Bull Rider (16 page)

O
kay, I’ll say right off—I couldn’t wait to hear if he’d won. I called Darrell’s cell phone late on Saturday night. Now, he might have thought I was cheering him on, but I was dying to know if the prize money was still on the table.

“So, did you ride Ugly?” I asked.

“Well, I sat on him,” Darrell said. “That’s one bad bull. I sat on him and then he just shot me over his shoulder to the left. He’s a left-hander, but the dang beast did an about-face. I’ve got the feel of him now, though. I’ll give it a good go next time.”

“Next time?” I asked. “When’s next time?”

“Well, that’s the good part. If nobody rides him in Bakersfield next week, they’re bringing him on over to Winnemucca.”

“Winnemucca? Are you gonna try in Winnemucca?”

“Darn right, unless some fool sits eight seconds in
Bakersfield. They’re only doing three more challenges, then they’re shipping him out on the pro circuit.”

“Where’s the last one?” I asked. Bakersfield was too far away, and I figured I’d have to have a hole clean through my head to try to pass myself off as Adam Carl and ride Ugly in Winnemucca. Everybody’d know me there.

“Colorado, down near Grand Junction. That’s in June, but don’t count on seeing him there. I’m riding him right here at home first.”

“Sure you are,” I said. “Well, sorry you didn’t win.”

“Me too,” he said. “But this way you can watch me ride.” The connection turned to static. “You’re cutting out. I’m…”

Well, that about did it. There’d be no way I could ride Ugly now. I’d have to think of something else, or maybe Ben would just get better. And maybe the spring calves would bring a good price and things would look up all around. But who was I kidding? Ben was as depressed as he’d been since they let him out of the Marines and sent him home. Dad was selling more calves than we should part with, and Mom was stressing more every day from watching Ben turn sour. And without rubbing Ben’s nose in the idea of doing the impossible, without riding Ugly, I couldn’t do anything about it.

I didn’t want to get out of bed on Sunday, but I had to. When I got to the corral, Grandpa Roy handed me the branding iron. “Mark ’em careful,” he said. “That’s our O’Mara name on there.” They’d brought in a big load of cows and calves from up Sugar Peak, and I set to heating the iron and etching our brand into the new calves’ behinds. It
was hard to stay mad out there with the babies bawling and jogging off to their mamas. They were just so cute. And as I set that brand on the calves, one after another, it came to me. Ben and I, we were as good as branded too. O’Mara’s. We were the same. No wonder Ben was depressed. This was our life: working the ranch, stringing barbed wire, riding bulls. What did he have left to look forward to?

And then, while the iron sizzled on a little caramel-colored heifer, Ruiz asked Grandpa, “Do you want me to run this bunch back up Sugar Peak? I’m not sure if the range will hold out after this winter. Maybe keep them at the salt lick?” And Grandpa answered what I’d heard him say a thousand times. You could call it O’Mara family rule number one. “Do what you think is right.”

As I pulled the iron off the calf and Dad unwound the rope holding his feet, I knew what was right. I had to do something for Ben. If I couldn’t ride in Redding or Bakersfield, maybe I’d get myself to Grand Junction in June somehow. And if Grand Junction was too far, then there was only one place left to ride….

Yeah, I had a hole in my head to ride in Winnemucca, but then, Ben had one too, so I guess we matched. At first, I figured I’d aim for Grand Junction, but it was even farther away than Bakersfield, and the more I thought about it, the more I worried that somebody’d ride Ugly first. The worst was knowing Darrell was giving it another try. And in Winnemucca, maybe Andrew or Favi’s uncle would throw in too. One of them could ride him before I got my chance.
Grand Junction was too much of a long shot. I didn’t like it, but I was getting a clear picture.

That evening I talked to Favi while we raced cars on one of her video games.

“I’m riding Ugly at the next challenge,” I told her.

“Where?” she asked.

“Here. In Winnemucca. They’re bringing him over at the end of April.”

“You’re crazy,” she said. She spun her car around a corner on the virtual racetrack. “How are you going to ride a bull in Winnemucca? Your mom will find out.”

“She’ll find out anyway,” I said. “And Grandpa and Dad already let me ride up at the salt lick.”

“Well, how are you going to pass for your dead cousin when everybody in the stands knows you?”

