Drew (The Cowboys) (4 page)

“She’s tough as hickory, but she’s sweet as can be. I’m Myrtle Rankin. I take care of the costumes. My husband feeds the animals.”

“I’m Cole Benton,” Cole said. “I hope you aren’t against my joining Miss Townsend’s act.”

“No, but I don’t like to see anything upset Drew.”

“All her boss and I are trying to do is make the act a crowd pleaser.”

“I understand, but you can’t expect Drew to like it very much.”

“I don’t see why.”

“You don’t understand much about women, do you?”

That startled him. Part of the reason he’d been chosen for this job was his popularity with women.

“Apparently I don’t understand Miss Townsend. Why don’t you explain her to me?”

Myrtle laughed. “The first thing you have to do is stop calling her Miss Townsend. Drew hates formality.”

“She seemed pretty formal to me.”

“Cold to you, even angry,” Myrtle corrected. “Not formal. Drew doesn’t like most men. Doesn’t trust them, either.”

“She seems to trust those two bodyguards just fine.”

“They’re her brothers. The couple that adopted Drew raised a whole horde of orphans—eleven, I think. Drew was the only girl.”

“Now I understand why she can shoot like a man.”

“No, you don’t. Drew tries to be better than her brothers, not just to learn from them.”

“You seem to know a lot about her.”

“Things aren’t always easy for an old couple in a show like this. She watches out for us.” She chuckled. “You’d think she was our mother, the way she acts sometimes.”

“That’ll be a good trait when she marries.”

“She doesn’t plan to get married. I wish she weren’t so set against it, but nothing I can say has been able to change her mind.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense. She’s loyal to her brothers, supposedly to the family that raised her, and she’s got such a strong mothering instinct she takes in old couples who ought to be giving her advice.”

“Drew will be the first to tell you that as long as she makes her own way, she doesn’t have to make sense.”

The more Cole heard about this woman, the less he understood her. He guessed he didn’t really have to understand her. His job was to get enough evidence on her so he could arrest her, not marry her, but the better he knew her, the better able he’d be to work his way inside her defenses. His captain thought trying to become a member of the gang was his best approach. Cole wasn’t so sure of that. This tug of attraction wouldn’t go away. Besides, Zeke didn’t look like an easy man to fool, and that Hawk character looked perfectly willing to cut his heart out and have it for dinner. Unless he was mistaken, Zeke had been a slave. That meant he hated white men. So why was he a brother to a white woman? Not to mention the half-breed Comanche. Cole wondered if Drew’s whole family was a gang of thieves, not a family at all. Everything made more sense that way.

Cole forced himself to laugh. “Since I’m going to be working with Miss Townsend—Drew—on a regular basis, I’ll have to depend on you to give me hints. It won’t do to have her mad at me all the time. Besides, I have some ideas about how to liven up her act. I need to know how to suggest them so she won’t point that rifle at me. I’ve had ample evidence she knows how to use it.”

“I could tell you not to make any suggestions, but I can see you’ve already made your mind up. Men are like that, determined to do what they want despite advice, even when they’ve asked for it.”

“Am I that bad?”

“Seems like it.”

“I’ll have to see if I can change that.”

“Men never change. They seldom bother trying.”

It seemed Drew wasn’t the only woman with a poor opinion of men.

“I’ll see if I can be the exception.”

Myrtle smiled gently. “I wouldn’t bother. You’re only a walk-on. I don’t expect you’ll last more than a couple of weeks.”

Her harsh evaluation of his chances of making it with the show unsettled Cole. He had to last more than a couple of weeks. He was certain it would take him longer than that to ingratiate himself with Drew. She was dead set against him. It would likely take days just for her to begin to thaw.

Drew had hoped something would happen to cause Cole Benton to change his mind, or the boss to change his, but she wasn’t surprised when she saw him enter her car on the train taking the Wild West Show to their next engagement. She was even less surprised when he stopped by her seat.

“Is that seat taken?” he said, referring to the one next to her.

“Yes. It belongs to my brother.”

“Which one?”

“Whichever one returns first. The other will sit across from me.”

“How about the seat next to him?”

It wasn’t taken. It never was. The hard seats were jammed close together to get as many people as possible into one car. When they had to keep the windows closed to protect their clothes from being set on fire by sparks from the engine, the temperature and body odors could become unbearable. Drew was thankful they always traveled at night. The show usually engaged enough space on the train that the people could seat themselves in small, friendly groups. Drew was seldom forced to sit among strangers. It was clear Mr. Benton didn’t consider himself a stranger.

And to be fair to him, she guessed she shouldn’t either. He was going to be part of her act. She ought to be civil to him at least. And she would be … until he left. And he would leave soon. He looked like the kind to wander from one job to the next, staying nowhere long, avoiding putting down roots, making commitments, even making friends. The people who worked in the show fell into clearly defined groups. The regulars like Myrtle and Joe were okay. The show was their life. They were dependable. They’d stick to the end. Then there were people who were building a career. The Wild West Show was only a stepping stone in their climb up to the next rung on the professional ladder. Next came the seasonal workers—the Indians, Mexicans, cowboys, soldiers, people recruited for a specific job for the season. They would stay until the show disbanded for the winter. Finally, there were the drifters. They drifted in, stayed a few weeks—or days—then drifted out again.

Cole Benton came under the heading of drifters. That was good, because that queer feeling in her gut was acting up again. It was probably heartburn. Drew’s mother, Isabelle Maxwell, always said she had heartburn when her husband, Jake, did something she didn’t like, or when he wouldn’t let her have her way. Drew guessed that was what Cole was doing, giving her heartburn because she didn’t like his being here.

