Bull Rider

by Suzanne Morgan Williams

  There was a bunch of trucks and trailers already round the bull ring. You could tell where the animals were, in the pen behind the arena, by the dust they raised. And, as always, there were cowboys hanging out, talking and giving advice, and there were cowboys working on their bull ropes because they intended to skip the advice and just ride. I can’t tell you how many times I’d been here. When I was real little and it was Dad riding, I was one of the kids who played hide-and-seek around the trucks or carried gear and water to the riders. Later, when Dad took over more chores from Grandpa on the ranch, it was Ben riding. At the bull ring, I was always Ben’s little brother, or Dad’s kid, or Roy’s little guy. Today, I figured I’d be less than that. All eyes were on the truck, waiting for Ben.

  Grandpa Roy pulled in, dropped the gear shift into first, and slid out of the truck in one smooth motion. He went to the back and pulled out Ben’s wheelchair. The men gave him space, holding themselves at a respectful distance and turning enough to see but not to stare. Grandpa opened the door. I got behind Ben on the seat and put my hands under his armpits. Grandpa took his hips and we lowered him to the running board. Then, a couple of Ben’s friends broke out of the group and jogged over to help. One held the chair and the other one worked with Grandpa to get Ben off the truck and eased into the wheelchair. I couldn’t see Ben’s face under his hat, but his hand tensed up on the arm of the chair and the veins stood out.

  Darrell Wallace said, “Hey, Ben.” He knelt down to get eye level with Ben. “It’s good to see you, man.” His voice trembled.

  Ben took his hand.

  “Okay, then.” Darrell jumped up, grabbed the chair, tipped it back, and spun it around. “Let’s see if you can do eight seconds in this,” he said. “What took you so long? We figured you’d just crawl over to see us if you had to. I never knew you to be away from the bulls for more than a day. So why you ignoring us?”

  Ben reached back with his hand and grabbed Darrell’s again. He held it for a few seconds, squeezing. Then he pushed his hat back, smiled, though his face was flushed, and said as clear as I’d heard him talk since he’d been home, “I figured you guys was too mean…and ugly. And I’m already broke. Don’t need no bull…to do it again.”

  Andrew Echevarria came over. He and Darrell were the only ones around here who could beat Ben in the ring—sometimes. “Well, we could tie you on and see if you stick. Some of these yahoos would like to try that themselves.”

  Darrell pushed the chair toward the ring. The men made a knot around Ben, talking and asking questions. Ben answered as best he could and laughed. Grandpa and I tagged behind, tasting the dust they kicked up. They parked Ben parallel to the chute. This wasn’t a pro ring, with its six chutes and fancy advertisements hanging on the gates. It was a one-chute deal, with a couple of holding pens in the back. The men took turns helping the rider flank and rope the bull, settling him in the chute, and playing bullfighter when he got thrown. Most days nobody kept time, but when there was a jackpot or a bet on the line, then the timer wasn’t a big digital clock, but Grandpa Roy or some other old guy with a stopwatch. There was nothing fancy about the Salt Lick bull ring except the wins these cowboys made. Salt Lick had its share of winners.

  I realized I hadn’t been here myself since Ben left for the Marines. If I looked at Ben just the right way, I could forget the wheelchair and pretend he was home on his last leave, getting ready to ride himself. I closed my eyes and replayed Dad’s tape of Ben’s championship ride in my mind. I smelled the manure and the sage and fixed on the sun warming my back. It felt good.

  “Cam, check out…the bulls,” Ben called. “Tell me—can Darrell stick on one?” He laughed some more.

  I walked past Ben and climbed the rails by the chute for a better look. There were four smallish long-horned bulls and a big Brahma in the holding pen. “I’d put him on the little red one,” I said. “That looks like his speed.”

  Darrell shouted, “The kid’s got a sense of humor. That looks more like your bull, Cam O’Mara.”

  “No bull is my bull,” I said. “I’ll take you on at the skate park, though.”

  “And I’d beat you there, same as here,” Darrell said.

  “Don’t think so,” Ben said. “You should…see him skateboard.”

