Bull Rider

by Suzanne Morgan Williams

  They finished the team roping and let a couple more riders loose on other bulls. Then they moved Ugly up to get the next bull rope on him. He barely fit in the chutes. The cowboy who’d called me a mutton buster was pulling on his glove. I didn’t want that guy to win. The music stopped and the announcer said, “Next up is our cowboy come over from Washoe Valley, right here in Nevada. Ian Marley has made himself pretty well known around the bull-riding circuit, but he’s missed out on this bull. Let’s see if Ugly’s ready for round two.”

  They opened the gate and it couldn’t have gone better—for me. Ugly ran, kicked up with his back legs, then almost sat down. Marley about slid down his back, then Ugly rolled right and did a quick left. It looked like he was fixing to shake that cowboy off. It wasn’t two seconds before Marley was brushing the dust from his britches. “Too bad for Ian Marley. Maybe there’ll be another go round, ’cause I’m not seeing this bull give up a ride tonight, are you?” the announcer asked the audience. Someone started chanting, “Ugly, Ugly, Ugly.” A section of the stands picked it up and cheered for the bull. I felt sweat dripping down my back. Some guys ran out in the arena dressed in humongous cowboy hats that came down past their shoulders and covered up their arms. They weren’t wearing shirts and they had faces painted on their bare bellies that they wiggled in time to banjo music. They danced and all the little kids laughed and yelled. I walked toward the chutes. I was next. Darrell was already there.

  “Good luck out there, Cam,” he said to me.

  “You mean it?”

  “Sure, as long as you don’t take my prize.” He grinned.

  “I’m hoping on just that,” I said.

  They had Ugly in a chute for the next go round. The next ground round maybe, and that was me. Captain Hole in the Head. The fairgrounds had a fancy chute for rigging the bulls with the slits up the sides, so we didn’t have to fish around for the bull rope. I tossed Ben’s bull rope under Ugly to the chute man. He grabbed it and we climbed up our sides of the chute to fix the rope. Ugly snorted and plopped a giant cow pie. “You tried him?” I asked the guy.

  “No, you couldn’t pay me enough to ride this one.”

  Great. Well you could pay me. And Ben. Right then I took a breath and shook my head and shoulders. “Okay,” I said, and they opened the slide gate and moved Ugly into the bucking chute. I stood over him on the platform and saw the width of his back. It would be hard to grip—my knees were going to sit most straight out. Just then, Ugly reared up and climbed the railings with his front hooves until his head and horns came to my eye level. I jumped back. He swung around like he was going to bash me right there. His head looked as big as a wheelbarrow, and his eye was rolled back and glowing yellow. That look, it was ugly. I swear, he was staring at me. He lunged again, and the platform jerked and rocked from the crash. Three guys took to pushing him back into the chute. They got him calmed down. But me, I could hardly catch my breath.

  The announcer started, “Now it’s time for another Nevadan. This boy’s come all the way from Hawthorne to ride Ugly. He’s a newcomer to our bull ring, so let’s give it up for Adam Carl.” I looked down at Ugly. He was still. I jumped up and down a couple of times. The shaking stopped. My teeth weren’t chattering. “Go, Adam!” a kid yelled. I looked in the stands and met his eyes. It was like he looked right into me. I could do it. I felt good. I couldn’t help grinning. Cam O’Mara might be a kid who was never sure of a bull, but Adam Carl? He was fearless.

  I stepped off the platform and set myself on Ugly’s back. Grandpa says you can know something from the feel of a bull, and this one felt thick and stubborn. Cam might have worried, but “Adam” pushed his butt down tighter, laid the bull rope across his palm, and pounded his fingers around it. Then one of us—maybe me or maybe “Adam”—said a prayer, a real one. I mumbled, “Okay, Ben,” and then I said, real loud, “Let him go.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  They pulled the gate and this is what I remember. The lights, the dust, and pulling down with my arm and pushing into Ugly with my butt. You can’t count seconds when you’re riding, but you can feel yourself. I knew I was on, still on, swinging wide, pulling myself hard with my arm, wanting to grab something, anything, lights got brighter, my butt slipped, I struggled for balance.

