Handful of Sky

by Cates, Tory

  “You know what, Shallie? I like you. You’re too damned pretty to be a stock contractor.”

  The compliment seemed to rouse Trish from her lethargy. She pursed her lips, displeased that any other woman should be the object of a compliment while she was present.

  “Stock contractors all need to smoke cigars and have big ole bellies like me.” He patted the small swell of flesh that barely rippled above his belt and let out a burst of raucous laughter, startling the hummingbirds outside the window.

  “But I do like you, so you got yourself a deal. Go on down to the corral and pick yourself out a bronc.”

  Shallie knew that he thought he’d fleeced her. Odds were that not one of the horses he had were worth even one of the steers she’d brought down. It calmed her conscience to know that Jake McIver was willing to take the equivalent of a dozen steers for what was more than likely a worthless bucking horse.

  “What do you think about the deal I just cut with Shalimar?” Jake demanded. Shallie whirled around to find Hunt looming over her.

  “What deal’s that?” His voice was as flat and featureless as a West Texas highway.

  “I’m going to let this little lady have her pick of any of those auction broncs. What do you think of that? Have we got a Midnight down there I don’t know about?”

  Shallie felt her stomach tighten. Would Hunt give her away?

  “What are the chances of that happening?” Jake asked.

  “Pretty damned slim.” Hunt’s face was an expressionless deadpan as he added, “Guess Shallie’s a gambler.”

  The grin splitting Jake’s face faded and he leaned in close to Shallie. “Now, don’t you forget to tell Walter that this trade was strictly your idea, you hear?”

  “I will,” Shallie promised. His request confirmed her suspicion that Jake McIver believed he was cheating her.

  Looking as if he’d just smelled something unpleasant, Hunt took the coffee mug Sadie extended to him and stomped out of the house.

  “What’s gotten into him?” Jake asked after the door slammed shut behind his retreating grandson.

  Shallie shrugged, not trusting herself to speak. She took several deep breaths and was able to go on. “I’d better go and pick out my horse. I need to get on the road.”

  “No hurry,” Jake insisted. “Stay as long as you like. We like having company, don’t we, Trish?”

  “Yes, of course.” The model-perfect woman seemed to have come fully awake with Hunt’s arrival. She gave Shallie a smile that stopped far short of her eyes.

  “Day after tomorrow, we’re having a big do here. Everybody who’s anybody in rodeo will be flying in.” McIver reeled off a list of names. Shallie recognized most of them. With McIver’s next words she realized what they all had in common. “The party was Trish’s idea, she made up the guest list. I just happened to know all the boys.”

  And they all just “happened” to be on the committee that elected a Rodeo Sweetheart each year. Shallie looked at the young beauty and understood why she would be involved with a man old enough to be her grandfather. The Rodeo Sweetheart title invariably led to a host of commercial offers and, in one or two cases, a career in films and television. If anyone had the clout to get a Rodeo Sweetheart elected, it was Mr. Rodeo, Jake McIver.

  “Thanks,” Shallie said feebly, getting to her feet and heading for the door, “but my uncle will be needing me.”

  The air was hot and humid. The ranch looked endlessly lush in the bright morning light, but its beauty was lost on Shallie as she made her way down to the corral.

  “This is the position you want to be in when that chute gate swings open.” Hunt’s deep, rich voice floated up. He was perched atop a bale of hay, his spurs dug into it. A group of wide-eyed young cowboys were scattered worshipfully at his feet. Shallie, unable to meet the accusations in his eyes, glanced away hurriedly when he looked her way.

  As if the animal were a magic talisman against the desperate unhappiness threatening to crush down upon her, Shallie sought out Pegasus. The sight of the roan cheered her. He was worth whatever she had sacrificed to obtain him, and now he was hers.

  She found Wade in the barn and steeled herself to the task of directing the odious man. What she really longed for was a quiet corner somewhere in which to sob her heart out. Instead she was caught switching from one ill-fitting mask to another. With Jake McIver she’d played the good old girl; now she had to be the stern boss with a surly employee.

