Page 22 of Eight Seconds to Ride

Shooter Graham

I’m having such an off night. I felt it the moment I woke up, and the day’s progressively gotten worse. It’s our first of three rodeos in Sugar Creek, Colorado, and the pit in my stomach leads me to believe it’s not off to a great start.

This afternoon, my dad called me, and I knew I shouldn’t have answered it, but I did anyway. He felt that hours before the rodeo was a perfect time to remind me how fucking good Sterling is, and how close he got to beating me last week. Reminding me that I’ve been doing this for years, and I should easily smoke his ass out there. That phone call was a bad omen if I’ve ever heard of one, because the way I just competed was un-fucking-acceptable. I can’t remember the last time I rode that shitty, not even my first year in the pros. The only way my ride could’ve been any worse would be if I had fallen off the horse altogether. Thank fuck I didn’t do that.

I want to blame my father solely for this. I want to rage and bitch and complain about how he jinxed me hours before I wasset to compete, filling my head with doubt. But that wouldn’t be totally true. I’ve been in my own head all week, all on my own.

After my back-to-back wins last weekend, I should be on cloud nine. I should be proud, and I should be ready to do it again. Except all week, his words have been replaying in my head like a broken record.

“I know you can do better than that, Shooter.”

“You’re a world champ, for Christ’s sake. Act like it.”

Growing up in the world I did, winning is important. People will argue that doing your best and having fun, doing what you love, is what’s most important. But that’s not true. At least, not according to the Graham bronc riders who preceded me. Winning is what’s most important. Beating your opponents. Going out there and giving your all, no matter what it takes. I don’t know how many times growing up I heard“second place is just the first loser”from not only dad, but my uncles and my grandfather. The latter, arguably the worst of them all.

Clay Graham Sr. was ruthless in his time. He rode hard and fought dirty, and anything less than perfection was a disappointment in his eyes. I know he harped on my dad and my uncleswhen they were growing up. The expectations were sky high, and if you let him down, well, then you better fucking hide. My grandfather was not only brutal and fierce in the arena, but at home too. He wasn’t somebody you wanted to let down.

A baseline level of stress is always present when it comes to rodeo and competing, an underlying need to make my father proud, to make good on my family name, but this season… I don’t know, it’s different. Ever since I heard him sing praises about Sterling the week before we left for the circuit, it’s been in the back of my mind constantly. A tiny niggling of doubt, of worry. And if there’s one thing you cannot do when you’re going out on these thousand-pound beasts, it’s have doubts.

Doubts will get you injured. Or worse; killed.

Doubts are what cost me the rodeo tonight. It’s not over yet, as there’s still a few bronc riders left to go, but I know in my heart I lost tonight. And logically, I know it’s not the end of the world. I’ll compete dozens more times before it’s time to go to finals, so one loss doesn’t dictate anything. But when it comes to the rodeo—when it comes to my father—logical isn’t in the forefront of my mind. Because all I’m thinking about is the phone call that’s bound to come, when he tells me where I went wrong, what I could’ve done differently, and howhewould’ve won this rodeo.

I hate the second guessing running through me right now. It’s a shiver climbing down my spine, eating away at my self-worth. The cold, clutching fear that maybe I’m not good enough anymore. I’m only twenty-four, but maybe my time’s up. Maybe I don’t have what it takes to hold that world champ title.

My mind is racing a million ways at once, and I can’t sit still. I’m pacing outside behind the arena, chain smoking while I wear a hole in the ground. I don’t usually smoke cigarettes on rodeo nights, instead choosing to chew. I don’t know why, it’s just what I’ve always done. But the chew wasn’t enough tonight. I needed to feel the cigarette in my hand, taste the smoke as it skirted over my tongue and down into my lungs, feel as they expanded, holding in the toxins that normally clear my head. That normally put me at ease.

Not tonight.

Tonight, I’m a racing heart, shaky, sweaty palms, and a cinder block of dread. My eyes burn from exhaustion because I haven’t been sleeping, and all I want to do is get out of here and bury myself inside of someone to take my mind off it all, but I know that won’t happen.

My breathing is coming out in shallow gasps, like I can’t drag it in fast enough, my head dizzy like I’m sitting on a tilt-a-whirl, the outside of my vision tinged with black.

Fuck!

I gotta get it the fuck together before I go back in there and make a fucking fool of myself—an even bigger fool than I’ve already made. Stopping the pacing, I bend at the waist, hand going to my knees as I drag in a lungful of air through my nose, expelling it through my mouth.

In through my nose.

Out through my mouth.

Repeat.

In, nose.

Out, mouth.

Come on, Shooter. Fucking breathe.

Calm the fuck down. This isn’t who we are.

Sweat tickles the hair on the nape of my neck, dripping down into my button-up. The shirt is constricting. Suffocating. An overbearing claw grips at my chest tightly, the pressure unbearable. Blood pounds against my temples, the world spinning around me. I rip my hat off my head, tossing it onto the grass beside me as my legs give out and I collapse, knees colliding with the rough ground. It’s wet and squishy beneath the denim, seeping in, soaking my skin, but I can’t find it in me to care.

The crowd roars inside the arena, and I’d bet my left nut it’s Sterling. He was the last bronc rider competing tonight. My insides twist just thinking about him. I want to hate him. Want to loathe him with every fiber of my being. And inside that arena, maybe I do. But outside? Well, outside of the arena, I don’t know how I feel about him, but it’s not hate. As much as I hate admitting it, he reminds me a lot of myself.

His drive. The confidence he holds when it comes to rodeo. His natural talent. The way he moves with his bronc, and can predict its every move. Just like me.

“There you are.” Turning my head to the side, I see Cope ambling over. He squats down in front of me, worry lining his forehead and squishing his brows. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

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