Chase covered his face with his hands. "Je sus." Tears leaked through his fingers and ran down the backs of his hands. This tangi ble evidence of his grief caused Marcie more agony than the brutal car crash.
"Chase," she whispered raggedly, "do you blame me?"
Keeping his hands over his eyes, he shook his head. "No, Marcie, no. I blame God. He killed her. He killed my baby. Why? Why? I
loved her so much. I loved—" He broke into sobs.
Lucky moved toward him and again laid a consoling hand on his brother's shaking shoulders.
Marcie detected tears in the younger man's eyes also. He seemed to be battling his own heartache.
Recently Lucky had made news by being charged with setting fire to a garage at Tyler Drilling. The charges had been dropped and the real culprits were now in custody, but apparently the ordeal had taken its toll on him.
She searched for something more to say, but words of comfort were elusive and abstract.
Her befuddled mind couldn't grasp them. It didn't really matter. Anything she said would sound banal.
God, how can I help him?
She was an overachiever to whom helplessness was anathema. Her inability to help him filled her with desperation. She stared at the crown of his bowed head, wanting to touch it, wanting to hold him and absorb his agony into herself.
Just before lapsing into blessed unconsciousness, she vowed that somehow, someday, some way, she would give life back to Chase Tyler.
"We've got a bunch of mean bulls tonight, ladies and gentlemen, but we've also got some cowboys who've rough and ready to ride 'em." The announcer's twangy voice reverberated through the cavernous arena of the Will Roger's Coliseum in Fort Worth, Texas.
"Eight seconds. That's how long a cowboy has to sit on top of that bull. Doesn't sound like much, but it's the longest eight seconds you can imagine. There's not a cowboy here who wouldn't agree to that.
Yessiree. In the
world of rodeo, this is the most demandin', most dangerous, most excitin' event. That's why we save it till last."
Marcie looked toward her two guests, pleased to see that they were enjoying themselves.
Bringing them to the rodeo had been a good idea. What better way to introduce them into pure, undiluted Texana? It was like a baptism of fire.
The announcer said, "Our first bull rider tonight comes from Park City, Utah, and when he's not bull riding, Larry Shafer likes to snow ski. Here's a real thrill-seekin' young man, ladies and gentlemen, coming out of chute number three on Cyclone Charlie! Ride 'im,
Larry!"
The couple from Massachusetts watched breathlessly as the Brahman bull charged out of the chute with the cowboy perched precariously atop his bucking back. Within a few seconds, the cowboy/skier from Utah was scrambling in the dirt to avoid the bull's pounding hooves. As soon as he'd gained his footing he ran for the fence, scaled it, and left it up to the two rodeo clowns to distract the bull until it ran through the open gate and out of the arena.
"I never saw anything like that," the woman said, aghast.
"Do these young men train to do this?" her husband wanted to know.
Marcie had only recently become interested in bull riding and her knowledge was still sketchy. "Yes, they do. There's a lot of skill involved, but a lot of chance too."
"Like what?"
"Like which bull a cowboy draws on a particular night."
"Some are more contrary than others?"
Marcie smiled. "All are bred to be rodeo animals, but each has his mood swings and personality traits."
Their attention was drawn to another chute where the bull had already lost patience and was bucking so violently the cowboy was having a difficult time mounting. The woman from Massachusetts fanned her face nervously.
Her husband sat enthralled.
"Ladies and gentlemen, it looks like our next cowboy is going to have a time of it tonight," the announcer said. "Anybody here want to take his place?" After a pause he chuckled. "Now, don't all of y'all volunteer at once.
"But this cowboy isn't afraid of a tough bull. In fact, the rougher the ride, the better he seems to like it.
He rodeoed for years before retiring from it. Took it up again about a year and a half ago, not the least bit intimidated that he's a decade older than most cowboys who ride bulls.
"He hails from East Texas. Anybody here from over Milton Point way? If so, put your hands together for this young man from your hometown, Chase Tyler, as he comes out of chute number seven on Ellll Dorado't"
"Oh, my God!" Unaware of what she was doing, Marcie surged to her feet.
The announcer raised his voice to an eardrum-blasting volume as the gate swung open and the mottled, gray bull charged out, swinging his hindquarters to and fro and, moving in opposition, thrashing his head from side to side.
Marcie watched the cowboy hat sail off
Chase's head and land in the dirt beneath the bull's pulverizing hooves. He kept his free left arm high, as required by the rules of the sport.
It flopped uncontrollably as the bull bucked.
His entire body was tossed high, then landed hard as it came back down onto the bull's back. He kept both knees raised and back, held at right angles to either side of the bull, rocking back and forth, up and down, on his tailbone.
The crowd was wildly cheering, encouraging
Chase to hang on. He managed to maintain his seat for about five seconds, though it had seemed like five years to Marcie. Before the horn sounded, the beast ducked his head so far down it almost touched the ground, then flung it up again. The movement had so much raw power behind it, Chase was thrown off.
