Leroy Watches Jr. & the Badass Bull (Bloodsong Series)

by Sandy Nathan

  He picked a dude ranch on the outskirts of town, booking a cabin for him and Sylvia, and one right next door for Hannah and Jimmy. He planned on riding horses with the kids. Maybe he could talk Sylvia into going, too. They were bound for Las Vegas!

  Austin could hardly keep his enthusiasm in check when he told his family. They’d love what he’d planned. The four of them gathered in the living room.

  “I’ve planned something special for spring break. We’re going on a vacation.”

  They perked up at that, eyes widening. They sat at attention.

  “We’re going to a dude ranch near Las Vegas!” He waited for their reaction. He didn’t have to wait long.

  “I don’t want to go to a dude ranch. I want to go to Malibu and Hollywood. I want to meet movie stars.” Hannah gave him one of those “you idiot” looks that only teenagers can level at their parents.

  “Las Vegas is the sleaze capital of the universe. Anyone who watches TV knows that. All these creepy old people with cups of nickels on the slots. The music sucks.” Jimmy got up. “Why didn’t you ask us?” He glowered at Austin. “And dad, since you asked, everyone calls me J now. Or J-man. You should call me that, too.” Jimmy walked out the front door.

  “Why didn’t you ask us where we’d like to go?” Sylvia was composed. A little too composed. “I assume you’ve paid for everything and we can’t change anything.”

  “Yes. I thought you’d love it there. The place we’re staying has horses. We get our own cabins. It’s not sleazy at all. Here, look at this,” passed the brochure to his wife and daughter.

  “The Yipee-I-O Ranch?” Hannah said, staring at the brochure with her lips pulled back in horror. “Yippee-I-O? That’s like Roy Rogers, dad. It’s dopey. Look at that stupid neon horse. It’s like the 1950s.”

  “We’re going to Las Vegas.” He flashed his “I’m the toughest FBI agent in the world look” at them. Neither Hannah nor Sylvia spoke again.

  5

  MY KINGDOM FOR A HORSE

  The goddam rodeo was a pain in the ass. If he was going to get to his grandpa’s retreat, he had to win a championship. For that, he had to have a horse. An excellent horse, trained for the events he would entering. Leroy had one or two on the ranch that might do the job, but they weren’t ready. He couldn’t get his own horses to Las Vegas, anyway, with the trailer’s busted axle. He didn’t know anyone on the rodeo circuit who would lend him a horse. Someone with a horse good enough to win wouldn’t loan it to him; he was the competition.

  He didn’t have enough money to do anything. The trip was going to cost a lot, whether he won or not. Gas to and from the ranch to Las Vegas in their old camper would be a bundle. He’d have to pay the entry fees for the classes. They could sleep in the camper, but what about food? They both ate a lot. At least it would be warm in Vegas. The camper had zero insulation.

  His dad would have make $500 a performance, $1,000 for the two days. This was an amazing amount in 1997. It was his dad’s farewell performance. Bullfighters took a lot of risks and got paid well for it. But his dad wouldn’t get paid until after the rodeo was over.

  Where could he get a horse? Where could he keep it while he was there? He couldn’t afford a stall at the Thomas & Mack Center. And what about hay?

  He wondered how he’d keep his promises to his father and grandfather. Leroy kept his mind as far away from the horror of getting on a plane as he could.

  “How ‘bout if you get a wild horse and train him up? How long will it take you to train a horse? Using everything you got?”

  Leroy had his hands over his father’s on the kitchen table. His arthritis treatments were going great. Pop looked happier than Leroy had ever seen him.

  “Train a wild horse and ride him at the rodeo? When would I train him?”

  “We could leave early enough so we’d get there Friday morning.”

  Train a wild horse in a day, fit to compete in a huge stadium that scared the bejesus out of him? What would it do to a green horse?

  “I don’t know if I can do it, pop. Maybe in two or three days.”

  “So we’ll leave in time to give you time to do it. We can stay in the camper that long.”