  “Well, I think it’s time to see him on a bull.” Darrell mussed my hair. I pushed his hand away. “It’s time you live up to that O’Mara name your daddy gave you.”

  “I don’t ride,” I said again.

  “When you’re ready, you let me know. We’ll go head-to-head, bull to board. And I’ll win.”

  “’Course you will,” one of the men said. “The kid’s only in junior high.”

  I looked at Ben and Grandpa. They were laughing, but I didn’t know what was so funny.

  “Come here, squirt,” Darrell kept at it. “I’ll just set you on the little red one. He’s a steer, you know. Comes along as companion to that big black Brahma, Quicksand. He’ll be a good one for you ’cause he’s sweet.”

  One part of me wanted to puff up and say, Give me the big, black one, but even the little steer looked huge to me. Steers, cows, bulls, don’t matter, they all look pretty tall when you get up next to them. But more than that, I wanted to say, No thanks, I’m a skateboarder. Before I said either, Darrell started messing with me again.

  “I guess Ben was the bull rider in the family. It’s a shame he got you for a little sister.”

  Now that was it. You can tease me, and you can say I’m in junior high when I’ve started ninth grade and am tall enough to look you in the eye. You can call me a skater wimp like Ben used to do, but man, don’t add slams about the O’Mara name and then call me a girl. Even if you are Ben’s buddy. I turned to look at Ben and Grandpa standing right behind him, and neither one of them was laughing now. Grandpa wet his lips and nodded his head, slow, so I’d get the message. And then Ben tossed his hat at me. It landed short on account of his right arm was still gimpy. “Let’s go, bro’,” he said. Grandpa set his own hat on Ben, covering up the dent in his skull.

  So, instead of making an excuse, like a sane person, I put on Ben’s hat and pulled it down tight across my forehead. Darrell took off his protective vest—it was hard inside to keep a bull from stomping your middle—and handed it to me. I zipped it on, trying not to shake. And one foot after another, I climbed up the rails to the narrow platform behind the chutes. Up there, wearing Ben’s hat, I felt like we were back to being brothers for the first time since he’d come home.

  They said the steer’s name was Possum ’cause it could look half-dead and then wake right up. I was rooting for the half-dead style. Andrew picked up his bull rope and moved Possum into the bucking chute. Rodeo chutes can look like a maze of metal rails, but they’re simple contraptions. Each chute has four sides—just bull-size. The back end slides out to let the bull in, and then a cowboy pushes it closed behind him. The bull rider, that was me, perches alongside the chute on a platform that’s level with the top of the railings. When it’s time to get on the bull, he swings across the rails and lowers himself onto the bull’s back. The long side of the chute is hinged to open into the arena. Say the word and they let the animal go. That’s it. Simple. Unless you’ve decided to be the cowboy on top of the bull.

  Possum walked into the chute and one of the guys slid the gate behind him. It was time to put on the bull rope. Now, the pro bull riders and the bigger rodeos, they have a special rigging chute that makes the whole deal a lot easier. But in a little hometown arena like we had in Salt Lick, we made do with the fish-and-stretch method: dangle the rope down one side of the chute and a second cowboy on the other side of the chute reaches a long wire hook under the bull to catch the rope. Work both sides of the bull rope up to the top of the chute and stretch across the bull to pull it around him like a ribbon on a package. That’s how they rigged up Possum. And all the while the steer was moving back and forth into the sides of the chute. With every bang, the whole chute moved. I could feel the size
of him under my boots on the platform before I ever went over the rail.

  I’d seen this a thousand times, and I knew that, since I was going to ride, or at least try to ride, the steer, I should be the one to fix the bull rope. But I didn’t. I let Andrew reach in and adjust the size of the rope so it fit around the steer. He moved it back and forth until the handle was on top. I watched. And prayed.

  I thought about jumping around and slapping my hands together like some guys do before they ride, but I felt quiet, so I waited till they tied the flank rope on Possum. That’s when you have to decide. And I’m telling you, you have to decide every time. Are you going over the rails to get on the bull, or are you going to be smart and go back down? My instinct was to climb down. But Ben was watching me and then Darrell handed me his buckskin glove. I slipped it on my right hand and clenched my fingers, feeling the pine tar that bull riders rub on their gloves for extra grip stick my fingers together. Possum banged back and forth in the chute. I shivered.

