Bull Rider (7 page)

M
om took my skateboard and went right back to life as usual.

On Wednesday she drove Ben to the VA hospital in Reno for an assessment. When I came in from school, Mom and Ben were already home. The look on Ben’s face told me something was up. “Hey, bro’, guess what?” he said. “I can feel a pinprick in my ankle. That’s good. Like a miracle.”

“So what’d the doctors say?”

“They say if I work hard, I might walk.”

“Wow.” I whistled. This was a miracle, for sure. “So what do you have to do? How long till you can walk?”

“Don’t know. But I will. You bet on it.”

Going from feeling a prick on your ankle to walking—that would be a real trick. But that was way too mean to say, so instead I answered, “I’ll be waiting on that.”

And when you stop your own thoughts from coming out of your mouth, don’t you wonder what other folks are doing
with theirs? What else was inside Ben’s head that he wasn’t saying? Was he mad that I had my legs and could do stuff like skateboarding, even if I was grounded? Was he mad that he had to go back to California so he could learn to twitch his toes? He was hoping for so
little
of what the rest of us still had. Honestly, his excitement made me kind of sad.

I tried to cheer myself up. “It can’t be tougher than getting thrown from a bull or hiking Wheeler Peak the time we got caught in a whiteout. Remember that?”

Ben looked at me blankly. “I don’t remember Wheeler Peak. Some stuff is gone.”

How could he forget that? We’d done it in June just before he left. “You don’t remember Wheeler Peak?” I said. “What about the high school championship rodeo?”

“I remember that,” he said. Then Ben smiled.

“They’ll work on your memory in Palo Alto too,” Mom said.

Well, if Ben was excited, Mom was feeling down. She had been content having Ben under her roof and knowing he was safe, even if he wasn’t quite whole. But she had to see, like the rest of us did, that the idea of therapy, of standing up again, made him more whole of a person than he’d been since he’d come home. So, even though he had three days left of his leave, she and Dad loaded Ben into the pickup and headed west to California. They took Ben back to the TBI unit and spent the weekend in Palo Alto.

I took it as my chance to get a little elbow room. Saturday morning, I helped Grandpa Roy change the oil in the tractor.
Then, I took one of the cow horses, Pepper, out for a ride. I started out like I was going over to the Jones’s ranch but turned the horse around once we were on the main road, and rode to the bull ring. Mom hadn’t told me I couldn’t watch, and Darrell Wallace was my best bet for getting help with algebra.

“Hey, squirt, are you going to ride again?” Darrell asked.

“Naw, I just came to watch.”

“Too much for you?”

“Too much for my mom. She went nuts when she found out I’d been riding.”

Darrell scratched his head. “So, I don’t see her here now.”

I tied Pepper to a little cottonwood tree and climbed the fence to look at the weekend’s bulls. Trucks were coming down the road and rumbling onto the gravel. When they filled that area, they parked on the road.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“We’re having a kind of fall jubilee. A bunch of us decided to meet and see who could go the most rounds on those bulls. There’s a jackpot—fifty dollars each. If you ante up and win, the money’s yours—split for first, second, and third.”

“My mom won’t let me ride and I don’t have fifty dollars,” I said.

There were about ten bulls and big steers milling around in the holding pen. One of them was the black Brahma, Quicksand. “So who draws the big one?” I asked. “He’s a piece of work.”

Darrell spit. “Naw, he ain’t nothing compared to Ugly. That bull makes ’em all look puny. And that’s the one I’m going to ride someday. Ugly. You know they have a purse on him. The outfit that raises the bucking bulls wants some exposure, and they’ve put up a prize that’d make a pig dance. They’re paying fifteen thousand dollars to the first cowboy to ride him. That’s gonna be me.”

“Could be me.” I grinned.

“Yeah, but your momma won’t let you. And by the time you’re old enough to sign all the papers for the insurance waivers yourself, I’ll have gone and rode him. You’ll have to wait for the next crazy big bull to come along.”

Actually, that suited me fine. Right now, sitting on the fence, I was longing for the adrenaline rush, but I didn’t long to die. The big bulls scared me, and I could get my fix off a smaller steer any day. But I’d come for something else.

“Darrell, I’m about to crash and burn in algebra, and if I don’t work it out, my folks are going to have a heart attack. So, I’m thinking, can you help me with my homework now?”

