The rest of the time flew by and he finally got to go home. He took a bus home and was wearing his uniform the entire ride. When he got on the bus, someone on the bus spit at him and called him baby killer and other vile names. He stayed at the back of the bus where he thought no one would see him. It only made him grow quieter and quieter. He sat next to another soldier. He asked him where he was going and was told home to Arizona. David felt sorry for the other soldier, a Hispanic boy with big, brown, troubled eyes who looked out the window into the dark and cried softly. He saw from the ribbons on his uniform that he did more than one tour in Viet Nam but he decided to not talk about that place. In the daylight, they talked about cars, girls, and movies until they arrived in Winslow. The young man got off the bus and into the loving arms of his family. David had wished him luck. The rest of the trip was spent in silence. For some reason, the young soldier made him a little sad.
By the time he got to Colorado Springs, he was tired from no sleep and was determined to not speak of his time in the army ever again. He was proud to serve like his father and now the whole country wanted to shame him. This time, it was his dad that picked him up. He was standing there when he got off the bus and grabbed his duffle bag. He patted his son’s tired face and, without a word, took him to the truck. There was a plaid snap shirt and his cowboy hat in the cab and David was never so glad to change his clothes in his whole life. After he put on his shirt and hat, he was able to finally relax. They stopped for a big burger before leaving town and David had two milkshakes; strawberry and chocolate. He was finally able to muster up a big smile for his dad and promptly fell asleep in the truck before even leaving Colorado Springs. His dad drove slowly and missed all the bumps he could so as not to wake his son. He had read the news and watched TV and was sad that his son went through what he did. But deep down, he knew the ranch would be good for him.
The first few weeks that David was home, he rode every day. He rode the fences as far as he could. He rode the arroyos and the canyons. He would even ride to the cattle, sit, and watch the calves. He just wanted the silence and peace. Sometimes he was angry, sometimes he was sad, and sometimes he just didn’t know how he felt. Loud noises bothered him now and so did the quiet. He would listen to the wind and sometimes cry. He would tire of the quiet and go listen to the herd. But the chaos of their conversations bothered him too. He started to take his notebooks and an unsharpened pencil. He kind of chuckled at his mom for buying so many but now he knew why. He still wrote in the small print but he had a lot of thoughts to work through. There were times that he would be gone overnight and his mother would worry, but his dad told her to let him go. If he was hungry, he would come home, but he had to be alone with his thoughts. He would come home with a full notebook on those trips. He would stuff them in his sock drawer at first, but his dad had a better idea. He took him out to his workshop and took all of his woodworking tools out of the large wooden box they came in. After lightly sanding the inside to get any oils out, he gave the large box to his son. The box was about 24 inches square and 8 inches deep. It had a little lock on it and was perfect for his notes.
After a while, Juaquin would tag along David and in silence, they would repair a fence or just ride. Sometimes, Juaquin would take the guitar and play a little but mostly, they were quiet. They would come back hungry and take care of the horses and eat a big meal. The kitchen wasn’t the same, it was too quiet. So, David’s mom would turn on the radio. She also noticed that her son’s hair turned a dark shade of brown, more like hers, and that made her sad. He looked so grown up now.
