Handful of Sky

by Cates, Tory

  Shallie squirmed under the onslaught of jealousy, an emotion she had little previous knowledge of. As Trish rounded the arena and rode off, the spotlight abruptly swung upward, blinding Shallie.

  “Welcome, won’t you please,” Slick Bridgers requested, “the contractor for this year’s ten-day performance of the Albuquerque rodeo, Mr. Rodeo himself, Jake McIver.” Jake stood and bowed.

  “Jake,” the announcer continued, “is like the coach of the opposing team. He’s brought in all the fine stock which will be roped and ridden by the many cowboys who have entered.”

  Jake leaned over and pulled Walter and Shallie up out of their seats. “We have Walter Larkin and his niece Shallie to thank for the fine roping calves being used tonight.” A cheer went up from the many old friends Walter had made over his long years with rodeo. It was swelled by the cheers from the new friends Shallie had added to their numbers.

  She sank back into her chair, grateful for the return of darkness and anonymity. Well, Hunt would certainly know where she was now. Which only meant that it would hurt that much worse when he didn’t come to her.

  The lights came back on and Shallie saw that all the broncs had been loaded. Pegasus was in chute five. Her horse looked like an aristocrat among peasants, trying to remain aloof and take no notice of the commoners around him.

  She recognized a few of the cowboys rigging up. She’d never seen any of them in person before, since their world of professional rodeo and Shallie’s of amateur rarely intersected. But their faces were familiar from Pro Rodeo Sports News. Jesse Southerland, the man who’d taken the bareback-riding title from Hunt, was limbering up his tightly wound body. He was known for his feline quickness, his sharp features reflecting a twitchy alertness.

  A spot of flaming auburn hair told Shallie that the current Rookie of the Year, Emile Boulier, would be competing as well. The red-haired cowboy from Canada had made many friends during his first year on the circuit, and Shallie could understand why, watching him share a joke and a smile with another cowboy.

  But neither man was the reason Shallie was scanning each face behind the chutes. When she didn’t find the high-planed face she sought, Shallie decided that Hunt’s fears about riding in front of a crowd had overwhelmed him. Then she noticed a cluster of young women wearing designer jeans, fur jackets, hats with elaborate bands, and boots made from a variety of exotic species waiting by the entryway behind the chutes. Buckle bunnies, Shallie thought, amused by her first glimpse of professional rodeo groupies. They were more attractive and much more slickly turned out than their country cousins whom she’d encountered at amateur rodeos. Shallie imagined, though, that they all had the same motivation for sneaking back behind the chutes—to meet a rodeo hero. Their ultimate goal was a buckle, a championship buckle bestowed by the champion himself. That was their prize and badge of distinction. How they acquired it was their business.

  Shallie smiled, thinking of the girls’ misguided drive for adventure and hoping that they’d find genuine outlets for it someday. But her smile withered when she saw the outlet the buckle bunnies had found—Hunt McIver.

  With what struck Shallie as merely a show of gentlemanly courtesy, Hunt, his rigging bag slung over his shoulder, pushed patiently past the coquettes in jeans. He swung up on the planks behind Pegasus’s chute. Excitement surged through Shallie at the prospect that Hunt and the blue roan were to meet again. It flickered out as Hunt moved down the catwalk to chute six. He hadn’t drawn Pegasus after all.

  Jake McIver’s attention as well had been drawn to the blue roan. “Hey, that’s not my horse in chute five.”

  “Well, it used to be,” Walter remarked drily. “That’s the horse you traded Shallie for. Hunt asked me to bring it. Made a special request.”

  Jake McIver settled back in his chair, a disgruntled expression creasing his features.

  “Worried, Jake?” Walter asked with a chuckle. “Think that horse you took those dogging steers for might not brighten Circle M’s reputation?”

  Shallie ignored her uncle’s good-natured needling, knowing that both men were in for a surprise. Shallie felt her uncle grow a bit tenser with each rider. She knew he was anticipating the humiliation to come if Pegasus wasn’t everything she’d promised. She could understand his anxiety. Being bested in a horse trade hurt, but to be bested by Jake McIver was pure misery.