  “Wade.” Grudgingly, the hand directed his attention toward her. “There’s a blue dappled roan out in the corral. Could you load him up? We’re taking him back with us.” Instead of snapping to, Wade leaned languidly against a post and continued to silently eye Shallie. She did not enjoy the experience of having his reptilian gaze slither over her.

  “Wade, did you understand what I said? I want to be on the road in fifteen minutes.”

  “Fifteen minutes, eh? Doesn’t give you much time to say good-bye to the bronc-riding stud out there, does it, Miss Larkin?” There was a mocking emphasis on the word “Miss.” A dark, menacing undercurrent ran through his entire statement.

  Shallie suddenly became aware of how far the barn was from the other buildings.

  “Don’t look all shocked and innocent. I saw you two out there last night. Wouldn’t even turn on a light, would you? Think I couldn’t tell what you was doing? I saw how you followed him up to his bed.” Hoskins’s lips curled downward. The sullen mask of indifference he usually wore fell away with that sneer. Shallie saw the bitter, twisted man beneath and the hatred and cruelty that drove him. A thrum of fear beat through her as she realized how dangerously off balance he was.

  “Oh, you’re right and proper with the working hands, ain’t you, Miss Rodeo Contractor? But you start peeling off them drawers just like any of them other rodeo bunnies when a big buckle walks by.”

  Shallie had heard more than enough. She crested the wave of fear rising in her belly and headed for the barn’s one open door.

  “Hold it right there, little missy,” he commanded, his face contorted with a rage as hideous as his words had been. “I said, hold it!” When Shallie again ignored his command, Hoskins lunged forward, grabbing her forearm. “I told you not to be playing the fancy lady with me no more.” His acrid breath carried his words in a stench of frustrated fury that blew hot on Shallie’s neck.

  “Take your hands off of me, Wade Hoskins, you make me sick.”

  “You appear to have a hearing problem, Hoskins.” Hunt appeared silhouetted in the barn door. In the next instant he was beside Shallie, his hand breaking Hoskins’s grip as if the man’s fingers were so many dried twigs.

  “Get your gear and clear out,” he commanded. “Walk to the highway. From there you can hitch a ride. Now move!” Hunt reinforced his order with a boot toe to Hoskins’s posterior that sent him flying. The trembling man scrambled along on all fours until he could struggle to his feet and flee the barn. Hunt turned to Shallie, making certain she wasn’t hurt.

  “Told you I didn’t think much of your hired help.”

  Relief and nervousness forced a high-pitched giggle from Shallie’s throat. Before it was half out, a wracking sob overtook it. Hunt pulled her to his chest in a comforting embrace, patting her slender back until the hiccuping sobs had stopped.

  “I watched you head this way,” he explained in a low, calming voice, “and I followed you down to say good-bye. Apologize. I don’t know what. I just knew that I couldn’t let you leave without . . .” His words trailed off and he tried again. “I was angry last night. Furious. It wasn’t until this morning that I cooled down enough to ask myself honestly how I would have acted if I’d wanted something as much as you wanted that horse.”

  Shallie controlled herself enough to interject, “It wasn’t the way you thought.”

  “It’s all right,” Hunt soothed, and somehow with her tears rolling down his strong chest, it was all right.

  “Hey,” he said as her sobs subsided, �
�I’ve got a bronc- riding class to teach. Come on and watch. When it’s over I’ll arrange to get you and your rig back home.”

  Shallie nodded, grateful to have someone else take over and arrange things for a change. The feeling was luxurious and she clung to Hunt’s chest enjoying it to the fullest. The security of that moment was shattered, though, when Hunt, as if observing to no one in particular, said, “You did get what you wanted, though, didn’t you? I mean, Pegasus is yours.”

  Shallie looked up and read everything she needed to know about the implications of his statement in his eyes—that she had come to his apartment with a calculated plan to barter her body for the blue roan. He peered at her with a wary, hooded skepticism. A dozen protests rang through her mind, but they all would have served only to reinforce his innuendo. Though not spoken, they still flashed through her eyes, making the gold flecks buried in their brown depths glint with anger.

