The beer, shots and seven double Jack Daniels Jake had at TGI Fridays were taking their toll. Jake’s eyes were bloodshot, his speech was slurred, and he was yawning on a far too frequent basis but, up to now, he was adamant about making the seven-hour trip to Childress rather than letting Dani drive or get a hotel room. He turned to look at Dani and was about to tell her to shut up when he swerved into the left lane and almost forced the car next to him off into the median. The driver of the car stood on his brakes and blared his horn as Jake jerked his truck and trailer back into his lane.
“That’s it!” yelled Dani. “Pull over and let me out. Right now, Jake!”
The near accident sobered Jake up for a brief moment and, as he took a deep breath, the thought occurred to him that Dani might be right. He sat up straight in the driver’s seat, took a few deep breaths, then turned on his flashers as he slowed the rig and pulled off onto the shoulder. The driver that he almost ran off the road blared his horn again as he roared past. Without saying a word, Jake put the gear shift into park and opened his door to get out. He fumbled with the handle to the back door briefly before he was able to open it, then crawled in and laid down across the seat on his side. He left the door open and was snoring before Dani had a chance to walk around the front of the truck and get in.
Dani closed the rear door, climbed into the driver’s seat, buckled up, adjusted her seat and checked all her mirrors before putting the truck in gear. It didn’t take her long to get up to speed and pull out into the traffic headed north on I-45.
She took a moment to gather her bearings. She knew they had just passed Huntsville, so the next dot on the map would be Madisonville, which was another thirty minutes up the road. Part of her wanted to turn around and get a room in Huntsville, but she knew that, no matter what she tried, she wouldn’t be able to wake Jake up for another couple of hours, so she decided to keep heading north. Dani was wide awake after the near collision and felt comfortable behind the wheel, but she wasn’t completely sober, either. Even so, there wasn’t much traffic out this late on a Sunday night, and she figured she could easily make it all the way to Childress, even if she had to stop at some hole-in-the-wall gas station and choke down a really bad cup of coffee.
As the white lines on the roadway disappeared behind the truck, Dani’s mind started to wander. At first, she thought about the events of the day, Jake winning twenty-two thousand dollars, another saddle, buckle, and more fame, but her happy thoughts were quickly replaced by the darker side of the day, his fling in the very trailer she was now pulling, and her romp with Brandon.
A smile crossed her face as she remembered what it was like to make love to him. Brandon had always been the tender one. The difference in bed between Brandon and Jake was that Brandon actually made love to Dani, and Jake just wanted to be in control. She laughed as she realized for the first time that, whenever she and Jake had sex, all he wanted to do was overpower her, exactly like he overpowered the calves he roped. For the first several years of their relationship, Dani was convinced Jake was the better lover because of the roughness of it but, for the last few years, all she could feel was violated, which was another reason Jake’s flings didn’t bother her so much. At this point in her life, she figured she came out ahead if he took all that energy out on someone else every now and then.
Dani let her mind wander as she made her way home and knew before she got close to Madisonville she wasn’t going to stop there. The truck had plenty of gas in it, Jake was still snoring like a lion, and the thought of her head laying on her own pillow in her own bed sounded more and more like what she wanted to do. She wasn’t worried, though; if necessary, there would be a hotel in Centerville or Buffalo after that, or Fairfield after that.
She thought about all the nights she went to bed when she was a kid thinking about all the next day adventures that lay in store for her, Casey, Trey, and Stephanie. A smile crossed her lips as she wondered at how strange life could be. When she was young, all she ever wanted to do was to leave home and see the world and, now that she was older, all she ever wanted to do was go back.
She thought of the time Casey lit a fire over by their campground so he could smother the cigarette smell off his clothes, when the wind picked up and carried an ember over into a patch of dry summer grass. The flames grew quickly, but all four kids sprang into action and fought the fire as best they could. At first, it seemed hopeless, but soon they had the flames out as all the kids screamed, yelled, and stomped around in the grass. She’d never forget how they all laughed until they cried after it was over. That was the day, when Trey and Stephanie were off doing something else, Dani first told Casey she loved him. And he told her he loved her, too.
