A HECK OF A PROMISE
It happened and was over with so quickly that it was a moment before Chuck Sloan realized what had taken place. He had driven into the rodeo grounds and started around the arena toward the horse stalls, about half-angry because a flat tire on his old horse trailer had made him miss seeing Rosabelle Lee perform in the barrel race.
Not that he didn’t know how it came out. Barring accidents, Rosabelle always won.
Then Buzz Whitney had come tearing toward him in his red convertible. Chuck glimpsed Rosabelle’s laughing face beside Buzz. Water filled the ruts on the side of Whitney’s car. The handsome cowboy swerved out toward Chuck to keep from splashing mud on his convertible.
Chuck whipped back to the right to avoid Whitney. He heard a woman’s scream and the rending crash of splitting lumber.
Heart rubbing his Adam’s apple, Chuck jammed on the brakes and jumped out. He caught a glimpse of Rosabelle and Buzz looking back and laughing, then driving on.
Chuck’s trailer had hooked onto a corner of a refreshment stand and ripped off the front of the flimsy structure. Splintered lumber lay across the trailer.
“Our stand, our stand,” a girl’s voice wailed.
“My horse,” Chuck cried. Breathlessly he jumped up onto the trailer hitch and started shoving aside the broken boards.
“Oh, Tommy.” he breathed with relief as he examined his nervous bay roping horse. “You’re all right.”
“Maybe your horse is all right, but you’ve sure made a wreck out of our refreshment stand,” a girl’s voice said angrily.
Chuck looked down at her. She looked to be in her early twenties, and she looked to be plenty mad. She stood with fists doubled belligerently on her slim hips. A tight apron revealed a figure that Chuck guessed would look good in a bathing suit. Even if her face was flushed with anger, it was sort of pretty. Not like Rosabelle’s, of course. More like his sister, Jenny.
“I didn’t do it, ma’am,” he said apologetically. “Buzz Whitney pushed me over with that red convertible of his.”
She kept glaring at him. He stepped meekly down from the trailer hitch.
“I didn’t see any car but that heap of yours,” she said sharply. “All I know is that the home demonstration club ladies worked all day yesterday getting this stand fixed up. Now look at it!”
Chuck fumbled in his billfold and came up with a ten-dollar bill and a five. “Reckon this’ll patch things up?”
She glanced at the money and back at the stand. “Well, it was just scrap lumber, covered with crepe paper. And you broke about a dozen pop bottles and a glass coffee pot. I guess this ought to do.” She paused, then said, “But money won’t help poor Mrs. Lockstetter. You’ve scared her out of her wits.”
The girl nodded toward a portly woman who sat in a corner of the rickety stand, wailing to two ladies who were trying to comfort her. Spilled coffee dripped from her skirt.
Chuck timidly stepped toward her, hat in hand. “I’m real sorry, ma’am. If I’d…”
She took a look at him and screamed, “Cowboys! The most careless humans on earth! You ought to be in jail!”
Chuck jumped backward as if he were snakebitten. Red-faced, he turned quickly around and trotted back to the door of his car. The girl stood there. “She’s right, you know,” she said accusingly.
Chuck pleaded, “I told you how it happened. Now look—I don’t want to leave a town and have a bunch of people there mad at me. I’d like to make this up to you some way.”
She crossed her arms. “How?”
He studied her a minute. He couldn’t help liking this girl, even if she did seem a little bit like a wildcat. “Well, I might take you to supper tonight.”
He suddenly remembered what she had said about the home demonstration club. “Or maybe you’re married.”
“No, I’m not married. I’m the county home demonstration agent here. And I don’t usually make dates with strangers.”
Chuck waved his hand at the wreckage. “After all this, do you call me a stranger?”
She broke down and grinned. “No, I guess not. My name’s Mary McIntyre.”
* * *
It was a typical West Texas town and a typical West Texas cafe, with cowboy pictures painted on the walls and Mexican food cooked up by someone who had probably never been south of San Angelo.
Chuck didn’t know why it was, but every time he started a conversation with a girl he wound up telling her all about Rosabelle Lee.
“Rosabelle’s a real rodeo girl,” he told Mary. “I’ve got me a little ranch up north of Big Lake, close to the Centralia Draw. Bought it when I got out of the Army. Of course, I had to borrow a lot, and the debt’s still pretty heavy on it.
