Read Death Waits at Sundown for Free Online Page A

over to them on the run and the
stands craned their necks to see this that was happening under their noses.
    â€œWhat was wrong?” said the arena boss indignantly to
Vicky.
    She flipped up her hat brim and stared coolly at Long
Tom. Then she shrugged and turned to the arena boss.
    â€œThere’s no percentage in beating a conceited fool.”

CHAPTER THREE
    Last Event
    I T was the third and last day of the rodeo. All morning it had
rained and the track was soggy and the turf was like grease. But during the
early part of the contest there had only been clouds and now the sun was
threatening to break through.
    The rodeo was drawing to a close and the last contest
rides were done. Two punchers were in the hospital with cracked bones and
another was not feeling too well, though he hobbled around. The slippery grass
was murderous. A bulldogger’s heels could find no hold and just kept plowing.
Broncs went down at unexpected moments.
    Only the trick riders had come through unscathed, though
wet ropes had not been easy to handle.
    Tension had come into the day with dawn for Long Tom
Branner. And with the rain it had increased. Vicky had not come through on the
bucking contest but Long Tom had. His mount, Crabapple, had fallen three times
in three jumps and he had been shaken up more than he cared to admit.
    But his belt still glittered and people still persisted
in calling him that distant, if respectful, “Mr. Branner.”
    He was uneasy when he saw anyone laughing from afar. He
knew there was a great deal of merriment in the air about what Vicky had done.
    But she was not cocky about it. She merely continued to
avoid him, which was just as bad.
    And so he sat on the top of a chute gate and hooked in
his heels and stared gloomily across at the stands.
    It was funny. Here he had worked like a fool to get to
be a champion. He had ridden buckers in his dreams and in his waking hours for
six years. And he was the champion and everybody called him “Mr. Branner.”
    He had started out just to be able to hand the world to
the girl he loved. And she hated him for it.
    A long, long time ago he had tried to convince her that
he wasn’t just a bashful kid. He had almost broken his neck more than once to
show her how he could ride.
    And before that things had not been too bad. She had
been as nice to him as she was to anybody else. She used to like to steal a
couple of Stuart’s horses after the day’s show and go ride out with him when
the moon made everything blue.
    But somehow he had never had the courage to press that
suit. He had made those dozen stumbling, blushing efforts and each time he had
failed miserably. And so he had gone out and conquered the highest throne in
the rodeo world just to be able to get high enough to make her see him.
    Yes, he had come near breaking his neck for a girl and
now when she talked to him at all, she bit him.
    But she wasn’t like that to the rest of the world. She
was all smiles and kindness and men respected her as a beautiful woman and an
excellent rider.
    Why the devil had she ever taken up this riding anyhow?
he asked himself. She had no reason like he had to go around smashing herself
up on tricky man-killers. Somehow it wasn’t ladylike.
    Suddenly he straightened up. There was Vicky, walking
down the fence toward the chutes from the back gate. One glimpse of her was all
it took to make his bitterness fade. There was a patch of sunlight hurrying
across the arena and it struck Vicky and her golden spurs glowed and the silver concha of her chin thong glittered.
    He wished he could always see her that way.
    Unfortunately for Long Tom, the diamonds and gold in his
championship belt threw out blinding sparks in the same flash of sunlight.
Vicky swerved her course toward him.
    Over to Long Tom’s right, half a dozen riders were hazing twenty horses into line, getting ready for the last event, the wild
horse race. The din of yips and quirts and snorts