The American Gun Mystery (Death At the Rodeo)

1: Work in Progress

A large subterranean chamber strongly acrid with the smell of horseflesh, loud and resonant with the snorting and stamping of horses. In one corner an alcove hewn out of solid concrete, and in the alcove a smithy. Its forge was violently red, and fireflies of sparks darted about. A half-naked pigmy with oily black skin and preposterous biceps hammered like Thor’s little brother on metal which curved sullenly under his rhythmic blows. The low flat ceiling, the naked walls, framed the chamber in stone... This might be Pegasus, this arch-necked stallion champing in his stall, naked and sleek as the day he was foaled. His harem of mares whinnied and nickered about him; and occasionally his scarlet eyes flashed as he pawed the strawed floor with the dainty arrogance of his Arabian ancestors.

Horses, dozens of them, scores of them; tame horses, trick horses, wild horses; saddle horses, raw horses. The sharp effluvium of dung and sweat and breath hung, an opalescent mist, in the strong atmosphere. Gear gleamed before the stalls; brass glittering on oily leather; saddles like brown satin; stirrups like shining platinum; halters like ovals of ebony. And there were coiled lariats on the posts, and Indian blankets...

For this was the stable of a king. His crown was a flaring Stetson, his sceptre a long-barreled Colt pistol, his domain the wide and dusty plains of the American West. His praetorian guard were bow-legged men who rode like centaurs, drawled in a quaint soft speech, rolled cigarets deftly, and whose brown wrinkled eyes held the calm immensities of those who scan the stars under an unadulterated vault of heaven. And his palace was a sprawling rancho — thousands of miles from this place.

For this stable of a king with his odd crown and his strange sceptre and his extraordinary guard was not set in its proper place on the plains of a rolling country. It was not in Texas, or in Arizona, or in New Mexico, or in any of the curious lands where such kings rule. It lay under the feet of a structure endemically American; but not the America of mountains and hills and valleys and trees and sage-brush and plains; rather the America of skyscrapers, subways, rouged chorines, hotels, theatres, breadlines, night-clubs, slums, speakeasies, radio towers, literati, and tabloids. It was as remote from its native habitat as the cots of England or the rice-fields of Japan. A stone’s-throw away that equally curious domain, Broadway, speared through the humorless laughter of New York. Thirty feet above and fifty feet to the south and east roared the metropolis. Past the portals of the architectural Colossus in whose cellars it lay flew a thousand automobiles a minute.

The Colosseum, New York’s new and hugest temple of sport...

Horses, the warp and woof of the outdoors, crated like rabbits over immense distances so that West and East might meet...

It could not happen in England, where institutions take root in their proper soil and, uprooted, die. The fountains of sacred rivers flow upwards only in America. Long ago the brawny men of the West occasionally gathered from far places in a holiday mood to show off their prowess with horses and lariats and steers. It was an amusement of the West, for the West. Today it was ripped up from its alkaline soil and transplanted bodily — horses, lariats, steers, cowboys and all — to the stony soil of the East. Its name — rodeo — was retained. Its purpose — ingenuous amusement — was debased. Spectators filed through iron aisles and paid admissions to sagacious promoters. And this was the largest fruit, the horticultural apotheosis, of the West-to-East transplantation — Wild Bill Grant’s Rodeo.

Now in the stable, near the stall of the princely stallion, stood two men. The shorter of the two was an odd creature with a muscular right arm; the left was a stump above the elbow swinging in a gaudy knotted sleeve. His face was lean, his expression was saturnine; whether it had been painted by the black brush of the burning sun or was a splash of something hot in the caldron of his own nature was not easily determined. In his bearing there was something of the stallion’s arrogance; on his thin lips something of the stallion’s sneer. This was that bitter man, One-Arm Woody — odd nomenclature for nobility! who in the lingo of his caste was known as the “top-rider” of the outfit; which is to say, Wild Bill Grant’s featured performer. Woody, whose amber eyes were murderous, possessed the sinewy agelessness of a myth.

The other was quite different, and in his difference equally extraordinary. He was a tall buckaroo, lean as a pine and ever so slightly stooped, as a pine stoops in the high wind. He seemed old and enduring as the Nevada hills; shaggy white on top, dark-brown underneath, and over all the glaze of sharp fresh air and time-buffeted strength. In his face one saw no outstanding feature; it was one with his strong old body, and the whole made an epic figure, like an ancient statue dimly perceived through the mists of ages. His eyelids were strong and brown, and habitually they dropped to cover all but the merest slits, through which frigid colorless chips of eyes stared unblinkingly. This creature of another world was dressed, strangely enough, in the most ordinary of Eastern clothes.

