by Baxter Black
“If there was a path going in the direction of your affection it is my fervent hope that you would leave some sign that I might . . .”
Cooney faded into unconsciousness.
“He’s asleep,” said Stone.
“I think it is possible he is the two-sided man who wrote the first e-mail to me,” said Pica HawkFox.
A thoughtful pause ensued.
“Thank you for coming,” said Stone.
“You are . . .” Suddenly a sharp hiss of air like the relief valve on a venting steam pipe interrupted. “Excuse me!” said HawkFox, embarrassed. “Must have been the caviar!”
“Sheep ovaries,” corrected Stone but not out loud.
CHAPTER 28
August 22, Monday
Owyhee County, Idaho
Our two heroes rose and peeked outside the sweat lodge. The sky was clear; they were not. Lingering remnants of Stone’s aroma therapy and virtual colonic experience popped and gurgled. There was no sign of Stone.
They hosed off the dirt and soot at the back of his house, scraped up their own belongings, and took off. On a particularly hard crease in the gravel road back to the highway they thumped the shocks. It knocked a king-size wind pocket out of Straight’s shorts.
Reader, just a word about the amazing ability of a scent to bring back a memory in vivid focus. Walking by a crowd at a party and being tapped on the nostril by the fragrance of jungle gardenia takes you immediately back to your high school prom.
The smell of a dead mouse in the pantry brings to mind the first house you rented as a newlywed and having to hammer and crowbar your way through the drywall to extract the corpse.
Thus, one should not be surprised that when the familiar smell of ingested, digested, aerified prune punch, cabbage, and Anastazi beans engulfed Straight and Cooney, each was transported back to his own personal hallucination from the previous night.
Straight found himself mounted on Pegasus, and Cooney could feel the presence of a flying fox waiting for him to say something important.
Straight’s effusion was the first of many that particular morning. Fits of laughter verging on hysteria, pounding of the dashboard, revulsion, competition, evaluation for stench and distance, and daydreaming filled the tight pickup cab.
Somewhere down Highway 78 between Grand View and Murphey, Cooney ejected a bolus that actually fogged the windshield. Cooney was on a cloud choking in his own rankosity. Suddenly he found he had driven into the back of a bicycler! The biker seemed to be at the end of a long line of cyclists who were riding to raise money for a charity for victims of hay fever. Each was wearing a yellow ribbon with a red clown’s nose sniffing, snuffling, and sneezing in the pollen-infested breeze.
The bicycler flipped in front of Cooney and lay flat on the road. Cooney could feel his front tires, then his rear tires bounce over the body and the bike.
Cooney stopped in the middle of the road and ran back to the downed biker.
“Are you all right?” asked Cooney desperately.
“It’s here,” said the biker through his rough beard.
“Where?” asked Cooney.
The biker took Cooney’s wrist and stuffed the attached hand inside his shirt.
Cooney felt the soft rise of a woman’s breast.
“Can you feel it?” asked the biker.
Cooney could feel it all. “Yes,” he breathed.
“Then you know that you can speak freely.”
It was a woman’s voice. The bearded biker had become Pica D’TroiT. She put her hand over his and clutched it to her bosom. Her full lips pursed at him. It was like a flower blossoming. He could see her eyes fill with emotion. “Tell me, how you can be both?”
“Winged Fox Face,” he began, “I long for you, yet I do not know you. I am overwhelmed by your presence inside me. When I let my heart run with its own feelings it tries to escape from my body. My chest gets so tight I can hardly breathe. I am bursting to say to you every word that will make you love me . . .
“The other me takes over when I face the reality that you are just a dream, a lovely confection, a picture on a poster that is beyond my feeble ability to attain. I’m in a game of Texas hold ’em with a seven and a deuce. I realize I can win only in my imagination.”
She pressed his hand tighter; he leaned his face closer. Her inviting lips touched his. They were hairy. He was eye to eye with the bearded biker!
Straight sat straight up in the passenger seat to see the pickup crossing the opposite lane and heading toward a big turnout. Straight grabbed the steering wheel and aimed toward a large pile of road gravel.