  “You arrogant son of a—”

  Hunt silenced her insulting words by stealing the breath she needed to pronounce them with the crush of his lips. Shallie felt her footing slip away from under her. It was replaced by the iron supports of Hunt’s arms folding around her. His lips did not question or hesitate; they demanded and took what they wanted. Shallie was defenseless against their authority. His tongue claimed her mouth, plundering its soft, hidden recesses. An army of sensations laid siege to her emotions, conquering them and quelling any resistance she might have put up.

  Hunt was a masterful invader. The taste of many sweet past victories was on his lips, along with the knowledge that he would know how to savor the present one. Though far less experienced, Shallie was still aware that the battle had not been entirely one-sided, when she heard Hunt’s breath broken into gasping bursts. His hands drew her face, her lips, more fully to his own as if he were driven by a deep hungering need of them.

  At the sound of the exaggerated shuffling of feet, Shallie pulled away abruptly. The deaf cowboy stood behind them. His freckles were lost in the reddened face he directed toward the ground, where he was digging nervous circles in the dirt with his boot toe.

  Hunt turned to him and cut the air with a few choppy signals.

  The boy answered, barely looking up from under the brim of his outsized hat.

  “Petey.” Hunt pronounced the boy’s name while simultaneously signing. “This is Shallie Larkin. Shallie, this is Petey Andrews, my prize helper and all-around compañero.”

  As Hunt translated the words he had spoken, Shallie managed to quell her ire enough to smile at the boy in response to Hunt’s introduction.

  “Petey tells me the natives are getting restless. Come watch if you like, or sit in the house and talk with Trish. Either way you won’t be leaving until the school’s done. I’ll need every hand I’ve got for it.”

  “Well, pardon me for the inconvenience, Mister McIver,” Shallie exploded. “But if it weren’t for your manipulations I’d be happily on my way back to Mountain View at this moment.”

  “Don’t forget,” Hunt said, clearly more entertained than offended by her outburst, “that if it weren’t for my ‘manipulations’ you’d be far from doing anything ‘happily’ right now. You’d still be in the clutches of that piece of slime you used to call a hired hand.”

  Before she could launch another volley of protests, Hunt was gone.

  The thought of spending time with Trish was odious enough to force Shallie into opting for the other alternative Hunt had presented. So, she followed him outside and took a seat in one of the pickup trucks parked at the periphery of Hunt’s open-air class.

  “Son,” Hunt addressed a lanky young man in a plaid shirt and glasses, “if this is all you think you’re worth”—he held up a shoddily made rigging—“don’t even bother to climb into that arena because I don’t want to have to drag you out.” The owner of the inferior piece of equipment bowed his head in embarrassment.

  Shallie knew that the boy’s momentary shame was a small price to pay for a piece of advice that could very well save his life. Hunt pulled a rigging out of his own bag and handed it to the young cowboy, then continued to inspect the others. When he’d deemed them all well prepared, he signaled to Petey, who drove eight high-spirited broncs into the chutes. Dust and the clanging of the metal chute gates clogged the air. The once eager students grew quiet and watchful as they sized up the horses they would soon be tested by.

  “Look at them real good, boys,” Hunt warned. “Because not a single one of those animals realizes that this is just a class. To them each one of you is the toughest, meanest rider to ever put metal to horsehide and that’s exactly how they’re going to treat you. They don’t know that you’re students. They won’t be holding back because you’re just learning. This is for real for them so it better be just as real for you too.” Hunt’s tone grew intent as he tried to impress upon his listeners just how serious rodeo was.

  “Now what I want each and every one of you to do is climb on board and clamp your riding hand down on that rigging. Then, with your free hand, I want you to reach up and grab yourself a great big handful of sky and hang on. Because that’s rodeo, boys. You may lose that rigging, but you’ll always have the sky.”

  His students stared at Hunt, silenced by what was the closest they’d ever hear to a lyrical description of rodeo. Hunt pointed a finger at the lanky kid in glasses.

  “Halstrom.”

  The young man jumped to his feet. “Yessir?”

  “Halstrom, you were looking pretty good on that bale of hay we used for spurring practice. You think you’re ready to put it to something a little livelier?”

