Betty said quietly, “Why don’t you and your friend come to the dance at Ventana Saturday night? We would all enjoy having you.”
Jim Lucas scowled and started impatiently as if to speak, but then he seemed to see me for the first time. His mouth opened, but he swallowed whatever it was he was going to say. What held him I do not know but he stared hard at me.
“Sure,” I replied to Betty, “we would be glad to come. We want to be neighborly like my partner said. You can expect us.”
Lucas wheeled his horse. “We’ll talk about this again. You’ve been warned.” He looked at Tap when he said it, and then started off with Betty beside him.
Red lingered, staring at Tap. “Where was it,” he said, “that we met before?”
“We never met.” Tap’s voice was flat and hard. “And let’s hope you don’t remember.”
That was more of a warning than I ever heard Tap give anybody. Usually, if you asked for it he just hauled iron and then planted you.
We started for the cabin together and Tap glanced around at me.
“Ever sling a six-gun, Rye? If war comes we’ll have to scrap to hold our land.”
“If it comes”—I pulled off my shirt to wash “don’t you worry. I’ll hold up my end.”
“That gal …” he commented suddenly, “really something, wasn’t she?”
Now, why should that have made me sore?
Saturday morning we shaved early and dressed for the dance. It was a long ride ahead of us and we wanted to get started. When I got my stuff out of my warbag I looked down at those worn and scuffed gun belts and the two six-shooters. Just for a minute there, I hesitated, then I stuffed a pair of old jeans in atop them.
Then I slicked up. My hair was long, all right, but my black broadcloth suit was almost new and tailored to fit. My clothes have to be tailored because my shoulders are so broad and my waist so slim I can never buy me a hand-me-down. With it I wore a gray wool shirt and a black neckerchief, and topped it off with my best hat, which was black and flat-crowned.
Tap was duded up some, too. When he looked at me I could see the surprise in his eyes, and he grinned. “You’re a handsome lad, Rye! A right handsome lad!” But when he’d said it his face chilled as if he had thought of something unpleasant. He added only one thing. “You wearing a gun? You better.”
My hand slapped my waistband and flipped back my coat. The butt of my Russian .44 was there, ready to hand. That draw from the waistband is one of the fastest. There was no reason why I should tell him about the other gun in the shoulder holster. That was a newfangled outfit that some said had been designed by Ben Thompson, and if it was good enough for Ben, it was good enough for me.
It was a twenty-five-mile ride but we made good time. At the livery stable I ordered a bait of corn for the horses. Tap glanced at me.
“Costs money,” he said tersely.
“Uh-huh, but a horse can run and stay with it on corn. We ain’t in no position to ride slow horses.”
Betty was wearing a blue gown the color of her eyes, and while there were a half dozen 11 right pretty girls there, none of them could stand with her. The nearest was a dark-eyed senorita who was all flash and fire. She glanced at me once from those big dark eyes, then paused for another look.
Tap wasted no time. He had crossed the room to Betty and was talking to her. Her eyes met mine across the room, but Tap was there first and I wasn’t going to crowd him. The Mex girl was lingering, so I asked for the dance and got it. Light as a feather she was, and slick and easy on her feet. We danced that one and another, and then an Irish girl with freckles on her nose showed up, and after her I danced again with Margita Lopez. Several times I brushed past Betty and we exchanged glances. Hers were very cool.
The evening was almost over when suddenly we found ourselves side by side. “Forgotten me?” There was a thin edge on her voice. “If you remember, I invited you.”
“You also invited my partner, and you seemed mighty busy, so I—“
“I saw you,” she retorted. “Dancing with Margita.”
“She’s a good dancer, and mighty pretty.”
“Oh? You think so?” Her chin came up and battle flashed in her eyes. “Maybe you think–!” The music started right then so I grabbed her and moved into the dance and she had no chance to finish whatever she planned to say.
There are girls and girls. About Betty there was something that hit me hard. Somehow we wound up out on the porch of this old ranch house turned school, and we started looking for stars. Not that we needed any.
“I hope you stay,” she said suddenly.
“Your father doesn’t,” I replied, “but we will.”
She was worried. “Father’s set in his ways, Rye, but it isn’t only he. The one you may have trouble with is Chet Bayless. He and Jerito.”
“Who?” Even as I asked the question the answer was in my mind.
“Jerito Juarez. He’s a gunman who works for Bayless. A very fine vaquero, but he’s utterly vicious and a killer. As far as that goes, Bayless is just as bad. Red Corram, who works for Dad, runs with them some.”
Jerito Juarez was a name I was not likely to forget, and inside me something turned cold. Just then the door opened and Tap Henry came out. When he saw us standing close together on the dark porch his face, in the light of the door, was not pleasant to see.
“I was hunting you, Betty. Our dance is most over.”
“Oh! I’m sorry! I didn’t realize …!”
Tap looked over her head at me. “We’ve trouble coming,” he said, “watch your step.”
Walking to the end of the porch, I stepped down and started toward the horses. Under the trees and in the deep shadows I heard voices.
“Right now,” a man was saying, “ride over there and go through their gear. I want to know who they are. Be mighty careful, because if that Tap is who I think he is, he’ll shoot mighty fast and straight.”
Another voice muttered and then there was a chink of coins. In an open place under the trees I could vaguely distinguish three men.
The first voice added, “An’ when you leave, set fire to the place.”
That was the man I wanted, but they separated and I knew if I followed the two that went back toward the dance, then the man who was to burn us out would get away. Swiftly, I turned after the latter, and when he reached his horse he was in the lights from the dance. The man was a half-breed, a suspected rustler known as Kiowa Johnny.
Stepping into the open, I said to him, “You ain’t going noplace to burn anybody out. If you want to live, unbuckle those gun belts and let ‘em fall. And be mighty careful!”
Kiowa stood there, trying to make me out. The outline of me was plain to him, but my face must have been in shadow. He could see both hands at my sides and they held no gun, nor was there a gun in sight. Maybe he figured it was a good gamble that I was unarmed. He grabbed for his gun.
My .44 Russian spoke once, a sharp, emphatic remark, and then acrid power smoke drifted and above the sound of the music within I heard excited voices. Kiowa Johnny lay sprawled on the hard-packed earth.
Wanting no gunfights or questions, I ducked around the corner of the dance hall and back to the porch where I had been standing with Betty. The 15 door that opened to the porch was blocked by people, but all were looking toward the dance floor. One of them was Margita. Moving among them, I touched her arm and we moved out on the floor together.
Right away she knew something was wrong. She was quick, that girl. And then the music stopped and Jim Lucas was standing in the middle of the floor with Sheriff Fred Tetley.
“Kiowa Johnny’s been killed,” Tetley said. “Looks like he had a fair shake. Who done it?”
Tap was right in the middle of things with Betty and I saw Red frown as his eyes located him. Almost automatically, those eyes searched me out.
He was puzzled when he looked away.
“Had it comin’ for years!” A gray-haired man near me was speaking. “Maybe we won’t lose so many cows now.”