The Longest Ride (33 page)

I
t all went back to the ride on Big Ugly Critter.

The one he’d had nightmares about, the one that had kept him away from the arena for eighteen months. He’d told Sophia about the ride and a bit about the injuries he’d suffered.

But he hadn’t told her everything. As he stood in the barn after his mother had left, Luke leaned against the mechanical bull, reliving the past he’d tried hard to forget.

It was eight days before he’d even known what had happened. Although he knew he had been hurt and, after some prompting, could vaguely remember the ride, he’d had no idea how close he’d come to dying. He’d had no idea that in addition to fracturing his skull, the bull had cracked his C1 vertebra and that his brain had swelled with blood.

He hadn’t told Sophia that they didn’t reset the bones in his face for almost a month, for fear of causing additional trauma. Nor had he mentioned that the doctors had returned to his bedside to tell him that he’d never completely recover from the head injury – and that in a section of his skull, there was now a small titanium plate. The doctors told him that another similar impact to his head, with or without a helmet, would most likely be enough to kill him. The plate they had grafted onto his shattered skull was too close to the brain stem to adequately protect him.

After that first meeting with the doctors, he’d had fewer questions than anyone anticipated. He’d decided right then to give up bull riding, and he’d told everyone as much. He knew he’d miss the rodeo and that he’d probably wonder forever what it would have felt like to win the championship. But he’d never entertained a death wish, and at the time, he’d thought he still had plenty of money in the bank.

And he had, but it wasn’t enough. His mom had offered up the ranch as collateral for the loan she’d taken out to cover his monstrous medical bills. Though she’d told him repeatedly that she didn’t care about the fate of the ranch, he knew that deep down, she did. The ranch was her life, it was all she knew, and everything she’d done since the accident had confirmed her feelings. In the past year, she’d worked herself to the point of exhaustion in an attempt to forestall the inevitable. She could say whatever she wanted, but he knew the truth…

He could save the ranch. No, he couldn’t earn enough in the next year – or even three years – to pay off the loan, but he was a good enough rider to earn enough to meet the payments and then some, even if he rode only on the little tour. He admired his mom’s efforts with the Christmas trees and the pumpkins and expanding the herd, but both of them knew it wasn’t going to be enough. He’d heard enough about the cost of fixing this or that to know that things were tight even in the best of times.

So what was he supposed to do? He had to either pretend that everything was going to work out – which wasn’t possible – or find a way to fix the problem. And he knew exactly how to fix the problem. All he had to do was ride well.

But even if he rode well, he still might die.

Luke understood the risks. That was the reason his hands shook every time he prepared to ride. It wasn’t that he was rusty or that he was plagued with ordinary nerves. It was the fact that when he used the suicide wrap to hold on, a part of him wondered if this would be his last ride.

It wasn’t possible to ride successfully with that kind of fear. Unless, of course, there was something greater at stake, and for him, it came down to the ranch. And his mom. She wasn’t going to lose the ranch because of him.

He shook his head. He didn’t want to think about these things. It was hard enough to find the confidence he knew he needed to last – and win – over the course of a season. The one thing that you didn’t want to think about was not being able to ride.

Or dying in the process
…
 

He hadn’t been lying to the doctor when he said that he was ready to quit. He knew what a life of riding could do to a man; he’d watched his father wince and struggle in the mornings, and he’d felt the same pains himself. He’d lived through all the training and he’d given it his best, but it hadn’t worked out. And eighteen months ago, he’d been okay with that.

But right now, standing beside the mechanical bull, he knew that he had no choice. He pulled on his glove, then he took a deep breath and climbed onto the bull. Hanging off the horn was the control, and he took it in his free hand. But maybe because the season was getting close, or maybe because he hadn’t told the complete truth to Sophia, he couldn’t press the button. Not yet, anyway.

He reminded himself that he knew what might happen, and he tried to convince himself he was ready. He was ready to ride, he was preparing to ride, no matter what might happen. He was a bull rider. He’d done it for as long as he could remember, and he would do it again. He’d ride, because he was good at riding, and then all their problems would be solved…

Except that if he landed wrong, he might die.

All at once, his hands began to tremble. But, steeling himself, he finally pressed the button anyway.

 

 

On her way back from New Jersey, Sophia made a detour to the ranch before returning to campus. Luke was expecting her and had tidied up both the house and the porch in anticipation.