Cooney came awake and hollered! The rig skidded to a stop, their own dust cloud overtaking them.
“What’s going on?” yelled Straight. “What’s that in your hand? My gosh, it looks like . . . it is. It’s one of Stone’s loincloths! Whoa, man, this is too much. Get out. Let me drive. I think you must have fell asleep at the wheel.”
“I was . . .” Cooney started but then looked puzzled. “She came to me in a dream.”
“Who?”
“She did, Pica. She came on a bicycle. It’s fuzzy, but it was good. She wants me to . . .” he paused.
“To what?” asked Straight.
“I don’t know. Except it was good. That’s the main thing. I’m gonna e-mail her. That’s what I’ll do.”
“Fine,” said Straight. “Just let me drive.”
CHAPTER 29
August 25–27
Kennewick, Washington,
to San Juan Capistrano Rodeo
The week had turned busy for Cooney and Straight. They were both up in the saddle bronc riding in Kennewick, Washington, on Wednesday. Cooney had bucked off, and Straight would eventually split third place. Cooney had ridden his bull but finished out of the money.
On Thursday they drove to Bremerton, Washington, across Puget Sound from Seattle. Cooney got hot and placed well in both the saddle bronc and the bulls. Straight’s good luck continued, and when they left for California Friday afternoon he was leading in the saddle broncs. They wouldn’t know how well they had placed until the all the performances were over that weekend.
The Seattle airport long-term parking area looked like a good place to lose your car. Cooney stuffed his war bag, which contained his rodeo gear, with a change of clothes and a dop kit.
Nothing was folded neatly.
Straight, in contrast, carried a suitcase with five starched shirts, two extra pairs of Wranglers, folded hankies, two silk scarves, underwear, socks, a hat brush, nose hair depilatory, and an iron. In his war bag he made sure he had a box of latex gloves, rub-on insecticide, a small bag of prunes, and a plastic container of flavored dairy coffee creamers.
They boarded flight 6988 to Los Angeles, which arrived at 5:55 p.m., then took a rental car to San Juan Capistrano, thirty miles south of the airport. San Juan Capistrano, residence of the homesick swallow, was host for the Rancho Mission Viejo Rodeo. Two of the richest rodeo days in the country. An “invitation-only” rodeo, if you will. Only the top thirty contestants in each event were invited. Each contestant had one chance at the big money. Fifteen were up on Saturday, fifteen on Sunday.
Its setting is unique. It is held on the show grounds east of town. Everything from the candelabra to the manure fork is brought in and assembled for the two-day event. The Rancho Mission Viejo Rodeo raises and donates hundreds of thousands of dollars to the community each year.
A grandstand for general seating is available on one side of the arena, but for the equestrian aristocracy of this generous community, nothing is spared to assure them that their platinum-level admission price will be worth it. They are hosted in an elaborate tent-covered viewing pavilion with three tiers of tables on the opposite side. Self-serve lavish dining, colorful sponsor pavilions, easy access, do
ilies in the portable toilets, single-malt scotch, añejo tequila, live-action television, gratuitous waiters, gracious hosts, and the best combination of cowboys and stock that money can buy make even the most strung-out real estate speculator feel like royalty. Queen Elizabeth would feel right at home.
The first-class accommodations are arranged so the most discerning can rest their elbow on a fine linen tablecloth and sip vino de pais while watching a bulldogger miss his steer and get crinkled like a paper cup under the tire of a passing Porsche Boxster.
Straight was entered in the saddle broncs on Saturday. He would do the OTT booth duty Sunday. Cooney drew his bull on Saturday and his saddle bronc on Sunday.
At 5:10 p.m. Saturday afternoon Straight leaned over a big blond monster of horse called Dos Semanas. He was pumped. He had ridden “Dos” three times, made money twice. Cooney was beside him on the catwalk.
Straight was straining, holding his breath, squinting his eyes.
“What’s the matter?” asked Cooney.
“Nuthin’.”
“You got a bellyache?” asked Cooney.
