Ride, Cowboy, Ride!

by Baxter Black

  She was known to her friends as Salinky or just Slinky. It was a nickname that fit like the stretch polyester pants on her slender figure. It fit. For months she had practiced her toastmistress gestures, which included full smiles, head tossing, and what appeared to be a referee indicating a holding penalty. At the moment she was giving her acceptance speech.

  It was nervousness, she decided later, and maybe the fact that she had never practiced with a microphone, that led to the overlap of an arm sweep and a roll to the right, instigating the ensuing tangle of microphone cord and tangerine boot.

  Down she went! She pitched forward off of the two-foot-high dais and reached out. Her momentum carried her outstretched arm over the end of the banquet table in the first row. It came down hard on the edge and broke her wrist. She lost her hat in the storm!

  Pandemonium joined the royal family and reigned! Slinky was quickly surrounded by her equally coiffed, decked out, and poised rodeo princesses, all the mothers in the room, Uncle Oley, and an unfortunate waiter who had been picking up the desserts of butterscotch mousse with canned pineapple topping and a sprig of pine bough, none of which had been eaten.

  The crowd surged toward the stricken queen like lemmings to a fire exit! The waiter was swept along with them, balancing his tray above the masses. Alas, it shot out of his hand and surfed across the bobbing heads into the whirlpool that circled the queen.

  Slinky was screaming, mothers were screaming, princesses were screaming, albeit poised screaming, and Uncle Oley was screaming, but only because one of the big-footed aunts was standing on his hand.

  Slinky’s plaintive wail sailed over the crowd like a siren. “Is it my waving hand!? Is it my waving hand!? Is—it—my—way—ving—hand . . .?!”

  Within minutes the anguished Slinky, with her mother, was in the back seat of the Suburban of one of the directors. They wheeled out into the street headed toward the Mercy Hospital emergency room, followed by the reporter/photographer for the Valley City Times Record and twenty vehicles carrying the remaining mothers, the royal court, and Uncle Oley, who was doing a running commentary into his pocket recorder. He could replay it during his commodity report tomorrow on the air. He felt Geraldo Riveraish.

  Back at the Eagles Club, the disheveled waiter sat at one of the tables savoring a butterscotch mousse.

  As luck would have it—and it sometimes has its way—the anguished rodeo queen and her entourage arrived first. Her mother and the director helped her out of the Suburban in front of the emergency room door. She had adopted a stoic expression. She would bear the suffering necessary to maintain the decorum expected of royalty.

  The reporter had parked in the street and raced to the hospital entrance to photograph the brave queen as she exited her coach. He was snapping away. Salinka looked very together. In the back seat of the Suburban on the way to the hospital, her mother had fixed her hair, straightened her hat, wiped the butterscotch off of her face and clothing, and reapplied her makeup.

  Salinka was in pain, but she waved at the camera, with her nonwaving hand, and gave a wan smile. She was beautiful.

  As Salinka was whisked through the automatic doors, members of the crowd who followed her began to debouch from their vehicles parked on the street and make their way to the emergency room.

  It was at that moment that Sherba Norski’s little four-wheel-drive quarter-­ton rig slid past the entrance, parting the crowd! She didn’t mean to hit the brakes that hard, but the sudden stop rendered Cooney horizontal again, banging the back of his head. He screeched!

  The sixty or so people who had been so concerned about the queen were stopped in their tracks. They went silent.

  Sherba pulled Cooney back into a sitting position. “Wait here,” she said, unnecessarily, and raced through the automatic doors.

  Cooney looked like Yoda sitting on his nest. His facial muscles were stiff and unmovable. The hood had fallen back from his head. One of the moon boots had slipped off his foot. His hands were in the pockets of his parka. He expression was immutable, a result of frozen cheeks, a double entendre if there ever was one.

  “Isn’t that Cooney Bedlam?” somebody asked.

  “Ya know, I was just thinking the same thing,” another observer agreed.

  A high school-aged boy, brother to the second runner-up to the queen, said enthusiastically, “Yes! It is. I have his picture on my mirror. I tore it out of the Sports News when he won in Bismarck!”

