Page 1 of Broken Ride

PROLOGUE

WADE

The horse's name is Copperhead, and the son of a bitch wants me dead.

I can feel it in the way he loads into the chute, all fourteen hundred pounds of him slamming the panels until the bolts rattle and the gateman stumbles two steps sideways. Metal groans. The crowd on the other side of the fence leans back, beer sloshing, and the kid working the gate gives me a look that says your funeral, old man.

I don't correct him. Thirty-six feels old enough to qualify.

My rigging is set. I checked it twice because I always check it twice. The last time I trusted someone else's setup, a bronc named Paper Trail dumped me headfirst into a panel in Cheyenne and I spent six weeks eating through a straw. My rein is measured to the mark on my wrist where the leather has worn a permanent groove into the skin. Halter shank runs clean through the swivel. Saddle sits centered on the animal's back, cinch snug against his barrel.

Everything is right except me.

Both shoulders feel like someone packed broken glass between the joints overnight. The left one grinds when I rotate it, cartilage worn so thin the bones talk to each other with every movement. My lower back seized up in the truck this morning, and the ibuprofen I chased with coffee hasn't touched it.

I roll my shoulders. The sound is audible. The kid on the gate pretends he didn't hear it.

"You good?" the chute boss asks.

"Born good," I say.

He's heard that line before. I've been delivering it for the better part of two decades, and it stopped being true around the time my ex-wife's attorney started sending paperwork to rodeo offices. Lisa couldn't be bothered to track down a permanent address for a man who is always on the road.

I lower myself onto Copperhead's back.

The horse goes rigid beneath me, a full-body lock that transfers directly into my legs, my hips, my spine. I know this feeling. The animal is gathering himself into a single compressed charge, coiled fury waiting for an open gate, and whatever comes out is going to be fast and violent and angry in a way that doesn't need a reason. I respect that.

Takes one to know one.

I settle into the seat, adjust the angle of my pelvis, let my weight drop into the stirrups. Rein feels right. Grip feels right. The world narrows to the width of a chute gate and the eight seconds standing between me and the only thing I've ever been good at.

Somewhere above and behind me, the announcer feeds the crowd a version of Wade Ashcroft that sounds like a man worth cheering for. "Two-time circuit champion. Top ten in the current standings. A career that's given him more broken bones than most people collect birthday cards."

I don't listen. I'm watching the horse's ears. The left one is pinned flat, already decided about me personally. The right keeps flicking, still working out what kind of havoc he's going to commit once there's room. Fair enough.

I nod for the gate. The latch drops and Copperhead detonates.

First jump is a vertical explosion that compresses every disc in my spine and sends a jolt through my teeth. My rein arm absorbs the shock. I mark the horse out, both spurs above the break of the shoulders, because the rulebook demands it and because muscle memory executes even when the rest of me is barely functional. Hips catch the pocket of the first buck, and for one second, the geometry between man and animal locks into place.

Then Copperhead goes left.

Hard left, a lateral twist that whips my torso sideways while my lower body fights to stay centered. I counter with the spur stroke, dragging my heels from the horse's neck to the cantle in the long sweeping motion that earns points and punishes spines. The ache in my joints sharpens into something with an edge, and I file it under deal with it later along with everything else I've been filing for the past two years.

The ugly rhythm catches me, built from pain tolerance and stubbornness and the absolute refusal to let go.

Four seconds. Five. Six.

I drive the spur stroke harder, committing to the motion instead of surviving it, and Copperhead responds in kind, kicking higher, bucking with the honest fury that separates a paycheck horse from a pasture horse.

Seven.

Copperhead's last buck is his best. A twisting, sun-fishing leap that tries to roll me off the left side. My rein hand slips, leather burning across my palm, the moment tilting toward disaster. I bear down. The horse lands, and the impact shoots through my knees, my hips, my spine, and my skull.

Eight seconds.

Horn blasts. Pickup men come in fast, flanking Copperhead to slow him down so I can step off. Left shoulder: bad but functional. Lower back: worse. Right knee: barking. Palm: bleeding through the tape. The body keeps its own books, and the balance has been in the red for years.

I step off clean. Land on my feet. I tip my hat to the crowd because that's what Wade Ashcroft does. A sold-out Saturday arena gives me back a roar from people who have no idea what they just watched cost the man performing it.