Handful of Sky (15 page)

“Thanks, Ty.” Shallie smiled at the calf roper.

“Ty Weatherby!” Her uncle’s voice echoed down the concrete corridor leading into the arena. Petey trailed behind him. Shallie stepped away as the men shook hands and pounded each other’s upper arms. A crowd of ropers gathered to visit with their favorite contractor, Walter Larkin. It cheered Shallie to see her uncle brighten in the company of his old roping buddies.

“Shalimar Larkin.” Shallie stiffened. There was only one man who used her full name. “You pretty little thing, who’s that ugly fellow with you?” Jake McIver’s voice ricocheted off the arena walls.

“Jake McIver. How have you been?” Her uncle pumped McIver’s hand.

“Pretty fair. How about yourself? How’s half of the best head-and-heels team to ever get down the road doing?”

“Can’t complain, other than a bad deal some slick horse trader pulled on my niece.”

McIver held up his hands as if to defend himself. “Now, I told Shallie to tell you that that trade was strictly her idea. She talked me into it.”

“Don’t worry, Jake,” Walter said, his smile belying the teasing anger in his voice, “Shallie told me.”

“Walter, I’d like you to meet Miss Trish Stephans.” Trish stepped forward, preceded by a thick jasmine-scented cloud. “Trish, I believe you and Shallie know each other already.”

“How have you been?” Shallie asked.

“Never better, actually,” Trish answered, looking at Jake with a gleam in her eye. “As a matter of fact, you might say that this is one of the best nights of my life.”

Shallie decided not to rise to the bait and inquire about her cryptic comment.

“You better run along, Sugar,” Jake advised, kissing her on the cheek. Trish whirled and left.

“How about joining me in my box?” McIver asked expansively. “We’ll have a better view than Slick Bridgers up there.” McIver gestured toward the rodeo announcer, a Western dandy dressed in a shimmering lime-green suit, accented by white boots and tie, perched on a platform above the bucking chutes. “And,” McIver added with a twinkle, “if you’d care to join me, I can offer you an abundance of liquid refreshment.”

Ordinarily Shallie would have refused the invitation, preferring to be a part of the drama behind the chutes. But not tonight. Tonight she wanted to hide as far from the center of action as possible, because that is precisely where Hunt would be. Fortunately she and her uncle didn’t have to work tonight. Once they had deposited the stock Hunt had requested, Circle M’s professional crew took over.

Shallie settled into the plush private box and took advantage of the rare opportunity to really observe the folksy pageantry of a professional rodeo. An Indian man
entered, his black hair pulled back and wrapped tightly with a red bandanna, followed by his wife, a squat woman in a purple velveteen blouse and voluminous print skirt. Chunks of turquoise studded their silver bracelets, belts, and squash-blossom necklaces.

The couple was trailed by a gaggle of junior high girls giggling behind the outsized combs they held to their mouths. The girls were the object of some intense scrutiny from a gang of teenage boys wearing crumpled straw hats and T-shirts cut off just below their armpits.

The clink of glass caught Shallie’s attention and she turned to see Jake and her uncle hoisting a toast. Slick Bridgers announced the Grand Entry. The whirling tapestry of gleaming horses and costumed riders was doubly spectacular from the vantage point afforded by a private box.

“And now, ladies and gentlemen”—Slick Bridgers called for attention as dozens of riders pulled their mounts aside to form one long entryway—“it gives me great pleasure to present to you this year’s Rodeo Sweetheart.” The lights dimmed and a spotlight focused on the cleared pathway. Slick Bridgers continued his introduction. “Each year at this time we have the privilege of announcing the winner of this most coveted title. The holder of the Rodeo Sweetheart title is selected by a committee composed of contractors, contestants, sponsors, and rodeo aficionados. The committee makes its
choice on the basis of beauty, personality, and rodeo spirit.

“And here she is, America’s Rodeo Sweetheart, Trish Stephans.”

Shallie felt her stomach drop as Trish rode into the spotlight on a glistening palomino. She was dressed from head to toe, hat to boots, in black velvet. The crowd broke into an appreciative roar of applause. At the same moment Jake McIver unloosed a deep, rolling belly laugh, as if he’d just pulled off the practical joke of a lifetime. Trish looked like a fairy princess mounted on her golden steed.