  The young man approached Cooney, digging a program from the queen’s banquet out of his jacket pocket. He stuck it under Cooney’s chin. “Can you sign this?” he asked. “You’re my favorite. I’ve seen you on ESPN! Man, I never thought I’d actually get to talk to you. I wanna ride bulls, too, but my mother said she wasn’t sure . . .”

  About that time Sherba came rushing out to the truck, followed by all the emergency room staff, night duty security, the doctor on call, and the maintenance man.

  “Back up, Kid,” instructed Sherba.

  “See,” she said to the crowd, “he’s frozen to the tailgate just like he stuck his tongue on a pump handle.” She raised the parka covering his knees. “Solid.”

  “Let me just get some information before we admit him,” said the emergency room clerk. She was talking to Cooney’s head, which appeared waxen. “Name?” she asked.

  “Cooney Bedlam,” answered Sherba.

  “Age?”

  “Twenty-five,” Sherba again.

  “Weight?”

  “One sixty or seventy, I’d guess,” Sherba once more.

  “Height?”

  “Five ten, maybe,” Sherba herself.

  “Occupation?”

  “Rodeo rider,” Sherba for sure.

  “Insurance?”

  “Not sure,” she said. “Write ‘Blue Cross.’ We’ll find out later.”

  Cooney had barely moved a muscle during the interrogation.

  “So, how did this happen?” asked the doctor.

  The crowd surged forward.

  “He fell through the ice and froze to the tailgate,” said Sherba. “Now let’s get him unpeeled.”

  A faint cry for help came from the emergency room. The doctor in charge looked around to see the entire emergency room staff surrounding her.

  “Is there nobody in there with the patient?” she asked.

  Embarrassed, two of the nurses returned to the injured queen, who had been left on the table staring up at the surgical light.

  “All right, team,” instructed the doctor, “take his temperature. Get his blood pressure. He’s a little shocky, maybe hypothermic. Jensen, start a saline drip. Get some heat lamps out here. Start warming up the tailgate. Yorgie, bring some heating pads.”

  Then she spoke to the patient: “Mr.—what was his name?”

  “Cooney.”

  “Mr. Cooney, can you hear me?” she asked.

  He didn’t answer.

  She peered into his eyes with her ophthalmoscope and saw no untoward dilation of the pupils. They shrank in response to the light: a good sign.

  “Mr. Cooney, I know you can hear me. You’re just a little logey; your mind is in the refrigerator. I’m Doctor Shin-Guard. That’s right, just like the . . .” Then, realizing he probably missed the humor in her hyphenated name, she continued, “You’re at the hospital, and you’ve had an accident. We’re going to take you inside as soon as we can . . . as soon as you can . . .”

  She turned as the hospital crew came swarming back. Soon the maintenance crew had two racks of halogen bulbs shining on the bottom side of the tailgate, creating a grotesque shadow on the ceiling above. Heating pads were laid up against Cooney’s legs underneath the parka.

  Drops of moisture began to coalesce on the tailgate and drip from beneath. The staff members attempted to lift him up, pulling him forward
slightly. He came part way and then cried out!

  Dr. Shin-Guard lifted up the parka covering his knees. Cooney’s skin was coming loose at the edges, but he was still not free. “Teri, run in and bring me a pitcher of warm water, pronto. I think he’s still attached by a dangling participle.” Teri raced to the automatic doors; the electronic eye winked; Teri whizzed through.

  Cooney was beginning to gain a more conscious state. His legs were tingling. He could feel warm water being poured into his lap. As he became more aware, the bright lights blinded him from below. Over the glare he saw a wall of people. All manner of people: Children, adults, old people, all dressed up, stood around him in a semicircle staring. He had a brief thought that he was at his own funeral, then realized the men were still wearing their hats, which relieved him.

  Several someones were slowly prying him from the tailgate of . . . of what? He couldn’t think.

  Suddenly he felt a gust of air, a frigid blast on the front of his legs. The back of his legs felt like they were on fire. He began to tune in to the voices around him.

