by Sandy Nathan
“In Tahiti, last I hear.” His shoulders slumped. “I don’t know where they go after that. They probably stay away until I fix the whole place.”
Niles’ troubles didn’t concern him. What lay beyond the door at the other end of the room did. He handed Niles some bills. “Thanks. Can you get the kids settled in?”
It was the biggest damn bed he’d ever seen. The room had pale plaster walls painted with flower motifs like on a Nordic chalet. Another fireplace crackled in the corner. Everything was brand new. He’d scored a honeymoon palace. Austin smiled and started to undo his belt.
Hannah’s screams caused him to tear out of the room. He stopped on the porch, not knowing whether to get his gun out of the car or help his daughter unarmed. Her cries abruptly ceased.
Austin reached the kids’ cabin to see Niles standing in the doorway.
“Is OK, Hannah. The raccoon is stuffed. Very old. I thought it cute for boy’s room. I take it away.”
“No, Niles, I think it’s cool. I’ll keep it in my room.” Jimmy came to the door and did an inexplicable thing with Niles. Making his hand into a fist, he punched Niles’ similarly configured fist. “Yo, Niles.”
“Yo, J-man. Tomorrow, I will teach you to cross-country ski after breakfast.” Waving cheerily, Niles smiled at Austin and explained. “Hannah was afraid of the stuffed raccoon. So sorry.” He walked back toward the office.
Austin wanted to arrest him.
He didn’t feel that way in the morning. He’d forgotten how lovely Sylvia was. How beautiful. Those fools downtown shopping for hookers would never know what he had in his own wife.
He roused himself sleepily, happy and content. Sylvia was making coffee at the little kitchenette in the living room.
“Where are the kids?” he asked.
“They’re out learning to cross country ski with Niles. He left a note under the door. We can have breakfast delivered here, or go to the dining room.”
“Here.”
The beautiful creature smiled. “That’s why I ordered it to come here. Should be here any second.”
Then they’d be alone.
The car rental company couldn’t get out to the ranch until the snow melted.
“That was a hundred year snow,” said the cheery idiot on the rental desk. “It’ll be four or five days at least, longer if it stays cold. But we’ll get you a top-of-the-line 4WD SUV. Gas-guzzler, but you can go anywhere in the state in it. An’ in the snow, case it snows again.”
Four or five days. That was not in Austin’s plan.
“Where are the horses?” he asked Niles. “You can ride them in snow. You see it in the movies all the time.”
Niles’ face dropped. Austin could see his eyes misting. His voice was thick when he spoke. “Minnie was a good old horse. I had to put her to sleep. She was thirty-three years old. She kept falling down and couldn’t eat. I miss her.”
“What about the other horses? The brochure showed horses.”
“There are no other horses. All the others died like Minnie. I thought of getting another one, but I don't know how to ride.”
“A rancher who doesn’t know how to ride?”
“I am from Sweden. I ski; I don’t ride.”
“The brochure?!”
“It was made in 1954. Lots of horses here then.”
Austin’s eyes flew open. “It has that fifties look because it was printed in the 1950s? Is that why this place is falling apart?”
“I think I do a good job on what I fix.” Niles bridled. “Did you see dining room and great hall? They are top rate and 100% Western atmosphere. I’m having a class in the hall after lunch.”
“Class?”
“Yes. Yoga class. I am a certified instructor.” Niles body seemed to grow six inches taller, morphing into a perfect male form. “Would you like to be in the free class? Sylvia and the kids are coming.”
Austin couldn’t move for three days after the class. Niles offered to massage him to help the pain, but he would have nothing to do with that. He wanted to hate Niles. When he saw him in his skin-tight yoga suit, he really wanted to hate him. But he was so nice. Even though he touched Sylvia all over when he was teaching yoga, making sure she got the posture just right, Austin didn’t want to shoot him.
Niles also was a great cook. He was terrific with the kids, entertaining them with pantomimes of the Three Stooges in his charming accent. Niles could sing and play guitar as well as do pantomime. He baby-sat for hours while Austin and Sylvia had “grown-up time.”
