Nan Ryan (9 page)

Right on their heels a special carriage rolled in, carrying the famed female sharpshooter, Texas Kate. She was smiling and waving, basking happily in the loud applause. Her graying brown hair was tightly curled around her broad, beaming face. She wore a fringed blouse and shirt, bolo tie, and boots. The front of her blouse was covered with marksmen’s medals.

The carriage stopped in the arena’s center. Texas Kate stepped down into the spotlight with pistol, rifle, and shotgun. She was always first on the program. Years ago the Colonel had designed the show to graduate in excitement. Aware that shooting and shouts might unnerve the women and children in the audience, he brought on Texas Kate very early in the performance.

Kate started very gently, shooting only with a pistol. It worked perfectly. The young children and the nervous women in the audience saw a smiling, harmless woman out there and soon relaxed. When Texas Kate had their total trust, she switched to the rifle and gradually increased until she was shooting with full charge. Skillfully she prepared the audiences for any frightening act that might come later.

For a good half hour the trigger-talented Texas Kate put on a shooting exhibition unlike anything the paying crowd had ever seen. Bullets cracked and objects exploded as the smiling sure-shot female marksman hit stationary targets, moving targets, flying targets. Texas Kate beat her own record when she hit a total of forty-nine out of fifty glass balls tossed into the air. At thirty paces she hit the narrow edges of playing cards. She perfectly plugged silver dimes tossed into the air.

The finishing segment of her routine was the crowd’s favorite. Texas Kate’s quiet assistant, the skinny little cowboy who had driven her carriage into the arena and tossed the glass balls, the cards, the dimes for her, now shyly moved into the spotlight, waving a package of cigarettes in his hand. Propmen, hidden in the darkness, rolled into place a protective brick barricade behind him.

Shorty Jones was not actually a performer, but he assisted Texas Kate in her act. For two reasons. First, nobody else in the troupe volunteered. Second, Shorty seized any opportunity to be around Texas Kate. Shorty Jones had been secretly, silently sweet on Kate for more than a decade. He’d never told her in so many words, but he suspected she knew. Trouble was, she didn’t care. She was still waiting for another man. Shorty knew he could never hope to measure up to the missing Teddy Ray Worthington.

Shorty stepped back against the temporary barricade, shook a ready-made cigarette from his pack, stuck it into his mouth, and lit up. Texas Kate picked up her pearl-handled pistols, held them high in the air, then paced off fifty feet. She turned and immediately fired ten shots in rapid succession, first with one hand, then the other, snipping an nth of a degree from Shorty’s lighted cigarette with each shot.

She shot so fast and so accurately that her incredible performance was over too soon to suit the screaming crowd. People were still whistling and begging for more when Texas Kate, allowing Shorty to help her back up into the carriage, waved as she was driven out of the spotlight and into the darkness.

The applause finally died away.

Silence.

Then a shout from a man out in the audience. “Where’s that Beauty? Bring on the Beauty!”

From another section of the grandstands. “Beauty! We want the Beauty! The Beauty and the Beast!”

“Beauty and the Beast!” Others took up the chant. “The Beauty and the Beast! Beauty and the Beast! The Beauty and the—”

Shouting, yipping scouts and vaqueros and bawling steers, untamed horses, and charging buffaloes filled the arena, drowning out the shouts, commanding the crowd’s attention. Lassos whirled through the air, encircling hooves, necks, ears, and even tails of the thundering herds. Nimble vaqueros leaped from horse to horse, from horse to ground, from ground to horse.

And then the Rough Riders—the tough gristle and bone cowboys—led by the blond, handsome Cherokee Kid astride his snorting chestnut stallion. They were the real thing, these men, wild and rough, the last of a rugged breed being slowly pushed off the plains by progress and civilization. They galloped like the Wild Bunch into the arena, guns blazing, scaring spectators and scattering the troupe.

