robberies occurred when the Wild West Show was in the area or had just left. The authorities had come to the conclusion that the robbers were using the show to take them out of the area before the local police could track them down. Tonight’s performance was the last in Indiana. If a robbery took place, the show would be in Illinois before police could organize a pursuit.
Cole Benton, working as an undercover agent for the United States government, had been chosen to get himself hired as part of the show. He was supposed to travel with them and collect information about the suspects. If he could infiltrate the gang, it would be easier to catch them. If not, he was supposed to watch everything they did. If they tried to commit another robbery, government agents would be on hand to arrest them.
“You two put on a good show tonight,” the black man said to Drew. “Maybe you ought to do something like that every night.”
“The boss has already come to that conclusion,” Drew said. “He’s hired Cole to be the volunteer from the crowd every night”
“He sure got the crowd going tonight,” the black man said. “They were ready for us. We never got such a response before.”
“They liked us a lot,” the Indian said.
Cole noted he had almost no accent. He obviously hadn’t lived with his tribe in a long time. He could easily pass for a white man. It would be equally simple to have the black man wear gloves and a mask. It was possible Cole had stumbled onto the nucleus of the gang first thing.
Cole told himself not to jump to conclusions. It seemed too easy to have identified the gang within minutes of being hired. He had to wait, look at everyone in the show, study their movements, weigh each fact objectively. Still, these three seemed to fit the bill perfectly.
“I Night Hawk,” the Indian said, extending his hand. “Half-breed Comanche or half-breed white man, depending on point of view.”
Okay, his grammar wasn’t perfect, but Cole doubted most people would notice. He sounded like he was trying to make a joke, but there was nothing humorous about his expression. His face remained impassive, his black
eyes wide open, his gaze steady and penetrating.
“I’m Cole Benton,” Cole said, shaking hands.
“I’m Zeke,” the black man said. “You treat Drew right, and we’ll get along fine. You do anything to make her look bad, and I’ll kill you.”
Neither his words nor his expression contained so much as a hint of humor. Cole had no doubt he meant exactly what he said. Cole didn’t know a thing about this strange family Drew was supposed to have, but she had two very effective bodyguards. Not that he could see anybody trying to take advantage of her when she could probably shoot his ears off at fifty yards.
“Does that include shooting better than she does?”
“You can’t do that, so don’t put yourself in a sweat trying. Come on, Drew. We’ve got to get out of here.”
“When are we going to talk about our act?” Cole asked.
“I don’t see any need to talk about my act,” she said. “If I do, we can do it on the train tonight. As far as I’m concerned, the less we have to do with each other, the better.”
“Don’t be so hard on him,” Zeke advised. “He did liven things up. I’ve been telling you for a long time you had to do something.”
They walked away, talking among themselves, the two men agreeing Cole’s addition to the show was a good thing.
Cole felt the tug of attraction again. Maybe it was the curve of her hips, the strength of her back, possibly the way she held her shoulders so erect, even her confident stride. He wasn’t sure. There was one thing he was sure of—she was the antithesis of the women he’d grown up with. He turned to the older woman the boss had called Myrtle. She’d been watching him with Drew and her brothers. “She seems a very determined young woman.”
“She’s tough as hickory, but she’s sweet as can be. I’m Myrtle Rankin. I take care of the costumes. My husband feeds the animals.”
“I’m Cole Benton,” Cole said. “I hope you aren’t against my joining Miss Townsend’s act.”
Drew (The Cowboys) Page 2