Free Nan Ryan by Written in the Stars Page A

the arena and tossed the glass balls, the cards, the dimes for her, now shyly moved into the spotlight, waving a package of cigarettes in his hand. Propmen, hidden in the darkness, rolled into place a protective brick barricade behind him.
    Shorty Jones was not actually a performer, but he assisted Texas Kate in her act. For two reasons. First, nobody else in the troupe volunteered. Second, Shorty seized any opportunity to be around Texas Kate. Shorty Jones had been secretly, silently sweet on Kate for more than a decade. He’d never told her in so many words, but he suspected she knew. Trouble was, she didn’t care. She was still waiting for another man. Shorty knew he could never hope to measure up to the missing Teddy Ray Worthington.
    Shorty stepped back against the temporary barricade, shook a ready-made cigarette from his pack, stuck it into his mouth, and lit up. Texas Kate picked up her pearl-handled pistols, held them high in the air, then paced off fifty feet. She turned and immediately fired ten shots in rapid succession, first with one hand, then the other, snipping an nth of a degree from Shorty’s lighted cigarette with each shot.
    She shot so fast and so accurately that her incredible performance was over too soon to suit the screaming crowd. People were still whistling and begging for more when Texas Kate, allowing Shorty to help her back up into the carriage, waved as she was driven out of the spotlight and into the darkness.
    The applause finally died away.
    Silence.
    Then a shout from a man out in the audience. “Where’s that Beauty? Bring on the Beauty!”
    From another section of the grandstands. “Beauty! We want the Beauty! The Beauty and the Beast!”
    “Beauty and the Beast!” Others took up the chant. “The Beauty and the Beast! Beauty and the Beast! The Beauty and the—”
    Shouting, yipping scouts and vaqueros and bawling steers, untamed horses, and charging buffaloes filled the arena, drowning out the shouts, commanding the crowd’s attention. Lassos whirled through the air, encircling hooves, necks, ears, and even tails of the thundering herds. Nimble vaqueros leaped from horse to horse, from horse to ground, from ground to horse.
    And then the Rough Riders—the tough gristle and bone cowboys—led by the blond, handsome Cherokee Kid astride his snorting chestnut stallion. They were the real thing, these men, wild and rough, the last of a rugged breed being slowly pushed off the plains by progress and civilization. They galloped like the Wild Bunch into the arena, guns blazing, scaring spectators and scattering the troupe.
    In a stirring finale the riders joined forces and staged an old-time roundup. They cut cattle from the herd, roped and branded them. Soon all disappeared in a cloud of dust.
    When the dust settled and the applause subsided, a faint throb of drums filled the air. Into the ring marched the proud redskins as the drums grew louder, faster. Lances raised, feather bustles and headdresses fluttering in the breeze, the old war chiefs and their braves went into their symbolic tribal dances to the riotous approval of the audience.
    However, the crowd’s captivation with the Indians’ colorful ceremony was short-lived. The Indian the people most wanted to see was not dancing to the drums. He was not in the arena. The Redman of the Rockies was nowhere in sight.
    As quickly as they had come, the Indians danced then-way out of the arena as the throb of the drums grew muffled and died away.
    Again there was silence. And again darkness as the calcium flares were lowered and turned out. Seconds passed. A pinpoint of soft blue light suddenly appeared in the darkened arena’s center. The light grew bigger. And bigger. The growing mirrored spotlight picked up a horse and rider. A slender black-haired woman and a sleek black-coated stallion. Neither horse nor rider moved. They might have been an incredibly lifelike statue, save for the slight breeze from out of the east lifting the