  Then a buzzer. A buzzer. A buzzer. I snapped the bull rope, zipping it through my hand, flew off to my left and hit the ground. It knocked the wind out of me. I came up on my knees and heard a noise like a train coming. It was bull’s hooves. I wasn’t sure which way to turn. A bullfighter ran past me and another knocked me away and back onto the ground. I looked right up at Ugly’s underside as he ran past. I jumped up, scanned for the fence, and ran. It was only when I was safe on the rails that I saw everyone standing and cheering. The announcer said, “And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you ride a bull. Young Adam Carl from Hawthorne, Nevada, is the winner of the Winnemucca Ugly Challenge. It’s a great day for him and a first for Ugly. That’s one fine bucking bull, and he moves on to a career in the pro bulls. We can’t help wondering if that’s where Adam’s headed too.”

  I peered into the crowd. The announcer went on, “There’s only one cowboy left in the Ugly Challenge and it goes against the odds, but this next rider could tie with Carl and split the pot. Stranger things have happened, ladies and gents, so stick around, watch our antique wagons and stagecoach circle the field, and after we give that bull some R and R, we’ll be back with our last cowboy from right here in Humboldt County, Darrell Wallace.”

  I don’t think anybody else was listening. Everybody was talking and moving around. Mike and Favi ran down the aisle toward me. “You did it!” Favi said. “I knew you could. Well, I hoped you could…. Who would believe?…oh, it’s so good. You did it!”

  “Way cool,” Mike said. “When did you learn to do that?”

  Favi threw her arms around my neck. “Oh, Cam, I was so scared for you.”

  I hugged her back. Then I turned and wiped my eyes. There was dust in ’em or something. The official guy called to me across the gate. “Come down to the table and we’ll get your information for the news story and the check. That fifteen thousand is all yours unless this next guy rides him too.”

  I told Mike and Favi, “Don’t leave without me,” and I followed the official past the chutes and out toward the sign-up table. Grandma Jean was already there. Grandpa Roy was behind her. I swallowed hard.

  “Good job, son,” Grandpa Roy said, shaking my hand. “I couldn’t have ridden that bull myself.” He grinned and kept pumping my hand. “You ride like a real cowboy. Like an O’Mara, I’d say. Jean, get a picture of us.”

  “Excuse me,” the official said. “First, we’ll need you to sign these release forms for the press—they’ll want photos and an interview.” He handed me a long sheet of heretofores and therefores. A reporter with a fancy camera waved at me and took a step forward, smiling. Right then I knew the Adam Carl thing was going to be a big problem. They couldn’t put my picture in the paper with his name.

  “I’m not interested,” I said.

  “We need—” he started to explain to me.

  “No, not interested,” I interrupted. “Just the check. That’s all I want. And make it out to Ben O’Mara.”

  “It’s your money, son,” the official said.

  “Ben O’Mara is what this young man said, and that’s what you’ll do,” Grandpa Roy said. “It’s done, then.”

  I heard the announcer. “And now for our last bull rider.”

  “We’ve got to see Darrell,” I said. I ran back toward the arena and watched through the fence. Ugly was in the rigging chute. The announcer went on about Darrell and his wins. Ugly banged the rails and stomped his feet. The announcer kept talking. “Darrell Wallace is one of our homegrown cowboys. He’s at home on a bronc or a bull, and he was on the local high school rodeo team….” He kept talking, and talking some more. The men around the chutes were all yelling now. A couple of them sprinted toward the tack room. T
he announcer was quiet. Some people near him rustled around, whispering. Finally, the mike came back on.

  “It seems Darrell Wallace has withdrawn. I’ll say it again, ladies and gentlemen, Darrell Wallace has withdrawn from the challenge. That means the Ugly Challenge prize, the full fifteen thousand dollars, goes to Adam Carl, from right here in Nevada. He’s the one who rode Ugly.”

  Darrell was gone? After everything? It didn’t make sense.

  “Why do you suppose Darrell withdrew at the last minute like that?” Grandpa said. He shook his head. “I don’t think I’ll ever understand you young people. Well, let’s go pick up that check, Cam.”

  I followed him and Grandma Jean toward the gate. “How’d you know I was here?”

  “Favi told me what you were up to last week.”

