And If I Die

by John Aubrey Anderson

  The bull rider was near the PE building when someone yelled, “Hey, Mann, que pasa?”

  Homero Gonzales was leaning against the wall talking to two striking women.

  “Hey, Homer. Not much.” Mann walked over. “How ’bout you?”

  “No mucho.” Homero gestured toward the girls, both blondes. “We’re headed down to The Loop for a couple of beers, an’ I’m outnumbered. Wanna go?”

  “Better not. Got things to do here.” Mann didn’t drink, and he wasn’t going to The Loop with a white girl, but this wasn’t the time to say so.

  “Maybe this weekend?”

  “Can’t do it, amigo, I’m doing a rodeo thing at the fairgrounds tomorrow and Saturday.”

  “You a cowboy now?”

  Mann nodded. “Bulls.”

  “You don’t ride on Sunday?”

  “We won’t know ’til after the Saturday go-round.”

  “I’d like to see you on a bull.”

  “Well, if you don’t mind sitting by my boss, I can get you a couple of free tickets.”

  “Is your boss a gringo?”

  “Sí, but he is an hombre.”

  Gonzales held out his hand. “Put ’em on me.”

  Twenty-six miles away, in Decatur, Texas, a young lady was walking into the showroom at Jason Groves Motors. She was armed with an expensive-looking camera and a serious expression.

  The man who met her on the showroom floor said, “Well, you took my advice and pulled your hair back. It looks great . . . and so do you.”

  “Don’t say that. You make me nervous.”

  The girl’s dad smiled. “Sorry. What could I say that will make you calm.”

  “Is he here?”

  “Not right now.”

  “He told me I could be here at two.”

  “It’s one forty-five, Kim. Relax in my office or grab a Dr. Pepper and roam around the floor. Your choice.”

  “I’m too nervous to sit. I think I’ll go outside.”

  She went back to the door, rehearsing what she would say to the dealership’s owner, and ran into him. “Oh! . . . Hi! . . . Mr. Groves, I’m Kimberly Kerr.”

  “Mr. Groves?” The man put out his hand. “And are you the same Miss Kerr who’s spent the last five or six years calling me Jake?”

  The high school senior hid behind her hands for a moment to regain her composure, then said, “I’m trying to act professional, and you and Daddy are goofing off.”

  Groves chuckled. “Well, c’mon back here to my office, Miss Professional, and tell me what’s on your mind.”

  She couldn’t wait until they were in the office. She offered her camera into evidence and said, “I want to take some pictures at the rodeo . . . some tomorrow, some Saturday and Sunday. Will you pay me for them? I mean, will you buy them if you can use them for advertising?”

  Jason Groves was all business. “Do I have to commit before I see the proofs? I mean, a bunch of black and whites of high school goat ropers won’t help me sell pickups to real cowboys.”

  Kimberly turned around and covered her eyes while she took a breath, then turned back to Groves and said, “Okay . . . now listen. I’m going to the stock show this weekend. I’m gonna take some pictures while I’m there. Is it okay if I put together a portfolio of some of the better shots and bring them by for you to look at?”

  “Ahh . . . a coldhearted businesswoman. Have a seat.” He sank into the chair behind his desk. “I suppose you’ll want me to pay for the use of them.”

  “Are you teasing me?”

  “Maybe a little.” He winked.

  “Well, yes, I want to be paid.”

  “How much?”

  She looked over her shoulder but found no answer. “Uh . . . how about if we look at ’em and see if you like any . . . then decide.”

  “What’re you gonna do with the money?”

  “I’m gonna pay my own way through college.”

  “Well, I am impressed.” He stood up. “Okay, get out and bring me back some good pictures.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  She was in the hall when he yelled, “Kim!”

  She stuck her head back in the door. “Sir?”

  “I’m riding in the grand entry Friday night, but I don’t need any pictures of me. Understand? I won’t be there Saturday.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “But we’ve got our new sign over there . . . when you’re looking toward the press box, it’s just to the right of chute number six. See if you can get a good action shot with our name in the background.”