In a stirring finale the riders joined forces and staged an old-time roundup. They cut cattle from the herd, roped and branded them. Soon all disappeared in a cloud of dust.

When the dust settled and the applause subsided, a faint throb of drums filled the air. Into the ring marched the proud redskins as the drums grew louder, faster. Lances raised, feather bustles and headdresses fluttering in the breeze, the old war chiefs and their braves went into their symbolic tribal dances to the riotous approval of the audience.

However, the crowd’s captivation with the Indians’ colorful ceremony was short-lived. The Indian the people most wanted to see was not dancing to the drums. He was not in the arena. The Redman of the Rockies was nowhere in sight.

As quickly as they had come, the Indians danced then-way out of the arena as the throb of the drums grew muffled and died away.

Again there was silence. And again darkness as the calcium flares were lowered and turned out. Seconds passed. A pinpoint of soft blue light suddenly appeared in the darkened arena’s center. The light grew bigger. And bigger. The growing mirrored spotlight picked up a horse and rider. A slender black-haired woman and a sleek black-coated stallion. Neither horse nor rider moved. They might have been an incredibly lifelike statue, save for the slight breeze from out of the east lifting the ends of the woman’s raven hair, the stallion’s flowing black mane.

The temporarily dazed crowd came roaring to its feet as a dazzling smile began to spread over the pale, perfect face of the rider.

“Beauty!” they loudly hailed her. “Beauty! Beauty!” they shouted excitedly to the slender raven-haired woman astride the magnificent black stallion. Diane was nothing less than spectacular. Dressed in black satin shirt and tight-fitting black leather trousers, her tall, shapely body mounted up on the big black horse, she looked every inch the western queen, not to be crossed. She was the envy of every woman in the audience, the dream girl of every man. She went immediately into her routine.

The noise subsided when, with only a soft-spoken command to Champ, the big black wheeled about and went into a fast, dirt-flinging gallop. When the stallion reached top speed, Diane shot to her feet on his back.

For the next half hour Diane commanded the attention of the crowd with her daring riding and roping skills. She leaped to the ground while the black stallion sprinted across the arena. Then leaped back astride his back. She slid down underneath his neck, slipped down his long, flowing tail, rode the big creature in ways no one would have thought possible.

She got out her lariat and put on a roping exhibition that was every bit as thrilling as the fancy riding. She lassoed the black’s neck, his belly, his ear, his tail. She roped one front hoof, then two. She spelled out her name with the rope, drawing oohs and aahs as, one letter at a time, she wrote out “Diane” with the spinning, perfectly tossed rope. The crowd stomped its feet and cheered when she tossed the lariat up into the grandstands. She climbed on Champ’s back, wheeled him left, and went into her final act: the mounted somersault.

Loud applause, whistles, and shouts of “Bravo, Beauty! Bravo, Beauty, bravo!” escorted her out of the arena. Exhilarated, out of breath, Diane slid down off Champ’s back just outside the entrance. She tossed the reins to one of the waiting wranglers and watched as the black was led away.

In the dim light she backed into something, turned, and saw that it was the Redman’s cage. For a second her eyes met those of the creature. He gave her a wild-eyed look that made her shiver. He continued to look straight at her as his cage rolled away. Diane stood there for a moment, feeling faint and foolishly frightened.

The roar of the crowd drew her attention to the arena. They were screaming, “Redman! Beast! It’s the Beast! The Redman of the Rockies!”

Diane drew a shallow breath, shook her head, and started to walk away. She changed her mind. Glancing quickly about, she climbed the arena’s tall fence to watch and was appalled by what she saw.

The Redman’s cage was being slowly wheeled around the inner perimeter of the ring by the burly Leatherwood brothers. Every few yards the Leatherwoods stopped and called for anyone in the audience who wanted to get up close to the fierce beast to come on down.

Diane was astounded to see the preponderance of women who scrambled down out of their seats to crowd around the Redman’s barred cage. Through violet eyes narrowed in disgust she watched as women, young and old, pretty and plain, gathered around the Redman, twittering and gasping and laughing nervously. Clearly they were not totally repelled by the nearly-naked beast.

