“I—I guess you’d better know about me,” Ruth began, then seemed to grow hesitant.
“You’re the girl Ben was with in New Orleans, aren’t you?” Dani guessed. Sixkiller nodded imperceptibly, for she fit the description he had gotten from one of his men, who’d seen the pair several times.
“That’s right,” Ruth said. Then she lifted her head and looked directly into Dani’s eyes. “My maiden name was Savage.”
Dani blinked with surprise, then nodded slowly. “You’re Ben’s sister, then?”
“Yes.”
“You look like him.” Dani took a sip of coffee and studied the woman. The resemblance to Ben was clear, now that she knew the relationship. Ruth had the same wide cheekbones, short nose, and crisp black hair. Like Ben, she had a slightly European cast to her features, and there was some of his caution in her eyes. Dani suddenly remembered how she had practically run Ben out of the agency over this woman—and realized with sharp discomfort that she had been almost jealous over his interest in her.
“Ben’s in terrible shape,” Ruth said, biting her lower lip. “I—I guess you’d better know the whole story?”
She broke off suddenly and stared at Sixkiller with obvious doubt.
“It’s all right,” Dani quickly assured her. “Luke’s a good friend of Ben’s. You can talk in front of him.”
“Well—all right.” Ruth looked down at her hands, then up again with a show of determination. “It’s all my fault that he’s hurt.”
“Better start at the beginning, Ruth,” Dani advised. “Why did you come to New Orleans?”
“I came to get Ben to help me. But I wish I hadn’t!” She shook her head, and misery filled her dark brown eyes. “I didn’t know who else to go to for help.”
“What kind of help?” Sixkiller asked, almost idly. He made a tough shape as he lounged in his chair, but something in his face seemed to give the woman confidence.
“Ben and I haven’t been real close since we grew up,” she began slowly. “But we always stuck together when we were kids. It was a rough time for us—I guess Ben’s told you some of it?”
“You tell us again, Ruth,” Dani nodded. “We need to know everything.”
“All right. I was married to a man named Larry Cantrell. He was no good. Beat me up and ran around with every woman he could find. He was a crook. Got killed in some sort of drug thing. The police say he probably tried to hold out on some hard guys, and they killed him. All I got from him was bruises and a hatred for men.” She sipped her coffee, bitterness in her eyes, but then she shrugged and went on.
“I stayed away from people for about a year after Larry was shot. I’ll never know why, but he took out an insurance policy and made me the beneficiary. I got $20,000 in a lump sum. Lived on it for a few months, then I went to stay with a friend who owns a ranch in New Mexico. It was great there,” she remembered wistfully. “Nobody trying to hustle me. And what got me were the horses.”
“What kind of horses?” Dani inquired suddenly.
“Some quarter horses, some thoroughbreds.” Ruth smiled. “And some mixed breeds. My friend, Rhonda, she was a barrel racer.” She smiled and nodded at Dani. “Ben told me you have a horse, that you used to race yourself.”
“That’s right.”
“Well, maybe you can understand,” Ruth said, her eyes expressive. “Rhonda taught me how to ride, and I was good! Had a natural gift. Guess it runs in the family, Ben being an aerialist and all. He told me it probably took the same kind of timing to race a horse as it took to work the trapeze. Anyway, I went with Rhonda to some rodeos and found out I was good enough to win—some of the time. So finally I took some of the money and bought a horse and started rodeoing.”
“How’d you make out?” Sixkiller asked.
“Not bad. I made over three thousand dollars the first four months. So I got the bug. Bought a trailer and a truck and went on the circuit. It was good for me,” Ruth stated quietly. “I got rid of most of the hatred I had for men.”
“And you found one you didn’t hate at all?” Dani suggested.
Ruth stared at her, then smiled. “Ben said you were a smart one, Dani. Yes, I did. Clint Thomas.”
“Hey, he’s been the All-Around Champion Cowboy for a couple of years!” Sixkiller exclaimed in surprise.
“Three years,” Ruth corrected him. “We started dating six months ago.”
“Anything serious?” Dani asked.