“Rosabelle’s been wantin’ me to sell it,” he went on. “She says I’m made to follow rodeos and enjoy life like she does, not to be tied down to some little old place and work myself to death.”
Mary Mclntyre frowned. “There’s a lot of satisfaction in having a place of your own and working on it. Rosabelle might be wrong.”
Chuck leaned forward as if about to tell a secret. “I’ve asked her to marry me.”
For just a second Chuck thought he saw disappointment in the girl’s blue eyes. But he guessed he was wrong.
“What did Rosabelle say?”
“She just said we ought to wait a little bit. I think she’s afraid she’ll have to go out and live on the ranch. But she won’t.”
Chuck heard a girl’s voice behind him. His heart warmed as he stood up and turned around. “Come on over and sit down, Rosabelle. I want you to meet Mary McIntyre.”
He imagined he saw a cold look pass between the two girls. But then he guessed he was wrong again. They didn’t have any reason not to like each other.
Chuck swallowed when Rosabelle leaned in front of him to hang her wide-brimmed green rodeo hat on a hook. Her blond hair tumbled smartly down about her shoulders. A thrill went through him as her body touched his for a second. He couldn’t help noticing how tightly her fringed leather jacket and her blue riding britches fitted.
“Buzz and I got the biggest bang out of you this afternoon,” Rosabelle laughed. “We thought we would die laughing when you hit that refreshment stand and all those old ladies started wringing their hands.”
Chuck ducked his chin. He felt warmth creeping into his cheeks as he glanced at Mary. He could tell she was a little angry, but she kept quiet.
“I hear you won today, Miss Lee,” Mary said finally.
“Oh, sure. I always do.”
“You must have a very fine horse.”
“Oh, Golden Lad’s all right.” Rosabelle frowned. “After all, the rider’s the main thing, you know.”
He stood the silence as long as he could. Then, “Rosabelle, I’ve been wanting to ask you…” He glanced at Mary. It was awkward to be out with one girl and ask another for a date. But with Buzz Whitney around, he couldn’t afford to wait. “There’s a rodeo dance tonight. I’d like to take you.”
“Sorry.” Rosabelle smiled. “Buzz has already asked me to go with him tonight. We’re driving over to the next town. There’s a swell night spot there. Why, here comes Buzz now.”
Chuck felt a sour taste in his mouth. He took one good glance at Buzz coming through the cafe door, his tailored Western suit pressed and his brown-and-white boots spotless. There was no denying Buzz was a top rodeo hand. But just three years ago he had had his name in a magazine’s “deadbeat” column for skipping out on a hotel bill after a rodeo. Rosabelle, of course, didn’t know that. She saw only his flashy surface.
It just happened that his father had been a tightfisted old gent who saved ninety cents out of every dollar he made. He had had no one but Buzz to leave it to.
“Ready to go, Palomino?” Buzz asked. Annoyance tingled in Chuck as he noticed Buzz’s hands placed familiarly on Rosabelle’s shoulders.
The cowgirl bid Chuck and Mary good night, and headed for the door. Buzz held back a moment and leaned over close to Chuck’s ear.
“Bad news for you, buster. Tonight I’m asking Rosabelle to marry me.”
Chuck stood up angrily. But in a few seconds the couple was outside, and he saw them whiz by in the red convertible. Darkly he sank back down.
Mary watched him sympathetically. Finally she spoke. “Maybe it’s better like this. If she tells him yes, you’re saved from a marriage that wouldn’t have worked out anyway. If she says no, you’re still in the running.”
Chuck doubled his fist. “If it wasn’t for that ranch, we might be married now. But I know what it would be like for her. I grew up on one close to Rankin. Seemed the first thing my dad always did of a morning was to step out on the front porch and look for some sign of a rain. It was awful seldom he ever saw any. Rosabelle’s never known that kind of a life. And I won’t have her working herself to death on a run-down place with a mortgage as heavy as a truckload of steers.”
Mary frowned. “Did your mother ever complain?”
“No. I guess she kind of liked it. In fact, I did, too.”
