Bull Rider (6 page)

T
he thing was, since I rode the steer, I couldn’t get bull riding out of my mind. I thought about it at strange times. Like, on the way to school when the bus passed the little herd we kept north of the road, I wondered if I could catch one of the steers and ride it. Mike interrupted my daydream.

“My mom got me all the papers to apply for my driver’s license.”

“Man, I want one,” I said. “Do you have to take a driving test?”

“Yeah, but it shouldn’t be hard.”

It wouldn’t be. Mike already knew how to drive. We all did, and we drove the trucks and tractors around on the ranches. But it would be cool to be street legal. Almost as cool as riding a bull.

That’s what I mean. My thoughts always came back to bull riding. I wanted to feel the rush when the chute opened
again. But it’s hard doing something new in a small town. Everybody hears about what you are doing before you’ve hardly gone and done it. So it takes some guts to move past what everyone expects from you. Darrell’s bet made it easy for me to try bull riding again, and on Tuesday, Grandpa gave me the excuse to go.

He came home from the grocery store beaming ’cause one of the old guys, Tom Lehi, I’m guessing, slapped him on the back and said he’d heard there was a new O’Mara bull rider coming up.

“What do you know?” Grandpa said. “They’re already talking about your ride.”

“You mean when I passed out.”

Lali ran through and grabbed a box of crackers as Grandpa unloaded the grocery bag. “Don’t let your Grandma Jean see that. It’ll spoil your dinner.” Lali giggled and kept going.

Grandpa turned to me. “That’s just the first bull. Wait till you’ve ridden a few more. You’ll learn fast.”

I couldn’t help smiling. “Can we practice now?”

“You sure?” he asked. “I don’t want you to do nothing you don’t have a heart for.”

I didn’t know if I had a heart for it. I was still bruised from my fall, but I had to try again, I knew that much. “Yeah, I want to.”

“Hear that, Ben?” Grandpa said. “We’ve got ourselves another bull rider. Get your sorry butt out of bed and let’s take him down to the arena and see how he goes this time.”

Grandpa knew Ben couldn’t get his butt out of bed, sorry or not, but it seemed the more Grandpa teased him, the
more normal things were. We did the get-up, lift-into-the-chair thing and took off for the bull ring.

The closer we got, the more I fretted if I should do this. The skateboard competition was coming up in Winnemucca. I should be practicing 540s so I could beat Mike. But I’d gone and asked to ride now, so bull ring it was, one way or another.

There were fewer guys than before. Darrell was there and his dad, and a couple of cowboys who’d come down from McDermitt. As for bulls, it was Possum and the big Brahma, Quicksand, and a broken-down steer they called Rocket. Darrell came over soon as we drove up to help Ben into his chair. “The kid’s gonna ride again, is he?”

“Gonna try,” Ben said. “I figure he’s in for a bull bashing.” He laughed. It was a good day—easy to understand him. Darrell slapped Ben on the shoulder. How was it that Grandpa and Ben’s friends could forget about Ben’s head getting smashed and his arm blown clean off and act like they always had? I could forget for about a minute, but then I came right back to seeing him. Really seeing him—his sleeve tucked around the hook where his hand should be, and the stupid-looking blue helmet he wore everywhere but the bull ring. It was like the guy in the wheelchair wasn’t exactly Ben but someone else who’d stepped in for a while.

Then Ben reached, as best he could with his right arm, under his jacket, pulled out his bull rope, and held it toward me. “Use this,” he said.

My mouth dropped. Ben was superstitious about his gear. He never loaned his bull rope. But I took it and nodded at him. Darrell walked me over to the bucking chute. Three
or four bulls were pacing around the ring. Their hooves crunched in the sand that padded the bottom of the arena. They snorted and one had drool coming out of his mouth. The bullfighter was a cowboy from out toward Unionville who came up sometimes just because he loved being in the ring with the bulls. He was good at it too. He whooped and whistled at the bulls and sent the bunch of them into the holding pen. Then Darrell loaded Rocket in the chute, dropped the bull rope, and motioned for me to hook it.

“So, how’s Ben doing? Really?” Darrell asked me.

“He’s okay. He doesn’t say much about it.”

“I wouldn’t guess he’d complain,” Darrell said. Then he added, “Bring your homework, squirt?”

