Bull Rider (2 page)

B
efore I tell you more, you probably want to know why’d he go anyway? Didn’t he have it made, being Nevada State High School Bull Riding Champ and moving up to the pro circuit? Why’d a good-looking cowboy like my brother go be a jarhead? Well, if you lived in Salt Lick, you’d know. You almost have to
look
for Salt Lick. It has two churches, a bar, a Grange Hall, a feed store, and a gasoline/grocery that sells Mexican food on the side. It has a new post office and a boarded-up antique store that Mike’s mom, Ella Gianni, opened and closed in the same year.

In Salt Lick, we know everybody, and half the town is related to each other somehow or other. Every family has somebody who came back from Vietnam with a Purple Heart or somebody who didn’t come back at all. The grandpas, they march in the Veteran’s Day Parade, and you can still get a good story about World War II on Friday night at the Grange Hall if you go early enough to catch the old geezers.
Sure, some folks think different, one way or another about politics, but everyone has one thought about the United States. If it’s in trouble, we go.

And that’s what Ben did. He passed up college and the pro bull-riding circuit, which everybody said he had in the bag, and joined up with the Marines. Everyone thought that was just fine. Except my mom. She held her tongue, but you could see in her eyes it broke her heart. Paco Ruiz signed up too, and Corey Henson. That’s half the senior-class boys, off to the service. We gave ’em a barbecue out at the salt lick.

Salt Lick really has a salt lick, and it’s smack in the middle of our O’Mara Ranch. It’s a big white hill of salt. The cows love it. And it’s a good thing it’s on our ranch because the cattle come from all over, and then Dad and Grandpa Roy and me get the ATVs and run them back where they came from. But the O’Mara cattle, they just stay put and lick to their hearts’ content. Grandpa Roy says that salt makes ’em grow strong and fat. He figures it’s something like magic, O’Mara salt. I figure it’s salt.

Summer time, the salt lick is the best place for a party. The salt sparkles in the sun and where the salt stops, the sage and rabbit brush struggle to grow along its edges. A little ways farther is a big swath of low pasture. It’s green out there and there’s a creek and cottonwood trees off to the side. Grandpa Roy says, “It’s God’s very paradise.” Cow or human, don’t matter, the salt lick is perfect. So after Ben graduated from high school and signed his four-year contract with the Marines, we sent those guys off with barbecued steaks and enough pie and watermelon to sink a ship.

And, of course, while we were there, some of the old guys got to telling stories about how that salt was famous, all the way back to my great-great-grandfather, Sean O’Mara’s times. They told all sorts of stories about it—how if you put it in your whiskey, it would cure a bald head, or if you threw it over your shoulder when the moon was up, your girl couldn’t resist you. Each one tried to tell a bigger whopper. It was like the Salt Lick pastime.

And stories or not, time passed. That’s the summer I learned how long six weeks can be when a guy’s in boot camp, with Mom perched by the phone waiting for Ben’s calls. She’d answer on the first ring when they came, talk fast, and then say, “He says it’s hot and he doesn’t have time to be homesick. He sends his love.”

“Did he say anything else? Anything?” Grandpa would ask.

“No, his time was up. But he sends his love.”

See, in boot camp, you don’t get to call the outside world but every so often, and when Ben called, he only had two or three minutes. Mom would pretty much put to memory what he said, then call his friends and tell ’em over and over. It made her happy.

After those calls, I missed Ben—a lot. So I’d take my skateboard and go to Mike’s house. When you’re feeling down, skateboarding is the best. It’s all about speed and control. And if we weren’t boarding, we watched Mike’s DVDs of Tony Hawk showing ways to do nollies or checked out podcasts of new skate tricks on the computer. Some high school guys at McDermitt had set up an Internet server, so all the ranches were online. At least if Ben had to go away, I still had Mike around.

