The Temptation (Kindred) by Valdes Alisa

Author:Valdes, Alisa [Valdes, Alisa]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Harper Collins, Inc.
Published: 2012-04-24T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

I dreamed of the rodeo. It was a summer day, with a distant thunderstorm brewing on the western horizon. In New Mexico we called summer our monsoon season, and everyone just planned their days around the inevitable drenching, healing rains that afternoon or evening might bring.

I hovered again, disembodied but acutely aware of everything, this time above a small, rustic rodeo ring. People crowded onto the metal bleachers below me, eating hot dogs, drinking beers and sodas, fussing over babies, laughing with one another, and watching the activity in the ring with good cheer.

I floated a little higher, unseen by anyone here, and felt Travis with me again.

Farmington. It was his voice, telling me this. New Mexico State Finals. June 21.

My sixteenth birthday. I tried to remember what I’d done that day. I’d stayed at the emergency room with my mother, having just gotten back from a white-water rafting trip with Kelsey in the Rio Grande Gorge near Taos, a present from my mother. That day, she and the nurses had thrown a little surprise party for me at the nurses’ station, with cake and presents.

At that moment, as the rodeo was under way.

I looked around me, and saw the bulls in their pens, and wondered if they knew the smell was of their own kind broiling. I saw young cowboys behind the chutes, joking with one another, eyeing one another with competitive glares.

Watch. This is where it starts. The rest of the story you need to know.

I saw Travis brushing a horse, dark like the one he rode when we first met, in an area that seemed to be the backstage of the arena. I watched him saddle it and put some kind of equipment on its legs, near the ankles. Next, he changed out of his jeans into another pair, these a bit roomier. He went to something that looked like a hatbox and took out some ropes, which he put baby powder on before gripping them to test their feel. He took some little ropes and put them over the saddle.

As Travis did this, some other men began loading five calves into chutes. Travis and some other young men took this as their cue to mount their horses and get into position. The announcer said the next event would be tie-down roping, and then I saw one of the calves dart into the ring. The calf was immediately chased by a young cowboy, not Travis. A matter of seconds later, the calf had been roped, and the cowboy had jumped off his horse and tied its legs together, ending by standing with his hands over his head. The crowd went nuts when the announcer said the cowboy had broken a record. The next four cowboys did the same thing, each near to or equaling the time of the first. Then, Travis was up. Astonishingly, he broke the record that had just been broken, moving with a breathtaking agility and confidence. The crowd went ballistic.

No one in

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