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  Rosabelle bristled up at that. “I don’t take any prizes I don’t win. It’s the rider that counts, not the horse.”

  “You bought Golden Lad after somebody else trained him,” Mary declared. “It’s him that knows how to barrel race. Without your own horse, you couldn’t even win a booby prize!”

  Chuck’s throat was dry. He was afraid he would have to step between the girls.

  “It isn’t so! It isn’t so!” Rosabelle screeched.

  Mary held her doubled fists against her hips. “Maybe you’d like to ride a barrel race against me.”

  “I’d be glad to, sister! I’ll show the world that no hotdog maker’s in the same class with Rosabelle Lee!”

  Chuck thought he saw triumph in Mary’s eyes. “All right, then. Suppose you ride Chuck’s horse. Chuck, has Tommy ever run barrels before?”

  He shook his head. “Nope. Tommy’s a specialist. Calf roping.”

  Rosabelle nodded assent, a mirthless grin spreading over her face.

  “And,” Mary added, “since the horse isn’t important anyway, I’ll just ride your Golden Lad.”

  Rosabelle’s grin died like a match in a high wind. But Chuck knew she had gone too far to pull out now.

  “All right,” the cowgirl said. “I’ll get the producer to let us match it off right after the regular barrel races this afternoon. He’ll be tickled to give the customers a special treat—seeing a local hotdog girl get beaten by Rosabelle Lee.”

  Rosabelle strode off in long, huffy steps. She waved to a couple of other cowgirls up near the chutes and yelled for them to wait. In a moment she was pointing back to Mary, and the girls were laughing.

  Chuck wished he hadn’t even come to this rodeo. He wished he didn’t have to watch a nice girl like Mary humiliated.

  “You oughtn’t to’ve done it, Mary,” he said quietly. “Your friends’ll be laughing at you for weeks.”

  “Will you?” she asked. He shook his head. “No. But with me it’s different.”

  She smiled. “I’m pleased to hear you say that, Chuck. And don’t you worry. I told you my dad used to run cattle. I could ride a long time before I could read.”

  It seemed to Chuck to be the slowest rodeo he had ever seen. It felt like six hours between the grand entry and the girls’ barrel race. One by one cowgirls from all over the Southwest spurred into the arena and wove their horses around three barrels spaced out evenly, then wove back again and galloped over the finish line.

  Rosabelle charged out on Golden Lad for her regular contest ride and made the barrels in thirteen seconds flat. Best time of the day. In fact, best time of the entire rodeo.

  As she came trotting out of the arena, Chuck worriedly watched Golden Lad’s hard breathing. That would make it even harder on Mary, for the Palomino wouldn’t be starting fresh when she raced him.

  In a few minutes the last cowgirl racer came out of the arena. Rosabelle’s time still stood untouched. Then the announcer was saying: “A real treat now, folks. A special race between Rosabelle Lee, cowgirl queen, and your own Miss Mary McIntyre.

  The local crowd cheered and clapped at Mary’s name. That warmed Chuck’s heart a little. But it wouldn’t be many minutes until they would be laughing at her, he thought.

  Rosabelle was first. Quirt in hand, she took Tommy back far enough to get up good speed before she crossed the starting line. She pulled her hat down tight, nodded at the timekeepers in the judge’s box.

  Then she spurred and quirted Tommy in the same instant. He bounded forward like he always did when he left the roper’s box on the heels of a calf.

  Chuck watched his horse’s speed and knew Mary didn’t have a chance. But he leaned forward and sucked in his breath when Rosabelle reached the barrels. Tommy didn’t know just what he was supposed to do. Rosabelle was reining him too hard, much too hard. He pulled out too far from the first barrel. The cowgirl jerked him back in time to go around the off side of the second barrel. But she had lost speed.

  Tommy went past the last barrel, and Rosabelle tugged on the reins to turn him round.

  “Light-rein him, Rosabelle,” Chuck breathed. “You’re pulling him too hard.”

  Rosabelle reined him heavily back around the barrels, then spurred and quirted him vigorously across the finish line. “Fourteen and three-tenths seconds,” the announcer said.

