A Feather in the Rain (9 page)

J
esse could hear the smile in Bear's voice, “You were just sensational. You ought to be a movie star, man. Have you ever seen yourself on tape?”

“No…I don't think so.”

“Well, it's great and I want to thank you for letting us use it. It's gonna do a lot of good.”

“How are y'all doin' with your horses?”

“They'd been getting fat and sassy until you got Holly going. Now she's out there riding every day. She's even got me back to riding again. We're having fun. She's right here, I'll let you talk to her. Come and see us. Ruby sends her love. Thanks again.”

The next thing he knew, she was on the phone. With her “Hello, Jesse…,” the warmth of her breath was in his ear. Irises were blooming, school was out, and summer had arrived.

He said hello. While he was trying to think of what to say next, she said, “Everybody here thinks you ought to be a TV star. We think you already are.”

All he could do was chuckle a little. “How are you gettin' on with your horses?”

“Pretty good. So far I haven't gotten myself bucked off. I keep trying to remember everything you told me. I think I'll need some more lessons.”

What an invitation. He couldn't believe she'd said it. There's a line a man could do stuff with. “Well…we'll have to see that you get 'em.” Oh, that was good. Real good. He wondered if his brain had gone soft from too much time alone.

“Yeah…Bear is yelling, ‘come on up and visit.'”

“Well…thanks…I'm, I'm kinda stuck here for a while…but…that'd be nice. I'd like to do that.”

“How is Buckshot doing?”

She remembered his name. Amazing. “He's doing real good.”

“I know it's in December. What are the dates?”

How does she know The Futurity is in December? She'd never even heard of The Futurity until he told her about it.

He gave her the dates. She told him good luck, she was sure he would win and that Bear, Ruby, and she would have their Indian friends hold a ceremony to guarantee it. I'll send you a copy of the tape so you can see how good you are. You've got to promise to let us know how you and Buckshot make out.”

He hadn't felt this light of spirit since high school. He sat on the front step of the porch and watched raindrops make craters in the dust. He twirled his spur rowel with a fingertip and said, “What in hell am I doin'?”

T
he winner takes home close to a quarter of a million dollars plus the fame, glory, and satisfaction that comes with it. Only sixty of the highest scoring horses out of more than six hundred entries get to compete in the semifinals.

By Sunday afternoon, Jesse and Buckshot had already won the first two go-rounds and were among the semifinalists. It was the eighth day of competition. Jesse and Abbie behaved like transporters of nitroglycerine, afraid to breathe, one bad move and their world would blow apart. Abbie remained grimly silent as if some wrong word might break the spell. Everyone was talking about Jesse and Buckshot and Dr. Walter Nalls' stud that sired him. The stallion's stock had already tripled based on what Buckshot had accomplished so far. Larry Littlefield had already interviewed him for his television show and writers for every horse magazine and local newspaper hounded him with tape recorders and scribble pads.

Jesse was thirteenth to go in the semifinals. The audience had
adopted him and the blazing sorrel colt as their own. Jesse studied the herd and knew pretty much what he'd like to cut. But often, a herd has a life and mind of its own and your plan goes south.

When the colt pinned his ears, dropped to his belly in that bigcat crouch in front of the cow and said c'mon, try me, the audience went berserk. The cow leaped to one side attempting to charge by, but Buckshot moved so quickly he was right there in her face as if there were two of him and one had been there waiting.

And so it went with two more cows until the buzzer sounded. The crowd went wild, right through the announcing of the score. They knew they'd seen the best and the score confirmed it.

Jesse took Abbie in his arms as she came to them with a face about to explode off its bones. He noticed the tears in her eyes as he loosened the girth and handed her the reins. She walked the horse back to his stall, stripped him and made sure he was happy before she went back to join Jesse watching thirty-two more horses try to beat him.

None did. He and the copper-colored colt had won the semifinals. They would be among the twenty elite athletes to compete for the championship.

He was quiet, alone in his hotel room. He thought about calling Holly Marie but no, not until it's over. He opened his wallet and took out a flattened tinfoil square and unfolded it. He looked at the contents and then slowly picked up a small ribbon-tied lock of pale blond Damien hair and brought it to his nose, then to his lips. Then he put it back, folded the wallet, and put it back in his pocket.

