Bull Rider

by Suzanne Morgan Williams

  I looked over the stock jammed into the holding corral. It seemed like they’d picked them for their size. I turned to Darrell. “They’re pretty big.”

  “Nothing bigger than Quicksand.”

  “Yeah, right. Nothing bigger than that monster,” I said. “Do you think I can score?”

  “Shut up,” he said. “It’s bad luck to talk about it.”

  “Don’t worry, kid,” a graying cowboy said to me. “Ain’t nothing a bull can do to you that a two-ton truck can’t.” He laughed.

  I didn’t feel any better. I pushed my hands into my jacket pocket and felt something smooth and small. I pulled out Grandma Jean’s little packet of good-luck stuff. I reached inside and felt the baggie of Salt Lick salt. I put the whole packet into my jeans and hoped Grandpa was right—that the salt worked magic with bulls.

  The stands held a handful of folks from the cowboys’ families. Steve turned on a microphone; a sturdy woman raised the American flag while we held our hats over our hearts. Then Steve announced, “Our first rider today is all the way from Nampa, Idaho. Let’s hear it for Jesse Spellman on Snowball.”

  A big albino bull came out of the chute, but he was running instead of bucking. Then he kicked a couple of times and finally started to buck. Jesse was spurring him, but the bull was lazy. Jesse got a reride. See, the scoring goes fifty points for how bad the bull is to ride and fifty more for how good the cowboy rides him. You have to stay eight seconds to score at all. In this ride, Snowball didn’t do his part.

  Next was a big, sunburned cowboy on a black-and-white bull. The bull was heavier than most, but you could still see his muscles move. I was standing by the fence, as I’d be fixing my bull rope soon—close enough to see the cowboy fall and hear his bone snap when he hit the ground. The bullfighters jumped in to distract the bull, and a couple of guys pulled the rider out of the ring, raising a dust cloud behind him. They set him down next to me, and someone poked around at his collarbone. He reached up to his shoulder and rocked, just a little, back and forth. His moans mixed in with the cattle’s mooing. It hit me, what if I broke something? What would I say to Mom and Dad then?

  “That’s a tough break for a tough cowboy,” the announcer said. “We’ll let you know when we have word what’s happening. Meantime, there’s another bull coming down the chute, and this one belongs to Seth Yoman.”

  I watched them unbutton the downed cowboy’s shirt, and before they finished taping his shoulder, a woman came running over.

  “You all right?” she called. “Don’t tell me you broke something again.”

  He muttered, “I’m good,” and stood up, although the color drained from his face.

  “Well, after you wrecked your back last time, I was afraid…” The woman’s voice tapered off to a whisper.

  “It’s just a bull,” he said. “Nothing’s gonna happen.” But I could tell from her face, she didn’t believe him.

  “You’re next,” someone said to me. I hadn’t watched Yoman. I didn’t even know if he scored, but it was my turn to ride. I drew a red bull with a white face and thick horns. He was stocky and his hair swirled in stiff cowlicks on his back. He bawled when they moved him into the chute. I climbed up to the platform, tossed Darrell’s bull rope under him, and cinched it tight. Then I waited. As the seconds passed, I kept hearing the snap of the guy’s shoulder bone.

  “Next we have a young cowboy come up from Salt Lick. He’s from a bull-riding family—you might know his grandpa Roy, or big brother, Ben. And now he’s out to put his own name in the record books. Let’s give a big hand to Cam O’Mara on Rosy.” I barely heard the applause. “Cam O’Mara” was what I heard. What a rush to hear my name over the mike—even if it was in the same sentence with Ben’s.

  “Time to ride,” a cowboy said to me. “Make your brother proud.”

  I shook my head fast side to side to shake out his words like a curse. Geez, did they always have to put me up against Ben? I lowered myself onto Rosy and tried to put the crack of the big cowboy’s bone out of my mind. I drew in Rosy’s smell, roughed my rope, and felt him rock under me. “Let ’im go,” I said, and we took off.

