21. Gage
GAGE
The interviewer asks me about my second-place finish, and I answer him while the arena crew changes the barrels for the next exhibition.
Second is enough to help us toward April. I wanted first, even at a Wednesday Crown Circuit showcase, and I’ve already watched the bay’s second turn twice. I have another run to prepare for next week. I want that one too.
Tawny is waiting beside the entrance on her horse. She has a legitimate place here. Ending our campaign did not take away her riding or her father’s money. Byers still promotes her as his rodeo queen. She has not spoken to me since July except through Dewey about the canceled appearances.
The interviewer glances at a card.
“And the family? Last time Crown had you on camera, Bonnie was enjoying her maternity break while the program carried on. Still the plan?”
I have used six weeks of my daughter’s life learning how to hold her and still have not corrected the words that helped keep her mother away.
The easy answer is already in my mouth. Both doing well. Thanks for asking. I could hand the microphone back, take the bay to the trailer, and call Bonnie tonight.
I have done some version of that since July. I ended the campaign and waited for the story I had told about her to go away by itself.
The interviewer smiles, ready to help me through it.
“That wasn’t the plan,” I say.
He lowers the card. “Sorry?”
“What I told you about Bonnie. It wasn’t true.”
The camera operator comes closer. My stomach drops. I grip the microphone below the head and make myself leave it near my mouth.
“Bonnie didn’t agree to that campaign. She told me she didn’t want her mare, her training, or her place beside me handed to somebody else. I went ahead anyway.”
The interviewer’s smile fades. I keep speaking before I can turn it into language that sounds less like what I did.
“When I said we planned her maternity break together, I knew that was false. She’d left me. I didn’t want to admit why.”
“She was still taking her own teaching bookings. People heard me and thought she’d given up that work. She hadn’t.”
A woman by the rail lowers her program. Behind her, somebody lifts a phone.
“Mercy was trained by Bonnie Redfern,” I say. “The exhibition Tawny rode used Bonnie’s work. Putting her name back in the program didn’t correct what we let people believe.”
I look into the camera. “I chose Tawny for the queen’s role. Then I put a crown on her hat while my wife stood below us holding the horse she’d trained. I could see where Bonnie was. I kept smiling for the photograph.”
Somebody near the rail shifts. I want to look at him instead of the lens.
“Bonnie told me Tawny wanted more than a working partnership. I dismissed what she said. I demanded that my wife apologize for telling me.”
My face is hot. I have never said that part in a room where people could walk away and tell somebody else.
“She didn’t owe either of us an apology.”
The interviewer looks toward the gate, perhaps hoping the next event will begin and save him. Tawny dismounts, hands her reins to a gate hand and comes toward us.
“I rode the mare,” she says. “You can’t pretend I didn’t do the work in the arena.”
The microphone catches her. I turn enough to face her without moving away from it.
“You rode her. Bonnie trained her. I let the campaign blur that because it suited us.”
“You approved every appearance.”
“I did.”
She looks at the camera, then back at me. “This is a private marriage problem. You’re dragging my name into it to make her come home.”
“I used your name beside mine in public. I used hers to say she approved. The correction belongs here.”
“And now we’re all supposed to applaud?”
“No.”
Tawny waits. I used to fill this sort of silence with something everybody could laugh at. I nearly do it again, then see the woman at the rail still filming. Let her have the silence too.
The interviewer clears his throat. “Are you and Bonnie back together?”
“We’re living separately. I’m seeing our daughter.” I rub my thumb against the microphone. “Bonnie hasn’t said she’s coming back. I’m not announcing anything for her.”
I could tell them more. What I said to Tawny, what I let her know. It might make the correction sound complete. I nearly do it before I realize I would be putting Bonnie’s private life in front of another audience without asking her again.
I stop.
Tawny turns away first and goes back to the gate for her horse.
“I’ll let you get back to the event,” I tell the interviewer.
He thanks me automatically. I hand over the microphone and walk toward the trailer.
Dewey meets me halfway.
“That’s going to travel.”
“It should.”
“You could’ve warned me.”
“I should’ve told you I was going to correct the interview. I kept putting it off.”
Dewey studies me. A man passing the arena panels nods; the next one stares as if I have insulted him personally. I start trying to remember whose business he runs, then make myself listen to Dewey.
“Her father will call,” Dewey says.
“He’s got my number.”
“People in this business will take his side.”
“I know.” I want to ask which ones he expects to lose. I want to start making calls while I can still explain myself privately. “Leave what I said alone, Dewey. No statement about a misunderstanding.”
At the trailer, I take the bay’s saddle off and help the groom put the gear away. I want the ordinary work. The bay drinks, then pulls hay from his net.
My phone rings while I am checking the ramp. Byers Western appears on the screen.
“You stood in front of that circuit’s camera and made my daughter a thief,” Byers says. “Your entry support’s gone. The clothing deal too. You don’t wear my name, and I don’t pay your fees.”
The thirty-eight thousand cleared in July. The invitationals went with the paired campaign. These are the individual entry fees and clothing Byers Western still covers, the support Dewey kept when he unwound the joint bookings.
I can pay my own entries. Losing the money will not stop me qualifying for Crown. Losing the men who sit at Byers’s table will close doors I have spent years trying to get through.
I look at the name stitched across my sleeve. I liked wearing it. I liked being the man Byers called first.
“I told them I chose her and approved it,” I say. “Bonnie’s horse and work weren’t mine to give her. I gave her access anyway.”
“Then leave my daughter out of your apology.”
“She stood beside me and told people Bonnie wanted it. I backed her up. I can’t correct what we said without saying what happened.”
“Watch what you’re implying.”
“I’m not taking it back.”
He ends the call without saying goodbye.
I sit on the trailer step and open Bonnie’s messages. Did you see it? I want her to know. I want her to say it mattered, that she believes me a little more than she did this morning.
I look at the screen until it dims. She did not ask me to wait until I needed something from her to tell the truth.
We agreed I would confirm tomorrow’s video call with Cricket. I type that message.
I’ll be off the road by six. Same time still good?
Her reply comes while the groom is closing the tack compartment.
Yes. She may be awake. No promises.
No promises. I can hear Bonnie saying it. I work backward from six, allowing time to get off the road and find somewhere quiet. Cricket may sleep through the entire call. I still want the full screen and both hands free when Bonnie answers.