  “You bet,” he answered.

  Only Shallie noticed how the gangly youth wiped moist palms on his bright green chaps. His bravado was false, but then that was the only kind that was truly real in rodeo. Any man who settled down on the back of a horse that was flaming with murderous intent and said he wasn’t scared either didn’t know enough to respect the animal or had a few vital connections missing in the self-preservation department.

  “Okay, take chute one.”

  Halstrom scrambled up the gate while Hunt assigned the others to their mounts. Halstrom’s long face was lost in the deep shadow cast by his hat brim. Petey helped him to rig up, then swung down to wait at the gate. The bespectacled cowboy was in good form as he burst out of the chute, practically leaning against the horse’s rump when it bucked its hindquarters high in the air. Shallie marveled at how Halstrom was transformed on the back of a bronc, completely losing the awkward lankiness he had on solid ground. But one good spin tossed him into the air.

  “You didn’t want it enough, did you, Halstrom?” Hunt called down from his perch on the catwalk.

  Halstrom answered with an angry grab at his hat, lying crumpled in the dirt.

  “I didn’t hear you, Halstrom. If you’d wanted it badly enough, you would have ridden. Isn’t that right?”

  “Yessir,” Halstrom barked.

  “You’ll do better next time, won’t you, Halstrom?”

  “I damned well will.” The boy’s response was a furious promise. It pleased Hunt, who turned away with a grin, shouting to the others to be ready for their rides. “Get mad,” he yelled as if repeating a chant. “Be aggressive. Show me what you can do. Show the world. Bear down. Want it. Get it.”

  The next student out of the chutes, a cowboy named Wildes, was already benefiting from Hunt’s hard-bitten message. There was an unyielding set to his jaw that defied the animal beneath to jerk the rigging from his hand. He rode to the eight-second buzzer, then came ambling back to the chutes, a cocky, self-satisfied strut to his walk.

  “Think you’re pretty hot, don’t you, Wildes?” Hunt called down, freezing him in midstride. “Well, you goose-egged. Scored a big zero for that ride you’re so proud of.”

  “Wha-a-a . . .” Wildes stammered.

  “You didn’t mark him out.”

  “Yes. I—” he started to protest, but Hunt cut him off.

  “Yo
u might have thought you did. It might even have felt like you did. But your spurs were not over the points of that horse’s shoulders when his front feet hit the ground on that first jump out of the chute. And if they aren’t there, Wildes, up high where the judges can see them, you’ve just lost your entry fee. No matter what kind of spectacular ride you make after that first jump, it’s all over. You might just as well have stayed home.”

  Shallie wished she could tell the dejected young man just how lucky he was to have someone who cared enough to tell him what Hunt had just told him. She’d seen too many rodeo cowboys throw away their hard-earned money because they’d never had that lesson drilled into them.

  The rides continued, with Hunt finding an occasional point to compliment but more often jumping down with both feet on the stupid and not-so-stupid mistakes the novices made. If anything, he was even harder on the boys who made the fewest mistakes, who displayed the most potential. With these few, like Halstrom, he concentrated on reinforcing their “try,” a rodeo term that translates loosely into “motivation.” An elusive quality that couldn’t be replaced by strength or technical expertise, it was the one essential ingredient in the making of a champion.

  “You’ve got to know your horse,” Hunt lectured, while Petey loaded up the next round of horses. “Find out everything you can about the animal you’ve drawn. Ask. Any cowboy who’s ridden him, or seen him ridden, will tell you everything they know about him, just like you’ll tell any cowboy who asks you everything you know about any mount you’ve ever drawn. Psych that bronc out. Touch him. Smell him. Get as close physically and mentally to that animal as you can.”

  Shallie doubted that there was a single person other than herself who truly understood what Hunt was saying. They couldn’t, because there was a wall between them and every horse they’d ever encountered in their life, a wall she knew wasn’t there for Hunt. She had seen the way he approached a horse, the way he rode. For those few seconds, he was linked to his mount by the high, wild streak that neither education, money, nor prestige had been able to tame. That was his edge, his gift. And there was no way he could transfer it to anyone else through words.