Ride, Cowboy, Ride!

by Baxter Black

  They relaxed in their honeymoon embrace, letting the tension flow out with each exhalation. Neither spoke. Neither was sure what the other was thinking. They settled and fell asleep in each other’s arms.

  CHAPTER 77

  December 11, Sunday, 7:30 a.m.

  In the Hotel Room with the Bedlams

  Cooney woke at 7:30 a.m., slipped out of the bed, and showered. There was a complimentary continental breakfast in the lobby. He put together a selection of edibles plus two Styrofoam cups of coffee and walked back to their room.

  He found Pica lying in bed, still disheveled and watching a replay of Saturday’s final rodeo performance. The team roping was on.

  “Bronc riding is next,” she said.

  Cooney handed her the coffee. “It seemed like you liked it black?” he said.

  “I do,” she said, remembering the last time she had said those words.

  He set two paper plates with victuals on the nightstand, then sat down beside her up against the headboard.

  The professional sports broadcaster and the cowboy color commentator gave the play-by-play. To the credit of the camera crew and the producers of the NFR, the coverage and replays were equal to those of most pro sports.

  Cooney was glued to the screen, watching his peers show off their stuff. There wasn’t a bad ride. These cowboys are so good, he thought to himself. Anyone was capable of winning it all. When Shelby Truax rode his bronc and scored a seventy-five, the announcer proclaimed that, for the moment, Truax was leading in the race for the NFR average championship.

  The announcer went on to embellish and incite excitement with the news that only two riders were left who could beat Truax out of the buckle. Both, he said, were at the top of their game. He talked on and on ’til he finally said there seemed to be some delay.

  On the television replay some of the confusion had been edited out. The broadcaster announced that Cooney Bedlam had been injured and was not there to ride, so they turned out his draw, thus disqualifying him for this performance and eliminating any chance that he could win the average.

  The camera followed a big paint horse packing Cooney’s saddle, with no flank strap, as it came out of the chute, made a short circle into the arena, then pranced out the exit gate. There was no applause from the fans, who were somewhat bumfoozled. Then the announcer introduced the final bronc rider of the season: Straight Line, Buffalo, Alberta. The announcer repeated the story of how the two-time world champion had come to this year’s finals in fifteenth place and now was one ride away from winning the NFR average. Straight needed a solid ride of fifty points or better.

  The camera remained focused on Straight as he stood on the catwalk overlooking a short-coupled black horse with a white blaze named “Whizzer.” On close-up Straight seemed to be vexed and looking around, even though Cooney’s ride had already left the dock. He was in a tight discussion with the chute boss, who was down in the arena by the chute gate.

  Then Straight climbed over, sat on the saddle, stirruped his feet, took the hack rein, then raised his head again to look around once more. He looked back down and nodded his head, and the gate swung open.

  The long camera view that Cooney and Pica were watching on the television showed Whizzer rainbow out of the chute . . . with no rider! The horse continued to buck for five jumps, then broke into a run. The pickup men raced after him.

  The close camera picked up Straight standing on the inside rails of the chute, looking back over his shoulder at his buckin’ horse. He waited until the 8-second buzzer sounded, then climbed back onto the catwalk and disappeared.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Cooney and Pica heard the announcer say, “we have no explanation for this unexpected conclusion to the saddle bronc riding event, but we can say with a great deal of certainty that the winner of the NFR average in the saddle bronc riding is Shelby Truax! And here he comes right now!”

  Shelby rode a big, lanky black and white horse around the arena at a gallop following one of the flag ladies. The crowd applauded, but the vocal buzz sounded like a beehive.

  Pica punched the remote. The television clicked, and the picture faded out.

  “I guess I assumed he’d won,” said Cooney, puzzled, “or maybe lost. We didn’t have any time to even say anything last night. And it wasn’t on the top of my mind to ask him how it went while you were scattering feathers and fighting Goliath. So . . . ” he paused and thought a moment, “last night when we talked, he’d already . . . he’d already turned out his horse.”

