Parable, Montana [4] Big Sky Summer Page 24

  “How am I supposed to grow up to be just like you if you won’t let me do anything?” Shane pressed.

  Walker, ridiculously pleased that the boy even wanted to be like him, now or at any time in the future, thought the kid had a point. Risk was part of life, and not much could be accomplished without it.

  “Here’s the deal,” he said at some length. “I’ll ask your mother if you can ride in the rodeo—do my best to talk her into it, too—but if she says no, then no it is. Agreed?”

  Shane put out his hand to shake on the agreement, beaming again. “Agreed,” he said.

  Obviously, the boy had more faith in his dad’s influence over Casey than history justified, but there was no harm in trying.

  Shane took the dogs outside, Doolittle included, waited while they did what dogs do outside and then merrily retreated to his room to play video games on his computer, his feet barely touching the floor as he walked out of the kitchen, trailed by a trio of loyal canines.

  Doolittle stayed behind, resting his muzzle on Walker’s knee and gazing soulfully up into his eyes.

  Walker laughed and patted the mutt’s head. “You’re a good old dog,” he said.

  He sat there a while, wondering if he’d be interrupting something important if he called Casey on her cell, then took the advice he’d given Shane and texted her instead. Call me when you get a chance, he wrote. Nothing to worry about on this end, but I’ve got a question to ask.

  Five minutes later, his phone rang, and he felt a little leap of anticipation when he saw Casey’s number in the caller ID panel.

  “Hey,” she said, sounding shy and slightly breathless.

  “Hey,” he said back.

  “So what’s the question?” she prompted after waiting a few beats.

  When are you coming home? was certainly a contender, and so was Do teenage girls speak a language all their own and, if so, can you clue me in on some of the basic vocabulary?

  Walker cleared his throat. Best stick to the point. “Shane wants to enter the rodeo.”

  “No way,” Casey said immediately.

  “Not the regular rodeo—the one for kids.”

  A silence.

  “Are you still there?” Walker prodded.

  “Riding sheep or something like that?” Casey asked. He could practically feel the wheels and gears turning in her head.

  “Not exactly.”

  “Then, what?”

  “Bronc busting,” Walker said, feeling much as he had as a kid, when the river froze over and he took the first, cautious step onto the ice, hoping it would hold his weight.

  “Bronc busting?” Casey echoed. “Not just no, but hell, no.”

  “Casey, this isn’t bull riding at the National Finals. It’s kid rodeo, in Parable, Montana. I provide the horses myself and, trust me, the ones for the junior events are not the kind you’re probably picturing right now.”

  “Shane is thirteen,” Casey reminded him. “The only time he’s done any horseback riding at all was when he visited you on the ranch. Walker, he could get killed.”

  “Or he could just get a mouthful of dirt, feel real good because he tried and be ready the next time he faces a challenge.”

  “You want to let him ride,” Casey accused. She might have used the same tone to say, You told him to jump off a bridge.

  “Yes,” Walker said. “He’s good on a horse, Case—a natural.”

  He didn’t need to see her face to know she was biting her lower lip, torn between the knowledge that Walker was right about Shane’s abilities and the rigors of growing up and a natural desire to protect her child from unnecessary dangers.

  “I’m his mother,” Casey said, rhetorically, of course. “It’s my job to make sure my son doesn’t break his neck in some rodeo arena.”

  “And I’m his father,” Walker pointed out quietly. “So he’s our son.”

  “Is this some kind of macho thing?” Casey asked after another silence. “Is it some rite of passage?”

  Walker chuckled. “Neither,” he said. “Shane doesn’t have to prove himself to me or anybody else, Casey, but he wants this. A lot.”

  “It’s genetic,” Casey spouted. To hear her tell it, a person would have thought Walker had passed down a penchant for robbing banks through his DNA, instead of a love for all things Western, including rodeo.

  “Maybe,” Walker allowed. “But this isn’t about me, Casey, and it isn’t about you. It’s about Shane, pure and simple, and the man he’ll be some day.”