I leaned across the chute to fish Ben’s rope up. “Not so loud. Grandpa will kill me,” I said.

“Like this steer isn’t gonna?” Darrell smiled. “Catch the rope.”

That was the easiest part of the bull ride. Hook the rope with the wire. Lali could even handle that once she found the darn thing. Darrell fixed the rope around Rocket and slapped him on his behind. The steer rammed the chute with his rump, shaking the whole contraption.

Standing on the platform, I took a moment to ponder the situation. Problem was, getting on a steer for the second time, I knew exactly what was coming—waiting for the gate to open, then the feeling like your stomach was dropping down through your feet. I swallowed hard. If Darrell, Ben, and Grandpa hadn’t been watching, I wouldn’t have gone over the side. I might have used the good sense that God gave me and climbed back down, but I didn’t.

I tightened my knees so they wouldn’t buckle, said a little prayer that I’d come out alive, and dropped onto Rocket. This time it was the steer that shivered under me, not the other way around. And soon as I touched him, the adrenaline started. I looked out at the arena. Grandpa had the gate, Darrell jumped down to bullfight, and the guys from McDermitt were on the fence, just in case. “Go to it, Cam!” one of them yelled. I put my hand through the handle, laid the rope into it, hit it closed to stick the pine tar, and then I whispered, “Go.”

The gate came open and we jumped out. Rocket took a couple of steps and bucked up and down like a bronc, then rolled back on his hind legs. I wanted to catch myself with my free hand but stopped—that’s not allowed. I leaned forward and pulled tight on the handle. For every move the steer made, my body did something on its own. It’s not like I was meaning to do anything. I just rode. And then I fell off, hitting the dirt with my ankle and then my side. I rolled and crawled toward the fence, stood, and scrambled up the rails. Right then, the sun sparked off the grit in the arena like Fourth of July, and each breath I pulled in felt deeper than the last. I heard them yelling, “Way to go, Cam,” and “That boy may stick on a bull yet.” It was so fine. Then I felt the pain shooting up from my right foot.

Darrell rode and so did the McDermitt cowboys. Darrell went again, but I passed. I was thinking I was still alive and on a roll. And my ankle was swelling. As we left the ring, Darrell yelled after us, “Hey, Cam, call about that stuff I said I’d help with!”

“Cool,” I answered. “I will.”

We got home about dinnertime. Ben was tired out, so Grandpa settled him in the living room. I went to the kitchen for some ice. “What’s that for?” Mom asked.

“I’m just going to ice my foot.”

“What happened? Did you fall off your board?”

Grandpa Roy came in just bursting with pride. He smiled like he had the best secret, but he couldn’t hold it in. “No, Sherry, he landed on it coming off a steer. He’s got guts.”

My mom put down her spoon. She looked from me to Grandpa to Ben, who was already half-asleep. “Jim,” she called to my dad, “did you hear that?” Her voice quivered.

“I did,” Lali said. “Cammy fell off a steer.”

“Uh-huh,” Dad said. “I heard you were over at the bull ring. Next time, call me, Dad, and I’ll come by.”

This was so cool. Dad would come down from wherever to see me bull ride? He didn’t give a whoop about my skateboarding.

“Jim!” Mom’s voice pitched higher. “Bull riding!” Her face went red and her eyes filled up with tears. I couldn’t tell if it was scared tears or mad ones, but they were coming fast. “I can’t do it. We’ve got one son—” She stopped herself, thought, and then went on. “Look at you, Roy, you’ve lived with that bad hip for years. And Larry’s got a plate in his head from being stepped on.” She was talking about Larry Olson down toward Paradise. Everybody knew about how they had to put his skull back together after a bad throw. “Well, I can’t stand it. Cam, you can’t start bull riding. I’ve put up with it for years with this bunch and God knows
how. But I’m not doing it, not anymore. I forbid it. I can’t see both of my boys crippled.”

Ben groaned. Grandpa Roy and Grandma Jean stared at her, and Lali looked like she was gonna cry. Dad said, “You didn’t mean that, Sherry.”

Mom shook her head and banged her hand on the counter. “I’m sorry, Ben,” she whispered. Then she stared straight into my eyes. “But I meant what I said about you. Cam O’Mara, I won’t lose another son. Not to war and not to bull riding. I’m your mother, and you stay away from that bull ring.” She turned on Grandpa. “Make your own supper,” she said, and stomped down the hall.

