Page 2 of Wild and Unruly
I kept my focus on Dusty, his horse, wondering if he was feeling all right. Normally, he was a little restless, ready to get in there and do the sport he loved so much. But right then, he seemed like he was ready to sleep.
“All right, you’re up, champ.” Richard patted Dusty on the butt and walked away, and I gave Mason one last smile.
“You ready?” The question was stupid, really. He was born for this job.
“As I’ll ever be,” was his reply before he nodded at me and replaced his hat, pulling at the brim and situating himself on the horse before making his way into the arena.
I felt on edge and uneasy as I made my way to the gate. My parents were in the stands watching, but when Mason showed, I wanted to be right there in the action, at the gate for when he came out of this a champion so I could be there if he needed anything.
“Bonnie!” I turned just in time to see Daphne, Mason’s longtime girlfriend, running down the tunnel to catch up to me, being mindful of the other horses.
In her heels and skirt, she looked out of place. But when she looked at my brother, everything clicked for the two of them.
I sighed, wishing that I would have someone like that come to watch me like that.
“You made it,” I replied quietly as we stepped up to the outside of the arena, watching Mason move his horse toward the other side of the arena.
“Barely,” she said, her eyes completely homed in on my brother.
My brother was given a cow through the opposite gate and started to push him to one side. The cow darted, and he movedDusty to keep up with him. Dusty was a pro and anticipated this, lunging after the cow and cutting it off.
They did this several times, cutting the cow quickly and efficiently, the precision at which they moved unmatched by anyone I’d seen today.
Mason made his move toward the long wall, and that cow darted down the opening. Dusty moved like a bullet after the cow, and just as he was about to cut him off, Dusty tripped.
A gasp flew out of me as I watched my brother flip over the horse’s right shoulder, and Dusty came down right on top of him, flipped sideways and pinning Mason to the ground.
The stadium was silent save for Daphne screaming Mason’s name.
And I was frozen. I watched with impatience, my heart in my throat as I looked at my brother lying there, silently begging him to move, to get up, to breathe.
People ran into the arena, other cowboys and contestants, and the judge jumped off of his chair where he was sitting on the side. Richard was right near Mason, and chaos erupted around me as my brother was lying in that arena, unresponsive.
Dusty was making a sound I’d never heard before, unable to move himself up.
Off of Mason, I finally realized, and I snapped out of the numbness that held me still and ran.
I wanted to run right to my brother to make sure he was okay, but I needed the horse off of him first and moved to help the group that was trying to move the thousand-pound animal off of him.
I moved to the poor horse’s head and gently but firmly pulled on him, “Come on, boy! Move!”
Finally, he did. When he was off of Mason, I saw the aftermath left behind.
My brother lay in a puddle of blood that could be his or his horse’s, and consciousness finally found him, his eyes snapping open and panic warring inside of them.
And then, he screamed.
His lungs wailed with a sound I’d never heard before as he realized what just happened.
When he realized the career he had worked so hard for, the one that had been his only goal for his entire adult life, just slipped right out of his hands.
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bonnie
This was goingto be a long assignment.
The smell of the fresh mountain air was a nice change from the now over-polluted metro area of Denver, where our offices were located.
