Chapter 9
"Maybe we should all head home," one of the new American guys, Blake something, said to the others.
"But what good does that do?" Ty asked, making my mind start to spin.
"It keeps us alive!" Sonny shot back. "I mean, that guy today? There's no way he's riding again, right? Have we even heard if he's ok?"
"He's not," I said, making them all look at me. "Casey Davis died tonight."
"And we just kept riding?!" Johnny Swindel, one of the lower-ranked riders asked, his mouth hanging open.
"Because," Renato said, "they have to tell his family first." He leaned back and waved for a waitress, but didn't stop talking. "For legal reasons, they can't stop the event, so they say he's headed for medical care, we'll pray a little more, and in a few hours, they'll announce it."
"How do you know?" Sonny demanded.
Renato grunted under his breath. "It's the same thing that happened the last time a rider was killed on the dirt, new boy."
"Fuck off!" Sonny shot back. "Maybe this isn't a big deal to you, but I just spent my entire savings to get here, mate."
"We know," I assured him.
"And I'd like to have something to show for it when I go home," he continued. "I mean, a few of us have been wondering why there are so many new guys on the tour, but we figured it had to do with that girl."
"That girl," Ty growled, "is a better rider than half the men here, so don't you start blaming her too!"
"He wasn't." That came from Djalu Fox, the most veteran rider from Australia. "But you'd have to be blind to miss that half this shit is because of her."
"Because they're scared of her!" Ty snapped.
This was starting to get out of control, and that wouldn't help any of us. Ty was ready to start a fight. Renato was watching him, proving he was still Ty's wingman. Sonny was all bowed up, ready to shove to his feet, and the mood in here was turning sour quickly. I had to do something, and fast.
"Guys!" I barked, getting their attention. "All of you are missing the real problem. Sure, Cody's a symptom of it, but she is not the issue. It's so much bigger than that."
"So spell it out for us new guys," Sonny demanded. "What am I missing?"
"The Pbr," I explained, "is in the business of making money. We're the resource, and we're all easy to replace. Me, you, and yes, her. I mean, what they did to our bullfighters all but proves it - and that's why Casey died tonight."
For a little too long, the men just stared at me. A few lifted their drinks to wash back the taste of that, proving they heard what I was saying. Sadly, most shook their heads, seeming more confused than anything.
So I decided to spell it out for them. "Professional Bull Riding makes money on our dumb asses being dumbasses.
The more over-the-top we act, the more people hear about us.
The more our name is getting attention, the more the sponsors pay.
It's a whole cycle, right? But here's the thing none of you have stopped to think about yet.
" I looked around. "Our fans don't know shit about riding a bull. "
"And?" Sonny asked, clearly confused.
"And they do know about fighting," Ty explained for me, sounding like he was putting the pieces together too. "Seeing me drop Austin on the big screen?"
"Or the stream," Renato added.
Ty dipped his head, including that. "Well, it makes people wonder what we were fighting about. They want to see me kick his ass. They're wondering which of us is the bigger man, so they'll tune in next time to see if he'll beat mine."
"And they love it when we get hurt out there," I added.
"NASCAR wrecks and Pbr wrecks? What do they have in common?
The chance of death. Tonight, someone fucking died, and that's going to cause a media frenzy.
To the Pbr, it's called free advertising, and yet a man is fucking dead.
So, why are the alternates still in the arena?
Why hasn't the wolf pack been called back yet? "
"Fuck," Wes groaned, clearly a bit smarter than I realized. "Because seats haven't been selling out this year?"
I pointed at him. "Bingo. So all it took was some bullshit reason, and Tanner being gay was enough."
"But is he?" Sonny asked.
Ty scoffed at that. "He's dating Cody."
"And?" Sonny pressed.
I laughed once. "Cody. The cute blonde woman who rides bulls better than you? The one you saw out there and probably wondered what eight seconds with her would be like?"
