Chapter 7 #2
Seamus just figured he was better off keeping his nose out of that.
So he got out there with Dawson and Coke, running around in circles doing the things that they had taught him to do—the sideways stepping, the bending and stretching, and all sorts of crap.
When he was totally warmed up, he did exactly what he had been told. He went and sat on the fence while they loaded up what looked to be a placid older bull into the chute.
Besides Coke, there were three other people in the arena with Dawson. One of them was going to pull gate, apparently, and another one was on the back of the chutes, simulating a bullrider fixing to step in.
The third was a young man on a gorgeous black horse, swinging a rope kind of idly.
“So, what’s he for? He’s your safety man, right?” He remembered that more from the broncs, but sometimes from the bullriding.
“That’s it. His job is to rope the bull and drag him out.”
Just like that. Rope the bull and drag him out. Easy peasy.
Mr. Coke grinned wide. “This little guy here, he’s a baby.”
Seamus’s eyes went big and the entire place cracked up so there was obviously a joke he didn’t know.
“Yeah, that’s Cotton Sayers’s oldest son. We call him Little Bean because he’s the smallest of all the boys.”
“‘All the boys’?” Small? The man was the size of a pickup truck, no question.
The guy, who was tow-headed and blue-eyed and just adorable, nodded to him. “Yes sir, I got me seven brothers, including my twin, Brandon. My momma is a paragon of virtue, and she loves my daddy and wanted him to have a football team of his own.”
“One day you’ll meet Cotton if you’re lucky. He’s about the size of a minute, but this is the littlest boy. The tiny one.” Dawson was obviously tickled shitless.
“Yes, sir,” Mr. Coke grinned. “He’s also one of the best men on a horse I’ve ever seen, next to the Taggarts, and it’s great because if he can’t rope the bull, he can just jump down and wrestle him to the ground.”
Little Bean—who he assumed had a real name, but no one had bothered to say—laughed, the sound ringing out and filling the arena. “Whatever y’all need, Gramps.”
“Okay, so here’s where the danger zone starts,” Dawson told him. “When a rider starts to drop over that fence and put his knees down on the bull, we have to be on guard.”
“Yeah?” He’d watched enough bullriding to know that the bullfighters were usually standing off six feet from the opening of the gate on either side at this point. “I thought the guys on the chutes and the gate puller had to be more careful than anybody right now.”
“They do. They’re the ones working to keep the rider safe at this moment.
But any one of these things could happen.
The gate could pop open on its own because gates malfunction.
The rider could nod his head before he’s ready.
Sometimes they do that when they get ramped up and they’re talking to somebody and they just nod and they didn’t mean for it to happen.
Or the bull could come over the top of the gate. ”
“No way.” That was Christopher. “They can jump that high from standing?”
“Son, I have seen a bull sail over the front end of a Ford F-150.” Coke was bouncing on the balls of his feet, watching the gate. He was on the hinge side, and Dawes was on the latch side.
Dawson waved his hand in the air. “That’s how they end up kicking so good. They have the best jumping ability of any two-thousand-pound animal. The average jumping horse only weighs fifteen-hundred.”
“Wow.” Seamus shook his head, looking down at Christopher, who was still standing on the other side of the fence. “That’s nuts.”
“All right, pay attention buddy, we’re fixin’ to show you a real slow version of what happens when a bull comes out of the gate.”
Mr. Coke snorted. “Well, at least we hope it’s real slow. Who knows? Blue Barrel here might be feeling his oats just a bit. Never underestimate a bull, Mr. Seamus, not even an old one who thinks that his better days are behind him.”
“Sounds like solid advice, sir.”
Dawson nodded at the cowboy who was pulling the gate. Seamus hadn’t been introduced to him yet, and he felt bad he should have asked before they started this exercise.
The gate swung open like it would at the bullriding, really fast, and the bull did come out bucking. Mostly. Sort of. He didn’t simply amble, at least.
Dawson jumped in front of the bull as soon as he turned back on himself and got into the pocket. That was when the bull took an interest.
Seamus had a feeling this bull had been chosen for that reason. This was like a game. They were playing with each other.
But he had to admit this was a great exercise to watch because it really did give him a sense of what the drills they’d been running him through last week did for his abilities to do the job.
When the bull lowered his head and turned in to Dawson, he was able to get into position, put his hand right between the bull’s horns, which were docked in this case, and keep that head away from him.
It was impressive as hell, the way that the man moved—even hurt—and Seamus found himself a little dry-mouthed by the whole thing.
He could hear Mr. Coke kind of explaining things in the background, but it was all words, so many words, because his brain was very busy doing this amazing shut-off, I-really-don’t-want-to-talk-to-you-right-now sort of thing.
He couldn’t help it because his blood was trying to move south. That was bad because his shorts weren’t that loose, and things could get obvious. He didn’t want to be nasty or pornographic.
At least not in public.
In private, he could boom-chicka-wa-wa with the best of them.
He wasn’t sure who got tired first, whether it was Dawson or the bull, but eventually Dawson crawled up onto the fence breathing hard.
Mr. Coke stayed on the dirt, keeping an eye on things as Little Bean rode in, roped the bull, and led him out of the arena, slick as snot.
“That was impressive,” he admitted.
And he wasn’t sure he was ready for it. He wasn’t sure he was ever gonna be ready for it. This was way different than skydiving or even swimming in a shark cage.
“Yeah?” Dawson gave him a wild grin, and he could see the man loved his work. “That was a hoot. He likes to play. Not much of a bucker his whole life, but he was always good for the bull fighting competitions.”
His eyebrows went up again. “They have those?”
“I’ll send you some YouTube links.”