  “Man, she promised she wouldn’t tell. She shouldn’t have told. Not even you.”

  “She was worried about you,” Grandma Jean said.

  “And you didn’t stop me?” I asked.

  “Didn’t want to,” Grandpa Roy said.

  I turned to Grandma Jean. “Is that why…”

  “I was here to prove who you were. Adam Carl, my grandson.”

  “Are you mad about me, you know, using him?” I asked her.

  “How could I be mad? If he’d grown up, I’d want him to be just like you.”

  I blushed. We walked by the tack room and I went in to pick up my gear bag. I looked around for Darrell, but his stuff was already gone. Go figure. I’d taken his prize, and he didn’t even fight me for it. Manny slapped me on the back, and when I came out to the arena, a bunch of little kids pushed around me asking for my autograph. I took a pencil from one of them and signed a bunch of stuff “Adam Carl.” Finally, I met Grandpa and Grandma Jean back at the sign-in table. “Shall we send the check to your Hawthorne address?” the official asked.

  “Don’t send that money anywhere.” I heard a rough voice over my shoulder. I turned and saw the cowboy who called me a mutton buster. “I knew I’d seen this kid. Up in Elko. He’s Ben O’Mara’s kid brother. I don’t know how he got that ride, but I’m telling you, he’s not eighteen.

  “I’m Adam Carl,” I said, quietly.

  Red spots popped out on the officials face, and he licked his lips like they wouldn’t quite move without the extra spit. “With a challenge to eligibility, I’m afraid we’ll have to hold the winnings until we investigate,” he said.

  Grandpa Roy and I looked at each other. “I rode Ugly. That money’s mine,” I said. I’d done what no cowboy had done, and now they were keeping my money?

  “We can’t pay out if you aren’t eighteen, son. And since we signed you in without any real ID tonight, if you took the money, that could be fraud. You and your family could be in some real trouble. I’d suggest, if you have any thought that you haven’t been honest here, that you let Adam Carl’s record stand and forfeit the winnings.”

  He couldn’t mean it. “Can’t you just give it to me? I rode the bull!”

  “You have to follow the rules,” he said. “There might be other young guys who wanted to try this, but they didn’t. They followed the rules. You can’t make up your own.”

  “But it was for Ben,” I said.

  “Who’s Ben?”

  “It doesn’t matter.” I shook my head. “I’ll forfeit the prize.”

  Grandma Jean groaned. Grandpa Roy put both hands on my shoulders as though to hold me steady.

  The official scrawled some stuff on a piece of paper saying I’d give up the fifteen thousand dollars I’d just won, and I signed it, “Adam Carl.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  So that’s how come, if you look up Ugly, you’ll find that Adam Carl won the challenge and it was his first and only bull ride. No one knew what happened to him. Now, I caught up with Darrell Wallace in the parking lot and asked him why he didn’t ride. He just said, “You won. I didn’t have the heart for it.” But I know better. I think he had a heart to do his own thing for Ben, although it turned out neither of us got the money. And as for Ben, well, he was awake when we came home. I went into his room and turned off the TV.

  “So, you ready for this?” I said, pulling off my boots and throwing his lucky socks at him.

  “For what?” he said.

  “I won our bet.”

  “What bet?”

  “You remember. When we had that fight in the barn, you said if I rode Ugly, then you’d believe anything was possible.”

  “So?” he asked.

  “So I rode Ugly tonight.”

  “No way.”

  I pulled the bull rope out of my bag and tossed it on his bed, along with his glove.

  “You took my bull rope? Did you think to ask?”

  “I didn’t want to ask. Get yourself looking decent and come into the living room. We’re having company.” I went in his dresser and tossed him a clean T-shirt and his comb.

  “You gotta ask to use my bull rope,” he said. “You didn’t really ride Ugly.”

  “Yep, I did. And now company’s coming. You look a mess.”

  “So, who all is gonna be here?” he asked, looking a little more interested.

  “Come out and see. It’s important—to me.”

  His eyes lit up, just a little, and he strapped his artificial arm into his walker, grabbed the other side with the good hand, and took a couple of steps to the mirror. He ran the comb through his hair and we walked out together.