Austin liked Niles and trusted him until Sylvia came home from a three-hour yoga class with just her and Niles. Sylvia’s cheeks were flushed and her eyes glistened. “It was called tantric yoga. We have to try it, Austin.”
When he found out what that was, Austin was not pleased. “You may not do that with him!”
“Yes, I can. We weren’t even touching. It’s not sex, it’s yoga.” He’d never seen her so angry. “And we’re not leaving when the rental car comes. We’re staying here for the whole vacation. The kids love it here, and so do I.”
The next day, Austin glared at the closed door to the “entertainment hall.” Niles was giving Sylvia the three hour yogic mastery session. He brought out his guns and cleaned them in the foyer, even though no one was supposed to know he had them. He heard a Chinese gong from beyond the doors. Niles’ voice sounded like he was using a bullhorn, haranguing his wife about kundalini, chakras, and what various yoga postures did to them. If he could hear the bastard talking, he wasn’t seducing Sylvia.
Austin went to the car to put his weapons in the trunk. When he came back in, the hall was silent. Almost silent. Sylvia was breathing heavily behind the door. He knew what that meant.
He threw the doors open. They were sitting cross-legged on opposite sides of the room, not touching at all. But something was going on.
“What are you doing?” he shouted. “What is this?”
“Is tantric yoga, Mr. Zemsky. It is very spiritual.”
Sylvia looked very spiritual, flushed, with her eyes shining and sweat on her brow.
“Get dressed, Sylvia. We’re leaving.”
“No we’re not!” She glared at him.
“Yes, we are.”
“You can’t leave,” Niles said. “The roads are still blocked. You don’t have a car.”
“If we have to walk, we’re leaving.” Austin grabbed Sylvia’s hand. She struggled.
“Get your hands off of me.” She slugged him in the arm. It hurt.
“Please, please,” Niles got between them. “Yoga is about love, not fighting. Please, Mr. Zemsky, I have not done anything improper with your wife. Please accept my apology.”
Austin glared at him, wanting to arrest him again. He hadn’t caught them doing anything, really. Certainly not committing adultery. He might have arrested Niles for that, though he wasn’t sure it was illegal in Las Vegas.
“Let me make amends,” Niles beseeched him. “I will not charge you for your time here. It is ‘on the house.’” Niles had chosen the one lever that would get Austin to forgive and forget.
“OK. We’re still leaving when the rental car comes.”
“Of course. I am so sorry for causing this upset.” Niles’ lips tightened. “I am so sorry for tomorrow, too.”
“Why?” Austin furrowed his brow as he tried to figure out what the sneaky bastard was up to.
“The rodeo is in Las Vegas. Not the big rodeo, the National Finals, this is a little rodeo. I told the children about it. They have never been to a rodeo. J-man said he wanted to go. Tomorrow is the last day. March 23rd. If I can’t get them there, they will miss it.”
Austin had had been so busy monitoring Sylvia and Niles that he had forgotten about the rodeo. The minute he remembered, his need to attend it flared. Also, his temper. Niles was planning the final usurpation of his parental position, taking his kids to the event.
They had come to stinking Las Vegas because he knew the rodeo was there. He had wan
ted to take Jimmy and Hannah to a real rodeo, rather than watching it on TV. He hadn’t told them about it so they’d be surprised. How could he forget to tell them?
He and the kids had watched rodeo on TV for years. It was riveting. Amazing. Dangerous and violent. True blue American. He promised Jimmy that they would go one day. Jimmy had teased Hannah, saying she was too much of a wuss to go to a rodeo. She said that she wasn’t a wuss and wanted to go, too.
He had planned the fucking trip––Austin no longer cared what his language was like in his head or anywhere––he’d planned the trip so he and his children could go to the “little rodeo.” With him, not Niles.
“Tomorrow’s the last day,” Niles said mournfully. “The championship.”
“How can we get there?” Austin had to get to that rodeo.
“I have been thinking about that.” Niles furrowed his brow. “I am thinking my car will make it. We can all fit.”