Anger flashed in Mary’s blue eyes. “Then it’s high time you quit feeling sorry for yourself, or for Rosabelle. Hard work and debt didn’t keep my mother and dad from enjoying life and loving each other. Dad had a place at Fort Stockton, irrigated a farm out of Comanche Springs and ran cattle on grazing land.
“When I was a little girl it seemed like I spent all my extra time wading in the cold water and the mud with a shovel, helping my tired old dad irrigate. We worked from daylight to dark sometimes, then lit the lanterns so we could keep on working. We finally got the debt paid off, and we loved it.” She paused, then went on, “If Rosabelle loved you, she wouldn’t care if she had to live the same way.”
Mary stood up, purse in her hand. “Now I think I’ll go home.”
Chuck reached across the table and touched her hand. It felt warm. “Please don’t. No use to waste the evening. Won’t you go to the dance with me?”
Annoyance showed in her eyes. “As your second choice?”
Chuck grinned. “We’ll forget I asked anybody else. Just for tonight we’ll forget there is anybody else. What do you say?”
Mary looked at him a long moment, her blue eyes somehow beautiful. She smiled and nodded. Chuck wondered why he felt warm inside.
She danced as lightly as any girl he had ever known, and it was a joy to hold her in his arms. She didn’t squeeze up tight, maybe, as Rosabelle did. But then Rosabelle did everything a little bit different from anyone else. Chuck couldn’t get nearly so much dancing as he wanted, though. Seemed like everybody in town came by and had something pleasant to say to Mary.
“How long have you been here, anyway?” he asked her finally. “Looks like everybody and his dog knows you.”
Her smile was good to see. “I came here two years ago, soon as I finished college.”
“Why hasn’t a popular girl like you gotten married?”
She flushed a little. “Too many fellows want excitement and adventure. I guess I just want a good home and a man I love. Besides, I promised Mrs. Malone I wouldn’t get married for at least three years after I came here.”
“Mrs. Malone? Who’s she?”
“The district home demonstration agent. Boss of all us county HD agents. She never can get enough girls to fill the vacancies in her district. And she needs them to keep girls’ 4-H club work going.”
Chuck snorted. “Sounds like a heck of a promise to me.”
When the dance was over, Chuck drove Mary to her home, one side of a small frame duplex house. A windmill out back creaked as its wheel turned slowly in the night breeze.
He stood on the front porch with her, holding one of her smooth, warm hands in his. He couldn’t think how best to tell her good night. Somehow he didn’t want to.
“Don’t forget what I said about not feeling sorry for yourself or for Rosabelle,” she said quietly.
He shook his head. “I won’t, Mary. Do you think you could live on the ranch with me…”
He noted the way her eyes widened sharply.
“… I mean, if you were Rosabelle?” he said quickly.
She lowered her eyes. “I’d go with you anywhere—if I were Rosabelle. Good night, Chuck.”
She stepped quickly into the house, and before Chuck had a chance to say another word or ask another question, closed the door behind her.
Chuck was out at the fairgrounds early the next morning. He yawned as he poured out some feed and ran clean water into a bucket for Tommy. He must have rolled a hundred miles, just tossing back and forth in bed last night, he thought.
He had kept dreaming about Mary in Rosabelle’s clothes and astride Rosabelle’s Palomino. It hadn’t seemed right. Then he saw Mary in her white apron, sweeping off the front porch of his little ranch house north of Big Lake. Rosabelle and Buzz had passed by in the red convertible and jeered at her, and Chuck dreamed she had gotten mad.
Crazy stuff, he thought, shrugging it off. Probably came from the Mexican food.
The thought of Buzz Whitney proposing to Rosabelle worried him all the time he was exercising Tommy. He kept watching the highway, hoping to see Rosabelle drive up. His heart leaped when Rosabelle’s green sedan finally pulled in at the gate. Excitedly he spurred out to meet her. But his heart slid down again.
It was only her younger brother, Danny, come out to feed and curry Golden Lad. That was usually Danny’s chore. Rosabelle didn’t like to fool with horses much, except to ride them.
Despondently, Chuck rode over to Golden Lad’s pen and watched Danny brush the sleek Palomino down while the horse munched oats out of a small galvanized bucket.
“Seen Rosabelle this morning, Danny?” he asked at last.
