Dream Wheels (26 page)

“Good morning,” Lionel said. “Glad to see you making yourselves to home. Good ride?”

“Wonderful,” Claire said. “Aiden trotted some but I wasn’t ready for it. It was nice though.”

“Good. Claire, why don’t you walk the horses in and get one of the boys to put them up. Then come join us over behind the Quonset.”

“What am I doing?” Aiden asked. “I’ll tell you right now I ain’t shovelling no horseshit without breakfast first.”

“No, nothing like that,” Birch said. “There’s a critter over there we’d like to introduce you to.”

“Critter?”

“Yessir. Mean little spud, but you’ll like him.”

They dismounted and Aiden handed the reins to Claire. She watched the three of them walk away and hurried to get the horses in so she could get back to watch. The Wolfchilds were laughing and Aiden looked back and forth between them. From where she stood he looked like a ranch hand in his jeans and hat, and she smiled.

The men circled the corral and walked behind the Quonset. Aiden saw a small structure with only four corner beams and a roof. Ropes were tied to each of the beams, and in the middle of
their stretch hung an oil barrel with hay and mattresses spread beneath it. Four of the wranglers sat around waiting.

“That’s the critter,” Lionel said. “It’s called a rope barrel.”

“For?”

“For riding. Well, more like, for trying to ride.”

“Me?”

“You bet,” Lionel said.

They walked up to the shed and Aiden studied the setup. There was a length of rope slung about the barrel’s girth with a small loop on the top for a hand hold. The barrel moved slightly in the breeze.

“Doesn’t look so bad,” he said.

“Bradley, why don’t you get on up on that thing and show the boy how it’s done,” Birch said.

“Sure thing, boss man,” the wrangler said and pulled a pair of leather gloves from his back pocket. Aiden watched as he slung his long legs over the barrel and wrapped his gloved hand in the loop of the hand hold. The other hand he held to the side, up and away from his body like making a stop signal. The barrel bobbed on the ropes.

“That’s it?” Aiden asked.

“Not quite,” Birch said. “Boys?”

Birch and the other three wranglers took up positions at each of the ropes holding the barrel. Bradley settled himself on the barrel, took a few deep breaths, then nodded to Birch. As soon as he did, the four men on the ropes began yanking violently. The barrel exploded into motion, and the wrangler struggled to maintain his seat. Aiden was fascinated. There was no rhythm at all to the motion of the barrel, and even though the wrangler did a good job of hanging on, the men on the ropes were able to throw him off. He landed on the hay and mattresses with a thud.

“Well?” Birch asked.

“Wild,” Aiden said. “Anybody ever ride that thing?”

“Some,” Lionel said.

“Gimme that cuss,” another wrangler said and stepped up to the barrel. Once again the rope men worked together to create mayhem with the barrel, and the wrangler landed in the padding. Claire walked up and put a hand on Aiden’s shoulder.

“What’s going on?” she asked him.

“This is crazy,” he said. They watched while the third wrangler took a turn. He held out a little longer than the previous two but the result was still the same.

“Well,” Lionel said. “Ready to give it a try?”

“Me?” Aiden asked.

“Didn’t bring you out here to watch,” Birch said.

“I’m here to work, not ride this dumb thing. Besides, it doesn’t prove anything.”

“Proves you got the stones to try.”

“I already know that.”

“Then mount up, hardcase,” Bradley said from his position at one of the corner ropes.

Aiden looked around at the men. They stood lazily, slouched against the beams or on one out-thrust hip, casually examining him. His steadiest gaze earned him nothing back, and in the deflection of energy he found a grudging respect for them. These were harder men than he’d met before. They had no need for a pretense of toughness, he could see it in their casual way with danger, the striding up to it, the unquestioning acceptance of the challenge and the same slouching, matter-of-fact dusting off after they hit the dirt, ready for another ride.

“All right,” he said.

He walked right up to the barrel as confidently as they had, but there was a spear of anxiety in him. It excited him. He
felt charged like he had when he’d thought of pulling a gun on someone during a heist. Only this was far more immediate. This was a one-on-one deal where there were only two ways off, in the dirt or standing tall. He knew which one he wanted.

Birch explained how the barrel was set up to mimic the unpredictable nature of a bucking bull or a bronc and how the cowboy used it to learn technique. He showed him how to settle himself behind the rigging, how to use his back and shoulders to centre his butt, how to keep his free arm up and away from the barrel and how to reach out with his legs.