Eventually, David’s friends heard he was home and started to come around. He had been at home a couple of months before he agreed to go into town for a cruise and a burger at Curley’s. He was old enough to have a beer now, but his dad cautioned him to only have one. Chet was the only one there when David walked in and he gave him a hearty one-armed hug. When asked where Curley was, his face got serious. Curley had a stroke last year. He was finally home with his wife, but it was touch and go. He probably would never work again. All of the boys were sad and when the Pepsi came, they all raised their glass in a toast. Chet kept them all busy for a few months, but the boys began to drift off. Some went to college and some moved to Colorado Springs to get a job. Some never came back from Viet Nam and it weighed heavy on everyone’s mind. David decided to go to Denver. He would take some classes at the community college in Littleton like his mother planned and try to lose himself in the city. He packed up his old Ford and drove to Denver to find a place. He found one, a furnished basement apartment a few blocks from the college. It was okay, but David stayed to himself so much that the weekends were too lonely. He would go to the ranch on Friday after class and ride Rusty. He would eat good food and go to church with his mom and every evening, he would sit on the porch, watch his parents go up the hill to sit on their bench and listen to Juaquin play and sing. He would cry sometimes but mostly he found some peace in his heart. It felt good to him. The second semester was a little more difficult and in one of his classes, he met a girl. She helped him with his math and invited him out to parties at night. One night, she invited him to go all the way to Larimer Square in downtown Denver. They went to a little bar in a basement and listened to jazz music. David had a couple of beers but after a while, he found himself unable to breathe. In a deep panic, he ran outside. The air there seemed heavy too and he couldn’t get enough air into his lungs. He got into his truck and drove to Parker where he pulled his truck over and got out to take a deep breath. He sat on the tailgate for a long time, looking at the stars and breathing. That was the hardest thing he ever did. It wouldn’t the only time David felt that way. Eventually, he gave up and left the city. He was looking for a place he could be happy. After living in Colorado Springs and even in Pueblo, David returned to Calhan. He found a place in town to live and got a job at the co-op feedstore. During the week, he loaded feed into the backs of pickups for the ranchers and on weekends, he hit the rodeo circuit. He had a couple of friends that went with him, and he would go get Rusty and the old trailer and go. They went to Wyoming and all over Colorado and even New Mexico. He even went to Cheyenne Frontier days where he met a bronc rider named Chris LeDoux. He was a songwriter and would sell tapes of his music. Rodeo music and the life of a cowboy. David liked the music and bought several tapes. He would roll down his window and play Copenhagen so loud that he swore Rusty could hear it in the trailer. The boys won some and lost some and all in all, the money kept him able to rodeo. But at each one, David would stand with the rest of the cowboys at the arena resting his boot on the bottom bar and would watch the bull riders. He memorized their every move and tried to mentally imagine the bull’s next move. Some were predictable and some were just wild. He wanted to ride but could hear his mother’s voice making him promise he wouldn’t. Before the rodeo at the Adams county fairgrounds outside Henderson Colorado, David and his friends were hanging out at Curley’s. They talked to Chet and each other. David told his friends he was thinking of riding. They laughed and teased him. Chet said, “Don’t do it.” He said that kind of recklessness cost him his arm and if he promised, he needed to keep it.
David got Rusty and the trailer and had dinner with his mom. She kept looking at him as if something was up, but just couldn’t put her finger on it. She had a habit of gently smoothing his hat before a rodeo. Her way of giving him good luck. He left after dinner because it was so far to go. It was a warm morning already and David and his friends were signing up for their events. They all noticed a bull named Satan and walked out to take a look at him. They heard about this bull. No one lasted eight seconds on him and most got hurt one way or the other. They went out to his pen and looked at him. He was a brindle bull, red and dark brown. He had one black hoof which made him look even fiercer. He snorted and stomped around the pen and every once in a while, he would throw his weight against the gate. He was big and muscular and kept his head down. David said he looked kind of scary and his bud
dies teased him again. They said he knew he wanted to ride and called him a schoolgirl. They went back to registration and David decided at the last minute to go ahead. As he nervously signed up for the bull ride, his eyebrow went up. There was an extra two hundred bounty to the cowboy who could stay on for the full eight seconds. RCA rules don’t allow the extra incentive, but this was a local event that was run by the State Rodeo Association and wasn’t subject to RCA rules. This bull was known all over for not being rideable and people would come just to see cowboys try.
Just before the event, the draws were posted and they all went to see what bull David drew. He was at the bottom of the list.
Satan. It was too late to change his mind. He could stop right there and pay the turn out fee, but he didn’t.
He went to his events but listened to the cowboys around him. There were a lot of side bets going on by the pens and that made him more nervous. He borrowed a pair of chaps from one of his friends and went to get ready for the ride. He thought of his mom, but would use the extra money to buy her something nice. By the time he reached the pen, Satan was so worked up he was kicking and no one could get close to him.