  Everyone was in the living room. I couldn’t look at Mom. Dad was trying to keep from grinning. And Grandma and Grandpa, they were just glowing. Mom had the coffee on, decaf because it was late, and Lali was setting out cookies on the dining room table. Soon enough, we heard trucks in the driveway. The Ruiz family, the Giannis, and Neil and Amy Jones came in.

  “So, has Cam told you what he did?” Amy asked.

  “Not really,” Ben said. “He said he rode Ugly, but he’s kidding, right? Nobody’s ever stuck on that bull.”

  “Well, tell him, Cam,” she said.

  I didn’t know how to start. Yeah, I rode Ugly, but I came home empty-handed.

  “No need,” Grandma Jean said. “I’ve got it on video.” She pulled the tape out of her camera and clicked it into our TV in the living room. I watched Mom. And Ben. There was the flag, and the mutton busters, the team ropers, and the announcer. He was talking about a cowboy from Hawthorne, Adam Carl.

  “What?” Mom asked, looking at me.

  “Just wait,” Grandma Jean said. “It’s terrific.”

  Next, I came out of the chute on Ugly. Watching it was a whole ’nother story than riding it. It wasn’t a pretty ride. I was stiff and jerky and Ugly seemed slow. I could see a couple of times, when I was in real trouble—the crowd gasped and I’d leaned way too far to one side or the other, but there I was, up on Ugly, still, and then the buzzer went. I landed, looking dazed, and then the bull turned and came right at me.

  “Oh no, Cam.” Mom gasped and covered her eyes.

  I watched the bullfighters push me down and turn him away and figured I owed them a whole lot—maybe an arm or a leg. Mom peeked at the TV. Anybody could see, they’d saved my butt.

  Mom dropped into a chair and looked back and forth from me to Grandpa Roy to Grandma Jean. “You knew about this?”

  “That’s not pertinent,” Grandpa Roy said. “Didn’t you see? He rode Ugly. There was a fifteen thousand dollar purse on that bull from the stock company for the first guy to ride him, and it should have been Cam’s.” Grandpa took a long breath. “But he didn’t qualify ’cause of his age. He was doing it for you, Ben.”

  “You rode Ugly for me?” Ben’s mouth dropped open. He gaped at me like that for a second and then he said, “But why?”

  “I told you when we made the bet in the barn. If I can ride Ugly, you can do anything. I wanted to get the money too, but…I’m sorry, Ben, I wanted money so you could start up your bull-breeding business like you wanted before….”

  It was too much. The coolest t
hing I’d ever done was the most disappointing, too. I didn’t want to cry. Not in front of everybody. So I ducked into the kitchen, put my face to the wall, and held my breath, hoping it would stop the tears. Ben’s walker clicked on the floor behind me and then I felt his hand on my shoulder. My back heaved and I swallowed the sobs. “I just wanted you back. I thought the bucking bulls you’d always talked about…” My words jammed up and wouldn’t come out.

  Ben put his arm around me, and I leaned into his shoulder and cried.

  “It’s all right, bro’. It’s messed up. This whole deal, it’s really messed up. Go on and let it out.”

  I did. I wrapped my arms around my big brother, buried my head in his shirt, and cried. He squeezed me with his good arm. After a while, I sucked in the snot and wiped my tears on my sleeve.

  “I can’t believe you rode Ugly. Wow,” Ben said. The look on his face was worth a whole lot. “We’ll get along all right without that money, you know.”

  Neil Jones cleared his throat and stepped into the kitchen. “I don’t mean to butt in, but maybe we can help out. Ben, you could come up and work with Amy and learn the ropes in our AI business. It won’t be your own, like Cam was hoping for, but we’ll pay you commission on your sales, and you can save up and buy some straws of your own to get started. You cross some prize bull’s line with some of your crazy O’Mara cows, and it won’t be long before you’ll have your own breeding business.”

  I straightened up and looked between them. “Ben, you could pick the stock, Grandpa and I will be the hands, and Mom can do your books,” I said.

  “O’Mara Bucking Bulls,” Ben said with a grin. “Or how about O’Mara Brothers Bucking Bulls?”

  Lali stuck her head around the corner. “No, it’s O’Mara Family Bucking Bulls. Don’t forget me.”

  Who could forget Lali?