Old Buck Horne! Product of the acrid plains and Hollywood — yes, Hollywood, which like Moloch engulfs all; as dear to the hearts of modern American boys as that legendary buckaroo, Buffalo Bill, had been to the boys of a bygone generation. This was the man who had reanimated the old West. Not the West of Fords and tractors and gasoline-pumps, but the West of the ’70’s, of heavy six-shooters, of the James Boys and Billy the Kid, of horse-thieves and drunken Indians, of cattle-rustlers, saloons, false-fronts and board-walks and fighting sheriffs and range-wars. Buck Horne had accomplished this miracle of resurrection by the instrument of motion pictures; himself an authentic figure out of the past, he had been romantic enough to employ the silver screen to bring the past to life; and there was not a red-blooded young man alive who had not as a boy thrilled to Buck Horne’s dashing exploits with horse and rope and gun in the flickering pictures which raced across a thousand screens the country over.

Two blobs of color. One-Arm Woody, old Buck Horne.

And the wheel stood still.

One-Arm Woody shifted his curved legs, and thrust his hatchety face an inch nearer the brown face of Horne.

“Buck, ya mangy ole breed, y’oughta go back to the flickers with the rest o’ the dudes,” he drawled.

Buck Horne said nothing.

“Pore ole Buck,” said Woody, and his stump of a left arm jerked a little. “Cain’t scarcely drag yore laigs aroun’.”

And Buck said coldly: “Meaning?”

The one-armed man’s eyes flashed, and his right hand forked the brass-studded end of his belt. “Damn you, yo’re hornin’ in!”

A horse nickered, and neither man turned his head. Then from the lips of the tall old fellow came a soft stream of words. Woody’s five fingers twitched, and his mouth twisted wryly. The muscular right arm darted up, and the old man crouched...

“Buck!”

They straightened up on the instant, like puppets at the pull of a finger, and they turned their heads with the same jerky motion. Woody’s arm fell to his side.

Kit Horne stood in the door of the stable regarding them with level eyes. Buck’s girl! Left an orphan, she was not of his dusty blood, but he had brought her up, and his own wife had suckled her at rich breasts. The wife was gone, but Kit remained.

She was tall, almost as tall as Buck, and sun-tanned, and as wiry as a wild mare. Her eyes were grayest blue, and her little nostrils quivered slightly. She was dressed a la mode; her gown was smart New York, and her jaunty turban latest Fifth Avenue. “Buck, you ought to feel ashamed of yourself. Quarreling with Woody!”

Woody scowled, and then smiled, and then scowled again as he flicked the brim of his Stetson. He strode off on his absurdly bowed legs; and though his lips moved no sound came from them. He disappeared behind the smithy.

“He says I’m old,” muttered old Buck Horne.

She took his hard brown hands in hers. “Never mind, Buck.”

“Damn him, Kit, he ain’t goin’ to tell me—”

“Never mind, Buck.”

He smiled suddenly and put his arm about her waist.

Kit Horne was as well-known to the younger generation as her famous foster-father was to those who had been the younger generation ten and fifteen years before. Bred on a ranch, reared on a horse, with cowboys for playmates, a Bowie knife as a teething-ring, limitless rolling acres of range as a playground, and her foster-father a motion-picture star — around her a Hollywood press-agent contrived to drape a tinsel legend. Buck’s producer had had an idea. Buck was growing old. Kit, who was more man than woman and more woman than Circe, should take his place in the films. That had been nine years before, when she was a straight-backed tomboy of sixteen... The children went wild over her. She could ride, shoot, rope, swear; and, since there must always be a hero, she could kiss and cuddle too. So she became Kit Horne, the great cowgirl star, and her pictures sold at a premium while old Buck slid quietly into oblivion.

They walked out of the stable, up a ramp, and through narrow concrete corridors to a vast wing which held dressing rooms. Over one of the doors there was a metal star; Buck kicked the door open.

“Star!” he bellowed. “Come in, Kit, come in, an’ shut the door behin’ you... An’ I’ve got to take that horse-thief’s lip! Sit down, I tell you.”

He flung himself into a chair like a sulky boy, frowning, his brown hands clenching and unclenching. Kit ruffled his white hair fondly and smiled; and in the depths of her gray-blue eyes there was anxiety.

“Whoa!” she said softly. “You’re off your feed, Buck, upset. Get a grip on yourself. Isn’t this — don’t snarl, you old catamount! — all this excitement just a little too much for you?”

“Stop talking like a prime fool, you, Kit.”

“You’re sure—?”

“Shut up, Kit! I’m all right.”

“Did the rodeo doctor look you over, you old heller?”

“T’day. Says I’m fit.”

She took a long match out of his vest pocket, struck it expertly against the back of the chair, and held it to the tip of a slender cigaret he had been rolling. “You’re sixty-five, Buck.”

He squinted humorously up at her through the fragrant smoke. “You mean I’m through. Listen, Kit, though I been out o’ pictures for three years—”

“Nine,” said Kit gently.

