Strip Search

by Rex Burns

  “Yes ma’am.”

  Jo and Wager made their way into the bleachers to find a seat high in the open section. The covered seats, already full, were capped by a roofed box, and they could see the announcer in a white cowboy hat and fringed jacket lean out of the window with a microphone in his hand. On the raked dirt of the arena floor, a clown in baggy pants, red underwear, and fright wig was going through his routine with the announcer as he chased after a yapping dog.

  Across the sandy oval, another tier of bleachers was filled with restless movement, and beyond, gigantic and rising like a ragged wall, the west side of the Front Range loomed clear and sharp against the blue sky.

  “What did you tell them?”

  “I asked them to meet me by the contestants’ gate after the show.”

  “Are you looking for anything special?”

  Wager shook his head. “I don’t know if there’s anything to look for. But I promised I’d look, so I’ll look.”

  Jo pointed at a flash of color and sparkle at the far end of the arena. “They’re getting set for the grand entry. I used to love this part!”

  “Did you do this?”

  “Sure! I was on a girls’ riding team, and we’d do the county-fair rodeos around Denver—four or five every summer. Figure eights, cross-overs, in-and-outs—you name it.”

  Wager couldn’t name any of it. The most riding he’d ever done was on a fenced track with a horse whose head came up only when it faced the barn. Which was fine with Wager. “Pretty exciting, was it?”

  “The practices weren’t, but the shows sure were. Everybody rode a lot faster then. And it can be dangerous, too, if you tighten up the formations.”

  “But fun,” he said, watching her eyes.

  She nodded, a strand of dark hair blowing across her forehead, and her smile light and quick with remembered excitement. “Here they come!”

  The announcer’s voice rose until it was drowned out by the frantic thump of the small band and finally by the cheers of the crowd. From an opening in the fence at the arena’s far end, two columns of riders galloped hard, one file led by the American flag, the other by the flag of Colorado. Standing in the stirrups and lashing their reins across the horses’ necks, the riders leaned forward, wind pushing their hat brims back, and circled the grounds in two loops that, still galloping at full speed, curved back to cross in the center, then open to loop again. With the thud of hooves and a spray of flying dirt, they circled once more at a gallop, the hoots and yelps of the crowd and the crash of the band driving them faster. Then they skidded to a halt in front of the announcer’s booth, a long straight line of gasping horses and girls sitting at stiff attention. The flags snapped in the middle of the rank.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, the Buckaroo Team Riders! And here comes the rodeo royalty, ladies and gentlemen, our Rodeo Queen, Miss Sharon Dingle, and her lovely court …”

  Quickly, the arena floor filled with winners, runners-up, and entrants to the local beauty contest; rodeo committee members; contestants, clowns, judges; and an assortment of Boy Scouts and service group representatives who helped make the show a success and who each deserved a big hand from the crowd. Following introductions and prizes awarded to winners of an earlier kids’ rodeo came the National Anthem; and amid the cheers that covered the last few notes, Jo and Wager settled back for the first event, bareback bronc riding.

  The Sanchez brothers’ turns came near the end of the go-round, after a series of rides, some of which lasted the full eight seconds. But most ended with either the cowboy flying hard into the dirt or the horse choosing to run or twist rather than buck. James’s name boomed out of the loudspeakers, and a second or two later the gate to chute two flew open and the horse and rider, plunging with jarring shocks, exploded onto the sand.

  “It’s a good ride,” said Jo, and it was. Sanchez’s left hand stayed high and clear of the horse and saddle, while his knees, pumping with the twisting leap of the horse, lifted to drive his spurs above the animal’s shoulders. Writhing high, the unbridled horse twisted and tried to plunge its head down and heels skyward to rid itself of the flopping, clinging rider. But James, fist tight on the grip, hung on until the eight-second buzzer sounded and the pickup men galloped in to lift him off the bronc and guide the suddenly calm animal toward the exit. Vaulting across the pickup man’s horse and into the churned dirt, James walked stiffly, head down, through the applause and cheers of the audience.

