32. 32
32
Colton
I f I hadn’t decided to be a bull rider, then I could’ve been an F1 driver. My knuckles were white against the steering wheel, my boot squeezing the life from the accelerator. The V8 roared. My ute fishtailed slightly, the tyres struggling to gain traction as I zig-zagged behind Beau’s taillights. Sarge had escorted us out to the edge of town.
‘You go and kill each other over a girl where no one innocent is gonna get hurt.’
I let fly with a loud curse and laid into the horn when Beau brake-checked me. I was able to bring my ute to a sliding halt before my bonnet ran up his arse. I flipped him off out the window when he took off in a spray of gravel, causing the tiny rocks to ping-pong over the paintwork. It wasn’t long until I was roaring up behind him again, honking absurdly as I slung out to the side to come in line with him. Beau’s middle finger was already waiting for me.
We continued zig-zagging, tailgating and brake-checking all the way home. I knew we were being pure dickheads. We were lucky that we hadn’t wrapped each other around a tree. But the battle we found ourselves in had been brewing for years. I thought of Honey, who would be a mess at home. I should be the better man and go be with her, be the bloke who always looked out for her. I wasn’t in a state to see her though. I didn’t want her to see me so angry and worked-up. After the unpredictable moods she’d grown up around, I wouldn’t be another person she was afraid of. There would be time to see her. First, I had to bring our brotherly feud to an end by punching Beau’s big thick head.
Our utes had barely skidded to a halt before we were clambering out, practically licking our chops to get to one another. I’d barely made out Beau’s silhouette amongst the dust and lights until his burly arms were around my waist and I was slung into the side of my ute. I let out a string of curses, sure that one of my damaged ribs had broken again. Beau didn’t hold any sympathy though. His fist flew into my stomach with the force of The Hulk. I didn’t let it cripple me. Instead, I channelled the pain into anger, an anger that had me boring my shoulder against him and sending him onto the ground.
Amongst dust and gravel, we wrestled out years of resentment. Saliva, sweat and blood made a gristly soup around us. I could feel trickles from my forehead, down my cheeks, from my lip. In the dim lighting I could see Beau wasn’t fairing much better. But we had to do this. Brothers didn’t solve issues by talking through feelings, at least not brothers who were raised like we were. Rather, we had to fight until one of us was on the brink of blacking out. Then everything would be fine again. Although this time we weren’t fighting because Beau had “accidentally” broken one of my trophies. Or that I’d decided to up and leave for the US. We were fighting over Honey. A girl who meant the world to both of us. A real-life person who would be disappointed to see us like this.
A crack of a gunshot had Beau and I launching away from one another and scrambling to our feet. Although we stood hunched, and covered in dirt, our heads whipped around wildly to find the crazy bastard. When we looked to the house, we saw him. Under the porch lights, our dad wore a stormy expression on his face with a shotgun pointing to the sky.
Well, shit.
There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that Dad had already been filled in about the rodeo debacle. While Sarge was a grumpy arsehole of a cop, he wasn’t completely heartless. He would’ve called our dad the moment he turned back for town, telling him what had gone down and to make sure we got home in one piece. I looked to my ute, its engine still rumbling into the quiet night. Maybe I should just turn around and book it to the airport, catch the next flight out of the country. But I knew that was the cowardly thing to do.
Plus, my passport was inside.
So after Beau and I had shut off our vehicles, we crept to the house like two dogs who’d been caught chewing socks. Except these two dogs were spitting blood and wheezing whilst continuing the dirty looks at one another.
‘You want to plead your side of things to me? I bet my bottom dollar that you’re the one who started this.’ I’d barely gotten my foot on the first step before my dad was barking down at me. Beau had weaselled his way inside. I thought of Mum, who must be watching down, shaking her head with disappointment.
‘No, Sir.’
‘Get inside.’
Beau was sitting at the kitchen table, his eyes finding me with a glare and a bag of frozen peas pushed against his face. I imagined I reflected the same injuries; split lip, busted cheek, a purpling eye. I wheezed when a bag of frozen corn kernels was thrown into my stomach, right where Beau had dealt me a low blow. A smirk of his busted lip told me he enjoyed it.
Dad’s steps were solid and purposeful before he leant against the kitchen bench, drumming his fingers on the countertop. I was glad to notice the shotgun was nowhere in sight. Neither Beau or myself dared to look at him. This was worse than the time we were caught with backpacks of booze going to a party in town and were brought home in a paddy wagon.
‘If my memory serves me right, the two of you were nursing punch up injuries not long ago,’ grumbled Dad.
‘Beau started it,’ I muttered.
‘ You kept interfering!’ snapped Beau, slamming his bag of peas down onto the table.
