But Lex didn’t need Jesse to tell him. He could feel the difference. Now he was moving in perfect time with Rusty like they really were just one animal. It was simply a matter of getting the rhythm right and now, finally, Lex had got it.
‘Nothing to it, really,’ he said as he slid off Rusty’s back. His legs were killing him but he managed to grit his teeth and bear it.
‘I gotta say you seem to have picked it up pretty quick,’ Jesse replied.
‘I told you I was a fast learner,’ Lex said. ‘I’m going back to my room now to practise the other stuff.’
Lex spent the rest of the day doing just that. After so many hours of practice, he had mastered all eight card shuffles and could spin the pistols and twirl the knives with no danger of dropping them. He could spit almost from one side of the room to the other and be sure of hitting whatever target he aimed at. And he could even drink the horrible sludge they called coffee, without gagging. Now that he had horse riding down, too, Lex felt pleasantly well prepared for cheating his way into Dry Gulch House the next day.
They arrived at Dry Gulch a little after three o’clock in the afternoon. Lex set the ship down on a patch of desert beside the inn the players were supposed to be staying at. It was conveniently located right in the middle of the town, which was actually rather a boring one. Lex had expected it to be full of cowboys but, in fact, it seemed instead to be full of peasants and townsfolk walking around with horses and baskets of apples and the like. Lex pulled a face in disgust at the dull scene. It was like being at a country fete. They might as well set up a stall selling punch and have done with it. The people did not even seem particularly excited? or even interested? at the arrival of the players.
‘What’s the matter with these people?’ Lex said to Jesse. ‘Don’t they know who we are? Why aren’t they cheering? You told me you had Games out here.’
‘Sure, we do,’ Jesse replied. ‘But there ain’t many folk what goes to ’em. You need money to bet on players and that’s somethin’ that tends to be in short supply around these parts. Besides, most people round here are farmers. They ain’t got time to waste watching Games.’
‘What about the cowboys?’
‘Well, we don’t mind a bit of gamblin’ when we’ve got cash in our pockets, but most of us would rather bet on cards than people.’
Lex supposed that was fair enough. After all, you relied on your own skill when playing poker, not on the skill of a person you had never met and didn’t know. And it worked in his favour not to have to worry overly much about one of the cowboys at Dry Gulch House seeing through his disguise and recognising him.
The enchanted ship was to remain in the town. Lex couldn’t very well take it with him when he was trying to pass himself off as a cowboy. Jesse led Rusty down the gangplank and on to solid land, which must have been a welcome relief to the horse when it had had to make do with exercising up on deck for the last two weeks.
They paused in the town only long enough to shop for supplies. Lex needed a costume and he needed a horse. Both turned out to be a little more complicated than they had expected. The clothes store sold suitable items: the hat and the shirt and the neckerchief and the trousers and the boots. But they didn’t stock them in Lex’s size. Most cowboys tended to be large, brawny men? not skinny teenagers.
‘But this is ridiculous!’ Lex exclaimed in frustration, as he stood before the mirror in an outfit that was far too big for him. ‘Surely all cowboys start out as teenagers, don’t they?’ He looked at Jesse and said, ‘I mean you didn’t just hatch out of an egg looking like that, did you? Do people here just walk around naked until they’re twenty- one?’
Jesse shrugged. ‘Like I said? it’s all farming land. Most teenagers round here are of the strapping kind.’
Fortunately, the store owner said they would be able to alter the clothes so that they would fit Lex. This involved a bit more expense and delay but was, at least, a solution. They left the tailor to it and made their way to the stables in search of a horse. Beside the others, Lex was able to see just how handsome Rusty really was. He had a glossy sheen to his coat and a bright look in his eyes that not all the other horses had.
‘How come he’s in such good condition?’ Lex asked Jesse suspiciously. ‘When you’re a down-and-out cowboy, on the run half the time and in jail the rest?’
‘Never stayed in jail for very long,’ Jesse replied. ‘Me and Rusty might have a wanderin’ sorta life but I always exercise him every day, keep him well groomed and feed him the finest food, even if it means I have to go hungry myself. The horse has to come first.’
Putting another’s needs before his own was something of an alien notion to Lex. He did not know horses like Jesse did, so he let the cowboy look them all over and pick one out. In the end, he chose a dappled grey mare called Sally.
‘Sally?’ Lex said, pulling a face. ‘Are you sure that’s the right horse? She’s a bit small, isn’t she?’
‘Strong, though, and healthy,’ Jesse replied. ‘No jitters. Besides, you’ll want a small horse. A big one would only make you look even shorter and skinnier than you really are.’
Lex supposed that made sense. It was, at least, much easier getting on to Sally’s back than it had been getting on to Rusty’s. They made their way back to the clothes store so that Lex could change into his new outfit and ditch his old one. By the time he was kitted out and back on the horse, he was starting to feel like a real cowboy. He could feel Sid the Kid coming to life inside him. To a true fraud and conman, it wasn’t a case of pretending to be Sid the Kid, it was a case of becoming him. The hat and the boots helped a lot. Looking the part always helped. And, whilst Lex may not have been the usual beefy, brawny sort of cowboy, with the horse and outfit he looked like a cowboy just the same. Now all that was left was for him to act like one convincingly enough to get into Dry Gulch House. Once he was inside, he was sure that the sword would be as good as his. For surely, if anyone were capable of discovering its secret hiding place, that person must be Lex Trent.
As they rode out of town, Lex thought he could come to like horse riding. It was a handy skill to have for someone like him because, if he got caught and had to run, he could only go so fast on his own two legs. If he were able to pinch a horse, on the other hand, then he would practically fly out of there and his pursuers would be left choking on the dust!
‘How many times have you been to Dry Gulch House?’ Lex asked, as they continued on at a sedate walk.
‘Let’s see. First time I went was two years ago, now. Then I went back twice last year and once this year. So that’s four. It ain’t a bad place to stop at, if you happen to be passin’ through Dry Gulch.’
‘It’s not expensive? I mean, it is a mansion, after all.’
‘Not too shiny inside anymore, though,’ Jesse replied. ‘Just because you can’t take anything outta the house, don’t mean you can’t ruin what’s already in it.’
Lex winced. Doubtless the house had once been full of wonderful, beautiful things until those idiot cowboys had gone and spoilt it all. It was approaching dark when they finally neared the house. It was one of the ugliest things Lex had ever seen in his life. It seemed to have been constructed from several different materials, including wood, brick and limestone. You could tell, just by looking at it, that it had been designed by a madman. There was no logic, no structure, no order. In some places the building was four storeys high, in others it was barely half a storey. Some parts of the house had no windows at all, others had ones that were hardly bigger than a man’s thumb. Chimneys were dotted around in a very odd manner across the uneven roof. And what looked very much like a bath-tub was sticking out of the corner of the house all by itself on the third floor. In fact, there was a cowboy in it now, still wearing his hat, splashing about and singing noisily, pausing only long enough to take long swigs from a liquor bottle.
‘How the heck,’ Lex said, ‘did he get into that tub?’
‘You gotta climb out through a window above it,’ Jesse replied. ‘You think that’s weird, just wait till you see the rest of the house.’
Bright lights shone from the windows, whatever their size, and Lex thought he could hear the faint notes of a honky-tonk piano coming from inside.
‘Well,’ Jesse said, ‘shall we?’
They dismounted their horses and tied them up at one of the long posts outside.
‘Someone’ll come and take ’em round to the stables once they know we’re stayin’ here,’ Jesse replied. ‘They almost always have spare rooms but I guess it’ll depend on whether your little act is good enough to cut the mustard.’
‘You’d better hope it is,’ Lex replied.
