Beginner's Luck

by Len Levinson

  Thunderbolt stood still, and let Duane touch him. It's like Boggs said, Duane mused. You've got to make friends with them. “There, there,” he said warmly.

  “Watch out!” shouted one of the cowboys.

  Thunderbolt craned his huge head around, and tried to bite Duane, who pulled his hand back at the last moment, leaving part of his sleeve in the horse's mouth. Duane became furious at the betrayal of trust, and punched the horse on the side of the head.

  Thunderbolt, jolted by the sudden blow, blinked his eyes. Duane took the opportunity to leap into the saddle, thrust his feet through the stirrups, grab the reins, and kick his heels into Thunderbolt's withers. “Come on, horse—show me what you've got!”

  Thunderbolt leapt into the air, and Duane's spine whiplashed violently. Duane removed his hat, held it out for balance, and hugged Thunderbolt tightly with his legs, as the horse switched ends, twisted, leaped, and dived.

  “Ride ‘em cowboy!” shouted one of the men behind the rail.

  “Yippee!” hollered another, throwing his hat in the air.

  I'm riding him! Duane thought happily, and then found himself lurching into the air. A bird flew past, glancing at him curiously, and then Duane plunged to the ground in the middle of the corral, where he lay still.

  “Get up!” hollered one of the cowboys.

  Duane opened his eyes. Thunderbolt towered above him, standing on his hind legs, ready to plop his front hooves on Duane's nose, but Duane spun out at the last moment, and Thunderbolt's hooves slammed into the ground, sending up a cloud of dust.

  Duane limped out of the way, the horse charged, but Duane switched direction suddenly, and Thunderbolt couldn't reposition himself quickly enough. Duane rushed Thunderbolt's flank, leapt into the air, and landed on the saddle again.

  Thunderbolt arched his back at the first impression of weight, ramming Duane's boots into the stirrups. The horse tossed and bucked frantically, trying to shake Duane off, but Duane gritted his teeth and held on. “I can last longer than you,” Duane uttered, “and I'm going to break you!”

  Like hell you are, the horse seemed to say, hopping around the perimeter of the corral, trying to slam Duane into the slats, but the horse's movements were becoming more familiar to Duane. He held his arm out for balance, and tried to blend with the tornado beneath him.

  He's tiring, Duane thought, and I've got him figured out. “Hurrah!” he yelled, confident that he was on his way to victory, but when he opened his eyes again, he was lying on the ground outside the corral, and the cowboys were gathered around him.

  “Deep cut on his forehead,” said one of the cowboys.

  Duane felt a canteen at his lips, and took a sip of water, but his lip coordination was off, and the water ran down his throat, soaking his shirt. “What happened?” he asked weakly.

  “He throwed you,” Russell replied. “And you hit yer head on the fence post. I think you'd better lie down.”

  The cowboys appeared concerned for his welfare, and Duane ached in every bone of his body. He turned toward Thunderbolt, and the horse laughed at him. I'll ride you, Duane thought, or you'll kill me. Duane arose from the ground, and somebody handed him his battered hat. He poked out the crown with his fingers, settled it on his head, fixed the neck strap, and placed his boot on a slat of the gate.

  “He'll kick yer brains out, boy,” one of the cowboys said.

  Duane shook them off, as he climbed over the top rail. No goddamned dumb horse is going to make a fool out of me, he said to himself. Thunderbolt watched with increasing apprehension on the far side of the corral. The cowboy appeared enraged, and Thunderbolt neighed, as he backed toward the fence. Duane stood in front of him, crouched over, bared his teeth, and lunged for Thunderbolt, who darted to the side. Duane leapt on top of him, settled in the saddle, and grabbed the reins. You asked for it, Thunderbolt thought. You want to die—you've come to the right place. He snorted, jackknifed, and went straight in the air. When he landed, he jerked to the left, twisted to the right, switched ends, and tried to ram Duane into the fence.

  But Duane hung on, realizing that a horse has only a certain repertoire of movements, and once you understand them, you just work with them. His arm jerked up and down as he bounced in the saddle, his legs kicking the sky. I can do this all day, he thought. It's fun, once you get used to it. “Yippee!” he hollered. “Ki-ti-yo.”