  “If anything happens to him, Walker Parrish—”

  Inwardly, Walker sighed with relief and no little amazement. I’ll be damned, he thought, she’s caving.

  “Nothing’s going to happen to Shane,” he said when she left the last part of her sentence dangling. “Most likely, he’ll take a spill, but that’s one hell of a lot better than hanging back because he’s afraid. Trying will net him some bruises for sure, but not trying will hurt his soul.”

  “I hate it when you’re philosophical.”

  “No, you hate it when I’m right.”

  Another pause. “If he’s afraid, why does he want to enter the rodeo?” Casey asked, sounding resigned now, but also confounded.

  “Courage isn’t about not being scared,” Walker explained gently. “It’s about being frightened out of your mind and going ahead with whatever it is you want to do, in spite of the fear.” He paused for a second or two. “Kind of like stepping out onto a stage that first time, and singing for an arena packed with people who might or might not like what they hear.”

  “That’s different,” Casey said, but weakly.

  “Is it? Weren’t you scared the first time you opened for some big-name act, thinking you might get booed off the stage if only because you weren’t the performer the audience came to see?”

  “Heck,” Casey answered, “I still get scared.”

  Walker smiled. That was a big admission, for one of the queens of country music. “I miss you,” he said.

  “Me, too,” she answered. “I mean, I miss you and the kids, not that I miss myself.”

  “I figured that was what you meant,” Walker teased. He wanted to say he loved her, right then and there, but he didn’t, because there were over a thousand miles between them and things like that had to be said face-to-face, if only the first time. “Come home soon.”

  “Sunday morning,” she said with a little sigh that raised Walker’s spirits considerably. “In the meantime, it’s interviews, and fancy dinners with speeches, and plenty of rehearsals and sound checks.”

  “Speaking of fancy dinners,” Walker said, wondering if he was detaining her, keeping her from rejoining the VIPs, “Shane says you’re eating with the vice president.”

  “Yes,” Casey confirmed in a whisper, “and the man is a dweeb.”

  Walker laughed. “I voted for that guy’s running mate,” he said. “And, therefore, indirectly, for him.”

  “There is no accounting for taste,” Casey replied succinctly. “How’s Clare doing?”

  “Well,” Walker joked, “she hasn’t been arrested or run off to join the circus or anything drastic like that.”

  “Gee, that’s comforting,” Casey responded.

  “Clare’s acting like what she is,” Walker said, seriously now, “a fourteen-year-old girl whose life was just turned upside down, trying to figure out what the heck hit her.” They were all dealing with some variation of the same theme, he supposed.

  “Keep them safe, Walker,” Casey said. It was a request, not a command—almost a plea.

  “Count on it,” Walker replied.

  “See you Sunday,” she said. “We’ll probably talk before then, but…” Again, her voice trailed off.

  “See you Sunday,” Walker affirmed gruffly.

  Sunday, it seemed to him, was a long way off.

  *

  THE JUNIOR RODEO opened on Friday afternoon, and Shane strutted around with his number pinned to the back of his shirt, sporting the new hat
Walker had bought him and brimming with confidence. He was eager to ride, and bone-certain he’d wind up in the money when the final scores were tallied. Stranger things had happened.

  Walker hoped the boy would place, of course, but he knew most of the other kids entered in the competition, and they were good. The horses and bulls, while tamer than some, were appropriate for the sport, which meant they were flat-out ornery and guaranteed to do their best to unseat a cowboy long before the buzzer sounded.

  Clare, who had come along only because Walker refused to leave her home alone, shook her head as she watched her younger brother conferring with other cowboys his age. “He’s such an idiot,” she said.

  Walker, just back from taking a look at the day’s stock, all of which belonged to him, adjusted his hat. “Harsh words,” he replied easily. “If I thought you really believed that, I’d be mighty discouraged.”

  Clare sighed heavily. She was wearing jeans, sneakers and one of Walker’s old shirts, and she carried a backpack, a fact he didn’t register as unusual. Not at the time, anyhow.