“She don’t mean it,” Grandpa Roy said to me.

“Yes, she does,” Grandma Jean said. “If you don’t know Sherry by now, you’ve been daydreaming all these years.”

Grandpa looked blankly at the refrigerator.

“For heaven’s sakes, I’ll cook,” Grandma Jean said.

My dad went down the hall after Mom.

For once it was Ben who was watching a fuss about me. I went over to him. “I’m sorry about what she said.”

“Can’t blame her,” he said. “But…you better not ride…for a while.”

I thought of how excited Ben was watching me and how I loved that part up on the chute where I didn’t know if I’d ride or not. I loved the feeling that rose from my gut to my throat and expanded like the air itself was alive. Just then, there was only the bull and me and that expectation that shuddered through my whole body. I’d never felt anything like that. Not on a board, not on a horse. “We’ll go back. Mom will get over it. She let you ride. She’ll let me do it too.”

“It’s different,” Dad said, coming up behind us.

“I don’t get how it is,” I said.

Dad sighed and shook his head. “Ben’s bull riding…That was before…No, she’s serious right now. Mom’s fragile these days, and I’m with her on this. You can try team roping if you want to do rodeo, but stay away from the bull riding. She can’t take it. Ben, no fault of yours,” he added. He handed me a fresh ice pack.

The ice helped my foot, though it swelled up some. To tell you the truth, I was more ticked off about Mom than about hurting my foot. Here I was, fourteen years old, and she thought she could decide if I got on a steer or not. Well, she didn’t tell me not to board. I still had that.

S
aturday morning was the skateboard jam at the Winnemucca Skate Park. It was a Parks and Rec thing—the only competition around and most of the good boarders from Winnemucca to Battle Mountain and McDermitt to Austin would show up.

Grandpa and I made an early-morning run to drop some hay to the cattle in the high pasture. The feed was thin up there already. Then I fed the horses while Lali fed her goats. Mom had coffee going when we came in. She didn’t say anything about last night. Neither did I. “We can all fit in Grandma Jean’s Bronco on the way to Winnemucca since Grandpa’s staying here with Ben.”

“Ben’s not going?” I asked.

“It’s a long trip for him to go down there and back. We can’t tire him out.”

“But I might win,” I said.

“Dad will take videos.”

Videos weren’t the same. “You can’t just decide for him,” I said.

Mom sighed. “There are more important things for Ben right now than going to your skateboard jam. He needs his strength. He’ll see you another time.”

“I went to his bull riding lots of times!”

“Cam, you know this is different.”

“No, it’s not.”

I know I’m a jerk to say stuff like that about my brother, but just because he got shot up didn’t change the way my family was. It just made me feel worse about saying it. And when we drove down to the Winnemucca Parks and Recreation Fall Skateboarding Jam, it was Grandpa and Ben, the two people I wanted there the most, who stayed behind. And that wasn’t the end of it.

First it snowed. Yeah, it was hot in September, and now it was snowing in October, but weather’s changeable, and the wind blew in from the north. I met Mike and waved at his folks. We signed in and got our numbers in a snow flurry. Snow doesn’t bother me when we’re dropping hay to the cattle, but it’s tricky when you’re on a skateboard.

The Winnemucca Skate Park is on the edge of a city park, right by the road. You can look across the lawns and see train tracks and then the mountains. It’s a pool-shaped deal. You’d think a small town like that would have one of those little flat parking-lot skate parks that the Boy Scouts build, with a chain-link fence and a couple of ramps and a rail, but this is a full-on hole dug into the ground with rounded sides, ramps, and concrete benches built into the side. It’s got lights for night skating, too, and there’s
a playground with a bouncy purple dinosaur right there. Lali took off to ride on it the minute she jumped out of the Bronco, with Grandma Jean trotting right behind her.

The Parks and Rec guy went inside and came out with a push broom and got one of the kids busy sweeping snow off the ramps. It piled into the pockets at the bottom of the pool, and he shoveled it into a plastic bucket.

“You think it’s going to ice up?” I asked Mike.

“Naw, the sun’s coming out. It’ll melt.”

“I’d rather skate when it’s dry,” I said. I checked the underside of my skateboard, the trucks and wheels, to make sure everything was all working right.

