by Drake, Laura
She looked down to where his hands rested on her résumé. Long-fingered, capable, clever, just as she’d expect a surgeon’s hands to be. It had been the cowboy hat she didn’t expect. She clasped her fingers to stop their fidgeting and forced her gaze to meet his.
“Why should I hire you, Katya Smith?”
“Is it because I’m a woman, Dr. Hanes? Do you have a problem with a woman in the locker room?”
“It’s Cody, or Doc Cody. Someone says Dr. Hanes and I look around for my dad.” He laced his fingers. “We’re an equal opportunity employer, Miss Smith, and you’re a professional. Besides, given where you’ve been, these cowboys have nothing in their pants you haven’t seen, except what’s in theirs is mostly intact. I’m more worried about you bailing when a better offer comes up.”
“I want to be a trainer, Doctor.”
What if he says no? She’d searched online. Trace checked in with all his contacts. There wasn’t much out there that would work for her. This job had come open just last week, probably only still been available because of the constant travel required.
Once she’d gotten over the surprise, she snatched at Trace’s idea. It was brilliant, actually. It might be the only way she could go forward. After all, she wouldn’t be tempted to empathize with a bunch of coddled athletes. Sure, this job would have been at the bottom of her list two months ago. But she couldn’t think of any other position that would allow her to use her skills. Maybe even recover. It was a chance.
Her only chance.
Her fingers were back at it, worrying the edge of an uneven cuticle. She made them stop.
Doc Cody’s knitted brows telegraphed the “why” he didn’t ask. “You are aware that this job involves extensive travel. You’d be on the road for months at a time.”
She smiled at the joke only she would get. Most people didn’t recognize her surname as Gypsy. “I’ve had five TDY assignments in eight years with the army. I’m used to moving around.”
“Well, I’m going to get busy here, pretty quick.” He lifted his hat from the table, and looking her over, stood. “Have you ever seen a bull riding event?”
She rose, pulling down the skirt of her new black double-breasted interview suit. “Um, no.”
He stilled, and his gaze bore into her, probing, unveiling.
She knew this was it, the Omaha Beach of the interview. Her nerves made her blood fizz through her veins like a shaken soda. She held, letting him look. She took a long breath and imagined Grand, grinding at her pestle. Her hands settled, curled at her sides.
Slowly, his look lost its sharp edge. But she knew a butter knife could still cut. She hadn’t gained the beachhead yet.
“Well, I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you stay and watch the event?” He settled the hat on his head. “That’ll give you an idea of what you’re getting into. When it’s over, come on back here and we’ll finish this.”
She practiced breathing again. “That sounds good.” He wouldn’t have me stay if I wasn’t still being considered, would he?
“Great. Follow me.”
The echo of her heels tapping down the narrow cinderblock hall competed with men’s voices.
The wall to the right opened into a large room. Men dressed like extras in a Western movie applied rosin and pulled on ropes hanging from metal poles in the center of the room. One of them turned to laugh at something another said, and she got a good look at his face. The stringy attempt at a beard didn’t hide the pimples on his cheeks.
These are just kids!
The memory of men this young, dressed in a very different uniform of helmets and desert fatigues marched through her mind. A shudder—an echo of agony—ripped down her spine. She gritted her teeth, looked ahead, and hurried her steps to catch up to the doctor’s retreating back.
Katya sat in the second row, observing the spectators filing into the arena, feeling as if she’d traveled back to another time. Or another planet. Men wore cowboy hats, Western dress shirts, jeans, and boots. And belt buckles. Huge, shiny, gut-digging belt buckles.
The women were dressed similarly, but with fashion flourishes: blouses and high-heeled boots in bright colors, dangling silver earrings, and seam-popping blue jeans adorned with belt buckles that were only slightly scaled-down versions of the men’s.
Katya stuck out like a penguin in a flock of flamingos.
Raucous country music blared from the ceiling, almost drowning out the beehive hum of the spectators. She moved from her study of this foreign world’s fauna to the flora. Hanging above the arena, the JumboTron screen flashed advertisements. The arena floor might be used for hockey or basketball at other times, but now it was covered in dirt, with a row of sideways stalls laid out at the end closest to her.