  “Oh . . . I can do that. Thanks, Mr. Groves.”

  “Certainly, Miss Kerr.”

  When she was gone, her daddy walked into his boss’s office. “Did you tell her that her hair looked good pulled back?”

  “Dadgummit . . .” Groves snapped his fingers. “I forgot.”

  Elmer Kerr said, “Thanks for nothing.”

  Groves shrugged and sat down at his desk. “How come you’re making her pay her way through college?”

  “We’re not. This is some kind of new independence thing that just came up.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. She’d be her own country if she could.”

  “Things could be worse.”

  “Things are worse. I want my dollar back.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. I want my dollar back. You said you’d tell her and you didn’t.”

  “How ’bout if I say it twice when she comes back?”

  “Nope. I been telling her all week you’d be more apt to hire her if it was pulled back, and you didn’t even notice.” He held out his hand and beckoned. “Gimme my dollar.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  On Friday, Missy woke up early and spent all day investing her energy in a bad mood. People who aren’t asking questions don’t want answers—Pat elected to back off and leave her alone.

  After supper that evening, the Pattersons were on their way to pick up Dee Epstein when Pat told Missy, “Well, kid, you can keep pouting and ruin the evening for everybody, or you can relax and pretend Christians truly believe God is in charge.”

  She was looking down, picking at a cuticle. “I don’t like for people to tell me not to pout, especially when I’m poutin’.”

  “Actually,” he smiled, “you look just as good frowning as you do smiling. I just thought you might mislead someone about God’s sovereignty.”

  “Thanks ever so.”

  Silence was the third person in the car until they arrived at Dee Epstein’s apartment. Dee was waiting on the sidewalk; Patterson got out to open the car door.

  Dee had spent too much of her afternoon at a western-wear store where she spent more than she needed to on jeans and a pair of Justin Roper boots. She didn’t know there was a moratorium on smiles. “Do I look like a veteran rodeoer?”

  Patterson held the door for her, and Missy slid to the middle of the seat while surrendering a return smile. “Dee, you’re one of those people who look good in anything . . . and you look great.”

  Patterson agreed. “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear you grew up in West Texas.”

  “I can’t believe I’ve lived in Texas all my life and haven’t been to one of these things.” Dee was beaming.

  Neither Patterson nor Missy shared her enthusiasm. Dee didn’t notice.

  They parked in a neighborhood across from the main gate and were on the fairgrounds fifteen minutes before the rodeo was scheduled to start.

  A quarter-mile strip of asphalt led from the front gate to the arena. The flavor of the air at the fairgrounds was a mixture of hotdogs and popcorn swirled with a background of semisweet livestock. If clothes were the only clue, it might be assumed every person at the North Texas Stock Show and Rodeo was born on a cattle ranch. Had Dee failed to check in at the western-wear store, she’d have been one of a only dozen strange-looking people at the stock show not wearing boots.

  A surging collection of blue jeans, bright colors, and cowboy hats
intertwined in a disordered dance as men, women, and children meandered in the general direction of the arena, sampling the offered entertainment along the midway as they went. Bigger crowds would show up on Saturday and Sunday, but the five thousand folks who wanted three full nights of excitement turned out for Friday night; they seemed bent on using noise to make up for what they lacked in numbers.

  Western swing music blared from speakers stationed along the midway. Girls and women sang along with Bob Wills. Scattered couples danced.

  Children screamed for parents to “Come look!”

  Parents yelled for the same children to “Stay close!” and “Get down off of there!”

  A dozen hawkers’ voices made themselves heard above the pandemonium.

  A group of high school girls dressed in drill-team costumes and fixed smiles wove their way through the crowd. The girls wore matching tennis shoes and carried their white boots to protect them from getting scuffed.

  An engine in one of the farm-equipment displays tried to drown out the racket made by the Tilt-A-Whirl.

  From somewhere near the middle of the midway, carousel music sprinkled itself on the bedlam.

  Pat and Missy stood outside the arena entrance and waited while Dee bought cotton candy and a corny dog.