“Three,” said Buck. “I made a come-back for National, didn’t I? Well, I’m as frisky now as I was then. Feel that muscle!” He doubled his big right arm and obediently she tapped his biceps. They were hard as rock. “What the hell, Kit — this is soft pickin’s. A little ridin’, a little shootin’, some fancy ropin’ — you know how I been keepin’ in trim at the ranch these nine-ten years. This racket here with Wild Bill is easy as brandin’ a roped steer. Bill’ll build me up, I’ll get a nice fat movie contract...”

She kissed his forehead. “All right, Buck. Just be — be careful, won’t you?”

At the door she looked back. Buck had propped his long legs on his dressing table, and he was frowning thoughtfully at his reflection in the mirror through a screen of pearly smoke.

Kit sighed a woman’s sigh as she closed the door; and then, drawing her tall figure up, she strode with a man’s strides through the corridors and down another ramp.

Little pops! came faintly to her ears. Some excitement livened her pleasant face, and she hurried purposefully in the direction of the sounds. People passed her — the old familiar people: cowboys in chaps and sombreros, girls in buckskins and short flaring halved skirts. There was the smell of leather, the soft sound of drawling talk, the haze of home-made cigarets...

“Curly! Now, isn’t that remarkable!”

She stood in the doorway to the armory — rack upon rack of long Winchester rifles, blue-steel revolvers, targets — and smiled dreamily. Curly, son of Wild Bill Grant — a young man in dusty corduroys with wide shoulders and no hips at all — lowered the muzzle of a smoking revolver, stared at her, and then whooped.

“Kit! You ole son-of-a-gun! Shore glad to see you!”

She smiled again, more dreamily. Curly was as out of place in the Colosseum and Broadway as Kit herself. He was, she assured herself for the thousandth time, good to look at. As he dashed to her, seized her hands, and grinned into her face she wondered if this new atmosphere — with its reek of gin and gimcracks — would spoil him. There was nothing romantically heroic about him; he was not remotely good-looking, and his nose was far too hawk-like for the conventional hero; but there were interesting glints in his curly brown hair which sat his head like a mat, and his eyes were sure and honest.

“Watch this,” he cried, and dashed back.

She watched, faintly smiling still.

He stepped on the pedal of a queer little apparatus with his right foot; it was a catapult. He tested it with the ball of his foot as his hands broke open the long-barreled revolver and swiftly reloaded the chambers with big fat glinting cartridges. Then he snapped the cylinder back, filled the alley of the catapult with small round objects, braced himself, and trod quickly on the pedal. The air became filled with little glass balls. And as fast as they skimmed into the air he made them disappear in a puff of smoke and tiny fragments, shooting at them with supple wrist and careless flips of his weapon.

She applauded gleefully, and he thrust his revolver into a holster and then bowed and doffed his wide-brimmed hat.

“Pretty neat, hey? Every time I pull this little stunt I think o’ Buffalo Bill. Pop’s tole me about him many a time. Used to shoot little glass balls, too, “when he was with the Wild West Show. Only he was a rotten shot, an’ used buckshot, so he never missed... Another legend busted!”

“You’re almost as good as Buck,” smiled Kit.

He seized her hands again and stared earnestly into her eyes. “Kit darlin’—”

“Buck,” she said hastily, coloring a little. “Poor Buck. I’m worried about him.”

He put her hands gently away from him. “That ole bull?” He laughed. “He’ll be mucho all right, Kit. These old-timers are built out o’ rawhide an’ steel. Like pop. You just tell Wild Bill he ain’t the man he used to be—”

“Isn’t the man he used to be, Curly.”

“Isn’t the man he use to be,” said Curly, meekly. “Anyway, don’t fret, Kit. I saw him go through the last dress rehearsal a while back.”

“Any slips?” she asked swiftly.

“Nary a one. You’d never think the ole hellion was in his sixties! Rode like a red Injun. He’ll be swell tonight, Kit, an’ the publicity—”

“Damn the publicity,” she said in a soft voice. “Did he have a run-in with Woody?”

Curly stared. “Woody? Why—”

There was a light step behind them, and they turned. A woman was standing in the armory doorway, smiling inscrutably at them.

No buckskins here. All silks and furs and scents. This beautiful creature with the lynx eyes, the incredible enamel complexion, the subtle curves of thigh and breasts, was Mara Gay. Darling of Hollywood, star of innumerable successful sex-pictures, three times divorced... the envy of a million shop-girls and the sweet painful dream of a million men.

Mara Gay ruled a kingdom which had no geographical boundaries and whose subjects were abject slaves. She was the incarnation in painted-rose flesh of a forbidden dream. And yet, at this close range, there was something cheap about her. Or was it the result of the usual disillusionment of adjusted focus?... She was in the East, resting between pictures. An impossible, insatiable woman with the appetites of a nature-myth and the lure of Cabellian Anaitis. Just now she was obsessed with a hunger for the society of overwhelmingly masculine men. Behind her loomed three of them, faultlessly dressed, carefully shaved; one of them held a yelping Pomeranian in his arms.