  “What if Shane gets hurt?” she fretted.

  Walker grinned down at her. “Chances are, he won’t,” he said.

  “Mom will kill you if Shane breaks a bone or gets a concussion or something,” the girl warned. “He’s her favorite, you know.”

  Walker hid his surprise. “She will indeed be four kinds of furious if anything like that happens,” he agreed, “but what makes you think your mom favors either one of you over the other?”

  “Parents always have a favorite,” Clare said wisely, still watching her brother. “They just won’t admit it, but kids know anyway.”

  “Well,” Walker replied slowly, “I’m a parent, it just so happens, and I love you just as much as I love Shane.”

  Clare made a sputtering sound with her lips, a sort of modified raspberry, adequate to convey her skepticism. “He’s a boy. Dads always like boys better than girls.”

  “Not true,” Walker said, wondering why important conversations like this one always seemed to start up in public places, when there was little or no time to pursue the matter. On impulse, he plopped his hat onto his daughter’s head and tugged the brim down over her eyes.

  Much to Walker’s relief, Clare laughed. “Really?” she asked, pushing back the hat and looking up at him with the first hint of a sparkle he’d seen in her in days.

  “Really,” he confirmed, choked up and trying not to show it.

  She took off his hat, handed it to him. That quick, the father-daughter moment was over.

  “Some of my friends from school are here,” she said, not bothering with a segue. “Mind if I go find them?”

  Walker nodded his permission, but qualified it with “Stay on the rodeo grounds, and check in, either by cell phone or in person, every hour or so.”

  She sighed dramatically but Walker thought, by the look in her eyes, that she was glad he was looking out for her. Later, he’d wonder if he was any better at predicting teenage behavior than he was at saying the right words at the right time, but at the moment, he was a sucker for a pretty girl—especially when that pretty girl was his daughter.

  “All right,” she agreed, and disappeared into the growing crowds.

  Walker immediately had second thoughts. There were a lot of spectators on hand for the big weekend, out-of-towners as well as locals. Had he done the right thing, letting Clare go off looking for her friends? Casey, given her tendency to hire bodyguards and avail herself and her children of police escorts, probably wouldn’t approve.

  The trouble was, it was too late to call Clare back—she was already out of sight and, unless he missed his guess, she wouldn’t answer if he called her cell.

  This is Parable County, Montana, he reminded himself. Not the mean streets of some big city.

  The opening ceremony was impressive, with flags and firecrackers and a six-jet flyover, courtesy of the United States Air Force. The kids in the high school chorus group sang “The Star-Spangled Banner,” and every hat was off as men, women and children joined in.

  When that part was over, Walker made his way behind the chutes, looking for Shane but trying not to be too obvious about it.

  The calf roping was just starting, soon to be followed by steer wrestling—also known as bull dogging, in rodeo lingo. After that would come the barrel racing, an all-girl competition, and a show of skill on the part of both the rider and the horse that never failed to rouse Walker’s admiration.

  Shane appeared as quickly as his sister had vanished, standing beside Walker at the fence. He’d probably been hanging out with his buddies from school, but none of them were around at the moment.

  “Does that hurt the calves?” the boy asked quietly, watching the competition over the top rail of the fence. Clearly, this wasn’t a concern he wanted broadcast all over the rodeo grounds. “Being roped like that, then jerked off their feet and tied up?”

  “No,” Walker said. “It’s not like roping a human being or a dog and throwing them down. Calves are sturdy little devils, but if they look at all fragile for any reason, we pull them before the competition gets started.” He paused, watching the proceedings for a few moments. Shane hadn’t said anything in reply, which might mean he had his doubts. “Roping calves is part of ranching,” Walker went on. “It’s usually the only way to give them their shots or treat them for disease or any kind of injury.”

  Shane nodded. “I guess calves don’t come when you call them, the way dogs do,” he observed.

  Walker laughed and slapped his son on the shoulder. “Nope,” he said. “They surely don’t come when you call them.”

