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ALL THE WHILE, I also was having the time of my life. Beside me, Herman was entranced in a Karl May knights-of-the-prairie way as he ohhed and ahhed at the spectacle of cowboys and broncos whirling like tornadoes in the arena. We were sitting pretty in the shade in the best seats in the rodeo grounds, comfy as mattress testers, while an acre of sunburn was occurring in the sweltering grandstand across the way. The announcer’s steady patter overhead was as soothing to my ears as a cat’s purr, filling time between bucking contestants by joking with the rodeo clown down in the arena as he went through his antics in overalls six sizes too large and a floppy orange wig. Like committing poetry to memory, I took in every word of their beloved old corny routines, as when the clown hollered up to the booth that he hated to leave such a good job as dodging broncs and Brahma bulls but he needed to move to Arizona for his seenus trouble. “Hey, Curly, don’t you mean ‘sinus’ trouble?” I could have recited the deep-voiced announcer’s line right along with him. “Nope.” The clown made the most dejected face ever seen, and I knew this part by heart, too: “The trouble is, I was out with another fellow’s wife, and he seen us.”
Hooting and hollering, the crowd reliably responded as if that were the height of humor, while Herman slapped me on the back and nearly fell off his gunnysack seat guffawing and I laughed as hard as if I hadn’t heard that mossy joke at every rodeo I had ever been to. Life can tickle you in the ribs surprisingly when it’s not digging its thumb in.
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ALL OF WHICH is a way of saying, what an emotion came over me in that precious space of time at Crow Fair. For the first time that unhinged summer, I felt like I was where I belonged. Around horses and cattle and men of the ranches and reservations, and the smell of hay in the fields and the ripple of a willowed creek where magpies chattered. Most of all, I suppose, because he was the author of this turnaround of our lives, in the company of halfway wizardly Herman, the pair of us blest with freedom of the road wherever the dog bus ran, enjoying ourselves to the limit at this peaceable grown-up game of cowboys and Indians. This is not the prettiest description of a perfect moment, but it was a king hell bastard of a feeling, filling me almost to bursting.
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EVEN THE INTRODUCTION of danger as the next rider was announced—“Here’s the matchup we’ve all been waiting for,” the announcer’s voice hushed as if on the brink of something colossal, “down in chute number six, the reigning world champion in this event, Rags Rasmussen, on a pony that has never been ridden, Buzzard Head!”—felt like it fit with the fullness of the day. Secretly, I would have given anything to be in those Diamond Buckle boots snugging into the stirrups down there on the notorious horse that the riding champ of all mankind was easing onto. A fantasy like that knows no logic and common sense, of course, because the most treacherous hazard in all of rodeo was hanging up a foot in a stirrup while being thrown and getting dragged by a saddled bronc determined to kick the life out of its trapped victim. While my imagination naturally pasted me into Rags Rasmussen’s place as he rode to the top of his profession, I nonetheless fervently fingered the arrowhead in my pocket for whatever luck it might bring in his matchup against the killer horse.
Herman looked as breathless as I felt, on the edge of his seat as we craned to see into the chute below, watching Rags make his preparations, his purple chaps vivid against the buckskin flanks of the waiting horse. Buzzard Head plainly deserved its name, with a big Roman nose and cold, mean eyes at the end of a droopy neck. Rags took his own sweet time getting ready, joking to the chute crew that they might at least have dabbed some chewing gum in the saddle to help him stick on, casually pocketing his world championship diamond ring so it wouldn’t catch in the rigging and yank his finger off, tugging his hat down tight, flexing his boots into the stirrups until it felt right. Then, every motion easy but practiced, one hand gripping the hackamore rope and the other high in the air according to the rules, spurs poised over the point of the bronc’s shoulders, he leaned back almost sleepily in the saddle, balanced against the catapult release he knew was coming. Throughout this, the glassy-eyed horse stayed deathly still, according to reputation saving itself up to attempt murder in the arena.