  “Pick up that parka, Jensen!”

  “Never mind, the top one came down.”

  “Not far enough”

  “. . . in the building.”

  “A gurney?”

  “No, let’s just . . .”

  “He’s too heavy!”

  “Look out!”

  The next day an entire page of the Valley City Times Record was dedicated to “Busy Night at Hospital!” The bottom right-hand corner contained a photo of Salinka Mortonmortonson, newly crowned rodeo queen, wincing at the camera and holding her arm as she climbed out of the Suburban.

  The rest of the page, eight photos in all, was dedicated to the arrival, dislodging, and admission of Cooney Bedlam to the hospital for an “unnatural attachment.” The best photo was one in which Cooney had fallen face down. Teri, Jensen, and Dr. Shin-Guard had grasped him by the arms and were dragging him forward. This caused the parka to pull up above his waist. Some artful airbrushing was used to make the photograph acceptable for a family newspaper, although the uncensored version was racing across the Internet like a virus.

  Despite Sherba’s protestations, not everyone believed the “falling through the ice” story.

  “At least,” Aunt Trinka had reminded them the next day, “no charges were filed.”

  For two days Cooney submitted to Sherba’s healing touch, repeatedly lying on his belly as she carefully administered antibiotics, pain pills, and topical anesthetic balm to the afflicted areas. If one were to apply the Rorshach analogy to a description of scorched epithelium, it would call up a giant butterfly with a bone in his teeth!

  He was able to stand but was forced to wear a loose hospital gown, split up the back. It was humiliating. He stayed inside Aunt Trinka’s house all day Thursday. The incarceration had been without incident until Friday morning. Sherba had applied her medicants to Cooney before she and Trinka went to work and admonished him to stay off his . . . back.

  An hour after they left, Cooney decided that a breath of fresh air would push back the cabin fever and do him good. He put on his socks, boots, and hat, then pulled on an old down jacket over his hospital gown like a cape. Then he grabbed a piece of toast and walked out onto the back porch.

  Stepping carefully onto the concrete sidewalk that led to the driveway, he walked toward the corner of the house. A weak sun was shining on that side, and its reflection off the snow made everything seem brighter. Two tire paths on the far side of the driveway were the only part that wasn’t covered with ice. At the bottom of the drive, pushed to one side, was a berm of dirty snow piled four feet high.

  In the distance he could see the huge leafless cottonwoods that ran along the banks of the Sheyenne River. The town across the way was bustling with activity. Tonight was Rodeo Night!

  Cooney drew in a deep breath, then let it out, allowing his shoulders to sag. A slight gust of wind blew up his skirt and lifted against his hat. Cooney reached to set it back on tight. His left hand accidentally hit the piece of toast he was holding and knocked it from his right.

  “Oh, foot!” he said, still holding his hat and bending over to pick up the toast.

  Booger, a tough cinder block of a red-merle blue heeler, had been watching Cooney from across the driveway. His masters, the Bjornsens, had driven to the optometrist’s office that morning to get Brian’s eyes checked. They left Booger in charge.

  Cooney had not noticed the stealthy dog in the neighbor’s yard. When the triangular piece of toast spread with butter and Concord grape jelly hit the ground, Booger sprang from his hiding place and closed the ten-yard distance in three giant leaps!

  Dear Reader,

  Knowing what you know now, it is possible that some of you are picturing a hideous collision with countless ramifications. But you may not be aware that certain dogs and canine breeds are revered for their agility: greyhounds capable of turning on a dime at full speed, retrievers that can pinpoint a downed hummingbird in forty acres of Canadian thistle, and poodles able to pluck the eyebrows off a migrating fruit fly!

  Unfortunately, blue heelers are not one of them. So, the collision is inevitable. But can you foresee Cooney’s appearance ten minutes later at Queen Salinka Mortonmortonson’s first formal ceremonial function? Hum? The unveiling of the two-times life-size statue of Knute Knorsky (no relation) astride that famous North Dakota bucking horse named Ya, You Betchya?