In the center a round, waist-high platform stood open on the side closest to the stalls. Squinting, she could just make out the cameras poking from its dark interior, and men moving in the shadows. A cowboy on a black-and-white spotted horse ran in a circle at the opposite end, twirling a rope, the fringe of his leather leg coverings bouncing in a happy dance with the horse’s every step.
Feeling a looming presence, Katya cowered, then looked up. An older gentleman in a cowboy hat stood beside her seat, hands full of cardboard trays of food.
“Pardon me, miss. I think those are our seats.” He tipped his chin to the seats next to her. She turned her knees to allow him to sidestep by.
An older woman followed carrying drinks. “Pardon us, dear.” She sidled past and sank into the seat beside Katya. When her husband was settled, she passed him a beer, and he passed her a plate of cheese-covered chips.
A smell of spicy food, hairspray, and flowery perfume wafted over Katya. Her stomach reminded her with a grinding growl that she’d been too nervous to eat lunch.
“Hello, hon.” The older woman smiled over at Katya. Neat and proper in her pastel blouse, pink neckerchief, and salon-coiffed silver hair, she looked like a Western June Cleaver. “My name is Maydelle Deacon, and this is my husband, Tom.” The man’s weathered face was tanned nut brown, but when he lifted his hat to her, his forehead shone white.
She nodded and smiled. “I’m Katya.”
The man looked her up and down. “You’re not from around here, are you?”
“Tom! You just mind your nachos and watch for Buster.” The woman turned back to Katya. “Are you a schoolteacher, dear?”
Katya smoothed a hand over her hair. Maybe she’d gotten carried away with the hairspray, trying to tame her frizz into a businesslike bun. How was she to know when she was called for an interview by the PBR that it would take place in a locker room? She shook her head.
“Oh, well. You look very nice. Don’t you let anyone tell you different.” Maydelle aimed a death-ray stare at her husband.
The arena went black. The music stopped, mid-note. The crowd fell silent. For a few seconds there was nothing.
Then a deep, strong voice boomed out of the dark. “Welcome to the toughest sport on earth! My name is JB Denny, and I’ll be your announcer for tonight’s event. Sit back and get ready because this is the P (bang!) B (bang!) R (bang!)!” The arena exploded with flashes of light and what sounded like gunfire.
Katya’s knees scraped the cement of the aisle stair where she crouched in a quivering, heart-fluttering ball. She put up a hand to anchor her helmet before realizing she wasn’t wearing one. At another crackling explosion, she looked up. A fountain of silver sparkles fell from the ceiling, and a huge flame shot from the arena floor. The flash of heat hit her in the face, and she ducked again.
The crowd roared. Under the sound, anticipation rolled—a living palpable thing that her nerves picked up, thrumming in ancient instinctive harmony.
You’re okay. Her heart beat so fast it almost fibrillated. It’s just fireworks.
She had to get back to her seat before the lights went up. She grabbed the arm of her chair. The crowd around her was on their feet, the lightning flashes illuminating their rapt faces.
Crawling
on stinging knees until she got her feet under her, she slid into her seat, eyes front. She didn’t want to know how many people stared.
The sparkles died out and the spot shifted to the center of the arena, where a large flag hung from the rafters. “Now would you please remain standing, and remove cover, for the singing of our National Anthem.”
Katya scrambled to her feet and with a hand over her slowly quieting heart, she sang with the crowd. Halfway through, the stars and stripes swam in her blurry vision, and when her throat closed she stopped singing.
A prayer followed, asking God to protect the riders, the livestock, and those fighting for freedom throughout the world.
“And now, I’d like to introduce you to the riders. Thirty of the toughest men you’ll meet this side of hell.” The announcer introduced the cowboys, one by one, and the spotlight caught them as they strode out of a gate between the stalls in front of her. They each lifted their hat, acknowledging the applause.
Katya took deep breaths. She willed her clenched muscles to loosen by focusing on one part of her body at a time: her jaw, her shoulders, her spine. The technique worked, until she got to her legs. She put her hands on her thighs and pressed down, to stop their jittery bouncing.