“It is with me,” Ruth confided. “We’ve talked a little about marriage. We’re not engaged, but we will be.”
Dani studied the woman carefully. “What trouble sent you to Ben?”
Ruth gave Sixkiller a straight stare. “It’s something that’s going on in the rodeo. I’d heard of something like it in Chicago and Detroit, but it’s new with us.” She frowned, then quavered, “Someone is threatening the performers, mostly the big-time stars.”
“What kind of threats?” Dani demanded.
“It’s always a phone call. Clint’s gotten two of them. A man says, ‘You pay me a thousand dollars, or your horse will wind up with a broken leg.’”
Sixkiller nodded. “Just the old protection racket in a new form. Lots of it in the big cities. A storekeeper gets a word that if he doesn’t cough up protection money, his store will get bombed. Mafia stuff, some of it.”
“Has anyone tried to stand up to the threats?” Dani asked.
“Tilman Yates did. He was in second place national for bull-dogging. When he got the threat, he just laughed. But the next week his horse had his leg broken. Had to be destroyed.”
“What’d Yates do?” Luke wanted to know.
“Went to the cops, but they couldn’t find anything. Then a week later, Tilman told us he’d gotten another threat. He was mad over the horse and said he’d sleep next to his new horse with a loaded forty-five. But it didn’t do him any good.”
“What happened, Ruth?” Dani asked.
“He was beaten up.” Ruth bit her lip and shook her head. “He was in the hospital for two months.”
“Who did it?” Sixkiller demanded.
“Nobody knows. Somebody caught him coming out of a tavern in El Paso. He was pretty drunk, the witnesses say. The attacker took him to an alley and smashed his knees. He’ll never ride again.”
“So now everyone pays up?” Dani guessed.
Ruth stared at her. “Not Clint. He swears he’ll never pay a cent.”
Dani sighed and then nodded. “So you went to get Ben to find the one behind this racket.”
Ruth looked miserable. “Yes, I did. But it didn’t work.”
“What happened to Ben?” Dani leaned forward on her elbows. “I guess he plunged right in?”
“Yes. Everyone knew he was out to find the crook. But he didn’t have a chance.”
“How’d they get him, Ruth?” Sixkiller demanded. “Ben’s a pretty tough guy. Smart, too.”
“Nobody really knows.” Tears rose to Ruth’s eyes, and she pulled a handkerchief from her purse. “He told me day before yesterday he thought he had some kind of lead; then he disappeared. Nobody saw him until a couple of kids found him in an alley on the south side of town, unconscious.”
“What does the doctor say, Ruth?” Dani inquired.
“Oh, he’s like all doctors, I guess—afraid to say much of anything. But Ben’s better now than he was yesterday. I can see that. Got a broken collarbone and some internal injuries. But it’s the head injury that’s the worst. Doctor Rogers says he can’t be sure how bad it is.” She began to weep helplessly, and the people at other tables began to cast covert glances toward their table.
“I’ll talk to the doctor,” Dani offered.” We’ll pray that he’ll be all right.”
Ruth got control of herself and gave Dani a wan look. “Ben said you were real religious,” she told her. “I’m not, but I wish I were. Do you think if I promise to go to church God will help Ben get well?”
Dani felt her gaze and the weight of Sixkiller’s a
ttention. Suddenly she was weary of having her faith put on trial. She wanted to shout, Why don’t you stop trying to buy God? Do you think he’s some sort of huckster, trying to bargain for your grubby little soul?
But she kept her face still, saying only, “God wants to help us all, Ruth. Let’s go back to the waiting room.”
As they left the cafeteria, Sixkiller remarked quietly, “You missed a good chance for a sermon there.” Then he took her arm and gave it a comforting squeeze. “But I think Ruth and I got the message!”
3
“You’re No Good to Anybody!”
* * *
Funny how we count time,” Sixkiller remarked as he stared up at the ceiling tiles of the waiting room. “Sometimes we count it by seconds, like when we’re in a dentist’s chair and he’s boring into a molar. Every second’s a month.” His neck began to ache, and he pulled himself up stiffly from where he’d been sprawled, trying to rest his head on the back of one of the hard chairs. Rubbing the nape of his neck, he flexed his heavy shoulders. “But sometimes it drags on like a slow-motion movie. Like now. All we count now is a ten-minute visit every four hours.”