  “In chute five,” Slick Bridgers called in a singsong fashion, “a horse called Pegasus. Emile Boulier, a cowboy from way up north, will be trying to ride the winged horse. Emile is our Rookie of the Year and has earned a reputation as a tough, tough bronc rider. So, old Pegasus probably won’t be flying too high tonight.”

  Don’t listen to him, Shallie mentally urged the blue roan. Show everyone that you deserve your name. She scooted to the edge of her seat and studied Boulier’s expression as he settled onto Pegasus’s blue-mottled back. He had the iron-hard look that habitual winners wore. Shallie tried to sense what Pegasus was feeling. It was his first time in an arena, his first time under the bright lights and scrutiny of thousands of people. He might stall out. Emile Boulier might subdue him. The magic Shallie had seen in the moonlight might not work beneath a concrete dome. Then the gate flew open and Pegasus bolted into the arena with a mad flying leap.

  The magic was there all right.

  Boulier’s hat flew off, as if a giant hand had jerked it from his red head when Pegasus’s hooves hit the earth. The instant after he contacted dirt for the first time, Pegasus launched himself into a shattering series of arcs that had the crowd gasping in disbelief. The arena lights flashed in Pegasus’s eyes. He caught the reflections and hurled them back as bolts of lightning.

  Boulier was good, there was no doubt of that. He clung to Pegasus’s back like a saddle burr, riding with a powerful, rolling style. For a second it seemed Pegasus recognized his command and was bowing to it. But with a cleverness even Shallie hadn’t counted on, Pegasus tucked into a spinning buck that pivoted around a tight circle. Centrifugal force unseated Boulier and he slid off his rigging. Pegasus made one more jump for a moon he couldn’t see, and the Canadian cowboy was hurled to the ground. The moment the man with gall enough to attempt to inflict his dominance on him was gone, Pegasus once more became the regally unconcerned equine aristocrat. Boulier got to his feet and watched as Petey, who was working as a pickup man, herded Pegasus away. The cowboy shook his red head in admiration at the horse’s performance.

  Shallie leaned back in her seat, exhaling the breath she’d been holding. Uncle Walter pounded her back, pulling her to him for a crushing bear hug. “We’re going to the National Finals,” he whooped. “We’ve finally got a chance. Damn, I wish John was here.”

  “You rooked me!” Jake McIver exploded.

  “Rooked you?” Walter echoed. “Don’t forget, Jake, that’s the same horse you were embarrassed to have as part of your string just a minute ago.”

  Shallie almost expected McIver to throw both her and her uncle out of his box. He seemed dangerously intent upon something. Finally, he burst out, “I can’t remember the last time anyone got the better of me in a horse trade. And I’ve traded with the biggest crooks going. Just goes to show, you’re never too old to learn.”

  Shallie was relieved that McIver had decided to dismiss the whole affair as an expensive lesson. She would not like to have been the object of Jake McIver’s wrath. On the other hand, she doubted that he would enjoy publicizing the fact that anyone, much less a woman, had outtraded him.

  Hunt was already settling down onto the back of his mount when Shallie returned her attention to the arena. His expression bothered her. It was too tight, too controlled. He looked as if he believed that with such rigidity he could imprison the haunting specter of past rides, when a cheering crowd had turned suddenly cool and silent.

  Relax, Shallie wanted to shout across the coliseum. Forget about the crowd. Remember that moonlit ride. Remember . . . but Hunt’s horse, a big bay, was already lunging into the arena. Hunt’
s spurs were planted high, right where he’d instructed his students to place them, well over the bronc’s shoulders. The horse was a solid, steady bucker and Hunt put a solid, steady ride on him. It was a commendable performance, one most bronc riders would give their favorite riding glove to produce. But it lacked the fire and verve even of Hunt’s performance as the Mystery Rider at that first rodeo.

  The buzzer sounded and Petey rode alongside his boss. Hunt reached out and grabbed Petey’s waist, levering himself off the horse’s back. In one fluid motion, he rolled across the back of Petey’s horse and dropped safely on the other side.

  “All right, ladies and gentlemen, we just saw the first ride of the season for Hunt McIver, a four-time world champion in the bareback, who’s been having a spell of bad luck lately. The judges tell me that Hunt has scored a very respectable seventy-nine for that ride.”

