Page 85 of Ride Me Cowboy

The clock hits seven seconds and I hold my breath, staring at the screen and doing the same thing I do every time I watch this damned footage—I pray. Pray to God that this time, he’ll be okay. This time, it’ll be different. Like I can somehow change something that happened years ago.

I can’t, though.

Right after seven seconds, the bull bucks, drops, bucks the other way, throws his big old head back, like he’s rearing up, and Beau’s thrown. The doctor’s said he probably suffered a mid-air concussion, from the impact of the bull’s movements and the way his head jerked around.

His left-hand flops off the reins and the next movement the bull makes, Beau’s bucked high in the air. His body is limp, like apiece of cloth, but when he lands, red rodeo dust flies up around him. The bull is incensed. The Rodeo clown is trying to draw him away, but this thing’s gotten personal; the bull runs at Beau.

Beth gasps and now she squeezes her eyes shut a second. I pause it at the moment the bull drops his head and uses his horns to toss Beau, one last time, for good measure.

The video freezes with him a few feet in the air.

“Seen enough?” I ask, voice grim.

She just stares at the screen, trying to process it, then reaches down and hits the space bar, so the video starts playing again. It takes three rodeo guys to rope the bull and get him back from Beau. The crowd is eerily hushed. Beau doesn’t move. Medics come onto the field, holding a stretcher. Beau’s lifeless.

Even when they start to check him out, he’s frozen still. He’s rolled onto the stretcher after about ten minutes, and carried off the field. The crowd cheers for him, but I hear their worry. No one comes here to see a kid get killed. It’s gladiatorial, but that’s not the point of it.

The video freezes on a black screen.

Beth turns to face me.

“I get it,” she whispers, eyes round in her pretty face. “That’s horrific.”

“One of the worst accidents I’ve ever seen,” I confirm. “Strike that: the worst. That bull shoulda never been on the circuit. Damn thing was beyond vicious.”

Her throat shifts as she swallows. “Oh, Cole,” she presses a hand to my chest. “I get why you don’t want him to go back.”

“I sense a ‘but’ coming.”

She sighs heavily. “Beau knows the risks. As scary as it is for you guys, he has every right to meet those risks head on.”

“Jesus, Beth, did you not just see?—,”

“I saw,” she whispers. “And I hated every second of that footage. I’ve never known time to move so slowly,” she says, echoing my thought with a shudder. “But what are you going to do? Cut him off? Never see him again? Somehow force him to stay here, not doing what he loves, so he gets more and more resentful of you every single day? Who does that serve?”

I clench my jaw.

“He’s determined to get back on the circuit. You can tell him how you feel, tell him you hate the thought of it, but at the end of the day, you can’t do anything but support him. Make sure he knows he’s loved, that he can come back anytime. And just cross your fingers he loses interest.”

I grunt. It’s the last thing I want to hear. “I don’t think I can do that.”

“Why not?” She asks, and there’s something in the tone of her voice that makes me wonder what she’s getting at.

My eyes roam her face, thoughtfully. “Have you ever watched someone you love die?”

She shakes her head slowly. “Closest I’ve come is Christopher, and he was already gone by the time I got to the hospital.”

I hate that her mind takes her there, to that bastard, but I nod anyway.

“I’ve done it. I was eight years old, with my mom. It was just her and me, alone in the kitchen. She was peeling potatoes, and I was talking to her, like I used to do back then, after school. Then all of a sudden, she dropped a potato, heavy in the sink, I can still remember the sound it made. She looked at me, opened her mouth to say something, but no words came out. Then she just went over. Crumpled to the floor, like a sack of flour. Her head hit the counter as she went down, then the floor. I just stood there, staring at her. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.” I drag a hand over my jaw, surprised, in the back of my mind, that I’m telling Beth all this, because it’s not something I ever talk about.

“I didn’t have a clue what to do to help her. I was useless. Worse than useless. But ever since then, I’ve wondered if I could have done something different. Maybe there were signs I missed. Maybe if I’d acted faster, caught her before she fell.”

Beth makes a soft sound, shakes her head. “No, Cole, of course you couldn’t have.”

“With respect, you don’t know that.”

Her eyes shut on a wave of understanding. “And ever since then,” she says, quietly, “you’ve felt like you have to look after everyone you love. Keep them out of harm’s way.”

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