Eight seconds. He needed eight seconds, no more, no less, but that night at the rodeo, Duane had other priorities.
‘Look Marcus, it’s ten kilos, only ten. It’s the best stuff, I promise.’
Duane resisted the urge to pound the table, to reveal his desperation. He tried to remain calm, but his heart was still racing from the events earlier in the week, south of the border.
The pair of them were sitting in Marcus’ horse trailer, in the RV style section at the fore of the trailer. It was plush with three bunks, a small kitchenette and a living room bigger than that the one in Duane’s apartment. Marcus travelled a lot for the rodeo and needed something comfortable, and the trailer sent a clear message that he didn’t need to sell marijuana to make ends meet.
At the rodeo, with only minutes to spare before his next bronc ride, Duane needed to offload the drugs and Marcus was his best opportunity.
‘Duane, I’m not sure. That’s a lot of weed; I’m not sure I can move that much.’
‘Sure, you can,’ the cowboy urged him. ‘Hell, I know a ton of guys around here who’d take one off you. Just ask around.’
Marcus chuckled at the suggestion, as if Duane were asking him to sell ice cream.
‘You fucking serious, man? You think these rodeo clowns are gonna’ take a chance on volume like that? They’re casual users. They just want a joint now and then and you want them to take a kilo?’
‘Look, break it up into smaller quantities, you know? Just bag it up in tens and twenties. They’ll buy it and before you know it, you’ll be a rich man!’ Duane again unconsciously surveyed the opulence of the trailer and the value of the horses in the back and flinched at the money on display.
Marcus didn’t ride broncs, but he knew horses. He had six rodeo buckers that he hired out to the Texas Rodeo Cooperative, known as the RoCo. There was a rodeo every week in Calaveras, about sixty miles southwest of San Antonio. It wasn’t a big operation but drew talent from across Texas for the weekly show: bull and bronc riding, barrel racing, team roping, mutton busting and the calf scramble for the kids. It was mostly tourists who came for the rodeo, often their first and only. There was a dance barn on the property and always a good band on Saturday nights. There was plenty for a cowboy to slake his thirst and Duane had made himself the go-to guy for dope. If you knew where to find him, Duane could always hook you up.
‘If you wanna’ get high, I’m you’re guy.’ God who, came up with that nonsense? He sometimes wondered.
It was Duane’s tagline, and he used it more than he was proud of. Still, the sales kept him financially afloat between the bronc riding that was a less predictable flow of income. At least that’s what he told himself. He carried weed, a little coke and sometimes ecstasy when he could get it, all safely stored away in the back of his pickup. He specialised in weed and had devised a method of transporting it from Mexico. His partners, Juan and his twin sister, Juanita used to seal one kilo packages in plastic, then wrap them up inside bales of hay. Duane simply loaded the bales in the back of his truck. Presently, he had ten bales, twice his usual, which doubled his anxiety about getting rid of it.
‘Just stack ‘em up in the back of your trailer, Marcus, no one’ll know. You can feed the hay to your horses and take the weed out when you pull the bales apart, safe as houses,’ Duane said, again resisting the urge to pound the table.
Marcus was not buying it and simply smiled back at Duane’s obvious desperation.
Duane made the trip to Mexico about once a month and was now familiar with crossing the border at Laredo.
‘Hey Tommy,’ he said to the border agent, his truck empty on the way South. ‘It’s been real dry up our way. Just gonna’ pick up a few bales to keep us going. I hear they’ve had some good rain in Salinas. I got a friend raising horses down there.’ Duane always smiled cheerfully through this lie and Tommy, his favourite at the border, just winked back at him. Of course, a new bottle of Mexican Tequila and an envelope of cash on his return journey usually helped grease the wheels. Duane had two envelopes: one for the Lopez twins and one for Tommy. He never carried a gun, naively trusting that Juan and Juanita were ‘safe as houses.’
‘I don’t believe in guns, Juan,’ he told his business partner over a beer one night. ‘I can usually talk my way out of most situations.’
Juan just smiled at him, returning to his beer, nodding, though not with agreement.
‘You better be careful, mi amigo. Those Cartel guys don’t always like talking much, especially to stupid gringos like you.’
Duane smiled back and returned to his own beer, nodding, and yet wondering if there weren’t more to Juan’s veiled comments than he cared to know about. His most recent trip had not gone according to plan and had him recollecting their conversation.