“I’m about to ride some bulls, kid, but stick around, and we’ll take a look after the event.”

So that’s how I came to ignore my mom and get on a bull again. I didn’t mean to. Really. But the cowboys just kept lining up and one after the other, they lowered themselves into the bucking chute. Most of the guys recognized me.

“Aren’t you Ben O’Mara’s kid brother? You gonna take a round?”

Well, I did say no a few times, but then one of them offered to waive the jackpot money and let me ride for
practice. Temptation got the best of me. Mom or not, I borrowed a bull rope and rigged up a little spotted bull. I was nervous without Ben and Grandpa there. But Darrell took the gate duty and gave me a wink as I slipped onto the bull. I remembered Grandpa shouting to square my shoulders and then I called out, “Go.”

Darrell pulled the gate, and me and that bull took a ride. This time felt different. I relaxed over his shoulders and let him make the moves. I gripped with my left hand and he spun right, giving me some good pull against the handle. Every time he hit the ground, I was still there, getting ready for the next jolt. I could hear the guys screaming, and then Darrell kept yelling, “Time, time, you’re done!”

Eight seconds. I’d made it. I ripped the tail of the bull rope—it was squeezed tight between the rope handle and my fingers, glued down by the pine tar on my glove. When I pulled, it unzipped right through my fingers, and with that, I caught some air—flying high off to the side of the bull. I landed easy, though the jarring hurt my ankle, and I ran for the fence.

“Great ride, kid!”

“Eight seconds. The kid moves to the next round.”

And I got to the third round, too. Darrell called it O’Mara magic or beginner’s luck. I’m thinking it was more the luck, or maybe it was lazy bulls? Whatever it was, I was happy to take it. There were only three of us in the third round. Me, Darrell, and a big guy, who I thought was Favi Ruiz’s uncle from Lovelock. No one else had made two eight-second rides. Andrew wrote out the bulls’ names so we could draw, official like, for the next ride. Darrell reached into Andrew’s
hat and pulled the spotted bull I’d ridden in the first round. Favi’s uncle drew an albino Brahma, and I got Quicksand. Next to him, his buddy Possum was a pussy cat. My stomach flipped and growled. My rides had gone too well for my own good, and now I was stuck getting on the biggest bull there.

“Quicksand,” Andrew said again. “Cam, do you want another draw? He’s just started riding,” Andrew explained to the cowboys.

I knew what I had to answer. “I’ll take what I get.” But when my turn came, Darrell had to step on the Brahma’s back to rig the bull rope, his body was so broad.

“This here’s the bull I’ll practice on for Ugly,” Darrell said.

“And it’s the bull I’m going to ride today,” I said. I wished I believed it.

I jumped around to get my adrenaline going, and then, when I got to the chute, I closed my eyes and tried not to look. I was shaking again. I blocked out the cowboys yelling for me. I needed all my faculties to stay on this bull. They sprung the gate, I opened my eyes just long enough to see his black ears and golden eyes about as big as marbles, and then I whizzed right over his head and hit the dust.

I brushed myself off and headed toward the fence.

“Too bad, Cam,” Andrew said, patting my back. “That’s a lot of bull for a beginner.”

As I walked away, Darrell jogged up behind me.

“Good ride,” he said. “Listen, did you bring your algebra?”

“Yeah, it’s here.” I pulled the assignment out of my back
pocket, unfolded it, smoothing out the creased squares.

We sat on the tailgate of his truck and did a couple of problems together. When we finished, he said, “E-mail me if you have trouble and I’ll help you online.”

“Thanks, man.”

“Listen, does Ben have e-mail in Palo Alto?”

“Yeah, he gets online when he can.”

“Cool, I think I’ll check in with him,” Darrell said. “You know, he sure was fun to compete with. I wish…” He didn’t finish. Darrell put his hands in his pockets and said, “I almost forgot. This fell out when you were riding.” He held out the little blue bag Grandma Jean had made. “What is it?”

“Just stuff from my grandma. I forgot to put it away.” I shoved it down into my jeans.

Darrell backed out in his truck and I pulled myself onto Pepper to ride home. I turned the horse onto the road and fingered the packet from Grandma Jean. I couldn’t help wondering if she was right. I shouldn’t have stuck on two bulls. Not yet. What if it really was the salt?