  “The score on that fine ride for Jimmy Sanchez—the score on that one was … seventy-two points! That puts him in third place so far. Jimmy Sanchez riding Cottonmouth for seventy-two points and into the money, ladies and gentlemen!”

  “Seventy points is a pretty good ride,” said Jo. “The maximum’s one-twenty, but no one ever gets that.”

  “Those are the judges?” Wager pointed toward two men standing near the chutes and scribbling something on their clipboards.

  “Right. They give points to the horse and rider both, so the cowboys want to draw a horse that bucks really well.”

  “James looked like he did pretty well to me.”

  “His style wasn’t as smooth as the first-place rider, especially when the horse was fishtailing.”

  The other brother, John, fired out of the next chute on a stocky, roman-nosed horse that hopped stiff-legged toward the far fence as one of the judges at the gate turned his back and held his clipboard down to his side. The announcer explained that the rider had a zero score for failing to have his spurs over the horse’s shoulders when the animal made its first jump out of the chute. A pickup man raced to lift him off the animal, and he disgustedly grabbed his hat from the ground and knocked the dirt off as he trudged back through the applause.

  Calf roping, steer wrestling, and saddle bronc riding came next, and both brothers failed to place in the money in any of the events. John completed his ride on the saddle bronc, but his score was low; James, almost flung from the pitching saddle, reached down with his free hand and touched leather, disqualifying himself. Finally, as the show reached halftime, Wager made his way through the crowd to the arena secretary’s office to see if his note had been picked up. A man wearing a bolo tie and a hat shoved back to show his bald, freckled head sat behind the desk adding up figures on a creaky machine.

  “Can I ask you a couple questions about the rodeo?”

  The watery blue eyes glanced at Wager’s slacks and city shoes, and the man nodded. “You a reporter, are you?”

  “Just interested. Is this rodeo open to anybody, or do you have to have some kind of permit?”

  “The only permit’s a thirty-five-dollar entry fee for each event. Used to be twenty-five, but rodeo expenses go up about like everything else, don’t they? Hope it don’t go any higher—hard enough to fill up all the events as it is.” His sandy eyebrows popped up beneath the hat’s wide brim. “You want to enter? Too late for that—entries closed two days ago.”

  “It’s not my line of work,” said Wager. “Do a lot of cowboys enter more than one event?”

  “Sure—at this kind of show. Fees aren’t all that high. Not a hundred dollars or more, like at the big ones. This way they can afford to find out what they do best. Then they can specialize. When they go up to the bigger rodeos, they got two, maybe three specialties. If they’re not trying for All Around Cowboy, they stick with one. Spread yourself too thin, you never make any money, not in the big shows. Too much competition.”

  “About how much can a cowboy win if he comes in, say, third in bronc riding, like Jimmy Sanchez?”

  “Sanchez? I just divvied up the bareback pot now. He won, let’s see, he won a hundred and twenty-five dollars. Third place is twenty percent, and we had a pot of six twenty-five for bareback, counting entry fees and prize money. Yep, a hundred and twenty-five.”

  “The program says he’s entered in five events. So his entry fees were a hundred and seventy-five, and so far he’s won a hundred and twenty-five of it back?”

  “It ain’t no
way to get rich, is it? ‘Course if he came in first in a couple events, he’d be ahead. This here’s a small rodeo—little better than jackpot, but not much. But they got to start somewhere; I don’t know too many sports or businesses that give you good money to go out and learn your job, do you?” He paused to scratch at a hairy earlobe. “Government work, maybe. Run for office—good money there for beginners.”

  “What other expenses does a cowboy have besides entry fees?”

