The left side of my face shattered like a dropped teacup.
At first, everything was silent except for my pulse thudding through my ears. The side of my face felt warm and wet. When my hearing came back, I heard shouting. Then Shae-Lynn whimpered. “Oh my God. Billy.” She knelt beside me and her hand wrapped around mine. “Call an ambulance,” she shouted over her shoulder. “Somebody call an ambulance!” She started crying.
“Oh shit,” Cole said. I couldn’t see him. I could only hear the panic in his voice. “Shit. Shit. Shit. Ty, it’s bad. He’s hurt bad. It looks bad.” He kept his distance because he couldn’t handle the sight of blood. He never could handle it, but it got worse after we both witnessed our dad get killed. “How bad is it?”
Tyson crouched on my other side and took an objective look at my face. He scrunched his nose. “He’s conscious, but his face is caved in.”
“Oh my God. There’s so much blood,” Shae-Lynn whispered. “We have to get him to the hospital.”
“Shae-Lynn,” I tried to say, but it sounded like a gurgle because blood was pooled in the back of my throat. I turned my head and coughed out thick dark red liquid. Unfortunately, the coughing made the broken bones shift around. It hurt real bad. I stuck my fingers in my mouth and pulled out the tobacco along with three teeth. I squeezed her hand. “Make sure he takes his medication.”
“I will. Don’t even worry about anything.”
“That —” I had to cough again. “— was dangerous.”
“Yes, it was. You’re an idiot.”
I tried to smile, but moving my face made blood gush out. “Not me. You.”
“Don’t talk, Billy. Oh God. Cole, do something. He’s bleeding to death.”
“Where’s the damn ambulance?” Cole yelled.
That was the last thing I remembered.
Seven Months Later
I was in my room at my mom’s house messing around on my guitar when Cole opened the door without knocking. He leaned his shoulder on the doorframe and grinned like he was up to something.
“What?”
“Is your bag packed?”
I shook my head, knowing he was going to launch into another round of high school peer pressure tactics to convince me to go on tour with him. “I told you, I’m not going. My vision is still messed up in my left eye.”
He dismissed my excuse with a wave. “The doctor said you’re fine to ride.”
“I think I know if my eye is too messed up to ride better than she does.”
His posture collapsed into phase two of his pressure tactic, which was whining. “Come on, Billy. Don’t be a buzz kill. What are you going to do around here until September?”
“Work and take care of Mom,” I said for likely the millionth time since I told him I was retiring.
“We can hire a nurse for Mom. You’ll make more money on the circuit than what you make at the bar.” Logic. Phase three.
“Hank Pollert needs a ranch hand. I told him I could help out during the week, so I’ll be making two incomes.”
“You don’t want to be stuck here all summer doing that.”
“You’re going to be stuck here all summer doing that, too. Your shoulder is still too messed up to ride.”
“What are you talking about?” He patted his arm roughly to prove its sturdiness. “It’s as good as new.”
“You haven’t even been on a bull in seven months.”
“I’ve been training.”
“On saddle Broncs and mechanical barrels. It’s not the same. You’ll go one go on a bull and be done for the season.”
“Come with me just this weekend. If I get tossed, you can come home. If I win, we go on tour.”
Bargaining. That was an angle he hadn’t tried before. He must have been getting desperate. Not interested, I strummed the strings of my guitar. “No thanks.”
“You weren’t really serious about quitting, were you?”
“I didn’t quit. I retired.”
“You can’t retire. You’re twenty years old.”
“Well, I did.”
“Fine. You can be retired from bull riding and still come with me as my manager.”
“No.”
“I got a surprise for you. Look out the window.” He held the curtain back and pointed like a hyper kid.
When it became obvious that he wasn’t going to leave unless I looked, I rested my guitar on the bed and walked over to the window. Attached to the back of his pickup was a silver camper.
“Do you like it? It’s got a kitchen and a shower.” He went on to list a bunch of top of the line features like a salesman.
“I don’t care if it’s got a porch and an attic. I’m not going.” I sat on the edge of the bed and unfolded the paperwork from the University of Saskatchewan that I needed to fill out in order to reapply. “I have responsibilities. I can’t dick around on the circuit anymore.”
“I promise not to get killed.”
The image of Dad getting stomped flashed through my mind and made my muscles flinch involuntarily. “Yeah, well, that could happen whether I go with you or not.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
I looked up and stared at him for a while. I hated being he reason for the disappointed look on his face, but I had to stand my ground. “I don’t want to go.”
“I need to do this, Billy. I can’t end my career like that, and I need you there or I won’t be able to get back up on a bull.”
And, the guilt trip. Final phase. “Nobody cares if you quit.”
“I do, and Dad would have.”
I scoffed. “Look where that attitude got him.”
Cole wandered across the room and stared out the window at the trailer for a while. Honouring Dad’s memory was not an angle that was going to work on me and Cole obviously realized it because he sat on the edge of my desk and tried another approach. “Rodeo is all I know. It’s the only place I feel like myself.”
“I’m not stopping you from going. I just don’t want to go.”
“Who’s going to make sure I take my medications?”
I shook my head, not buying his useless act.
“Who’s going to remind me to fill out my forms?”
I propped the guitar back on my lap and practiced my picking, hoping he would eventually run out of arguments and go.
“Who’s going to drag me out of bed and make me scrambled eggs every morning?”
“You can learn to do all that for yourself.”
He pushed his hat back and propped his hands on his knees. He thought for a while then he said, “Mom will worry herself sick if you aren’t there watching over me.”
I sighed and rolled my eyes, wishing he would just give up and leave without