  You can think before you get on a bull, and you can think after you fall off, but when you are on, you just ride. I rode till I heard an air horn, then I ripped my rope and fell to the ground. I spit dust and crawled up to my feet. Rosy trotted around to the other end of the ring, so I walked to the fence.

  “O’Mara gets the first score. Seventy with Rosy.”

  “All right, Cam!” Darrell whooped. I saw him in the back, waiting for his ride. Seventy wasn’t exactly a high score. The bull was easy. But it was my first score, and it felt great. Darrell rode and got an eighty-two. Andrew Echevarria showed up and didn’t score on his first round. Then I rode the albino, Snowball, and didn’t score either. Darrell’s second score was eighty, and Andrew got eighty-eight. Then it was done. They started the calf roping, and we bought chewy Indian tacos from a kid in the trailer and watched the action in the arena. The whole day just flew by. Then the stock was ready to load into the cattle trucks, and the cowboys were breaking out the beer.

  “To one crazy sweet day,” Darrell said.

  I had to agree.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  I sat with Mike on the bus after school on Monday. “Report cards are coming out,” Mike said. “Do you think you’ll get your skateboard back?”

  “Yeah. I’m getting A’s and B’s now. That should be enough to cut it loose from Mom.”

  “Come over when you get it. We can practice some new tricks. I found these cool skate videos online.”

  “I’ll have to do my homework first.”

  “Man, it’s always something with you,” Mike said. “Get your mom to let you out. If your grades are as good as you say, you’ve earned it. Come on, you’re the only one around that’s fun to board with. I’ve waited a long time.”

  “Me too,” I said.

  I raced home from the bus. I skipped up the porch steps, swung through the door, and asked, “Are report cards here?”

  Mom looked up from her accounting and quietly pointed to the envelope. There they were, my A’s and B’s. My afternoons studying with Favi and my tutoring with Darrell. My pass to skateboarding. To Mike’s house. To my regular life.

  “Congratulations,” Mom said.

  “Do I get my board back now?”

  Mom took off her reading glasses and set them on her papers. “We need to talk.”

  “About what? I brought my grades up.”

  “About bull riding. Oscar says you’ve been bull riding.”

  “How would he know?” I asked.

  She raised her eyebrows. “Are you saying he’s lying? Is it a different Cam O’Mara he’s talking about?”

  Favi must have said something to her father. Or maybe her uncle told him or one of the guys from Elko. I forgot to breathe.

  Mom went on. “I know you’ve been bull riding and so you aren’t getting your skateboard. And you aren’t off restriction. And since we can’t trust you on weekends around here, your dad and I have decided you’ll come with us to Palo Alto.”

  “This weekend?” I asked.

  “Every weekend until we think different.”

  “You can’t do that! I brought my grades up, you owe me my board.”

  “Cam, when you act like this, I don’t think we owe you anything.”

  I grabbed my report card, tore it up, and tossed it in the wastebasket. It was too good for them. I went out to the barn to blow off some steam. I put a halter on one of the yearlings and ran him around the corral until I broke a sweat, and then I kept running.

  Neil Jones pulled up in his truck. “Where’s your dad, Cam?”

  “Haven’t seen him.”

  “Well, when you do, tell him I came by to look at that stock he’s selling. He said they’re the ones in the back corral, right?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. It surprised me that Dad was going ahead selling the stock. I
f Grandpa Roy found out about it, he would chase Mr. Jones right off the ranch. Those calves were O’Mara calves, with our brand. And I wasn’t feeling much like helping Dad sell them. I believed what Grandpa said about selling stock cutting at the heart of the ranch—being the beginning of the end. The way things happened lately, losing the ranch wouldn’t take long from start to finish. “I don’t think they’re for sale,” I said.

  “Really? But your dad called.”

  “You better talk to my grandpa,” I said. “Ask him. He’ll know.”