When cowboys lined both sides of the arena, the spots were doused, and in the dark the announcer’s voice became the only focus. “This kid came up from the Challenger ranks twelve long years ago, to take the National Finals event in Las Vegas. The next year, he captured the world title in a storied season, winning seven individual events, a record not yet duplicated. The next year, he fought back from a career-threatening injury to again take the world title silver buckle. Ladies and gentlemen, our two-time world champion, ‘Cool Hand’ Cam Cahill!”
Katya squinted as a laser spot hit a cowboy, perched high above the stalls on a platform. Fireworks shot from tubes beside him. The voices of the crowd swelled, the air vibrating with cheers. The cowboy took off his hat, turned, and scanned it over the crowd, in a gesture the soldier in Katya recognized as a salute.
She couldn’t see details of his face, only a flash of blond hair when he took off his hat, and a bright white smile. His body, on the other hand, was spotlighted against the blackness behind. Broad shoulders narrowed to slim hips. Muscular arms, big hands. A damned fine specimen of a man.
Whew. No wonder there are so many women in the audience.
“I just love the openings, don’t you?” Maydelle settled into her seat with a sigh. “Are you all right, hon?”
Katya colored. The concern in the woman’s eyes told Katya the stress of her day was showing. She shot the cuffs of her jacket, brushed her scraped knees, and tucked her dismay behind a fake smile. “I’ve never seen anything like that.”
“Tom, can you believe that? This sweet thing has never been to a bull riding!”
Tom did not look at all surprised, but had apparently learned better than to say so. He patted his wife’s hand, gave her an absent smile, then turned his attention to the stalls which now swarmed with cowboys.
Cam took the steps to the catwalk above the chutes slow, to go easy on his knee. Damn, that had been close. His flight had been delayed in Dallas, and he’d barely had time to get taped up before scrambling onto the platform for the opening. He’d have loved to miss that part anyway—he’d always felt like a dancing monkey up there. But some PBR edicts you just didn’t mess with.
“You guys can get ready now. They’re not going to have to postpone the event after all.” Tucker Penny smirked. “The star has arrived.”
Cam glared at his best friend and traveling partner. “Yeah, well screw you, Tuck. You ever try to get out of Dallas in a hailstorm?” When he jerked on his riding glove his shoulder popped, shooting a bolt of hot pain down his arm to the palm of his riding hand. He gritted his teeth, making sure his smile was still in place.
Tucker squatted, stretching his groin. “I’ve got better sense than to route through Dallas in April. What were you doing there, anyway?”
Cam peeled tape and wrapped it tight around his glove. “Nothing, as it turns out. I’m never going to make it as a stock contractor.” He mumbled from between his teeth as he bit the tape and tore it off.
“ ’Scuse me. Mr. Cahill?”
Cam looked up. The kid standing in front of him looked like he should still have hay in his hair. He couldn’t be over seventeen, with red hair, a mess of freckles, and an earnest look.
“I’m Buster Deacon, and um… I just wanted to tell you…” The Adam’s apple that bobbed as he swallowed was so big it looked painful. “I grew up watching you ride. And um… I just wanted to say…” Red spread up the kid’s neck, staining his face. He rolled his eyes and huffed out an exasperated breath. “Well, it’s an honor for me to be here, riding with you.” He ducked his head, hiding behind his hat brim and walked away, fast.
Tucker burst out a laugh. “Sheeit, grandpa, can you tell me what it was like back when you rode that T-rex to the buzzer?”
“Do the math Tuck. It’s about right, cuz that kid can’t be over twelve.” He squatted, watching out for his spurs, and started his stretching routine. The same one he’d been doing for more years than he wanted to remember. And thanks to his “friends,” he wouldn’t be able to forget.
“What’s with the clowns?” Katya watched three men in brightly colored baggy outfits, jogging in circles.
“Don’t let them hear you call them that. Those are bullfighters, hon. They’re there to distract the bull when the rider gets off, so he doesn’t get hurt.”
Katya looked at the size of the animal in the stall, then at the men. “But who distracts the bull from them?”
Maydelle’s tinkling laugh wasn’t much of an answer.