“Yep.”
“Did she—did she say anything?”
Danny grunted. “Yeah. She said I’d have to take care of the Lad this morning.”
Chuck’s hands shook a little. “Didn’t she say anything about last night?”
Danny snickered. “She didn’t have to. I heard her come in myself—at four o’clock this morning.”
His heart sick, Chuck turned and rode away.
A little after noon, Mary drove up to the rebuilt refreshment stand with three home demonstration club ladies. They started unloading hotdog and hamburger material for the afternoon crowd.
When Chuck could stand the temptation no longer, he started over to talk to her. He slowed up as he saw the portly Mrs. Lockstetter glaring at him. But the woman turned around, and he went on up to the stand.
Mary’s face was composed, but somehow Chuck thought he saw joy in her eyes. A glow spread through him, and he couldn’t think what to say.
“What about Rosabelle?” Mary asked. “What’s her verdict?”
He shook his head. “Haven’t seen her. It’s time she was here.”
Mary said nothing more for a little. Silently she sliced hotdog and hamburger buns and slipped them back into their waxed paper bags. A frown knitted her brow as she worked.
“Chuck,” she said suddenly, “I—I’ve been wanting to say…”
“To say what?” he pressed eagerly.
She flushed and looked back down at her buns. “Oh, nothing. I guess you’ll—have to find out for yourself.”
Buzz’s convertible sped in at the front gate, leaving a trail of rolling dust behind it. Buzz braked to a quick stop close to the refreshment stand to let Rosabelle out. Then he spun the tires and sped on around the arena.
Chuck greeted Rosabelle nervously and bought her a cold drink at the refreshment stand. He dug the toe of his boot into the ground and felt his ears getting warm. “Buzz said he was going to ask you to marry him.”
“He did.”
Chuck swallowed. “Wh—what did you say?”
Rosabelle smiled and looked off to where Buzz’s dust was just now settling. “I told him I’d think about it. You know, Chuck, he really shows a girl a nice time. Nothing cheap about Buzz. He doesn’t have any old ranch to worry about.”
Despair choked Chuck. He licked his lips and fought for strength. “I—I could sell the ranch, Rosabelle, if you really wanted it that way.”
Another girl’s voice broke in angrily. Chuck whirled and saw Mary standing there, warm red in her cheeks and fire in her eyes. “I didn’t want to say anything,” she said sharply, “but I’m not letting you do this, Chuck. Say you sold the ranch. It wouldn’t take you long to spend the money on her!”
She turned heatedly to Rosabelle. “And just how long would you stay with him after all his money was gone?”
Rosabelle’s face was dark, and her teeth showed a little more than they usually did. “That’s pretty strong talk for a hotdog maker.”
Anger made Mary breathe hard. “At least I don’t claim to be something I’m not. I don’t paint myself up and wear clothes that make men whistle from two hundred yards away. And I don’t try to spellbind them by making them think I’m a super-duper cowgirl when it’s really my horse that does the job!”
Rosabelle bristled up at that. “I don’t take any prizes I don’t win. It’s the rider that counts, not the horse.”
“You bought Golden Lad after somebody else trained him,” Mary declared. “It’s him that knows how to barrel race. Without your own horse, you couldn’t even win a booby prize!”
Chuck’s throat was dry. He was afraid he would have to step between the girls.
“It isn’t so! It isn’t so!” Rosabelle screeched.
Mary held her doubled fists against her hips. “Maybe you’d like to ride a barrel race against me.”
“I’d be glad to, sister! I’ll show the world that no hotdog maker’s in the same class with Rosabelle Lee!”
Chuck thought he saw triumph in Mary’s eyes. “All right, then. Suppose you ride Chuck’s horse. Chuck, has Tommy ever run barrels before?”
He shook his head. “Nope. Tommy’s a specialist. Calf roping.”
Rosabelle nodded assent, a mirthless grin spreading over her face.
“And,” Mary added, “since the horse isn’t important anyway, I’ll just ride your Golden Lad.”
Rosabelle’s grin died like a match in a high wind. But Chuck knew she had gone too far to pull out now.
“All right,” the cowgirl said. “I’ll get the producer to let us match it off right after the regular barrel races this afternoon. He’ll be tickled to give the customers a special treat—seeing a local hotdog girl get beaten by Rosabelle Lee.”