  The weight of the act, the offering, the profound sacrifice, sank heavily in Cooney’s heart.

  Pica watched Cooney’s face as the realization of Straight’s gift soaked in. Cooney turned to her but seemed to be looking through her. His eyes were glistening. His lips moved as if he was going to say something, but nothing came out. A full five seconds passed.

  “I need to go to the washroom,” she said.

  He snapped back to reality. His brain freeze had thawed.

  CHAPTER 78

  December 11, Sunday, Midmorning

  Waking Up to a New Day

  In the morning-after light, this moment between Cooney and Pica was awkward for them both. They were married, of course, but for only about twelve hours! They had made love . . . in the dark. Should he leave the room while she got up? Or avert his eyes? Should she ask him to hand her clothes to her? Or should she rise as naked as Venus on the half-shell and march into the bathroom?

  “Let me go run the tub so you can soak. Would that be good?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said, “that would be good . . . nice.”

  While he was filling the motel bathtub-shower combination she peeled off the bed spread and wrapped it around herself. He stepped out of the bathroom, and she went in.

  She was in there for a full thirty minutes. He heard the hot water being replenished several times, then the shower running. The reality of Pica in the shower pushed thoughts of calling Straight to his back burner. Cooney paced around the confining motel room, nervous, peeking through the curtains to the parking lot below. It was 10:10 a.m. He was unable to maintain any train of thought for more than a few seconds. Her proximity vexed him.

  Checking his cell phone, he saw that Straight had called and left several messages this morning already. His mother, his cousin Sherba, and Pica’s brother had also left messages. Cooney planned to return all the calls; he knew the callers were worried, but right now he didn’t want to get distracted. She, yes, she was in the shower! He was able to shed this kind of anxiety before getting down onto a bull. He had perfected customized Zen. But right now he couldn’t even get his being to stay calm for five seconds!

  He heard the shower turn off, the tub drain, heard the sound of her moving around. He heard her brushing her teeth. My gosh, he’d actually bought her a toothbrush, but it was still in the shopping bag. She must have borrowed his from his dop kit!

  The door opened, and Pica stepped through the bathroom door wearing a towel on her head and another around her body. Cooney’s heart jumped in his throat. He had never seen a more beautiful picture. He quickly recovered and took charge of himself.

  “I bought some triple antibiotic salve and some Ben-Gay, alcohol, Band-Aids, gauze . . .” he offered.

  “You didn’t happen to buy a big comb or hair brush, did you?” she asked.

  “No, dang it!” he said. “I wish I’d uve thought it out.” He dug a six-inch black plastic comb out of his back pocket. “You could use this.”

  She smiled and shook her head.

  “I was thinkin’,” he said. “If you’d lay back on the bed, maybe I could, uh, take a look at your wounds. Check ’em out, doctor them if they needed it.”

  “That shower sure helped,” she said, “but they sting a little.”

  She crawled under the sheet and let the to
wels fall to the floor. She turned onto her stomach.

  Cooney dumped his “doctor bag” onto the bed. He gently pulled the sheet down to her waist. Her skin was light pink. Freckles sprinkled across her shoulders. Three whip lash-bruised contusions ran horizontally across her back. The leather jacket she had worn last night had kept the skin from breaking. He touched the contusions. They were warm, reddish, and swollen.

  Cooney applied the antibiotic salve carefully. There were several abrasions on her shoulders. He secured the little bottle of motel lotion from the bathroom and tenderly massaged her shoulders and neck.

  Pica had closed her mind. Gone somewhere else to avoid feeling any pain from the healing hands. He heard her steady, sonorous breathing, noting she was in her own Zen. With only the tiniest trepidation he pulled the sheet down another six inches. Coursing vertically across her left cheek was a second black and blue streak an inch wide! In places the skin was broken. He lifted the sheet to follow the wound. It ran down her left leg, leaving a large scrape just above the ankle. No wonder she was limping last night, he told himself. Maybe it was the bicycle or that unicycle.

