Blue Rodeo

by Jo-Ann Mapson

  “Not hardly. Well, his friends notice the old ranger dude moping around, not doing his jobs so good anymore, they kid him about it, call him Hangdog, Mister Blue, stuff like that until man goes a little crazy and moves away to get free of the teasing. He’s a lazy white man, though, and only goes one town away, here, in Blue Dog, and can’t find no work on account of his laziness. People see him always walking around downtown talking to himself. Pretty soon he’s famous, and people start calling the town that place where old Blue Dog hangs out.”

  She sipped her tea, which in the time it had taken Joe to tell the story had lost its warmth and tasted like tepid sage. “Joe, that is a pretty lame tale, even for you.”

  He smiled, the silver tooth just showing its tip. “Maggie, the truth is, there ain’t no one legend. You make up whatever story works good for you when you need it. It can be one of them sad stories where old ladies go to twisting hankies, or it can be the big old windy kind I like to spin. Some things happen you can’t do nothing about, but mostly it’s your choice and you can do a little something, even if it ain’t no more than make a cup of tea.”

  On Thursday nights they were regular dining partners. Enchiladas and salsa so hot sometimes her lips felt blistered, but in a good way, as if shocking her taste buds awake. Sometimes they looked across the table at each other, and Margaret couldn’t speak for the loss that bound them. But nothing held Joe’s tongue for very long. “You know, like Verbena said, our people believe that only by remembering and talking about someone do you set them free. Got new twin lambs out of them ewes of his. Little black babies going to turn snow white. Come take a look, you can see his work in them.”

  She shook her head no. “They’ll just get sold off for meat at Blue Dog Days. I don’t want to fall in love again.”

  Joe whistled for his dog, and the half blue heeler-half mutt came immediately to his side. “Blue Dog,” he said, addressing the animal though Maggie had the feeling Joe was speaking only to her. “Think it might be time to get me a few cattles again. I hear them beef ads on radio. People quit eating red meat again, can always practice my roping. Come to Blue Dog Days, Maggie. Watch the dancing.”

  This year Peter and Bonnie were involved in Blue Dog Days, Bonnie with her family heading up the sing, and Peter dancing alongside Joe, the whitest man in the circle. He looked handsome, dressed in the shells and metal beads Bonnie’d fashioned for his wrists and ankles. They made a music he could not hear but had to feel as they rattled against his ankles and wrists. Margaret stood for awhile on the sidewalk outside Rabbott’s, where the same vendor who offered her the silver beads the first year again showed them proudly, this time for twenty dollars more.

  What do I need silver-tooled beads for? Maggie said to herself, but tried them on anyway, felt their weight and chill metal warm against her breastbone. She dug in her pocketbook, handed the woman her money, and suddenly they were hers, for no other reason than she held something she could fasten around her neck.

  She waved to Peter and wandered down Main Street where the singers were running instrument checks. Bonnie’s brothers were good boys, proud of their guitars and their abilities. They played their way through a few of the expected numbers, and Margaret half listened, not really buying the enthusiasm they threw into the country music numbers currently gracing the charts, songs that in her estimation had been played into the ground long before this summer. She checked on the children dressed up as their favorite books for the library’s entry in the parade. Smiling faces peered out from circles cut into the oversized cardboard. The tallest kid was representing Gary Paulsen’s Canyons, and the smallest, the classic Goodnight Moon. Everyone’s spines set straight, she turned and headed for the booth where Verbena and Minnie Youngcloud were busy frying up the bread. She’d lost her taste for it, but customers stood three and four deep, feet tapping in impatience, dollars sticking out of their fists.

  “Need a hand?”

  Minnie pushed her glasses up her nose. They were spattered with grease, as was her apron front, advertising Rabbott’s Hardware, the only place to go for home improvement. “Maggie! Good to see you. You want to take change or fill up the napkin dispensers?”

  “Both. Just show me where everything is.”

  She collected quarters and separated oily dollars, clipping the nozzle tops off honey bears, wiping small sticky faces, and still found time to admire the youngest dancers’ costumes. A little envy was natural—when people born into this much poverty and prejudice banded together and danced, kept their customs, responded to all that with art—how could you not want to belong? Sometimes she wondered if she should look for another town, a place she might fit in better. But she knew as well as she knew her own breathing, she wasn’t leaving the town of Blue Dog, if only for one more chance at that brief season when the wildflowers blossomed in fecund fury, turning dry ground and scrub into a sea of waving yellow.