H
olly Marie had sent him a small gathering of aromatic prairie grasses and wild herbs to bring him luck. They were pressed in a small plastic bag in the left pocket of his shirt.

He buckled on his spurs, swung his chaps over the colt's withers, and stepped up into the saddle to walk him toward the warm-up pen.

Abbie's thoughts were a ticker-tape checklist on a loop in her brain. She was sure she'd done everything in her power to contribute to the success of Buckshot's run. This was it. This was what he was bred for. Now all she could do is watch…and pray and jiggle her foot as she stood at the rail separating the judges' stands from the warm-up area.

Near the entry to the working area, Jesse sat quietly, Buckshot's neck extended and relaxed. They were ready to work. Blood raged through a tangle of twisted nerves, a heart pounded like a locked up beast while his mind remained a void enduring the chaos within that was Jesse Burrell. An unconcerned vacancy in his eyes gave the lie to
the turmoil inside. There was one more horse before him, a daunting combination of spectacular breeding and a gifted trainer. He would be the last to go.

He was watching the finest of his peers, Bill Waterman, a twotime Futurity champion, the man who could dash his dream, ride like slow-moving water toward the herd. The two turn-back riders converged to encourage the cows to return to the herd, leaving Bill with the one they knew he wanted in front of him. There exists among good cutters and their ‘turn-back help' an uncanny wordless communication that seems telepathic.

Bill wiggled in the saddle. His horse locked on to the cow, and the gleaming mahogany bay went to work. He and the horse had all the flash and the tricks to provoke a cow. The buzzer sounded, ending his two-and-a-half minute run. Bill patted him twice on the neck and turned him toward the exit. The announcer called the score. “Timothy's Smart Clock, ridden by Bill Waterman, gets a two-twenty-three-and-a-half which puts him in the lead, with one horse left to work.” The packed coliseum rocked with screaming applause.

Jesse filled his lungs and blew it out, wiggled his feet in the stirrups, and tilted his head from side to side. He twisted at the waist from left to right, reached up and pulled his black hat down tight and squeezed the colt toward the herd. He focused on the cattle as he felt himself merge with the colt, sharing the same lungs and heart. A hushed stillness filled the coliseum as he entered the herd like a burglar with residents at home.

The colt squared off with his first cow, crouched like a lion and pinned his ears as if he just might roar. When the cow finally quit and Jesse turned back to the herd to cut another, the crowd roared. When the buzzer went off, Buckshot was demoralizing his third cow. The audience raged in appreciation as Jesse lifted the reins and reached up to apply that finger-tip, feather-light, lover's stroke to the colt's neck. He said something only the colt could hear.

The announcer's resonance filled the stadium. “The score for
Bueno Bar Tab ridden by Jesse Burrell is two-twenty-three-and-a-half.” The sound from the audience threatened the foundations of the building. The announcer tried to speak over it. “Ladies and gentlemen, I believe that is the first time in the thirty-three year history of The Futurity that there is a tie for first place.” The din continued as the microphone went silent with the promise of more to come. In less than a minute, an amplified click sounded and the big voice continued, “Ladies and gentlemen, there will be a work-off to determine the winner. The order of go to be determined by the toss of a coin.”

Bill Waterman rolled his shoulders and rode into the herd. The glossy bay had all the chrome, a white blaze down the middle of his face, three white socks, and a glistening black mane and tail full and flying. His moves were quick with a lot of snap, giving the heart-stopping impression that he might be waiting too long to make them.

Their second cow wanted to be a runner rather than work in the center with quick changes of direction. Bill used his skill to head the cow, forcing changes while looking for an opportunity to quit and cut a better cow and still beat the clock so as not to have the buzzer sound while entering the herd. It's a better impression on the judges to end your run with your horse working a cow, not standing flatfooted in the herd. While those thoughts tugged at his brain the cow shot to the wall with the horse in pursuit and squeezed right under the horse's nose and back to the herd. And that is cuttin'…the worst happening to the best. Bill would get a score, but losing a cow is a five-point penalty. A serious blow. The judges gave him a two-fourteen.