M
y folks came back from Palo Alto on Sunday night. They’d hardly been home for an hour when Mom announced, “Cam, we’re going over to see Ben next weekend. You and Lali can come too.”

“I can stay here with Grandpa if you need me to,” I said. It would be another chance to ride the bulls, and hospitals gave me the creeps.

“Grandpa’s coming too. So’s Grandma Jean. We’re all going.”

I looked to Dad for a little help, but he had his nose in the newspaper. “What about the stock?” I asked. “Mike could come over. His dad’s helping him practice for his driver’s test this weekend, but when he’s done he can sleep over and we could watch the stock.”

“You’re not quite ready for that, buddy,” Dad said, looking over his reading glasses. “I’ll ask Ruiz to do it.” Now, Grandpa’s stubborn, but Dad’s orderly. Heck, he named us
in alphabetical order, well, almost. My cousin Adam Carl, the one who drowned, he took up the A’s in Dad’s mind, so he started with Ben, then me, then Lali, who’s named Dalia for real. Dad has his own way of doing everything, and Oscar Ruiz would do it just the way Dad liked. There was no use arguing to stay home.

I’d been thinking Palo Alto was far enough away that I wouldn’t have to see Ben in a real hospital. At home, I’d gotten used to his routine, and if I was uncomfortable, well, I could offer to dry dishes or go clean some stalls. But now they were going to take me to him in the hospital—to his medication smells and his blasted-off arm. The stump was as hard to think about as the drawn-out words and useless leg. And there was the scar that hid up there by his neck. I hadn’t seen it much, except where it peeked out of his collar. He was careful to keep his shirt buttoned up. I had no idea what Ben looked like now in those places where the explosion hit him. Would that stuff all show if he was in a hospital gown? And what about the other guys in the hospital? What if they were really bad off too? I didn’t want to see some guy with burned off ears or no legs. I didn’t want to think about the explosions and the war. I plain didn’t want to go.

I spent the week doing history and algebra and trying not to be cranky with Mom. My feet just itched to skateboard, and I couldn’t get away from wanting a try at Quicksand again. Mom was keeping track of me since I was grounded. But she did let me out on Wednesday afternoon to go over to Mike’s.

“We have a speech to practice for English,” I said.

“Can’t he come here?”

“His mom is painting their dining room and she wants him there in case she needs something. And who knows, she might faint again.”

“She’s always redoing that house, isn’t she? You’d think she’d slow down a little now.” Mom thought for a moment and then she let me go, saying, “Be home by five thirty.”

I rode my bike to Mike’s and leaned it against his porch. He met me before I got up the stairs. “Want to try my new skateboard?”

I didn’t want to ride
that
skateboard. He’d won it at the Winnemucca Jam. But I wanted to ride. “I’ll use your old one,” I said.

Mrs. Gianni really was painting her dining room, and she certainly wasn’t thinking about my mom grounding me. So we pulled out the ramps and coasted around the driveway on Mike’s boards. The wheels vibrated under my feet and sent familiar feelings up my legs. I pumped fast and leaned into the board. I ollied off the ramp, turning in the air, and just kept skating. My ankle didn’t hurt anymore.

“This is awesome,” I said.

“You know it,” Mike answered. “Boarding isn’t so fun without you.”

“Boarding isn’t any fun at all when my mom’s got my skateboard,” I said.

“Can’t you get it back?” Mike did a 360 and slid past.

“You know my mom. I was lucky to talk her into this. She’s all over me about my homework.”

Five o’clock came too fast. I left Mike with two boards under his arm and biked home. It was the only boarding I
did all week. Instead, I was memorizing dates and factoring polynomials.

I was e-mailing Darrell my algebra problems to check when Lali tapped me on the shoulder. “Cammy, stop studying and come see Pretty. She’s a circus goat!” I followed Lali outside to the goat pen. Lali had painted big polka dots on Pretty with grape-drink mix she’d swiped from Grandma Jean’s bag and then she’d tied a tutu around the goat’s neck. No one could get peeved with Lali when she did stuff like that. I would have been grounded for an extra week.

“Lali, where ever did you get the idea to do that?” Mom asked, and she took pictures of Lali and Pretty. I stopped working on the algebra and filled up the wading pool with water. We tossed in a beach ball and Grandma Jean tried to get the goat to kick it out. Pretty ended up biting it, and the whole thing deflated like an old balloon.