David got onto the bull and grabbed the rope with his gloved hand. The rope was a 9-plait Barstow bull rope with an old smashed cowbell on the bottom. The glove was rosined up and ready to go. Satan was so big around that once the rope went on, it had a real short tail on the bull rope. There wasn’t much for David to wrap around his fist to get a good hold. He did the best he could but was even more nervous.
The horn sounded and the gate opened. There was no hesitation on Satan’s part. All four feet were off the ground as he shot out of the gate. Everyone scrambled out of the arena. David lost all sense of motion and sound. It was as if the world stopped. The only thing he could hear was the sound of his own heartbeat. The next thing he knew, he was on the ground and felt a sharp pain in his chest and left leg. He could still see the bull coming at him and tried to roll out of the way and that was the last thing he remembered. He woke up in the ambulance as they were shutting the doors, and his friend handed him his hat and promised to take Rusty home. And just as the door closed, he heard him say he did it. Eight seconds. Then he didn’t remember anything else. It all seemed like a slow-motion dream to him. He woke up in the hospital three days later. Four broken ribs, a broken ankle, and a concussion. He could see his mother talking to the doctor. He had never seen that look of anger on her face before. She was asking if he would ever walk again. The doctor couldn’t say. He pinned the bones back together but had never seen an injury like that. His mom stayed with him for the ten days he was in the hospital. She didn’t speak to him about the ride. He didn’t bring it up because he had never seen that look. He tried to apologize once and she told him that it was okay, but for the rest of his life, he should always remember the promises he made and to keep them. Life is full of broken promises and eventually a person couldn’t get past it. It could break a person’s spirit. He just nodded and cried and held her hand. She knew he was sorry. When he was well enough to have a cast and learn to use crutches, he got to go home. He went to the ranch with his parents and Juaquin. He couldn’t ride Rusty but Juaquin did and then let the red horse come to the porch to get carrots from David’s hand. One Saturday, David’s friends came to the ranch in the big old Chevy sedan and asked him to go to the rodeo. The car was comfortable and they would help him around. His father told him to go and said it would be good for him. As they drove away, David could see his mother in the mirror. She waved at him and he waved out the window back at her.
The El Paso County fairgrounds in Calhan were packed that day. It would be the last one at that arena. David and his friends sat on the lower bleachers closest to the arena. Just before the bull riding competition, the gate opened and out came a familiar bull, Satan. He was a brindle bull, a combination of Angus and Brahma. His red and dark brown brindle hide culminated into a fierce, dark, enormous head that looked almost black, making his horns look ivory. He stood bigger than most bulls and seemed even taller at his huge muscular shoulders growing into a solid hump. He scared the children and most adults.
He slowly walked around and David struggled to stand. He managed to get to the fence on his crutches and stood there looking at the bull that caused him so much grief. Satan lowered his head and ran out of the arena. The announcer came on, introduced Satan, and then introduced the young man who rode him. David waved one of his crutches in the air as the crowd cheered. After the rodeo, there was a dance, but David was still on the mend and wanted to go home. Juaquin came to get him and sang a song he learned on a Chris LeDoux album for him, “All Around Cowboy.” It made David smile and go to sleep. His rodeo days were behind him for a while. He couldn’t wait to get well enough to go back to his apartment and back to work. But on that time, the rest and Rusty time was what he needed.
The next day, a package showed up addressed to his mother. In it was a ceramic statue of a bull and a hammer. She could do whatever she wanted with them. After she laughed with him, she picked up the hammer, placed it on the mantle, then placed the bull right next to it. It would stay there for a very long time.
David got well fast; he soon was out of the cast and using a cane. With help, he got on Rusty but couldn’t rest his foot in the stirrup. He pulled it up so it wouldn’t hit his old friend and the big gentle horse took him for easy, slow rides. There was a big surprise on the ranch. Rusty sired a foal; he was a nice brown velvety color Sorrel with a white star on his forehead similar to Rusty’s marks. He was wrinkly and wobbly the day he was born. David wanted to call him Dan, but his dad said Old Dan and it stuck. Old Dan was a funny little guy and had a funny habit of herding the dogs and even Rusty around the pens. David fell in love with this little guy and was with him as much as he could be. Rusty was getting a little older and this horse was going to be a good ranching horse. He would come out on weekends to break Old Dan and eventually ride him out with his dad to tend to the cattle. Rusty didn’t seem to mind David riding on Old Dan. Some days, he liked to just stay in the pens and beg David’s mom for carrots.
