The Outlaw Jesse James

by Cindy Gerard

Still out of breath but pumped on adrenaline, Jesse smoothed his hair, resettled his hat, then spoke into the mike the sports announcer had thrust under his nose. “He’s a great bull, Avery. I drew him last May in Houston and he gave me an eighty-five point ride. I knew if I could stick him tonight, I had a good shot at winning the average.”

  “Well, you sure did stick him, Jess. That ole boy did everything but pull a gun on you and you still rode him. Let’s look at the tape.”

  The video began rolling. The TV viewers watched at home while Jesse and Avery watched the slowmotion replay on the monitor. Avery chuckled. “Man, I don’t know how you managed to stay on board.”

  When the ride played out and the camera cued back on him, Jesse wiped a hand over his face and grinned that twin-dimpled grin that the rodeo world had fallen in love with. “Guess I got lucky.”

  “He can call it luck if he wants to, folks,” Avery said, turning his attention back to the viewing audience as the camera panned back to include both him and Jesse in the shot, “but this cowboy rode that bull on pure guts. The man’s got a lot of try, and talent is what’s gotten him out of a nasty summer slump to where he is now, edging into the number one spot in the world average as we head down the home stretch here in November.

  “Well, folks, on that note, we’re going to call it a night here at the Lazy E. You tune in again in two weeks when we’ll have live coverage of the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas, Nevada, starting December sixth.”

  “Fade. Cut. That’s a wrap, people,” the show producer announced, and the lights went dim.

  “Thanks again for the interview, Jess.” Avery extended his hand.

  “No problem. Glad to be in the winner’s circle.”

  Snagging his bull rope, Jesse shouldered his way through the gate and back into the alley behind the bucking pens. After gathering the rest of his gear, he loaded it into his rented truck.

  Yancy caught up with him as he was about to swing up behind the wheel. “Goin’ to the shindig?”

  The “shindig” Yancy referred to was an end-of-the-rodeo bash thrown by the Lazy E and some of the corporate sponsors—Jesse’s sponsor among them. In fact they’d footed the bill for this entire trip south that Jesse had convinced himself he needed to make.

  He’d pulled out of the Badlands circuit two months ago, told himself it was a career move. His sponsor had agreed and been delighted to let him take advantage of their plane to head south.

  Besides, he’d argued, there was nothing like a few sweet little magnolias and some Southern hospitality to take his mind off a wild Montana rose who would never ask but would always need the one thing he couldn’t give—commitment.

  So the party was just what he needed. And he was expected.

  But just like every other invitation that had been tossed his way lately—to a party for a hundred or an intimate party for two—he ended up ignoring it and headed back to his motel.

  He wasn’t aware that he was scowling as he stepped out of the shower, tossed his towel aside and hit the sheets. He refused to think about why he was lying here alone. Just as he refused to think about moonlight shining on a black curtain of hair, hair so long and sleek a man could get lost in its gossamer threads.

  And eyes—he crossed his arms behind his head and told himself he wouldn’t think about eyes as dark as deep water, as expressive as a song.

  Yet when he finally drifted off, it was with the memory of those eyes beckoning him, it was with the want to get lost in the warmth of their inviting depths.

  “Sloan, listen up,” Janey ordered as she sat across the table from her at Caesar’s Palace where they’d decided to indulge in an incredibly sinful breakfast buffet.

  “I’m listening,” Sloan insisted, and braced to hear the contents of a write-up appearing in a special Rodeo Finals edition of the December sixth Las Vegas newspaper.

  “Okay,” Janey began again, bound and determined to read to her word for word. “Here goes.

  For fifteen of America’s finest, toughest, and some would say arguably the craziest bull riders in the world, the National Finals Rodeo held in Las Vegas every December is the brass ring of the rodeo circuit. Only the elite of the PRCA members make it to the NFR, and only then after they’d paid their dues, ridden their bulls and endured twelve months of empty highways, crowded planes, and too frequent emergency room visits.

  “Are you listening?” Janey demanded when she peeked over the paper and saw Sloan intensely preoccupied with buttering a poppyseed muffin.