When he was done with boot camp, they sent Ben to more training. He passed, of course. Ben came home on his first leave looking taller and stronger. That’s when I learned that a guy does what he’s dealt in the service. “It’s Iraq,” Ben said quietly. “Well, that’s what I signed up for, right?” And once he was over there, I thought about him less. A year is a long time.

I got to do more stuff around the ranch with him gone. Some of that was cool, like handling the branding iron at the spring calving, and some of it was plain hard work, like digging out willow starts to make more room in Mom’s garden. And sometimes, at night—if there’d been a report on TV about another Nevada soldier who was killed in Iraq, or if they’d shown a twisted up marketplace that exploded in Baghdad—I heard Mom whispering to Dad in their room and crying.

So having Ben back home on leave in June was great. It was like we were real brothers again. Seeing him bull ride was more awesome. I didn’t believe he’d sign on for more time over there in the war. I believed everything would go back to being the same once he got done with the three-month extension and missions outside of Baghdad and came home to Nevada, or even California—that was close enough. But I was wrong.

It was the end of August when we found out about Ben. Mom had just marked off a day on the calendar. She had
twelve more squares to cross off before he was done in Iraq. That was about the same number of days Lali and I had been back in school. It wasn’t long at all.

That morning, I walked with Lali and Favi to the end of the ranch road to wait for the school bus. The cottonwood leaves scraped against each other. A handful on the biggest tree had turned gold. That was a sure sign that fall was coming—even more than starting back to school. Soon enough, the bus stopped and we climbed on. I found my seat next to Mike. The driver folded the stop sign into the side of the bus with a bang, and we rocked onto the dirt road.

“Dad put a calf down last night,” I said to Mike. “It was real sad.”

“Why’d he put it down?” Mike asked, taking the bait.

“Well, its mom ate too much salt out at the salt lick. It was born with two heads, and it was trying to walk in both directions at once.” I said it just as calm as pie.

Mike’s eyes went wide. “Two heads, really? Did you take a picture?”

I burst out laughing and punched Mike on the shoulder. “Got you again, yeah, I did.”

Mike punched me back. “I knew. I did. There’s no two-headed calf, not in Salt Lick, anyway. You’re just full of gas.”

I grabbed Mike’s arm and shook him till the bus driver slowed up and glared at us in the rearview mirror. So I pushed him away and stared out the window. I didn’t see any two-headed cows, but there were regular cows. Plenty of them. They didn’t look up, didn’t even twitch.

Sun beat down on the mountains. Sagebrush bent in a
stiff wind. The road turned, and Salt Lick peeked through the cottonwood trees—Salt Lick, population 675, except on school days, when the bus brought sixty extra kids to town. It was a lousy day to be going to school when I could be training my colt or riding my skateboard. Instead there was Killworth to face and a whole day of sitting in class in front of me.

When we piled off the bus, Lali waited for me by the flagpole. “Tie my shoes, Cammy.”

“You’re big enough to tie your own shoes. Remember how Grandpa Roy showed you about the loops being like bunny ears?”

“I want bunny ears,” Lali said. I knelt down to tie up her sneakers.

“Let’s pretend we’re bunnies now.” She started hopping around.

“Hold still, Lali. I can’t do this while you’re jumping.” I finished and tied a double knot. “Okay, go, or you’ll be late to first grade.” She waved as she walked backwards toward her class.

I ran to my own class, in the junior and senior high building, and managed my one macho move—showing up at Mr. Killworth’s room just as the bell rang. I slammed down into the chair just in time. But Mike and Favi were late.

“What exactly is it that’s more important than getting to class on time?” Killworth asked.

“I dropped my backpack and everything fell out. I’m sorry,” Favi said.

“Was Mr. Gianni in your backpack too? Is that why he was late?”

“He was helping me pick up my stuff,” Favi said.

“And he can help you clean desks at lunchtime. Now take out your social studies books, all of you.” He wrote “August 27th” on the board.

