Randy whipped out a roll of tape from the back pocket of his jeans. “Got it right here.”
She pulled up her sleeve and held out her arm. He started about four inches above her wrist and layered it down and over her wrist bone and across her palm. Then he started over again. The only time she’d broken her wrist was when she did the taping herself. Since then, he always wrapped her wrist. She could do her ankles just fine, but getting her wrist wrapped the way she liked was impossible.
Cowboys had often asked why she wanted to ride bulls. If she was in a ballbuster mood, she’d say, “Because I like sweaty flesh between my legs.” Then she’d give the obnoxious cowboy a once-over and say, “And you’ll never be big enough. So go away.”
She’d fallen in love with the sport dominated by men years before her parents allowed her to get on a bull. First, she had to prove she was serious about it. And the way to do that was to attend a three-day session at Sankey Rodeo School and pay for it with her own money. The first time she got bucked off, the cowboys said she wouldn’t get back on.
They were wrong.
Randy finished taping and held out her vest. “Here you go, monkey.”
She zipped it up, adjusted the neckroll, and then collected her mouthguard and helmet with its attached face mask.
“I like your new girl-bull-rider patch. The colors even match the fringe on your chaps.”
“It came in the mail the other day, but I don’t know who sent it. It’s cool, though, isn’t it? But it makes me wonder if I have a stalker.” She brushed off her custom-made leather chaps with their coordinating long, flowing fringe—the same dusty orange as her granny’s favorite piece of jewelry, a sunstone brooch.
“Well, if any man dares to mess with a girl bull rider, it just goes to show you what a dumbass he is.”
“Ha, ha.”
“Be extra careful on this ride.” He checked her chin strap and tightened it. “No broken bones today.”
“Wrist, arm, ankle, and ribs are enough for me.”
“And one concussion.”
She wiggled the helmet to check the stability for herself. “Only one?”
“If you get another one, I won’t stick around to pick you up again.”
Randy didn’t have to remind her that a bull rider usually got an injury in one out of every fifteen rides, and this was the fifteenth since she broke a rib.
She threaded the bells through the end of the bull rope, made a large loop, and secured it with a big knot. “Mom and Dad won’t stick around, either. It’s hard enough watching from the bleachers.”
“Your dad wants to be your barrelman.”
She tested the strength of the knot. “No way. Only one of us needs to be out here.”
Randy laughed. “When I told him no, he said he’d fire me so he could be your flankman.”
“Good luck with that. He’d make me too nervous.”
How many times had her dad told her that bull riding was a macho pastime on par with race car driving and the most dangerous eight seconds in sports? Dozens. No, maybe hundreds. Riders got stepped on, landed on their heads, dislocated joints, pulled groins, and broke bones. But she enjoyed participating in a sport rooted in the mystique of the Wild West, and riding was in her soul. She was born to be a fighter, and right now, riding a fifteen-hundred-pound bull that weighed as much as the truck she drove was her form of fighting.
She played the game, took the pain, and was willing to pay for what she loved with sore muscles and occasional broken bones. It had to be the biggest adrenaline rush in the world. And unless she broke both legs, she’d always get up and walk, hop, or hobble out of the arena.
Tonight, though, would make it all worthwhile. This event was the last one before she had to either quit or step up to the next level, where the competition would get much stiffer. If she won, it would make moving up easier, although there wasn’t much opportunity for her to become a professional bull rider.
The announcer called, “Williams 511, let’s go. Put your rope on.”
Randy rapped on the top of her helmet again. “Time to cowboy up.”
Adrenaline was surging now as she climbed up into the bucking chute, carrying her bull rope and bells. Slowly she eased down on the bull’s back. Her pinky toes lined up with the bottom rungs on the gates, so her spurs faced north-south, not east-west.
From here on out, it was all muscle memory. Her mind had to go blank. If she thought about what she was doing, she’d be a second behind, and she had to be in the correct mindset to react instantly.
She dropped the bull rope with the attached bells—jingling against the rungs of the chute—down the right side of the bull.
“I need a hook.”
Randy stood on the left side of the pen, his rubber boots sinking into the stinking muck and excrement. He used the flank hook to grab the knot tied at the end of the bull rope. After running it underneath the bull, he handed her the loop. She ran the rope tail through it and pulled, tightening it around the belly of the bull, and continued tightening and adjusting it until she positioned the handle on the rope just right.
Then she ran her gloved hand through the handle and adjusted the position once more. Satisfied, she took the tail of the rope and wrapped it over the top of the handle, and closed her hand over the rope, tightening the grip.
Adrenaline was pouring into her veins now.
She wrapped the rope tail around her wrist again, across her palm, and finished with weaving the rope through her fourth and fifth