Rosabelle strode off in long, huffy steps. She waved to a couple of other cowgirls up near the chutes and yelled for them to wait. In a moment she was pointing back to Mary, and the girls were laughing.
Chuck wished he hadn’t even come to this rodeo. He wished he didn’t have to watch a nice girl like Mary humiliated.
“You oughtn’t to’ve done it, Mary,” he said quietly. “Your friends’ll be laughing at you for weeks.”
“Will you?” she asked. He shook his head. “No. But with me it’s different.”
She smiled. “I’m pleased to hear you say that, Chuck. And don’t you worry. I told you my dad used to run cattle. I could ride a long time before I could read.”
It seemed to Chuck to be the slowest rodeo he had ever seen. It felt like six hours between the grand entry and the girls’ barrel race. One by one cowgirls from all over the Southwest spurred into the arena and wove their horses around three barrels spaced out evenly, then wove back again and galloped over the finish line.
Rosabelle charged out on Golden Lad for her regular contest ride and made the barrels in thirteen seconds flat. Best time of the day. In fact, best time of the entire rodeo.
As she came trotting out of the arena, Chuck worriedly watched Golden Lad’s hard breathing. That would make it even harder on Mary, for the Palomino wouldn’t be starting fresh when she raced him.
In a few minutes the last cowgirl racer came out of the arena. Rosabelle’s time still stood untouched. Then the announcer was saying: “A real treat now, folks. A special race between Rosabelle Lee, cowgirl queen, and your own Miss Mary McIntyre.
The local crowd cheered and clapped at Mary’s name. That warmed Chuck’s heart a little. But it wouldn’t be many minutes until they would be laughing at her, he thought.
Rosabelle was first. Quirt in hand, she took Tommy back far enough to get up good speed before she crossed the starting line. She pulled her hat down tight, nodded at the timekeepers in the judge’s box.
Then she spurred and quirted Tommy in the same instant. He bounded forward like he always did when he left the roper’s box on the heels of a calf.
Chuck watched his horse’s speed and knew Mary didn’t have a chance. But he leaned forward and sucked in his breath when Rosabelle reached the barrels. Tommy didn’t know just what he was supposed to do. Rosabelle was reining him too hard, much too hard. He pulled out too far from the first barrel. The cowgirl jerked him back in time to go around the off side of the second barrel. But she had lost speed.
Tommy went past the last barrel, and Rosabelle tugged on the reins to turn him round.
“Light-rein him, Rosabelle,” Chuck breathed. “You’re pulling him too hard.”
Rosabelle reined him heavily back around the barrels, then spurred and quirted him vigorously across the finish line. “Fourteen and three-tenths seconds,” the announcer said.
Rosabelle was muttering as she came out of the arena. Still puzzled by this new task, Tommy stepped along nervously. Rosabelle jabbed him with her spurs. “Behave yourself, jughead!” she gritted sharply.
Mary smiled at Chuck, then trotted Golden Lad up to his place. Chuck smiled weakly back.
Then Mary shouted at the horse, and Chuck blinked away the sand that the Palomino’s hoofs showered into his eyes. In almost no time Mary had gotten across the open space between the starting line and the barrels. She didn’t try to rein Golden Lad. She just stayed in the saddle, shifting her weight as she anticipated the next move.
“She knows that horse savvies what to do,” Chuck told himself.
Golden Lad rounded the last barrel, wove through them again, and pounded home. Mary shouted at him and fanned his rump with her hat at every step.
“Thirteen and five!” the announcer shouted.
Rosabelle sat there, slack-jawed, “It can’t be,” she breathed, color rising in her cheeks. “I’ve run those barrels a thousand times.”
“You mean your horse has,” Mary laughed. “He knows what to do. All you have to do is stay on him.”
A couple of cowgirls walked by, grinning. “Hey, there, Rosabelle. Looks like that hick girl you told us about could give you some lessons.”
Rosabelle’s face was suddenly dark. She gripped her quirt until her knuckles whitened. She swung down from the saddle, cursing.
“It’s this horse that did it,” she shouted. “He’s not fit for dog food!”