With Killworth we were lucky we all didn’t have to clean the whole school. He nodded to me. “Cam, read out loud starting on page thirty-seven.”

I flipped through the pages till I found the place.
The Great Depression was a hard time for families. Drought ruined farms, banks closed, and workers lost jobs. Some families had to start all over while others clung to their traditions to get by….

Just then, an office helper poked his head in the door and held a note toward Mr. Killworth. “What’s that?” Killworth grumbled. He read the note and said, “Cam, you are needed in the principal’s office.” His voice turned oddly gentle. I stared at him.

“Take your things, you won’t be back today.”

Everyone looked at me. Something was really wrong.

G
randpa Roy stood by the counter in the principal’s office holding Lali by the hand. His face was gray.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“We’re on our way, then,” Grandpa said to no one in particular. He straightened his cowboy hat and led Lali out. I followed.

We got in the truck. Grandpa opened the half door to the little seat behind the cab and belted Lali in. I hopped in next to Grandpa, and since he never talks until he’s good and ready, I waited.

But Lali didn’t. “Grandpa, Cammy says you can tie my shoes like rabbit ears.”

“He does, does he?”

“Yes, and can I get a rabbit? I want a black-and-white one, please.”

“Lali, not now,” I said.

“It’s okay,” Grandpa said. “You can have one if it cleans up after itself.”

“Oh, I know it would—if you told it to, Grandpa.”

Grandpa burst out laughing. “Lali, you are special.”

But then he stopped talking altogether, and Lali leaned back and hummed to herself. It was the longest drive, waiting to find out what he wasn’t telling us. It was long but it was fast. Grandpa was on a tear. We turned away from the ranch, past the Giannis’ house and the Baptist church. Grandpa hardly slowed down for town.

Finally, he spoke. “Your mom and dad took off for Reno about a half hour ago, going to the airport. It’s Ben….”

“What about Ben?” It took me a second to sort out. “Is he okay?” I asked. “He’s okay, isn’t he?”

“Not hardly. No.” He chewed on his bottom lip and glanced at Lali, who was still singing. He lowered his voice. “They went and shot him.” Grandpa fixed his eyes straight ahead.

Shot.
The word echoed in my head. Shot. Shot. They couldn’t shoot my brother, even if he was in the Marines and in a war. He was too tough for that, and too good, and he was my brother. “Don’t tease me,” I said. “What really happened?”

“I can’t hear you,” Lali said from the backseat.

“It’s nothing, pumpkin,” Grandpa said.

“But I want to hear.”

I got what Grandpa was trying to do. “It’s just boring stuff,” I said. I looked over at Grandpa Roy.

“Really, he’s been shot,” Grandpa whispered now. “They flew him to Germany early this morning, and they’ll bring him home to the States, probably to Bethesda Naval
Hospital, in a couple of days. Your folks are on their way east to meet him. Your mom wouldn’t wait for the military to send them tickets or anything. She says she’ll be there when Ben comes in, period. They should be settled in DC tomorrow, and they’ll call when they see him.”

And there it was—the thing that changed everything.

“Where are Mommy and Daddy going? Will they take me?” Lali asked.

“No, pumpkin, you’re staying here with me.”

“But where are they
going
? Are they sleeping over? They might get lonely.”

“Don’t worry. They’ll just be gone a little while,” Grandpa said.

I knew Grandpa wanted to be on that plane back east with Mom and Dad, but instead he’d come and got us for company. Ben was his favorite. Ben and Grandpa Roy, they shared something tight and special—maybe it was the bull riding. They were both champs. Or the height, they could pass for brothers from behind. I take after my mom—stocky and dark, but tall like the O’Mara men. I was almost as tall as Ben already, and Ben’s just past six feet. But he’s blue-eyed and sandy-haired, just like Grandpa. And there’s no changing either of them once they make up their minds.