Mike grinned. “It doesn’t matter if it’s wet. Just as long as you’re ready to come in second.”

“Shut up,” I said. “You can’t jump that board over a garden hose.”

He poked my back with his board. “I’m gonna win, you know.”

“Shut up,” I said again. I popped a couple of aspirins I got from Grandma Jean’s purse. My bruised foot throbbed against my tennis shoe. “Check out the rest of these guys.”

There were some boarders in the lineup we knew from practicing in Winnemucca. They were older, and they usually ignored us or offered us cigarettes and laughed when we wouldn’t take ’em.

“Hey, Cam, you trying for the big-time here?” one guy asked. “Did you bring your mama along?”

I didn’t pay him any mind. He was a senior, and he always gave me a hard time because I was better than him—and had been since I was about twelve.

His friend chimed in. “At least his mama wants to see him skate. Yours won’t watch ’cause she don’t want to see you get wiped up by a couple of ninth graders.”

“Ninth graders?” one of the guys from Battle Mountain said. “Man, I thought that one was our age.” He pointed to me. Then he started practicing some tricks. The three boarders from Battle Mountain were good. Could be Mike and me would both come in second to them anyway.

Mike was up first. It was kind of a freestyle competition that a couple of guys who worked at the park cooked up. They’d made this routine that took you down into the bottom of the pool, up one side, and down again. We had to use a couple of the ramps, land a jump—any kind—and do a 50-50, and then go back around to the beginning. After that, you could let go and do what you wanted till three more minutes were up. But no flips. Even if somebody could land one, the park didn’t want the liability.

They lined up three judges at a card table. They were older guys who were done with high school but still hung out at the skate park when they weren’t working. They scored your tricks—how hard they were and how good you did them. That worked for me. I could always catch a lot of air.

Mike started off. I hoped the combination of the snow and the audience would rattle him, but no such luck. He flew down the ramps and around the turns. Mike was good at skating vert up the sides of the pool. When he was at the top, he did a rock and roll with a 180 kickturn, which flipped him and his board around to take him back into the bowl. Once he looked like he was going to lose his board,
but I knew better. Mike could look out of control, but he wasn’t. He landed square and kept running. Everyone went nuts yelling. He coasted to a stop at the top of the pool, turned, and waved like he was royalty or something.

Next the boys from Battle Mountain took their shots. Anybody could see that they weren’t going to catch Mike on difficulty, so it was my turn to win it—or not. I got through the “compulsories” as they called it and on to my part. I ran down into the hole, up again, turned onto the first ramp, shot across with my board right under my feet, and landed low and solid. Someone called out, “Bustin!” I used the speed to get me up on a curb and I 50-50ed along it. Next, I did a 360, turned 180, and was flying along, feeling great. I went to a 5-0 to set up my next shot into the pool, and then my ankle just folded. It slammed down on me like the school bus stop sign. I smashed into the concrete, tumbled down the side of the pool, and landed in the puddle of melting snow. My board went sailing and so did my chances. I lay there for a minute and then popped to my feet. I’d torn a hole clean through my jeans, and my right side was scraped raw from my waist to my armpit.

Mike won. His mom took a bunch of pictures and the Parks and Rec gave him a tricked-out new skateboard and a certificate to a boarding shop.

“Nice board,” I said.

“You should have practiced more,” Mike said.

“I practiced. I busted my ankle, that’s all.”

“Busted your ankle riding a stupid bull,” Mike said.

“It didn’t hurt you none,” I said. “I’d have won if I didn’t mess up my ankle.”

“Yeah, and I’d have lost—is that what you’re saying? Except, gee, I didn’t spend my weekend bull riding and ignoring my real friends.” Mike walked off.

I spit on the new snow. I’d lost. I was glad Darrell wasn’t there to rub it in too. And more, I was glad Ben had stayed home.

Mom put her arm around me as we walked to the car. Her hand stung my bruised shoulder.

“You hurt that ankle worse than we thought. Do you think you need an X-ray?” She was really asking herself. But I answered.

“I’ll be okay. I can get it from here.” I brushed her arm aside and limped faster, moving ahead of her.

“You’ll do better next time,” she said. “You will.” She waited for me to agree with her. But a train barreled by. It made plenty of noise and I didn’t have to answer.