She lashed savagely at Tommy with her quirt. “Make a fool out of me, will you? I’ll beat some sense into you!”
She swung at him again. Tommy reared and squealed.
Blood roared hot in Chuck’s face. “Drop that quirt, Rosabelle!”
She swung at Tommy again. The horse flinched and jerked away from her. Chuck grabbed the quirt and tore it from Rosabelle’s fist.
“I always thought you were a good sport,” he said angrily. “But I guess I never saw you really get beat before. And you’re fixing to get another licking right now!”
Grasping Rosabelle’s wrist, Chuck sat down on a cowboy’s rope can and turned the screeching cowgirl over his knees. The palm of his hand burned like fire as he gave her a spanking like she probably hadn’t had since she had stopped playing with dolls.
A dozen cowboys and cowgirls stood watching, clapping their hands. Buzz Whitney trotted up, his face twisted.
“Take your hands off of her, Chuck Sloan,” he shouted. “I’ll whup the living daylights out of you!”
Chuck jumped up, dumping Rosabelle right on her hip pockets. “You better hire you some help,” he roared back.
He tore into the fancy-dressed cowboy, pounding at his face and belly with all the fury that had built up in him for weeks. Buzz quickly folded up like a dry towel and sank to the ground. A grinning cowboy filled a bucket out of a faucet behind the chutes and splashed water at Buzz.
Buzz sat up, sputtering. But he didn’t try to get to his feet while Chuck was standing there.
Rosabelle stood glowering, her blond hair hanging in strings. Her lipstick was smeared, and angry tears had sent her mascara trickling down her face in little black rivulets.
“You can keep your old ranch, Chuck Sloan!” she shouted. “Buzz and I are going places. You’ll be hearing about us—in Cheyenne and Pendleton and Madison Square Garden. And I hope you stay on that ranch till you die!”
She lifted the swaying Buzz to his feet, then helped him stagger off.
An ache gnawed deep within Chuck as he watched them go. It wasn’t so much seeing Rosabelle go. It was the sudden, cold realization that something he had loved and believed in hadn’t really existed at all.
Rosabelle’s last words came back to him. It struck him that they were the only wise ones he had ever heard her say: “Stay on that ranch till you die.”
Then he thought about Mary. She had known all this, and had braved ridicule to make him see it. A warm tingle ran through him. Pride, maybe. Or maybe it was something else. He remembered the dream he had had, of her sweeping off the front porch of his little ranch house. Suddenly he knew why the thought of her was so wonderful. He turned to find her.
She had tied Golden Lad to a fence. She was getting into her car, over by the refreshment stand.
“Mary, wait!” he shouted. But she didn’t hear him. She drove away. He started to run to his car, to catch up with her.
Just then the announcer’s voice came him. “Jim Todd next roper. Chuck Sloan get ready.”
Sadly he turned back to Tommy and patted him on the shoulder. He swung in the saddle and trotted to the pen.
* * *
Even twilight didn’t help the looks of the little duplex any. Chuck listened to the creak of the windmill as he stood on the front steps. He fancied his heart was pounding even louder. He knocked on the screen. In a moment Mary came to the door.
“Mary, I—” he stammered, “I’ve been wrong about so many things.” He awkwardly twisted his hat in his hands.
Mary smiled and pushed open the screen door. “Come in, Chuck.”
He tried to smile back as he walked in, but his face seemed to be frozen.
“Mary, last night you told me you would go with me any place, and live on the ranch with me—if you was Rosabelle. Well, would you do it now—being yourself?”
He thought he saw tears well up in her eyes, but he might have been wrong. They could have been his own.
“Am I second choice again?” she asked quietly.
“Not any more. Not since I got my eyes open.”
He caught her in his arms and pulled her to him. The nearness of her body sent the blood roaring through him again. “Please, Mary, I’ll need me a good home demonstration agent to make a home out of my place.”
“B-but I promised Mrs. Malone…”
Chuck held her tightly and kissed her. She leaned her head back and looked happily into his eyes. Then she put a warm hand on the back of his neck and pulled his face down to hers. “But I guess she’ll understand.” She kissed him. “Like you said—it was a heck of a promise.”
Copyright © 2018 by Elmer Stephen Kelton Estate