Dani lifted her gaze, startled by the sound of his voice. They had been alone in the waiting room for nearly four hours, and the silence had sunk into her. She arched her back, nodded, then said, “That’s Einstein’s theory of relativity, Luke.”
Sixkiller grinned, his teeth very white against his bronze skin. “It is? Well, if it’s that simple, I could have saved him a lot of trouble.” He looked at his watch, then informed her, “Half-hour before midnight. You want some coffee?”
“I guess not.”
“Well, I do.” He came to his feet, commanding as he left the room, “Hold the fort.”
Dani nodded, thinking how bad it would have been if Luke hadn’t been with her. Dr. Rogers had come by for a quick visit but could offer no promises. “He could wake up at any time,” he stated, but had not said what they all were thinking—that Ben might never wake up. Ruth had gone home at noon, asleep on her feet, and the two of them had sat in the waiting room hour after hour. Dani had gone in to see Ben at noon, but the sight had shocked her. He had been very pale, and the glowing faces of the dials, the tubes that ran into his body, and the machine noises frightened her. She had stood by his bed, reaching down once to let her hand rest on his forehead, but he seemed drained of life, and she left the room quickly at the nurse’s word.
Sixkiller had picked up on her mood but had not rushed to comfort her with platitudes. When she had told him how Ben looked, he’d stood there, his big hands at his sides and a brooding look in his ebony eyes. All he said was, “Ben’s a tough one. He’ll make it.”
But ignoring her protests, he had made her leave the waiting room. “Nothing to do here until four o’clock,” he had announced firmly. “Let’s take a walk.” Luke had practically dragged her outside and walked her hard, stopping once in a while to look at some ducks in a small lake. “Mallards.” He nodded. “Like to have one of them all roasted with some wild rice.” They were tamed by their stay and came out of the water, waddling up and quacking for handouts. One of them was not a mallard, and Dani asked with interest, “What in the world is that duck? Or is it a duck?”
“Sure it’s a duck—a Muscovy duck.”
Dani stared at it. “That’s the ugliest duck I’ve ever seen in my life!”
“To you, maybe.” Sixkiller shrugged. “But to a female Muscovy duck this one may be the Robert Redford of the duck world.”
Dani smiled and watched the bird, which was very large and black, with short legs. But he had a tremendous red wattle right in front of his eyes and what looked like red warts scattered around it.
Sixkiller informed her, “They’re good laying ducks. People raise them for the eggs.”
“How do you know so much about ducks?” Dani asked.
Sixkiller gave her a sly look. “I’m an Indian. Us noble savages know lots of stuff you palefaces don’t,” he teased.
He had taken her back to the hospital a few minutes before four o’clock. When Dani came out of Ben’s room with the report that he looked no better, Luke had suggested, “Let’s feed Handsome some bread; then we’ll go get some Tex-Mex food.” He had driven her to a small convenience store, bought five loaves of bread, and they had gone back to the pond and fed the ducks. Handsome, as they called the Muscovy, was a bully, keeping the mallards from the food by headlong rushing and horrible hissings.
“Reminds me of some of my relatives,” Sixkiller had remarked, and Dani had laughed.
Afterward he had taken her to El Patio and practically forced her to eat a good meal. Then he had driven to a motel a few blocks from the hospital and gotten two rooms. When she had protested, he had simply pushed her into the room with the words, “Lie down. If you can’t sleep, at least you can rest.”
She had taken a shower and lain down. To her surprise, she had dropped off to sleep. Two hours later his knock had awakened her, and she had felt refreshed as they went back to the waiting room.
Ben seemed the same, and Sixkiller said when she came out and gave her report, “Let’s take a drive.” Then he had driven her around the city, commenting, “God made the country, man made the town. Us Sioux had a good thing going until you white guys came along and screwed it up.”
They got back to the hospital at a quarter to eight. There was still no change. Dani stood beside Ben’s still figure, prayed, and felt frightened. He had not moved once during any of the visits. When she went out, she worried, “Luke, he’s bad. I wish the doctor would come.”