If it wasn’t already my worst day, it took the prize when we stopped by the post office on the way home. Report cards were in our PO box. I opened the envelope while we were driving. Mom reached over and took the printout almost before I could finish reading. “What do you mean getting a C in history? And a C+ in algebra?” Mom demanded. “I’ll have to talk to Mr. Killworth about that. Honestly, Cam, I can’t believe you let your grades go. And don’t even think about saying you didn’t have time to study. You found time for skateboarding and sneaking off to bull ride.”

“I didn’t sneak off, Grandpa took me. And my grades aren’t bad. That stuff is hard.”

“It’s never been hard before. And you should know to do your part without asking, especially now, with Ben home. We don’t have time for this.” She stopped talking, like she had to think on just how mad she could get. “Okay, you can just hand over that skateboard. I’m keeping it. It’s chores and homework for you until your next report card.”

“Till my next report card? That’s six weeks. My muscles will shrivel up. I’ll forget how to jump.”

Dad pulled the Bronco to the side of the road, turned, and leaned against the door, just looking at me. “Stop with the whining, Cam. And watch what you say. Ben has real problems with his muscles, you know. It’s not something you should be joking about.”

I wasn’t joking. You have to keep boarding. It’s natural, like bull riding. I can’t explain how my legs know how to kickflip or how my butt stays on top of a bull, but it works if you just keep doing it.

“Just don’t blame me for stuff I didn’t do,” I said. “I don’t sneak.”

“He’s right,” Grandma Jean said. “Cam wouldn’t do anything sneaky.”

“This is between Cam and Jim and me,” my mother said. Her voice was flat and cool, like she was holding herself together with just words.

Dad drove the rest of the way home and pulled into the driveway. I jumped out and went around back toward the barn. No skateboarding, no bull riding. Mike was mad at me for slacking off on our boarding practice, and Mom, she was the one who hadn’t even asked me about my homework since Ben got hurt. She just doctored him and took on more
ranch accounts for other people. Well, I could get as worked up as her. I picked up the axe by the woodpile, lined up three rounds of pine and whaled into one. The ax sunk deep, then kicked back against my shoulders. I swung again, harder, and the wood split clean through with a
crack
. I sucked in the pine smell and hammered it again. Splitting kindling is just the thing to do when you really want to bust your hand through a wall but know better.

That Monday, Killworth chewed me out too. He’d talked to Mom.

“O’Mara, your algebra is weak, and you are behind in your history assignments. I’m relieving you of PE. You can use the time to get your history turned in. As for algebra, you should get a tutor. If your grades don’t come up, we’ll add some after-school sessions for you. Am I clear?”

“Yes, sir.” I didn’t want to tick him off and have to clean the whole school or run laps on the track or something. Killworth loved laps. He said it wasn’t punishment because he ran them with you. He called it a “health opportunity” or “attitude adjustment.”

“You’re not like half these other fools, O’Mara. Get yourself together. I’m expecting you to make the right decisions here.”

This was sabotage. Between my mother and Killworth, they’d have me learning to knit with Grandma Jean or playing hopscotch with Lali. And an algebra tutor? Mom and Dad were still paying off the airline tickets and motels bills from when they’d gone to DC to be with Ben.
There was no way I could ask them to pay for a tutor.

When I came in from school, I stopped at Favi’s. If I couldn’t board with Mike, I could play video games with her. But she wasn’t home. Figured.

I headed home and, as I came in the door, Grandma Jean called, “Is that you, Cam? Come up to my room.”

I went in and she patted the bed for me to sit next to her.

“Things aren’t going so well for you, Cam,” she said. “So I made this for you.” She pressed a navy blue plastic packet into my hand. “It’s like mine. I think you need an angel now.”

“Grandma, I don’t think angels worry about me.”

“There’s salt from the Salt Lick in there too,” she said.

I opened the little snap at the top and peeked inside. There were bits of sage and the salt and a little silver heart. I could see a St. Jude medal, and there was other stuff I couldn’t name.

Grandma Jean took the bag and closed it. “No matter what’s
in
there. It’s special for you and nobody else’s business. Don’t show it off. But keep it with you. It will help.”

I didn’t think it would help at all, but I pushed the little bag down into my jeans pocket.

“That’s a good boy,” she said, and she kissed my head.