There was a little silence as Mara Gay drifted over the stone floor and meltingly looked at Curly, at his big frame, his flat hips, his broad shoulders, his curly hair and dusty clothes. Kit’s small chin hardened; she lost her smile and took a little, cautious, noiseless, backward step.

“Uh — hello, Mara,” said Curly with a feeble grin. “Uh — Kit, ya know Mara? Mara Gay? Hangs out in Hollywood, too. Haw, haw!”

The lynx eyes met the gray-blue expressionlessly. “Yes, I know Miss Gay,” said Kit steadily. “We’ve bumped into each other in Hollywood on several occasions. But I didn’t know you knew Miss Gay, Curly. So I’ll be going.”

And she calmly left the armory.

There was an uncomfortable interlude. The three large men in faultless clothes behind the actress stood quite still, blinking. The Pomeranian, his civilized nostrils scandalized by the vulgar odors drifting up from the stables, yelped and yelped.

“Cat,” said Mara Gay. “High-hatting me! She and her small-time horse operas.” She tossed her extraordinary head and smiled bewitchingly at Curly. “Curly, my love, you’re beautiful! Where did you get that mop of hair?”

Curly scowled. His eyes were still on the door through which Kit Horne had vanished. Then Mara’s words took meaning in his brain. “For the love of Pete, Mara,” he grumbled, “can that kind o’ mush, will ya?” His hair was the bane of his life; it lay in cunning ringlets which he had vainly attempted for years to straighten.

The actress rubbed herself gently against his arm. Her eyes went innocently wide. “This is so thrilling! All these awful revolvers and things... Can you shoot ’em, Curly darling?”

He brightened and moved away from her with alacrity. “Can I shoot ’em! Gal, yo’re talkin’ to Dead-eye Dick himself!” Reloading quickly, he flipped his revolver and once more manipulated the catapult. Balls popped into nothingness. The actress squealed with delight, moving closer.

Outside, Kit Horne paused and her eyes were very coldly blue. She heard the pops! the tinkle of breaking glass, Mara Gay’s little squeals of admiration. She bit her lip and dashed off, striding along blindly.

The actress in the armory was saying: “Now, Curly, don’t be so bashful...” Something predacious came into her lynx eyes; she turned sharply and said to the three men behind her: “Wait outside for me.” They went obediently. She turned back to Curly and smiled a smile famous over the length and breadth of a romantic land, whispering: “Kiss me, Curly dear, oh, kiss me...”

Curly took a backward step, very noiseless and cautious, like Kit’s, and he lost his grin as his eyes narrowed. She stood very still. “Look here, Mara, aren’t you forgettin’ yourself? I don’t aim to rustle other men’s wives.”

She stepped close to him; she was very close to him now, and her scent filled his nostrils. “You mean Julian?” she said softly. “Oh, we’ve a perfect understanding, Curly. Modern marriage! Curly, don’t look so mad. There are five million men who’d leave their happy homes to have me look at them this way—”

“Well, I ain’t one of ’em,” said Curly coldly. “Where’s yore husband now?”

“Oh, upstairs somewhere with Tony Mars. Curly, please...”

If the Colosseum was the Colossus of sport arenas, its creator Tony Mars was the Colossus of sport promoters. Like Buck Horne, Mars was a living legend; but a legend of quite a different sort. He was the man who had put prize-fighting in the million-dollar class. He was the man who had scrubbed wrestling until it shone — not for ethical reasons but purely as a matter of big business — restoring it to favor with the sportsmen who financed him and the sportsmen who patronized him. He was the man who had punished the Boxing Commission by taking the largest heavyweight prizefight attraction in fistic history out of New York State and staging it in Pennsylvania. He was the man who had popularized ice-hockey, indoor tennis matches, and six-day bicycle races. The Colosseum was the culmination of his life’s dream, which had been to build the largest sports arena in the world.

His office was at the peak of that vast structure, and it was made accessible by four elevators — an opportunity for approach not neglected by the hordes of parasites for whom Broadway is peculiarly notorious. And there he sat, far in the reaches of his citadel — Tony Mars; old, wily, swarthy, hook-nosed, a New Yorker born and a New Yorker bred. He was a “sport,” in the most completely praiseworthy sense of the word. He was reputed the easiest man on Broadway for a “touch” and the hardest to put something over on. His derby rested on the bridge of his long nose, his unshined shoes scratched the veneer of his fabled walnut desk, and his two-dollar cigar smouldered between his brown jaws. He regarded his visitor thoughtfully.