  Meanwhile, Thunderbolt was getting tired of the exercise. No other cowboy had ever stayed on so long, and he knew that he'd be broken eventually, like all the other horses in the corral. The horse slackened his efforts, and Duane's heart leapt with anticipation of sweet victory. I've done it, he thought, his chest swelling with pride. He grabbed the reins and pulled them back firmly. “Whoa, now.”

  Thunderbolt stopped, and shook his great head from side to side. It didn't make sense to buck and toss with so little possibility of success. He snorted in disgust at his poor performance, and hung his head low in shame.

  “Why don't we be friends?” Duane asked, patting Thunderbolt's mane. “Maybe we can have some fun together?”

  The cowboys gathered around Duane, smirks on their faces. “That was one helluva ride, Kid,” Russell said. “I guess you was a-funnin’ when you said that you never rode a horse before.”

  “But I never did,” Duane replied.

  Russell winked knowingly. “Sure, just like you never fired a gun a'fore. We understand, don't we, boys?”

  “Right,” they agreed in unison.

  “Let's go inside and have a smoke,” Russell said. “We done enough work fer today.”

  “You seem out of sorts tonight, Edgar,” said Vanessa Fontaine.

  The richest man in town looked at her dolefully, as he raised a spoonful of chicken soup to his mouth. They were seated across the table in her dining room, and it was early evening. “I'm fine,” he said gruffly. “You're imagining things.”

  “Something's bothering you. If you can't tell the truth to the woman you claim to love—then you mustn't trust her very much.”

  “Stop being sanctimonious, Vanessa. We both know that the only reason you have anything to do with me, is my money, and if I ever went bust, you'd probably never speak to me again.”

  “How can you even think such a thing?” she retorted indignantly. “I don't believe I've ever been so insulted in all my days! Why, you make me sound like a greedy witch.”

  “Well, if you insist on knowing—I'll tell you. There's a very strong possibility that I, in fact, will go bust within the next six months.”

  She burped, swallowed hard, and wanted to scream: If you go bust, what'll happen to me? But she caught the words in her throat, and swallowed them down along with a portion of a chicken's leg. “Has something actually happened, or is this another of your vague, unreasonable fears?”

  “Quite a number of dishonest people reside in this town,” he replied, “and they've persuaded me that sufficient investment would draw the railroad, but now it appears that they greatly exaggerated that potentiality.”

  “Who needs the railroad?” she asked cheerfully. “The town seems to be doing fine without it.”

  “You don't understand,” he replied, an edge to his voice. “I'm keeping this town alive almost single-handedly, and I pay everybody's salary, including yours, and now even the Pecos Kid is on my payroll. It's entirely possible that I've been the victim of a colossal swindle.”

  Vanessa stared at him in horror and disbelief. She didn't know anything about business, disapproved of it on general artistic principles, and never had analyzed the economics of Titusville. “I thought that the gambling and saloons made a lot of money.”

  “Not enough to keep the whole town going.”

  “What about your cattle?”

  “They're worth something in Kansas, but not much in Texas. The hotel and nearly everything else is mortgaged. If I lose my ranches, my cowboys will move to other jobs. The money is merely circulating from me to the cowboys and back to me, with a funnel at one en
d going to my creditors.”

  “But what will you do?” she asked, panic coming to her voice.

  “I have no idea, and life may get rather dodgy for both of us in the weeks to come. You might be well advised to make the acquaintance of Miss Ellie, just in case.”

  Saul Klevins and Jed Wilson sat opposite each other in the barn behind Vanessa's home, their faces illuminated by the single candle in the middle of the table. They ate in silence, as the carriage gleamed in the dimness nearby.

  Klevins fumed with barely suppressed vitriol. He'd anticipated dinner with Miss Fontaine, and hoped to work his charm upon her, because he knew that many women enjoyed kissing the lips of death, but instead, Petigru had banished him to the barn like a common servant.

  Meanwhile, on the other side of the table, Jed cast quick glances of appraisal at his dining companion, and perceived poison bubbling beneath the surface. Jed was obsessed with Vanessa Fontaine, and constantly thought of ways to seduce her. He wasn't quite sure how to bring that about, but knew that the more turmoil in Titusville, the better his chances would be. When Vanessa was desperate for money, Jed would help her—for certain considerations, of course.

