Cookie stepped into the outbuilding. Along the sides of the room were racks supporting sheets of tiles ready for boxing. But the centerpiece was the propane-fired, fifty-three-cubic-foot, front-loading Delphi kiln—the largest in the state of Colorado—capable of 2,350 degrees Fahrenheit. Without speaking, for they had been through this routine before, Dominguez gestured for Cookie to bend over a stack of boxes.
b
It was now Labor Day and the annual Vanadium Rodeo. The rodeo was a big deal in town. Everyone participated in some way. The girls, who weren’t riding in an event, baked pies and made lemonade for the refreshment booth, which donated its proceeds to 4H and Future Ranchers of Tomorrow. All the boys, if they didn’t want to be teased, competed in the junior rodeo events.
If there was one thing in Cookie’s life that he could point to with pride, it was his collection of blue ribbons for saddle bronc riding. He had been champion in the kids’ division five years running. While the other boys rode sheep in the kiddy events, Cookie rode the real thing—wild-eyed broncos. This year, however, he faced an unlikely competitor in his adopted brother. Buster, by the end of the summer, had reached the preternatural height of six-one, and while no one had ever shown him how to ride a horse, there was some innate quality in his undocumented DNA that gave him what they call in cowboy parlance “a leg up.” There was no other way to explain his aptitude—other than what life had taught him so far—to hang on.
In the saddle bronc riding event, Cookie drew the horse The Hell You Say. The Hell’s gimmick was to put his nose down as soon as he cleared the gate and kick his back legs straight up over his head. Most riders slid off this steep incline in the first second, but Cookie dug his spurs in hard above the horse’s shoulder and made it easily past the eight-second buzzer. Sheriff Dudival, who volunteered every year as a rodeo clown, helped him off and shooed the aggravated horse away. The Judges scored Cookie the full twenty-five points on the animal, twenty-one on the rider’s performance and a combined forty-nine other points, bringing his total to a hard-to-beat ninety-five out of one hundred. Jared Yankapeed, an older cowboy, offered Cookie a congratulatory pull of Crazy Crow bourbon—which Cookie promptly drained as he glowered in the direction of his competition. Cookie, ever the good sportsman, had only moments before, found a bumblebee and shoved it up the rectum of his adopted brother’s horse.
“Next up, from Vanadium, Colorado…let’s hear it for the orphan, Buster McCaffrey!”
Buster climbed into the chute and eased himself into the saddle of Never Inoculated. He got a good grip of the single rein attached to the halter, then nodded to the official that he was ready. The gate flew open. Suddenly Never Inoculated’s eyes widened, and his cheeks puffed out like Dizzy Gillespie doing Caravan. He sprung out on all four hooves like a deer—three spine-jarring times toward the center of the arena, then sat down and dragged his ass like a dog with worms. Then, bee-bitten, he launched straight up in the air, then came down hard on his front legs and kicked with everything he had. Buster started to lose his seat. Never recoiled off his back legs to his front, cracking Buster’s nose into his mane. Buster, nose gushing blood and on the verge of passing out, lay back on the horse’s rump. Never Inoculated recoiled off his back legs and spanked Buster on his way out of the saddle—propelling him ten feet, fifteen feet, twenty feet. Some people who were there that day insist that Buster was sent fifty feet into the air! High above the arena, Buster could see all the way to Lone Cone peak. He took a deep breath and savored the smell of Vanadium—the manure of the feedlot all the way to the diesel and oil of the salvage yard on the other side of town. And just over there was his cinder-blocked school, the First Church of Thessalonians, the back of Main Street’s Victorian façade—above that, Lame Horse Mesa. In that moment, he loved this town. The crowd gazed up at him, incredulous. There were his sisters standing by their post at the lemonade stand—afraid for him. And there was a pretty girl, about his age, all decked out in fringed rodeo regalia with blonde Annie Oakley pigtails. Why, if that wasn’t the prettiest girl he’d ever seen!