  “Oh, travel’s the big one. That costs a lot. Most of them sleep in their trucks, but they still got to pay for gas, and it’s a long way between rodeos. And food. Never met a cowboy wasn’t hungry. If you’re a roper or dogger and you got your own horse, you pay for his travel and keep, too. And if you don’t, you got to rent a horse. Most cowboys at this level, they rent for a percentage of the prize money. ‘Course, if they don’t win, they don’t pay. Now, a man with a good horse to rent, he’s going to pick up some extra money. You can make some money judging or working around the grounds, too, but most of them want to be out there in the competition. Injury—this here rodeo has a real good policy: we pay the emergency care and one follow-up visit. Anything else is up to the cowboy. No hospitalization—we can’t afford that kind of insurance. If you’re a PRCA member, you can get a group policy for that, but none of these boys got their cards. And if you’re married, you got all those expenses, too. But, hell, these boys, none of them’s fool enough to be in rodeo and be married, too.” He laughed a single high-pitched note. “Don’t tell the girls that, though. Everyone of them thinks they’re going to get them a cowboy!”

  “How many rodeos like this does a cowboy go to in a season?”

  “Like this? Oh, thirty, maybe forty—there’s jackpot rodeo every Wednesday up near Granby, and a lot of these boys ride in that. And county fairs. Some of them last three or five days, so you can win average money as well as day money. If a fella wants to rodeo, there’s plenty around, especially during the summer. But there’s not much money in it. You get in the professional circuits, now, and go to a hundred, a hundred and fifty rodeos a year, then you might make some money. Of course, your expenses are higher, too, and no guaranteed income. Cheyenne—Frontier Days—that comes later in June. And the National Western in Denver. That one’s in January. That’s your real big ones around here. You’ll see the best stock and the best cowboys at them. Got some other ones, too—not as big, but they pay: the Coors Chute-Out Circuit. They got regional and finals, too.”

  “Any of these cowboys ride in the big ones?”

  “Well, maybe in time, if they’re good enough. That Jimmy Sanchez boy you mentioned, he might make it in a couple years if he gets good enough. But he’s got a lot to learn. And a lot of people to beat to get there.”

  “What’s a good rider make when he’s at the top?”

  “Rider? A good rider, I’m talking about, he can make twenty, thirty thousand. If he’s real good in two events, he can double that. If he wants to be Cowboy of the Year, he’s going to have to win fifty or sixty thousand.”

  “That’s a lot of money.”

  “And if you’re on top of the heap long enough, you can get endorsements and advertising and even movie work. It’s worth going after, all right. But damn few ever get there.” He lifted his face to the roar of voices that spilled out of the stands. “Barrel racing’s started. Don’t want to miss that—my granddaughter’s riding today.”

  Wager made his way back to Jo, stopping to pick up barbecue sandwiches and cups of beer and to balance them past knees and the brims of cowboy hats until he made it to his seat.

  “This tastes great!” Jo dabbed at a smear of barbecue sauce that landed on her jeans. “Wears well, too.”

  On the arena floor, a ground man sprinted out to right a yellow barrel that had been knocked over and to rake smooth the churned path of the last rider. The announcer told the audience about the history of Buckaroo Days and how they grew out of the first local rodeo in 1897.

  “Did you see them?”

  “No, and the note was still there. Jimmy won a hundred and twenty-five dollars on the bareback ride.”

  “That’s not bad. There were a dozen who didn’t win anything.”

  “Right. Now he’s only fifty dollars in the hole on entry fees. And John hasn’t won anything yet.”

  Jo sipped at the beer, which left rings of foam inside her plastic cup. “Are you trying to tell me something, mister detective?”

  Money may not have been the root of all evil, but Wager believed it was way ahead of whatever was in second place. “I just wonder how they pay for it all.” With rape or homicide, there were often other, less rational motives. But with many crimes, it was simply that someone was trying to get a little more a little quicker than the law allowed.

  “They work all week and spend their pay on Saturday rodeos. A lot of amateur cowboys do that.”

  “I see.”

  The barrel righted, the announcer introduced the next rider, and she came galloping into the arena through the tunnel at the far end. Shouts and cheers and howls of “Go, Connie, go!” spurred horse and rider through tight loops around the barrels, and Jo provided a commentary of things Wager should look for. She had praise for the riders who stood lightly in the stirrups and leaned forward far enough to talk in the horse’s ear; their ponies hunkered down and dug furiously with hind legs as they spun past one barrel and dashed for the next. Then, as each rider lapped the final barrel, the entire arena cheered her final sprint for the timing lights that stood on tripods just in front of the tunnel.