  There was a smattering of unenthusiastic applause. Hunt’s face was drawn in disgust as tightly as if he’d bucked off.

  “A seventy-nine!” Jake McIver spat out the score. “He won’t even stay in the money with a puny score like that, much less burn up the glory trail to the National Finals.”

  Shallie felt her internal temperature rise by several degrees. “You know, Jake,” she blurted out, unable to restrain the angry torrent, “I gave you credit for knowing people, but you must not know the first thing about your grandson if you think he rides for money or glory.”

  “Oh?” Jake questioned, one eyebrow shooting up quizzically. “Maybe you’d better tell me why else a man risks his neck on the back of a bronc then.”

  “No,” Shallie answered, more to herself than to Jake McIver’s question. “I think I’d better tell Hunt.” She was the only one who’d seen him ride Pegasus, seen him turn bronc riding into an art that transcended both man and beast. She alone—not the buckle bunnies, not the agents, not the fickle fans, not even Trish Stephans. Only she had the key that might help him unlock again the strongbox of his potential. As she made her way down the concrete ramp leading to the bucking chutes, she heard the crowd go wild in a frenzy of applause.

  “What a way to start off our second section of bronc riding,” Slick Bridgers shrilled. “That was some ride just put on by last year’s bareback champion, Jesse Southerland. An eighty-four! Looks like we’ll be seeing Jesse in Las Vegas again this year.”

  “Congratulations, Jesse. Good ride.” Hunt’s deep voice rose above the din behind the chutes. As Shallie turned the corner, his broad back was to her and he was extending his hand to Jesse Southerland. Trish, still resplendent in her black velvet outfit, clung to Hunt’s arm.

  A mean and wary look haunted Southerland’s hatchet-shaped face. He cautiously extended his hand as if fearing that Hunt intended to crush it. “Thanks, McIver.” He dropped Hunt’s hand after a perfunctory shake and quickly turned away.

  Trish, however, grabbed the victorious Southerland before he could leave. “And congratulations from me too,” she gushed, in a voice a couple of octaves higher than her normal range. Instead of a handshake, Trish embraced Southerland and kissed him squarely on the mouth. She stepped back, groping for Hunt’s arm. Southerland leered his appreciation. Shallie was turning to retreat when Trish’s artificially high voice trilled out.

  “Shallie, have you come to congratulate Jesse on his wonderful ride too?”

  Slowly Hunt turned toward her. Bands of steel seemed to be tightening around Shallie’s chest, making it hard for her to breathe. “Hello, Shallie.” His greeting was both cool and warmly intimate, as though there were no one else around.

  “Hello, Hunt.” For Shallie, in that moment, there was no one else around. Minutes, hours, days passed in the fraction of a second that their eyes met. Then she became aware again of Jesse Southerland and Trish. Trish was beaming expectantly at her. Shallie knew she had to deliver the words expected of her.

  “Congratulations, Jesse. And Trish. You must be very proud.”

  “Oh, I am,” Trish said enthusiastically, with more high-voltage animation than she’d ever displayed around Shallie before. “But it’s not really pride in myself. It’s pride in all of rodeo and all the wonderful people who have chosen me to represent their sport.”

  The words rang as false as a teenage beauty queen’s acceptance speech. They had the canned quality of a spiel that had been rehearsed many times in front of a mirror. Still, an exuberant glow surrounded Trish like an aura. Her skin was flushed with excitement and Shallie had to admit that she was a rare beauty. As Trish snuggled closer to Hunt, Shallie’s heart sank. She wanted to run away but reminded herself that she hadn’t come to make any bids for Hunt McIver’s attentions, nor had she come out of the kind of false love of rodeo which Trish had just mouthed. Hers was genuine and it compelled her to speak.

  “Hunt”—she forced herself to address him—“may I speak with you for a moment?”

  “Go on ahead, we’re all friends here,” Trish cooed. “Aren’t we, Jesse?”

  Southerland’s lips slid back in a hungry grin in answer to Trish’s flirtatious question.

