Handful of Sky (16 page)

Shallie felt her internal temperature rise by several degrees. “You know, Jake,” she blurted out, unable to restrain the angry torrent, “I gave you credit for knowing people, but you must not know the first thing about your grandson if you think he rides for money
or
glory.”

“Oh?” Jake questioned, one eyebrow shooting up quizzically. “Maybe you’d better tell me why else a man risks his neck on the back of a bronc then.”

“No,” Shallie answered, more to herself than to Jake McIver’s question. “I think I’d better tell Hunt.” She was the only one who’d seen him ride Pegasus, seen him turn bronc riding into an art that transcended both man and beast. She alone—not the buckle bunnies, not the agents, not the fickle fans, not even Trish Stephans. Only she had
the key that might help him unlock again the strongbox of his potential. As she made her way down the concrete ramp leading to the bucking chutes, she heard the crowd go wild in a frenzy of applause.

“What a way to start off our second section of bronc riding,” Slick Bridgers shrilled. “That was some ride just put on by last year’s bareback champion, Jesse Southerland. An eighty-four! Looks like we’ll be seeing Jesse in Las Vegas again this year.”

“Congratulations, Jesse. Good ride.” Hunt’s deep voice rose above the din behind the chutes. As Shallie turned the corner, his broad back was to her and he was extending his hand to Jesse Southerland. Trish, still resplendent in her black velvet outfit, clung to Hunt’s arm.

A mean and wary look haunted Southerland’s hatchet-shaped face. He cautiously extended his hand as if fearing that Hunt intended to crush it. “Thanks, McIver.” He dropped Hunt’s hand after a perfunctory shake and quickly turned away.

Trish, however, grabbed the victorious Southerland before he could leave. “And congratulations from me too,” she gushed, in a voice a couple of octaves higher than her normal range. Instead of a handshake, Trish embraced Southerland and kissed him squarely on the mouth. She stepped back, groping for Hunt’s arm. Southerland leered his appreciation. Shallie was turning to retreat when Trish’s artificially high voice trilled out.

“Shallie, have you come to congratulate Jesse on his wonderful ride too?”

Slowly Hunt turned toward her. Bands of steel seemed to be tightening around Shallie’s chest, making it hard for her to breathe. “Hello, Shallie.” His greeting was both cool and warmly intimate, as though there were no one else around.

“Hello, Hunt.” For Shallie, in that moment, there
was
no one else around. Minutes, hours, days passed in the fraction of a second that their eyes met. Then she became aware again of Jesse Southerland and Trish. Trish was beaming expectantly at her. Shallie knew she had to deliver the words expected of her.

“Congratulations, Jesse. And Trish. You must be very proud.”

“Oh, I am,” Trish said enthusiastically, with more high-voltage animation than she’d ever displayed around Shallie before. “But it’s not really pride in myself. It’s pride in all of rodeo and all the wonderful people who have chosen me to represent their sport.”

The words rang as false as a teenage beauty queen’s acceptance speech. They had the canned quality of a spiel that had been rehearsed many times in front of a mirror. Still, an exuberant glow surrounded Trish like an aura. Her skin was flushed with excitement and Shallie had to admit that she was a rare beauty. As Trish snuggled closer to Hunt, Shallie’s heart sank. She wanted to run away but
reminded herself that she hadn’t come to make any bids for Hunt McIver’s attentions, nor had she come out of the kind of false love of rodeo which Trish had just mouthed. Hers was genuine and it compelled her to speak.

“Hunt”—she forced herself to address him—“may I speak with you for a moment?”

“Go on ahead, we’re all friends here,” Trish cooed. “Aren’t we, Jesse?”

Southerland’s lips slid back in a hungry grin in answer to Trish’s flirtatious question.

Shallie made a silent appeal to Hunt. He acknowledged it. “I was just getting ready to throw my gear into my truck. Come on out with me.”

“I’ll be waiting right here for you, Hunt,” Trish called after them. “Maybe Jesse will be nice enough to keep me company.”

“I’ll see you in Jake’s box,” Hunt called over his shoulder as they made their way up the ramp. “Why don’t you go on up and show him the crown he won for you?” Trish didn’t answer. She already had her arm twined through Southerland’s.