She had refused to leave the waiting room, for the nurse had mentioned that Dr. Rogers usually made his rounds at midnight. Now, sitting alone, she realized how skillfully Luke had maneuvered her, for her nerves would have been frayed if she had remained in the waiting room all day. He was one of the hardest men she had ever known, but she knew now that beneath that hard muscle and tough manner lay a sensitive spirit.
Suddenly Dr. Rogers came through the door, calling, “Miss Ross?” Dani sprang to her feet eagerly. “Come along,” he directed. “We’ll see how he’s doing.”
She followed him down the hall, walking rapidly to keep up with him. He was in his sixties, a tall man with long legs, a thatch of white hair, and a set of steady gray eyes. He said nothing at all, and she stood back as he read the charts without comment, then moved next to the bed and looked down at Ben. Dani moved opposite him as he reached out and lifted an eyelid and peered into Ben’s eye with a lighted instrument. When he straightened up and glanced at her, she could read nothing in his expression.
He had a very thick southern accent—a South Carolina one, she discovered later. “Ah can’t tell you anything new, Miss Ross. Like Ah said before, this kind of injury—well, theah’s no way to make a prognosis.” He frowned and shook his head, looking down at Ben, lost in thought. He appeared very tired, and his lips were pulled together in a tight seam.
“Can’t you tell me anything, Dr. Rogers?”
He brought his gray eyes back to study her. “You his lady friend?”
Dani flushed, then explained quickly, “I’m his employer.”
Dr. Rogers looked at her as if she were a specimen under a microscope. A hint of humor touched his eyes, though he didn’t smile. “Must be a pretty good workuh for you to come all the way heah to sit with him.”
“We’re—good friends, Doctor,” Dani said quietly.
He nodded. “Ah see that. Well, the good news, Miss Ross, is that theah’s nothing bad wrong with him—that we can find. He’s got a very bad concussion, but I’ve seen worse cases snap out of a coma like this and never have a minute’s problem. The bad news is that theah may be somethin’ we can’t find. That brain heah—” he put his hand on Ben’s forehead and frowned, “—well, it’s the most complicated object on God’s earth! Just one little wire out of place—and the whole machine shuts down.”
“You think he might die?” Dani asked, keeping her vo
ice steady.
“I don’t think so, but he might. And he might live and nevah think a logical thought again.”
Dani kept her gaze locked into his, and stated evenly, “I’m going to believe he’s going to be completely well.”
Dr. Rogers nodded briefly. “Bettuh to think that, Miss Ross. But it’s out of my hands. Not much we doctuhs can do with something like this.”
She knew he was telling her to be prepared for death, but she declared, “I’m a Christian, Dr. Rogers. Ben may be beyond your help, but he’s not beyond God’s help.”
He had heard it before, she could tell, and had no doubt seen men and women who had been prayed for die. But he merely nodded and offered, “I’ll let you know if theah’s any change, Miss Ross.”
He left abruptly. Dani put her hand on Ben’s forehead and prayed quietly. When the nurse came in, she left the room and found Sixkiller waiting. “What’s the doc say?” he asked.
“He says that he can’t do anything. Ben might wake up all right at any time—but he might not make it.” Then she squared her shoulders and pronounced firmly, “But I’m trusting God to bring him out of it!”
Sixkiller felt sudden admiration for Dani, for though he was not a Christian, he had made some close observations of the young woman before him. He saw that despite the fatigue and pressure that marked her face and made her strong shoulders droop, she was not giving up. He encouraged her, “Ben’s lucky to have you in his corner.” Then he called, “Come on.”
“Where to?”
“I’m going to put you to bed.” Sixkiller took her arm and led her out of the waiting room as if she were a recalcitrant child. He spoke of other things as he drove her to the motel. When they got to her door, he ordered, “You sleep eight hours. I’ll see Ben at four o’clock. Then you can see him at eight.” He hesitated, then warned, “This may be a long-time thing, Dani. You’ve got to take care of yourself.”
Revenge at the Rodeo Page 4