He enjoyed his trips to Mexico and there were moments of clarity and quiet as he drove the narrow, deserted roads to the pickup locations. It gave him time to think, to pine for his family and his bed and one of his grandmother’s biscuits. He didn’t often give himself over to such recollections, but the memories were soothing to him and reassured him that he might have a future that didn’t involve running drugs and getting battered by wild horses. He wasn’t unhappy, just lonesome. His bed was rarely empty, but his heart, and his mind, wandered, searching for something he couldn’t yet name.
He did not expect to find murder.
Now a seasoned dealer, Duane had developed a sense for trouble. He knew when it was best to turn around and walk away, and, when it was too late to do so.
The field was empty. He’d expected to see the Lopez clan, usually just Juan and Juanita, twins who were as deranged as two human beings could be. He never trusted them, but they were a good connection for him, and the product was reliable and clean.
As Duane pulled up, he instinctively turned out the headlights, knowing the Federales often patrolled the area cross country on horses and four-wheelers, chasing headlights on trucks too clean to be local. The twins weren’t there. Instead, there were two mongrels standing over a third guy they had on his knees with his hands tied behind his back. One of the men had lost an eye in what appeared to have been an unfortunate collision with a baseball bat. He was cradling a Kalashnikov in his arms, the distinctive banana clip hanging like an outsized appendage in a picture of grotesque filial affection.
The other fellow, a pistol in one hand and a thatch of the kneeling man’s hair in the other had a look on his face that suggested he might need professional psychiatric care and likely restraints on his wrists and ankles.
The two had seen him and they looked up, waving him over. Duane had a developed proficiency in Spanish and knew what danger sounded like.
‘Hey gringo, get your ass over here. We want to show you something.’
‘Naw, it’s alright you boys just get on with your business. I’m heading back, I think I got the wrong address.’
‘Your friends said you were coming, Juan and Juanita, you know them, right?’
Duane looked over at the pair of them, weighing up his chances. He walked up casually, flashing his grin, which was not returned.
‘This asshole didn’t pay his bill, did you!’
The man with the gun in his hand whipped it across the guy’s noggin, tearing a chunk of hair and skin off with it.
‘You wanna’ see what happens to assholes when they don’t pay their bills?’
Duane did not, but before he could demur, he heard the pop and felt a warm mist in the air. The fellow on his knees now lay in the dirt, face down. He did not get up.
Duane felt his insides go loose and his mouth go dry. When he tried to swallow, his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth.
‘There’s your package over there,’ the man pointed. ‘Juan says to say “hola,” the one-eyed guy said, smiling through his missing front teeth.
Duane looked over at the bundled weed, hefted one to his shoulder, grasping the other by the binding twine and making a move to the truck. He’d forgotten about the cash he had with him.
‘Hey gringo, you going somewhere so soon? Don’t you have something for us?’
The fellow pointed his gun at the guy in the dirt, popped another round in his back. It was a very effective way of communicating. Duane dropped the bales as casually as possible, walked over to his truck and pulled out the paper sack full of cash.
‘Sorry, guys, my bad,’ he said, handing them the bag.
‘No problem, my friend. I know you always pay your bills.’
Duane smiled but refused a proffered handshake, opting to pick of the bales instead. ‘See you next time.’ He tried to sound friendly, as if he hadn’t seen a man die with a bullet through his skull, but charm counts for nothing in front of a loaded gun. Oddly, it was in that moment, tossing the bales into the back of his truck, that he remembered how much he enjoyed high school: chemistry, biology and history, his favourites.
‘Well, hi there, ladies,’ he said, with his million-dollar grin and flashing blue eyes. ‘Y’all ready to cut the rug with old Duane? I hear there’s a good band on tonight.’
After his most recent failure on horseback, the women helped provide a soft landing. In spite of the pain that often came with a fall off a bucking horse, Duane always enjoyed dancing after the rodeo. The women liked him for his largesse as well as his looks and with a bunny on each arm, Duane’s post-rodeo evening plans always came together well.
