Helen DePrima - The Bull Rider

They chatted a few minutes longer about the weather in New York and Colorado and then he rang off.

Jo stood holding her phone, amazed he might agree to her proposal. Angus, her Maine Coon cat, leaped to her shoulder, waving his plumy tail. She smoothed his fur. “Looks like you’ll be spending the weekend with your grandma, pal,” she said. More than one weekend if things worked out.

* * *

“A BULL RIDER? Who’s crazy enough to ride a bull?” Anna Dace stirred honey, a shade lighter than her short curls, into her tea and pushed up the sleeves of her NYC sweatshirt. “How useless.”

“So true,” Jo said, “and the cowboys take terrible risks every ride, but there’s a crazy magnificence about it.”

“Please don’t try to ride a bull, like you did that race horse.”

“A retired Thoroughbred, Mom, and we weren’t racing. Chris Baker just wanted to give me the feeling of hitting the head of the stretch with that much horse under me.”

“I blame your grandfather for turning you and your cousins loose with his horses.” Her mother sighed. “At least you won’t be hundreds of miles out on the ocean in a tiny boat.”

Jo grimaced. “You wouldn’t believe how seasick I was the first few days.” But she hadn’t backed out, not even when Kevin McCloud had offered to set her back ashore.

“So how will you tackle bull riding?”

“Same as always—soak it all up until a pattern starts to form.” She gave Angus a goodbye smooch. “Behave yourself—no eating plants. And don’t let him talk you into too many treats,” she told her mother.

* * *

JO STOOD OUTSIDE the arena entrance in Oklahoma City and punched the number Tom Cameron had provided into her cell phone. A tall black woman in fancy stitched boots and a red pearl-snap shirt waved to her from inside and motioned for her to enter through a side door.

“Jo Dace? I’m Paula,” she said. “Tom asked me to show you around.” She handed Jo a badge to hang around her neck. “We’re starting a VIP tour in a few minutes. You’ll get a good idea of the backstage operation, and Tom reserved a seat for you above the chutes to watch the event.”

No more than the tourist package, but if Tom had read her articles, he knew she’d need more depth. She wouldn’t rush him—let him set the pace. She followed Paula to join a group of a dozen or so fans: a couple with two preteen sons, several wannabe cowgirls in tight jeans and fancy shirts and two gray-haired couples who spoke with familiarity about past events and retired riders.

For the next hour they wound through a maze of pens and chutes, up and down stairs more like ladders, listening to and asking questions of riders and judges and bulls’ owners. Jo didn’t try to remember most of what she heard, simply storing sensory impressions—the clatter of metal platforms underfoot, the smells of cattle and fresh sawdust bedding, the surprisingly silky skin of one bull that invited petting. The details would fall into place if Tom Cameron agreed to invite her into his world.

Paula took Jo aside when the tour ended. “You’ll be sitting right beside the TV broadcast booth,” she said. “We don’t usually put fans where they might interfere with the live feed, but Tom said you’d be okay there.” She led Jo to a high canvas director’s chair overlooking the bucking chutes. “Enjoy the show.”

The arena filled as Jo watched, a sold-out performance, as New York City had been. The spectators here were a different breed though, men who wore boots and wide-brimmed hats with a natural authority, women whose Western finery said this wasn’t their first rodeo and many more children, including babies in arms.

Twenty minutes until showtime. Jo started snapping ranging shots with her iPhone, gathering images to prompt her recollections when she started making notes after the event.

A voice broke her concentration. “Hey there, writer lady—glad you could make it.”

A man stood beside her seat. He had Tom Cameron’s same dark hair and brown eyes but no scar on his cheek.

“You must be Luke,” she said. “I saw you in New York.”

“Yes, ma’am, number-one son,” he said with a grin. “I had to meet the gal who could lure my brother into the spotlight. Shy as a deer, our Tom.” He looked over the railing. “You got the best seat in the house—any closer and you’d be straddling a bull.” He glanced at his watch. “Time for me to get suited up.” He threw his chest out. “Keep your eyes on me—bravest of the brave.”

The event opened with pyrotechnics as it had at Madison Square Garden; again Tom was introduced as the rider ranked first in points. A willowy blonde in a sparkly shirt sang the national anthem, drawing wild cheers when her voice soared a full octave above the high note.

Paula had given Jo a sheet listing the order in which the cowboys would ride, matched against bulls with names like Sidewinder and Top Gun. Tom had drawn Texas Twister tonight. Jo hoped the bull wouldn’t live up to his name, or rather that he would. She’d done her homework since last weekend. A rider wanted a bull that could almost but not quite buck him off; an easy ride wouldn’t yield a high score. Jo wasn’t planning to write a detailed treatise on bull riding, but she needed more than casual knowledge of the sport to do Tom Cameron’s career justice.

Her vantage point above the chutes gave her a bird’s-eye view of the action. Riders wearing colorful fringed chaps and heavy leather vests plastered with company logos clattered along the walkway below her and climbed down onto the bulls’ backs. She had only a limited understanding of their elaborate preride rituals and jotted questions in a pocket notebook. Why did some wear helmets while others wore cowboy hats? What was the purpose of the second rope around the bull’s belly? What was the man hunched above the chute watching for?

She also paid close attention to Luke and his fellow bullfighters as they darted between the bulls and the downed riders. The three men seemed indestructible, bouncing up like rubber balls after being butted, trampled underfoot and tossed into the air like toys, but a long scrape marked Luke’s cheek after a bull slammed him against the chute gate.

She recognized most of the cowboys’ names from New York City and the arena announcer supplied a few words of introduction for each one: Cody from Tennessee, Sean from Georgia, Harve and J.W. and Mike from Texas, Ben from Australia and Silvano from Brazil, thirty-five in all. According to the day sheet, Tom Cameron would be one of the last to ride.

Thankfully all the cowboys in this round were able to leave the arena on their own feet, although the Sports Medicine medics did have to help a few. Not many stayed on the full eight seconds. “We’ve got a great pen of young bulls tonight, folks,” the announcer said.

At last she saw Tom below her on the walkway. She leaned forward but didn’t call his name, recalling his expression of intense concentration before he rode in New York City. He climbed down into the chute, eased onto the back of a black-and-white bull with a wide spread of horns. He took a quick wrap around his hand with his rope and nodded. The gate swung open.

The bull exploded in a frenzy of bucking, swinging its head from side to side. One horn swept Tom’s hat off before a wild leap ended in a stumble that yanked him forward so that his face collided with the top of the bull’s head. He slumped sideways and landed flat on his back with an audible grunt. The bull regained his feet and capered out the gate.

The Sports Medicine team reached Tom as he climbed to his feet, gulping for breath; one pressed a gauze pad over his bleeding nose. Luke retrieved his hat and brushed the dirt off before setting it on his brother’s head.