CHAPTER 10
Smoke climbed halfway up the corral fence, standing on one of the rails and holding onto the top one with his left hand to steady himself. He took off his hat with his right hand and waved it in circles above his head to get everyone’s attention. When the noise died down, he called out in his powerful voice, “Howdy, everyone, and welcome to the Sugarloaf!”
The crowd responded with cheers, applause, and whistles.
“Thank you for coming here today to help my family celebrate the marriage of my son Louis to Melanie Buckner. We’re welcoming two fine folks to the Jensen family today, not only Melanie, but her son Brad!” Smoke held out his hat toward the porch, indicating where Louis and Brad still stood.
Brad waved as the guests yelled and clapped some more.
“Now, in a little while,” Smoke went on, “things are going to settle down and we’re going to hold the wedding ceremony with all the dignity and reverence it deserves. Marriage is a mighty fine thing, and I ought to know since I’ve been hitched to the most beautiful woman in the world for a lot of years now!”
“You’d better not start getting too specific about the number of years, Smoke,” Louis Longmont called with a grin on his handsome face. “Sally might not appreciate that!”
The good-natured gibe drew plenty of laughter. Smoke waved his hat in acknowledgment of the response, then went on. “After the ceremony, we’re all going to have a fine dinner and spend the afternoon visiting with friends. Then, this evening, get ready for plenty of music and dancing in an old-fashioned fandango!”
That brought whoops and applause.
“Before any of that, though, we have another treat for you to celebrate this day,” continued Smoke. “Fellas from all over the valley have brought their finest, fastest horses here today to put on a thrilling display of speed and horsemanship! It’s a race, folks, and let’s hear it for the men and horses who are going to take part!”
Another sweep of his hat indicated the riders arrayed at the starting line. The men hadn’t mounted yet, but a sense of anticipation was palpable among them, and among the horses, as well.
“The course is well marked with flags. It’s two miles up the valley, then you turn around in front of Elephant Butte and ride two miles back here to where you started. First horse back gets to claim the title of fastest horse in the valley, and I reckon his rider can claim to be the best rider, but we all know it’s the horse who does all the real work, right, folks?”
More laughter answered that.
“All right, boys, mount up!” Smoke called. “Keep your eyes on my hat, and when it comes down, that’s your signal to take off!”
Denny was about three-fourths of the way along the line between Steve Markham on her left and another cowboy she didn’t know on her right, although she thought maybe she had seen that man a time or two in Big Rock. This was the first real test of how Rocket was going to behave, she thought as she lifted her left foot to the stirrup and grasped the saddle horn with both hands. She took a deep breath, held it, and swung up onto Rocket’s back.
The black mustang shifted but didn’t start bucking. Denny was grateful for that. Under the brim of her hat, she glanced right and left, saw the other riders watching her father up on the corral fence and waiting for his signal to begin the race. She wanted to look, too, but she wasn’t going to risk peering directly at him. If he spotted her and recognized her, would he stop the race before it ever started and demand that she drop out? She didn’t believe he would make a scene like that on Louis’s wedding day, but she didn’t want to chance it.
When the others all took off, she would, too. Rocket was fast enough that a split-second delay wouldn’t make any difference.
As she settled into the saddle, Markham said from beside her, “Good luck.”
“Same to you,” she growled, not wanting to be completely rude. She leaned forward as tension gripped her.
“Go!” Smoke shouted.
From the corner of her eye, Denny saw her father’s hat sweep down swiftly. She dug her heels into Rocket’s flanks, and he took off running straight ahead.
And she had been right, she saw immediately. The slight lag in his start didn’t make any difference. Rocket’s opening lunge more than made up for it.
He ran easily, cleanly, muscles working smoothly under the sleek black hide. It was as pure a stride as anyone in those parts had ever seen. Over the thunder of hooves, Denny heard the crowd yelling and imagined they were yelling for her and Rocket. Logically, she knew they were just cheering the start of the race, but it felt good, anyway.
As was to be expected, the horses started the race bunched up but quickly began to spread out as the speedier animals moved to the front. Of course, some of the horses back in the pack might be fast, too, and their riders were holding them back, conserving their strength for a stretch run. Denny knew that was the smart thing to do. She wanted to pull Rocket in a little, but he was running so effortlessly with such seeming joy, that she didn’t have the heart to do so. Was he strong enough to maintain the pace for the entire length of the race? Denny doubted it and was about to force herself to haul back on the reins when Steve Markham’s buckskin swept past her with Markham leaning forward in the saddle, whooping at the top of his lungs.
Denny gritted her teeth and started to urge Rocket to a faster pace instead. She suppressed the impulse at the last moment and followed through on her original plan, slowing the mustang. As Markham pulled away from her, he threw a cocky grin back over his shoulder at her.
Again, that almost ruined Denny’s self-control, but she managed to keep a tight rein on her temper as well as on Rocket.
They were in the middle of the pack, with more than a dozen horses ahead of them. They had covered about half the distance to Elephant Butte. Denny could see the huge, hump-backed rock formation looming ahead of them. Bright red flags on stakes that marked the course flashed past them. Another few minutes and they would reach the big, sweeping turn that would take the horses back toward the ranch headquarters.
Denny had seen Cal and Pearlie laying out the course a couple of days earlier. That might have given her a bit of an unfair advantage, she thought, but she wasn’t going to worry about it. It wasn’t like there were any tricky twists or turns. The whole thing was pretty easy to follow.
She could tell that Rocket wanted to run harder and faster, but she continued holding him in. Once they had made the turn and covered about half of the distance back to the finish line would be the time for them to make their move, she told herself. If she could keep the mustang under control until then.
Up ahead, the frontrunners had reached the turn. They swept around it and headed back in the direction from which they had come. That leg of the course angled in and gradually followed the same route as had led out.
Denny saw Steve Markham ahead of her on the buckskin. The horse had slowed, but not for the turn, because they hadn’t gotten there yet. The buckskin wasn’t exactly faltering, but Denny could tell that it was tired. Markham had pushed it too hard. Maybe he had overestimated how much stamina his mount actually had, or maybe he had just allowed his own enthusiasm and overconfidence to get the best of him. Either way, Denny and Rocket were overtaking them, and when Markham glanced back, the dismay on his face showed that he was aware of it.
Denny would have liked to tip her hat to him in a mocking salute as Rocket drew even with and gradually passed the buckskin. She couldn’t do that, of course, since her pinned-up hair might come loose and tumble freely around her shoulders, and she didn’t want that to happen until she had won the race and could reveal who she was without having to worry about her parents stopping her. She settled for looking over at Markham and touching a finger to her hat brim as she passed him.
Now who was leaving whom in the dust?
Elephant Butte was only a couple of hundred yards away. Denny could see the rock’s rough surface rising ahead of her. Off to the right of the butte lay an area of deep, brush-choked gullies, not worth anything as graze, although cows sometimes insisted on getting stuck in them. Denny shifted her grip on the reins as she got ready to steer Rocket into the turn back to the left.
But Rocket didn’t turn. Instead the mustang lunged straight on, lowering his head as if he intended to plow right into Elephant Butte. The sudden, unexpected jerk on the reins caused them to slip out of Denny’s fingers.
“Rocket!” she cried as she fumbled for the reins but failed to grasp them. “Rocket, stop!”
Rocket didn’t heed the order. He was running full-tilt as if nothing in the world could stop him.
And with the butte in front and the gullies to the right, if the mustang didn’t stop, disaster was rushing straight toward Denny.