She had me there. I watched as she ran her car off the track and crashed. “I don’t know. You figure it out.” I started up my car—a Ferrari—only the best for my race car.

“Listen, Cam, this isn’t like skipping your algebra homework. I’m sure this whole thing is illegal.”

I ran my car up to 180 miles an hour and accelerated into a turn. There were barrels on the right, and I turned hard left not to smash into them. “You’re right,” I said. “You forget I thought of it.” My car spun out and slammed into a concrete wall. The screen flashed, “You Lose.”

“You know,” Favi said softly, “Ben can do correspondence classes. He can learn accounting like your mom or start an Internet business or something.”

I shook my head. “Like, can you really see Ben as an accountant? And he won’t try anyway. That’s why I have to win our bet.”

Favi started her car. She was way too careful on the straightaway. She’d never beat me if I could stay on the track. “Just don’t do anything stupid,” Favi whispered.

“Too late. I sent in the entry fee.”

Favi’s car flew right off the track. She put the controller down and stared at me. “Why’d you do that?”

I punched her shoulder. “Just come to the fairgrounds and watch me ride. And maybe you can keep my mom from killing me when she finds out. That’s all I ask.”

“That’s all?” Favi said. “That’s all? You know you’ll be grounded till you graduate, and what if you
do
need an ID? You aren’t Adam Carl. What if they catch you? You’re certifiably crazy.”

I started my Ferrari around the track. “Just be there, okay?” I glanced at her and my car crashed. “I need you.”

Now I was the one marking off days on the calendar. I met with Darrell to help him train, I said, but I always got a chance to ride. I didn’t worry about Mom finding out. I was way past that. I did all my homework and tried to think of extra chores to do. I taught Lali to tie her shoes—finally—and I planted more of the garden with Mom and Grandma Jean. The last thing I had a mind to do was make anybody mad or crazy with me. Except maybe Ben. He watched more TV every day, replaying the same old videos and kung fu movies. He didn’t even read with Lali anymore.

And his walking was getting worse instead of better.

“Get up off your butt and do your exercises,” I told him.

“You do ’em,” he said.

“What about taking a correspondence course?” I asked him.

“Are you going to read the books for me?”

“Well, don’t just sit around.”

Ben glared at me. “Go away.”

The only thing that perked him up was going to the bull ring. Grandpa and I took him when we could, but the ranch chores and my homework kept us busy, and I wasn’t taking him when I practiced with Darrell. So there it was. Ben was sitting more and living less. It was like I was watching him shrink right down into himself, and I didn’t know how to reach in and grab him back. I wished he was a calf and I could just rope him and push on his butt to get him moving. Instead, he about finished me off when he came into the kitchen one night, pushing his walker.

“You want some milk?” I asked him.

“Sure.” He sat down and sipped at the milk. Some of it ran down his mouth on account of his right hand still wasn’t as steady as you might like. The milk soaked into his T-shirt, and he swatted at it with his hook.

“I’ll get that.” I reached for a kitchen towel and wiped his shirt.

“Stop. It’s okay,” Ben said.

“Do you want a clean T-shirt?”

“Just milk. That’s all I want.” Ben took another drink. Nothing spilled.

“See. Now that’s working for you. Good job.”

“Good job?” Ben asked. “Come on, I’m just drinking stupid milk. Don’t talk down to me, Cam.”

“I wasn’t. I don’t think I was…. Do you want anything else? Grandma made cookies.”

He turned his head away and whispered, “Cam, I’m only nineteen.”

“So?” I asked.

“So, look at me. I can’t even…” He set down his glass. Tears ran down his face. “Cam, who’s gonna want me?”

After that, I hung more and more hope on my eight seconds with Ugly.

I
got an envelope in the mail at the end of April. I grabbed it out of the pile from the PO box before anyone else saw it, and ran to the barn to open it. There it was, my number—thirteen—and my entry confirmation—
The Ugly Challenge: Adam Carl, Hawthorne, NV, age 19. Registration on Saturday, April 25, between 5 and 6 p.m. Good luck.

