I trot Jaeger out of the arena to the hand-off pen with the saddle hanging off his side, my hat somehowstillon my head, and my thighs shaking under me.
I slide off him onto my own boots in the dirt.
Unbuckle the breast collar, set the broken saddle on the rail, and look the whole thing over. Then I see it. The fucking cinch.
The cut is on the underside.
Three-quarters through. A clean cut.
The kind someone would make with a sharp knife because he wanted me to take the third barrel and come down with the horse on top of me.
I don't move.
I stand there in the hand-off pen with my hand on Jaeger's neck and look at the cut.
* * *
Spur reaches me first.
I see him cross the dirt—running—with his cut flapping behind him and his hat in his fist.
Holt is two steps behind him.
Spur gets to me. Both hands on my face. "Are you hurt?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"I'm sure, Spur."
He pulls me into him. My face goes into his shoulder.
His shirt smells like coffee and the soap from his shower last night.
His hand is on the back of my neck, and somewhere there are photographers and a crowd, but none of it matters.
Uncle Holt is at the rail of the hand-off pen. He sees the cut on the cinch.
His face does what his grandpa’s face used to do when something on the ranch went wrong, which is the same face Pops' does, which is the face of a Lyle man going somewhere quiet inside himself before he blows a gasket.
"Dakota," Holt says.
I pull back from Spur and look at my uncle. "Yeah?"
"Come here, baby girl."
I let go of Spur and step over to the rail.
Uncle Holt reaches across it and pulls me into a one-armed hug, his other hand on the back of my head, holding me there.
He smells like cedar soap and the cab of his F-250 and twenty-five years of being the uncle who shows up when his niece needs him.
"I'm sorry, Uncle Holt."
"For what?"
"You drove from Lubbock in the middle of the night to watch me almost get killed."