  Using a dry rag, alcohol, salve, cream, and massage he completed treating what he could reach. Even when he covered her and then rolled her over onto her back she did not show any sign of consciousness.

  When he prepared to examine and treat the long purple-red welt that ran from the right of her neck down diagonally across her chest, he stopped to steady his hands. Cooney pulled the sheet down to see the extent of the wound. His heart leaped again!

  C’mon! he said to himself disgustedly, you lecherous pig. She’s hurt, she needs . . . I can do this! She needs me right now to help her . . . to get well. Just play like it’s Straight. He’s hurt! Doctor him! Cooney’s heart was beating so hard that he could feel it in his neck as he reached to apply the antibiotic ointment to her wound. His fingers traced it as if they were needles on a lie detector!

  A left hand came out from under the sheet and put itself over Cooney’s shaking right hand and held it in place. He jumped slightly, then looked down to see what she was doing. He looked up at her face. Pica looked pleasantly relaxed: easy smile, half-closed lids.

  She reached up from under the sheet with her right hand and ran her fingers across his cheek. Her fingers pulled him slowly down toward those heart-shaped, luscious, inviting fleshy folds that pursed in anticipation. Their lips touched.

  Oh, man! They did it again! It helped that they were both awake this time. But this time it was with the exhilaration of water on the stove boiling over! The top comin’ off the Dom Perignon! The $100,000 jackpot lighting up the night sky in no-limit Nevada!

  Both felt like Columbus when he first saw land. They explored like Lewis and Clark, they panned for gold, drilled for oil, dived for pearls, read each other like a treasure map. They intertwined like DNA climbing a ladder to the stars. Reaching, stretching, ascending, defying gravity until they hung in the balance between madness and euphoria! That special place where amnesia protects the brain from catching on fire!

  She clung to him, her self-control in tatters. They were a jet engine, and when the afterburners kicked in she screamed! “Love! Oh, love! In love! All love! I love! . . .” He held her in ecstasy, on the tip of a Vesuvian fountain, as she moaned and cooed, but when he finally picked the penny off the bottom of the pool, they both collapsed!

  Well . . .

  It would be impolite to bother them in the aftermath. They deserve their privacy. Suffice it to say they communicated in a different way. Like animals do. He grunted like a bear, and she purred like a lion. Satiated, they rested until the responsibility gene that both had inherited stirred them to action.

  “Mrs. Bedlam, I am pleased to have made your acquaintance,” said Cooney. “But we have calls to make. Many are worried about us.”

  Pica climbed over on top of him and kissed him full upon the lips. It was a hard, firm, fierce kiss full of passion and possession that penetrated to the bone! She raised her head and looked directly into his eyes. Tears were running down her cheeks beside her tight smile. Words would not come.

  She held his gaze a few moments more, trying to say something, then finally stood up, shed her sheets, turned her head, and walked as naked as Venus into the bathroom.

  CHAPTER 79

  December 11, Sunday Afternoon

  The Bedlams Leave Town

  Cooney and Pica spent the afternoon back in his hotel room while Cooney made the calls to their families. They deemed it best to continue to keep Pica under wraps until they got her back where she belonged in Canada. Cooney, without giving away any details that would incriminate Pica, told the vague story that he had had an emergency illness and had been unable to contact anyone. He was sorry for the worry. He told Pica’s brother that she was safe and asked the brother to tell the family, but Cooney couldn’t go into details. He asked the family to trust him on this.

  Straight was one of the few people who knew where Pica was and could be trusted. He had picked up his earnings for the NFR. He split second and third in the saddle bronc average with Cooney: $29,000 each. Cooney never asked why Straight had turned out his horse. He knew why. They talked around it. Someday Cooney would be able to put into words what it meant between them. Maybe fellow soldiers who had saved each other’s lives would have a similar bond. Pica let them work it out.