“No. I’m just . . . psychin’ up,” said Straight. About then a strangled toot escaped his Wranglers.
“Can you smell it?” asked Straight with a straight face.
“What? Yer gas?” asked Cooney, wrinkling his nose.
“Yeah. It’s what’s working, I think. The smell is supposed to take me back to the trance I was in at Stone’s sweat lodge. When I rode Pegasus.”
“What makes you think that’s what’s working?” asked Cooney, confused.
“I did it in Kennewick and Bremerton. Both times. Both times I rode good. It has changed my luck, Cooney. I mean it!” explained Straight with the seriousness of an ATF man reading you your rights.
“Well, I kin smell it all right, if that’s what you’re talkin’ about,” said Cooney.
“Good! I’ve been eating prunes, lots of fruit,” said Straight, satisfied.
“Yer up in two,” said Cooney.
Straight climbed into the chute and was soon in position, legs cocked, left arm lifting on the rein, and concentrating. Cooney was holding loosely to the back of Straight’s protective vest. The nod came. The gate swung open. The big horse pivoted to his left and catapulted into the arena, leaving a pocket of noxious gas in the space he had vacated.
Straight extended his legs with a snap, and his spurs caught on either side of Dos’s powerful neck.
Riding big horses is a different experience than riding small ones. If you are an equestrian you can relate even if your horse isn’t bucking! For starters, you’re so much higher off the ground. Whereas a small, quick horse can wiggle underneath you, shoot out from under you, and change directions like a water skipper, a big one just shrugs his shoulders and puts you into orbit. You often feel like you’re sitting on top of him like a frog on a car hood. There’s nothing to wrap your legs around.
And the impact of something so big hitting the ground sends seismic waves radiating up from your tailbone to the back of your skull, compressing your vertebrae and smashing your discs to the thickness of a Canadian dime. It’s how bronc riders pull muscles, tear tendons, and get hemorrhoids.
But Straight was on him like kudzu on a telephone pole. His rowels were there every time Dos peaked. He was never out of position, out of passion, or out of purpose.
From the spectator’s vantage point the ride was not as exciting to watch as some. The big horse was smooth and seemed to roll like a big wave on the open sea. But if you put sound effects to his rhythm, it would be like a wrecking ball banging on the side of an oil tanker ten feet below the water line.
They finished together, Dos and Straight, like the end of a symphony. The whistle blew. Straight swung gracefully from the back of the bronc to the pickup man, then dropped to the ground. He walked away from the smooth landing to the polite applause of the crowd. The judges scored it eighty-four points. By the end of the first day Straight was tied for the lead. He couldn’t have done better on Pegasus. Thank you, Stone.
If saddle bronc riding is a profession, bull riding is a job. Saddle bronc is a Cadillac Escalade SUV; bull riding is a two-year-old Dodge three-quarter-ton four-wheel drive with a cracked windshield and a winch on the front of a hand-made bumper. Saddle bronc is clean shaven; bull riding is Yosemite Sam. Saddle bronc is Straight Line; bull riding is Cooney Bedlam.
Cooney had been climbing steadily in the bull riding ranks as the summer progressed. He was in the groove. After helping Straight with his saddle bronc he dropped behind the chutes to get ready for the bull riding. From his war bag he unpacked his purple chaps. There were still visible mesquite scrapes on them from his cow-catchin’ fiasco with Lick Davis down in Benson. He put on his short-top bull riding boots. They had knife cuts in them, a patch on one toe, caked mud, and were a dull dirt color. They looked like a giant condor had eaten a bull rider and barfed up the indigestible parts.
His spurs, which stayed on his boots, were situated and tied on with strips of leather. He was still wearing the shirt he had on when they had departed the Seattle airport. He was saving his other one in the war bag “for good.”
Cooney draped his bull rope over a top rail, put on a left glove, and began rosining the handle and the tail of the rope. A no-slip grip was his objective. The rosin got hot and sticky. He checked the bell that was tied on the section of rope that lay against the bull’s belly.