  “I’m listening,” Sloan assured her, and prayed Janey didn’t notice that her hands had begun to shake.

  “Okay—now here’s the part about Jesse and Baby.

  At this point in his career, Jesse James has done it all. He’s done it with the fever of a madman and the spirit of a child He’s done it with a tuck of his head, a steel-tight grip, and a “know no fear” mind-set that stops his mother’s heart every tune he settles his long, lanky legs over the back of a monster bull with one goal on its mind: throwing her son off his back.

  “Isn’t this cool?” Janey demanded, oblivious to Sloan’s discomfort as she dove back into the article.

  “It takes a real bad day and a killer bull to toss Jesse James into the dirt these days, but it’s a known fact among rodeo aficionados that there’s one bull that has yet to get a shot at The Outlaw Jesse James. Baby, a Snowy River bull, and this year’s recently crowned bucking bull of the year, is the odds-on favorite when these two meet in the eliminator round of competition nine days from now.

  “Not since Beaudacious, the master of disaster, have we seen a bull this rank and this capable of retiring unridden after his freshman year, anticipating a guaranteed high dollar income for Snowy River in breeding fees.

  “This long-anticipated confrontation between Jesse James and Baby will, without a doubt, exceed its billing as the rodeo world’s match of the century.”

  Janey beamed across the table. “Quite a write-up, huh? You’d think it was the equivalent of the shootout at the OK Corral or something.”

  “Or something,” Sloan agreed, trying to work up a little enthusiasm for something other than the fact that Janey had finally, mercifully, folded the paper and set it aside.

  Her heart just wasn’t up to celebrating the great press for Snowy River and Baby. Her heart was busy trying to deal with the inevitability of meeting up with Jesse again. And, like her heart, she wasn’t sure if she could take it.

  It had been a little more than two months since Jesse had pulled out of Snowy River that cool October morning. Since he’d made love to her as though she was as fragile and as precious as glass. Since he’d touched his lips to her forehead, held her face in his hands and whispered a broken goodbye.

  She’d known then it would be for the last time. And she’d known then that she was going to hurt for a long, long while. Just as she knew now that she had to make it through the next ten days and then get on with her life.

  She’d taken every precaution. She’d checked into a small hotel off the strip, knowing beforehand that the MGM Grand would be putting up most of the competitors. She was also hoping that with an event this big that drew upward of seventeen thousand fans during each of the ten nights of competition, that the chances were good she could lose herself in the crowds and the work.

  She managed to do just that for the first five nights of competition. Oh, she’d seen him from a distance. She’d watched him ride, watched him win But she’d avoided the one-on-one confrontation that she knew was inevitable but needed to put off as long as possible. And she knew he was avoiding it, too.

  On night number six, she ran into D.U. and embarrassed the heck out of him by hugging him hard and long. It was the highlight of her Vegas trip to date, seeing him up and around even though his injuries had left him with a bad limp and, as he put it, “a burn wheel” that would keep him from competing again.

  “I’m of a piece, though,” he said in his steady, stoic way, and confided that he was
looking forward to opening a bull riding school on his little spread near Bozeman.

  On the seventh night, her luck ran out where Jesse was concerned.

  She was making a final check on Baby, thinking how pleasantly quiet it was in the barns this time of night. Only a few wranglers were still milling about, bedding down the last of their stock. Only the restful sound of the animals settling in stole into a peaceful silence that suddenly vibrated with tension.

  She stopped, dead-still, when she felt that warm prickle of awareness that told her he was near—and that he was watching her.

  She didn’t look up as she walked out of the pen and hooked the latch behind her. She simply waited, knowing what was coming, and still, she tensed the moment he said her name.

  “Hey, Country.”

  His voice was soft, almost tentative. His eyes were dark, unreadable, as she slowly turned and saw him standing not ten feet away.

  Only the security lights were left burning in the barn. He was standing directly beneath one, spotlighted in its diluted, mellow glow.