Now, I didn’t say anything to anyone. I just waited for Saturday. And when it came, I got up early, did my morning chores, and pretended to read the paper until Ben was watching cartoon videos with Lali. I went into his room and rustled around in his dresser until I found what I was looking for. I tucked his lucky socks into my pocket. Then I opened the closet and took out his bull rope, protective vest, and glove.

“Sorry, Ben,” I said to the empty room. “I don’t have any of my own gear yet.”

I zipped everything into my gym bag with my boots and the entry forms and slipped outside to the truck. I threw the stuff in the back and checked for the keys. Grandpa always left them in the ignition, and today wasn’t any different. Now, I’d already tried to buy a fake ID and lied to my mom all year, so I guessed taking our truck for the afternoon wouldn’t be much worse. I had to sign in at five o’clock. I’d leave right at four so I could get there on time and maybe my folks wouldn’t miss the truck in time to track me down before the bull riding was over.

I tried to keep busy the rest of the morning. I took Pepper out for a ride. I helped Dad trim some low branches off the cottonwoods that lined our driveway and used the chainsaw to cut them up. I went back to the house and Grandma Jean had lunch going.

“I’m not hungry,” I told her, although my stomach was growling. I was afraid I wouldn’t keep the food down. And I was afraid something I did or said would spill the beans.

“Spill the beans,” I said out loud. Then I asked Grandma, “Where do you suppose that phrase comes from?”

“Let the cat out of the bag, that’s what I’d say,” Grandma said, flipping a quesadilla. “What’re you thinking about?”

“Nothing,” I said.

She gave me a long look that made me figure she knew more than she possibly could about my day. “Well, whatever you’re up to, just remember if a frog had wings, he wouldn’t bump his butt hopping.”

“Rivet, rivet,” Lali called from the other room. She
hopped right up to the stove. “Grandma, there’s a carnival in Winnemucca today. Can we go?”

“Ask your mother, sweetie.”

“You can’t go,” I snapped.

“Why not?” Lali demanded. “Mom, Mommy!” She ran off.

I followed her to Mom’s office.

“Mommy, I want to go to the carnival in Winnemucca and Cammy says I can’t.”

Mom hugged her. “Dad’s taking you to your first T-ball practice today. Remember?”

“Can we do both? Cammy, come to T-ball with me.”

Mom answered. “No, we can’t do both. But you could go to her T-ball practice, Cam. That would be a nice thing to do.”

“No thanks,” I mumbled. “I’ve got plans.” I hurried out before she could ask again.

About one thirty, I went in the new downstairs bathroom and threw up.

“Are you all right?” Mom called through the door.

“Yeah,” I said.

“I’ll get a thermometer,” she said when I came out.

“I’m okay, I just ate something wrong.”

“Well, what? You didn’t eat lunch, and we all had the same breakfast. Are you catching the flu?”

“I had some cold pizza in my room,” I lied.

“Cam, you can get really sick eating food that isn’t refrigerated. And with summer coming, you’ll draw ants upstairs. What possessed you to have pizza in your room?”

So there I was, two hours from “borrowing” my first car and probably ending life as I knew it, and I was lying about why I’d taken nonexistent pizza to my room and eaten it, when I couldn’t have ate it at all ’cause it never existed in the first place. “I don’t know. I like pizza, and I didn’t want Grandpa to eat it,” I said.

“Grandpa wouldn’t eat your pizza. Where’d you get it?”

“From Mike.”

“You boys have to use your heads,” Mom said. “We should take your temp anyway.” She went for the thermometer and I ducked out the back door. I saw dust down the ranch road coming toward the house. I watched the car come closer. It was Mike’s dad’s old Volvo. I walked out to meet him. Favi was in the car too. “What’s up?” I asked.

“We came to take you to Winnemucca,” Mike said.

I stared at Favi. “Why would I go to Winnemucca?”

“Oh, shut up,” Mike said. “Favi told me, and we’re going to be there if you need some protection from your mom.”

“Or a ride to the emergency room,” Favi added.

“I’ve got it covered,” I said, thinking of my gear stowed in Grandpa Roy’s truck.

“No, you don’t. How are you getting there?” Favi asked. “Go tell your folks we’re going to the movies and come on.”

“I hadn’t planned this. How will I get my cowboy hat? Why’d I need a cowboy hat at the movies?”