  “I never could do that,” said Jo. “You have to try for tenths and hundredths of a second, and I always leaned back going around the barrels. That slowed us down.”

  “Can they get hurt at this?”

  “If a horse goes down, sure. And I saw a girl get a concussion when her horse ran into the tunnel wall crossing the finish line.”

  “But that wasn’t why you quit.”

  “No—I guess I never was afraid. It goes too fast … it’s too exciting to worry about that. I just lost interest because of all the work to do it well.”

  The final contest was bull riding, and Jo said that was the only event that scared her.

  “The bulls go after the riders. They try to hook or step on them. I’ve even seen bulls try to roll on a rider.”

  “Isn’t that what the clown is for?” asked Wager. “To distract the bull and give the rider a chance to get away when he’s thrown?”

  “I know that’s what’s supposed to happen. But it doesn’t always work.” Her long hair stirred in a sudden gust of wind that swirled around the stands, lifting loose scraps of papers and dust and chaff. “The horses try not to step on anyone, but a bull goes after anything it sees. They’re killers.”

  The first bull, part Brahma, supported what Jo said. It lunged into the arena hooking hard at the rider clinging like a wart to the loose skin of its back. A quick spin and sudden reversal and the cowboy, hatless now, was flung aside like a chip. The bull, bell clanking wildly as it pulled the grip rope away from the animal’s stomach, aimed a horn at the scrambling cowboy while one of the clowns, the bullfighter, slapped at it with his hat and danced away toward the barrel clown. Spearing first one way then another with its thick, blunted horns, the bull caught sight of the barrel and veered in supple motion to thud it solidly as the clown curled inside and howled with mock terror while the rubber-coated barrel wobbled toward the fence. A gate swung open, and the bull, calmer now without rider or bell, disappeared from the arena with a final kick of its heels at the gateman.

  “Wow,” said Jo. “You’ve got to be crazy to be a rodeo cowboy, and crazier still to get on one of those things.”

  Wager wasn’t going to argue that. “It looks like the rider got hurt.”

  Hatless, the young man staggered toward the chutes with an arm dangling straight but oddly loose at his side. Even from this far away, Wager could see his lips stretched over the glimmer of gritted teeth and
the sheen of heavy sweat on his forehead. A couple of cowboys hopped off the fence to walk with him as the loudspeakers announced no ride for the contestant and asked the crowd to give that cowboy a big hand for a real good try.

  James once more finished out of the money on a bull that wanted to run more than buck, but John came in fourth with one of the few rides that managed the full eight seconds. After the final contestant and the business of thanking the audience for attending and promising to see them all at next year’s rodeo, the announcer said goodbye and happy trails, and Wager and Jo drifted with the crowd stepping down the bleacher seats to fill the aisles and the stairs outside. They angled out of the flow of people and made their way to the contestants’ gate, where a small crowd waited for relatives or friends or just to glimpse their favorite riders. Jo and Wager worked their way to the rail fence and searched among the numbered shirts for James or Johnny.

  “There’s number thirty-four!” Jo pointed to a cowboy straining to heft a large red nylon bag through the gate. Wager caught his eye.

  “You’re James Sanchez?”

  He was shorter than Wager and, except for a tightness at the corners of his mouth, looked even younger than his seventeen years. The dark curly hair and the eyes that were almost black reminded Wager of the way Tom had looked so many years ago. Lowering the heavy bag, he said, “Yeah. You the fella that put up that note?”

  “Gabe Wager. This is Jo Fabrizio.”

  James touched his fingers to his hat brim. “Ma’am.”

  “Let me help you tote this.” Wager hoisted one handle of the rigging bag and half-followed James as he wound through parked trucks and vans toward a dark green Dodge pickup with an aluminum camper mounted over the bed. Both were new and clean, and the Colorado license plates bore the three letters and numbers of the updated issue. Wager hadn’t memorized the new plates, but he guessed that the USM prefix meant a Western Slope county. “Congratulations on your win.”