  He was so beautiful, it physically hurt to look at him. To watch those outlaw blue eyes search her face from beneath the brim of his black Resistol. To see the rigid set of those impossibly broad shoulders as he shifted his stance, his long legs still wrapped in his riding chaps, his bull rope gripped loosely in the sinewy strength of his riding hand.

  “Hey, Jesse,” she said softly, and told herself she could do this. She could look at him and talk with him and make it through a few minutes of being with him without the last few pieces of her heart breaking apart.

  What she couldn’t do was move. Thankfully, neither did he. He just stood there, quietly watching her, and she could see through his eyes that she wasn’t the only one having trouble with this meeting.

  “It’s going well for you,” she said finally, needing to break the silence and the tension and the troubling tether of his gaze.

  He considered her for a long moment, then nodded. “It’s going well. For you, too,” he added, almost a question, almost a concern.

  “Yes.” Reaching deep, she found the strength to assure both of them. “It’s going just fine.”

  Only it wasn’t fine. It wasn’t fine at all.

  She missed him. She ached for him. And it hurt all the more to know she could never have him—not in the way that counted. Not for more than a night, or a week, or whatever length of time he had it in him to stay.

  Still her heart leaped when for a moment, one agonizing rush of a moment, she thought he was going to come to her. And in that moment, she came close to sacrificing her pride and begging him to take that step.

  But the moment slowly faded. So did the weakness.

  He searched her face one last time, met her eyes with a long, probing look. Then he simply nodded as if satisfied with what he saw and turned and walked away.

  Seventeen thousand rodeo fans sat on the edges of their seats at the Thomas Mac arena. Seventeen thousand held their collective breaths, their attention riveted on chute number five and the bucking bull of the year, Snowy River’s Baby.

  While they’d cheered the bronc riders’ boldness and daring, applauded the ropers’ and steer wrestlers’ style and strength, and been wowed by the finesse and speed of the barrel racers, it was this final event they’d all paid good money to see. And it was this night’s showdown that they’d all been waiting for, surpassing even the anticipation of tomorrow night’s tenth and final round of competition.

  The noise level had dropped to a murmured hush, the mood to an expectant lull as the spotlight swung to chute number five and Jesse James, at long last, climbed over the rail and eased onto Baby’s back.

  All year long the draw had kept them apart. All year long the media hype leadmg up to this face-off between the ultimate bull and the ultimate rider, had been anticipated with an unprecedented amount of coverage.

  It was all on the line for Jesse tonight and everyone knew it. If he did what no bull rider had ever done and rode Baby to an eight count, the world championship was a lock. If he failed, if Baby ground him into the dust like every other hopeful who had mounted his barrel back, then the title would come down to the final round and pivot on a point spread that Cole Davis, a rookie from Stephensville, Texas, had been shaving since he’d started his meteoric climb in September.

  Seconds ticked like hours as the crowd cued on every detail, every shift of Jesse’s hips, every clench of muscle, every clipped, adrenaline-fueled motion of his head until he finally finished his wrap and it was time.

  Jesse wasn’t thinking about the press. He wasn’t thinking about the crowd. He was thinking about the ride. Only the ride as he set his mouthpiece, tested his grip. Then he closed his eyes, felt the power, and the pulse and the heat generated by close to a ton of pure, primal rage gathering like a breaking storm beneath him.

  With a tight tuck of his head, he slid up on his closed fist. Back straight, body square, elbow bucked, he sucked in a deep breath and gave that critical, decisive nod that signaled the chute boss that it was time to ride.

  The roar that rose in Thomas Mac when the gate flew open was as deafening as a fast-moving freight train. The numbers on the noise meter soared then rocketed off the scale as every person in the stadium shot to their feet to cheer their hero on when Baby erupted from the chute like a volcano belching fire.

  Just that fast, the hype and the hyperbole that had been building all year and led up to this historic eight seconds was a reality, as starkly dramatic, as wildly violent, as it had been billed to be.