Bull riding is not as complicated as saddle bronc riding. Nor as predictable, safe, intelligent (if you ask calf ropers), easy (if you ask PBR fans), or organized (as in, “I have a plan”).
If you could categorize the predictable modus operandi of all the saddle broncs that are respected and used in the PRCA rodeos, the differences between them could be measured in microns.
On the other hand, the differences in the “books” of the best bulls in the PRCA are measured in cowboy body lengths. Most bucking horses color inside the lines. Most bulls eat the coloring book.
Cooney’s draw this afternoon was a Falling U Rodeo Company bull named Cotton Ball. He was a short, all-black, wide-horned bucker with a skunk stripe down his back and a white switch on the end of his tail. He would give you a good ride, but he knew how to use his wicked horns.
The time came. Tension built. Soon Cotton Ball was in the chute in front of Cooney. With Straight’s help he pulled the tail of the bull rope through the loop on the other end and brought the tail back up on the left side.
The left palm of Cooney’s rosined leather glove lay snuggled underneath the braided handle of the bull rope. Coordinating the setting of the grip with the moment the chute director would give him the sign, Straight pulled the slack by hauling on the tail of the rope like a sailor pulling up an anchor.
“Good,” said Cooney.
Straight laid the tail of the flat, braided rope into Cooney’s palm on top of the handle. In a flurry of activity Cooney took the tail of the rope, wrapped it around the back of his hand, twisted it in his palm, and pulled the tail of the rope up between his little and ring fingers. He closed his fist, pounded it with his right hand, shook the tail out of the way, scooted up on his left hand, looked at the bull’s poll, and nodded his head.
It took Cotton Ball only two quick jumps to get into his plan. His front and hind legs pumped up and down like a seesaw as he spun in a tight circle to his left, into Cooney’s hand. What the bull lacked in size and power he made up for in velocity—rpms.
Cooney sat perfectly balanced on Cotton Ball’s fulcrum as the bull rose and fell, whirled and spun. Cooney’s legs worked automatically, his left squeezing on the inside, his right spur reaching and grabbing as if in synchrony with the bull’s choreography. He kept his upper body over his rope and used his right hand like a tightrope walker’s gyroscope.
Watching from the stands it didn’t look very smoo
th. The jarring of the hooves and the jerking of the centrifugal force seemed to be whipping Cooney around on top of the bull. But in the driver’s seat Cooney was anticipating each pound and pull, each crash and acceleration, and was able to keep his seat.
Mind you, it wasn’t easy. It took a strong left arm and legs like steel springs to hold himself in the center of the centrifuge. But when everything was working right he could have been sitting on a lazy Susan in the eye of a hurricane.
Outside his vacuum he heard the buzzer. Cooney released his grip, thinking the bull might pull out of his counterclockwise turn, straighten up, and allow him to bail out on the left side. Cotton Ball, however, was not done. Cooney’s right shoulder hit the edge of the wind tunnel and was slammed back. His butt slid rearward, as did his legs, but his hand didn’t come free.
Cotton Ball’s head end pitched down, and his rump rose up, catching Cooney’s body and throwing it forward! Cooney’s hand came loose as he cartwheeled across the bull. He landed in a sitting position between the horns, a juicy hood ornament. The bull’s powerful neck muscles flexed and launched our hapless cowboy into orbit!
Cooney’s back hit the rump of the bull. The bull kicked high and sailed Cooney off the bull’s tailhead into a complete backward flip. A moment captured on high-speed film showed Cooney in midair, four feet off the ground, parallel to it, in the flying-Superman prone position, eye level to the departing bull’s upraised tail.
The picture would become famous in rodeo bloopers, America’s Funniest Animals, and Animals First! Magazine under its popular feature, “Serves You Right!” The picture was captioned “Eye to Eye!”
In the wink of a bull’s eye Cooney completed the remaining 180 degrees and landed on the back of his head in the soft arena dirt.
Snorty Ruefelt, rodeo bullfighter, handed Cooney his hat and dusted him off. “That was one of the best!” he said.