  “Sometimes I wish I was Mister Petigru,” Jed threw out, like an angler's worm, “and I was there in the main house with Miss Vanessa, but I guess if she had her druthers, the man she'd be with right now is Duane Braddock.”

  Klevins stiffened at the sound of the name. “What the hell does he have to do with it?”

  “Why, he's a-screwin’ the pants off Miss Vanessa. Comes here at night through the back door. Sometimes, when the wind is right, I can hear her screamin’ like a cat in heat. The Pecos Kid must be a great stud.”

  Klevins pushed his plate away. “I'm sick of hearing about the Pecos Kid. All he's ever done was get off one lucky shot against a drunk cowboy, and you'd think he was the governor of Alabama. And as fer Miss Fontaine, she's nothin’ more'n a high-class whore. A woman like that would screw anything.”

  “I don't know about lucky shots,” Jed said apologetically. “There's some that says the Pecos Kid just acts dumb to put people off.”

  “He don't act dumb—he is dumb, but some people around here don't get it. Besides, I got better things to talk about than that damned little rat.”

  Jed wanted to say: He's taller'n you, but Klevins put on his hat. The door slammed, Jed rushed to the window, and saw Klevins sit on a barrel outside, pulling out his bag of tobacco.

  Klevins puffed a cigarette in the darkness, unaware that he was being observed. I'm the fastest hand in town, he told himself, yet I have to eat with the carriage driver, while everybody's talkin’ about the Pecos Kid. I really ought to shoot that little bastard, so that people around here can see what fast really is.

  CHAPTER 9

  AGROUP OF RIDERS LEFT THE LAZY Y LATEnext Saturday afternoon. Led by their Ramrod, they headed toward Titusville for their big night on the town.

  Their jeans had been washed, shirts ironed, hats brushed to rid them of dust and dead grasshoppers. Each man had bathed, shaved, and wore clean underwear, so he'd be suitably presentable for the prostitutes of Titusville.

  Duane rode among them, astride Thunderbolt. After a week in the bunkhouse, Duane had learned that prostitutes were the cowboys’ main interest and topic of conversation, but when they worked, they wasted no words, and always cut to the core of whatever they were doing. He always found their cowboy logic unassailable.

  The cowboys had accepted Duane after he'd ridden Thunderbolt, and evidently believed that he really was the Pecos Kid, even giving him grudging respect despite his tender age. He'd become another face in the bunkhouse, and his fondest dream had come true, more or less.

  He'd learned that the cowboy's life was arduous labor on the hurricane deck of a horse, dawn to dusk, and if you went on a cattle drive, get ready to sleep on the ground for three months. The bunkhouse was even more uncomfortable than the monastery, where penance through harsh living was the goal. Once more Duane resided in all-masculine society, but missed the female touch. He'd learned the basics of roping and working cattle, and his spare time had been spent with shooting practice. He considered himself nearly as good as any man in the bunkhouse.

  During the course of innumerable bullshit sessions, he'd learned that Edgar Petigru was the dupe of just about everybody in the region, including the cowboys. They'd all conspired to convince Petigru that a hot investment opportunity existed in Titusville, and the ignorant Yankee didn't know any better. The Lazy Y was run in a haphazard fashion, and evidently didn't have as much cattle as Petigru thought. Now even Duane was part of the humbug.

  Like the others, the Pecos Kid was spruced for his night on the town, and had even polished his boots, plus cleaned his gun and loaded it with five fresh cartridges. His gun belt was stuffed full of ammunition, and so was an old black leather U.S. Cavalry cartridge case affixed to his belt.

  He felt like a man, and even knew how to ride a horse! He and Thunderbolt had developed a tentative friendship, but Duane sensed Thunderbolt's dissatisfaction with captivity, and always tethered him carefully. Duane leaned forward and patted Thunderbolt's lustrous mane. “Someday, if I get some money, I'll buy you for myself, and turn you loose.”

