Dream Wheels

by Richard Wagamese

  “There’s coffee,” Joe Willie said.

  “I’ll get to it. The smoke’s good for now.”

  “You anxious?”

  “About what?”

  “Bulls.”

  “Not from here.”

  They laughed.

  “We start today,” Joe Willie said.

  “Good.”

  “Nervous?”

  “I guess.”

  “It won’t be what you think.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ll see. You’ll need to coffee up. And eat. It’s a long day.”

  Aiden took a long haul on the smoke and turned to look at the bulls again. They’d drifted farther into the pasture and the distance made them look softer, amiable almost. “All right,” he said.

  Joe Willie nodded. “All right,” he said.

  The thing about bulls, Birch figured, was that they never learned the difference between horizontal and vertical. It was all the same direction to them. Once you got up on them there wasn’t any consideration of gravity or the general restraints of physics. They were plumb mayhem. It made reading them impossible. Even the ones you drew before, the ones you rode a handful of times, could surprise you with a new twist, spin or crazy elevation. They could learn. That was the amazing thing. He’d seen a bull change from one ride to another. When you drew a bull a few times it sometimes felt like he knew you before you slid down onto his back. Like he recognized your weight, the pressure of your legs, the feel of your knuckles through the back of your gloved hand or the bony point of your arse. A cowboy could feel that knowing, sense it in the calm wait of the bull in the chute. No bawling, horn tossing, showing off or the leaning in they sometimes did to crush your legs against the rails or stomping the feet and shimmying the loose folds of their skin to unsettle you. Nope. At a time like that a bull was stone and you could slap him all you wanted with your free hand and you couldn’t get him to stir. That’s when you knew you were in trouble. Stone-cold bull. Well read and dangerous. When a bull had a read on a man there was only ever going to be one winner. Unless the cowboy up on him was special or just plain dumb lucky.

  He leaned on the corral watching the stock mill about and waiting for the kid and Lionel to appear. He hadn’t been on a bull for years. Still, it was something you held on to, something irreplaceable, world-changing and mysterious as discovering you could lie. It took a powerful heap of doing to rig up on a bull. Birch had always had the heart for it, but that particular magic that makes champions didn’t exist in him. He only carried the love of it. The bruises and breaks were a rite of passage to a world most people never got the chance to feel or even comprehend: a brutal, unpredictable world inhabited by laconic, drawling men who spit courage as easily as tobacco chaw. Birch could never really leave it, and bringing someone to it, introducing them to the spectacular nature of it, seeing them move from awe to admiration, never failed to make him smile.

  “Mite relaxed for a working man,” Lionel said.

  Birch turned to greet his father. “Where’s the kid?”

  “Don’t know. Said he’d be here.”

  “Likely nervous.”

  “Likely. He rode some good yesterday, though.”

  They leaned against the rail to study the bulls together. “Pick out four, I imagine,” Lionel said. “Ought to be enough for one day.”

  “There won’t be any bull riding today.”

  They turned to see Joe Willie stumping toward them. Aiden and Claire were with him.

  “What’s that you say, son?” Birch asked.

  “I said there won’t be any riding today. Not for him.”

  Birch and Lionel exchanged looks. “Young fella wants to learn to ride a bull,” Lionel said.

  “Then that’s what he’ll get. But he’ll earn it first.”

  “What are you talking about, son?” Birch asked.

  “I’m training him.”

  “Training him?”

  “That’s right. And there won’t be any rigging up today.”

  “Wait a minute,” Aiden said. “We agreed. We made a deal.”

  “Deal we made was truck for bulls,” Joe Willie said.

  “Yeah. So why aren’t I riding?”

  “You’ll ride when you’re ready to ride.”

  “I’m afraid I’m a little lost here, boy,” Lionel said. “What’s going on?”

  “Turns out Pretty Boy Floyd here’s a mechanical genius,” Joe Willie said. “Figures he can get the old girl on the road again. So we made a deal. I teach him not to kill himself and he teaches me how to fix up the truck.”