“You worry too much. Just go get your hat, ask your mom if you can go to the movies, and come on,” Favi said. She scooted over to make room for me next to her in the front seat.

I went to the truck, pulled out my gym bag, and handed
it to her. “I’ll be back.” I did just what she said. I picked up my cowboy hat and while I was at it, I stuffed the good luck packet Grandma Jean made me into my jeans pocket. It wouldn’t hurt to have a little O’Mara salt with me.

“Mom, Mike and I are going to the movies,” I called.

“Not before I take your temperature.”

“I’m feeling good now. Honest. I’m going to the movies, okay?”

“You’re sure you’re all right?” She felt my forehead with the back of her hand. “Well, you feel cool enough.”

“Mike’s waiting,” I said.

She peeked out the window. “They’re already here? Sure, have fun.”

Grandpa Roy looked at me funny and asked, “You have money for that movie ticket?”

“No.”

He handed me a twenty. “Don’t spend it all in one place.” He winked at me.

I ran outside before I lost my nerve and jumped in the car.

We drove down to the fairgrounds. It wasn’t like fair day, with hundreds of cars pulling up to the parking lots. But there was a goodly amount going on with stock trucks, and the radio station had set up a tent. People pulled in to go to the cheesy carnival the Boys and Girls Club was holding for the occasion—the one Lali wasn’t going to, thanks to T-ball. The Junior Rodeo was doing a mutton-busting demonstration before the Ugly Challenge, and all the moms
and dads were hovering around with their five-year-olds in their boots and bicycle helmets, waiting for their ten seconds of fame.

“Whose idea was this?” I asked.

“Oh, can it,” Mike said. “We’ve lived through this bull-riding stuff with you for months, and you’re still set on making a fool out of yourself right here, so go do it. We’ll keep an eye out for anybody you might know.”

They dropped me by the south gate, and Favi gave me the gear bag and squeezed my hand. “Good luck,” she said. “Do it for Ben.”

“Thanks.” I squeezed her hand back and turned toward the arena. I followed the string of people making their way toward the stands. Really, whose fool idea was this? I looked around and I didn’t see anyone I knew. That was a blessing. And a surprise. I hoped Mike could do what he said and keep any Salt Lick folks away until I was signed in and ready to ride.

That was the first time I’d honestly thought about the ride that day, I’d been so fixed on how to get out of the house and down to the fairgrounds. Not that I hadn’t pictured it in my head a thousand times. There was Ugly and there was me, sitting on him, knocking around but keeping my seat, riding, winning. But I hadn’t pictured that today, and now that I was close enough to smell him, well, I broke out in a sweat. Maybe I should try a taste from the packet of lick salt in my jeans. I wiped the back of my neck and said out loud, “It’s for Ben.”

“What’s for Ben?” a cowboy asked. He carried a bull rope
and wore a tall buckaroo-style hat. That made him local, and I figured he was my competition.

“My ride,” I said.

“You mutton busting, kid?” he asked, laughing. “You’re awfully big for that.”

I turned my back and walked toward the table where the cowboys were signing up. I was almost in. All I had to do was sign my name and hope they didn’t ask for any proof. That was the catch. A couple of cowboys were already filling out their insurance waivers. They left the table adjusting their numbers. I needed a bigger crowd. I waited till a guy came up with all his family—wife, four little kids, the whole deal. I crowded in right behind them.

“Name,” the man said to me.

I looked up. “Adam Carl, sir,” I said, cool as could be.

“Let’s see your ID.”

“I lost my wallet yesterday. Haven’t had time to replace it,” I said. I think my voice shook.

The man held my registration papers up and looked them over. “Too bad about your wallet,” he said.

One of the cowboy’s kids started crying and another one was whining to get a cotton candy. I shifted my weight to my other foot.

The man smiled again. “You don’t look nineteen, son.”

“It’s the Indian in me.” I smiled.

I wished the kid would throw a real fit and push this along, but instead he settled down and the family left. It was just me and this man. “Can I go on in?” I asked.

“Wait here,” he said. “I have to check this out.” He left
the table and climbed the bleachers to talk to a silver-haired man in a John Deere cap. This was not good. I thought about leaving. Then someone yelled, “Hey, Cam!” I turned before I thought to stop myself, and there was Darrell walking up behind me.