Coming from the clamor inside, the night was still and cool. Behind them was the track where races were run each fall during the state fair. Beyond that were the Sandias, cold blue sentries guarding the horizon.

“What was it you needed to talk with me about?” Hunt’s question was crisp, as if nothing other than a
commercial transaction between two contractors had ever taken place between them. In her mind, Shallie knew that nothing of any more significance to Hunt
had
happened. It was her own heart, however, that she couldn’t convince otherwise.

“The way you rode tonight—”

“I know,” Hunt interrupted. “Jake could have done better and he probably told you as much. At least I didn’t bail out or get bucked off.”

“But you didn’t ride the way you could have either. I know that and so do you. You rode with your head and your hand. That night I saw you on Pegasus, you rode with your heart. You were so in touch with him that he couldn’t have made a move that would have surprised you. You were ahead of him on every jump. That’s the way you should be riding, Hunt. Forget the crowd. Forget your reputation. Do what you tell your students to, tune in to the horse.”

The leather rigging landed in the back of Hunt’s pickup with a thud. For a long moment they listened to the sound of Slick Bridgers’s voice and the cheers of the crowd echoing out across the parking lot. Shallie sensed that she’d affected Hunt, probably angered him. It didn’t matter. She’d had to tell him, not for his sake so much as for the sake of rodeo, to ensure that the sport was all it could ever be. She didn’t regret her words.

Hunt leaned against the truck, sorting out his feelings.
“No one has ever told me what you just have, has ever bothered, or dared, to be that honest with me.”

That part was easy and clear-cut to Hunt. Her words had rung in his head with the same clarity as the most honest of his own thoughts. The part that was confused was how he wanted to react. He kept remembering how she had tasted, her lips warm against his. How her arms had felt wrapping around his neck when she was beneath him, quivering with the pleasure they’d shared. As strongly as he wanted to feel her against him again, he wanted to push her from him. To repel the memory of her strange coldness that morning at the Driskill Hotel.

Hunt was unfamiliar with confusion. His life usually followed a fairly direct line between desire and fulfillment. He thought about the buckle bunnies who’d accosted him earlier, about the fresh young faces looking for the most meager hint of attention from him and willing to barter their bodies to get it. Perhaps there had been too many exchanges like that in his life, one too many mornings when he couldn’t get his pants on and clear out fast enough. Maybe that was why, when he’d awoken that morning wanting nothing more in the world than to hold her, her coldness had bitten so deeply. She had such a strong will in such a small, soft body. He’d known other wills encased in bodies equally alluring. The smartest course for him to take, Hunt decided reluctantly, would be to thank her for her advice and leave.

Shallie sensed Hunt preparing to speak. She edged away, expecting him to blast her for butting into his affairs and presuming to tell him how to ride broncs.

“Thanks for caring enough to tell me that. You’re absolutely right.”

Shallie looked up, her bottom lip dropping in surprise.

It was the tiny quiver of her lip that undid Hunt’s resolve. It drew his own lips down, pulling them to that thin sliver of vulnerability. Shallie was as surprised as Hunt that their lips would ever find one another again. But beyond that instant of surprise, no further thoughts registered in either mind.

“Let’s get out of here.” Hunt held the door open and Shallie slid in. He drove without direction until he found a long stretch of highway that rose steadily uphill. At its crest, they looked out and found the lights of Albuquerque like diamonds strewn at their feet.

He turned off the motor and silence blanketed them both. Shallie watched the winking pinpoints of light and listened to Hunt’s steady, even breathing. A gust of wind howled up the long valley and rattled the truck.

“I’ve always loved rodeo,” Hunt began, as though voicing the preamble to a larger statement, then he stopped.

“I have too.” Shallie urged him on with her agreement. “At least as long as I’ve known it existed.”

“I could tell that. A lot of women love rodeo for the week it’s in town and they can dress up in the Western clothes they keep stored in a box for the rest of the year. And some women love rodeo until they can snatch a man out of it, then they wish the sport had never been invented.”

“My mother was like that,” Shallie breathed. “But that syndrome works both ways. There are a lot of men who say they love rodeo and say they really admire a woman making a go of it in the sport. But that admiration cools off fast when they realize that she’s not going to be staying home to cook dinner when there’s a show two states away.” Shallie’s natural honesty seemed to call forth that same quality in Hunt.