  Rosabelle was muttering as she came out of the arena. Still puzzled by this new task, Tommy stepped along nervously. Rosabelle jabbed him with her spurs. “Behave yourself, jughead!” she gritted sharply.

  Mary smiled at Chuck, then trotted Golden Lad up to his place. Chuck smiled weakly back.

  Then Mary shouted at the horse, and Chuck blinked away the sand that the Palomino’s hoofs showered into his eyes. In almost no time Mary had gotten across the open space between the starting line and the barrels. She didn’t try to rein Golden Lad. She just stayed in the saddle, shifting her weight as she anticipated the next move.

  “She knows that horse savvies what to do,” Chuck told himself.

  Golden Lad rounded the last barrel, wove through them again, and pounded home. Mary shouted at him and fanned his rump with her hat at every step.

  “Thirteen and five!” the announcer shouted.

  Rosabelle sat there, slack-jawed, “It can’t be,” she breathed, color rising in her cheeks. “I’ve run those barrels a thousand times.”

  “You mean your horse has,” Mary laughed. “He knows what to do. All you have to do is stay on him.”

  A couple of cowgirls walked by, grinning. “Hey, there, Rosabelle. Looks like that hick girl you told us about could give you some lessons.”

  Rosabelle’s face was suddenly dark. She gripped her quirt until her knuckles whitened. She swung down from the saddle, cursing.

  “It’s this horse that did it,” she shouted. “He’s not fit for dog food!”

  She lashed savagely at Tommy with her quirt. “Make a fool out of me, will you? I’ll beat some sense into you!”

  She swung at him again. Tommy reared and squealed.

  Blood roared hot in Chuck’s face. “Drop that quirt, Rosabelle!”

  She swung at Tommy again. The horse flinched and jerked away from her. Chuck grabbed the quirt and tore it from Rosabelle’s fist.

  “I always thought you were a good sport,” he said angrily. “But I guess I never saw you really get beat before. And you’re fixing to get another licking right now!”

  Grasping Rosabelle’s wrist, Chuck sat down on a cowboy’s rope can and turned the screeching cowgirl over his knees. The palm of his hand burned like fire as he gave her a spanking like she probably hadn’t had since she had stopped playing with dolls.

  A dozen cowboys and cowgirls stood watching, clapping their hands. Buzz Whitney trotted up, his face twisted.

  “Take your hands off of her, Chuck Sloan,” he shouted. “I’ll whup the living daylights out of you!”

  Chuck jumped up, dumping Rosabelle right on her hip pockets. “You better hire you some help,” he roared back.

  He tore into the fancy-dressed cowboy, pounding at his face and belly with all the fury that had built up in him for weeks. Buzz quickly folded up like a dry towel and sank to the ground. A grinning cowboy filled a bucket out of a faucet behind the chutes and splashed water at Buzz.

  Buzz sat up, sputtering. But he didn’t try to get to his feet while Chuck was standing there.

  Rosabelle stood glowering, her blond hair hanging in strings. Her lipstick was smeared, and angry tears had sent her mascara trickling down her face in little black rivulets.

  “You can keep your old ranch, Chuck Sloan!” she shouted. “Buzz and I are going places. You’ll be hearing about us—in Cheyenne and Pendleton and Madison Square Garden. And I hope you stay on that ranch till you die!”

  She lifted the swaying Buzz to his feet, then helped him stagger off.

  An ache gnawed deep within Chuck as he watched them go. It wasn’t so much seeing Rosabelle go. It was the sudden, cold rea
lization that something he had loved and believed in hadn’t really existed at all.

  Rosabelle’s last words came back to him. It struck him that they were the only wise ones he had ever heard her say: “Stay on that ranch till you die.”

  Then he thought about Mary. She had known all this, and had braved ridicule to make him see it. A warm tingle ran through him. Pride, maybe. Or maybe it was something else. He remembered the dream he had had, of her sweeping off the front porch of his little ranch house. Suddenly he knew why the thought of her was so wonderful. He turned to find her.

  She had tied Golden Lad to a fence. She was getting into her car, over by the refreshment stand.

  “Mary, wait!” he shouted. But she didn’t hear him. She drove away. He started to run to his car, to catch up with her.