  Dee’s selection raised Missy’s eyebrows. “A corny dog?”

  “Mmm.” Dee was grinning. “The man said it was kosher.”

  Missy had to smile. The young Jewish girl had spent five years under the heavy hammer of trying to provide for herself while bringing up a younger brother, and Michael had years of schooling left. Dee probably hadn’t been to anything as festive as a stock show since she was in high school.

  Missy told Pat to go find their seats. “Dee an’ I are right behind y’all—as soon as I get some cotton candy.”

  Patterson waved his ticket. “We’re supposed to be on the front row, halfway down.”

  When Missy and Dee got to their seats, the grand entry was just starting. Mose was already there, as well as Homero Gonzales and his blonde du jour. Michael Epstein walked up while everyone was standing to honor the colors. As the American flag passed, people cheered and applauded. If there were any flag burners at the rodeo, they exhibited uncharacteristic wisdom—and contributed to their longevity—by exercising restraint.

  Dee looked at her brother’s feet. “I didn’t know you owned any boots.”

  “Don’t,” he said. “These’re Bill’s work boots.”

  “They look too big for you.”

  He followed her gaze to his feet. “They stay on pretty good if I cross my toes and keep ’em folded under my feet. You must be thinking about me being too big for my britches.”

  “There is that,” she said.

  In the arena, a seemingly endless line of cowgirls, cowboys, current rodeo royalty, former rodeo queens, rodeo performers, the sheriff’s posse, citizens of questionable distinction, and politicians of questionable repute trooped up and down ranks of riders until the display became monotonous.

  For Mose and the Pattersons, the high point of the procession came when AnnMarie Roberts rode in on Tony. Bill Mann’s guests greeted her with applause and whistles. In return, AnnMarie touched Tony with her heel and he pranced sideways for a few feet; she graced her fans with a wink. When the entry was over, four horsemen, one of whom was Morris Erwin, stayed in the arena while the other folks played follow the leader through the exit chute.

  Dee watched closely as Erwin and the other three moved away from the chutes toward a small network of metal fence panels on the far end of the arena. “Are they the first act?”

  Missy laughed in her face and Dee got tickled. “This is not a circus, girl . . . a rodeo has events.” Missy pointed at Erwin and his friends. “Those are the pick-up men . . . real good horsemen. They take riders off the bucking broncs an’ generally just stay close in case something needs to be done from a horse . . . releasin’ straps an’ chasin’ animals out an’ stuff like that. The real action starts down there.”

  She was pointing to her left, at the business end of the arena, when the PA system clicked on and a born-to-be-broadcast voice said, “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the North Texas Stock Show and Rodeo. My name is Link Bledsoe, and it’ll be my privilege to be your announcer this evening. Before we get tonight’s action kicked off, I ask that you bow your heads with me and let’s ask the good Lord’s blessings on this time together.”

  Dee looked at Missy, and Missy reached over to squeeze her hand. “It’ll be okay.”

  The announcer said a long and eloquent prayer and followed it with an explanation of the first event. “Okay, folks, hold on to your seats while these riders try to hold on to theirs. Our first event is bareback bronc riding.”

  The announcer continued his patter, waiting for the first bronc rider to get settled on his mount and come out of the chute. Thereafter, Bledsoe filled in spots where the action lagged, exchanging banter with a man out in the arena wearing a clown costume. If things got too quiet the clown man would pull his little dog out of a padded barrel and have him do a trick or two.

  Trudy Roberts passed with her daddy in tow and stopped to speak to Mose. She held up a stain-covered paper sack. “We’re going down to see my bull.”

  Clark Roberts was in uniform but not on duty. “Morris brought Sweet Thing over here early today. We’re not sure he can take care of himself.”

  Mose slipped out of his seat to kneel by the child, and the three-year-old spoke in confidence to her friend, “He can take good care of himself just fine, but he gets lonesome for me.”

  Roberts was looking at the child and shaking his head. “I pulled in the driveway a couple of days ago and found him in the yard with her on his back.”