How perfect she and Hunt would be together, Shallie thought bitterly. Now that Trish had gotten what she’d wanted from McIver Senior—the introductions to the people who had given her her crown—she could indulge herself by going after McIver Junior. They would be rodeo’s sweetheart couple, a matched pair of dark beauties.

Shallie squirmed under the onslaught of jealousy, an emotion she had little previous knowledge of. As Trish rounded the arena and rode off, the spotlight abruptly swung upward, blinding Shallie.

“Welcome, won’t you please,” Slick Bridgers requested, “the contractor for this year’s ten-day performance of the Albuquerque rodeo, Mr. Rodeo himself, Jake McIver.” Jake stood and bowed.

“Jake,” the announcer continued, “is like the coach of the opposing team. He’s brought in all the fine stock
which will be roped and ridden by the many cowboys who have entered.”

Jake leaned over and pulled Walter and Shallie up out of their seats. “We have Walter Larkin and his niece Shallie to thank for the fine roping calves being used tonight.” A cheer went up from the many old friends Walter had made over his long years with rodeo. It was swelled by the cheers from the new friends Shallie had added to their numbers.

She sank back into her chair, grateful for the return of darkness and anonymity. Well, Hunt would certainly know where she was now. Which only meant that it would hurt that much worse when he didn’t come to her.

The lights came back on and Shallie saw that all the broncs had been loaded. Pegasus was in chute five. Her horse looked like an aristocrat among peasants, trying to remain aloof and take no notice of the commoners around him.

She recognized a few of the cowboys rigging up. She’d never seen any of them in person before, since their world of professional rodeo and Shallie’s of amateur rarely intersected. But their faces were familiar from
Pro Rodeo Sports News.
Jesse Southerland, the man who’d taken the bareback-riding title from Hunt, was limbering up his tightly wound body. He was known for his feline quickness, his sharp features reflecting a twitchy alertness.

A spot of flaming auburn hair told Shallie that the
current Rookie of the Year, Emile Boulier, would be competing as well. The red-haired cowboy from Canada had made many friends during his first year on the circuit, and Shallie could understand why, watching him share a joke and a smile with another cowboy.

But neither man was the reason Shallie was scanning each face behind the chutes. When she didn’t find the high-planed face she sought, Shallie decided that Hunt’s fears about riding in front of a crowd had overwhelmed him. Then she noticed a cluster of young women wearing designer jeans, fur jackets, hats with elaborate bands, and boots made from a variety of exotic species waiting by the entryway behind the chutes. Buckle bunnies, Shallie thought, amused by her first glimpse of professional rodeo groupies. They were more attractive and much more slickly turned out than their country cousins whom she’d encountered at amateur rodeos. Shallie imagined, though, that they all had the same motivation for sneaking back behind the chutes—to meet a rodeo hero. Their ultimate goal was a buckle, a championship buckle bestowed by the champion himself. That was their prize and badge of distinction. How they acquired it was their business.

Shallie smiled, thinking of the girls’ misguided drive for adventure and hoping that they’d find genuine outlets for it someday. But her smile withered when she saw the outlet the buckle bunnies
had
found—Hunt McIver.

With what struck Shallie as merely a show of gentlemanly courtesy, Hunt, his rigging bag slung over his shoulder, pushed patiently past the coquettes in jeans. He swung up on the planks behind Pegasus’s chute. Excitement surged through Shallie at the prospect that Hunt and the blue roan were to meet again. It flickered out as Hunt moved down the catwalk to chute six. He hadn’t drawn Pegasus after all.

Jake McIver’s attention as well had been drawn to the blue roan. “Hey, that’s not my horse in chute five.”

“Well, it used to be,” Walter remarked drily. “That’s the horse you traded Shallie for. Hunt asked me to bring it. Made a special request.”

Jake McIver settled back in his chair, a disgruntled expression creasing his features.

“Worried, Jake?” Walter asked with a chuckle. “Think that horse you took those dogging steers for might not brighten Circle M’s reputation?”

Shallie ignored her uncle’s good-natured needling, knowing that both men were in for a surprise. Shallie felt her uncle grow a bit tenser with each rider. She knew he was anticipating the humiliation to come if Pegasus wasn’t everything she’d promised. She could understand his anxiety. Being bested in a horse trade hurt, but to be bested by Jake McIver was pure misery.