The visitor was not unknown to these precincts. Suavely attired, boutonniéred, Julian Hunter was the husband of Mara Gay, but he was not historic for this feat alone; he owned a dozen night-clubs, he was the original playboy of the Main Stem, he was a sportsman with a string of polo ponies and a racing yacht, and above all he was a millionaire. Society opened its doors to him, for he came from society originally. But even society recognized him as something apart from the blue-ribboned herd. He had the pouchy eyes and pink cheeks of the well-massaged but always fatigued man-about-town; but there the resemblance stopped. It was only in the lower — or higher? — strata of the social structure that men acquired the peculiarity which was Julian Hunter’s own: the expressionless face of a wooden Indian. It was the face of the inveterate gambler. In this, at least, he and the man behind the desk were blood-brothers.

Tony Mars said in a throaty bass: “I’ll give it to you straight, Hunter, and you listen to me. As far as Buck is concerned—” He stopped abruptly. His feet crashed to the Chinese rug on the floor. His mouth curved in a disarming smile.

Julian Hunter turned lazily.

A man stood in the doorway — a man all chest and arms and legs. He was a tall man, a very tall man, a very young tall man. Set like strips of fur above his high-cheeked face were blue-black brows; his closely shaved cheeks were blue-black, as were his small bright eyes. This giant smiled, and showed white teeth.

“Come in, Tommy, come in!” said Tony Mars heartily. “Alone? Where’s that nickel-nursing manager of yours?”

Tommy Black, new heavyweight sensation of the pugilistic world, shut the door softly and stood still, smiling. Behind the smile lurked a killer’s savagery; such an expression, it was said, as Jack Dempsey had worn when he had battered Jess Willard to bleeding pulp in Toledo. The experts deemed this assassin’s instinct, it appeared, essential for the successful pugilist. Tommy Black possessed it with savagery to spare.

He slid, almost slithered, over the rug. He was like a cat on his feet. And then he was in a chair, still smiling, his incredible bulk quiescent as poured steel. “’Lo, Tony, how’s tricks?” His voice was charming. “In town for a day. Doc says I’m getting fine. Knocked off.”

“Tommy, you know Julian Hunter? Hunter, shake hands with the best damned bruiser since the Manassa Mauler.”

Hunter, the dandy, and Black, the man-killer, shook hands; Hunter indolently, Black with the crushing grip of an anaconda. Their eyes touched briefly; then Tommy Black rested quietly in the chair again. Tony Mars said nothing, seeming to be absorbed in the tip of his cigar.

“If you’re busy, Tony, I’ll scram,” said the prizefighter softly.

Mars smiled. “Stick around, kid. Hunter, you too. Mickey!” he bellowed. A burly ruffian stuck his bullet-head into the room. “I’m in conf’rence — can’t see anybody. Get me?” The door clicked shut. Black and Hunter sat without moving or looking at each other. “Now listen, Tommy, about the fight with the champ. That’s why I wired you to come up from training camp if you could.” Mars puffed thoughtfully at his cigar, and Hunter looked bored. “How you feelin’?”

“Who — me?” The fighter grinned and swelled his magnificent chest. “In the pink, Tony, in the pink. I could lick that stumble-bum with one mitt!”

“He used to be pretty good, I hear,” said Mars dryly. “How’s the trainin’ going?”

“Swell. Doc’s got me comin’ around in great shape.”

“Fine. Fine.”

“Got a little trouble gettin’ sparring partners. Busted Big Joe Pedersen’s jaw last week, and it sort of brought out the yellow in the boys.” Black grinned again.

“Yeah. Borchard of the Journal was telling me.” Mars watched the long white ash; suddenly he leaned forward and carefully deposited it in a silver tray on his desk. “Tommy, I think you’re gonna win that fight. You’ll be the new champ if you keep your head.”

“Thanks, Tony, thanks!”

Mars slowly said: “I mean, you ought to win that fight, Tommy.”

There was a windy, stormy silence. Hunter sat very still, and Mars smiled a little.

Then Black raised himself from the chair, scowling fiercely. “What the hell do you mean by that, Tony?”

“Keep you shirt on, kid, keep it on.” Black relaxed. Mars went on in a mild voice. “I’ve heard things around. You know how it is in this racket. They’re always smellin’ frame-ups. Now I’ll talk to you like a Dutch uncle — or maybe like a father because, boy, you need one! That lousy manager of yours would just as soon give you a bum steer and the old double-cross as not. Kid, you’re in the big time. Many a good boy hit the big time, and then the big time hit him because he wasn’t a wise guy. See? You know my rep, Tommy — square. That’s my way. You work my way and we’ll make plenty simoleons together. You don’t work my way—” He stopped as if he had come to the end of his sentence. There was a ringing inevitability about his words that was not entirely absorbed by the Chinese rug and the thick wall-hangings.

He puffed placidly at his cigar.

“Well,” said Black.

“So that’s how it is, Tommy,” said Mars. “There’s a lot of heavy sugar bein’ laid down on you to win. It’s straight sugar — nothin’ crooked about it. On form, strength, youth, record — you’re the comin’ champ. See that you get there. Or if you stop one in the whiskers — an’ don’t kid yourself that the champ’s a pushover — see that you stop it clean. See?”

