C. Box - Endangered

A china hutch in the corner contained nothing but silver and gold buckles Dallas had won across the nation. There were four sparkling shelves of them.

As Joe passed by the wall, he searched for photos of the rest of the family and found one: an old shot of Bull, Timber, and Dallas with their arms around one another. It looked like it had been taken on a camping trip more than a decade ago. Bull’s mouth was agape and he looked simple. Timber was wiry and lean, and his eyes were closed as he smiled. Both brothers towered over Dallas, who stared straight at the camera with a kind of alarming confidence for a boy that small. By the looks of the photo, Dallas would have been nine or ten at the time, Joe thought. That was it as far as photos of his brothers went. The rest of the front room was a shrine to Dallas Cates. A stranger entering the house could have reasonably assumed Dallas was an only child.

Joe inadvertently glanced at Bull, who stood glowering by the door. As if Bull could read Joe’s mind, he winced and looked away. Joe almost—but not quite—felt sorry for him.

—

DALLAS RECLINED in an overstuffed chair in what appeared to be his old bedroom, judging by the yellowed rodeo posters on the walls and the photos of him playing football, wrestling, and running track as a Saddlestring High School Wrangler. He was watching a small television between his sock-clad feet. When Joe entered the room, Dallas turned his head stiffly and his eyes registered surprise when he recognized Joe. He lifted the remote and clicked off the set.

“Mr. Pickett,” Dallas said.

“Dallas.”

It wasn’t a ruse, Joe quickly determined. Dallas had been seriously injured. His face was still puffy and his left eye was swollen shut. The bruises on his face and neck were entering the gruesome blue, green, and yellow phase. His left arm was in a sling.

“I thought I heard Mom talkin’ to someone out there.” Dallas’s voice was muted and airier than Joe remembered. He attributed it to a throat injury.

Joe said, “Yup.”

Dallas winced as he shifted his weight in the recliner to face Joe. Even in his condition, Dallas radiated a kind of raw physical power, Joe thought. Muscles danced and his tendons popped beneath his skin as he moved. Sinew corded in his neck.

“Nothin’ hurts like busted ribs,” Dallas said, and he lifted the front of his baggy sweatshirt. His midsection was wrapped, but Joe could see the bruised discoloration on Dallas’s skin above and below the bandage.

“I broke my ribs once,” Joe said. “I know how it hurts.”

“It’s not so bad,” Dallas said with one of the big boxy grins he was famous for. “It only hurts when I breathe. Or talk. Or eat. Or try to move.”

Joe nodded sympathetically.

“Dr. Jalbani at the clinic in town says the only thing I can do is rest and let the ribs heal on their own. There’s nothing they can do to speed up the recovery. Did you know that?”

“I did.”

“When did Saddlestring get a Pakistani doctor?” Dallas asked. “It seems kind of funky.”

“He’s been here for two years.”

“Well,” Dallas said, “that just shows you how much I’ve been around, I guess.”

Dallas suddenly got serious, and said, “How’s April doing, Mr. Pickett?”

Joe realized Brenda was standing in the door right behind him. Dallas had glanced over to her before he asked the question. Joe wondered if Brenda had silently prompted it.

“She’s in bad shape,” Joe said. “She’s in a coma in a hospital in Billings.”

“Man,” Dallas said, “that’s bad news.” Then: “Is she going to make it?”

“We’re optimistic,” Joe lied.

Dallas nodded. And kept nodding. Then another quick glance to Brenda behind Joe’s shoulder.

“Has she been able to communicate?” Dallas asked.

“No.”

“Man, that’s rough. Will she ever be able to talk?”

“We hope so.”

Yet another glance. Joe considered whipping his head around so he could catch Brenda coaching her son, but he didn’t.

“Well, if she recovers, I hope you’ll tell her how sorry I am this happened to her,” Dallas said. “I mean, we had our problems and all, especially at the end. But she means a lot to me. I can’t stand to think of her stuck in some hospital room like that. So tell her I’m thinkin’ about her, will you?”

Joe nodded.

“Maybe I’ll be up and around soon,” Dallas said. “Billings ain’t that far.”

He paused, then said, “If that’s okay with you and Marybeth, I mean.”

Joe didn’t want to say, There’s nothing to see . And he didn’t like Dallas using his wife’s name so casually. He said, “I’ll let you know when she’s better. Maybe we can work something out.”

“That’d be great, Mr. Pickett.”

He seemed almost sincere, almost eager. Joe thought perhaps he had always judged Dallas too harshly. He’d been put off by his mannerisms, his history, his too-eager-to-please persona.

But maybe, Joe conceded, it had as much to do with the fact that April had left with him while Joe and Marybeth were away. That it had been Dallas’s fault as much as April’s why she had left.

Joe asked, “How long have you been back, Dallas?”

“Since March tenth,” he answered quickly.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Brenda said from behind Joe.

“Not the thirteenth?” Joe pressed.

“Hell no,” Dallas said, letting some heat show through, although the grin was still frozen on his face. “I see what you’re doin’ here.”

“Just had to check,” Joe said. “I’m sorry.”

“You ought to be,” Brenda said.

Joe looked back at her. She wasn’t as angry as he’d expected. Oddly, she looked relieved.

“Well,” Joe said to Dallas, “I hope you’re up and around soon.”

Dallas’s grin turned into a bigger box. “The only good thing about it is, I couldn’t have gotten busted up at a better time. I lost my entry fees on the Rodeo All-Star gig in Dallas, of course, but the big fun doesn’t really start until June. By then, it’ll be a rodeo a day, and sometimes two, through the rest of the summer. That’ll be one paycheck after another. I plan to turn this setback right around and light up the PRCA all the way to the national finals. I ain’t the first cowboy to get hurt, you know.”

Joe agreed.

“You and Marybeth ought to come see me at the Daddy, last week of July,” Dallas said, meaning Cheyenne. “I can get you some passes for the east-side stands.”

“Maybe,” Joe said.

“And you let me know how April’s doin’, okay?”

“Yup,” Joe said.

—

“SO,” BRENDA SAID as they went down the hall toward the living room, “are you finally satisfied?”

Joe said, “I have to say I am.”

There was no way Dallas could have administered such a serious beating to April in his condition. The broken ribs alone would have prevented it, Joe knew. He remembered the searing pain he had experienced simply lacing up his boots. And how Dallas had managed to drive from Houston to Saddlestring in his condition was both foolish and heroic, Joe thought.

Brenda shook her head and said, “You’re a hardheaded man.”

“I just needed to be sure,” Joe said. “I guess it still stings that April ran off.”

Brenda reached out and grasped his elbow before he entered the front room, and he turned.

She nodded at the Cheyenne photo of Dallas flinging his hat and said, “You know, this community don’t appreciate what we’ve got here.”

Joe was momentarily puzzled.

“Dallas,” she said. “He’s a champion . He’s our world-class athlete, and he comes from right here in Twelve Sleep County. There should be signs outside the town telling everyone they’re entering the home of Dallas Cates. There should be parades every summer. We ought to name the high school after him, or at least the rodeo arena.”