The rest of the morning was a blur. Grandpa yanked the wheel and whipped the truck into the lot at the Feed and Ranch Supply store. “How a man can run out of fence staples, I can’t figure,” he told the clerk.

“I think you used the last one,” Lali said seriously.

“That’s telling him,” the clerk said. He handed her a peppermint.

All that racing was for fence staples. “At least we didn’t have to go the hour away to Winnemucca,” Grandpa said. “Had what we need right here in Salt Lick.”

Grandpa drove back through town and turned up the ranch road. Gravel pinged against the truck and a tail of dust rose up behind us. We stopped by the north fence. It figured. When Grandpa needs to chew his thoughts around in his head, he does something useful with his hands—he mends fences or digs out stumps or hammers on a roof. That’s what he did that day. Grandpa and I wrestled barbed wire all morning. Lali handed us the staples until she got bored and went off to pick wild sunflowers.

Now, barbed wire can jab you, but I wouldn’t have felt it. My brother was lying bloody and broken somewhere between Iraq and here. The whole time he’d been in Iraq I’d tried to tune out the news. I didn’t want to know the stuff that could happen. Favi sent letters to the soldiers over there and kept track of the bombings and such. But not me. I turned off the TV or changed the station on the radio when they brought it up. It was easier not to know.

But now my mind went crazy. I wondered where he got shot and how. Did the blood splatter all over? If the wound was nasty enough, did your brain keep it from hurting? Did he scream? “No,” I said out loud. I shook my head to stop my thoughts and fixed on the barbed wire. I unrolled it slowly so it didn’t go snaking around on its own. Grandpa wrenched it tight against the fence posts. He braced himself, leaning into the wire tool, while I hammered in the staples. We did it over and over. I tried to forget about Ben and everything
but the fence wire and the wind. Lali whinnied and galloped like a horse until she ran herself out, curled up in the truck, and fell asleep.

When we got back to the house, the whole scene got bigger and stranger, the way it does when everyone you know gets involved in something. Mom and Dad called from Denver while they waited for another plane to Washington, DC. They talked to Grandpa but not to me or Lali. That was weird. Mom always made sure she talked to everybody, even if Dad complained about the phone bill.

Then Amy Jones called. She’s our neighbor, and when she’s not thinking about cosmic energy and people’s astrological charts, she pulls her hair into a ponytail and does ranch work like everybody else. She and her husband, Neil, have the biggest place around. They run a lot of cattle, but it’s Amy’s side of the business that brings in the money. She sells little frozen vials called straws that ranchers use for AI—artificial insemination. They use the stuff to get their cows pregnant from prize bulls without having to haul the animals across the country. Sometimes Amy called Grandpa about business. But today, I figured Amy wasn’t calling about cattle breeding.

“Amy’s got a prayer meeting going at the church tonight,” Grandpa said when he hung up the phone. “It’s a potluck.”

“Are they praying for Ben?” I asked.

“We all are.”

Lali, she just kept going, the way a six-year-old does. “Oh, let’s take green Jell-O.
Please
, can we?” she asked.

“Green Jell-O it is,” Grandpa answered. “Clean up your boots and change those jeans,” he said to me. “Your mother
wouldn’t have you going out like that. And comb down your hair.” I took my time.

Grandpa Roy drove slowly to the Baptist hall. The parking lot was full, and the lights were on. I balanced the Jell-O, pushing backwards through the double doors and into the long hall, past the Ladies’ and Men’s rooms, past a framed cowboy prayer and a picture of the Paradise High School Roping Team. Past the junior high mural of “Broncs in Heaven.” There was a photo of Pastor Fellows leading cowboy church before a rodeo and six portraits of Salt Lick’s rodeo queens starting in 1943. And there was Grandpa Roy, young and spunky and grinning, his champion belt buckle catching the camera flash and shining with a starburst at his waist. Only his blue eyes were brighter.