"Fuck you, Jake!" Ty snapped.
I simply lifted a hand at him. "Don't be pissed, because it's true. I have a feeling all of us have at least wondered. Not acted on it, and wondering doesn't mean we think she's not the real deal, Ty. I know she's your friend, but lighten up."
"And for those of you who still don't get it," Wes said, "a gay man wouldn't fuck a woman. Not even if he had no other option, and we've all seen those two running around being cute."
"Shit," Jaxon, the one who was J.D.'s little henchman, drawled, "and they're trying to say he's fucking J.D. There's no way that's true."
"Does it matter?" Renato asked.
And that made everyone pause again.
"Does what matter?" I asked, liking where this was going.
Renato lifted his beer, proving he'd gotten a new one when I wasn't looking. Then he took a long sip, clearly dragging this moment out. His eyes jumped from table to table, all but proving it.
"If Tanner, or J.D., or anyone else is gay, does it fucking matter?" he finally asked. "And if so, why?"
"I don't want some faggot checking me out!" Jaxon huffed. "Fuck that. This is a real sport, and - "
"And who you fuck matters for that?" I asked, cutting him off. "Explain it to me, Jaxon."
"He can't because it doesn't," the other Jackson said. "Because if fucking women was what made us good on the back of a bull, then explain Cody to me? She outrides most of us."
"All of us," Ty grumbled.
"Most," Renato said, a little smirk curling a corner of his mouth. "I'm still competing with her, and J.D. is scoring better."
"Scoring," Ty pointed out. "C'mon, Renato, we both know that lately the scores don't mean shit."
"Wait, wait, wait!" Sonny begged. "So, you're saying the scoring isn't fair either?"
"Have you seen Cody's rides?" Ty asked. "Tonight, she did a fuckload better than a damned seventy-one-something."
"Her scores have been dropping," I explained to the new guys in the room, "because she's too good for being so new. What everyone seems to be missing? That young lady has been riding bucking things since she was a kid."
"Like five," Ty clarified. "Mutton busting, then calves, then steers, then bulls.
She stacks hay to build her upper body strength.
Her dad was a pretty decent bull rider back before the Pbr, and he taught her everything.
If she had a dick, J.D. would not be in first place right now - and he knows it. "
"He does," Kaleb agreed. "He keeps saying she's his rookie because she's that good."
"But..." Sonny stood, but slowly. "Let me see if I have this right. A guy was killed today because the safety team didn't know how to stop it. I mean, that's what everyone's been saying, but is it the truth?"
"It is," I told him.
He nodded once. "And our scores aren't fair. So, what I'm hearing is I just spent a whole fucking lot of money to do this, and it's some kind of damned popularity contest?"
"No," I said, glancing at Ty in the hopes he'd keep his fucking mouth shut for a second.
"Not popularity like you're thinking. It's more like a reality show right now.
The management wants to stop bleeding money, so they're making our sport more extreme.
In the last few years, the riders have gotten better.
We're staying on harder bulls. We're scoring higher and higher.
We're breaking records, but the viewers don't know shit about bull riding.
They know blood. They know broken bones.
They know wrecks, and they know 'real' men.
What they're paying for is seeing us risk our lives, and maybe fail. "
"Like Casey," Wes said.
"Mhm," I agreed. "Because to the current management, we are just a resource.
If one of us dies, another rookie will rank up and fill the gap.
More injuries? More new guys. That means more accidents, because you don't have the experience with bulls at this level, and it all keeps spiraling until our wrecks are paying their bills. "
"Fuck that!" Sonny said, slapping the table hard. "I'm out."
I turned my drink slowly on the table before me as the room erupted.
Sonny might be the loudest, but he wasn't the only one.
The guys who'd been on this tour for a while weren't as ready to quit, but likely that was because of how much we'd already invested in this dream.
The new rookies? They had everything to lose and nothing to gain.