  “We’ll ease you down,” Darrell said. He put a hand under my armpit the same way I had put mine under Ben’s to get him out of the truck, and right then, I swallowed, swung my legs across the rails, and dropped onto Possum.

  The steer let go with a shower of poop. No offense meant, but the back end of a bull is pretty much a manure factory, and when they get excited it shoots everywhere. Even a little steer like Possum has a broad back. I stretched my legs out across him, settled in, and felt his muscles tense. “Hang on tight with them legs,” Andrew said. He pulled the rope snug to cinch it on the steer. I was sure this animal didn’t like me. “That feel good to you?” he asked. I didn’t have a clue what felt good, but I nodded. “Now rough your rope.” I ran my glove up and down the bull rope a bunch of times to raise the fuzz up and give me anything extra to hold on to. Then I slipped my hand into the handle, palm up. Andrew laid the tail of the rope across my fingers one direction, made a loop, and brought it back the other way on top of my palm. I wrapped my fingers around the rope, and Darrell reached in and squeezed my hand shut over the rope to seal everything up with the pine tar. The steer jumped to one side.

  “Keep your toes in,” Grandpa Roy yelled. I looked up and he was straddling the fence above me. I turned my left toe under the steer just before he would have ripped it along the rails. He jammed my knee into the boards instead, and I bit my lip to keep from yelling. This was when a clear thinker should have got out.

  “Now sit forward when you ride,” Grandpa said. “And don’t forget your shoulders. Keep ’em square. You ready?” His face was taut with excitement. I felt the bull squash my leg and scrape it along the side of the chute.

  “Ready,” I said. They opened the chute wide, the steer jumped to the right, and I blacked out.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Now in case you think I’m a wimp or something, I’m telling you a lot of the guys black out their first ride. That’s what Ben says, anyway. There’s just too much happening all at once. I don’t think I stuck two seconds. I don’t remember. I do remember scrambling up the rail and Possum trotting around the far end of the ring, with Andrew shooing him away from me. And from the throbbing, I can tell you I landed hard on my right side.

  I brushed myself off and then I saw the cowboys watching me. “That’s one way to ride a bull!” someone yelled. Everybody laughed.

  “Well, he’s lucky he passed out before he got a load of your ugly face,” another one called.

  I blushed and pulled Ben’s hat down lower. I wished they were talking about anybody but me. I unzipped Darrell’s vest and took it over to him. The odd thing was, when my head cleared enough to think, I was tingly and tight and wired and pumped up all at once. All I wanted was to do it again. But the guys were still joking about my ride, and getting on another steer meant I had to lower myself into the chute, and I was scared. Stomach-churning scared.

  So I sat on the fence and tried to act cool, like blacking out on the back of a steer happened to me every day. Meanwhile, Darrell got settled for his ride. He picked the big black Brahma. Andrew pulled the gate clear back and, man, that bull shot out. He bucked high and landed four-footed, turned right, and then threw his head back, then ducked it to the left. Darrell went flying off to the side. He hit, bounced, and jumped to his feet, hopping one, two, three, four. He sprang up the fence like a jack rabbit and landed next to me.

  “So, you gonna be a bull rider like your brother?”

  “That’s a lot of bull riding,” I said.

  “Yeah, it is,” Darrell said, catching his breath. “But he’s out and it seems like we could use another O’Mara in.”

  I stared at him to see if he was fooling with me after all that ribbing. But his face was serious the way guys are when they need you to believe something important.

  “Ben and you are the bull riders,” I said. Then I realized just how stupid that sounded now.

  He took off his cowboy hat and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “Ben just goes with bull riding, don’t he?” He knocked the dust off his hat. “Well, if it’s not Ben, maybe it’ll be you—someday. In or out?” he asked.

  I jumped off the fence. “Let’s see you on a board first.”