“In chute five,” Slick Bridgers called in a singsong fashion, “a horse called Pegasus. Emile Boulier, a cowboy
from way up north, will be trying to ride the winged horse. Emile is our Rookie of the Year and has earned a reputation as a tough, tough bronc rider. So, old Pegasus probably won’t be flying too high tonight.”

Don’t listen to him,
Shallie mentally urged the blue roan.
Show everyone that you deserve your name.
She scooted to the edge of her seat and studied Boulier’s expression as he settled onto Pegasus’s blue-mottled back. He had the iron-hard look that habitual winners wore. Shallie tried to sense what Pegasus was feeling. It was his first time in an arena, his first time under the bright lights and scrutiny of thousands of people. He might stall out. Emile Boulier might subdue him. The magic Shallie had seen in the moonlight might not work beneath a concrete dome. Then the gate flew open and Pegasus bolted into the arena with a mad flying leap.

The magic was there all right.

Boulier’s hat flew off, as if a giant hand had jerked it from his red head when Pegasus’s hooves hit the earth. The instant after he contacted dirt for the first time, Pegasus launched himself into a shattering series of arcs that had the crowd gasping in disbelief. The arena lights flashed in Pegasus’s eyes. He caught the reflections and hurled them back as bolts of lightning.

Boulier was good, there was no doubt of that. He clung to Pegasus’s back like a saddle burr, riding with a powerful, rolling style. For a second it seemed Pegasus
recognized his command and was bowing to it. But with a cleverness even Shallie hadn’t counted on, Pegasus tucked into a spinning buck that pivoted around a tight circle. Centrifugal force unseated Boulier and he slid off his rigging. Pegasus made one more jump for a moon he couldn’t see, and the Canadian cowboy was hurled to the ground. The moment the man with gall enough to attempt to inflict his dominance on him was gone, Pegasus once more became the regally unconcerned equine aristocrat. Boulier got to his feet and watched as Petey, who was working as a pickup man, herded Pegasus away. The cowboy shook his red head in admiration at the horse’s performance.

Shallie leaned back in her seat, exhaling the breath she’d been holding. Uncle Walter pounded her back, pulling her to him for a crushing bear hug. “We’re going to the National Finals,” he whooped. “We’ve finally got a chance. Damn, I wish John was here.”

“You rooked me!” Jake McIver exploded.

“Rooked you?” Walter echoed. “Don’t forget, Jake, that’s the same horse you were embarrassed to have as part of your string just a minute ago.”

Shallie almost expected McIver to throw both her and her uncle out of his box. He seemed dangerously intent upon something. Finally, he burst out, “I can’t remember the last time anyone got the better of me in a horse trade. And I’ve traded with the biggest crooks going. Just goes to show, you’re never too old to learn.”

Shallie was relieved that McIver had decided to dismiss the whole affair as an expensive lesson. She would not like to have been the object of Jake McIver’s wrath. On the other hand, she doubted that he would enjoy publicizing the fact that anyone, much less a woman, had outtraded him.

Hunt was already settling down onto the back of his mount when Shallie returned her attention to the arena. His expression bothered her. It was too tight, too controlled. He looked as if he believed that with such rigidity he could imprison the haunting specter of past rides, when a cheering crowd had turned suddenly cool and silent.

Relax,
Shallie wanted to shout across the coliseum.
Forget about the crowd. Remember that moonlit ride. Remember
 . . . but Hunt’s horse, a big bay, was already lunging into the arena. Hunt’s spurs were planted high, right where he’d instructed his students to place them, well over the bronc’s shoulders. The horse was a solid, steady bucker and Hunt put a solid, steady ride on him. It was a commendable performance, one most bronc riders would give their favorite riding glove to produce. But it lacked the fire and verve even of Hunt’s performance as the Mystery Rider at that first rodeo.

The buzzer sounded and Petey rode alongside his boss. Hunt reached out and grabbed Petey’s waist, levering himself off the horse’s back. In one fluid motion,
he rolled across the back of Petey’s horse and dropped safely on the other side.

“All right, ladies and gentlemen, we just saw the first ride of the season for Hunt McIver, a four-time world champion in the bareback, who’s been having a spell of bad luck lately. The judges tell me that Hunt has scored a very respectable seventy-nine for that ride.”

There was a smattering of unenthusiastic applause. Hunt’s face was drawn in disgust as tightly as if he’d bucked off.

“A seventy-nine!” Jake McIver spat out the score. “He won’t even stay in the money with a puny score like that, much less burn up the glory trail to the National Finals.”