  “So how come there’s no riding today?” Birch asked.

  “He ain’t ready to ride.”

  “What are you talking about?” Aiden said. “You saw me ride that bull.”

  “I saw you ride a tame bull that a toddler could ride. I saw you stretch dumb luck out for eight seconds.”

  “Dumb luck?” Aiden stepped up close to Joe Willie.

  Joe Willie took the same measured step toward him and they stood face to face while the others watched. “Dumb luck,” Joe Willie said slowly.

  “Bullshit.”

  “A handful of videos and a jailhouse attitude won’t make a rider out of you, kid.”

  “Did so far. Got you to make this deal.”

  “What got me to make this deal was the truck. That’s all I care about.”

  “You’ll get your truck, but I want to ride.”

  “When you’re ready.”

  “When’s that?”

  “When I say.”

  “You said it starts today.”

  “I said it won’t be what you think.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  Joe Willie held the hard look but stepped back, then turned to the corral and pointed to the bulls milling about as though sensing the tension in the air. He hooked one boot heel on the bottom rail. “It means you need cowboy muscle to do a cowboy job. You’re gonna need a stronger back and shoulders and arms and legs than you ever believed. Mucking out stalls is good for that. So is tossing bales, stacking oat stacks and pulling fence. Cowboy work. That’s what’ll get you ready.”

  “That wasn’t part of our deal.”

  “I’m afraid it was.”

  “How so?”

  “You do everything I say. No questions, no attitude. That was our deal.”

  Aiden looked at Claire.

  “Don’t look at her,” Joe Willie said. “You want to be a cowboy, be a cowboy. Mama can’t help you with that. There’s no shortcuts, kid, and from right now you’re a working cowboy.”

  “Is this really the best way?” Claire asked. “Shouldn’t he train specifically?”

  “He is,” Joe Willie said. “Riding bulls is a tradition. It came from all this. Everything you see around you. This life. When you cowboy, your focus comes from there, from the sense of that tradition, that heritage. The best cowboys, the best riders have that focus. But you gotta live it to get it.”

  “So he’s going to train by doing ranch work?” Claire asked.

  “You cowboy from the ground up.”

  “What do you mean?” Aiden asked.

  “I mean it’s the land. The dirt,” Joe Willie said. “You get you a feel for that and it never leaves you. It gets in your lungs, your nose, in the creases of your hands, the lines on your face. When you ride bulls it gets in the seat of your pants, the flat of your back, or sometimes you face-plant hard, right into it. But you come to love that dirt because you work in it every day. It’s how you breathe. Good cowboy’s gotta have that in him. Only way to get it is by getting down in the dirt and learning how to love it. Marce brought you here to work. That’s what you’re gonna do.”

  “When do I ride?”

  “When you cowboy up.”

  “When’s that?”

  Joe Willie gave him a level look. “You’ll know,” he said. “We’ll all know.”

  Ranches exist beyond the stretch of ordinary time. Even
Wolf Creek was prone to the same casual slouch. There were seasons for everything and time had a slippery quality, a greasy-in-the-hands feel that lent itself to an unfolding of events that surprised a person with the easy suddenness of their return. Ranch people stayed busy through the tide of a year, and the markers that announced time passing were as familiar as old friends on a country road, something to wave at, smile and maintain direction. So changes in routine were shocking. Time slid to a stop in a spray of dust like the hooves of a roped steer. Victoria considered that as she watched her men heading out onto the flat plain of the ranch. Behind her Johanna rattled dishes as she collected them off the table, busying herself, giving hers elf a distraction to arrange thoughts around. When she brought them over to the sink the two women stood looking quietly out the window.

  “Worried?” Johanna asked.

  “No,” Victoria said. “Awed some but not worried.”

  “Me neither.”

  “I wonder about her, though.”

  “Claire?”

  “Yes. I wonder what there is for her in all this. Something beyond the way a mother’s supposed to feel when her young find a way to fly.”

  “That’s not enough?”