  Thunderbolt snorted skeptically, and sometimes Duane had the impression that the horse was attempting to communicate. Duane pulled out a small bag of tobacco, for the cowboys had taught him to smoke, and his fingers were yellowed by nicotine. He rolled a cigarette, spilling half the tobacco onto his lap, lit it with a match, and let it dangle from the corner of his mouth, like all the other cowboys.

  He felt as if he'd fulfilled his favorite dream, as he rode confidently toward the distant city glowing on the plain like Sodom and Gomorrah in the night.

  Deputy Dawson sat behind his desk, looking out the window at the darkening street. He dreaded Saturdays, knew there'd probably be shooting, and wondered if he'd be alive when the sun came up on Sunday morning.

  He'd heard townspeople talking behind his back and giggling up their sleeves about his inability to make a dent in the violence that had plagued Titusville recently. He always showed up after the shootings were over, because he didn't want to walk into the middle of a gunfight. Let the bastards kill each other if they want to. That had been his philosophy until now.

  Deputy Dawson was the poor relative of Mayor Lonsdale, and suffered feelings of deep inferiority. He didn't have a wife, and if it weren't for the largesse of the mayor, he'd have to get a cowboy job. Everyone thought he was a joke, and it was starting to rankle. He had to take a stand against lawless behavior in Titusville, or else resign, he decided.

  Sure hope it's quiet here tonight. I don't want to die just because a bunch of cowboys can't hold their likker, he told himself.

  Smollett, Hardy, and Singleton rode down the main street of Titusville, peering about cautiously. They were men with prices on their heads, and never knew when they might be recognized. Their hands rested near their guns. They looked as though they'd been sleeping in their clothes, but didn't appear significantly different from other cowboys in town that night. Their plan was to come up behind Duane Braddock amid Saturday night crowds, and put three bullets into his back.

  Smollett rode in the middle, his wounded leg bandaged with an old rag. It ached fiercely; pus oozed out the gash, and it was turning green around the edges. “I'm going to see the sawbones,” Smollett said, “and you boys can start looking fer the Kid. When you find him, one of you stay with him, and the other report to me.”

  Vanessa sat in front of her bedroom mirror, preparing for her evening's performance at the Round-Up Saloon. She'd lost weight during the past week, her complexion had gone pale, hence more cosmetics than usual were required to make her acceptable to the crowd of cowboys and gamblers who'd come to ogle her. No matter how heavy her heart, the show must go on.

  She'd spent most of the week in a cloud of gloom, worried about her future, and recalled Petigru's advice to speak with Mi
ss Ellie. Edgar didn't realize it, but his words had plunged terror into Vanessa's heart. If it comes to prostitution, I'll kill myself first.

  She raised her skirt, and pulled the derringer out of her garter. Two ugly snouts looked her in the eye, and all she need do was thumb back the hammer, point at her temple, and pull both triggers at the same time. Then she'd never have to worry about prostitution or anything else ever again.

  It bothered her that she hadn't been aware of Petigru's true financial situation. I'm a child, and don't know anything about business, she realized. It's easy for men to take advantage of me, because they know I'm needy. I'd marry the devil himself, if he'd buy me a house. But you can't trust men. All they want is one thing, and they'll say anything to get it.

  She applied rouge to her cheek, and reflected upon Duane Braddock touching her breast in the vestibule downstairs. She had to admit, despite everything, it had been an extremely exalting moment. She knew that the Pecos Kid would come to town that night, and if he was the man she thought, he'd show up at the Round-Up Saloon.

  Why shouldn't I have a taste of love before I die? she thought wistfully, placing Beauregard's daquerreo-type in the bottom drawer of her dresser.

  Edgar Petigru sat at his window, looking into the main street of town. It was filling with the usual Saturday night riffraff, and he didn't want to go out.

  The week had been increasingly difficult, as the true depths of his predicament became increasingly clear to him. He couldn't simply declare bankruptcy, and ride home in a carriage, because home was nearly two thousand miles away, and an Indian might slice his genitals off, and stuff them into his mouth.

  Edgar owed substantial amounts to local citizens, and they wouldn't let him leave until they were paid, or he was milked dry. In essence, he was a prisoner, except for his bodyguard, Saul Klevins. But how could he trust a hired gun? Edgar saw Klevins napping on the sofa, his hat covering his face.