Handful of Sky (24 page)

He waved her away with a show of gruffness, and Shallie pushed open the heavy oak doors of the stone home Jake McIver had built half a century before for the woman he’d never stopped loving.

T
he highway was a clean
slice through the Nevada desert, barreling straight into the glitter gulches of Las Vegas, home of the National Finals, the world’s richest, roughest rodeo. A gigantic cowboy grinned down at Shallie from a billboard, announcing that the nine-day-long Super Bowl of rodeo, in which the top fifteen contestants in each event competed for championships, would begin in two days. But Shallie’s mind was on her visit with Jake McIver almost one month ago.

She’d walked out of his home, reflecting on the forces that mold people, shaping them like trees bent before a slow, yet persistent wind. She imagined that right after Maggie died, Jake had probably turned to the first of the women who would trek in an endless parade through his life for a temporary relief from his pain, the same kind of relief she’d found in compulsive socializing. When did temporary measures become permanent fixtures? she wondered. When
did they move from propping up a sagging personality to being an integral part of it? Shallie would never know exactly how it had happened with Jake, just that it had.

The last party she had attended was simply to tell Emile, as gently as possible, that she wouldn’t be going to any more functions with him. She’d learned from Jake how cruelly unfair it was to let others pay the price of her pain.

Emile had accepted her decision with his usual good grace. She left early to return to what would become a succession of empty rooms where she would face sleepless hours and torturing thoughts of what might have been. But gradually sleep grew less elusive and by the time they rolled into Las Vegas, her natural equilibrium had been reestablished.

The big truck hummed as Petey guided it through the maze of freeways leading to the heart of the city, where the rodeo was to be staged at the mammoth Thomas & Mack Center. Every seat had been sold out long before the first of the big semis nosed into town, carrying the animals who would form the all-star team opposing the best cowboys in the country.

Petey slid the truck in beside a dozen others. A maze of pens made the grounds resemble a feedlot. Shallie hopped out and was approached by a National Finals board member, Chet Williamson, a whip-thin man who still looked fit enough to add another buckle to the collection he’d won as a national finalist during the seventies.

“Shallie Larkin, glad to see you.” He took her hand, dismissing an unneeded introduction. Shallie would be the only woman pulling up at the National Finals in a semi loaded with stock.

“Chet Williamson, good to meet you.” Shallie returned the warm greeting.

“I’ll let our livestock superintendent show you around, but basically we’re penning the animals in three categories: Put your least rank stock over there.” He pointed to an area at the far end of the maze of steel pens. “Then put your top bucking horses and bulls over there. And right here,” he said indicating a complex of pens constructed of a heavier grade, reinforced steel, “are the eliminator pens. Put your unridables in here. We want to have all the stock evened up as much as possible so that all the cowboys are riding stock of approximately the same quality.”

The first animal off the truck was her prize, Pegasus. She led her snowflake-kissed treasure straight to the eliminator pen. She knew he wasn’t absolutely “unridable.” She’d seen it done by one man. But in Pegasus’s season on the professional circuit, it had never been officially accomplished. He whinnied as if the excitement that buzzed like static in the air had infected him as well. It pleased Shallie to believe that he realized what an achievement it was for him to be here.

His shaggy winter coat kept him warm in the chill
winter air. Shallie snuggled further into her down parka. Pegasus was a spot of brilliance, shockingly white amidst the mottled browns and grays of the other broncs. Always the aristocrat, Shallie thought to herself. Her musing was cut short when Petey came up to her, his hands flying. He couldn’t find the special grain mixture she had developed especially for the horses selected for the Finals. When Shallie couldn’t locate it either, she had to borrow a pickup and head out for the nearest feed store in search of the high-protein mix.

Prima donnas,
she thought with amusement, knowing that this was just the first of an infinite number of missions she’d be embarking upon over the course of the next week and a half.

When she returned, the grounds were even more cluttered with semis. All around her were the symbols of the best in rodeo contracting. Painted across the eighteen-wheeled trucks, sewed onto the crews of men unloading livestock, and seared into the flesh of the animals themselves were the brands and logos of the producing companies she had read and dreamed of for years. But now that she was actually one of them, sharing the sport’s pinnacle, she halfway wished she could leave before the rodeo even got underway.