  “Have mercy, child, what was you doin’ on that bull’s back?”

  “He likes me to rub his hump.”

  This was news to Roberts. “You’ve been on him before?”

  “Lots.”

  Roberts rolled his eyes.

  Homero Gonzales was fascinated by the girl’s disclosure.

  Trudy said, “C’mon, Daddy, he’ll be impatience.”

  “I don’t think we need to rush, sweetheart. Sweet’s not going anywhere.”

  Trudy turned loose of her father’s finger and looked into Mose’s eyes. “Will you take me to see Sweet? He’s missing me.” She held up her sack. “And he’s real hungry.”

  Mose looked at Roberts and the father shrugged. “I’ll be close by when y’all get back.”

  The little girl led with confidence as she and Mose wound their way through the complex warren of fencing behind the bucking chutes. A small city of competitors, stock handlers, and a hundred other people leaned on fences and talked, knelt on the ground and tended to their equipment, or hustled from one spot to another in a determined effort to make sure the rodeo kept happening. Cowboys moved through the crowd, leading their horses.

  As the bull tender and her friend moved deeper into the huge shelter behind the arena, soft snorts and the plaintive vocals of restless animals took over from the man-made sounds outside. Mose said, “Smells kinda good in here, don’t it?”

  Trudy wrinkled her nose. “I think it stinks.”

  They were in the central alley leading through the long shed when they met AnnMarie. “Hey. Y’all going to see Sweet?”

  “Yessum.” Mose lifted his hat. “Miss Trudy say he might be missin’ her.”

  “I said he is missing me . . . and he’s hungry.”

  “He’s right down yonder.” AnnMarie pointed. “Turn left in the next alley; Tony’s tied up in front of his stall.”

  “I know where he is.” Trudy hadn’t come to see her sister.

  “Don’t go in the stall with him, Trudy. He might not behave with all these other bulls around.”

  “I know what to do, an’ Daddy says I’m not a baby anymore.” She tugged on Mose’s finger. “An’ anyway, Mister Mose won’t let me go in.”

  Mose told the older sister,
“We’ll be fine,” and let himself be led away.

  “Good.” AnnMarie turned and resumed her walk toward the action. “I’ll see y’all later.”

  The bull enclosures at the North Texas Fairgrounds were technically stalls, but they weren’t small, and they weren’t made of wood; for that section of the barn where the rough stock was housed, the standards were more stringent. The barn’s designers rightly determined that critters who weighed two thousand pounds and earned their keep by being cantankerous should be quartered in pens with eight-foot walls made from heavy-duty four-inch steel pipe; the enclosures were large enough to hold a half dozen bulls with room for them to move around freely. The panels that made up the fronts of the pens could be swung into the aisles to become gates or barriers, thus allowing the holding area to become a changeable maze where stock handlers could easily direct the movement of the varied animals.

  Trudy and her escort turned left at the next alley. The paint quarter horse stood three-legged at the far end of the passageway.

  By virtue of his status in the world of rodeo, and because Morris Erwin dictated his own terms, Sweet was in an enclosure by himself. He stood near the middle of his stall, facing Tony. When he saw the child, he grunted and moved closer to the front.

  Trudy squatted down by the bull and reached in her sack to pull out a wad of wax paper. “You need to eat more if you’re gonna be bucking tomorrow.” She unwrapped four cattle cubes which were coated with molasses and held two of them through the lower part of the gate. Sweet Thing worked both cubes off the tiny palm and into his mouth. “Mr. Morris says that’s all you can have tonight. These other ones are for Tony.”

  The bull followed her as she moved down to deliver Tony’s treat and snuffed his indignation at having to share. With the horse taken care of, she turned to Mose and pointed at the bull. “Pick me up so I can pet him.”

  “Well, I don’t reckon I can pick you up, baby, but I can help you climb.” Mose propped his cane against the fence and guarded the child while she worked her way up the makeshift ladder. When she was in place, he held her so her boots rested on one of the rails while she used both hands to rub the bull’s neck. The bull moaned his appreciation.