  OK. Now all he needed was the horse.

  “The Bureau of Land Management has wild horses. You can adopt them for close to nothing. Maybe they’ll drop him off for you. Let’s see if they got a place in Nevada.” His father was full of ideas.

  Leroy lifted up the phone, ready to ask for information.

  “No, son, do it this way.” Old Leroy was at the ranch computer, another treasure he’d been given by the remodeling rich folks. It was two years old; they had no use for it. “Since my hands have been better, I’ve been able to do a few things. I’ve always been sharp with machines, and I just love this one. It’s a Numenon Ranger.

  “Now look here,” he typed a bit and pictures of wild horses appeared on the screen. “The BLM has a website. Let’s see if they got a place in Nevada.”

  They had two facilities, both of which had nice menus showing the horses up for adoption.

  “I like that one,” Leroy pointed at a big, burly roan. “His head ain’t worth nuthin’, but he’s got legs that would carry him to the moon.”

  “Let’s send them an email and see what they say.” Old Leroy began typing. “There. They’ll get back to us.”

  “I can’t believe how you can handle that machine, pop.”

  “I’m a Watches, boy. This is what I do.”

  The BLM responded fast. Both facilities were more than five hours from Las Vegas. They wouldn’t let a horse go unless the owner had housing for him built to their specifications and promised to keep the horse permanently. They didn’t deliver.

  “That takes care of that. I didn’t know how we’d afford the $100 to adopt one anyway.”

  “Don’t worry about that, son. I know how to save money: we won’t eat.”

  Leroy spent a couple of hard days thinking about the horse.

  His father came to him when Leroy’s brain was so overworked it practically sent out puffs of smoke like their lawnmower. His dad had that crazy wild grin that said he’d come up with something.

  “Leroy, what are you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why was your grandpa able to take you away and I couldn’t do anything about it?”

  “I’m an Indian. Mom was half-Indian and half-white, but she counted as a whole Indian. She was a member of the tribe.”

  “And so are you. From your mother and all the Indian blood I’ve got. You are an enrolled member of Grandfather’s Nation.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What to Indians do?”

  “Help each other, for the most part.”

  “Did you know that there’s an Indian reservation right next to Las Vegas? I looked it up with that computer. They have a website and numbers you can call. It’s a big reservation. Somebody has got to have horses. Maybe they’d loan you one just for the training you’ll put on it.”

  He called the office number and spoke in his language. Native languages were often radically different, but Leroy had the power to understand other languages and make himself understood. Besides, after he said a few words to the tribal secretary and told her who his grandpa was, he was passed along to the chairman.

  “Yes, we got a bunch of people who have horses,” the chairman said. “But the best one for you would be Reason Jimson. He’s got some big horses. None of them are broke, though. Some of them are rough.”

  Leroy found himself talking to Reason. They agreed that father and son could camp on Reason’s ranch and Leroy could pick as many horses as he wanted, just for training them.

  As they got off the phone, Leroy asked, “How’d you get a name like Reason Jimson?”

  “It’s a family name. How’d you end up with Leroy Watches Jr.?”

  “It’s a family name. My daddy’s Senior.”

  “See, that’s family. We’re lucky we didn’t get named Dirty So
cks Junebug. See you Tuesday before the Rodeo.”

  He didn’t see them Tuesday, he saw them Wednesday morning on account of the camper’s truck taking every opportunity it could to quit. Between Leroy Sr.’s mechanical skills and Leroy Jr.’s spiritual skills, they limped into the Jimson Ranch on Wednesday morning. Leroy was plenty worried about the horses––would there be any good enough? He also wondered if he could get them trained in time.

  Jimson greeted them, “I was getting worried about you two.”

  “So was we,” Leroy Sr. said.

  “Let’s get to work,” said Jr.

  Reason’s ranch was pretty nice. Pipe corrals with shelters and automatic waterers. Big arena with roping chutes. Reason’s trailer house looked big enough for a family. The place was dry though; just gray dirt and sand, cacti instead of trees. Leroy appreciated the lush forest at their place, and the green pastures irrigated from their own springs. But Las Vegas was a desert, never mind the golf courses all over, depleting the ground water.