It was dark when her car pulled to a stop in front of his house. He bounded down the porch steps to meet her, wondering if anything had changed since he’d last seen her. Those worries evaporated as soon as she stepped out of her car and rushed toward him.

He caught her as she jumped, feeling her legs wrap around him. As they held each other, he reveled in how good she felt, certain again of how much she meant to him, wondering what the future would hold.

 

 

They made love that evening, but Sophia couldn’t stay the night. The new semester was beginning and she had an early class. Once her taillights vanished up the drive, Luke turned and walked toward the barn for yet another practice session. He wasn’t in the mood, but with the first event in less than two weeks, he reminded himself of how much more he had to do.

On his way to the barn, he made the decision to keep the practice shorter than usual, no more than an hour. He was tired and it was cold and he missed Sophia’s presence already.

Inside the barn, he went through a quick warm-up to get the blood flowing, then hopped on the bull. While rebuilding the bull, his dad had modified it to make the ride more intense at top speeds and had rigged the control switch so that Luke could hold it in his free hand. Out of habit, he kept his hand clenched in a half fist even when riding live bulls, though to this point no one had ever asked why or probably even noticed.

When he was ready, he started the machine at a low-medium speed, again just enough to loosen up. He then rode once on medium and once on medium-high. In his practice sessions, he rode in sixteen-second increments, exactly double the time he’d need to ride in the arena. His dad had calibrated the machine for these longer rides, saying that it would make the live rides easier by comparison. And maybe it did. But it was twice as hard on the body.

After each ride, he’d take a break to recover, and he took a longer break after every three. Usually, in those moments his mind was blank, but tonight he found himself flashing back to his ride on Big Ugly Critter. He wasn’t sure why the images kept flooding his mind, but he couldn’t stop them, and he felt his nerves jangle when his gaze fell on the mechanical bull. It was time for the real rides, the ones on high speed. His dad had calibrated fifty different rides to occur in a random sequence, so Luke would never know what to expect. Over the years it had served him well, but right now he wished he knew exactly what was coming.

When the muscles in his hand and forearm had recovered, he trudged back to the mechanical bull and climbed up. He rode three times, then three more. And three more after that. Of those nine, he made it to the end of the cycle seven times. Counting the recovery time, he’d been practicing for more than forty-five minutes. He decided then to do three more sets of three and call it a night.

He didn’t make it.

In the second ride of the second set, he felt the ride getting away from him. In that instant, he wasn’t unduly alarmed. He’d been thrown a million times, and unlike the arena, the area surrounding the bull was lined with foam padding. Even while in the air, he hadn’t been afraid, and he shifted, trying to land the way he wanted to in the arena: either on his feet or on all fours.

He managed to land on his feet, and the foam absorbed the impact as it usually did, but for some reason the landing left him off balance and he found himself stumbling, instinctively trying to stay upright instead of simply falling. He took three quick steps as he fell forward, his upper body stretching past the foam flooring, and slammed his forehead against the hard-packed ground.

His brain chimed like a thumbed guitar string; slices of golden light shimmered as he tried to focus. The room began to spin, blotting to darkness and then brightening again. The pain started, sharp at first and then sharper. Fuller. Slowly rounding into agony. It took him a minute to summon the strength to stagger to his feet, holding on to the old tractor to stay upright. Fear raced through his system as he carefully examined the bump on his forehead with his fingers.

It was swollen and tender, but as he felt around, he convinced himself that there was no further damage. He hadn’t cracked anything; he was sure of it. The other parts of his head were fine as far as he could tell. Standing straight, he took a deep breath and started gingerly for the doors.

Outside the door, his stomach abruptly turned and he doubled over. The dizziness came back and he vomited into the dirt. Only once, but it was enough to concern him. He’d vomited after receiving previous concussions, and he figured he had one again. He didn’t need to go to the doctor to know that he would be told not to practice for a week, maybe longer.

Or, more accurately, he would be warned never to ride again.
 

He was okay, though. It was a close call – too close – but he’d survived. He’d take a few days off regardless of the approaching season, and as he limped back to his house, he tried to put a positive spin on it. He’d been practicing hard, and a break might do him good. When he came back, he’d probably be stronger than ever. But despite his attempts to reassure himself, he couldn’t shake the feeling of dread that dogged his every step.

And what was he going to tell Sophia?