CHAPTER 9
Denny stood in a grove of trees about two hundred yards from the ranch house, holding Rocket’s reins. The growth was thick enough to hide her from a casual glance, although somebody might spot her if they looked hard enough, or knew exactly where to look. In jeans and a brown shirt and brown hat, she sort of blended in, she hoped. She had piled her blond curls on top of her head, pinned them down tightly, and then crammed the hat over them and drew the chin strap taut so it couldn’t go anywhere. Rocket’s dark hide would be difficult to spot, too.
She had been out there since before dawn, and she was getting pretty antsy. She had never been the patient sort. At least once the sun was up and people began to arrive, she had something to watch. She occupied her mind by trying to identify as many of the guests as she could. Plenty of them were familiar to her from the time she had spent on the Sugarloaf, especially the citizens of Big Rock, but some folks she didn’t recognize. They probably came from the outlying spreads and she hadn’t happened to ever see them in town.
From that spot, she could see her mother and father on the porch of the ranch house, too, and she wondered if they had missed her yet and realized she was gone. She hoped they weren’t too worried about her. Her pa probably wasn’t. If he had noticed her absence, there was a good chance he might have figured out what she was up to. The question was whether or not he would tell her mother. Denny hoped he wouldn’t. She thought he might not.
It wasn’t as if Smoke Jensen had made a habit of doing everything polite society demanded of him, after all.
Later in the morning, Louis appeared on the porch. Denny watched him talk to their parents for a few moments, then Sally went inside. Louis stayed where he was and appeared to be having some sort of earnest discussion with Smoke. Denny wasn’t sure what that was about. She and her brother weren’t as close as they had once been and didn’t confide in each other about every little thing like they used to. That was natural enough, since they weren’t kids anymore. Still, Denny sometimes missed that.
Whatever Louis and Smoke were talking about, the conversation was interrupted by Brad, who came out onto the porch dressed in a suit and a shirt with a stiff collar. He was going to take part in the wedding ceremony and walk his mother down the “aisle,” although since they would all be outside it wasn’t a real aisle like in a church. Brad tugged at his collar, which must have been uncomfortable, and said something that made Louis and Smoke laugh.
For a second, Denny wished she was down there taking part in the joyous occasion instead of hiding out in the trees like an owlhoot. But there would be time for celebrating later . . . after she had proven that Rocket was the fastest horse and she was the best rider in the valley.
The fifty-yard-wide open area between the barn and one of the corrals was where the race would get underway. Denny kept an eye on the area. When cowboys and young men from town began congregating there to get ready for the race, she would slip out of the trees and join them as unobtrusively as possible.
She would have to be careful not to be noticed, especially since some of the racers were members of the Sugarloaf crew and had seen her plenty of times around the ranch. The hat and shirt she wore were new, though, and if she kept her head down with the hat brim obscuring her face, she hoped there was a good chance she wouldn’t be recognized. She would try to find a place in the line well away from her father’s cowboys.
The race was supposed to start at noon, with the wedding ceremony to follow at one o’clock and then the feast and party, which would stretch throughout the afternoon until the dance that evening under the light of lamps hung from tree limbs. Denny slipped a turnip watch from the pocket of her shirt and checked the time, then decided the area around the starting line was getting crowded enough to give her sufficient cover.
She put the watch away, then patted Rocket on the shoulder. “You sure have been a mighty good boy to wait out here like this,” she told him. He’d been cropping at the sparse grass under the trees from time to time, although she hadn’t allowed him to graze enough to slow him down. “Are you ready to run a little?”
Rocket hadn’t given her the least bit of trouble when she’d snuck him out of the barn early that morning, well before dawn. He hadn’t shied or spooked when she’d saddled him, and although she hadn’t put any weight on his back yet other than the saddle, he’d cooperated perfectly when she led him out to the trees. Maybe he finally had decided that it was best just to let the humans be the boss . . . that particular human, anyway.