“There’s only one thing I can’t tell you.”

“What’s that?” Aiden asked.

“How to land. You pretty much gotta try and figure that out in the air.”

“Thanks. That’s comforting.”

Birch smiled and gave him a friendly slap on the shoulder. “Get on, then. Remember what I told you. Keep that free arm up and away.”

Aiden settled himself on the barrel. Even slung between the ropes it shimmied and wavered weirdly. The slightest motion of his body made it wobble, and he clutched with his knees and thighs to find purchase. When it settled to a slight tremble he gritted his teeth, raised his left arm high to the side, clutched hard with his right against the rigging and nodded. The men on the ropes began their sawing motions, holding back in respect for the green rider, but the barrel still exploded in ripples of motion. Aiden held on for three or four seconds, then flopped to the side and landed in the hay. The men laughed good-naturedly while Aiden stood up and dusted himself off. He turned sharply and glared at Birch.

“Again,” he said. “Only this time don’t treat me like a fucking kid. Make it buck like you did for them.”

“They’re experienced riders, son,” Birch said. “You gotta start slow.”

“I can handle it if they can,” Aiden said.

Lionel and Birch looked at each other. Birch reached up and scratched his eyebrow with one finger and studied Aiden, who stood beside the barrel, unwilling to take a step away.

“Make it buck,” Aiden said.

“Boys,” Birch said, stepping over and relieving one of the wranglers on the rope, “I believe we got a rider here. Not full out, not right now, but let’s give him a ride.”

“Full out,” Aiden said.

“You gotta earn full out, son. But we can sure give you a step or two above casual.”

“I’ll earn it. Just make it buck,” Aiden said. There was a look in his eye that Claire didn’t recognize, and when he mounted the barrel again and steadied himself on it he became a stranger. This was a man, intent and deliberate. Every shred of the seventeen-year-old was left in the bootprints in the hay below the rope barrel. She was aware of Victoria and Johanna walking up and standing beside her, and behind them, the Hairstons and Mundell.

When he was ready Aiden nodded sharply and the barrel exploded beneath him. Two maybe three seconds later he was thrown and landed squarely on his back. But he stood almost immediately, gave Birch a fierce-eyed look and said simply, “Again.”

“Son,” Birch started to say.

“Again.” Aiden mounted the barrel.

He rode five more times. Each time he was thrown and each time he stood, glared at Birch and said “Again” before slinging his leg around the barrel and finding his seat. The wranglers shook their heads in admiration and complied. The last time he
landed Aiden was clearly winded and lay in the hay longer than he had the previous times.

“Okay,” Victoria said firmly. “That’s enough carrying on without breakfast. Everyone up to the house.”

“One more,” Aiden said.

She looked at him evenly, tilted her head to one side and nodded. “You got fire in you, boy. But fire’s gotta be stoked, and right now you’re eating breakfast. Everyone’s eating breakfast. Now.”

Birch and Lionel grinned. “Best listen,” Lionel said to Aiden. “Only way I survived so long with her’s on accounta I learned to listen right off the hop. We’ll come back later.”

Aiden nodded. He looked at the barrel. “Sumbitch,” he said quietly and turned to join the others.

There was a world contained on the living-room wall. Photographs, dozens of them. Aiden and Claire studied each picture with rapt curiosity. From the grainy quality and scalloped edges of the older ones to the gloss of the newer shots, the photographs bridged the breadth of time from the 1920s right up to the present. The faces in the grainy shots were unfamiliar but eventually Lionel could be picked out, Victoria, then Birch, Johanna and Joe Willie. They were rodeo shots for the most part, bucking bulls and horses, Johanna on her barrel horse and others filled with cowboys, cowgirls, rodeo clowns. Banners in the background had names like Abilene, Cheyenne, Yuma, and Madison Square Garden. Here and there were faces of famous people, actors, musicians, newsmakers, all seemingly overjoyed to be with their hosts. The world captured there fascinated Aiden and Claire. It led them right up to Joe Willie. The photographs of him seemed able to jump right off the wall. There was a wildness to the shots of him
spurring a kicking bronc, an explosive energy to the mid-air splay of bull with his free arm in perfect form.

“The cripple,” Aiden said quietly.

“Appreciate it if you wouldn’t use that word,” Birch said from behind them. “Even if you think none of us can hear you.”