  She sold bread to a few of the rodeo boys, decked out in chaps in hot pink and aqua as well as the traditional brown calfhide. Polite to the bone, they always said, “Ma’am,” tipped their hats, and kept their language clean. They had his walk, that prideless bowlegged swagger that came from years of wrapping your legs around horseflesh. She shivered, missing him, and accepted Minnie’s offer of an old Disneyland sweatshirt. Silver beads on top of Mickey Mouse, her hair tied back in a knot, and smelling of frybread grease. The cover of Vogue had to be right around the corner.

  After a few hours it got dark, and they started lighting the arena and stage. Bonnie’s brothers played on, dauntless under the darkening sky. They had Bonnie onstage with them, tapping a tambourine against her leg. My boy Peter’s sleeping with that girl, Margaret knew, and under her fear of the complications that accompanied first love, she tried only to be happy for him. Now Bonnie was going to the microphone, and Margaret stepped away from the booth to better hear what she was saying.

  She was singing. Low and slightly off-key, eyes shut. Peter caught up to his mother and touched her shoulder. In her deeply focused state, she almost shook him off.

  “Tell me what she’s singing,” he said.

  Margaret had never heard the song before but knew instantly that although Bonnie might not have been the singer to make the song famous, she was the writer to give it life.

  “You always were a dreamer, you chased your dreams so long

  you always were a renegade, living hard and strong

  and when this old world wasn’t big enough

  you had to carry on

  so strike up the band in heaven, boy

  give us all a song

  from the blue rodeo

  all the horses are white, the trophies are gold,

  come on shoot us a star, play some guitar

  so we can find where you are in the blue rodeo

  Perfect sky is up above, the sun shines off a wing

  God in all his wisdom, boy, he thought of everything

  He gave his gift for us to share, to have but never own

  and when we’ve given it back a hundredfold

  He lets us come back home

  to the blue rodeo

  the horses are white, the trophies are gold

  come on shoot us a star, play some guitar

  so we can find where you are in the blue rodeo

  Now the silence is deafening from the music that we don’t hear

  but the sound that echoes in our hearts

  now falls on more worthy ears

  from the blue rodeo

  the horses are white, the trophies are gold

  come on, shoot us a star, play some electric guitar

  so we can find where you are in the blue rodeo

  we’ll try to find where you are in the blue rodeo….”

  Peter’s requests and his persistent hand signing were like mosquitoes buzzing. Margaret signed woodenly, giving him what he asked for. Blue, the letter B held vertically, shaking. Rodeo? She improvised for the sign she didn’t know: horse, the two-fingered
nod over her right ear; celebration, the palm clap and swirl of index fingers on each hand up into the air. What she couldn’t do was face him and put her heart into it, like you were supposed to, the way Bonnie was doing, whether she hit the notes or missed them.

  Bonnie’s song made her recall every moment of Owen Garrett in her life, the brief wonder of feeling and returning faithful love, and how it felt to have it severed. She wished she’d run down the highway after him, even if it meant she was reduced to visiting him in jail, one weekend a month.

  When the song ended, Peter ran off to Bonnie, who was blinking her way back to earth, surrounded by applause. This town loved her. Their faith in their children never faltered. Margaret pulled up Minnie’s sweatshirt, wiped her face, and went to watch the rodeo cowboys mistreat their animals in hopes of winning a massive silver belt buckle. Buckles, she thought. That was the one thing she’d change about Bonnie’s song, not gold trophies, but gold buckles to replace the silver. Goddamn every single one of them for their good looks, their ability to pour into worn jeans and bright shirts the myth of an eternally western man, out to conquer wild prairie and skirt, not necessarily in that exact order. The young girls loped in to cavalcade, balancing flags in special cups attached alongside their stirrups. They rode as if fixed to their horses, carousel ponies, all glittering silver bits and bridle decorations, flowing blond manes to match their horses, equally fearless.