  Just then the announcer’s voice came him. “Jim Todd next roper. Chuck Sloan get ready.”

  Sadly he turned back to Tommy and patted him on the shoulder. He swung in the saddle and trotted to the pen.

  * * *

  Even twilight didn’t help the looks of the little duplex any. Chuck listened to the creak of the windmill as he stood on the front steps. He fancied his heart was pounding even louder. He knocked on the screen. In a moment Mary came to the door.

  “Mary, I—” he stammered, “I’ve been wrong about so many things.” He awkwardly twisted his hat in his hands.

  Mary smiled and pushed open the screen door. “Come in, Chuck.”

  He tried to smile back as he walked in, but his face seemed to be frozen.

  “Mary, last night you told me you would go with me any place, and live on the ranch with me—if you was Rosabelle. Well, would you do it now—being yourself?”

  He thought he saw tears well up in her eyes, but he might have been wrong. They could have been his own.

  “Am I second choice again?” she asked quietly.

  “Not any more. Not since I got my eyes open.”

  He caught her in his arms and pulled her to him. The nearness of her body sent the blood roaring through him again. “Please, Mary, I’ll need me a good home demonstration agent to make a home out of my place.”

  “B-but I promised Mrs. Malone…”

  Chuck held her tightly and kissed her. She leaned her head back and looked happily into his eyes. Then she put a warm hand on the back of his neck and pulled his face down to hers. “But I guess she’ll understand.” She kissed him. “Like you said—it was a heck of a promise.”

  BLIND CANYON

  For a quarter of an hour Scott Tillman had hunkered on his spurs in the rough cedar brake, his stony gaze fixed on the smoke which drifted toward him from the new-built branding fire. The troubled plains wind brought him the smell of the dust stirred up by restless hooves, and the frightened bawl of the first calf to feel the burn of the hot iron.

  Behind him he heard a man drumming big knuckles impatiently against the tough leather of high-topped boots. Tillman glanced back at the crouched figures of his own three men, and Bannock’s five men.

  The beginnings of an eager, grim smile began to work at big Clive Bannock’s wide mouth. “We got us a job to do, Tillman. Let’s get at it.”

  Regret weighed heavily in Scott Tillman as his glance returned momentarily to the pole corral half-hidden in the gathering of brush back down the canyon. He watched the man and the boy out yonder, burning a brand onto the thick hides of one struggling and loudly bawling calf after the other.

  A futile wish brought a grimace to his thin face. He wished he could have kept this affair to himself and his own men. It was the devil’s own luck that they had ridden into Clive Bannock and his Slash B crew.

  “There’ll be no shooting unless they start it, Bannock. I want no killing. Do you understand that?”

  Bannock’s eyes were cold. “We’ll see,” he said.

  Silently the men moved back in a crouch to where two cowboys held their horses behind a shelter of thick brush. Scott Tillman swung into the saddle, his hard gaze lingering for a moment on Clive Bannock. Bannock limped heavily as he took his horse and maneuvered him around for an easy mount.

  Tillman was younger by twenty years than big Clive Bannock. He was as tall, but he didn’t have the great chest, the broad shoulders, the stout beltline that Bannock had. Everything about Bannock was big, even his broad, heavy face, and the bull neck that swelled his sweat-streaked collar. But it was the eyes that always ultimately drew a man’s guarded attention. They were dark eyes, almost black, and hard as the flint of a Comanche spearhead. His ambition matched his size, for Slash B cattle were scattered across Winchester preemptions from the Canadian River down to the Caprock.

  As for Tillman, he appeared to be just another cowboy, come north to the great buffalo plains from the thorny brush of South Texas. He was string-thin, so that his clothes always hung a little loose around his flat stomach. But there was strength in his gaunt, wind-whipped face. It was a strength that even Clive Bannock knew.

  The riders were within fifty feet of the corral when the boy spotted them and yelped. The man dived toward a rifle he had left leaning against the pole fence. Then he counted the horsemen, weighed the distance, and stopped with empty hands.

  He met the riders with a forced smile instead of a loaded gun. “Get down. We can fix up a bucket of coffee while we finish branding this little jag of calves.”