Diane felt a funny quiver race up her spine as she observed the women practically fighting one another to get closer to the Redman. Sex and mystery were bound together in the beautiful, wild creature. That’s what drew all those foolish women to his cage. Diane was revolted.

But she didn’t leave.

She continued to sit there atop that wooden fence while the Redman’s cage moved slowly around the big arena. The excited females of Denver continued to swoop down to the cage, and Diane couldn’t believe her eyes when she saw pretty girls who were obviously from fine families tossing ribbons from their hair into the creature’s cage. Lacy handkerchiefs and fresh-cut flowers were pitched inside amid peals of high-pitched feminine laughter.

Diane gasped, then held her breath when a very foolish young blonde ripped a pearl button from the collar of her summer dress and held it out on her palm to the Redman, sticking her hand right through the restraining bars of his cage. Diane silently waited for the untamed savage to grab the girl and pull her roughly up against the bars, perhaps even hurt her badly.

The Redman never moved.

He didn’t reach for the blond woman; he didn’t take the offered pearl button. He stared at the silly woman with fierce hatred shining out of his dark eyes. His cage rolled away. The pouting blonde threw the button at him and flounced back to her seat.

Diane took a much-needed breath.

Finally the cage had made a complete circle. It was back at the arena’s entrance. Diane, from her vantage point on the fence directly beside the arena gates, could see the Redman inside. He looked furious, as if he deeply resented being shown off like an animal.

Diane automatically lowered her eyes. She wished they would hurry and roll his cage outside the lighted ring. What were they waiting for? Why had they stopped there inside the arena?

She found out.

Davey Leatherwood unlocked the cage and released the Redman. To Davey Leatherwood’s—and the audience’s—shocked surprise, the enraged Redman attacked Leatherwood with his bare hands. Striking with the swiftness of a serpent, the slim Indian wrestled the big, powerful white man to the ground. He pounded Leatherwood’s face with his fists; blood spurted.

Women screamed and men shouted.

Danny Leatherwood quickly dragged the Redman off his baby brother, turned, and smiled up at the crowd as if it were part of the act. But the smile left his face when the Redman, struggling free of his grasp, turned and threw a punch that caught Danny Leatherwood squarely on the chin, knocking him to his knees.

Before either Leatherwood could react, the Redman took off running. Screams of fear and excitement rose from the crowd as the nearly-naked savage raced across the dusty arena in an honest attempt to escape. He was almost to the north fence when the mounted Cherokee Kid and the armed Rough Riders thundered into the arena.

The Redman never stood a chance.

He was ridden down by the Rough Riders, but only after they had toyed with him, as a cat does with a mouse. The enraged Redman was run back and forth across the ring, almost getting away, not quite making it, while the riders laughed and yipped and played to the appreciative crowd.

At last the Redman was caught. Weak and out of breath, his long legs and bare chest glistening with sweat, he was roped by the smiling mounted Cherokee Kid. By then the angered Leatherwood brothers were bearing down on the trapped Redman.

“Try taking a swing at me now, you red bastard.” Danny Leatherwood stepped up close, stuck out his chin, his taunt spoken too softly for the crowd to hear.

His arms pinned to his sides, the Redman struck with his teeth. A loud yelp of pain went up from Danny Leatherwood as he reached for his bitten, bloodied earlobe. The crowd gasped and murmured.

The Cherokee Kid swiftly dismounted. While the Leatherwoods held the savage, the Kid clamped heavy chains on the ferocious Redman’s hands and feet and dragged him back to his cage.

Diane sat there unmoving atop the arena fence.

She felt almost sick.

The crowd loved it.

Chapter 8

After the show the Colonel and Mrs. Buchannan hosted an opening-night party for the entire troupe. The celebration, held inside the fairgrounds arena, was as big a success as the show.