Dani was jerked out of her daydream by the sound and feel of the right-side tires going off the paved road into gravel. She suddenly realized she had dozed off and failed to follow the road as the freeway made a sweeping turn to the left. When she realized her mistake, she instinctively overcompensated by yanking the steering wheel to the left but, by now, she was going too fast for there to be any chance of getting the rig back onto the highway. As if in slow motion, inertia pushed the trailer’s left side off the ground, then the truck, and both slammed down on their sides as the rig slid down the embankment on the side of the freeway.
Immediately after the vehicle bounced to a halt, Dani heard a blood-curdling scream come from the trailer. She slowly released her death grip on the steering wheel, turned the ignition off, and looked into the backseat of the truck. She yelled, “Jake! Jake! Are you all right?”
Jake was piled head first onto the inside of the rear passenger door, but groggily came to as he asked, “What the hell happened?” He put his hands against the door to push himself off as he screamed, “Son of a bitch, that hurts!”
“What’s wrong?” asked Dani as she unbuckled the seatbelt and used all her strength to push open her side door.
“My goddamn shoulder is what’s wrong,” answered Jake as he screamed again in pain. “I think it’s broken. What the fuck did you do?”
“Hold on, honey, I’m going to see if I can get you out.” Dani climbed out of the truck and hopped onto the ground. After assessing the situation, she got into the truck bed and climbed onto the side of the neck of the trailer to reach the side rear door handle, but she didn’t have the strength or the leverage to open the door.
“Hurry up, for Christ’s sake!” Jake bellowed.
“I can’t open the door,” shouted Dani in frustration.
“Then bust the damned back window out!” yelled Jake. “My shoulder’s fucked up bad! Get me the fuck out of here!”
Dani stood there for a moment trying to figure out what to do, then ran toward the back of the rig. The lights on the truck and trailer didn’t do much to illuminate the darkness surrounding the scene, but it was enough for Dani to take stock of the situation. She could hear Bear’s screams and stopped to check on the animal as he kicked and thrashed around inside, but after she climbed on top of what used to be the trailer’s side and looked down at the horse through a side window, she knew instantly that, if a tow truck didn’t come along quickly, the horse was doomed.
The trailer was now laying on its side where the doors to the stalls were and there was no way anyone was going to be able to get the horse out until the trailer was pulled back onto its wheels. Bear was still in his stall, but instead of standing up, he was now sitting on his rump, struggling and kicking with all his might trying to get back on his feet, more than likely beating himself to death. The sight made her gag and she almost threw up on the spot. Tears rolled down her face and her heart fell to her stomach as she climbed back down and opened the rear doors. She was able to reach the light switch that lit up the back compartment, then rummaged through Jake’s tack after the locker lit up.
The trailer shook violently as the animal kicked in his small stall just a few feet from where Dani was now, but soon she was able to take her mind off the sickening, loud thuds because she f
ound the tire iron for the lug nuts on the trailer wheels. After racing back to the passenger side of the truck, she yelled, “Cover your face, Jake!”
She slammed the back window with the tire iron as hard as she could. The glass only cracked into a spider web at first but, on her second attempt, tiny shards of glass exploded everywhere into the cab of the truck. She used the tire iron to break away all the glass that was still hanging from the metal frame, then looked in and saw Jake, who had managed to use his left arm to right himself and was now trying to stand up on the inside door panel. Dani reached in and grabbed his left arm to help pull him through the opening. Jake pulled back and cursed as soon as his right shoulder hit the head rest of the back seat.
“Dammit, Dani!” he yelled, “slow the fuck down! I told you my shoulder was busted!”
“You have to get out of the truck now!” said Dani forcefully. She added as she helped him through the opening, “Bear’s going to beat himself to death if we don’t get help soon, but I need to get you out of there first.” She helped him stumble from the cab, then out onto the grass where he lost his balance and fell. He screamed in pain again as Dani helped him to his feet, then led him away from the accident and up the hill toward the roadway they had just driven off of.