Black rose. “Hell, I don’t known what’s eatin’ you, Tony,” he said in an injured tone. “You don’t have to go back on me, too! I know what side my bread’s buttered on, believe me!.. Well, glad to’ve met you, Mr. Hunter.” Hunter raised his eyebrows in acknowledgment. “So long, Tony, See you in a couple of weeks.”

“You bet.”

The door closed with a little snick.

“You think,” drawled Hunter, “that the scrap isn’t on the up-and-up, Tony?”

“What I think, Hunter,” said Mars genially, “is nobody’s business but mine. But I’ll tell you one thing: nobody’s stealin’ the gold outa my bridgework.” He stared at Hunter, and Hunter shrugged. “Now,” continued the promoter in quite a different tone, as he replaced his feet on the shining walnut, “to get back to Bucko the Horne, God’s gift to the kids. I’m tellin’ you, Hunter, you’d be passin’ up a swell chance—”

“I can keep my mouth shut, too, Tony,” murmured the sportsman with a smile. “By the way, where does Grant come in on this?”

“Wild Bill?” Mars squinted at his cigar. “What the hell would you expect? Him an’ Buck have been pals ever since Sittin’ Bull took Custer for a ride. Sort of Da-mon and Py-thias business.” Hunter grunted. “Wild Bill’s entitled to his, and I for one aint’ cuttin’ him out of his gravy...”

Wild Bill Grant sat at his desk in the elaborate office placed at his disposal by Tony Mars. It was from this fane that the Delphic words came which moved the whole complex machinery of the rodeo. The desk was littered: cigaret stubs, cigar butts, all dead and cold, were sprawled like fallen soldiers on the edge of the desk’s side, where Grant had deposited them in an unconscious thrift which dated from less prosperous days. The ash-trays, of which there were a half-dozen, were quite clean.

Grant sat his swivel-chair as if it were a horse. His left buttock hung over empty space, and his left leg was stiffly outstretched, so that the whole effect was one of a man riding side-saddle. He was a square, chunky, grizzled old-timer with a walrus mustache and faded gray eyes; the skin of his rough face was brick-red, tough, and seamed and pitted as porous rock. That he was hard as nails was evident from the powerful muscles of his bare forearms and the complete lack of superfluous flesh on his torso. He wore a clumsy bow-tie, and an astonishingly ancient Stetson lay far back on his iron-gray head. This was the Wild Bill Grant who in his youth had been a fighting United States Marshal in the Indian Territory. He was as out of place in the midst of Tony Mars’s shiny office appointments as an Esquimau in a tea-shoppe.

There was a confused mass of papers before him — contracts, bills, orders. He rustled them impatiently, chafing, and reached for a gnawed butt.

A girl came in — pert, trim, artistically cosmetized; genus, New York stenographer. “There’s a gentlem’n wants to see you, Mr. Grant.”

“Waddy?”

“Beg pardon?”

“Puncher — want a job?”

“Yes’r. He says he has a letter for you from Mr. Horne.”

“Oh! Send ’em in, sister.”

She departed with a neat wiggle of her slim hips, and a moment later held the door open for a tall spare poorly dressed Westerner. The visitor stumped in on high cowboy’s heels; they clattered on the border of the floor. His shabby sombrero was in his hand. He wore a tattered, rainwashed old mackinaw, and his boots were down at the heel.

“Come in!” said Grant heartily; he surveyed his visitor with appraising eyes. “What’s this about a letter from Buck?”

There was something the matter with the man’s cleanshaven face, something horribly the matter. The entire left side was brownish purple in color, and puckered and drawn. The purple patch began below the jaw-line and extended to a half-inch above the left eyebrow. A very small spot of purple on the right cheek put a period to what seemed to be the ravages of fire, or acid. He had bad teeth, stained molasses-brown... With a little twitch of his shoulders, Wild Bill Grant looked away.

“Yes’r.” The man’s voice was husky, hoarse. “Buck an’ me, we’re old bunkies, Mr. Grant. Punched long-horns down Texas way twenty year’ ago. Buck, he don’t forget his pals.” He fumbled in a pocket of the mackinaw and brought out a rather crushed envelope; this he handed to Grant, and then stared at the showman anxiously.

Grant began to read: “‘Dear Bill: This is Benjy Miller, an old friend. Needs a job...’” There was more; Grant read the note through. Then he tossed it on his desk and said: “Have a seat, Miller.”

“Shore nice of you, Mr. Grant.” Miller sat down on the edge of a leather chair, cautiously.

“Cigar?” There was pity in Grant’s eyes; the man made a pitiable figure. Although his hair was sandy in color, untouched by gray, he was undoubtedly past middle age.

Miller’s mouth opened in a brown grin. “Now, that’s shore friendly, Mr. Grant. Don’t mind if I do.”