Denny tightened her grip on the reins and muttered, “All right. Let’s go.” She walked out of the trees and headed for the starting area, moving at a brisk clip as she led the mustang. Rocket followed obediently.
She kept her head down but listened for any telltale exclamations of surprise when somebody recognized her. None came, at least that she heard. But there was such a hubbub of music and conversation and laughter in the air that she might have missed it. She risked lifting her gaze to the ranch house for a second and saw her father, Louis, and Brad still standing on the porch, talking and smiling and, in Brad’s case, fidgeting.
Denny dropped her head again and turned Rocket to bring the mustang around in the right direction. Rocket blew out a breath.
He wasn’t too happy about being around all the other horses, thought Denny.
It was a mustang’s instinct to fight, to seek dominance.
She pulled his head down a little, stroked his nose, and said quietly, “Settle down now, boy.”
“Still a mite green, ain’t he?”
Without thinking, Denny lifted her head to glance over at the man who had spoken to her. She realized too late that he might be someone who knew her.
Luckily, she had never seen the cowboy before. He was a year or two older than her, she supposed, rangy and rawboned with red hair under his battered old hat. Everything about him had a slightly down-at-heel look except his buckskin horse. If Denny was any judge of horseflesh—and she believed she was—the buckskin was a good saddle mount.
That didn’t lessen her annoyance at his presumptuous comment. Keeping her voice low and rough to disguise the fact that she was a young woman, she said, “Hell no, he ain’t. He’s just fine.”
“Sorry,” the stranger said. “He seemed a mite skittish to me, like he might want to tear into some of these other horses.”
“Don’t you worry about that. Just tend to your own business.”
“Sure, sure. Don’t get a damn burr under your saddle. Hell, I was just tryin’ to be friendly.”
“I ain’t lookin’ for friends,” Denny said.
“Yeah, I reckon that’s mighty clear. That bein’ the case, I won’t bother mentionin’ that my name’s Steve Markham.”
Denny put her back to the man and didn’t introduce herself. She would have had to come up with a fake name, anyway, so it wouldn’t have been a real introduction.
“Fine, go ahead and sull up like an old possum,” Markham went on. “It don’t matter none to me.”
He was one of those hombres in love with the sound of his own voice, Denny decided. She wondered if she could move away from him along the starting line without being too obvious about it. Probably not, because the rest of the riders seemed to be settling down where they wanted to be.
Besides, Smoke was striding in her direction, and Denny knew her father was getting ready to start the race.
“Hate to break it to you,” Markham went on, still jabbering, “but I’m gonna win this here race and claim the prize. What is the prize, anyway? I don’t reckon I’ve heard anybody say.”
Denny couldn’t stop herself from answering. Anything to shut the saddle tramp up. “There isn’t any prize. It’s just for bragging rights. But you’ll get to take in the biggest and best feed anybody’s thrown around here in a long time.”
“Well, that’s somethin’, anyway,” Markham replied with a grin. He rubbed his belly. “I’m still a growin’ boy. Got myself quite an appetite. Who’s that fella by the corral? Smoke Jensen, the old outlaw his own self?”
“He’s not an outlaw,” Denny said hotly. “He was never an outlaw.”
Markham held up his hands, palms out defensively, as he continued grasping the buckskin’s reins in his right hand. “Hold on, hold on. I didn’t mean no harm. It’s just that I’ve always heard about how Smoke Jensen was this gunfightin’, hell-raisin’peckerwood. They tell me now he’s settled down and become a rancher. This is his spread, ain’t it?”
Denny wanted to punch Steve Markham for talking about her father like that, but she couldn’t very well give in to the impulse without also giving away her real identity. So she muttered, “Yeah, this is his spread. But he’s not an outlaw.”
“Fine, whatever you say. All I care about is it looks like he’s gettin’ ready to start this race, and I’m about ready to show the rest of you my heels when me and my horse run off and leave you in the dust!”