For the first time Dani noticed a car with its lights on parked on the shoulder of the freeway, and a man running down the hill toward them. “Are you two all right?” he asked.
“No, you ignorant son of a bitch! I’m not okay,” shouted Jake drunkenly as he stumbled again.
After seeing Jake almost fall, the stranger immediately ran to over to him and grabbed Jake by the right side to help.
“Son of a bitch!” Jake shrieked in pain as he pulled away. Even though he was still drunk, with lightning fast reflexes he jerked away from both Dani and the man trying to help, then swung as hard as he could with his left hand and caught the stranger squarely on the jaw. The man went down backward in a heap, out cold in the grass.
“Jake…God damn you…what did you do?” screamed Dani as she grabbed Jake’s left side again. It took all her might to stop Jake from looking over his victim as if he was Mohamed Ali. Twice she had to pull as hard as she could before he finally turned and started up the hill again toward the road.
“Serves the son of a bitch right,” said Jake as he stumbled his way to the shoulder of the freeway. “I told the bastard I was hurt.”
Dani had Jake sit down on the shoulder, twenty yards in front of the stranger’s still running car. As she ran to the side of the car, she could tell there was nobody else in the vehicle, so she opened the door to look inside. “Thank God,” she cried as her eyes fell on a CB radio installed under the dash. As she checked to make sure it was tuned to Channel 19, she cringed as another loud “boom” came from inside the trailer. With trembling hands, she picked up the mic and heard Bear scream again just before she depressed the talk button and yelled with fear and desperation in her voice, “Can somebody please help? We’ve had an accident.”
Chapter 10
“The Truth Is, Everyone Is Going To Hurt You.
You Just Got To Find The Ones
Worth Suffering For.”
—Bob Marley
Childress, Texas
Jake hit the button of his stop watch with his thumb as he yelled from the small set of bleachers on the side of the arena behind the O’Brien house, “That’s the way you do it!”
He turned and high-fived Jason and Chris who were sitting next to him and added, “Isn’t that something!”
It was ten o’clock in the morning, but the temperature was already pushing ninety. Jake, Trey, and Adam had been practicing for the last three hours and were drenched with sweat, but they showed no signs of knocking off for the day. They had spent just about every weekend since the beginning of the year working on something Jake had picked up on, and the smiles on their faces were proof the hard work was starting to pay off.
After watching videotape of Adam’s outing at the National Rodeo Finals in Las Vegas at the end of last year, they had come up with a new technique for him to try and shave another tenth of a second off his already impressive times. Jake noticed that Adam had a tendency to come out of the saddle a little too tall and would hit the ground off balance every now and then. He suggested that Adam come out of the saddle with his head down around his horse’s neck, so when he landed in the dirt, he was in more of a sprint position and could literally hit the ground running.
“Do it again,” ordered Jake as he sat back down. He looked behind him at Dani, who was sitting on the top row of the three-row bleacher and added, “That boy’s something, ain’t he?”
“Sure is,” Dani agreed. “He definitely is.”
Jake sat back down and turned away to watch Adam back his horse into the gate, getting ready for another practice run. Trey would spend an hour loading calves, then switch roles with Adam. When each had spent two hours practicing tie-downs, they would spend another two practicing team roping skills. At that point, Jake would load the calves.
Trey had no intentions of trying to make a living as a rodeo cowboy. He let go of those dreams long ago when he lost his fingers, but he enjoyed being out there to watch Adam because he agreed with Jake that the young man that came to visit every weekend was destined to be one of the best ropers of all time. Maybe even better than Jake.