“We’ll have to work on that trick, Lali,” Grandma Jean said.

“And Cam has to work on his homework,” Mom reminded me. What was wrong with this picture?

Finally, the week and the studying were over. Saturday morning I threw my duffel bag in the back of the pickup and I rode with Grandpa. Dad, Mom, Grandma Jean, and Lali took the Jeep. We left before sunrise, which is ear-freezing cold in mid-November, and drove straight through to Reno. Of course, Lali had to stop to pee every couple of hours, and Grandpa Roy didn’t seem to mind getting out to stretch either, so we stopped at Donner Pass, and Lali
and I made snowballs with our bare hands and threw them at each other. Then we smashed some up against the pine trees until our fingers turned red and stinging.

“I’m cold, Cammy. And I’m hungry.”

“That’s because we’re at Donner Pass. This is where a bunch of pioneers in a wagon train got stuck in the snow. They were stranded here for months and then they
ate
each other,” I growled at her.

“No, they didn’t.” She stomped her foot and crossed her arms. “You’re teasing me.”

“I am not. Ask your teacher,” I said. “But let’s get you in the Jeep to get warm. Mom has snacks, too.” I carried her to the car and belted her in.

We drove down the mountain and stopped again at Gold Run before we left the forest, then took a long haul into Sacramento. The air got damp as we dropped into the Central Valley, and winter haze hung over the fields. We drove through for fast food that we ate in the car and got to the edge of the Bay Area after lunch.

I’d been there a couple of times before, when Mom got it in her head we should go to an art museum or see the Golden Gate Bridge, but that was when I was little and before Lali was even born. Now, the concrete cramped in around me, suffocated me with cars and buildings. It smelled like oil, and there was a dull roar from all those city people doing what they do. It’s a sound you don’t hear on the desert. Grandpa didn’t seem to mind, except for swearing at the drivers and wondering why half of them weren’t dead already from the way they shot in and out of the lanes. My hands were sweaty from gripping the door handle, and I was praying I wouldn’t
be dead that very afternoon. I’d never seen so many cars on one piece of highway.

We got to Palo Alto before dinner. The Marines put us up in a motel, but there was a mix-up and we had one room for all of us. Mom and Dad and Grandma Jean set down their suitcases, claiming the two beds. It looked like Grandpa Roy would get the sofa.

“Where do I sleep?” Lali asked.

“I’ll find some blankets for you and Cam,” Mom said.

Great. After all this, Lali and I would sleep on the floor.

Mom kept talking. “I can’t wait to see Ben. To see how he’s doing.”

I wished I could say the same, and I wished I weren’t grounded from skating and had brought my board. The one thing this place had going for it—there was a lot of concrete. But board or not, the motel had a pool, and Lali and I promised each other that it didn’t matter if it was November, we’d swim that evening.

We all squeezed into the Jeep for the ride to the VA hospital. Lali wore a dress and kept fussing about getting it wrinkled.

“Ben won’t care about your dress,” I said.

“He will. I want him to see it. It has daisies,” she said, pointing to its big yellow flowers.

“He’ll see those,” I said. “For sure.”

Just then a siren went off behind us, and Lali about jumped in my lap. “It’s okay.” I hugged her up to me. “That’s just city stuff.” But in my head, I was wondering how all these people stood being so packed up together. I wondered if Ben could feel it too from inside the hospital.

The VA hospital was huge. And brick. It stretched out from the parking lot like the university in Reno. I bet the whole town of Salt Lick could live on just one floor of that place. Families and all kinds of vets made a steady stream through the revolving doors, while more waited by the curb for buses and vans that zipped around like bees. As Dad parked the Jeep, my heart started racing. I wanted to see Ben. We went into a smaller building off to the side that was for guys with traumatic brain injury. There were a couple dozen of them, and with the war and all, every bed was full. The halls echoed, and when we passed a room, you’d hear just a clip of what the guys were saying. This one had a Texas drawl, and that one was on the phone with someone back home in Colorado. Some were sitting with family, and there was a nervousness from those rooms that you could feel.