“He didn’t mean anything by it,” Claire said. “But what happened to him?”

“Your son can tell you,” Birch said. He came and stood beside them as they looked at the pictures. “Can’t you, Aiden?”

“Guess,” Aiden said, not taking his eyes off the photographs.

“What does he do now?” Claire asked. “He disappears all the time.”

“He’s healing.”

“What hurts?” Aiden asked.

Birch gave the boy a long look before he answered. When he did he spoke slowly, solemnly. “Most of us have a dream of what we want to be. In truth, most of us never come close to it. All my boy ever wanted was to cowboy and he cowboyed better’n anybody. So now, to be surrounded by it every day and not be able to touch it, to live it anymore, well, that’s a bitter thing. Hard to swallow that, and he’s trying to learn how to live with it.”

“Why doesn’t he just leave?” Aiden asked.

“We never raised a quitter. He’s a dust-me-off, mount-me-up, hit-it-again cowboy. He’s also an Indian, a Sioux-Ojibway warrior, and that kinda blood doesn’t have quit in it,” Birch said.

Aiden thought about the sweat-drenched man he’d seen stomping across the pasture the night before. The seething man who’d stood toe to toe with him in the barn hadn’t struck him as the back-down kind. He had a hardness and a coldness Aiden knew well and respected.

“He was the best?” Aiden asked.

“The best,” Birch replied.

“Wish I could have seen him ride.”

“You can. Anytime you want,” Birch said.

“How?”

“The magic of video. We got a ton of stuff we shot right here in training and there’s the Pro Rodeo videos, stuff from television, lots of it.”

“Really?”

“Yessir. Anytime you want. Right under the TV back in the rec room.”

Aiden looked at Claire, and for a brief second she saw the little boy in him again.

“How’s it going, son?” Birch asked. Joe Willie was sitting on the veranda drinking a coffee. His father shunted him over on the swing seat and began making himself a cigarette.

“Passable,” Joe Willie said.

“Passable’s good.”

“Yep.”

“Got some interesting visitors.”

“Good for you.”

Birch eyed him. Joe Willie stared out across the valley, and when Birch nudged him with his elbow and handed him the makings he took them silently and kept his eyes averted. “You’d like the woman. Claire. She’s got some fire. Like your mother, I think.”

“I doubt that,” Joe Willie said.

“Well, yeah. Ain’t many like your mother, I agree with you there, but she’s got some steel in her. Pretty little thing too.”

Joe Willie gave him a flick of the eyes and handed the makings back. He lit his cigarette and took a long draw,
exhaled, and chased it with a good belt of the coffee. “And the kid?” he asked.

“Just a kid. Seventeen. Full of beans. You know, I think he might make a rider.”

Joe Willie snorted. “What makes you think that?”

“I don’t know. Just a feeling. He rode the rope barrel.”

“I done that at three.”

“Yeah, but he showed some real fire. Didn’t want to stop.”

“Must like it flat on his ass.” Joe Willie ground the smoke out against his boot heel and tucked it in his vest pocket. He stood up and adjusted his hat.

“Well, the boy did eat some dirt but he showed a lot of toughness there. I mean, I knew he had it in him after I seen the fight.” Birch watched Joe Willie’s back straighten.

“What fight?” he asked without turning around.

“Well, it wasn’t really a fight. Not like some of the ones we seen on the circuit. This one was over fast. Boom boom. The kid knocked down Jess and Lanny. Just like that. We seen it. Hell of a punch the kid’s got.”

“Convict,” Joe Willie said.

“Mundell says the boys were talking dirty about your mother and Claire. Guess he didn’t appreciate that much.”

Joe Willie turned and looked at him. He stared at him for a long moment and Joe Willie flexed the fingers of both hands and squeezed them together into loose fists.

“Can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same if I’da heard it,” Birch said. “Still ain’t decided what to do about them boys.”

“Kick ’em out,” Joe Willie said.

“Ah, boys’ll be boys, you know that. I’ll just have a talk with them about respecting the women.”

“And the kid?”

“The kid’s gonna ride a steer today.”

“That’ll be a sight.”

“Should be. You could come watch.”

Joe Willie moved down the first two steps. “I ain’t got time for no Little Britches rodeo. You play all you want. Kid’s a city kid, a convict, only thing he’ll ever ride is his own ass back to prison. Sounds like nothing but a heap of trouble to me.”