Death Waits at Sundown Read Online Free PDF Page B

not quite understand
this. What was there about winning which could make her so mad?
    â€œYou’re despicable,” said Vicky coldly.
    â€œHuh?” said Long Tom.
    â€œYou purposely threw this contest to humiliate me!”
    Long Tom blinked and then suddenly he was angry. He
stared at her with narrowed eyes. “Well, why not?” he said savagely. “There’s
no percentage in beating a woman!”
    He turned on his heel and stalked away.

CHAPTER TWO
    Vicky Retaliates
    V ICKY STUART walked through the Indian village which was
studded with horses and papooses on this, the second day of the rodeo. Here and
there sat heavy-jowled elders upon blankets, looking very wise and
self-satisfied. In the tepees and back of them scurried the women, dressed in
beaded elkskin but working just the same.
    A few young bucks wearing business suits and braids
looked cautiously at Vicky as she passed. They knew her and were most
respectful. The old men nodded and the women smiled brightly and the papooses
gurgled.
    But Vicky’s mood was black. Her silk-crowned head was
held high and the golden spurs jangled viciously as she stamped over the green
turf.
    A hundred dollars was heavy in the pocket of her
batwings. The hundred-dollar day money which she had won by Long Tom’s
condemned dishonesty. Nothing had ever been as heavy as those paper bills. She
could feel them dragging down her spirit as though she were burdened with anvils.
    She had to stop to let a young kid get a string of
mustangs in line and she looked around her and had the funny feeling that the
whole Indian village was about to leap at her.
    A young buck was arguing vigorously with a squaw,
evidently his mother, and the woman was shaking her head. Vicky knew the boy as
a good bulldogger .
    She saw them stop and look at her and nod. She forced
herself to say, “Hello, Bucking Colt . How’s everything?”
    â€œRotten,” said the youth, spitting. “I’ve got the
fastest pony here and she won’t let me have a nickel to bet on him.”
    Vicky straightened up. She gave her Stetson a swift tug
and stepped nearer to Bucking Colt. Out of her batwing pocket she pulled the
hundred dollars and extended it.
    He took it swiftly enough.
    His mother tried to stop him. “He spendum, get drunk!”
    â€œThrow it away for all I care,” said Vicky.
    She went on. But she didn’t feel right yet. Before
twenty-five thousand people, Long Tom had pulled leather and now he was going
around telling everybody that “there’s no percentage in beating a woman!”
    She looked coolly beautiful. But she felt mean and
little inside.
    This had started so long ago that she had almost
forgotten the beginning. Long Tom had been a bashful, gangling kid, getting
thirty a month for helping handle Stuart’s rodeo string. Nobody had thought he
would ever amount to much because he was so quiet. But he had begun to practice
riding and roping. He had worked and he had grown.
    And if he had not persisted in showing her how he did
everything, she would never have gotten so mad at him. He was always so
superior, always telling her what to do and what not to do, always bossing her
around.
    She had said that she would show him someday. And when
Stuart had died, leaving her without a cent but with a riding education seldom
equaled, she had started on her way.
    Long Tom had a belt. A beautiful belt. He wore it all
the time. It was diamond-studded and upon it were letters in gold, “World’s
Champion Buckeroo.” That was hateful. She could never get such a belt. She was
a woman. They always told her how surprised they were that she could ride, damn
them! Punchers were always making up to her with, “You’re too pretty to wear
chaps.”
    Damn them!
    She hated men. She hated punchers. But most of all she
hated Long Tom Branner.
    He was so sure of himself, so superior! He knew he was
lean and good-looking. He knew that