Page 15 of The Pieces We've Lost

There was a specific team that wasn’t in our group that I felt would be our greatest competition in either the semifinals or the championship, if we made it that far. Dash Kingsley and Wayne Marlow were a duo from Oklahoma and they had been one of the best last year, barely losing the NFR average championship to a team from Idaho. They both had a few years on me and Reid, nearing their thirties. Dash was tall and muscular, with more of an athletic build than Wayne, who was shorter than Dash but not stocky like some of the other cowboys I’d seen.

I wasn’t sure if they would be practicing at all today, but then I saw Dash tacking up his horse when I first took Bullet out. Their horses were surely restless from not being able to compete yet.

Reid and I found a spot in the stands among the few people there. Very few people, if any, came to watch practice runs. They were either out shopping or doing other things related to the rodeo. But some of the athletes who wanted to assess their competition would watch to see what they were up against.

We had to wait for a few other teams to practice before the team we were waiting to see went. While watching the other teams didn’t necessarily hurt, it wasn’t as important. They were decent, but they weren’t as good as Kingsley and Marlow. They were clocking in around six to six-point-five seconds. Still, you never wanted to underestimate the competition. They might have a great run on the day you have your worst.

Finally, the team from Oklahoma got ready for theirfirst practice run. Dash was the header and Wayne was the heeler. And damn, were they good. Good was an understatement. There was a reason they were the runners-up for the NFR average last year. Their timing was flawless, with no hesitations or mistakes. They clocked an impressive five-point-two on their first practice run.

If we made it to the championship, we would have our work cut out for us.

CHAPTER NINE

ellison

My mother and I walked side by side into NRG Stadium like we were walking into battle, or at least that’s what it was like for me. This day would never get easier, but every year I put on a brave face for my mother. I ignored the glances that lingered a bit too long—the ones that questioned who the girl with Hanna Merritt was.

No one recognized me because I practically dropped off the face of the Earth after my dad’s death, at least to the rodeo world. I started going by my mother’s maiden name, Wilson, eventually changing it legally, and stayed away from anything that would bring attention to me being Levi Merritt’s only daughter.

The fact I went to only one event a year helped me keep my anonymity. Besides, I looked different enough from my mother that no one read into it too closely and I was still a child when my dad died. My dad would have to be alive and physically standing next to me for strangers to notice our resemblance enough to put together the pieces. And well, he wasn’t.

Even if people did recognize us, they didn’t dare confront us about it. Not today.

Everyone knew about the accident. And if they didn’t, they either didn’t pay attention very well or they weren’t a member of the community. It, ironically, was a favorite topic for rodeo news and radio stations. You’d think they’d want to talk about people’s successes, not the ultimate failure.

We found our seats right as the rodeo was about to begin. They had started to parade the sponsor flags around the arena and the national anthem and prayer would be next. A prayer was said at every single rodeo. It wasn’t so much about religion, but more about wishing safety on the athletes and animals.

“Lord, thank you for this opportunity to allow us and these athletes to participate in one of your greatest events. Please look after our athletes, both two-legged and four-legged, as they compete tonight. Also, please protect those in the armed forces who gave us the freedoms that we sometimes take for granted. Watch over our law enforcement, firefighters, and medical first responders.” The entire arena was silent as the announcer prayed. “Lastly, thank you for keeping us, our friends, and our families healthy, and bringing us all together here tonight for one of the greatest sports in the world. In your name we pray, amen.”

A chorus of amens went around the crowd as he finished, and then the crowd went wild.

“Houston, Texas, are you ready for some rodeo?” the announcer cried.

A roar emerged from the crowd in response, people clapping and cheering and whistling.

“We’ve got a great lineup for y’all tonight. We’re kicking it off with bareback riding!”

The events would go in the order of bareback bronc riding, saddle bronc riding, tie-down roping, breakaway roping, mutton bustin’, team roping, steer wrestling, barrel racing, and bull riding.

The rules of bareback were simple. As a roughstock event, it was similar to bull riding. The contestant had to stay on the back of the bucking horse for eight seconds to receive a score out of 100. There were two judges. Each judge’s score was based on a cumulative total of up to fifty points, twenty-five for the rider and twenty-five for the bronc. Points were awarded based on how the horse was bucking and the style of the rider. Saddle bronc riding was basically the same as bareback as far as rules go, except you also had a saddle.

The first bareback rider had a rough time; he didn’t make it to eight seconds.

Watching the cowboys scramble to get out of the way of broncs or bulls always made you hold your breath a little until they were safe. That was the way rodeo worked, though. It was a thrill, almost an addiction to the danger of it all, both for the spectators and the riders. They all knew the risks and most of them left the arena without a scratch, even if they didn’t make it the full eight seconds.

“That was a tough one,” my mom murmured as she marked her day sheet with “NS,” or no score, by the rider’s name. The day sheets had the competitors for every event listed plus a space where you could keep track of the scores.

I glanced over at her score sheet and noticed a name that seemed vaguely familiar. Colter Carson/Reid Lawson, team roping. At the moment, with all of my thoughts onthe rodeo and my dad, I couldn’t place why the name was familiar or why I had heard it before, but there were probably so many cowboys named Colter that I brushed it off.

The competitions went by fairly quickly. There were forty total competitors in each event throughout the rodeo which made it even larger than the National Finals Rodeo that took place in December. But the competitors were split into five groups of eight with the top four from each group moving on to one of two semifinal nights. From there, the top five from each semifinal competed in the championship. It was an interesting format but it worked. Having an event that lasted for over two weeks was a huge money maker for the city of Houston and a great way to build hype for the sport.

For a brief moment during the breakaway roping, one of the two women’s events, a pang of grief shot through my chest. One of the girls competing was nineteen. She was younger than I was and an incredible athlete.

I momentarily pictured myself in her shoes. She was a teenager with so much potential and a whole career ahead of her. That could have been me out there. I pushed those feelings down, though. It was my own choice. I had made that bed and would lie in it.

My mother had tried her hardest to get me to compete. She knew how much I loved it. How riding was as easy as breathing for me. But I was stubborn—thanks, Dad—and every time she asked me, I said no. Eventually she stopped.

Perhaps a small part of me wished she had continued to try, continued to push the subject, and had been one of those mothers who didn’t give their child a choice in the matter. Wished she had said, “You are going to do this whether you like it or not, Ellison,” and dragged me intothe arena, even when I had kicked and cried and fought against her.

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