  “Generally. But she found us for a reason. A reason beyond the boy, beyond a dream of horses, and I’m perplexed. It’s all so clear. Everything but that.”

  Johanna arranged the dishes in the sink for washing later. She ran the water until the last edge of porcelain bobbed under, then eddied it with her finger, watching the bubbles stir, break and disappear. “When you talk to her she drinks everything in. Like she’s open,” she said. “And that could fool you some, make you think she’s got all the blocks arranged. Like she’s formed and you’re only adding to the foundation. But there’s a hole there.”

  Victoria nodded. “Shame. She’s so beautiful. Strong, smart, independent. Like a horse. But she’s hobbled somehow. You can see it.”

  “She has a way with them, the horses, a gentleness you can’t teach, as though she understands a bit between the teeth.”

  “That’s it,” Victoria said, snapping her fingers. “It’s what I never recognized.”

  “What?” Johanna asked.

  “I never seen a horse put the bit on itself.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean she hasn’t let herself run for some time now. Free, all out, natural. She’s the one who hobbled herself. For the boy. Everything’s been for the boy. She drinks everything in because she’s thirsty, she wants it to fill her like you said.”

  “Fill her with what, Mother?”

  Victoria smiled and laid a hand on Johanna’s wrist. “Recollection. The remembering of what it’s like to be a woman—free, all out, natural. Generally, women are my age when they get to that, and it’s just age that eases things away. Young ones like her make a choice not to celebrate themselves.”

  The two women continued to look out the window, and when Claire entered the kitchen they turned together and greeted her warmly, knowingly.

  He’d spent the morning mucking out stalls and the afternoon whitewashing the rails on the back corral while his mother enjoyed a long ride up the ridge behind the ranch. Now, as late afternoon came, he was tossing hay bales into the stock pens. The two-handed motion made the muscles in his back and shoulders ache. They felt bruised. The forking, shovelling and painting hadn’t seemed like much in the beginning, but he could feel the effects now with even the smallest movement. The ache itself angered him, and he worked harder, faster, determined to show his resilience. Joe Willie had appeared every now and then throughout the day to watch him work, and it galled Aiden to see the smug satisfaction on the cowboy’s face as he sweated through the chores. Now he could see him approaching from the main barn with his mother, who was leading a horse.

  “You want to talk to them when you do that,” Joe Willie told him.

  “Why?”

  “They like it.”

  “I’m supposed to rap to a steer because he’ll like it?”

  “Strange but true, greenhorn.”

  Aiden mumbled something about figuring slavery had ended a long time back while he pitched the next bale over the rail. Amazingly the steers bawled back. Or at least it sounded like they did. He shook his head and hurried to finish.

  “So what’s chow tonight?” he asked. “I’m so hungry I could eat one of these buggers raw.”

  “We’ll find that out when we get there. Grandma’s gonna keep it warm for us,” Joe Willie said.

  Aiden turned from the corral and stared at him. Then he shifted his gaze to Claire, who stood quietly with her hand on the horse’s neck. “Why am I not liking the sound of this?” he asked. “What are we doing if we’re not having supper?”

  “Going for a walk.”

  “What’s the horse for?”

  “I’m carrying water,” Claire said. “I don’t know where we’re going.”

  “See that peak up there?” Joe Willie pointed to a sheer rock cliff facing west.

  “Yeah,” Aiden said carefully.

  “We’re walking up to that peak.”

  “You don’t walk up a mountain.”

  “We do.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you only worked the top part of you today. Now we’re gonna work your legs and your lungs. Walking up that mountain’s the best thing for them,” Joe Willie said.

  “There’s gotta be something illegal about that kind of cruelty,” Aiden said. “Look at that thing. It’s almost straight up.”

  “That’s why I have the horse,” Claire said.

  “Three of us can’t ride that horse,” Aiden said.

  “Only her,” Joe Willie said. “I wouldn’t ask a woman to try to walk up that sumbitch. It’s not polite.”

  “But asking me to is real mannerly?” Aiden asked.