They stood outside a run-down garage behind the office. Niles backed a radiant red vehicle into the parking area. It was an old car with a wide front grill and a black vinyl top. It was in perfect condition. It purred. No, growled. Maybe throbbed.
“Holy shit, dad! That’s a 1970 Hemi-Cuda! It’s got 426 horsepower, maybe more!” Jimmy ran to the vehicle and stroked it. “Oh, wow, Niles. Where did you get it?”
“My grandparents have it here, in the garage. I fix it up. It is strong enough to go through the snow.”
The brute of a muscle car looked like it had been driven off of a showroom floor. Polished, gleaming. Perfect cherry red paint. Austin looked at Niles suspiciously. Anyone would kill his grandparents for this car, even he knew that.
“You’ve been hiding this car all this time when you could have taken us into town?”
Niles crossed his arms over his chest. “I was not hiding. Car was in the garage, not hidden. I didn’t know if it could cross the snow. But it is melting.” He indicated the vehicle’s pristine condition. “I keep it nice, so I don’t take it out much. Also is a problem: when I drive this car on the Strip, the girls jump in front of me. They get inside my car and grab me. They kiss me.” He shook his head ruefully. “They say Sweden is … speedy. Nothing to Las Vegas.”
“Are we going to go or not?” Sylvia burst into the conversation. She was wearing skintight pants with a matching midriff top tied above her waist, and high heels. A scarf was tied around her head. She looked like a bombshell.
“You’re not going like that” Austin barked.
“I’ll dress however I want. I’m not just some government drone’s wife. There’s much more to me than that.”
Austin hadn’t realized how much more to her there was. Her boobs bulged out of the top. “Please, Sylvia. This is not …”
“All the ladies in Las Vegas wear clothes like this,” Niles said, helpfully. “She will look like everyone. Beautiful.”
Austin got in the car rather than fight in front of the kids and Niles any more. Sylvia sat in the front bucket seat next to Niles. She didn’t speak.
8
COWBOY UP!
The horn blared and blared again, sound banging against the stadium’s cement walls. The Thompson & Mack Center seemed bigger inside than outside. And fancier. Everything the rodeo participants did was played on big screens on the walls. He’d never seen such a place.
Leroy was glad he’d gotten the horses ready before the rodeo so he could ride them in the arena while things were sort of calm. Not so much to school them in the strange place, but so he wouldn’t be shaking in the saddle. Sound echoed funny; the light was strange. The horses’ hoof beats were muted by the heavy footing on the ground. Leroy sat on Blondie, what he’d named the palomino mare, just outside the arena before their class. The worst part was waiting for his number to come up.
Tie-down roping was up first. He rode Blondie for that; she had picked up her training better than the pinto horse and was more suited for the difficult maneuvers tie-down roping required.
He’d roped a lot of calves. They did it on the ranch when they had to doctor them. Rope ‘em, tie ‘em down and fix whatever was wrong. They didn’t do it over and over to the same animal, and they didn’t call it a sport.
Blondie broke out of the chute like she’d done it all her life. She set her hind legs and slid to a stop the instant before he got his loop around the calf’s neck. She backed up to kept the lariat taut like a clothesline that knew its job. He had the calf down faster than he knew he could. He wrapped his pigging string around three of the animal’s legs and pulled it tight. Jumped up and waved his hands. He stepped up on Blondie, and rode her forward to loosen the lariat around the calf’s neck.
The sound of his voice surprised him. “Forgive me for hurting you. I heal your wounds. May you live a life without pain.” He said it in his language and was surprised how it echoed.
The whole tribe was there, and they repeated his words. “Forgive me for hurting you. I heal your wounds. May you live a life without pain!” There weren’t too many of the Natives, but they made up for their numbers in the volume of their voices. People around took it up, mangling the words, but echoing the sentiment.
Leroy left, feeling stupid. But that calf had been hurt. He healed it before he walked away.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” the announcer bellowed. “We have a new record for the Golden Olden Days Rodeo! Leroy Watches Jr. just broke our all-time tie-down roping record with a 6.7 second time! Let’s hear it for Leroy Watches!”