  Straight confided to them that OTT had already made him a nice endorsement offer but that since last night he had been approached by two different agencies to represent him. His story was a wonderful, salable item, they said. A book deal, maybe a movie. Cross-country tour. His value for endorsements could be worth millions!

  Cooney asked who they could talk to at OTT to extricate Pica from her situation. Straight gave him Nova Skosha’s cell phone number.

  Cooney called the contestant rep for saddle broncs and explained that he had a health emergency and had been unconscious and in medical care during the final performance. He apologized and asked the rep to let the rodeo brass know that he would be making a public statement later in the week when he was able. For the time being he was not available for interviews or interrogations. They could send his checks and his buckles to his address in South Dakota.

  He and Pica discussed a plan at length. Her greatest concern was to avoid being caught here in the States. OTT should use the evidence to clear her name and lay the rightful blame on Oui Oui. But that might take a while. They both agreed that the fewer who knew what was going on, the better. They decided not to involve Teddie Arizona.

  By dark they had packed their bags, loaded his pickup, and headed up Interstate Highway 15 going north.

  EPILOGUE

  February 27, 6:00 p.m., Sunday Night,

  Two Months after the NFR

  At La Fiesta de los Vaqueros in Tucson

  Tucson’s big spring rodeo was officially over. The La Fiesta de los Vaqueros rodeo committee had produced another spectacular show. Rain held off all week and the weather stayed cool. The majority of the crowd had departed this last performance, but three hundred to four hundred faithful fans stayed to watch the vaunted Post-Ride Party activity. Thus the arena lights were turned on and attention was focused on a group of committee members in front of the bucking chutes.

  Cleon List, exuberant fan and wealthy committee member, was now holding court at his eleventh annual Post-Ride Party.

  The highlight of the party was the matched saddle bronc riding, pitting the just-crowned champion of the Tucson Rodeo against the reigning world champion. Tonight’s contest, a match-up that had been ordained by the “Angels on the Heavenly Rodeo Committee,” pitted Cooney Bedlam, reigning saddle bronc world champion, and Straight Line, who earlier today had been crowned winner of the Tucson Rodeo saddle bronc riding.

  Our two heroes had become the two most-talked-about rodeo personalities in the world. The tw
o had been the subjects of endless articles, interviews, speculations, and psychoanalyses. Rumors flew around the sports world that the two would be the first duo to be named “Best Athlete of the Year.” They were on the cover of Sports Illustrated and sought out by all sorts of promoters who promised they could make the two famous and negotiate their book deals, endorsements, commentator opportunities, and movie offers.

  It had been a tumultuous seventy-five days for our heroes between the finals and the Tucson Rodeo. Cooney had taken fewer than three days to get Pica back across the border, where they lay low through Christmas holidays at the ranch in Pincher Creek and stayed in touch with Straight.

  Straight had come back to Canada a hero! Canada is known for its social liberalism, tolerance, and acceptance of diversity. Canadians are admired by many for their acquiescence to seemingly anybody else’s infringement on their culture, belief, or values. Straight was idolized in Ottawa because he had done the Canadian thing and sacrificed his chance at winning a “virtually guaranteed championship,” as the Globe and Mail put it, so his American friend would not be offended. Canadians are nice.

  The eastern Canadian press never quite understood the difference between winning the NFR average championship and the PRCA world championship. It was lost in the details, as was the real reason Cooney had missed his last ride.

  Of course, that such a story about Canada didn’t involve mad cow disease, harboring of baby seal killers, or a flitty prime minister’s wife was a welcome blessing!

  While Straight was drawing the lion’s share of celebrity, Pica had found a friend to help her with her legal problems—none other than Nova Skosha! Through the holiday season, Nova had stuck like flypaper to the OTT lawyers on Pica’s behalf. The lawyers complained to Turk that she didn’t understand that it would take time. Three governments were involved, federal crimes were committed; the authorities couldn’t just drop the charges. Besides, Christmas and New Year’s vacations were involved! Turk climbed onto their backs as well, but the lawyers just added to his bill with every phone call.