"Hey Bowski, you followin' me?"
Bo looked behind him. He spotted a familiar face at the end of the line of men waiting to pay entry fees to ride in the evening's event.
"Blink? What are you doing here? I thought you would've hung up your spurs after that ride in Amarillo last week. Anyway, how can I be following you? I got here first."
He turned to the woman seated behind the ticket counter.
"Over eighteen?" she asked.
He answered yes, gave his name and event and handed her the entry fee.
"Be here at five," she told him.
Bo walked back to the last cowboy in line.
"You OK, Blink? You weren't hurt?' he asked.
"Course I'm OK."
"I'll wait for you in the parking lot," Bo said.
"Let's get something to eat."
He stood by his truck and waved as Blink turned from the payment window.
"You know this town?" Bo asked.
"Been here once. Head east to the square. There's a restaurant across from the courthouse."
Traveling through the rural southwest, Bo had learned directions were usually basic. Compass points, a man-made or some natural landmark, were the guides to wherever you were going. He drove towards town confident the road would lead him to the town square and he was right. He parked across from the courthouse in the line of fire of two long-silent cannons, in front of a storefront with 'Dottie's' hand-painted diagonally in pink across a large window.
Bo and Blink entered and took a booth. Menus were sandwiched between ceramic salt and pepper shakers in the shape of a portly, jolly country couple. The little man was the salt, identifiable by the larger number of holes in his bald head. Every other man in the restaurant kept his hat on. Bo and the salt shaker had the only hairlines in the place not covered by a straw broad-brimmed hat or a 'gimmee cap' advertising beer, tractors or fertilizer. Blink wore a Stetson and did not remove it.
"Steak, green salad and ice tea with no sugar,"
Bo ordered when the waitress came with her pad and pencil ready.
"Steak and fries with gravy for me," Blink said, "and a coke. Got any rolls?"
"Fresh baked this mornin’," she sang.
"Bring 'em on," he smiled.
"That's a lot of carbs," Bo said.
Blink frowned. "Don't go messin' with my meal."
"Too many carbs, and the protein in your steak will be stored in your body as fat," Bo said.
Blink slid out from the booth. "Hit me." He stood over Bo and pointed to his stomach. "Go on, take your best shot. See if there's any fat stored in there."
"It's OK, Blink. I'll take your word for it. Sit down."
"It's muscle," Blink said, “Heart of a bull and guts of a..."
"I know, Blink," Bo said.
The waitress approached with their drinks.
"Thought you two were about to start fightin’,"
she said. "Best you don't even think about it. They'll have you across the street in a heartbeat. There's a small cell in the courthouse basement, but it's big enough for two. Rodeo cowboys, right?"
They nodded.
"Well if you boys intend to ride tonight, keep outta trouble. Sheriff loves his rodeo, but he'll bust y'all if you get rowdy."
"We were only discussing the merits of a healthy diet," Bo said. "But thanks for your advice."
She radiated her best come-on glance at him.
"There's dancing at the Whisky River tonight. Always a good band when rodeo's in town. Maybe I'll see you later."
"He don't eat no carbs and he don't dance." Blink said. "But I guarantee you'll see me later."
She smiled wanly at this less desirable option and returned to her work.
Blink grabbed his chest and feigned an attack.
"Unghh. Shot down in flames; on an empty stomach, too."
"Just wait till this evening," Bo said. "When she sees you dance, she'll have to get in line."
"Unless she sees me ride first," Blink said with a grin. "That gal sees me ride, she's mine. Never mind the dancing."
This last remark was overheard by four men sitting down at a nearby table. Bo had seen them in line earlier.
"You ride like you did in Amarillo," one of them said loudly, "you won't make it to no dance floor.
Boys, y'all know Blink. Rhymes with dink, 'cause that's about the only kind of bull he can handle."
Blink sipped his coke and endured the laughter at his expense. The waitress returned with their platters.
"Thanks, Carole," Bo said, reading her name tag.
"Dance starts at nine," she said with a wink.