  They watched another competitor and then another, in companionable silence, as did lots of other fathers and sons. Both calves evaded the rope entirely, to the discouragement of the youthful and very earnest cowboys attempting to lasso them from the back of their trained horses.

  “I drew a bronc called Backflip,” Shane said as the announcer chatted up the audience while another calf and mounted rider prepared to make their run.

  Walker knew Backflip, of course—knew all the horses, because he owned them. This particular animal was a fair-to-middling bucker, but he didn’t have the juice for the main event, so he’d wound up in the junior category. “He’s a good ride,” Walker said, studying the boy out of the corner of one eye. He seemed nervous, which only showed he had good sense, but wasn’t out-and-out scared.

  “I guess eight seconds probably seems like a long time, when you’re out there trying to stay on some bronc or bull.”

  “It can be an eternity,” Walker said, speaking from experience. He’d given up rodeo a long time ago, except for some fooling around out on the ranch, when he and Al and the hands were winnowing out the duds, broncos and bulls who weren’t athletically inclined, and there were times when he missed it a lot.

  What he didn’t miss was eating dirt, hitting the ground hard and running like hell for the fence when a bull came after him instead of just trotting off across the arena, the way they usually did, proudly showing themselves to be cowboy-free.

  “If you don’t feel ready to tackle this, Shane,” he added quietly when the boy didn’t say more, “that’s okay. Nobody will think any less of you for it, including me.”

  Shane beamed at him. “I’m gonna do this,” he said, and that was the end of that particular discussion.

  Clare checked in by cell phone, as agreed, some forty-five minutes later. She was hanging out with some of her friends from school, and they were all headed for the carnival, set up right there on the fairgrounds, to try out some of the rides.

  Walker, reassured, told her to have fun and call back in an hour.

  By then, Shane had wandered off with a few of his pals, and Walker, thinking this fathering business wasn’t as hard as folks made it out to be—folks like Casey, for instance—didn’t give the matter another thought.

  When the bareback event finally got underway, Walker kept some distance between hims
elf and the chutes, knowing it would embarrass Shane if he hovered too close.

  Shane was the third rider in the lineup, as it turned out, and Backflip proved himself worthy of his name by shaking the kid off at the three-second mark.

  Shane landed hard, sprawled on his back, while the pickup men herded Backflip out of the arena without incident.

  “A good try for a first-timer!” the announcer boomed as Shane got his wind back, rolled to his feet and stooped to retrieve his hat. “That’s Shane Parrish, ladies and gentlemen, from over in Three Trees. Let’s give him a hand!”

  The crowd cheered.

  Using his phone, Walker snapped a quick picture of his son, dented and dust-covered as he ambled toward the fence, grinning from ear to ear. He texted the shot to Casey, so she’d know Shane was alive and well in spite of entering the rodeo, snapped the device shut and dropped it back into his shirt pocket.

  Shane scrambled deftly over the fence to stand beside Walker, with that grin still splitting his face.

  “I did it,” he said.

  “You sure did,” Walker agreed, resting a hand on the boy’s shoulder, his voice a mite gruff.

  In the next moment, his phone rang, and Walker plucked it out of his pocket, expecting the caller to be Casey.

  Instead, it was Treat McQuillan.

  “One of my officers just arrested your daughter on a charge of shoplifting,” the chief of police said, not even trying to hide his satisfaction over this turn of events. “We’re holding her here, at the station.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CASEY, TAKING A BREAK in her dressing room between rehearsals, smiled at the snapshot Walker had sent, showing a recently thrown Shane sauntering across the rodeo arena back in Parable, covered in dust and grinning as widely as if he’d just been named All-Around Cowboy for that year.

  She was about to respond with a digital thumbs-up when the second message came in. Expecting another installment in the Shane saga, Casey opened it.

  This new image brought her up short, made her breath catch in her throat and her heart lurch, then go into free fall. The picture showed a sullen Clare, hands cuffed behind her back, being placed in the back of a police car.