Noticing my open-mouthed worship of his every word and move, he paused there on the porch to give me a pearl of wisdom. “Putting yourself on dodgy horses all the time is a tough go, amigo. I hope you don’t have your heart set on being a bronc rider.”
“Never. I mean, you’re awful good at it and all, but I don’t think I could be.” His long legs and rider’s body next to my chunky build pretty well confirmed that at a glance. “Can I tell you something, though? What I most in the world want to be is a rodeo announcer.” I sent my voice as deep as it would go. “Coming out chute four, it’s Rags Rasmussen, champion of the world, on a bundle of trouble called Snow Snake. Like that.”
Then the most wonderful thing. The greatest rodeo cowboy on earth, who had heard announcers all the way from rickety roping-club arenas to Madison Square Garden, paused at the screen door and offered his hand. His grave experienced eyes met mine. “Let’s shake on you making it to the top, son. I think you have the gift.” In a trance, I shook his hand. “I’m sure not gonna bet against you.”
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IN THE MAGIC of that moment, the dream began to turn real. With his spirit in the world of rodeo as great as that of Manitou in the ghostland of the past, the vision never left me. I could foretell it clear as seeing into a mirror, the fancily painted broadcast crew bus with the bright red lettering emblazoned on its side where the silver dog used to run.
THE VOICE OF THE ARENA
SCOTTY CAMERON
BRINGS YOU THE WORLD OF RODEO
Fame and wealth, along with the cartoon tribute in Believe It or Not! For the hundreds upon hundreds of rodeos witnessed at the announcing microphone, those became within reach with that extended hand of Rags Rasmussen. I have had but to live up to what he called the gift.
Way ahead of that, I had to deal with a phone call I did not want to make, hiding my whereabouts and Herman’s very existence from Gram.
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NO SOONER were we in the house than a gale in woman form swept down the hallway to us. Not, unfortunately, the trick performer but the cook, Mrs. Costello, who liked to have her nose in everything.
“Oh, Mr. Rasmussen, you’re home! What a relief, I always worry about you.” A rawboned woman who looked like she could fight a bear with a switch, she normally ran a backyard laundry in Wisdom, but was a last-minute desperation hire by Jones. When Highpockets, on behalf of the crew, took the foreman aside after one too many servings of the cooked liver the hoboes called gator bait and asked if there wasn’t better grub to be had somehow, Jones threw up his hands and said he had scoured all the way to Butte for a haying-season cook with no luck, they were all taken. Which left us with Mrs. Costello, as addicted to radio soap operas as Aunt Kate, chronically resorting to dishes featuring canned tomatoes, and making a racket in the kitchen as if the pots and pans were taking a beating while she hashed meals together. Milking time brought another uproar almost daily. She and Smiley hated each other, with her regularly complaining loudly about the splatters of manure on the milk buckets the choreboy would bring in after milking Waltzing Matilda. I have read that the finest Persian carpets would have one strand deliberately left astray, to avoid the sin of pride that perfection might bring. Mrs. Costello was something like that loose thread in the pattern of the Double Buckle, and of course I regarded her as poor material compared to Gram.
But that was neither here nor there; Mrs. Costello obviously had to be put up with, as I could read in Rags’s face as she butted in on us now.
“Can I get you and your guest”—she didn’t mean me—“some rhubarb pie with whipped cream and coffee?”
“No thanks, we’ll save our appetites,” Rags said politely. “Excuse us, we both have business to do.”
With a final lingering curious look at me, off she went down the hall, next making an anvil chorus of pots and pans as she started doing the dishes.
Rags wagged his head and said something under his breath which sounded like “It takes all kinds.” He pointed me to the wall phone and said to make myself at home, which was like telling me I had come a long way from a hobo kip in the willows. I wished Herman was in there with me to share the giddy experience.
Somewhere upstairs a radio was going, nice and soft. Rags winked at me and headed for the stairs, calling, “I’m coming, Delilah.”
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“DONNY? In the name of heaven as they say around here, is that you?”
“Yeah, hi, Gram.”
Gram exclaimed over what a treat it was to hear my voice, and I stammered the same to her. My throat tight with emotion and apprehension, I blurted the question:
“H-how are you?”
“I’m sewn up like an old quilt, but I’ll be good as new. It just takes time.”
“Are you gonna be all right? I mean, like your old self?”