“She would be,” Tommy said sympathetically. “Can I see her?”
Watching the big brunette, Danny thought he saw a smile flicker across her face at the words. Then the expression went as the brunette looked at Tommy and answered. “I don’t reckon so. The doctor’s been and gave her something to make her sleep. She’s took it bad, even if it don’t show. Us girls learn to hide our feelings, don’t we, Mousey?”
“I know you do, Maisie,” the little blonde replied.
“Well, unless one of you boys want to buy a gal a drink, I’ll get back to work,” the brunette said.
“Call up a waiter, ma’am,” Danny drawled. “I’ll get them in.”
“No beer for me, handsome,” Maisie grinned, nodding to a passing waiter. “I like it, but it sure don’t like my figure.”
“Wine for the ladies,” Danny ordered, with the air of a man who wanted folks to assume he had been around. “And fetch a bottle of Stump Blaster for us.”
“That’s what I like,” grinned Maisie. “A big spender.”
“Can’t think of a better way to get rid of money, Maisie, gal,” Danny replied.
As Danny spoke, he saw Ella Watson passing. The saloonkeeper’s eyes came to him and studied him in a calculating manner. From the way she looked, Danny figured he interested her and so aimed to keep on with his role of a reckless young cuss who might be open to offers of making easy money over and above his pay.
“When we’ve had a drink,” he went on, “what say we go over and buck the tiger for a whirl.”
“Not me,” Tommy answered. “Pay day’s too far off and I’m saving my money.”
“They’re fixing in to get married, settle a lil piece of land and raise kids and cattle, Danny,” Maisie explained with a grin, seeing Ella nod toward Danny.
A red flush crept into Mousey’s cheeks and she gasped, “How you do go on, Maisie.”
“Shucks,” Danny grinned. “Marriage’s real wonderful. Fact being, I don’t reckon any family should be without it.”
Maisie laughed with a professional entertainer’s heartiness. Having caught her boss’s signal and read its meaning correctly, she proceeded to pour out some of the wine brought by the waiter and also to study Danny with careful attention to detail. Before she could reach any conclusions, the Rafter O arrived from the Bon Ton. Halting at the door, the hands looked around the room, their eyes coming to rest on Danny’s party. The tallest of the Rafter O group nudged the shortest, nodded in Danny’s direction and the whole bunch trouped across the floor, their boss leaving them to join the same group Jerome sat among.
“I tell you, Chuck,” the tallest hand announced in a carrying voice, “that ole bay’s so mean the boss’ll never sell it to Bench J.”
“Reckon not, Lanky,” the shortest of the party answered. “There wouldn’t be nobody at Bench J could ride him.”
“I’d bet on that,” grinned Lanky.
“How much and what odds?”
All the Rafter O men looked at Danny as he spoke up. Trying to appear as if they had not meant their words to carry to the Bench J’s ears, the Rafter O’s exchanged glances.
“Did he mean us?” Lanky asked.
“I sure hope he didn’t,” a red-headed youngster called, with a surprising lack of originality, Red, replied.
“Figure he asked us something,” Chuck drawled. “Only does he mean it?”
Coming to his feet and ignoring Tommy’s warning glances, Danny dipped a hand into his pocket.
“Do you Rafter O’s talk with your money or only your mouths. I said how much do you bet and what odds do you give that I ride the bay?”
“He wants to bet, Chuck,” Lanky stated soberly.
“Nope,” Danny corrected. “I want to bet money. He’d be no use to me when I won him.”
Grins came to the Rafter O faces and cowhands took a liking to Danny. The attempt at getting him to ride the bay was in the nature of a try-out, to see if the newcomer had what it took to make a hand. Whenever Rafter O came into town, their boss specializing in horses more than cattle, they brought along a good bucker in the hope of finding somebody game enough—or fool enough—to ride it.