  Now, I knew right then that I’d messed with a big sale and the money for our bills. Money Mom and Dad might need for Ben. I knew Grandpa wouldn’t sell the calves. And right then, I didn’t care.

  “I saw his truck. Is he in the house?” Mr. Jones asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. And then I couldn’t take it back.

  So there wasn’t any reason for me to spend the weekend before Thanksgiving in Salt Lick, even if Mom would have let me. I couldn’t skateboard, and Mike was steamed. Grandpa and Dad were hardly talking after the calf deal fell through. Mom was crazy as a dog on a scent about me and the bull riding. So it felt right, like the punishment fit me, to pack my duffel bag and sit silent in the backseat of the truck while we crossed the mountains and went back to California. Okay, so Ben was messed up, but at least he’d probably talk to me.

  The motel was the same. Mom and Dad were the same. The crowds were the same. But Ben seemed different. He was talking better, and they’d fitted him for another temporary arm and were fixing on getting his skull put back together with an operation right after Christmas. You’d think that would cheer him up, but he was majorly down. I didn’t feel much like cheering anybody up, but I gave it a try.

  “So where’s Burton?” I asked.

  “Burton? They sent him back east for that surgery and then he’s going home.”

  “Oh,” I said. “That’s good, right? He gets to go home?”

  “Yeah.” Ben stared at the wall. I searched around for something to talk about.

  “Is there anyone else from your unit here? Anybody you know from over there?”

  Ben took his time answering. “Yeah, one guy came in last week…. Two more of ’em didn’t make it this far.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “They ambushed my unit again. It was a couple of grenades that took ’em out.” He looked away. “It can tear a person up when one of those goes off at close range. I should have been there.”

  “So, are your friends dead?”

  “One wounded. Two dead. Like before.” Ben’s face was taut. “I should have been there,” he repeated softly. “I could have done something for them.”

  “Ben, you said there wasn’t much left…. You’d be dead too. You can’t save everybody.”

  “No, but I’m supposed to be there, not in this hospital. What good is that?”

  “It’ll be real good when you get your new skull and come home. You’ll see. Things’ll be good again.”

  “You think so?” He looked expectant, waiting for my answer, like a little kid.

  “Sure,” I said, and I put my hand on his. “Mom says the doctors want you to remember stuff. You want to talk about the dumb stuff we did when we were kids?”

  “Like when you, me, and Grandma Jean TP’ed Pastor Fellows’s house?” he asked.

  “Yeah, or when Grandpa Roy got mad at us for running the cows around the salt lick because I wanted to see how fast they could go.”

  “I don’t remember that,” Ben said.

  “Sure you remember. Grandpa was so mad I though his face would burst.”

  “You gotta think of the cattle first,” Ben said. He could still quote Grandpa Roy.

  “So, what do you remember?” I asked.

  He thought. Finally, he said, “I remember when Adam Carl drowned.”

  “You do? I don’t remember that.”

  “You were too young. But I was there. It was Adam’s birthday, and he and I were in a rowboat on Walker Lake. Some bees came around, and he took off his life vest and dove in to get away from them. He splashed me, and we were laughing. Grandma Jean yelled at us to come in. But I jumped in the lake too. That’s when Adam slipped under the water. I thought he was playing.”

  “So, what did you do?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “Same as now. Only back then, I thought he was playing.”

  Nobody’d ever told me that Ben had been there. “You didn’t know,” I said. Ben was crying. I handed him a tissue. “Grandma Jean says the Lord doesn’t take kids unless there’s a good reason.”

  “Right,” Ben said.

  “There had to be a reason,” I said.

  “Right.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Thanksgiving came around, but I wasn’t feeling too thankful. It was harder having Ben in the hospital than it was the year before when he was gone in Iraq. Mom wanted the holiday at home, “like normal,” and we were all hauling ourselves back to Palo Alto on Friday to visit Ben. Dad carved the turkey, and Mom served up the potatoes and stuffing.