Hunt would be here, of course. The rampage he’d been on since Albuquerque had continued. In the few months he’d competed, he’d won enough to buy himself
the third-place ranking. Emile was second and Jesse Southerland led the bronc riders. Since all of the top fifteen bareback riders would be competing in each of the ten performances, a meeting with Hunt was almost inevitable.

She scooped the grain mixture into the troughs, reflecting on the route she’d taken to the Finals. She realized that luck, and Hunt’s intervention, had played a large part in her presence among rodeo’s greats. But she also knew that she’d put in as much hard work and caring as any contractor. In that sense, she’d earned her trip to the Finals. And she was going to enjoy it! Her decision strengthened her.

She
could
face Hunt.

“Shallie!” Walter, with Miriam by his side, waved her over. He had spent the few free days after their last rodeo at the Prescott ranch, then he and Miriam had flown in together.

“Come on, girl,” he chided her. “All us big-time contractors and some of the contestants are gathering at the hospitality suite.”

She waved them on, promising to join them once she’d changed.

In her hotel room, she pulled out the emerald-green dress and held it up as if it were a talisman.
I’ll need it,
she thought, slipping the silken sheath on. She added perfume and makeup as if they too were part of the psychic
armor she needed for the ordeal of seeing Hunt again. All she wanted was to survive their meeting with as much grace as possible. But deep down inside, she actually wanted much more. Though she wouldn’t allow herself to dwell on her futile hopes, she also hadn’t been able to extinguish them. As Shallie paused at the door of the hospitality suite, a kind of panic close to stage fright clawed at the pit of her stomach. The clinking of ice cubes in glasses supplied a tinkling counterpoint to the bass rumbling of the predominantly male voices at the gathering. Shallie took several deep breaths and entered.

“Shalimar Larkin!” Jake McIver hailed her. He was encircled by her uncle and Miriam, Petey, and several of the biggest contractors in the business. Though his voice was hearty, weariness strained his face and his eyes were lackluster. Shallie shot him a look of concern. He intercepted it with a wink, which told Shallie that any strain he might be putting on his health was less important to him than maintaining his “Mr. Rodeo” facade.

“Gentlemen, I’d like you to meet a producer good enough to put any one of you out of business tomorrow, Shallie Larkin.”

Shallie shook hands all around, but her attention was elsewhere. She scanned the crowded room filled with handsome, athletic men in Western suits, accompanied by wives and girlfriends attractive enough to be shown off at the National Finals. She tilted her chin upward,
craning her neck to search the corners of the room for a dark head of curly hair above a pair of high, slashing cheekbones.

Petey nudged her gently and directed her eyes to his hands. They formed the words “He’s over there,” then pointed to a corner behind Shallie. She instantly began to sense his presence in the form of a warm spot between her shoulders. The heat built until she couldn’t stand it any longer. She dared a quick glance over her shoulder.

For the first time in over half a year, they looked at one another. Shallie was stunned by the powerful effect Hunt had upon her. It was as if the past months had distilled everything she had ever felt for him into one heart-stoppingly visceral reaction. The expression he saw, however, was one of shock. In the same instant that Shallie’s features began to unfreeze, Hunt turned from her, from the chilly expression that seemed to glaze her features. The smile that finally reached her lips fell upon his stiff back as he deliberately pivoted away.

Shallie whirled around. Her emotional roller-coaster ride could have been measured in fractions of seconds. Only Petey had even noticed it. Commiseration deepened the lines around his eyes. Petey’s sympathy was more than Shallie could bear. She fled the suite without pausing to make excuses for her abrupt departure.

Back in her room, she ripped the gaily colored dress off, but she wouldn’t allow the tears misting her vision
to fall. No. She wouldn’t waste another teardrop on Hunt McIver. She’d cried enough for him already. As far as she was concerned, he had died and she had already put in more than her share of mourning.