The first cowboy straddled what Maydelle had called a “chute,” and lowered himself onto the bull’s back. Through the slats in the fence she could see the dark-skinned cowboy settle the rope just behind the animal’s shoulders. He handed the end to another man who pulled it taut. The rider ran his hand up and down the rope, then slipped his hand into a small rawhide handle, canted slightly to the side of the bull’s spine. His friend pulled on the end of the rope, over and over, until it was as tight as he could get it, then he gave it to the rider, who wrapped it around his hand.
The bull reared, pawing at the fence slats, trying to climb out. The cowboys leaning in backed up in a hurry. One grabbed the vest the rider wore to keep him from sliding off.
Katya scrabbled back in her seat. The bull was no more than twelve feet away. What if it got out? Could it jump the six-foot wall into the stands?
The bull stopped fighting and settled back into the stall. The rider pounded on his hand to lock his fingers closed, scooted up until he was practically sitting on his fist, leaned forward, stuck out his chin, and nodded his head.
The two men outside the chute pulled the gate open wide and fast, then scrambled out of the way. The small, mud-colored bull lunged out of the chute, kicking so high with his back legs that he seemed to be standing upright on his front feet. Tied to the bull, the cowboy was jerked down, and his feet whipped up behind him. The bull threw its head up, and caught the rider’s chin coming down.
The rider’s head bounced, and from his disjointed rag-doll movements, Katya knew the kid was out cold. She slapped a hand over her eyes and watched from between her fingers. No one had told the bull that the ride was over. It spun in a circle, the rider’s hand still caught in the rope.
The clowns—bullfighters—stepped in. Two of them danced around the animal’s hooves and horns, while the other caught the tail of the rope on the way by and pulled it free. The rider spun off, to land in a crumpled pile in the dirt. One bullfighter stood over him in a protective stance, watching the bull.
The rider with the lasso rode in, roped the bull, and dragged him from the arena.
Dr. Cody and two other men ran into the arena and huddled around the fallen cowboy.
A waiting bull kicked the metal chute and it echoe
d in the silent building.
Tom murmured, “He’s lucky Fire Ant isn’t a mean ’un.”
Katya’s heart slammed her ribs. How could this kid have lowered himself onto that bull, knowing this was a possible outcome?
Money. Fame. The thought calmed her. Remember, they’re spoiled athletes, just crazier than the ones in college.
The announcer urged everyone to remain calm while Doc Cody and his staff assessed the situation.
The cowboy’s boot twitched.
In thirty seconds, they had the kid sitting up, and in thirty more, they’d helped him to his feet. The crowd gave him a standing ovation. The cowboy wobbled to the exit gate, a man on each elbow, one holding a red-stained wad of cotton to his chin. Before leaving, the rider stopped, turned, took his hat off and waved to the crowd.
The crowd roared.
Katya shook her head.
“Our son is up next. This is his first top-level event, and I’m as jumpy as a bit-up bull at fly time.”
Mouth agape, Katya turned to Maydelle’s nervous smile. “Your son does this? How can you allow it?”
“Allow it? Are you kidding? He got the nickname Buster because he was mutton-busting by the time he was four. We haven’t been able to keep him off the rough stock since.”
Four? Katya had no idea what mutton-busting entailed, but it didn’t sound safe. “How can you stand to watch him do this?” She was disconnected from the rodeo athletes and could barely watch. To have your son on a bull? Katya shuddered.
“This is all he’s ever wanted.” Maydelle’s smile stumbled, then righted itself. “What kind of mother would I be if I stood in the way of my son’s dreams, just because I’m afraid?”
Katya studied the older woman, realizing that under all that percale and makeup there was a lot of steel.
Tom cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, “Buck ’im, Buster! Come on, son, you can do this!”
Maydelle grabbed her husband’s, then Katya’s hand in a death grip, her gaze focused on the second chute. Katya squeezed the woman’s hand, in self-defense as much as support. The massive black bull filled the chute to bursting, a baseball bat–sized horn poking out the slats. The skinny rider wore a helmet with a metal wire face shield that didn’t look nearly sturdy enough.