Page 1 of The Bull Rider and the Bookworm
Prologue
“Hello, everyone, and welcome to the T&L Arena in Austin, Texas, for the Iron Spur Bull Riding League Finals! Bull riding needs a huge home and we’ve called the T&L home for over twenty-seven years. My name is Jake Calder, to my left is Travis McKay, and to my right in his trademark white Stetson is five-time ISBR champion Tyler Boone. As you know the big question buzzing around the paddock has been what shape will Hoyt Knox be in tonight? What are your thoughts, Tyler?”
“Well, Jake, he got hung up pretty badly two weeks ago up there in Ontario. Rumors ran wild about a separated shoulder but if he did sustain an injury he’s not letting it keep him out of the championship.”
“Hoyt is pure cowboy, Tyler. He’s going to ride until he can’t. Looks like they’re ready to kick things off now that the anthem has been played by the Gillespie High School marching band. Go Raptors! Travis, what do we think of Knox’s chances after that disappointing ride up in New York City?”
“Jake, I think he’s nursing a bad shoulder as well as some other things. We’ve all been there. We all want that buckle butKnox has been off his game for a while now, way before that hang up so I have to wonder if this will be his last season? He’s no spring chicken as my Granny likes to say.”
“I think all of us are wondering about that, Travis. Looks like the man himself, Hoyt Knox, is approaching his bull. I have to tell you that if he is nursing an injury, pulling Satan’s Cyclone is an unlucky pull. That bull is pure hellfire on four hooves. He’s bucked off every rider who sat on his back for the past two seasons and sent a dozen to the emergency room. You rode him once two years ago in North Carolina, Tyler. What are your thoughts as we watch Hoyt and his chute man Clayton Pike settle him onto Cyclone’s wide red back?”
“I wish him luck! Looks like the gate is open. Okay, Hoyt looks stiff. The first thing he did was go back instead of going over the front of the bull to take its power away. He’s just hanging around on there hoping the bull will—Oh no! Cyclone strikes again, throwing Hoyt to the ground for a zero. Look at that bull! He is out for blood. He’s rolling Knox despite the bullfighters’ interference. Oh no, that’s bad. Those hooves are lethal and one just came down on Knox’s collarbone. I hope his vest helped to pad that blow. Four bullfighters are in there now…Knox is not moving. Oh hell—sorry folks—oh heck, that’s not good. Medics are arriving now the bullfighters have gotten Satan’s Cyclone out of the ring. Folks, let’s pray for Hoyt Knox as the paramedics tend to the fallen cowboy.”
Chapter 1
Hoyt
I’d walked out of the ring.
I’d gotten into the ambulance under my own volition.
Hell, I’d even ridden out that bumpy trip to the nearest hospital without passing out from the pain in my left shoulder.
If that ain’t cowboy then I don’t know what is.
So the fact I was made to stay overnight in this dimly lit room with my arm in a sling as nurses came in every two hours to shine a light into my eyes was overkill. My head was fine. I’d had a helmet on. Given how fucking hard my skull was, suffering a concussion was doubtful. Ask anyone who knew me and they’d say my head was crafted of pure concrete. Which was why I had argued up one side and down the other that I was pretty sure I didn’t need surgery for the broken collarbone tomorrow. Today. Whatever.
I wasn’t a doctor, nor had I ever played one on TV. I knew little about such things despite visiting every ER on the ISBR Rodeo circuit. What I did know was surgery involved plates, screws, months of PT, and a loss of winnings. Given that my sponsors were dropping me like a leaky transmission, being out of commission for who the hell knew how long was nothappening. And I had said so loudly but then the pain meds began to wear off and I’d crumpled like the little daisy that my daddy always called me whenever I dared to cry over a skinned knee.
That had been last night. This morning was a whole different dish of fajitas. This morning I was checking out of this damned shitty hotel and heading to Arizona. Sure, the pain was making me queasy but then again so did gas station sushi and I still ate that. The only thing slowing me down was the fact that I couldn’t find my fucking clothes. And that my left arm hurt so bad every time I took a step I wanted to throw up.
The door to my room opened with a softwhoosh. I let the nurse—probably the same one who had argued with me not twenty minutes ago—stare at my backside through the gap in my ugly gown as I rummaged around in a wardrobe looking for my fucking pants. My boots and hat were there, as was my belt, just no pants or shirt, or underwear. Whatever. It was Texas. I’d walk out with my balls swinging in the warm air.
“Hoyt, what the fuck are you doing?” I heard the craggy voice of my chute man behind me. Fuck. Clayton was here. Super. Well, he worked for me—sort of—so if he got lippy I would just withhold his paycheck. Not that I could. The ISBR paid his wages. Part of this new age buddy system they’d instituted about five years ago. Coaches, support staff, trainers, agents. All working together to support the bull rider. Not that this whole group dynamic thing did shit really. My agent wasn’t here. He was more than likely drawing up a letter of resignation after seeing me eat dirt then get tangoed on last night.
“I’m looking for my pants,” I ground out as I turned to gaze upon a man who was only late thirties—two years younger than my thirty-nine—but appeared to be at least sixty. Rodeo life aged a man in many ways, not all visible from the outside. His face was deeply tanned, wrinkled, and bore scars from one toomany close encounters with bulls. Which was how I would look in another ten years or less. Shit, I looked and felt eighty this morning.
“They don’t allow you to wear pants in surgery,” he noted calmly as I clutched at the wardrobe door with my right hand.
“Yeah, about that…” I replied, easing one foot in ugly gray socks with rubber nonslip strips ahead of the other. “I’m not having surgery. It’ll heal.”
“You’re about the most pigheaded fool I have ever had the misfortune of knowing.” He tossed a cloth shopping bag on the bed. “Those are your clothes. I washed them at a laundromat last night.”
“You were here last night?” I didn’t recall that. Just the doctors tutting, the nurses probing, and the white-hot pain in my shoulder.
“I was, and you were out of your head in pain. Why don’t you stop being a fucking jackass for five minutes and listen to your body. Just this once?”
“Clay, I have to be in Arizona. My team, our team, has three sponsors left. Three.” I shuffled to the bed, the room blurring, and flopped down beside the dusty duffel bag of clothes with a groan. “If I don’t ride I’m done.”
“You can’t ride with that busted shoulder. The league won’t allow it.” He grabbed a chair then dragged it to the bed, the metal legs grating across the non-slip floor.
“The league won’t know,” I said then reached into the duffel for my jeans. The agony of even that made my gut roil. I’d skip the boxers.
“They already know.” I whipped my attention from my old worn Wranglers to my chute man. He lifted a shoulder. “As does the team. Hoyt, we love you, we do.”
“Got a funny way of showing it. Bunch of fucking traitors.” I snapped my jeans out of the tight coil Clay had rolled them into. They flew out of my hand. “Fucker. Fucking. Fuckers. Fuck!”
I had a moment. I flipped over a tray holding a pitcher of water, which landed on my jeans, soaking them through. The clatter brought Nurse Ratched in, big eyes bulging at the mess I’d made.