‘Fuck off! If you hadn’t let your little insecurities eat you alive, maybe you wouldn’t have let me win!’
‘Oh, so you admit you were in the running?’
‘ Enough! ’ My dad’s roar had us shrinking down in our chairs. ‘I’m glad your mother isn’t here to witness this, although I’m sure she’s watching from somewhere wondering how I managed to fuck up raising the two of you so badly.’ He dragged a hand down his face. Beau and I risked a glance to each other, the words about Mum packing a punch. ‘The two of you are meant to be looking after me but I’ve been having to keep the both of you apart, with one good arm!’
‘I stayed away for a reason!’ I tossed my corn onto Beau’s peas and shot out of my seat. ‘Beau shouldn’t have called me! You shouldn’t have asked me come home!’
‘ You should’ve been man enough to stay away from your ex-girlfriend and brother!’ My dad’s face was turning red.
‘Oh, come on! You call what they had a relationship? They were arguing every bloody day!’
‘No thanks to you!’ Threw in Beau, sending his chair skittering backwards to bump chests with me.
‘What do you want me to do, Beau? Travel back twenty years and never meet Honey? Or would you rather she never came to Gumtree Valley and was raised by those two dead beats?’ I smacked a clenched fist down onto the table. ‘I can’t rewrite history, Beau! Fuck, I wish I could! Otherwise I wouldn’t have had to live with watching the two of you together!’
Beau scoffed. ‘If you loved her so much then why did you up and leave her all those years ago? Huh?’
I flinched. ‘Because I was a stupid and selfish kid.’
‘And what about us?’ I turned to my dad who was eyeing me steadily. ‘Honey wasn’t the only one you left behind.’
‘Jesus, Dad …’ I dragged my hands down my face, thinking better of it when my new battle wounds throbbed painfully. ‘I’m sorry if you practically kicking me out when I told you I didn’t want to run the ranch with Beau made me wary of calling. Sure, I cut you both off. For that, I’m sorry. I thought that if I pretended my life back home didn’t exist then all the mistakes I’d made would go with it. But it’s a two-way street. Why didn’t either of you call?’
Neither of them could look at me. I scoffed bitterly, going to storm off before my dad’s next words had me falter.
‘I just wanted us to be a family.’ When I turned around, I was shocked to see tears pooling in his eyes. Beau hung his head with shame. ‘How sad is it that I hoped my near death would bring us all back together again? I knew there would be some issues with Beau dating Honey and trying to move on from the past, but I thought after your mum passed, I raised the both of you better than that.’ He sighed wearily. ‘Obviously not.’
‘You did raise us good, Dad,’ I said tiredly.
‘Running this place and being a single parent? All I hope is to be a dad like you someday,’ added Beau.
Dad only nodded and I could sense he was beginning to feel uncomfortable with the rare displays of emotions. ‘This fighting over a girl stops right now. Now I don’t expect all of us to live under one roof to be a family.’ I didn’t miss the glance I was given. ‘But we need to be better as a family. Talk more. It’s what your mum would’ve wanted.’
Beau and I looked to each other. A silent truce.
‘Yes, Sir.’
***
Wearing nothing but a pair of old footy shorts to allow the warm air to dress my bare skin, I rested my head against the wall of the house. The stars twinkled against a dark sky. I thought of Mum sitting up there, astride Chester, shaking her head with disappointment at the sons she’d been taken from. Would Beau and I have turned out more “normal” if she’d been around? If we hadn’t been in a house full of so much testosterone and dick swinging, would we be less like ourselves? My mum had a knack for gentling the three men in her life. Only she could tame us with a touch of affection or a calming word. My dad had done his best in raising us all by himself but that gentleness had gone out the window when Mum died. A rough and tumble cowboy raising his progeny. Affection was unheard of, and awkward. Maybe that’s where we’d gone wrong. Without Mum’s motherly love, we’d turned into brutes. Cavemen who beat their chests to compete for the woman we loved.
At least, Beau and I had.
I rubbed at my face, only to yank my hand away with a hiss of pain. The alert of an incoming message had me rolling my head to look down at my phone on the bench beside me. It was from Glenn, replying to the screenshot I’d sent him.
About time you got your shit together. See you in the big U S of A soon, kid.
I folded my arms tightly across myself, returning to look at the night sky. I could hear the movement and snorts of horses as they grazed during the cooler night hours, the shuffling of the ones moving about in the barn. No crackling of campfires lit by fellow competitors on the circuit. No drunken jeering or smashing of bottles followed by raucous laughter. There wasn’t a trailer in sight with a horse held in a makeshift pen on the side. Best of all, there wasn’t the bright lights of a stadium glowing through my trailer window or the constant hum of a nearby freeway. The sounds, sights and smells of my rodeo lifestyle had once been my comfort. My evidence that my dreams really had come true and I was living my new life.