  Well, hold on to yer horses. It can get worse.

  The angle was perfect. The hospital-furnished curtain rose and parted as Booger careened through the hairy pillars, banging off both sides as he dived for the toast!

  Cooney pitched forward, jacket flying. His palms hit the ice-covered cement, stuck just long enough for his center of gravity to tip. In a defensive maneuver he tucked his head and rolled.

  He landed in a single luge position with enough forward momentum to sail down the drive like a hubcap off Teddy Roosevelt’s nose at Mount Rushmore! It took less than five seconds for his boot heels to reach the pile of frozen snow. It lent no traction. Cooney rocketed up the side and shot into space like an Olympic ski jumper!

  Meanwhile, on his way to deliver a generator to the rodeo grounds, Torsen Ebertson had just turned onto 5th Avenue and was up to 15 mph when he passed Aunt Trinka’s house. The generator was loaded toward the front of Torsen’s double-axle sixteen-foot flat-bed implement trailer.

  Cooney had the good sense not to flail in flight, which allowed him to clear the near-side foot-high side rail on Torsen’s trailer. He didn’t skip like a flat rock when his tail assembly touched down. Rather, he slid just far enough for his boots to wedge underneath the opposite side rail.

  Torsen was lucky in hitting the green light just right and blithely glided through a stop sign. Along the way many people waved at him. He was hard of hearing but observed that it was such a nice morning and it certainly was a friendly community.

  He slowed to 25 mph as he turned onto the rutted, snow-packed road leading up to the rodeo grounds. A crowd was gathered in front of the Winter Show entrance. Torsen pulled to a stop behind the gathering to see what was going on.

  Salinka Mortonmortonson, queen of the North Dakota Winter Show, was just stepping up to the podium. She was prepared. She had researched the historical significance of Knute Knorsky and had practiced her presentation until she had it down perfectly. Her mother had tastefully beribboned the cast on her right wrist so that it would not be a distraction.

  “Testing, testing,” she began. “Can you hear me in the back?”

  Several heads turned to determine if they were, or were not, the back. They gasped in unison!

  Cooney Bedlam, already a name on the lips of local gossips, sat on the flat-bed trailer in a white gown. His knees were tucked up, his arms wrapped around them. His boots still protrude
d through the side, and the brim of his black hat was bent up in front like Gabby Hayes. The skin on his face, arms, and knees was the color of an Albertson’s meat counter special: bright red.

  Uncle Oley, the newspaper photographer who had been at the hospital two nights ago, was already thinking Pulitzer! The picture that made the front page of the next day’s Times Record reminded readers of a statue of a pilloried pink Rodin or possibly a scene from One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

  The fallout, beyond the requisite humiliation (squared) and the additional excoriation, was a complaint filed with the general manager of the North Dakota Winter Show and the commissioner of the PRCA on behalf of one Salinka Mortonmortonson, her mother, and other injured parties against the plaintiff, one Cooney Bedlam, for obstruction of royal duties.

  That night at the rodeo Cooney and Sherba watched as the loading gates rolled open and the saddle broncs were loaded. They came in single file. As soon as the first one reached the final chute, the gate closed behind him. The gates clanged behind his followers.

  Straight Line was over chute 4. Normally Cooney would have been beside his traveling pardner to help him get down on his horse, but not tonight.

  Straight had arrived at the giant Quonset that served as the Winter Show building two hours before the rodeo. In the contestant warm-up area he had laid out his bronc saddle and given it a thorough check. Specially made for his event, the saddle’s cantle was medium high, the pommel and swells were prominent, and there was no saddle horn.

  The leather back cinch straps looked like ones on a regular saddle. The under-the-belly, leather back cinch buckled on both ends to the cinch straps. It was designed, as was the front cinch, to be easily put on and adjusted from either side.

  Latigo straps two inches wide were attached to the front rigging rings on both sides of the saddle. Each ran down and through rings on the wide cotton cinch. The latigos were then looped back through the cinch rings and secured with a full duke of Windsor.