He dodged the stamping hooves by rolling to one side. A clown, wearing baggy pants held up by suspenders, moved in and batted the bull on the snout with a rubber baseball bat. The bull snorted, stamped, and the clown scampered away, turning to thumb his nose at the animal.
It looked as though it were all in fun and
the crowd laughed. The seriousness of the clown's job became instantly apparent, however, when the tactic failed to work.
The bull swung around, slinging great globs of foamy slobber from either side of its mouth, its nostrils flared. Chase, his back to the bull, picked up his hat from the dirt and slapped it against his chaps. A warning was snouted, but not in time. The bull charged him, head lowered, over a ton in impetus behind the attack.
Chase sidestepped quickly enough to keep from being gored by a pair of vicious-looking horns, but the side of the bull's head caught him in the shoulder and he was knocked down.
Everyone in the audience gasped when the pair of front hooves landed square on Chase's chest.
Marcie screamed, then covered her mouth with her hands. She watched in horror as Chase lay sprawled in the reddish-brown dirt, obviously unconscious.
Again the clowns moved in, as well as two spotters on horseback. They galloped toward the bull. Each was standing in his stirrups, leaning far over his saddle horn, swinging a lasso. One was successful in getting the noose over the bull's horns and pulling the rope taut. His well-trained mount galloped through the gate, dragging the reluctant bull behind him while one brave clown swatted his rump with a broom.
The second clown was kneeling in the dirt beside the injured cowboy.
Marcie scrambled over several pairs of legs
and feet in her haste to reach the nearest aisle. Rudely she shoved past anyone who got in her way as she ran down the ramp. When she reached the lower level, she grabbed the arm of the first man she saw.
"Hey, what the—"
"Which way to the… the place where the people come out?"
"Say, lady, are you drunk? Let go of my arm."
"The barns. The place where the performers come from. Where the bulls go when they're finished."
"That way." He pointed, then muttered,
"Crazy broad."
She plowed her way through the milling crowd buying souvenirs and concessions. Over the public address system she heard the announcer say, "We'll let y'all know Chase Tyler's condition as soon as we hear something, folks."
Disregarding the authorized personnel only sign on a wide, metal, industrial-size door, she barged through it. The scent of hay and manure was strong as she moved down a row of cattle pens. Breathing heavily through her mouth, she almost choked on the dust, but spotting the rotating lights of an ambulance across the barn, she ran even faster through the maze of stalls.
Reaching the central aisle, she elbowed her way through the curious onlookers until she pushed her way free and saw Chase lying unconscious on a stretcher. Two paramedics were working over him. One was slipping a needle into the vein in the crook of his elbow.
Chase's face was still and white.
"No!" She dropped to her knees beside the stretcher and reached for his limp hand.
"Chase? Chase!"
"Get back, lady!" one of the paramedics ordered.
"But—"
"He'll be fine if you'll get out of our way."
Her arms were grabbed from behind and she was pulled to her feet. Turning, she confronted the grotesque face of one of the rodeo clowns, the one whom she'd last seen bending over Chase.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"A friend. How is he? Have they said what's wrong with him?"
He eyed her suspiciously; she obviously wasn't in her element. "He's prob'ly got a few broken ribs, is all.
Had the wind knocked out of him."
"Will he be all right?"
He spat tobacco juice on the hay-strewn concrete floor. "Prob'ly. I reckon he won't feel too good for a day or so."
Marcie was only moderately relieved to hear the clown's diagnosis. It wasn't a professional opinion.
How did he know that Chase hadn't sustained internal injuries?
"Shouldn't've been ridin' tonight," the clown was saying as the stretcher was hoisted into the back of the ambulance. "Told him he shouldn't get on a bull in his condition. Course I guess it wouldn't matter. That bull El Dorado is one mean sum'bitch. Last week over in—"
"What condition?" Frustrated when he only gazed at her in puzzlement through his white-rimmed eyes, she clarified her question. "You said 'in his condition.' What condition was Chase in?"
"He was half-lit."
"You mean drunk?"
"Yes, ma'am. We had us a pretty wild party last night. Chase hadn't quite recovered."
Marcie didn't wait to hear any more. She climbed into the back of the ambulance just as the paramedic was about to close the doors.
He reacted with surprise and an air of authority.
"Sorry, ma'am. You can't—"
"I am. Now we can stand here and argue about it or you can get this man to the hospital."
"Hey, what's the holdup?" the other paramedic shouted back. He was already in the driver's seat with the motor running.
His assistant gauged Marcie's determination and apparently decided that an argument would only waste valuable time.
"Nothing," he called to his cohort. "Let's go." He slammed the doors and the ambulance peeled out of the coliseum barn.
"Well, I'm glad you made it back to your hotel safely."
Marcie, cradling the receiver of the pay telephone against her ear, massaged her temples while apologizing to the gentleman from Massachusetts.
She had probably lost a sale, but when she saw Chase lying unconscious in the dirt, her guests had been the farthest thing from her mind. Indeed, she hadn't even remembered them until a few minutes ago while pacing the corridor of the hospital.
"Mr. Tyler is an old friend of mine," she explained. "I didn't know he was appearing in this rodeo until his name was announced.