The Lonesome Quarter. Richard Wormser
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“A big story . . . a story of the West”
—TRANSRADIO PRESS
HER NAME WAS VERA MAE
. . . and she had been around these dusty tank towns too long—working the two-bit rodeos and cozying up to suckers—like this fat tourist in the bar . . .
“Oh God,” she thought, “I can con him and ditch him by nine-thirty, but what then? Sit in a hotel room. Get drunk and pass out. I’ll be an old bag before I’m thirty. . .”
That was Vera Mae, fed-up, ripe for trouble when a lean ex-bronc rider named Lonnie drifted in from the desert . . .
“Prose that has the texture of a drawl . . .
people warm and real . . . a corking climax.”
—New York HERALD TRIBUNE
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
Copyright © 1951 by Richard Wormser.
Published by Wildside Press LLC.
wildsidepress.com | bcmystery.com
CHAPTER I
OUT IN THE ARENA, they were calf-roping, and some of the boys were making good time. But Lon Verdoux had not come there to watch them calf-rope, though of all the rodeo events, it was about the only one that had anything to do with his present way of making a living. Until the bronc-riding started, he had no business there.
He stole a glance at the kids. He didn’t want them to think he was spying on them, but he was their father, and he ought to see that they were doing all right. Well, they were. Mike was watching the calf-roping and trying to keep time with the three-buck watch Lon had given him on his birthday. June was kneeling backward on the seat, and he knew she’d lost interest in the rodeo and was looking over the ladies’ clothes.
Just like Joan used to do.
It was a nice day. Over here on the coast side of the mountains, the sun was just warm enough. Some pretty good boys were singing “No Letter Today” over the loudspeaker system, and one of them had some new chords on the guitar that Lon had never heard before. On the track four quarter horses were lining up to run a heat, and the calf-roping was moving right along, not being bothered at all by the red-nosed roundup clown and his burro, who seemed to get in the way, but really didn’t.
Lon was having a good time. He knew he shouldn’t, but he was. It made him feel bad, but just being there with his kids, the sun on him, and the horses in the arena and on the track so pretty, well—it would take a smarter man than him to keep from feeling good.
Lon looked at the kids again, and just on the other side of June, a gal smiled at him. Lon caught himself smiling back, and then reached out and straightened the ribbon bow on one of June’s braids, so the gal would know him for what he was, an attached man.
But she continued to grin at him. And then a fat man, on the other side of her, reached across and poked June in the ribs. Strangers were always fussing at June. You couldn’t hardly blame them; there probably wasn’t any prettier little girl any place. And the good little thing never minded; she was always polite. Lon sure hoped the fat man would leave Mike alone; you couldn’t always count on his manners.
Fat Man said, “You gonna rope calves when you grow up, pahdneh?” He had on an embroidered shirt and frontier pants, with low shoes; his hat was brand-new. A rich dude. Maybe a banker or a lawyer, or anyway a big-business man. Lon hoped Mike would be wrapped up in one of his daydreams; the kid was still at an age when being strong and good-looking and all meant everything to him; he didn’t understand how fat dudes were important people, and used to being treated accordingly.
June said, “Girls can’t rope calves that way. They don’t get strong enough to pick the calf up, even when they grow up.”
The fat man thought this was very funny. He guffawed. He patted the gal with him on the leg so she wouldn’t miss what June had said. It didn’t sound as funny as all that to Lon, and maybe it didn’t to the dude; Lon thought idly that he’d probably just picked the gal up, and any excuse to pat her just now was a good one. Rodeo gal.
The quarter horse racing went into its final, the last man roped his calf and made his time, and the clown brought out a little Arab stallion and made him do some tricks while they got the bucking stock ready. The quartet finished singing, and the announcer said somebody named Red Martin was coming out on Steamboat in Chute One.
Whatever the kids were feeling, Lon’s stomach felt cold and stiff as he watched Chute One. They were having trouble there. The rider was still up on the rails, and the horse was coming up to him, maybe six times a minute. Martin had better get into the saddle and start riding, or he’d have a dopey horse that left his fight in the chute. Maybe so it was safer that way, but there wasn’t any money in it.
A hell of a way to make a living.
Now the chute opened, and Martin came out. There is always a Steamboat in every bucking string, and he is usually a roan, and this one was; a big hammerhead but even if he had had a smart head, a no-good horse, thick-legged and clumsy. There wasn’t any spring in those legs ever, and now Steamboat was mad and stiff-legging it, and Martin was having himself a time. His hat flew off, showing red hair, and long before time was called Martin took a roll off the right side of Steamboat and kept on rolling.
The roan was hurt enough by the roweling he’d gotten and by the bucking strap not to come after him. The pickup men hazed him toward the exit chute, and they started getting a horse ready in Chute Four, and Lon looked at the kids.
They were just watching, and Mike was playing with his shiny watch again. June was more interested in this than she’d been in the calf-roping, but not too much. They weren’t pale and they weren’t sick, and it was going to be all right.
Lon wanted to tell somebody all that, but nobody here knew him, which was why he’d driven this long ride—and one spark plug not too good—because it would not look right, him going to a rodeo just now . . .
Fat Man poked June again. He sure liked poking girls, any age; he’d rested his right hand on that gal’s frontier pants now. Lon was beginning to dislike the fellow. Fat Man said, “That the way they ride broncs on yore range, buckaroo?” speaking like a comedian on the radio making fun of Western programs.
June never got a chance to answer. Mike put his watch away, and let his breath out, just as Lon had heard himself do a lot of times when there was something mean to be done. Mike said, “Of course not, Mister. We ride horses to gentle ’em, not to amuse fat dudes. An’ quit pokin’ my sister.”
Lon said, “Mike, you watch those manners,” as sharp as he could, because he wanted to laugh. Fat Man got red and then he got white again, and he looked at Lon and maybe he decided Lon’d make something of it if he talked back to Mike. But Lon wouldn’t have; ten-year-old boys shouldn’t get fresh to grownups, no matter what.
Then Lon saw that the girl was having a hard time of it. She looked like she was going to bust pretty soon.
A black-haired Indian-looking turtle was coming out of Chute Four on a gray they called Dynamite—there was always a Dynamite, too,—and June had lost all interest in the bucking again, and was wriggling around, restlessly.
Mike said, “Look, Pop, that rider’s hooked his spurs,” and he was right, the fellow riding had given up and was hanging on with his hooks in a cinch. The pickup men were closing in.
Lon could go home now. Or, at least, to the hotel room he’d rented. It wasn’t good for kids to do too much in a day, and they’d driven since six that morning to get to this roundup. He—
Something would have to be done about June’s wriggling. He swallowed, and said, “Honey—”
The gal on the other side of June stood