I peeked in the door as we passed. The patients who I could see were all messed up like Ben, and instead of that making me feel better, like he had company, my throat tightened up. What had happened to them all? Did those improvised explosive devices, the IEDs, send shock waves through all their brains? Who knew these guys were all here? Did anybody say, “Thank you, we know you got blown to pieces, so sorry, and now just put your life back together?” Did anyone say, “Gee, we hope this was worth your leg or your arm or half your face?” We turned another corner and Mom about flew into Ben’s room. The whole bunch of us squeezed in as best we could. Ben was sitting in his wheelchair and reached out with his good arm to hug her.

“Did you miss us, honey?” she asked.

“’Course,” he answered.

Dad took a chair next to Ben’s wheelchair, and Lali and I stood at the end of his empty bed.

“You can sit,” Ben said. “How’s bull riding, bro’?”

“I’m not doing that,” I lied. It was hard talking about bulls in this place. It made me wish Ben was home with us in our living room.

“Ask me about Pretty,” Lali said.

“What about her, Lollipop?” Lali only let Ben call her that.

“I made her a circus goat.” Then Lali told him all about dressing up Pretty.

When Lali was done, Mom asked, “How’s the therapy going?”

“Okay,” Ben said.

“Really? How is it?”

Ben looked at his lap, then at her, and back at his one hand. He sighed. “I get tired.”

Mom took his hand and I backed up till I about touched Grandpa in the doorway.

“So,” Mom went on, like no one was there but her, “I thought maybe Cam and Grandpa could stay and keep you company while Dad and I do some paperwork with the hospital. They have a lot of forms we can help you with.”

“Lali and I will be a pair,” Grandma Jean said. She pulled a deck of cards out of her bag. “Crazy Eights?” she said, and dealt two hands.

Well, that was it. I was trapped in this freak place. Grandma Jean acted like she owned it, Mom and Dad were preoccupied with all the hospital stuff to do with Ben, and Grandpa Roy was standing mute in the doorway. I’d take off, but I didn’t know how to walk back to the motel, and
I’d probably get flattened by a cement truck or end up in a junkyard with crazy dogs jumping at me. Why did Ben have to be
here
?

“So, bro’, push me. I’ll give you a tour.”

“Can you leave your room?” I asked.

“I do it every day,” he said, smiling.

“Grandpa can take you,” I said.

“I’m going to sit down right here and supervise this card game. Your grandmother cheats,” Grandpa said, pulling over a chair.

That didn’t leave me much choice. I kicked the brake off of Ben’s wheelchair and took the handles. The wheels spun easy against the vinyl floor. I pushed him into the hallway. I had an urge to run down the hall and let him go, to see how far the chair would glide. But I didn’t do it. Instead I walked, each step echoing through the corridor.

“Turn here,” Ben said. I turned right, and at the end of a short hallway, we came to a big room. A few men sat around, playing checkers with their families or watching TV. One guy called out to Ben.

“So, is this your little brother you keep talking about?”

I didn’t want to stare, but this guy’s face was burned and half his hair was gone. So were his legs. Was it ruder to turn away or just to look? I figured I’d look. He had bigger problems than who looked at him.

“Yeah, this is Cam.” Ben was talking better today. “You know, my buddies say he’s something on a bull. They say he’s gonna be one of Nevada’s best.”

My jaw dropped. What buddies? Did Darrell tell him I was riding again?

“Good thing he lives in Nevada,” the burned man said. “We’ve got some hot riders back home in Georgia. I’m Matt Burton,” he said, holding out his hand.

I shook it and looked at him straight on. “You bull ride?”

“No, I’m not that stupid. But I know a few, and Georgia will take on Nevada any day for crazy men doing stunts. Right, Ben?” He turned to me. “Ben and I were in the same unit, though you wouldn’t recognize me from the pictures now, would you?” He laughed, but I couldn’t let myself do that. I kept staring.

“We had some good times on the base. Remember when Gonzales tried to eat ten hamburgers in two minutes at the McDonald’s?”

Ben laughed. “He threw up.”

“Everywhere, man. Tables, floor. It was gross. Or how about when Jacobs went to run in the morning and you’d stuck the bottoms of his shorts together with superglue? He jumped into those and fell right on his can. We did some crazy stuff.” The marine shook his head and laughed.

“Listen, Cam,” Burton went on, “your brother won’t tell you, so I will. I wouldn’t be alive at all if Ben hadn’t put a tourniquet on my leg and held me together while the medevac copter came in. I’d have bled to death. It’s ironic we’re both here now, don’t you think?”