  “That’s a bet, Cam O’Mara—you didn’t do so good on the bulls, and I’ll beat you at skateboarding, too.”

  “I’ll take any bet you’ve got. Just show up,” I said, grinning.

  “Soon,” he said.

  “You’re on.”

  Monday morning, Mike, Favi, and me sat together on the school bus. I was bursting to tell them about the bull riding, but Mike beat me to it, in the news category.

  “My mom’s been fainting again. This weird Meniere’s Disease makes her ears ring and she loses her balance. They can’t get her medications right.”

  “Is she going to be okay?” Favi asked.

  “Yeah, the doctors aren’t worried, but she can’t drive for a while.”

  “That’s too bad,” Favi said.

  “Too bad for her. My dad says he’s got some big irrigation contracts up in Oregon. He’ll be out of town a lot, so I’ll have to get an emergency driver’s license.”

  “No way,” I said.

  “Yep. I’ll be legal to drive as soon as I pass the tests.” Mike just beamed.

  “Will they give you a license even though you’re fourteen?” Favi asked. She went on without waiting for his answer. “I’ll help you study for your written test.”

  “Can you drive us places?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. I have to get the license first.”

  We spent the rest of the ride talking about Mike’s good luck. The bus pulled up to school before I’d said one word about my bull ride.

  So I told them at lunch. “I went with Ben and Grandpa to the bull ring. And I rode a steer. It was a total rush. You wouldn’t believe how it feels when they open the gate.” I talked faster. “And after that, well I don’t remember a lot, but it was even better than hitting a landing off that high ramp at the Winnemucca Skate Park. It’s not like what I expected. It’s awesome. I’m thinking about going back.”

  “You can’t just decide to be a bull rider,” Favi said, picking the tomatoes out of her sandwich. “That’s not you.”

  “Sure he can, he just has to fall off about a thousand times.” Mike ate one of Favi’s tomatoes. “Then he’ll learn how to stick on a bull—but it’s not worth it.”

  “I can do it,” I said to Favi. “Just like Mike can get his license.”

  “Well, I need that to drive my mom around. But bull riding—you don’t have time,” Mike said. “We’re practicing for the skateboarding jam.”

  “I can do both.”

  “Just remember you said you’d skateboard first,” Mike pressed. He reached for my chips. “Remember, we’re boarders. That’s what we do.” He pushed his hair back off his forehead.

  “Don’t worry. He can’t learn to bull ride that fast. Or maybe,” Favi teased me the way she did when other kids might be listeni
ng, “they’ll give you a real nice bull that anybody can ride.”

  I glared at her. “You can’t score high on a nice bull.”

  “Maybe it would turn mean when you sit on it.”

  “Faviola, grow up,” Mike said.

  “Yeah, like you’re the mature one.” She stuffed her garbage into her lunch bag. “I’d stick to skateboarding, Cam. Bull riding is too dangerous. It’s almost barbaric.” She used one of this week’s vocabulary words. “You’re a skater.”

  “I can do what I want, and that’s what I’m gonna do.” Now I sounded just like Ben. Or Grandpa.

  “Well, if you are going to go off bull riding instead of practicing for the skate jam, don’t be whining to me when you lose,” Mike said. “You haven’t landed a decent jump all week.”

  “I won’t lose,” I told him, and I smashed my lunch bag into the garbage.

  My reputation was on the line. Bulls or no bulls, I had to prove to Mike that I could win the skateboard competition in Winnemucca.

  When Lali and I came in from school, Grandma Jean had the kitchen full of cucumbers, green tomatoes, and onions from the garden. The whole place smelled like vinegar.

  “Pickles!” Lali said. “Can I help?”

  “Shhh, honey, Ben’s sleeping.” Grandma handed Lali the measuring spoons. “You can put in the peppercorns.” Grandma turned to me and smiled. “Somebody around here mostly helps out by eating them. Cam, you can slice the cucumbers.”

  I knew how to do it. Grandma Jean made pickles every fall.

  “What did you do today?” she asked. “Is that Mr. Killworth still as cranky as I remember?”

  “Pretty much.”