But in rodeo, it’s not dancing that counts. You need eight seconds to qualify for a ranking. Eight seconds on a bronc, a lifetime, when the thing is thrashing for all its worth. Anything less than eight resulted in a DNF, did not finish, and Duane had more than his share of them. Horse and rider were each scored and the two were added up for a total between one and a hundred. Duane could ride an easy horse all day, and still not score well. Or he could ride a monster for a few seconds and not score at all. He needed a good horse and a good ride, together if he was going to get anywhere in rodeo.
He was lucky tonight or at least thought he was.
‘Duane, you drew Hurricane, again,’ the official told him at registration. ‘You remember Hurricane, dontcha’?
Duane did indeed remember Hurricane, a horse that guaranteed to do his part for a good score, but one he’d ridden, or rather flown from in his last attempt to ride it.
‘How long did you ride him last time, Duane?’ the official asked, knowing the answer.
‘Almost five seconds,’ Duane exaggerated.
The man smiled back at him, ‘Well, I guess 3.8 seconds is almost five. Good luck, son, you’re gonna’ need it. That horse just loves to ruin a man’s chances at the RoCo.’
Duane took the proffered slip of paper before going to see the horse prior to the start time.
‘How’s he looking tonight,’ he asked the prep team.
‘Like he’s snorted a bunch of cayenne pepper. He’s fucking crazy tonight.’
Duane tried to sound more confident than he felt. ‘Well, that’s good, I like a spicy horse!’
The young man just shook his head, ‘Better you than me, dude.’
Hurricane looked at Duane like a tiger might look at a goat. Duane swallowed and turned away, knowing he had other matters to attend before his time on the horse.
Back in the trailer, Marcus just looked at Duane, across the table, ‘Look, let me think about it, Duane. I’m not ready to commit to ten bales. I can feed my horses without looking for bundles of weed wrapped up inside.’
Duane knew he was beaten and would have to look elsewhere to move his booty. He didn’t have time to think about it much because he heard someone thumping the door of the trailer.
‘Duane, get moving, buddy, the broncs are up next and you’re first in the draw. Better get suited up.’
It was Ronny, one of the other cowboys on the circuit who sometimes acted as Duane’s PA, keeping him on schedule and reminding him of the real reason he frequented the rodeo.
Duane looked back at Marcus one last time, as if to plead with him, ‘Think about it, quick,’ before heading to the arena to get suited up to ride Hurricane: boots, jeans, long-sleeved shirt, hat, safety vest, chaps. Mouth guard was optional, but Duane had seen too many men lose teeth on a fall and on rodeo nights he usually carried a mouthguard in his blue jean pocket.
Still shaking from the experience in Mexico, the memory of death and the smell of another man’s blood in his nostrils, Duane went through his usual pre-rodeo routine: some light callisthenics, a few lines of coke and two shots of whisky. The callisthenics to loosen him up, the coke to speed his reflexes and boost his confidence, the whisky to keep a lid on the whole package. It was a proven recipe, or so he was led to believe by the grizzled old timer who coached him early on in his ‘career.’
‘Keep your back square on the horse, roll with it, don’t fight him. He’ll teach you the rest.’
Duane had already learned his lessons from Hurricane and could feel his heart pounding in his chest as he climbed on the back of the monster in the holding pen.
Eight seconds later, with a perfect score sure to come his way, Duane lay beneath the writhing animal. He heard the bone in his left thigh snap like a twig followed by a sharp pain that took his breath away. He spat out his mouthguard and, as he lay there, helpless in the dust, the rodeo clowns racing his way, he looked up at the lights hanging from the roof of the arena and asked himself, how the hell he ended up here, a busted cowboy and a dope dealer. This wasn’t the dream he set out to find. This wasn’t vet school or even college and he was a disappointment to everyone who knew him.
But he couldn’t change things now. This was the story he’d chosen in life’s draw, and he was determined to see it through. If he’d known what was coming, he might have chosen to stay there in the dirt.
Author Bio: John Carswell was raised in Texas but now lives in Scotland. He is a retired minister who has written hundreds of sermons, a PhD thesis and a number of articles for professional journals. This is his first short story and introduces a favourite character in the person of Duane Stevens, aspiring bronc rider and small-time drug dealer.
Link to Substack: https://jcarswell.substack.com/
Did you enjoy the story? Would you like to shout us a coffee?. Half of what you pay goes to the author th otrht eehalf goes to expense se.g. Maintaining rhthe web site and setting up The Best of Café Lit book each year.
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