“Are you going to make me wait until your brothers get back so I can ask them?”

“Zeke won’t sit next to any white man,” she said.

“Are all your brothers black or Indian?”

She hated having to explain her family to people she didn’t like. “I should have said he won’t sit next to any white man not in our family. All my brothers except Zeke and Hawk are white.”

“I’d like to hear more about your family,” Cole said. “It sounds very unusual.”

Her heartburn was getting worse. She wished he’d go away. “I don’t talk about my family to strangers.”

He sat down across from her without waiting for permission. “Since we’re going to be working together, I don’t really qualify as a stranger.”

“Of course you do. I don’t know anything about you except your name. And I don’t want to know any more,” she added quickly. With the slightest prompting, he’d probably launch into his life story.

“There’s not much to tell,” he said. “I grew up on a poor cow ranch in Texas. I’ve been a cowhand, ridden guard on the stage, even did a short hitch in the army. That’s where I learned to shoot. But the army didn’t pay much. I figured I could put my shooting to better use in a show like this.”

“How many shows have you been in?”

“This is my first.”

Just what she’d expected. A drifter, going through life with no goal in mind, letting fate and circumstance pilot him willy-nilly from one job to another. Exactly the kind of man she wanted nothing to do with.

“What made you want to join our show, other than a desire to show off by beating me?”

He laughed easily. “I saw a chance to do something I like and am good at. Naturally I couldn’t resist the chance to work with you.”

“Why? You know nothing about me.” She certainly hoped he didn’t expect to have anything more than a superficial working relationship with her.

“You’re famous,” Cole said. “And you’re an unbeatable shot. I can learn a lot from you.”

She’d ignored dozens of men who were far better at flattery than he. “Do you think I’m fool enough to train my own competition?”

“I’ll never be good enough to beat you. But the better I am, the more the crowds will be rooting for you to beat me.”

Well, he wasn’t as stupid or as bad at flattery as she’d thought. Now if this heartburn would just go away, she could probably put up with him until Zeke and Hawk returned. He might be a worthless vagabond, but he wasn’t hard to look at.

Drew usually refused to admit any man was attractive. She wouldn’t even say that about Will, and he was beautiful. Cole was attractive in a different way. You couldn’t say he was beautiful. His skin was too rough and brown, his hair an ordinary shade of brown. He had thin lips, thick eyebrows, and enough lines in his forehead and around his eyes to have spent the last twenty years squinting into the sun.

But he had beautiful blue eyes, a deep blue, the color of the stones in a necklace Jake had given Isabelle at Christmas. Jake said it was lapis, but she wasn’t sure. She never paid much attention to things like that. She had a few pieces of family jewelry her aunt had given her, but you couldn’t wear jewelry on the ranch. It would get in the way. Even if it didn’t, a woman on horseback would look stupid wearing jewelry.

Unless she was mistaken, it was his smile that was giving her heartburn. It couldn’t be sincere. She was certain he used it to charm people into letting him do pretty much what he wanted, which was probably as little as possible. That was why it was giving her heartburn. She knew it was fake, that he didn’t mean it. The one thing she hated above everything was a man who made you think one thing when he intended to do something else. But all men were like that, weren’t they?

Everybody except her brothers and Jake, that is. If she could find a man like them… She let that thought slip away. She had no desire to finish it, no need. Even if she could have found someone exactly like Jake, it wouldn’t have made any difference.

“We can probably find some time to practice tomorrow while you’re setting up for the show,” Cole said. “You can give me some pointers then.”

“The crew sets the targets and the clay pigeon machine in place. I just walk on, do my act, walk off, and I’m done for the evening.”

“That’s another thing I want to talk to you about. You shouldn’t just walk on. There’s no energy in walking. No excitement, either. Compared to everything else in the show, it actually seems dull.”

He might be a lazy son of a so-and-so, but he certainly was full of opinions. It seemed easier to let him talk and forget whatever he said than to get him to shut up. She was tired and a little sleepy. She had taken an extralong ride that afternoon.

“I suppose you know exactly what will start everybody talking about my act. Plus, get the boss to give me a big raise.”

“Once you become the star of the show, he’ll have to give you a raise.”

“And just how are you going to make me the star? I assume you’re not about to teach me how to shoot?”

“No, just help you present yourself differently. Can you ride a horse?”

“Of course I can.”

“You don’t have to get upset. For all I know, you could have grown up in Chicago or Cincinnati.”

“I grew up in Texas. I can ride and shoot just like any other respectable Texas female.”

“Can you do both at the same time?”

“Why do you want to know?” She could do both in her sleep.

“I think you ought to enter the ring on horseback,” he said, “shooting at targets set all round the ring.”

She looked up. Zeke and Hawk had returned. They had their saddlebags over their shoulders. She knew everything of importance they owned was in those saddlebags. The show might consider itself one big family, but Zeke and Hawk had never felt part of the group. Drew hadn’t either at first, but once she got to know Myrtle and Joe, everything changed.

“You’re just in time to hear how Mr. Benton intends to revamp my act,” she said to her brothers.

“Call me Cole,” he said.

“Cole
thinks I ought to enter the ring on horseback, shooting at targets around the ring.”

“Sounds like a good idea,” Zeke said, sitting down next to Drew. Cole moved over to make room for Hawk. “I’ve been saying you need to liven it up. You could be a star if you’d just make it more exciting.”

“But that’s showing off,” she said, irritated that Zeke supported Cole. “It’s not dignified. What do you think, Hawk?”

“Dignity is for old people. We need to make money fast. You ought to do it.”

“Great,” Cole said. “We can get started in the morning. Where do you get horses?”