Jake never told anyone but, deep down, the fact that this young kid might grow up to be better than him bothered him to his core. Sure, there had been a lot of good ropers come up over the years but, in the grand scheme of things, he believed they would all prove to belong in the dust bin of history, only to be occasionally remembered through long-forgotten trivia questions asked in run-down cowboy bars. Jake spent most of his adult life competing against hundreds of other cowboys but nobody had ever come along that could take the crown away from Jake “The Snake” O’Brien as the greatest tie-down roper of all time. Yet now, here he was, watching a kid who genuinely had a chance to do just that if he didn’t get hurt. Jake shook the thought off as the vision came to him of Willie Butler lying in the hospital bed, but even then, he smiled slightly as he was comforted by the thought. He never had and never would let on to anyone the story about Willie. But, even though the young kid was now pretty much a part of the family, Jake knew it would be a relief to him if Adam suffered a disastrous injury so his own all-time gold buckle win total could remain intact. That was the reason that, even after all the exhausting practices they went through, there was still a part of Jake that rooted for anyone else to beat Adam whenever he completed another lightning fast time.
“Wow, would you look at that!” said Dani as Adam executed a near-flawless run. She watched Adam pull his hat off and wipe the sweat off his face with his shirt sleeve.
“Are you guys going to take break anytime soon?” she asked.
“Maybe in a bit,” answered Adam as he climbed back onto his horse. “We should try something first.”
The answer didn’t surprise Dani because all three men had grown used to their grueling routine. Practice was always all business and, because none of the three wanted to look the weakest of the bunch, it was usually up to Dani to call time out so they could rest a minute and enjoy a cold glass of water. Training was virtually mandatory, and the only legitimate excuse any of them could use for missing a weekend was if Adam was at a rodeo somewhere. Even then, they were usually on the phone with each other later that evening talking about how Adam did and how he could do better the next day. Sickness, injury, bad weather, or childbirth didn’t count.
Dani and Jake watched Adam coil his rope and piggin string, then hang them over his saddle horn as he rode across the arena toward them. Instead of going back to the gate, the young man brought his horse alongside the rail and came to a stop.
“Mr. O’Brien, I think it’s about time you got up here and tried this again.”
“Yeah, Jake,” said Dani. She had no idea she could be so wrong about something as she added ea
gerly, “It’ll do you some good.”
“Yeah, Daddy,” chimed in the two boys, “we want to see.”
Jake stood and took a deep breath as he looked around at his family. Even though he had been watching what he ate and working out for the last two years, he hadn’t got up the nerve to try calf roping again. Three years earlier, the doctors convinced him his roping career was at an end and he needed to think about what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. The doctor who operated on him said at the time that it was the worst shoulder injury he had ever seen.
Passing out on the backseat of the truck was the worst decision Jake ever made because immediately after the truck rolled over on its side, Jake was thrown head first and slammed onto the floorboard where his head met with the side door at thirty miles an hour. The good news was he was extremely lucky he didn’t break his neck, but the bad news was his shoulder was demolished. The articular cartilage surrounding the joint was crushed and the joint itself was in four pieces. Although the humerus bone was cracked all the way down to his elbow and would heal, it had shattered where it met the socket. His shoulder blade was broken in three places as well.
Bear wasn’t as fortunate. As usual, an army of tow trucks arrived before the ambulance and police, and the first two on the scene drove down and backed up to the overturned truck and trailer. After attaching the cables of their winches, they were able to slowly pull the rig back onto its wheels where it landed with a bang. Although Bear had been relatively quiet for the last few minutes, giving hope that somehow he might be all right, a shudder seized Dani like a lightning bolt when Bear screamed again as the tires hit the ground.
She left Jake on the side of the road as the tow trucks went to work to see if by some miracle Bear was okay, but was devastated when she got to the side stall door and opened it. She expected the inside of the trailer to be destroyed, which it was, but her heart sank like a brick when she saw blood dripping everywhere. Bear’s left hind leg was bent at a forty-five degree angle just below the knee and blood gushed from a deep gash that stretched from the middle of his thigh down to his shin on his other hind leg. There were severe cuts on both front legs as well, and all four of his handsome white sox now shone bright red with blood.
Roped & Tied Page 24