  “You can’t train for bulls like anything else, kid. You can’t lift weights for strength. What you need is long, wiry muscle built for endurance but tough as steel. Walking up that mountain will build those legs up.”

  “I’m not climbing that thing.”

  “Scared?”

  “No. Sensible.”

  Joe Willie nodded. “Scared.”

  “Look, I’m not scared. It’s just crazy.”

  “You calling me crazy?”

  “No.”

  “That’s good, because I do it every night. As much as I can stand, anyway. But you’re right, it’s probably too much for you. You wouldn’t be able to handle it. I’ll think of something else a little easier for you.”

  “I could do it,” Aiden said. “I could do that easy.”

  “Nah. You don’t have the focus. You’re a city kid, a greenhorn. Forget it,” Joe Willie said. He turned to Claire. “Do you mind riding along behind me tonight while I do it?”

  “No. It’s probably really nice on horseback,” she said with a smile.

  “It is. It’s really a horse trail. A trail like that is only meant for horses. Way too steep and the footing’s too loose for two-leggeds. It goes up awhile then sweeps back down then up again so that we’ll have to stop and recinch that saddle for you. The inclines pull your weight either forward or back and she’ll get loose real quick. Kinda dangerous riding. You got yourself an endurance saddle there. Lighter. Easier on the horse in that kinda terrain. Generally only horses and mountain goats get up there, but it’s beautiful. Especially when you get to the cliff.”

  “You made it that far?” Aiden asked.

  Joe Willie rubbed his bad leg and grimaced slightly. “Not yet. But I will. It’s in my head to do it and I’ll get there. And it’s how you start earning the right to rig up on a bull.”

  “The tests of Hercules?” Aiden asked.

  “Something like that.”

  “Well if you can do it, then I sure can.”

  “You think so?”

  “I know so.”

  “Let’s do it, then,” Joe Willie said.

  “Damn straight,” Aiden s
aid.

  The trail, if it could even be called that, was a rounded, twisting, gravelly seam that climbed up through the trees and boulders. The angles were severe in places and the footing was hazardous, the clumps of rock and sand made every placing of a foot a challenge, and Aiden often found himself reaching for shrubs, overhanging branches or the trunks of trees for anchor. He could hear the rattle and grate of sliding detritus behind him every time he pushed upward another step. It was a mountain-goat trek as far as Aiden could determine, and pushing up it was an agony of the sort he’d never encountered. Each step called for a push with the thighs and the butt, and now and then he had to straddle his legs out wide to find the purchase to keep climbing. He felt the strain on muscles he’d never known he had. His lower back ached from being hunched over, and each reaching back with the elbows pulled severely at his shoulders. Breathing became a challenge. Only the horse seemed able to navigate without any discomfort, and Claire rode cautiously but steadily in the saddle.

  After a few hundred yards the trail levelled out some into a shady stretch of rock bits and pine needles, and they eased up the pace. The trail continued to climb but it was lazier here, easier walking.

  Joe Willie signalled to Claire and she handed down a pair of canteens. The two of them leaned on trees to drink and douse their heads. The sun flooded the slope with rose and orange hues. Somewhere birds twittered and the sound of the wind against the brush and bramble was like a hushed whispering. Looking out to the west they could see the ranch below them, the outbuildings given a hard glow by the intensity of the setting sun.

  “It shines,” Claire said.

  “It’s mighty pretty,” Joe Willie answered.

  “Is this your favourite view?” she asked.

  “No. Up there,” he said, hooking a thumb up at the cliff that towered over them. “Can see it all from there. There’s a meadow I used to ride to all the time to watch the sun go down. It’s like a balcony overlooking the world.”

  “Will we see it tonight?”

  “No,” Joe Willie said. “It’s a hell of a climb.”

  “You saying I’m not up to it?” Aiden asked.

  “What I’m saying is that it’s a hell of a climb. What you just experienced is only the first push. There’s more like it. Harder, even. I been trying for a while now and I ain’t walked up it yet.”