  Baby didn’t just buck. He exploded, catapulting himself into the air in a great, twisting jackknife of a jump. The equivalent of three thousand pounds of force jerked Jesse down hard into his hand, rocketing him forward over Baby’s rising hump. Like David facing Goliath, Jesse fought to regain his seat. Battling to counterbalance the bull’s strength and rage, he got a hold with his outside foot and dragged himself back up out of the well.

  Another earsplitting roar rang out from the raucously yelling crowd as they cheered his recovery, only to fade to a gasping groan as Baby built on his rage, whipped his hips around and reared back with a flying, twisting belly-roll.

  Two thousand pounds of royally-pissed-off bucking machine spun Jesse back into his hand again and, still airborne, cranked hard to the left, dragging him back down into the deepest, most dangerous depths of the well.

  Sensing an advantage, Baby pulled out all the plugs. He hooked back to the left, dove into a bucking spin, and faded across the arena. Bellowing out his rage when Jesse stayed on board, he cranked back around toward the fence and unleashed the fury of hell.

  This time, Jesse couldn’t recover. Before he had a chance to even try to counter, Baby launched into another flying one-eighty that sealed Jesse’s fate. The G-force and velocity of the move wrenched Jesse’s hand out of his rope just short of the buzzer, and sent him slingshotting through the air and slamming like a bullet into the arena fence.

  The crowd gasped, then groaned, then waited in a silence fractured only-by the bleating intrusion of the buzzer that heralded Baby’s glorious victory and Jesse’s devastating defeat.

  All eyes watched and waited for Jesse to move. And all hearts beat out the chaotic rhythm of worry when he didn’t.

  When the Justin Healers medical team rushed to his aid and finally hauled him out of the arena on a stretcher, the shock that had settled like a shroud was broken only by a scattering of nervous, hopeful applause to cheer their fallen hero.

  Sloan had watched it all. From the time he’d started his wrap to the moment he’d hit the wall, her heartbeat had pulsed at her throat, rushed through her ears, throbbed to the tips of her fingers. And now all she could do was watch again, numbed with fear as his family, who had gathered in Las Vegas to cheer him through the finals, stood by his side, helpless, as the paramedics loaded him into a waiting ambulance.

  Ten

  “I’m fine,” Jesse insisted a little more than two hou
rs later and wished he could sound more convincing. But he had to keep his voice low, cater to the pain knifing through his head and his chest that he didn’t want his mother to see. “Garrett and Clay worked me over worse than this when we were kids playing touch football. I didn’t need to be admitted.”

  “Jesse,” Maya pleaded, reaching for a sternness that was overshadowed only by a mother’s concern. “I don’t want to hear another word out of you about leaving this hospital tonight. You’ve got three cracked ribs. You’ve got a concussion. My God. . . you have bruises on your poor body. . . colors I’ve never seen before—” Her voice broke. Touching trembling fingers to her mouth, his mother turned quickly away—but not before Jesse saw the tears welling in her eyes.

  “Talk to him,” she said with a beseeching look toward Garrett and Clay.

  Garrett sliced a glance at Clay, who shrugged and gave it a shot.

  “Give it up, Jesse,” Clay prompted gruffly as Maya’s husband Logan pulled her against his side in a comforting embrace. “It’s only one night. Maybe you don’t think you need it, but she does,” he added, with a jerk of his head toward their mother. “Humor her. She worries even though we’ve told her nothing can crack that hammerhead of yours.”

  “And humor us, would you?” This from Garrett whose solicitous grin wasn’t fooling anyone. He was as concerned about Jesse as everyone else m the room. “I’m no Florence Nightingale, bro—if you need help in the night, it’s not going to come from me.”

  “Or me,” Clay added. “And I don’t think you want to lay it all on Mom and Logan ”

  Jesse made a half-baked appeal to Logan, who relayed with a sympathetic shrug that he wouldn’t find any help from his quarter, either.

  They weren’t playing fair, Jesse thought darkly. He didn’t want to stay in this damn hospital. They’d just end up doing more poking and prodding and wanting more X rays so they could rewrap his ribs in this damn rib belt that was already trussed up so tight he could barely breathe.