Everybody’s attention came to the table, even the gamblers holding up their games, for the Rafter O’s reputation in such matters was common knowledge and the crowd eagerly awaited developments. If the blond stranger accepted the challenge, and he appeared to have done so, they ought to see some sport.
“Come on, Rafter O,” Danny continued after a few seconds. “Make your bet, or set up the drinks.”
“We’ll give you two to one and take up to sixty dollars,” Chuck answered after a brief consultation with his friends. “If you want to go that high.”
“Bet!” Danny said loudly and started walking toward the door. “I’ll get my saddle. Where’d you want me to ride him, in here?”
“Oh, no you don’t!” Ella Watson interrupted, coming forward. “I’ve an empty corral outside, use that.”
Without giving anybody the chance to request that he showed his money, Danny headed for the door and Tommy followed on his heels with Mousey at his side. They went by the front door, but the rest of the crowd headed out at the rear to form up around the big pole corral.
Danny collected his saddle, stripping off the rope, rifle boot and all other extras ready for what he knew would be a hard, gruelling ride. With that done, he took off his gunbelt and handed it to Tommy.
“You watch that hoss, Danny,” Tommy warned. “If Rafter O’s betting cash money on him, they sure don’t aim to lose.”
“Nor me,” grinned Danny. “Boy, you, me’n’ lil Mousey here’ll sure have us a time on what we’ve won.”
Together they walked around the side of the building and toward the corral at the rear. Danny watched Chuck lead up the bay, noting that it appeared to be quiet enough and followed without trouble. Not that he felt surprised for a blindfold covered the horse’s eyes, and he knew that even a bad outlaw learned the futility of fighting a rope. The bay did not fight having a saddle put on it, but Danny noted the way its ears flattened down and its muscles quivered. That horse as sure as hell did not intend to be ridden by any man.
Like most Texans, Danny had ridden horses almost as long as he could walk. Following his elder brother’s lead, Danny took to riding bad ones and became adept at it before he decided the old saying, “A bronc buster’s a man with a heavy seat and a light head” had a whole lot of truth and so gave up his ambition of becoming a well- known rider of unmanageable horses. However, a man out West often needed to trim the bed-springs out of a horse or two and Danny had never lost the ability to stay afork a snuffy one. He reckoned he ought to be able to handle the bay unless it proved something really exceptional.
With his health, and wealth, at stake, Danny took no chances. He attended to saddling the horse himself. The spectators noted the care he took in the saddling and nodded their approval.
“No you don’t,” Danny growled as the horse blew itself out. Bringing up his knee, he rammed it into the animal’s ribs and forced a hurried blowing out of the air sucked into the bay’s lungs. This reduced the swollen rib- cage to its normal size before the cinches drew tight. If Danny had missed the trick, he would have tightened the cinches on the swollen body and when the bay blew out the air, the saddle was left loose. However, he had seen and countered the move and the saddling went to its completion.
“Are you set to make a start, Danny?” Chuck called, having learned the challenger’s name from Maisie.
“Yep,” Danny answered and swung into the saddle. Feeling the bay quiver under him, he knew a hard fight lay ahead. “Lord,” he thought, “If I get all stove up, Cap’n Jules’ll peel the hide off me.”
Yet Danny did not ride the horse out of sheer bravado or a desire to grandstand. He wanted to further establish his assumed character in Ella Watson’s eyes and knew that if he should be injured riding the horse, Murat would understand his motives.
One thing showed right off. Rafter O might stand to lose some money but they played fair. Chuck stood at the horse’s head and gripped the end of the blindfold, but he made no move to jerk it from the bay’s eyes until Danny had settled down firmly in the saddle.
“Now?” he asked as Danny settled in the leather.
“You watch him, Danny,” Jerome yelled, giving the friendly, if unhelpful advice always handed out to a man about to start riding a bad one. “He’s going to moan with you.”
“He’ll need to when I’m through, boss,” Danny yelled back. “Let her rip, Chuck, boy.”
A quick tug removed the blindfold and Chuck went head first through the corral rails in a flying bound which