Grant tossed a cigar across the desk; Miller sniffed it and put it in the breast pocket of his mackinaw. Grant pressed a button on the side of his desk; the stenographer came in again. “Get Dan’l Boone in here, youngster. Hank Boone.”

She looked blank. “Who?”

“Boone, Boone. Sawed-off waddy who’s always drunk. You’ll find him jawin’ around somewhere.”

The girl went out, wiggling her hips; Grant stared after her appreciatively.

He chewed his frayed cigar. “Ever play the rodeo circuit, Miller?”

Miller’s shoulders shuddered. “No, sir! I been on the range all my life. Never did nothin’ fancy.”

“Bulldog?”

“Some. I used to be purty good in my young days, Mr. Grant.”

Wild Bill grunted. “Can you ride?”

The man flushed. “Listen here, Mr. Grant—”

“No offense meant,” drawled Grant. “Well, we’re full up, Miller, an’ this ain’t no remuda; don’t need no cattlepunchers...”

Miller said slowly: “So you ain’t got a job fer me?”

“Didn’t say that,” snapped Grant. “If yo’re Buck Horne’s friend, I’ll take you on. You can trail along with the posse aroun’ Buck t’night. Got any gear? Got yore hull?”

“Nos’r. I... I hocked most ev’rything in Tucson.”

“Uh-huh.” Grant squinted at his crumbling cigar; the door opened and a weazened little cowboy rolled in, his bowlegs wobbly and his bandana knot set at a rakish angle. “Oh, Dan’l, you loco son of a cross-eyed maverick! Come on in here.”

The little cowboy was very drunk. He cocked his Stetson forward and lurched to the desk. “Wil’ Bill — Wil’ Bill, I’m here at yore command... What the hell you want, Bill?”

“Yo’re tanked again, Dan’l.” Grant fixed him with a disapproving eye. “Dan’l, this is Benjy Miller — friend o’ Buck’s. Joinin’ the outfit. Show him the ropes — the stable, where he bunks, the arena...”

Boone’s bleared eyes took in the shabby visitor. “Friend o’ Buck’s? Pleased t’meet ya, Miller! Shome — some outfit we got here, feller. We—”

They passed out of Grant’s office. Grant grunted and, after a moment, put Buck Horne’s note in one of his pockets.

As they tramped down a long runway leading to the heart of the Colosseum, Boone tottering along, the man Miller said: “How come he calls you Dan’l? Thought I heard ’m say Hank to the girl.”

Boone guffawed. “Shmart — smart filly, ain’t she? Fresher’n new fodder! Well, I’ll tell ya, Miller. I wash — was born Hank, but the ole man, he says: ‘Maw, you kin call ’im Hank after yore mother’s secon’ husband’s brother, but by hell! I’m callin’ him Dan’l after the best damn Boone that ever drawed a bead on a red Injun!’ An’ Dan’l I been ever since. Haw, haw!”

“You sound like you come from the Northwest some’eres.”

The little cowboy nodded gravely. “Do I? Fact ish — is, my paw he punched cows in Wyoming. Ole Sam Hooker, he used to say: ‘Dan’l,’ he says, ‘don’t you never disgrace the fair name of yore native state,’ he says, ‘or me an’ yore paw we’ll come a-ha’ntin’ ya.’ I been trailed by ghoshts — ghosts ever since... Well, Miller ole hoss, here we are. Some range, hey?”

It was a huge amphitheatre, illuminated by thousands of harshly shedding bulbs. Its twenty thousand seats, arranged in an oval, were unoccupied. The arena, a long ellipse, was almost three times as long as it was wide, separated from the amphitheatre proper by a concrete wall, on the inner side of which ran the track, a fifteen-foot runner of tanbark. Inside this oval track lay the core of the arena, a bare expanse. It was here that steers were roped from running horses, wild broncos were “busted” by expert horsemen, and other rodeo events were staged. At each end of the oval — on east and west — a huge doorway led to the backstage of the arena, in one of which Miller and Boone stood. Other exits, many rigged with special chute gates for the equine events, dotted the concrete wall. High above — and yet not so high as that immensely distant roof of steel girders — the tiny figures of workmen crept along the tiers, manicuring the stadium for the evening’s performance, which would officially open the New York stand of Wild Bill Grant’s Rodeo.

In the hard-packed earth of the arena core a number of men in Western regalia lounged, smoking and talking.

Boone staggered forward into the arena, turning his woeful little eyes on his companion. “Reg’lar rodeo man, Miller?”

“Nope.”

“Down on yore luck, hey?”

“It’s hard times, cowboy.”

“Shore is! Well, you gladhand the gang an’ you’ll perk up. Got boys here come all the way from the Rio.”

Boone and his charge were greeted hilariously by the chapped and sombreroed men in the group. The ugly little fellow seemed a favorite with them; he was instantly the butt of friendly jeers and jibes. In the hubbub Miller was forgotten; he stood silently by, waiting.

