Bull Rider Read online

  “You kids should loosen him up. Have you thought about filling his gym locker with shaving cream?”

  “Grandma!”

  “It’s just an idea,” she said. “Pretend I never said it.”

  We sliced and talked till the vegetables filled three big bowls. I helped Grandma Jean lift the heavy jars of pickles into a kettle of boiling water. Lali sang a song. “Pickles, pickles are green and red. Grandma’s pickles are…” She couldn’t find a rhyme. “Good,” she finished. Suddenly, she looked serious.

  “Grandma, can Ben eat the pickles? He can still eat pickles, can’t he?”

  “Of course he can.” Grandma hugged her.

  I realized that, for almost an hour, I hadn’t thought about Ben. But I was thinking about what Mike said at lunch—that I was going to lose the skate jam. It was just a few days away, and I needed practice.

  That night I convinced Mom that Killworth hadn’t given us any homework. Of course, if she’d have been paying attention, she’d know that he gave us lots of homework every night, and that Monday was his favorite, because if you didn’t get it done, then he had the whole week to bug you for it. But she was busy doing more accounting and more fretting about Ben, so she believed me about the homework and let me take my board out.

  I headed for the Grange to board in the parking lot before it got dark. I used some stuff they had piled out back to set up a hurdle. Well, it was a piece of PVC pipe on two pieces of concrete. I ran up to it on my board, jumped the pipe in the middle of a kickflip, and landed like a pro. Then I raised the pipe higher for my next run. It wasn’t like the real ramps and stuff we had at Mike’s, but it would have to do. I was so into the jumps and kickflips that I didn’t see Darrell walk up behind me, carrying a board.

  “Looks good, kid,” he said.

  “I didn’t know you had a board,” I said.

  “I told you I’d take you on—bull to board. I think I’ve got the edge on the bulls. So I’ll give you a head start on the boards.”

  I laughed. “I don’t need it. I’ll take you. What can you do?”

  Darrell looked around. “Let’s get that jump higher and add some real turns.”

  He went to the field behind the Grange and came back carrying two big rocks. “Bring some more rocks over. We’ll set up a course.”

  Darrell and I, we worked for a while. We used the rocks like slalom gates and set up two more hurdles. It was funny being there with Darrell. I hadn’t seen him much since Ben had joined the service and Darrell’d taken a job selling ATVs and motorcycles down in Winnemucca. Of course, everyone knew he’d be at the bull ring any day there was practice, but until now, that wasn’t exactly my spot to hang out.

  “You should come by to see Ben,” I said.

  “Your brother and me, we do stuff. He don’t want to sit around and talk to me,” Darrell said.

  “You don’t know that.” I balanced a PVC pipe to make another hurdle.

  “You tell him hi for me. Right after I beat you.” He bopped me on the head. “Let’s go. If I win, kid, I’m picking out a mean bull and you take another ride.”

  “And if I win, you do my algebra homework.” I was counting on getting my homework done on time.

  “I’ll clock you.” Being a bull rider, Darrell had a stopwatch button on his wristwatch. I ran my board around the course once to build up speed. Then I called to Darrell to start his watch and started between the first two rocks. I swung the board left and right under my feet. I could move it where I wanted by swaying my hips and knees, balancing over the wheels. I loved knowing exactly where I was going. I cut the corners as close as I could. I was flying and then I kicked off the board, landed my first jump, and moved between the next pair of rocks. I turned wide and had to slow down to make the next turn. I cleared another jump and was roaring to the last hurdle. It was the highest and when I jumped, I caught the pipe with my heel. I landed forward on my board and hit the asphalt hard with my shoulder. The pipe bounced along the asphalt with a hollow thunk.

  “Too bad!” Darrell yelled.

  I picked myself up. My shirt was torn and my shoulder was bleeding. “Crumb, I like this shirt,” I said. “What’s my time? You have to go faster.”

  “Nah, I just have to clear the last jump,” he said.

  “And go faster,” I repeated.

  Darrell pointed to the watch. “Don’t worry. I’ll do both.” He tossed me the watch and started around the course. He had an easy balance that looked slow but he wove through the rocks like a dancer. Or a bull rider. He made the first jump and the second. The third jump came up just after a set of rocks. He kicked hard, jumped the pipe, landed on his board, turned ninety degrees, and skidded to a stop. “How’d I do?” he asked me.

  “Well, you made the last jump, but you took an extra half a second.”

  “That’s ’cause I finished,” Darrell said, looking straight at me.

  “But you didn’t beat my time,” I said.

  “I didn’t pass out, either.” He slapped my back and laughed. “I think you owe me a bull ride.”

  “I think you should do my algebra,” I said.

  “Tell you what, squirt. You come to the bull ring tomorrow and bring your math. I’ll help you out. Right after you ride.”

  I thought about Killworth and the extra problems he’d give the whole class if we didn’t all get Monday’s homework in by Wednesday. “Well, you didn’t win,” I said.

  “And I didn’t lose. See you at the bull ring.” He took his board and walked toward his truck.

  “I’m bringing my homework!” I yelled after him. He didn’t look back.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The 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 thing
s 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.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Saturday 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.