The announcer kept talking, “Some of you may recognize this young man. Leroy is the son of Leroy Watches Sr. the world’s favorite bullfighter. You’ll be seeing him later today doing what he does best. Let’s have a hand for his son.”
Blondie picked up her feet a few times during the applause, but she didn’t go anywhere. He stroked her and she settled. That was the only sign of nervousness she showed.
His first time competing hadn’t been so bad. Leroy was more nervous than his horse. He had never seen so many people in one place. The Thomas & Mack stadium was so crowded that it seemed more like the National Finals than a little second rate show. He didn’t understand the mob.
Buzzard, the big pinto, also worked better in the steer wresting than he had hoped. Buzz was built like a wrestler and fast as a Thoroughbred sprinter. The big pinto blasted out of the chute like something heading to outer space. Just past the chutes, Leroy stepped out of the saddle on onto the steer, throwing him in a couple of seconds. He grinned and waved at the crowd, saying to the steer, “Forgive me for hurting you. I heal your wounds. May you live a life without pain!”
Everyone screamed again, repeating his words. This time the announcer said more about him after announcing their win. “Want to know more about this young cowboy? This is Leroy Watches’ first rodeo. He is an enrolled member of one of our Native Nations down in New Mexico. He’s riding wild horses he started breaking three days ago!”
Seemed like the crowd was bigger this time. Certainly louder. Leroy left the arena feeling very embarrassed. “Did you tell them that?’ he asked Reason Jimson, who’d ridden Blondie out of the chute next to him in the bulldogging. He kept the steer running straight.
“Oh, I might have. I’m still taking offers on the horses.”
“Make sure they go to people who will treat them right.”
On Saturday, he healed his father before and after the bulls tried to tear up the cowboys riding them and everything else they could reach. He also did a little something that his pop wouldn’t like. He kept the bulls settled down and away from him. They were almost docile when they were herded out of the arena.
Leroy was bone tired by Saturday evening. Getting himself into the arena to compete had taken as much doing as training the horses. You couldn’t just sign up to enter a class. He found that out when he went to the office.
“I have to be a member of the rodeo association? I’m only going to ride in one rodeo,” he said to the lady from that association headquarters on the phone.
Didn’t matter one rodeo or a hundred, he had to be a first level professional rodeo cowboy. To do that, he had to fill out paperwork and give the association a bunch of money. Then he had to enter his classes, giving the rodeo another bunch of money.
The tribe stood behind him, paying his fees and getting him stalls at the Thomas & Mack for his horses. Even the rodeo office was helpful, faxing the paperwork in just before the national rodeo association office had closed on Friday. When people heard who his father was, that greased the skids.
The championship rounds were Sunday. If he did as well again, he’d be the high point rider in both classes. Leroy measured that in terms of what his purse could buy for his cabin.
Blondie blazed out of the chute once again. He had the calf caught and tied before he drew three breaths. He slowed her down a little. He didn’t want to call attention to himself by breaking any more records.
“Forgive me for hurting you. I heal your wounds. May you live a life without pain!” he said to the calf before letting it loose. The crowd, hyped up, repeated his words, mauling all the phrases. Still, the calf was healed.
Buzzard performed better in the Sunday go round of the steer wrestling than he had the previous day.
“We have another record for our young cowboy, Leroy Watches Jr. What are you going to do with that purse, Leroy? Take all those young ladies to dinner? Take a victory lap, Leroy. Let them take a good look at you. Show us what you’ve got!”
Buzzard seemed to have a show-biz flare, streaking around the arena at a hard gallop. He turned into the center on his own volition and reared, then ran flat out through the entrance doors. Outside the ring, Leroy glanced at the replays shown on the big screens. They also played videos of the crowd. A lot of women were watching him. He felt nothing for them.
Then he remembered how it went: Grandfather told the spirit warrior that he had had a dream that he would marry. The warrior had to find his mate after that. Usually they found them at the Meeting. Hundreds of couples were married there. Marriages performed by his grandpa always lasted. The warriors had never had a divorce. Remembering that, Leroy was even more motivated to get to the Meeting and Grandfather.