The thought of returning to that life, it exhausted me.
The creak of the flyscreen door opening had me jolt slightly and my battered face met Beau’s equally battered face. I watched warily, wondering if I would have to pounce to my feet like a cat when he moved towards me. But he didn’t say or do anything, only sat next to me on the bench, also sporting a pair of our old footy team’s shorts. I wondered why he came out here only to sit in silence and I figured it was because he, too, couldn’t sleep, the shame of how we’d unravelled taunting him as much as me.
We’d scared Honey. When Sarge had slapped the handcuffs on us, I’d seen her being escorted away by Ellie-May and Riley. She would be blaming herself. For coming between Beau and I, for making us behave like animals. But it wasn’t her fault—not entirely. We all knew that them being together would cause some sort of rift. I could’ve only hidden in the US for so long. It was to blow up in our faces eventually.
We’d all played a part in it.
‘I’ve booked my ticket back,’ I announced to the quietness.
Beau’s throat cleared. ‘When do you go?’
‘Couple days.’ I rested my head against the wall again, peeking over at my brother. ‘I thought you would’ve jumped up and danced. I know you’ve been counting down the days I go from the moment I got back.’
‘No denying that,’ he grumbled. I allowed myself to chuckle into the awkward silence. ‘Thanks.’
‘Thanks?’
‘For helping.’ Beau shuffled in his seat, big arms folded across his chest like my own. Like we could shield ourselves from all the touchy-feelies. ‘I wouldn’t have called if I didn’t think … look, it was bad, alright? It’s a miracle he’s alive, with both arms intact at that.’
Beau and Dad didn’t talk about the accident that brought me home. Not that we talked much at all about anything.
‘Our dad almost dying shouldn’t be the reason why you have to call.’ I stared out at the dark paddocks. ‘Like I said, it was easier to cut myself off. To make what I left behind easier. I’m sorry.’
Beau bowed his head, bobbing it between his shoulders in acknowledgement. ‘If I lost Dad, then I’d be all alone out here.’
It felt like a knife had been plunged into my heart and twisted with a brutal hand. I could barely remember being Beau’s shadow around the ranch, of idolising him. The feud had skewed all good memories between us. Still, that wasn’t a good enough reason to pretend that he didn’t exist. To have abandoned him when he felt so alone.
I hesitantly placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘You’re not alone. Not anymore. I know you hate my guts, but you’ve got me.’
Beau glanced to my hand and I let it drop. ‘It’s why I was such a dick with Honey.’ He sighed heavily. ‘You’re right. The start was good, but then we were miserable. I always blamed it on you, that she would always be so hung up on you we couldn’t move past it. And sure, that was a big part of why we didn’t work out, but we just weren’t right for each other.’ He chuckled bitterly. ‘I thought that if I proposed to her, things between us would magically change. But she said no and then we went down shit creek without a paddle. Things were already heading way south by the time you came home, Colton. All the shit that went down was just adding fuel to the fire.’
He ran a hand through his hair and I remained silent, allowing the brother I’d abandoned to unload his emotional baggage on me. I didn’t care. If I could be his sounding board after everything I’d done, everything I’d caused …
‘I’m in my thirties. I want a wife and kids. I want to be chasing them around, teaching them to ride while I can keep up with them. I don’t want to be alone.’ His jaw clenched. Not with anger, but with the effort of keeping his sadness at bay. ‘Compared to you, I’m just the loner Hayes boy who has nothing but his pretty ponies.’
I mulled over his words before a small smile quirked my mouth. ‘Compared to you , I’m just the crippled bull rider running from his mistakes.’
Beau breathed out a laugh, smirking out to the paddocks. ‘How did we get so fucked up?’
‘Not dealing with the trauma of losing our mother at a young age, most likely.’
Beau scratched at his beard with a harrumph before glancing across to me. ‘You don’t seem happy about going back. Why? You’ve wanted this for so long. I thought you loved your career.’
‘I do.’ I shook my head. ‘I did. Then I came back here and … I saw Honey. I worked with those annoying but good kids at the rodeo school. And I realised that my body makes creaks like an old chair and that those buckles just aren’t that shiny anymore. This place used to bore the shit out of me and when I finally left, I didn’t think I’d be here wondering what it would be like if I came back and … settled .’
Beau was quiet and I knew I’d annoyed him with the thought of being permanently around until he murmured, ‘Double Q Ranch will always be here. Dad and I too. So when you want to come home, come home. And when you do come back, maybe you and Honey can finally sort out your shit.’
I stared up at my brother, stunned, as he stood. With a hand on my shoulder, he gave me a small smile, one full of forgiveness, before going back inside. Leaving me with a sky full of stars and a headache of never-ending thoughts.