“Cool, cool.” This wasn’t cool. He wasn’t sure he was going to want to fight with a bull, but maybe he was being a complete drama queen.
It had been known to happen.
“What the actual fuck are you doing on the dirt?”
Seamus turned his head about the time Mr. Coke said, “Oh shit”.
The voice—the incredibly loud, carrying like he wouldn’t believe, someone had been taught to make sure his voice projected voice — came from Dillon Walsh, who walked up, red in the face, focused on Mr. Coke, and pissed.
“I was just helping—”
“Where the fuck is Nate? The deal was we have the bull fighting school, and you don’t fight actual bulls.
You don’t stand in the arena when there are living breathing bulls involved.
You are supposed to be being good to your neck.
” Dillon turned to point at the horseman.
“Goddamn it, Adam Sayers! Is it not your job to keep Coke out of the arena?”
The great big guy on the horse gave Dillon these huge eyes. “Now, Pappy? I don’t— what am I supposed to tell? This is Gramps!”
“That’s right. And I am your Pappy. I am your godfather, and you have my permission to tell this old fart that he is not allowed to be in the arena when there are live bulls. I’m calling Nate!”
“Nate’s got a summer cold. I told him to take the day off.” Coke offered Dillon a weak grin. “He wasn’t really a bull, you know. He was just a baby.”
Dillon arched one eyebrow. “Are you honestly going to try to bullshit me on this? Do you honestly think for a second that you can pull the wool over my eyes about this? I do your books; I know exactly which bulls you’ve got.
You have no babies. In fact—” He pointed to Little Bean.
“His daddy provides all of your bulls,” he said, “and I know for a fact that they’re all male, so there are no babies.
And this is an old bull. With experience. ”
Suddenly Dawson was right there next to him, whispering softly, just sort of backing away, one hand on his arm. “This is not something you want to get into the middle of. This is old business.”
“I can only imagine,” he whispered back, meeting Dawson’s eyes. “That Dillon? He’s passionate.”
Dawson snorted, sounding oddly like one of the bulls. “You got no idea. None. Dillon Walsh loves Mr. Coke possibly more than any one human being has ever loved another human being, so we’re just going to back away, you and me. Just pretend he’s a bull.”
“Mr. Coke?”
“No, Dillon. Coke’s way more predictable.
We’re just gonna ease our way back over here, and we’re just gonna keep going backward.
” Dawson’s hand was hot on his arm. Seamus could feel each and every finger.
“You notice Little Bean? He’s backing off too.
We’re just gonna wait until… here we go, we’re moving. ”
This had to be the funniest thing that he’d ever seen.
Not Coke and Dillon, that was obvious. There was some serious shit going on there, but the way that all the cowboys were handling it was adorable.
And so, as one did, he followed instructions.
He wasn’t a hero; he just played one in the movies.
Christopher and Nick both stayed silent, backing away as Dillon moved to poke a finger into Coke’s chest. “Don’t mess with me, Coke. Not today.”
Coke got this soulful, hangdog expression. “Nope. No messing.”
“Oh, you are so full of shit.”
Coke cracked up. “I am. All right. No more bulls until Nate is well.”
“Or until someone else can come down.”
“So Dillon doesn’t mess with the bulls?” Seamus whispered.
“Lord, no. That’s another YouTube thing I need to show you. He did once. Got his shoulder knocked out of joint.”
“Ouch!” He couldn’t help his wince.
“Yeah, and I tell you what, the stories that came off of that… Let’s just say that by the end of that week, Mr. Coke had had another broke neck and surgery on his hand.
Dillon had to have his shoulder put back together, and shit had hit the fan in about ten thousand different ways.
” Dawson shook his head, the bullfighter still standing so close that Seamus could see the way the gold and green in the hazel eyes made the prettiest pattern. “Sterling told me all about it.”
“And who is Sterling?” Not a lover, he hoped.
“He’s my mentor. He’s the guy who got me into bull fighting. Mr. Coke was his mentor.”
“So it’s sort of like Coke’s your grandfather in bullriding.”
Dawson grinned at him, the scar above his lip pulling a bit. “There’s a reason we all call him Gramps, man.”
“He’s kind of amazing.”
Dawson shook his head. “No. He’s the best that’s ever been. And that’s saying something, because Sterling makes me look like I’m standing still when he runs.”
Seamus shook his head. “There’s no way. You’re stunning.”
Dawson caught his gaze. His look was pretty damn intense.
It made Seamus heat right up, his whole body kind of on fire.
“Well, I appreciate that, thank you, but I gotta tell you, Sterling, he was something special in the arena, like Mr. Coke, he had the love for it so hard. I’m more like Mr. Nate.
It’s a job and I love it, and I am proud to protect the cowboys every week.
But I’m not called to do it the way Coke and Sterling were. You know what I mean?”
“I think I do. I’ve heard that from firefighters and other first responders.
Some of them do it because they love the job and it’s a good job, but some of them do it because it’s a calling, and they feel like they’re not able to leave it behind.
” Seamus kind of felt that way about what he did, but he knew that people might mock him for saying that, so he usually kept it to himself.
Dawson studied him. “I bet you do get it. Anyway, we should get moving again.”
Seamus had a feeling that was as close as he was going to get to Dawson telling him he was doing a good job. So, he just smiled and started running drills with a new appreciation for the work because he had actually seen it applied to a bull situation.
He also thought maybe he had a bit better lay of the land, as far as Dawson was concerned. He was really hoping that that long, intense leaning in toward him, sharing body heat conversation was going to lead to more.
As far as he was concerned, there was nothing wrong with a hint of workplace romance.