Grandpa Roy was a legend. There wasn’t a bull he couldn’t ride, not even the one that hooked him and stomped his hip. I knew the story by heart since I was little—how Grandpa lowered himself onto the bull in the chute. How the bull was so still in that bucking chute it gave Grandpa the shivers. How that Brahma burst out like he exploded when the gate opened—a nightmare twisting underneath Grandpa. It threw up both back legs at once, then turned to the right, then threw his head back till Grandpa could see the white around his eyes. But Grandpa held the rope around that bull’s middle, balancing himself, almost floating above its whirling muscles. He finished his eight seconds and beat that bull and flew off. I’d heard the story a hundred times. Grandpa’d say, “The bullfighters threw their hats and slapped the bull to draw him away. On any good day, I’d have been up the fence in a minute, but
that crazy Brahma’s eye was right on me.” Well, he hooked Grandpa Roy with a horn and then stomped solid down on his hip. Grandpa scored ninety-two out of a hundred—forty-six each for him and the bull—and plenty high to take the win, but it was the end of his riding. He could stand the pain for sure, but the hip wouldn’t heal enough to hold on. Grandpa rode his last bull twenty years before I was born.

Now Grandpa tested his cell phone reception as we walked down the hall. The connections were crazy around here—seemed like it depended on the wind or sunspots, maybe. I just wished it would ring. I wanted to hear Ben was all right.

The tables in the church hall sagged with food. Someone had taken Ben’s picture off the wall and propped it between the trays of peanut-butter brownies and lemon bars. Ben, arm held high, held on to a twisting spotted bull.

“I’m hungry,” Lali said. I filled a plate for her, but I couldn’t eat.

Favi sat with her mom and dad, with her back toward me. Mike nodded at me, but he didn’t come over. Everybody got quiet when they saw us. “It’s not like he’s dead,” I said to Grandpa. “He’ll be okay.”

“Sure he will,” Grandpa said. “’Specially if these folks can do anything about it.”

The ladies served their paper plates and moved toward the folding chairs. Darrell Wallace came over. He’d only just turned twenty, but right then his face was so serious that he looked old. I didn’t know what to say to him. He and Ben were always trying to outdo each other in the bull ring. But Darrell went hot and cold with Ben depending on who
was winning. Once, when he beat Ben in a big competition, Darrell had the name of the bull he rode tattooed right on his wrist. He turned to Grandpa. “Let me know if there’s anything I, well, any of the guys, can do.”

Grandpa put his hand on Darrell’s back, and they stood that way for a minute.

“It could have been me,” Darrell said. “If I’d enlisted, it could have been me. I can’t believe this happened to Ben.”

Pastor Fellows cleared his throat. “Let’s take a moment to bless this food.”

Then Grandpa’s cell phone rang. He answered. A baby whimpered and his mother shushed him. The whole place was quiet. Grandpa kept saying, “Uh-huh.”

When he hung up, the Baptist hall seemed to let out a breath.

“They say it’s his skull,” Grandpa said softly. “There’s a problem with his brain. He’s in surgery.”

I couldn’t pull enough air down into my lungs. I wished time would go backwards—back before Ben went away, back before they shot him, back the way it was yesterday.

“His brain? Is he paralyzed?” Amy Jones asked.

“Don’t know yet,” Grandpa whispered.

“What’s par—a—lized?” Lali asked. “Is it a pair of limes?”

“They want to know if he can walk,” I said.

“’Course Ben can walk,” Lali declared.

“He’s in a coma,” Grandpa said. “They won’t bring him out of it until his brain heals some.”

Everyone broke out talking at once. I couldn’t see Grandpa Roy for all the people gathered around to shake his
hand and wish him well. I got my share of hugs myself, and Lali ended up on Amy Jones’s lap. As things settled down, Pastor Fellows didn’t bless the food. He skipped right to a prayer for Ben. I didn’t follow it. I made my own prayer—the kind of thing you don’t share out loud.