It was too late in the season for them to have a chance to win Rookie of the Year. Most likely, they wouldn't even qualify for finals at the rate we were going. Instead, they'd be lucky to make enough to pay for the gas to get to the next show, then the one after.
"What good does that do?" I finally asked when a few too many sounded like they were going to scratch tomorrow.
"Keeps me alive," Sonny said.
Which made Wes ask, "And the rookie who takes your place? You gonna warn him about this mess?"
One more time, the room fell quiet. Slowly, Sonny sat back down. I watched as his shoulders slumped and he turned to look at me again.
"So, since you seem to have all the answers, what the fuck do we do?"
All I could do was shake my head. "I don't know. All I know is I've been watching this sport I love get warped and twisted for a while now. And before anyone says it, this started long before Tulsa."
"It did?" Ty asked.
"What was in Tulsa?" Randy Lynch wanted to know.
"Cody showed up in Tulsa," Ty said without looking away from me. "What happened before her, Jake?"
"Without Ado." I shrugged. "That bull shouldn't be allowed to come back. Not after what he did to how many riders now?"
"Who?" one of the new guys asked, clearly lost.
"A bull," Renato told him. "A nasty one, and the reason J.D. Adkins is currently sidelined. The reason he's still alive? Because the wolf pack was working that night."
"And," I said, "that same bull sits in first place right now.
There's a few others willing to put the hurt on a rider, but we all made a fuss about Without Ado, and no one listened.
I mean, Disco Breakout and Pumpkin Spice aren't great, but they're rideable.
What about the rankings this year? Is J.D.
really that much better than us? How high have his scores been? "
"And mine were shooting up for a bit there," Ty said. "Not because I was doing better either. It was because I was noticed by the fans."
"Mine went down when I got serious with Hannah," Renato pointed out. "Lost my sex appeal? No fucking clue. I thought I'd just been a little distracted with the baby."
"Because," I said, taking control of this conversation, "the Pbr is trying to manipulate things so the fans notice our sport again.
They want to sell seats, subscriptions to their streaming service, and get more sponsors on the walls.
They want money, and the worse it gets for them, the worse it's getting for us, but I bet the stands are fucking full tomorrow. Death has that effect here."
"Fuck that," Ty said. "I'm done playing their game."
"And that won't stop any of it," I reminded him.
But he smiled in a way that reminded me a little too much of J.D. "You sure? Because not playing their game isn't the same as going home, Jake. If they want to sell blood and pain? Well, I remember Bodacious."
I fucking rocked in my chair at his words.
Bodacious, one of the most famous bulls in the sport, had become dangerously unrideable.
It was bull riding history, and I'd used the same trick on Without Ado back in Des Moines.
The only way to survive drawing him had been to simply not ride - not to scratch, because that would've put him back into the pool of available bulls.
Instead, I'd sent him out with just a rope and no rider. I'd let him buck it out alone. I'd stayed safely behind the chutes, because the no score was safer for me than getting injured. But while that worked fine for one bull, it wouldn't work against a broken system...
Unless all of us could work together.
"What if no one rides?" I asked.
Ty's head twitched. Our tables weren't far apart, so I could see his eyes narrow as he looked at me. I nodded, encouraging him to run with that. After a long moment, he began to smile.
"They think we're a resource, huh?" he asked.
"Mhm," I said, glancing pointedly toward where the others were sitting. "So what should we do about it, hotshot?"
In the Pbr, there were three names that everyone knew: Renato Vieria, J.D.
Adkins, and Ty McBride. That fame? It was power of a sort I didn't have.
I'd worked too hard to go unnoticed, and right now, I couldn't convince these boys the same way Ty could.
I just hoped he could see where I was going.
Slowly, Ty lifted his chin and surveyed the dozens of riders who idolized him.
The men who'd probably started riding bulls because they wanted to be like him - or better.
And everyone in this bar waited to hear what he'd say next.