  The first event was steer wrestling, and Margaret cheered inwardly every time the cowboys lost and the steer trotted off proudly, horns held high, to be ushered through the chute. Next came the team-ropers, and she brightened, remembering Joe and Owen’s entry that first year, when he’d explained how he and Joe rode with their entry numbers turned upside down, just for sport, not to compete for prize money. Of course, now she knew why: He was a good roper, but he couldn’t have afforded to win. Sooner or later someone would want to take his picture, publish it in a newspaper, and then someone might recognize him. A husband-and-wife team won this time—people she didn’t know. Dave Rabbott fell off his pinto mare and dented his new hat, and the crowd tittered softly at his outrage. Maggie was the only one he told about missing Owen. Two years he worked for me, never took so much as a quarter or borrowed against his pay. Like a son to me, Margaret. If there was a problem, why didn’t he say so? I just don’t get it.

  She hated the bronc riding, where they cinched the horses around the testicles with those mean straps to make sure they’d buck high. She bought a Coke and drank it over by the library. She came back to watch the bull-riders and cheer on the bulls, and because she was curious to see who was foolish enough to try this suicide endeavor in hopes of winning five hundred dollars. Assured a full day’s work, the paramedics were lined up behind the arena, stuffing Navajo tacos into their mouths, waiting to be called. Three sour-looking cowboys got tossed and rolled to safety; a fourth made eight seconds but got hung up in his grip, and the clowns earned their salary, freeing him before he lost any fingers. He was a college boy, well known in town, and the crowd was distracted while the paramedics set aside dinner to tend his injured hand. She watched, too, almost missing the cowboy who came out of the chute next, riding Crankshaft, a gray Brahman with one dark eye. The rider had his hat parked down his forehead, covering his features. He was thin, older than the others, determined enough that he did not look up at the crowd cockily, which seemed to be so many riders’ downfall. He had a left-handed grip and kept his right hand aloft, as was the custom, while he spurred and rocked his legs like you were supposed to, not to hurt the animal but in order to fully impress the judges. The announcer began to narrate: “Ladies and gentlemen, it’s a crying shame we don’t have television instant replay here in Blue Dog, cause I think we’re lookin’ at the ride of the night, a seventy-nine if I’m any judge of bull-riding. Entry form states his name as Bob Williams out of Durango, Colorado, but he sure enough don’t look like no Willy Bob to me…. Who is this mysterious stranger?”

  His number was 53, and it was right side up. He dismounted his bull, which, as a final protest, bucked high and twisted, causing the crowd to ooh and aah, but Margaret only saw the rider’s hands, the bandanna tied to his belt loop, and the cattleman’s crease in a very worn Resistol hat as he hopped the arena fence. Her heart tripped inside her chest as she struggled to see him making his way through the crowd to the money window, and she broke into a run to catch up to him.

  “Collected his money and took off toward the parking lot,” the lady at the winnings table said.

  Bootprints, pawprints, hoofprints, steamy buns of horse manure marked the dirt where the trucks and trailers were parked. He was there, bent over and packing his gear in the truck bed, already heading to the next rodeo, another five hundred dollars to be won. He looked at her and smiled, as if she might be part of his good luck for the evening. “Hey there, honey.”

  “Nice ride,” she told him, and walked away.

  It was the way your heart worked sometimes, making your eyes play tricks on you because every organ wanted desperately to believe those things that came true in movies and good books.

  That night she lay awake in her own house. Two rooms away she could hear the unmistakable sounds of her son and Bonnie Tsosie making love. She started at first, fought the urge to flip on lights, make accusations, give them advice they hadn’t asked for and she didn’t really believe in. This was still her house, and they needed to respect that. But they were smart kids, they knew about the condom business, they were seventeen, and they were in love. Only two days earlier she had sat with Bonnie at her own kitchen table, braiding her thick black hair into plaits in a way her own would never go, listening to the girl’s dreams for college and a way off the reservation, only long enough that she could return armed with enough education to make a difference. “If I can study to become a nurse, I can make sure kids get their shots,” Bonnie said, signing her words automatically.

  Margaret turned her face so Bonnie would see her speak. She tapped the letter D on her wrist. “Try for a doctor, Bonnie. Go as far as you can, and don’t let anything stand in your way.”

  Bonnie smiled, and Margaret knew if it wasn’t Peter who would crimp those goals into compromise, it would probably be some other boy.