“Uh — damn if I ain’t gone an’ fergot my manners!” cried Boone, after a moment. “Waddies, meet an ole bunkie o’ Buck Horne’s. Benjy Miller is his handle, an’ he’s joinin’ up with the outfit.”

Dozens of steady eyes took in the newcomer, and the talk and laughter died away. They surveyed his shabby clothes, his crooked heels, his frightfully mutilated face.

“Jock Ramsey,” said Boone soberly, introducing a tall dour cowboy with a cleft upper lip.

“Meetya.” They shook hands.

“Texas Joe Halliwell.” Halliwell nodded briefly and began to roll a cigaret. “Tex is God’s gift to the workin’ gals, Miller. Here’s Slim Hawes.” Hawes was a dumpy, jolly-faced cowboy with unsmiling eyes. “Lafe Brown. Shorty Downs.” Boone went on and on. Famous rodeo names, these; of men who followed the big circle with their well-worn gear, hopping from rodeo to rodeo, working for prize-money, paying their own expenses, most of them penniless, many scarred by the hazards of their profession.

There was an interval of silence. Then Lafe Brown, a powerful man in colorful costume, smiled and dipped his fingers into his pocket. “Roll yore own, Miller?” He proffered a little sack of tobacco.

Miller flushed. “Recken I will.” He accepted the “makin’s” and slowly, with unconscious facility, rolled a cigaret.

At once they broke into speech; Miller was accepted. Someone scratched a match on the thigh of his trousers and held it to Miller’s cigaret; he lit up and puffed silently away. They closed in about him and he merged with them, disappearing into the group.

“Now you take this here c’yote,” said Shorty Downs, a vast stalwart, as he crooked a horny finger at Boone. “You want to cinch tight when he’s bellyin’ aroun’. Steal the pants offen you, Dan’l will. His ole man was a horsethief.”

Miller smiled rather tremulously; they were trying to make him feel at home.

“How,” said Slim Hawes gravely, “how d’ya stand on the plumb earth-shakin’ question of the hackamore versus the snaffle-bit, Miller? Gotta know that first off. Hey?”

“Always used the hackamore in bustin’ raw broncs,” grinned Miller.

“He ain’t no pilgrim!” someone guffawed.

“Totes his weepens low, too, I bet!”

“Gittin’ down to cases,” began a third voice, when Downs held up his hand.

“Pull up,” he drawled. “Somethin’s wrong with Dan’l. Look sorta down in the mouth, Dan’l. Off yore feed?”

“Do I?” sighed the little cowboy. “Ain’t no wonder, Shorty. Busted my Injun arrowhead this mornin’.” Silent fell at once; smiles faded; like children’s their eyes grew round. “Damn squealin’ palomino stepped on ’er. Bad med’cine, boys. Somethin’s primed to happen powerful quick!”

“My Gawd,” breathed three of them in unison; and Downs with a swift look of concern fumbled for something beneath his shirt. Other hands dipped into the pockets of their jeans. Each one, in his superstitious way, furtively fingered his charm. This was serious; they regarded Boone with troubled eyes.

“Tough,” muttered Halliwell. “Shore is tough. Better play ’possum t’night, Dan’l. Hell, I wouldn’t even fork a circus cayuse with a busted lucky piece in my jeans!”

Ramsey reached into his back pocket and produced a flask, which he tendered to Boone in grave sympathy.

Benjy Miller’s purple cheek twitched. He stared across the arena at a platform built on wooden trestles, upon which a number of conventionally clad city men were busy in a clutter of peculiar apparatus.

They were obviously motion picture photographers. Tripods, cameras, sound-boxes, electrical equipment, boxes of many sizes lay scattered on the platform, which stood ten feet above the floor of the arena. Several were unreeling thick smooth cables sheathed in rubber, which snaked from a large and complicated machine on the floor. On each piece of equipment was lettered in bold white paint the name of a famous motion picture newsreel company.

A small slight man in dark gray stood in the dirt of the arena and directed operations; he wore a sleek black military mustache, very carefully trimmed and brushed. He paid no attention whatever to the group of picturesquely garbed Westerners some distance away across the oval.

“All set for the long shots, Major Kirby,” yelled a man on the platform.

The small man below said: “How are you fixed for sound, Jack?” to a man with earphones clamped about his head.

“So-so,” grunted this man. “Going to be a picnic, Major. Listen to the damn echo!”

“Do the best you can. It will be better when the place is full of people... I want plenty of action, boys, and all the crazy sounds that go with this rodeo racket. There’s a special on it from the Chief’s office.”

“Oke.”

Major Kirby cast his very bright little eyes over the field of empty seats and naked concrete, and lit a cigar.

“And that,” said Ellery Queen as he thoughtfully blew smoke at the ceiling, “was the wheel at rest. Now see what happened when the wheel began to whirl.”