  Relief eased through Tillman. There wouldn’t be a fight, then. He had had his share of fighting a long time ago.

  “Thanks, Owen,” he replied, “I reckon not. We’re just looking around. Good-looking bunch of calves. They show good breeding.”

  Owen kept his grin, but something was rapidly draining out of it. The boy behind him was scared. His hands trembled, and his freckled, fifteen-year-old face had blanched white. Owen kept talking.

  “They got good mammies behind them. Good bulls, too. I’m always careful when it comes to choosing cattle.”

  Tillman nodded. “So I hear,” he said with irony. He rolled a cigarette with tense fingers, alert for any sign of a wrong movement. “But the best of them gets careless once in a while. Even Jess Owen might make a mistake and put a brand on a calf that didn’t match the one his mammy carried.” He licked the cigarette paper and watched sudden red wipe across Owen’s whiskered face.

  The man eased a half a step closer to the gun. “Why, I could show you the mammies of these calves, if I hadn’t already weaned them.”

  Tillman’s jaw ridged. “Then I don’t reckon you’d mind us bringing in a little bunch of cows we gathered back yonder and putting them in here with the calves.”

  He turned half around in the saddle and signaled. In a few moments he heard the bawling of cows behind him. The calves in the pen started bawling louder, crowding against the south end of the corral in an effort to see the cows.

  Tillman didn’t have to look. He’d already seen the cows with Wilma Dixon’s Lazy D brand on their hips. A couple of his cowboys had found them hidden up a fenced-in canyon, apparently to be left there until they had forgotten their calves and could return to their home range without arousing some nosy cowboy’s suspicion.

  A Lazy D cowhand opened the gate. The calves spilled out among the bawling cows. They quickly began mating up with their mammies and hungrily making up for lost time. “Want to see any more, Owen?” Tillman asked.

  Owen shrugged wanly. “Looks like we’ve seen enough. All right, I’ll ride in to town with you. But you big fellows with your association don’t think you can whip us little birds in our own court, do you?”

  Tillman’s mouth tightened. No, he admitted to himself, he didn’t. Not a single conviction had the association managed to get, even against the most notorious of cow thieves like Curly Kirkendall.

  The town of High Land had started with an adobe whisky post when the rolling plains had echoed to the slap of Sharps rifles in the rough hands of buffalo hunters. When the hunters and the buffalo were gone, great herds of longhorns had begun to drift up onto the broad buffalo
plains. The settlement had grown into a wild gathering of saloons, gamblers, and doubtful women, where outcasts from the rest of Texas and from across the line in New Mexico could come and find others of their own kind.

  But there was growing animosity among the cattlemen, both big and small. Had it not been for the gnawing distrust which festered between the big outfits and the little ones, they might long ago have joined forces and wiped High Land clean.

  Even so, the town’s denizens feared that the cow outfits would someday form a coalition, organize a county, and kill the town by law. So they beat the ranchmen to the jump. Almost in secret, they had gathered a petition and gotten the county organized and their own officers elected, before the cowmen stopped sniping at each other long enough to realize how serious the situation had suddenly become.

  Owen laughed. “Still want to take me to town, Tillman? Soon’s Judge Merriwether sees me, I’ll be loose again anyhow.”

  Big Clive Bannock nodded his great head at the young man who rode beside him. Young Fletch Bannock edged his horse forward. “We ain’t taking you to town, Owen. We got our own court right here. And the verdict is guilty. That cottonwood down yonder by the creek looks just about right.”

  Quick anger whipped in Tillman as he whirled on Clive Bannock’s son. “There’s not going to be any hanging. I told you—”

  A hint of grim laughter danced in Fletch Bannock’s wild gray eyes. He was a kid of twenty-one, with his father’s big frame but a quick, lithe movement like that of a Mexican panther. The fuzzy attempt at a mustache on his upper lip might appear ludicrous to anyone who did not know about the two notches already carved on the well-polished gun which rode in the kid’s worn leather holster.

  Fletch spat, “Shut up, Tillman. You’re outvoted here. If you don’t like it, you better just take a little ride over that hill.”

  Tillman stiffened to the cold pressure of a gun against the small of his back. He knew it was Clive Bannock’s.