“It must be hard for outsiders to understand rodeo fever when they haven’t got it pounding in their blood. Sometimes I don’t understand it myself. I look in the mirror and wonder why I do it. I’m over thirty. The young bloods, the ‘baby hots,’ coming up now are seventeen, eighteen. I’m an old man on the circuit. Why can’t I just rest on my laurels? I suppose I’ve been doing just that for the past two years and for most of this season as well. Here it is, the beginning of June. Southerland and Boulier have been hitting it hard since January, flying to every rodeo in the country, racking up points, and Albuquerque is my first this year. Part of the reason is Jake. I don’t like the idea of him working rodeos anymore. So, I’ve been doing more contracting than rodeoing.”

Hunt fell silent, but Shallie could feel the weight of unspoken words hanging between them. As if he’d paused to gather strength, Hunt burst out, “I know I’ve still got it. Hearing you say it just makes me all the more sure of it. I feel like this could be my last year to prove whether or not I really have what I think I do in me. But there’s Jake . . .” His voice trailed off. He reached out for Shallie, as if she were the answer he was seeking, and pulled her to him.

It was like being enfolded in a warm, downy nest, a nest heavy with Hunt’s intoxicating scent. She slid her hand up to the smooth skin of his neck. His pulse surged beneath her fingers. The tuft of chest hair which escaped over the top of his shirt collar tickled her cheek. Hunt’s arms wrapped more tightly around her. He stroked the soft downy feathering of her cheek as she snuggled more tightly against his chest. His hand trailed down, playing over the delicate bones of her neck and throat. It cradled her chin, lifting her head up, tilting it higher until she was inhaling the breath warmed by his lungs.

“Shallie.” His lips were so close to hers that she could feel them forming her name. It echoed and reechoed in her ears as she strained to find a thousand nuances in the way he’d pronounced that one word, “Shallie.”

His lips flicked over hers. Shallie’s eyes closed and the sparkle of Albuquerque’s lights flashed in her own head, an explosion of sensation as Hunt’s tongue painted
a galaxy of starlight across her mouth. She felt his cheekbones beneath her fingers, the butterfly fluttering of his eyelashes. His breath came in ragged bursts as his mouth pressed down on hers, demanding that she yield it to him. Then, as if waking from a perplexing dream, Hunt shook his head.

“No. Not here. Not like this.”

Shallie understood and was pleased by his restraint, glad that it had exceeded her own. “Yes, we’d better get back. Rodeo’s probably over by now. Petey will be needing some help loading the stock.”

Hunt started the motor. He reached out for Shallie’s hand and pulled it into his jacket pocket to keep his company. Then they drove down into a constellation of twinkling lights.

S
low down, Petey.” Hunt leaned
forward and grabbed Petey’s wildly gesticulating hands until the young man was able to calm himself and begin again. When he’d finished, Hunt made a few quick signs in return, then grabbed Shallie’s arm and pulled her along after him as he sprinted up the arena ramp.

“Hunt, what’s wrong?”

“It’s Jake. Petey wasn’t too specific, but he thinks something is wrong with the old man.”

They rushed up the flight of stairs while the announcer called out a score in the bull riding, the last event of the evening. At the private box, they found Jake, his jacket open, his face flushed, sprawled out across his chair. Walter was outside, running water into a paper cup.

“Jake.” Hunt dropped to his knees beside his grandfather. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Nuh . . .” he started to answer, his voice alarmingly
weak. He cleared his throat as if something had been stuck in it and began again. “Nothing. Not a damned thing,” he bellowed with a forced heartiness. “I’m just a bit tired. That’s what I told Petey and Walter when they started yammering about getting a doctor. Isn’t an old man entitled to get tired once in a while?” He sipped the water Walter offered him.

A heavy shadow of concern lay across Hunt’s face. “Are you sure, Jake? You don’t look well.”

“How the
hell
am I supposed to look at seventy-seven years of age? You’re not going to look so hot either when you’re my age. Help me up. I’m going back to the hotel, then hopping the first flight I can get out of here. I’m too damned old to be traipsing around the country.”

“I’m coming with you.” Hunt took the old man’s arm, helping him to his feet. As soon as he was upright, Jake shook off Hunt’s helping hand.