Page 24

The wreck had happened fast.

Most bad things did.

Horse came over backward. I hit wrong. Felt the shoulder go before I heard anything. Then came arena dirt in my mouth, a boot near my face, people shouting from very far away.

I’d finished that season.

Of course I had.

There were decisions a man made because they were good and decisions he kept making because otherwise he’d have to admit the first one had hurt him.

I braced my left hand against the roof of the truck and leaned carefully until the joint shifted.

Pain flashed hot.

“Son of a bitch.”

The words vanished into the parking lot.

I lowered the arm and pulled my phone from my pocket.

My contacts still held half the mountain west. Men I hadn’t spoken to in two years. Women who could place a pickup man by noon and a bullfighter by supper. Contractors, judges, announcers, rodeo committees, stock haulers. People who remembered me as the Calloway kid with the fast mouth and the left shoulder that quit before he did.

I found Ty Bannerman.

Called.

The phone rang until his voicemail picked up.

“Ty, it’s Cash.”

I leaned against the truck.

“Cash Calloway,” I added. “Your favorite former financial burden.”

The joke hung there.

I looked through the windshield at my own dim reflection.

“Listen, I’m putting on a one-day rodeo at Carrow Creek August fifteenth. Montana. I need to know who can be named as producer on the county filing and whose liability certificate can cover the event. Million minimum.”

My voice had changed.

No room around it. No laugh waiting.

Just the question. I rubbed my thumb along the edge of the phone.

“If you know somebody licensed who’ll take a call, send them my way. Or call me and tell me I’m an idiot with enough detail to be useful.”

I hesitated.

Asking came badly to Calloways.

Dad had proved that all the way to the grave.

“This one matters,” I said. “Call me.”

I hung up.