  Shallie made a silent appeal to Hunt. He acknowledged it. “I was just getting ready to throw my gear into my truck. Come on out with me.”

  “I’ll be waiting right here for you, Hunt,” Trish called after them. “Maybe Jesse will be nice enough to keep me company.”

  “I’ll see you in Jake’s box,” Hunt called over his shoulder as they made their way up the ramp. “Why don’t you go on up and show him the crown he won for you?” Trish didn’t answer. She already had her arm twined through Southerland’s.

  Coming from the clamor inside, the night was still and cool. Behind them was the track where races were run each fall during the state fair. Beyond that were the Sandias, cold blue sentries guarding the horizon.

  “What was it you needed to talk with me about?” Hunt’s question was crisp, as if nothing other than a commercial transaction between two contractors had ever taken place between them. In her mind, Shallie knew that nothing of any more significance to Hunt had happened. It was her own heart, however, that she couldn’t convince otherwise.

  “The way you rode tonight—”

  “I know,” Hunt interrupted. “Jake could have done better and he probably told you as much. At least I didn’t bail out or get bucked off.”

  “But you didn’t ride the way you could have either. I know that and so do you. You rode with your head and your hand. That night I saw you on Pegasus, you rode with your heart. You were so in touch with him that he couldn’t have made a move that would have surprised you. You were ahead of him on every jump. That’s the way you should be riding, Hunt. Forget the crowd. Forget your reputation. Do what you tell your students to, tune in to the horse.”

  The leather rigging landed in the back of Hunt’s pickup with a thud. For a long moment they listened to the sound of Slick Bridgers’s voice and the cheers of the crowd echoing out across the parking lot. Shallie sensed that she’d affected Hunt, probably angered him. It didn’t matter. She’d had to tell him, not for his sake so much as for the sake of rodeo, to ensure that the sport was all it could ever be. She didn’t regret her words.

  Hunt leaned against the truck, sorting out his feelings. “No one has ever told me what you just have, has ever bothered, or dared, to be that honest with me.”

  That part was easy and clear-cut to Hunt. Her words had rung in his head with the same clarity as the most honest of his own thoughts. The part that was confused was how he wanted to react. He kept remembering how she had tasted, her lips warm against his. How her arms had felt wrapping around his neck when she was beneath him, quivering with the pleasure they’d shared. As strongly as he wanted to feel her against him again, he wanted to push her from him. To repel the memory of her strange coldness that morning at the Driskill Hotel.

  Hunt was unfamiliar with confusion. His life usually followed a fairly direct line between desire and fulfillment. He thought about the buckle bunnies who’d accosted him earlier,
about the fresh young faces looking for the most meager hint of attention from him and willing to barter their bodies to get it. Perhaps there had been too many exchanges like that in his life, one too many mornings when he couldn’t get his pants on and clear out fast enough. Maybe that was why, when he’d awoken that morning wanting nothing more in the world than to hold her, her coldness had bitten so deeply. She had such a strong will in such a small, soft body. He’d known other wills encased in bodies equally alluring. The smartest course for him to take, Hunt decided reluctantly, would be to thank her for her advice and leave.

  Shallie sensed Hunt preparing to speak. She edged away, expecting him to blast her for butting into his affairs and presuming to tell him how to ride broncs.

  “Thanks for caring enough to tell me that. You’re absolutely right.”

  Shallie looked up, her bottom lip dropping in surprise.

  It was the tiny quiver of her lip that undid Hunt’s resolve. It drew his own lips down, pulling them to that thin sliver of vulnerability. Shallie was as surprised as Hunt that their lips would ever find one another again. But beyond that instant of surprise, no further thoughts registered in either mind.

  “Let’s get out of here.” Hunt held the door open and Shallie slid in. He drove without direction until he found a long stretch of highway that rose steadily uphill. At its crest, they looked out and found the lights of Albuquerque like diamonds strewn at their feet.

  He turned off the motor and silence blanketed them both. Shallie watched the winking pinpoints of light and listened to Hunt’s steady, even breathing. A gust of wind howled up the long valley and rattled the truck.

  “I’ve always loved rodeo,” Hunt began, as though voicing the preamble to a larger statement, then he stopped.