Jesse joined the audience applauding a great champion as Bill rode out and stopped next to the judges' stands to watch Jesse's go.

Buckshot stood still as death, neck long and low, eyes soft, the merest flick of an ear showing he lived. Jesse pulled down his hat and picked up the reins. Instantly the colt came up on his toes and the force began to flow. Jesse squeezed him into a lope for about forty feet behind the stands and slid to a stop, hocks in the ground.
He spun him once to the left and once to the right. He lengthened the reins, stroked his neck and rode into the working area.

Buckshot splattered out in front of the cow and blew a blast of hot sweet breath in its face that scared the piss out of it and made it want to return to the herd more than anything in the world. And that was just the start. The cow turned inside out trying to get past Buckshot but never got to see anything but the fire in the colt's eyes glaring into its soul. Six thousand people screamed, whooped and hollered the roof off the place. Buckshot's dominance over the second cow, even bolder than the first, had the audience cheering every footfall. They knew they were watching the making of a myth. Jesse and the horse were one celestial creature.

The colt jammed so deep into the ground on a stop, that Jesse felt his boot touch the earth as flecks of dirt flew in his face. The cow lunged to the left. The colt's spine twisted under the saddle like a wrung towel as the front legs swept a fifteen-foot arc and he drove his full weight forward with the thrust of his hocks. This was the move that would win the gold. The crowd howled in joy at the perfect synchronization of the horse with the cow, foot for foot.

Jesse couldn't be sure later whether he actually heard a sound, or did he sense it? In the instant of that all-powerful thrust, his entire universe exploded like a cataclysmic collision of planets.

In the midst of that storm of hooves and hair and leather and sweat, the colt faltered and Jesse felt the pain, he felt the colt's valiant determination to continue. He also felt the limits of bone and flesh and heart and mind as the hip sank and a shudder iced his soul.

The cacophony of sound fell to a murmur, then deadly silence as Jesse lifted the reins and stepped off the colt. The cow ran to the herd. Buckshot stood quivering, wide-eyed. Runnels of sweat ran through his eyes and dripped from the soft muzzle to the red dirt. His left hind foot, he held limply off the ground. He would never know that the reason his leg could no longer bear his weight was a fracture of the third phalanx of the pastern, shattered like a crystal
goblet thrown at a fireplace. And no power of mind or will, no matter how determined, could make it whole again. Six thousand devastated people sat stunned, having just witnessed the making and the breaking of a champion in two and a half minutes.

Abbie was at the colt's head, tears spilling as she wiped his face and whispered to him and cupped his eyes softly, murmuring hopeful comfort. A veterinarian quickly administered a shot of painkiller. Someone opened a back gate and beckoned as Jesse coaxed the colt to hop agonizingly out of the arena on three legs. One or two attempts at applause died quickly entombed in the solemn silence.

The veterinarian set up his portable imaging system to view the ravaged ankle. The pictures told a grim tale. Abbie stayed at the colt's face, whispering. After a brief somber discussion between the vet, Jesse and Dr. Nalls, it was decided that Buckshot could not be saved. Jesse grabbed his upper lip between his teeth and bit hard as he felt a sword slice through his heart. A pain-filled, “Oh, nooo…” escaped from Abbie. No time was wasted in administering the lethal injection that would end the life of Buckshot…the brave.

In Jesse, the rage howled in silence before turning to unwitting desolation.

H
e walked into the bedroom with two inches of scotch and swallowed half. He flopped back on the bed and breathed deeply. Then he reached for the phone and put it beside him.

She knew what time it was in Texas. She'd been waiting. She had a phone next to her old Victorian bed. Naked, under a frilly sheet pulled to her chin, she had one arm under her head and her right hand between her legs. The half moon had just moved into the frame of the open window. As she turned her head, a soft breeze fluttered the curtain. The phone rang. She answered with buoyant expectation. Instantly, she knew something was wrong. Try as he did to get above the gloom, she knew. He started by saying, “Well, we didn't win…” But she knew it was more than that, much more. “Oh, Jesse, tell me…what happened?”