  “This is what I got, Leroy. These are wild horses that we caught on our own land, not BLM horses.” Jimson lead him to a series of dry lots, big corrals with no grass growing in them. Thirty horses stood placidly. Reason said, “I’d take that palomino mare. She’s been ridden some. Got a good head on her. Doesn’t buck.”

  Leroy looked at the mare. Maybe. Was she enough horse to do what he wanted? This was going to be a hard few days for a herd animal. On the other side of her corral was an enclosure with one occupant. Leroy whistled when he saw him.

  A black and white pinto, he was big enough to pack Leroy. He had everything else he wanted, too. The tendons in his legs looked like steel cable. He was short backed. His hindquarters could match a top Quarter Horse’s. He’d have speed and stamina. He was muscled up even in that pen, pacing back and forth the way we was. Yelling.

  That set Leroy back. “That horse a stud?”

  “Not any more.”

  “How long since you cut him?”

  “Two weeks.”

  “How old is this horse?”

  “Five years.”

  That was a problem. All the stallions Leroy knew kept their studly behavior after being gelded. The hormones were gone, but the horse’s brain had not given up thinking of himself as the master of the universe. That meant all sorts of trouble. Biting, kicking, fighting to dominate the rider. Refusing to obey. Attempting to breed every mare in heat.

  Leroy had found it took one month per year of the animal’s life for him to forget that he was once God’s gift to all mares that existed. This horse would be ready ride in four and a half months.

  Leroy looked over all the stock. The palomino mare and shrieking new gelding were the two best bets. He’d train both of them.

  An hour later, the entire Nation stood around Reason’s arena. Word had gotten out who Leroy was. Everyone knew of Grandfather. A bunch of people were going to the Meeting that Sunday and wanted to meet Grandfather’s grandson. They bellied-up outside the arena’s rails.

  Folks stopping by the Nation’s tobacco store to get some good, cheap smokes saw the crowd and wandered over to see what was going on. Some of the tobacco shoppers were cowboys, come to the Thompson & Mack for the Golden Olden Days Rodeo.

  “Holy shit!” one said. “Look at that.”

  Might have been Leroy training the horse that he was talking about. Might have been Leroy. He got hot working the mare and took off his shirt. He was every inch of that six foot eight and a half he claimed. Leroy worked hard on a ranch. He was muscled up better than a guy who spent his time in a gym lifting iron donuts. His short black hair was curly, but not as curly as his father’s. He had a little tail in back, to which he’d tied three small eagle feathers. He did that because he needed their power for the work he was doing. A tight dusting of curly hair covered his chest.

  The female portion of the audience grew exponentially. “Oh my God, look at him. He’s beautiful,” was the predominant sentiment expressed by the women.

  The cowboys stood with eyes narrowed, exchanging whispers, and wondering who the guy was.

  Leroy found the mare a snap. He had to undo a few things whoever started her messed up. Bringing her into the center of the ring, he let her off her halter and lead-line and put his hands all over her, moving them in sweeping strokes. The trance that took him when he was healing kept him riveted to his body and the mare’s. He wasn’t aware of anything else, including the growing crowd or the drifting snow.

  His audience looked at the falling snow with amazement. If Las Vegas got half an inch of snow a year, that was generous. The old-timers from the res remembered differently.

  “Didn’t it snow twenty-seven inches in 1949?” Henry asked Lloyd.

  “Twenty-seven and a half. Everything shut down. It was fun, though.”

  “An’ seven inches in 1945,” May added. “I was waiting for Cal to get home from the war.

  “So this is one of those years?” Everyone nodded.

  It was more than one of those years. The snow kept falling. The parking lot was blanketed with fluffy white.

  Reason’s arena remained free of snow and the area where the spectators stood stayed was positively toasty. No one could explain it, but it kept them glued to the rail. They couldn’t get to their cars, anyway. Leroy continued working the horses.