Finally, David moved back to his apartment. He pretty much stuck to himself and worked and went to the ranch. He was still on his cane when his friends started to talk him into going to dances. Sometimes he went and sometimes he just stayed home. The silence was comforting and David still had attacks where he shook and had trouble catching his breath. No one knew and being alone helped. He would turn off the lights, open the curtains in the kitchen, and sit and look out at the stars with the window open, gulping in the fresh air. He would free his troubled mind and think about a late-night ride on Rusty.
The attacks would go away, but they were always followed by bad dreams and sleepless nights.
Chapter 5
It was almost a year before David could go back to the rodeo again. Rusty and Old Dan helped to rehabilitate him, but the fracture was slow to heal. He started to practice team roping with his friends and found that Rusty had a real knack for it. Old Dan wasn’t ready to ride so he was allowed in the pens just to practice. He was fun to watch and had more of a knack for it than Rusty. The boys would do team roping close to town. If they had to go out of town, David would make his excuses and stay home. He would then practice calf roping at home, hoping to make a comeback, but his injuries slowed him down a bit. Rodeo wasn’t the same for him. But he liked being there. He liked the people, the announcer, the judges, his parents, his friends, the horses, the livestock, even the cheeseburger at the snack shack. So, when he was needed, he would help out as a pickup man and even run the chute gate as long as it wasn’t a big bull like Satan in there. Staying home at the fairgrounds was more to his liking these days. He spent a lot of time at the ranch and started to write in his notebooks again. Healing was a two-part process, his bones and his head. Writing helped. He had healed enough to start going to the dances. He loved the old country music and cowboy songs and loved to two-step. Some of the girls there could d
ance and some were shy. He even asked a few to the dances. He liked it when his parents went. They were good dancers. He suspected they practiced a lot when he was a boy. He used to hear the big kitchen table slide across the floor and good country music would play softly. He never got up to look. He respected their privacy, but he was sure proud when they took to the floor. They were both getting close to sixty that time and looked great.
One day in August, David went to the rodeo and then to a dance afterwards. There were a lot of folks there that evening. People he hadn’t seen before. He and his buddies were having a beer by the door when he saw his mom coming his way. She looked very pretty that night with her hair down. She had a twinkle in her eye and was holding the hand of the most beautiful blonde girl he ever saw. She had her hair in a ponytail with a few strands streaming around her face. She had on a pretty pink dress and flat red shoes. In fact, she was the only one in the grange hall that didn’t have on cowboy boots. She had a curvy figure and the nicest blue eyes. He kissed his mom’s cheek and then she introduced them. Her name was Ruth. Such an old-fashioned name. His mom said she was the new teacher at the school, teaching ninth and tenth grade. She had taught in Denver but if she was here, her student loans would get paid. Ruth said she always wanted to live in a small town and everyone chuckled. They were bored in this town but she seemed to be so excited. The music started and David asked Ruth to dance. She shyly admitted to him that she didn’t know how to two-step but was willing to learn. After explaining the steps and demonstrating to her with his mom, Ruth and David went out on the dance floor. She caught on fast and he would tell her what it meant when he would press on her waist or shoulder and she was able to keep up. They spent the evening dancing and laughing. When the last song played, he walked her to her car and said good night. But as he opened her car door for her, he asked her if she would like to go out next week. There was a dance at the American Legion hall in Ramah, the next town to the east. She said yes and thanked him for making her feel welcome in town. David felt great as he walked the few blocks to his small apartment. When he got there, he didn’t turn on the lights. He just sat in the window and thought about the teacher he had just met. For the first time since he got home from Viet Nam three years ago, he didn’t feel like he couldn’t breathe, and for the first time in a year, his bull riding injuries didn’t hurt. He was almost thirty then and that night, he felt at peace with the world. He opened his drapes over his bed, looked at the stars like he did when he was a boy on the ranch, and fell asleep with a smile on his face.
The Winter's Trail Page 4