*
For nearly two months, Bo had competed at rodeos and county fairs across Texas and Oklahoma, several venues so small they were little more than an excuse for a Friday night beer bash. Some of the animals at these events were provided by stock contractors, some were local stock — and he could always tell which was which. He'd been thrown several times, at least so the spectators thought. But the falls were intentional, self-imposed teaching aids. Between the bull's back and the packed dirt was a magic moment, an immeasurable quantity of time and space in which he could check his fall, twist over to his right leg or set himself for a stand-up landing, ready to sprint away from the angry beast. He focused on a flash which no eye could see and no clock could measure, that instant when the bullet is in flight before it inflicts its mortal wound. The prelude to eternity — that was the moment he sought to control. In it were all possibilities; victory and defeat, life and death.
The bull was not really his adversary, it merely provided the challenge — to fly low over the gates of hell and spit in the devil's eye.
He had yet to take a first, or even second place.
He'd come close to some money but hadn't seen any yet.
His scores weren't so hot, but he was hanging on till the buzzer. He was learning.
Bo was scheduled for only one ride that evening, but his bull just ran around the ring and got booed and he got a re-ride. His second bull jumped and kicked, but not high, and it didn't spin. He scored a seventy-three, average. After his ride, he hung around the chute observing, helping when he could.
Blink was up. He had drawn a chute fighter. The bull thrashed from side-to-side in the narrow pen as it was being prepped. It reared its haunches flinging feces into the face of the flank man who cursed loudly. Blink straddled the bull, and the animal threw itself against both sides of the chute. Blink raised his legs to keep them from being crushed. Finally he was ready.
"GO!" he yelled.
The bull bucked before it even cleared the chute.
Blink's Stetson went flying. His head whipped back and forth like his neck was rubber. The bull spun to its left, Blink's inside, faster and faster.
"Got a spinner," the flank man said to Bo. "He's tryin' to drop him into the well."
Blink's shoulders slumped. He swayed to his left and fell over. He didn't clear the bull, his hand still caught in the twisted rope.
"He's hung up!!" several cowboys hollered.
Blink was dragged like a rag doll for twenty yards before he fell. Two rodeo clowns ran towards the bull to divert it. The bull snorted and charged them as they both dove head first into the metal barrels placed in the ring for their protection. The bull turned and pawed at the dirt. Blink lay unconscious.
Like an old locomotive with its protruding cow-catcher, the bull lowered its head towards the downed cowboy, its horns only inches off the ground, and ran. The clowns pulled themselves from their barrels, jumped and hollered to distract the bull, but it ignored them. It had its target.
"Oh shit," Bo heard someone say.
He jumped into the ring. He ran toward the bull and did a cartwheel and two somersaults. The animal slid to a stop, its forelegs outstretched. Its nostrils flared as it stared wide-eyed at this intruder and his strange movements. Two clowns circled and approached the motionless Blink. Bo raised his arms like a picador in a bullfight. The bull charged him. He was close enough to be hit by the saliva swinging from the bull's open jaw when he jumped from its path, and again he performed his acrobatic routine. He landed about ten yards from the bull. The two clowns were dragging Blink to the side of the arena, out of danger. Bo stared at the black eyes of the beast, then turned and ran for tomorrow.
Outstretched hands pulled him up and out of the ring, the bull at his heels.
The applause was instantaneous, spectators hollered and stamped their feet, shaking the stadium.
The announcer played to the crowd.
"...and if anybody's ever seen a bigger dose of cowboy courage than that, I'd like him to tell me where and when it was. Yes sir folks, that was somethin' you don't see every day. That cowboy's name is, just a minute," the mike was muffled, "hell, I can't pronounce that. Folks, he's called Bo by his friends and I guess he's made himself some new friends tonight, wouldn't you say? They tell me Blink Cooper's OK, just shaken up. Folks let's hear it for the cowboy they call Bo! Somebody see if they can get that boy to come out and take a bow. He's a real rodeo hero!"
Bo was led to the center of the arena to a standing ovation. He looked up at the crowd. His body quivered and he shifted his weight. Had it not been for his prosthesis, he wouldn't have had a leg to stand on.