  Now Echo and her errant son wanted out. They were scratching at the bedroom door in the moonlight. “Okay already,” Margaret said, and took them down the back steps.

  She slipped on her boots near the door, and walked across the empty pastures in her nightgown. Old Ruby, the yellow, nearly toothless eating machine, stood like a puddle of light near the fence. Joe wanted to take her to Verbena’s, where Minnie would look after her, but Margaret couldn’t let him. It was worth grinding Ruby’s feed when she pictured the pasture empty. Beyond the ewe the bunkhouse was dark as solid rock. She shut her eyes and heard Echo rustling around in the weeds behind her. It had been hard to think of a name for the runt. Dinky seemed appropriate but too ordinary. When she finally bought a television and VCR to fill up her endless evenings, she found that Blue Dog’s video inventory consisted mostly of horror movies and early westerns. The clerk who recommended John Wayne’s The Cowboys swore it was a classic, that if she didn’t like it, she could have her two dollars back. “Little budgers,” that was what Wayne had called the young boys he hired to replace his men, the kids he tried to teach the rough art of cowboying. They were always disappointing him, nearly running off cliffs, getting into hilarious mischief. Hopeful’s son had in his short life run up a similar résumé, including a dinner of acrylic paints, so Budger it was. When Budger began barking Margaret called out, “Hush,” though she knew even if Peter and Bonnie’s hearing were fully restored by some sudden miracle, they were so lost in each other they couldn’t have been disturbed by the half-heeler’s yapping. She followed the barking down the road toward the mailbox. For a moment she swore she saw a man. Standing there in her nightgown and cowboy boots, she thought about going back for the rifle Joe had given her and taught her
to use, but this wasn’t California, it was Blue Dog, a small town, where every stranger passing through was a potential friend. She put purpose into her step and went to claim her dogs.

  It wasn’t a man, it was a coyote. They stood twenty feet from each other, still enough that she could see the hair on the animal’s ruff lift in the wind. He was well fed, coming up from the river from a drink, probably. Her eyes adjusted to the dark, and she noticed something she hadn’t seen before. The coyote was missing a front leg. “Get out of here,” she called out to him, in a deep, low voice that masked her fear and feigned strength, clapping her hands before one of the neighbors could come shoot him. “Go on!”

  The coyote took her suggestion and ran away, that funny soundless hopping lope she hadn’t seen in so long she’d nearly forgotten how it went.

  In her mind’s eye, she could see another face—thinner, bearded, but familiar. Wherever he was he set his left hand on the horn of his saddle, leaned into it, smiled as he tipped the rim of his black hat. He was safe somewhere, and wasn’t that what mattered, what it all came down to, what made legends worth remembering, telling to your children?

  In that moment Margaret Yearwood believed in so many things it wasn’t enough to call it religion: she believed in the infinite wisdom there was to balancing the ingredients of human life, in the necessity of grief and its partner, joy; in a time to heed the urge of recklessness and then admit a need for restraint; in hello and goodbye; and sometimes, if you were lucky, or very forgiving, hello again.

  20

  HIS MOTHER WAS PAINTING AGAIN. HUGE CANVASES THAT BORE no resemblance to the detailed nature paintings she’d labored over those first few months she lived here, like the one of Shiprock Monument he had framed above his bed. It was still about animals, but as far as Peter could make out, animals that were neither of this world nor fully of the dream world where he sometimes envisioned them. These creatures were caught somewhere in between, their wings clipped, eyes blinded, limbs malformed. The coolest ones were the six-foot-tall crazy-colored dogs leaping and soaring outward from the canvas, scaring him, thrilling him. Peter knew without any art critic’s two-bit review they were her best stuff. They cut to the chase; they had cojones. On those, she didn’t even bother to paint in the background, just left it stark white, didn’t bother cleaning up the handprints or smudges from moving the canvas. Sometimes he woke up in the middle of the night to get a drink of water, and she was already downstairs at work, a single lamp shining on the canvas, her hand the only living thing visible out of the shadow. He stood in the doorway watching her, trying to imagine what it felt like to have that kind of desire move through you, noticing how she couldn’t seem to squeeze the paint out fast enough to give the dogs space to run. She’d paint three hours, then sleep in until noon the next day to recover. He tried not to make much noise.