Shallie was as good as her resolution. At the opening performance the next night, she was back behind the chutes with the fifteen best, and most nervous, bareback riders in the world. At first glance it looked more like a field hospital, with contestants ripping off miles of adhesive tape and unrolling dozens of elastic bandages to bind every imaginable portion of their anatomy. Knees were wrapped, both inside and out of jeans. Shoulders, wrists, elbows, and fingers were encased in sticky white tape. Shallie knew that a lot of the outside reinforcement provided crucial support for torn ligaments and strained muscles. But most of it served only to shore up the mental image each cowboy was brewing of himself as tough and invulnerable, a match for any horse in the chutes.

A camera crew scurried about, filming the proceedings. A female interviewer, desperately overdressed in heels and a skirt, stuck a microphone in front of Shallie and asked what it felt like to be the only woman contractor at the National Finals.

Shallie slid into the “good old girl” persona she used for such occasions. “It feels a whole heck of a lot better than if I wasn’t here.” She grinned. The crew chuckled appreciatively, knowing the retort would make good
footage. Her smile, though, blinked off as abruptly as the camera’s light.

She followed the television spotlight as it fell first on Emile, then on Jesse, capturing the top two finalists and probing the rivals for predictions.

“Well, I don’t know,” Emile answered in his Canadian drawl. “I suppose I have as good a chance as the next fellow of winning. These broncs don’t play any favorites, you know. I’m going into this in second place, just a couple hundred dollars back from Jesse Southerland. But I’d say the man to watch is Hunt McIver. With the size of the purse here, if he stays as hot as he’s been, he could take home that great big gold buckle.”

Southerland was far less gracious. “I’m going into this in the number-one berth and that’s exactly how I intend on leaving it. No, I don’t consider McIver a threat. We’ve all seen him choke before and I think he’ll do it again.”

Southerland was opening his mouth to elaborate further on the trouncing he intended to give Hunt McIver, when the bright light blinked off, leaving him in darkness. The crew hurried after the woman in heels as she made a beeline for the entryway. It didn’t surprise Shallie to see Hunt amble in with his usual loose-jointed grace.

She forbid herself to react to his appearance. When her traitorous body refused, she sealed off her mind, ignoring the way her hands went cold and her stomach seemed to sink a foot lower. The camera crew intercepted
him before Hunt reached the chutes where Shallie stood on the catwalk running above them.

“Hunt.” The female interviewer addressed him as if they were old friends. Hunt’s eyebrows jumped an almost imperceptible fraction of an inch at the presumption. He looked around as if searching for an escape and saw Shallie, her lips curled upward in a slight, ironic grin that chilled his soul.

“Hunt, is Trish Stephans going to be in the crowd cheering you on?”

The name rose above the clamor to sting Shallie with a barb she wished she could will herself not to feel. But feel it she did. It drove her to the only method she had for soothing that pain—escape.

“What?” Confusion and irritation cracked Hunt’s voice. He wanted to push past this pest of a woman with her high heels sinking into the arena dirt and her stupid questions and find Shallie. Find her and shake her until she rattled. Why had she smiled at him like that? The interviewer clung to him like a gnat.

“Trish Stephans?” the woman persisted, finally capturing Hunt’s wandering attention. “Will she be here rooting for you?”

When he looked up again, Shallie was gone. “Ma’am,” Hunt said, fighting to keep his voice even, “maybe you haven’t noticed, but you’re at a rodeo. These are horses here,” he said, swinging his hand toward the chutes. “And
we’re here to ride them. Now, if you’ve got any questions on
that
subject, I’ll think about answering them. Otherwise, will you please get out of my way?”

The woman stepped aside, her eyes widening in disbelief at encountering someone who wasn’t mesmerized by the television camera’s cyclopean eye.

Hunt hurried past, but it was too late. Damn her. He felt fury’s familiar sting as he slammed his rigging bag down. It
was
too late, he should have realized that yesterday. Still, the anger pumping through him was an old friend, one that had served him well over the past months, fueling him with the unrelenting will to win. He let it wash over him, knowing he would start off the Finals with another good ride. Knowing, and not caring.