Page 69 of Drifter’s Heart

“Stop it.” I poke him.

“Stop what?” He’s all innocence.

“Gah.” I stop shy of blowing a raspberry at him. Just. It’s a close thing.

Music starts. I don’t recognize the song, though it’s a good tune with a decent beat. Something about rodeos and dust and heartbeats. A bull bursts from the chute. It’s big and black and covered with purple glittery tassels. Nope, that’s Dustan being himself. And he’s…

Staying on the damn bull.

For all the times that West has told me he’s fallen off, more than I counted Jesse Duke eating Coyote Falls dust while I stayed with Cord the last time with Sally, I expected Dustan to, well, eat dust.

In about two seconds.

At three, he’s still holding on.

“Four,” I mutter, curling my fingers into fists in my lap. My nails bite into my palms. “Five.”

“Stop it,” Cord berates me, but then adds to my count. “Six.”

“Asshat.” The bull swirls about in a fit of rage, or disorientation. I can’t work out which. Dust puffs everywhere, obscuring our vision.

“Seven,” we say together.

Purple glitter reflects off the lights that flare out my vision.

“Eight,” I whisper.

The buzzer goes off. Flames shoot from their mounts set at regular intervals around the stadium my brother has built. The effect creates a rippling volcanic pattern, illuminating three thousand fans cheering for West’s new rider.

“He’s done it.”

The words fall from my lips as the dust clears and glitter stops glittering. And we see what the bull has left behind.

A still cowboy, lying in the settled dust.

“Fuck. No.” Cord’s too-loud shout fills the quiet moment.

No one cares. He’s up and standing, too fast for his back, ready to jump, but West’s already there. Boots hit the sawdust as he slams into the ground, his face a tight mask. I grip Cord’s sleeve, willing him not to leave me. Billy and Slade round the bull back through the chute, but my mind only registers the fact vaguely.

A pervasive silence falls over the crowd, which hasn’t shut up since the event started. But they seem to understand that now is not the fucking time.

Where’s the doctor? Who’s the medic? I never thought to check, even though I should have. I know better. Prayers and all are cute, but right now a doctor matters. Suddenly I’m standing too. Is he breathing? Help him! My throat tears even as I’m moving too, and it’s Cord whom I see lying in the dust all over again.

No, it’s my brother gripping my arm as I repeat the words that tore from my throat a year ago and now come again, an echo of the same scene all over again.

“Winnie, there’s a doctor. It’s not me. It’s not me,” Cord repeats. His voice is low, his arms tight around me. “West has him. They’re coming.”

But everyone is moving too slow and no one is around the man who lies still in the dust.

Purple glitter shifts. Tassels dance in the dirt. Weak ripples in a sawdust pond. Dustan raises an arm in a thumbs-up and then hauls his ass up on his own.

“I’m good. Y’all can stop screaming. Winnie, I know that’s you.”

I shut my mouth, but my tears don’t stop for the boy I’ve adopted as the little brother I didn’t know we needed at Coyote.

“That one’s ours,” I whisper to Cord, letting him hold me tight.

He nods, not letting go. “Yeah, Winnie. He is.”