  “When you start a horse, you need to ‘sack them out.’ That means touch them all over. Some people use a saddle blanket to do it, others a feed sack. I use my hands.” Leroy heard himself talking, explaining what he was doing. His audience seemed far away. “I like to make sure the horse isn’t hurt or doesn’t have some hidden injury.”

  He pressed his hands on the mare, seeing her energy from inside his trance. She had a bunch of sore spots, old injuries stuck in her body. He touched her head and felt her mental distress. She had been scared badly when she was brought in from the wild.

  Pressing the flats of his hands against the mare’s body over her tight spots, Leroy dropped deeper into his healing trance. He didn’t look any different than normal, except that his eyes were closed. He suppressed the blue glow that normally covered him when he did what he was doing. He didn’t want to call attention to what was really going on. He pressed and pushed and stroked. As the mare gave up her soreness, she released heartfelt groans of pleasure and dropped her head almost to the ground.

  The female observers noticed the mare’s reaction and followed Leroy with rapt attention.

  “I just adjusted her a little. Body work, we call it in California.” The crowd laughed. “She’s sleepy now, so I’m going to pull out this lovesick gelding.”

  When Leroy opened his corral gate, the black and white pinto charged the opening and Leroy. He put his hand up flat. The horse slammed his nose into it and stopped like he’d hit a brick wall.

  “OK, now. We got to get something straight. I’m the boss, not you.” Leroy did a bunch of exercises with the horse, bending his neck one way and then the other, touching him all over. This horse held much more pain in his body than the mare. He had not made the journey from freedom to captivity easy for anyone. Leroy kept working and soon the pinto stood with his head down like the mare’s.

  “Now’s a good time to stop. Anybody got some lunch? I didn’t bring mine.”

  Leroy ate like royalty, mostly food the women brought. Things had changed since his father told him he wanted to get married. A lot of girls were watching him. Girls or women, whatever they wanted to be called. They were real pretty, wearing tight clothes cut way down. That was how they dressed in Las Vegas, he guessed. They tempted him with sandwiches and chocolate cake and themselves. Not one of them was right. They flaunted themselves and brushed against him. He didn’t want any of them. His wife wasn’t among them.

  “Well, better get back to work.” Snow was flying all over outside the perimeter of the arena and spectators. He trimmed the horses’ feet. They stood without moving or being tied. “You gotta make sure a horse’s feet are balance
d and don’t have any problems. If you don’t do that, it’s like trying to go on a hike in some of the shoes you ladies wear. Torture and an invitation to injury. I’m not going to shoe these horses even though I brought my anvil and forge. It’s going to be enough for them to compete in the rodeo, much less having nails in their feet for the first time.”

  Then the process moved faster. He rubbed the mare all over with his saddle blanket, and then carefully set his saddle on her back. She tolerated it well, so he tightened the girth a bit, then more.

  “Easy does it. Don’t want to crowd her much.” He stepped up and walked around the ring on her back, no bridle, just a rope around her neck. “I do this because I can. Don’t you try it.” The mare picked up the jog, and then the lope.

  “He’s the horse whisperer, Tina. You know the magical trainer that guy wrote the book about. Look at what he’s doing.”

  Leroy stopped the mare. She settled on her hind end and slid like a horse that had been doing it for years. He touched her with his outside leg and she spun away from the contact, swiveling on her hind feet.

  “He is the horse whisperer!” Tina replied. “But I didn’t know he was African American.”

  Leroy did enough with the palomino to have the cowboys looking at him with envy and suspicion. “That’s enough for today. Now I’ll start the other horse.” Which he did. The rough, bucking horse never made a crow hop, the little buck that said, “Watch out. You’re about to take a ride on a rocket ship.” When he put him away, Leroy knew he had a horse that would win the championship.

  “OK, folks. I’m going to do some roping on them tomorrow and teach them their jobs. We may go over to the Thompson & Mack and show them around before the rodeo.”

  “Can we come tomorrow?”