I’m going marry that gal, he thought.
But then he suddenly realized he was on his way down. Where was that horse, anyway? Oh, there he was, down there. Buster scrambled with his legs to regain his balance, adjusted his feet just so—and then to everyone’s utter astonishment, landed squarely on Never Inoculated’s saddle. The horse was so shocked, looking back at the bloody-nosed Buster, that he just stood there and peed. Then the eight-second buzzer went off.
The Judges took a good fifteen minutes to figure out exactly how to score this rodeo miracle. Had the horse done his best to vanquish the rider? Yes, since the horse actually tried to kill the rider. Did the time the rider was out of the saddle count against the clock? Yes, since the rider’s feet never touched the ground. The Judges therefore concluded that since a maneuver like Buster’s had never been done before, he was to be awarded a ninety-nine. They held back a perfect score on principle. Everyone in the Dominguez family was delighted when the blue ribbon was presented—except Cookie, of course. He would have received a second place ribbon but was disqualified for bad sportsmanship when the winners were announced. He had been seen making a defiant humping motion behind an unwitting sheep, which the judges didn’t appreciate—this being a family event. Dominguez was even more unappreciative. The ride home from the rodeo was quiet and tense.
The Dominguez boys were asleep when Dominguez came to the bunkhouse and shook Cookie awake, then left for the kiln house. Cookie sat on the edge of the bed for a long time before he stuck his feet into his slippers and went outside. Buster, pretending to be asleep, went to the window and watched as Cookie walked the seventy-five yards to the kiln house, slid open the heavy steel door and went inside—momentarily lit by the red glow of the kiln’s ignition button. After that, he couldn’t see what happened. After half an hour, Cookie returned to his bed. Buster leaned over his bunk to see him, but Cookie had the covers pulled over his head, even though it had been a very hot night. Buster thought he heard Cookie crying.
b
That was how summer ended. The sheepherders were now taking their flocks to lower elevations for winter in the Dolores Canyon, and Dominguez needed to bank enough manure for his black tiles until spring. He rented a large dump truck and set off with the whole family for a Sheep Shit Round-up. They collected sheep droppings at three of the largest outfits on Lame Horse Mesa—the Pusters’, the Stumplehorsts’, and the rim rock acres of the Morgan property, in exchange for a meager royalty for manure rights. One by one, Dominguez dropped off each of the children to shovel dung into mounds from the different sections. At the end of the day, the old man stopped by each pile, which they uploaded to the truck.
Buster’s area was defined by the Lame Horse Escarpment on one side and the Hail Mary, a defunct silver mine that had been boarded up for almost twenty years, on the other. Buster shoveled until his hands were raw with blisters. By sunset, he had gathered a dung pile ten feet high. Exhausted, he walked to the canyon rim where an outcropping of rocks formed the entrance to the Hail Mary. Ordinarily, he would have jumped at the chance to squeeze through the wooden slats of the boarded-up mine entrance and explore, but he was too tired. He laid down, instead, on the red rock mine tailings—which still held their warmth from a day in the sun. In the canyon below, the Dolores River shimmered like a hot ribbon of solder. The wind was picking up, and aromas of sage and juniper brought welcome therapy to Buster’s senses. He sat and stared at a stand of hundred-year-old firs that had somehow escaped the lumberman’s axe. In the middle of them, a dead pine leaned against a healthy young tree—perhaps its own progeny. How long, Buster wondered, would the young tree have to hold his deceased ancestor before the wind or rot set him free? Suddenly Buster heard someone whispering behind him. It was coming from the mine.
“Who’s there?” Buster said.
Now nervous to be out there by himself, he got to his feet and warily looked around, but his investigation was interrupted by the sound of a horse’s hooves approaching. A cowboy, on a paint horse, was riding his way—faster than he’d ever seen, over rocks and marmot holes, spewing curse words all the way. Just when Buster was sure he was going to be trampled, the rider yanked the reins