  “I wish Jones had bought those fall calves,” Dad said.

  I smoothed the wrinkles out of the fancy cloth napkin in my lap.

  “He knows he ain’t doing you no favors taking your stock,” Grandpa Roy said. “That’s your future income. Sell them when they’re fat, and we’ll have more money.”

  Dad scowled. “He wanted the calves. And no one else has been round to look at them. I’ll have to take them down to auction.”

  I twisted the corner of the napkin tight around my finger.

  Grandpa grunted. “They aren’t bidding up at auction this winter. Take them in spring.”

  “I’ll get my job back,” Mom said quietly.

  Dad turned pale. “Don’t do that, Sherry. You don’t know when Ben will need you. We’ll work something out.”

  Now Grandma Jean chimed in. “Honey, you have plenty to do with the ranch and the children and your bookkeeping. You’ll put yourself in an early grave if you start back to work, too. And I have to get back home to Hawthorne one of these days. I won’t be here to help you.”

  Of all of it, that was the worst. “You don’t have to go back, do you?” I asked her.

  “Pretty soon, Cam. Your Aunt Shawna’s been stopping by my house, but I should look after my own place. And I’ll be wanting to come back when Ben gets home for good. That’s when you’ll need more help.”

  “But you live here now,” Lali said. “We have more books to read.”

  “You’re getting to be a good reader yourself, and I’ll write you letters and you can write back.”

  Lali stuck out her lip. “Will they come to the mailbox? Can I open them myself?”

  “Yes, they will.” Grandma Jean smiled.

  “All right,” Lali said. “Pass the Jell-O salad, please.”

  After dinner, we went to the Baptist hall for the annual dessert and prayer meeting. Pastor Fellows started it when I was little so some of the old-timers could share a Thanksgiving meal without feeling like they were taking a handout from their neighbors. Mike’s dad drove their Suburban around to the old folks’ places, put a step stool on the ground, and collected them up. All of Salt Lick came, didn’t matter if they were Baptist or not, ’cause this was the closest we got to a town party all year.

  The desserts were always great—German chocolate cake, Basque flan, and all kinds of cookies. Grandma Jean and Lali had baked three kinds of pies themselves, and Grandpa Roy bought ten gallons of vanilla ice cream last time he was in Winnemucca at the Savers Club.

  “You can bring that pie straight into the kitchen, and we’ll get it served up,” Grandma Jean said to me.

  I felt the heat from all the people in the hall as we passed through. There were only a few women in the kitchen, and Grandma Jean offered for me to scoop out the ice cream. I rolled up my sleeves and dug in, happy for something to do. When I had about three dozen scoops, we loaded some trays and started carrying
them out to the tables.

  Darrell waved me over. “How’s Ben?”

  “Okay, I guess. We saw him last week. He can move his toes, and now they say he can wiggle his foot.”

  Darrell looked away. “His foot, huh? Is that all he can do?”

  I felt the need to explain. “No, that’s really good. It means he might walk. That’s what they say. It’s all good. You should go see him in Palo Alto.”

  “I’m not much for cities. And Ben don’t want me to see him laid up and sittin’ around in his pajamas.”

  “He doesn’t wear pajamas all day.”

  “Well, I’ll come by when he’s home in Salt Lick.” Darrell brightened up. “So when are you coming back to the bull ring?”

  “Shhh.” I shook my head. “I can’t. My folks are watching me all the time. It’s making me nuts.”

  I took some ice cream over to Mike and Favi and sat down with them.

  “What’s up?” Mike asked.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “I’m taking my driver’s test Monday. Then I can drive you unlicensed teens around.” He grinned.

  “No, you can’t,” I said. “You can just drive your mom around.”

  “What is up with you?” Mike asked.

  “Something’s up,” Favi said. “Why is your father trying to sell off calves early?”