than not.
As they always did, the exercises left him feeling loose and peaceful. He’d keep moving until it was his turn to ride, wandering through the maze of pens and chutes holding the bulls for the afternoon’s competition. They were undemanding company, some moving restlessly in their pens, others relaxing in the sawdust bedding. A massive cream-colored Brahman sidled over to the fence and poked his wet muzzle between the metal rails.
Tom scratched behind one floppy ear. “Gunslinger, you’re a phony,” he said. “Some tough guy.” The fence creaked as the bull leaned into the caress. Tom had straddled this bull three times already, always coming up short. No shame in that—no one had made the eight seconds on Gunslinger.
“How about it, buddy?” He tugged on the bull’s ear. “You want to dance again today?”
Tom returned to the locker room and was pulling on his boots when Arlie Johnson’s bull rope with its bell attached crashed against the metal lockers. The tall blond Arkansas cowboy followed and kicked the trashcan twice before dropping to a bench with his head in his hands.
“Son-of-a-gun blew up when he was supposed to spin,” he said. “That’s the last time I ask an owner how his bull bucks.”
Tom listened with halfhearted sympathy. Arlie was new to the big time. He’d learn a lot of hard lessons before he got much further, like not trying to second-guess more than half a ton of muscle and meanness.
“You’ve got two good scores for the weekend,” he said. “That’ll probably get you into the championship round.”
“Yeah, and get stuck with a bull nobody else wants, like Gunslinger.” Arlie’s glower smoothed out. “Say, these New York gals sure like cowboys. I was swatting them off like flies in Times Square last night.”
“You just keep swatting ’em, sonny,” Nick Ducharme said; his soft drawl bespoke Cajun country. He’d made the eight seconds on his bull. “Or you’ll go home with a souvenir you can’t show your mama. Besides, the girls you were hanging with in Times Square are a bunch of tourists just like you.”
Tom tightened the thong around the wrist of his riding glove and shrugged into his safety vest. “Don’t worry about picking Gunslinger,” he said. “He’s mine.”
* * *
BY THE TIME she heard Tom Cameron’s name announced, Jo Dace was half-deafened by the racket in the Garden and stupefied by the raw violence of the sport.
Her new friend elbowed her. “Don’t you just love Tom Cameron? He makes riding bulls look so easy. And you watch his brother during the ride—he hovers like a mother hen.”
Jo could see only Cameron’s back as he climbed down into the bucking chute, but the giant overhead screen showed him wrapping the rope over and around his hand and then sliding forward to a seat directly over his fist. A shiver of apprehension trickled down her spine. One cowboy had already been carried from the arena on a stretcher. What if—
The gate flew open and the big brindled bull shot forward, covering at least a dozen feet in one jump and snapping Cameron’s head back so that his hat brim almost touched the animal’s rump. Next a vertical leap followed by a feint to the left slung his rider far to the outside of the spin. Jo closed her eyes so she wouldn’t have to watch Cameron slammed to the dirt. The buzzer sounded, almost drowned out by cheers, and she opened her eyes in time to see Cameron sail through the air to land on his feet. The bullfighters wove between the rider and the bull that scampered through the exit gate with a final flourish of its heels.
The announcer’s voice boomed. “How about that ride, folks? Tom Cameron’s gonna be pretty happy with his score—89 points! That should give him first pick for the championship round.”
Cameron raised his hat to the crowd. As he passed her seat, she saw a thin scar running from his right cheekbone to the point of his chin.
The next three riders bucked off; two more made the buzzer but with scores lower than Cameron’s, ending the round.
“What’s happening now?” Jo asked Cindy—by now Jo and Satin Shirt were on a first-name basis—as men set up ramps to the circular steel structure in the middle of the arena. The shark cage, Cindy had called it earlier.
“The fifteen riders with the most points for the weekend get to pick their bulls for the championship round. Now you’ll see some real bucking.”
Tom Cameron climbed the ramp first. He said “Gunslinger” into the microphone, and the crowd roared with approval. The next thirteen riders chose from the diminishing list, leaving a bull named Booger-Butt for the luckless fifteenth.
When the action resumed, Jo understood what Cindy meant by real bucking. These bulls appeared to have studied at some elite school for mayhem—some kicked so high their backs went almost vertical, others spun so fast her own head swam. Most put their riders in the dirt in only a few seconds. Finally one cowboy hung on for eight seconds, but the announcer commented, “That won’t be much of a score, folks—Whirligig had an off day.”
And finally it was Tom Cameron’s turn. Again he eased down into one of the chutes near Jo’s seat, this time facing her. She could see his expression of intense concentration as he wrapped the rope around his hand and settled his mouthpiece. The bull stood still as a statue except for its mule-like ears waving like antennae.
“I knew he’d pick Gunslinger,” Cindy said, leaning forward. She cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled, “Ride him, Tom!” Her husband chuckled.
A slight nod from Cameron and the gate swung wide. Gunslinger erupted into the arena with all four feet off the ground, changing direction in midair. Cameron still clung to the bull’s back, but off center so that the next spin shot him off like a rock out of a slingshot. He struck the metal panel directly below Jo’s section with a crash and lay still. The eight-second buzzer sounded.
Madison Square Garden went dead quiet. Someone’s cell phone brayed, harsh in the silence. Two men from the Sports Medicine team and one of the bullfighters ran to the spot where Cameron lay. Jo heard someone say, “Hey, Tom—can you hear me?” An indistinct response. “You want to walk out?” A grunt of assent and Cameron climbed to his feet. The crowd cheered as he left the arena supported by two of the medics.
The announcer said, “Folks, Tom’s gonna be just fine. Doc Barnett will check him out, but you can see he’s up and walking. That makes the score 4–0 in Gunslinger’s favor.” Jo sank back in her seat. She’d gotten more than her money’s worth for today’s ticket, and she’d seen enough to believe that bull riding was indeed the Toughest Sport on Earth. Other rodeo competitions like riding broncos and roping made sense—they were cowboy skills carried to a professional level, but this... What use was riding a bull? Still, the magnificent foolishness fascinated her. Too bad Tom Cameron had been injured. She would have to revise her plan.
She was exchanging social media information with her new friend (“Maybe we’ll see you at another event—there’s one in Allentown this fall”) when she heard someone call her name. The cowboy to whom she’d given her card hailed her from the arena floor.
“Miss Dace? Joanna Dace? Tom said he’ll be out in a few minutes if you want to wait.”
He had to be joking. “Won’t he be going to the emergency room?” she asked. “He could barely walk.”
The cowboy hooted. “Naw,
