I follow.
"The story's going to run with or without your input," I call after him. "I just thought you might want a say in how it reads."
He stops. Turns. The look on his face sits somewhere between amusement and contempt.
"You thought wrong." He takes a step toward me, close enough that I have to tilt my chin up to hold eye contact.
He's bleeding freely now, a thin line of red tracking down his temple and into the collar of his shirt, and he hasn't so much as wiped at it. "Let me save you some time, sweetheart. The circuit's a tire fire, the officials are bought, and nobody with any power gives a damn about anything except keeping the sponsors happy, the public paying and the cameras rolling."
"That sounds like a story to me."
"That sounds like a Tuesday." He studies me, and the amusement fades. What's left is sharper. Assessing. The cut above his eye is starting to swell, the skin around it purpling, and he doesn't touch it. Doesn't acknowledge the bleeding or the way his left hand hangs at his side with the fingers slightly curled, protecting the riding hand the way bull riders do when the adrenaline fades and the rope burns start to announce themselves. I've seen Grant do the same thing a hundred times, stand there bleeding after a ride and pretend nothing hurt, and the familiarity of the gesture sends a spike of grief through me so sharp I have to swallow against it.
Behind us, a chute gate clangs open for the next rider, and the crowd roars, and neither of us turns to look.
He makes a decision. I can see it happen, the shift behind his eyes, the moment he stops dismissing me and starts testing me.
"You want a real story? Start by asking why the Southwest Circuit ruled Grant Corbin's death an accident when every stock contractor from here to El Paso knows Thornton Livestock's bulls have been juiced."
The name hits me like a sucker punch.
Grant Corbin.
My brother's name, out of Holloway's mouth, dropped so casually it takes everything I have to keep my expression locked down.
My fingers go tight around my notebook.
Holloway's watching. Close. Too close.
"Grant Corbin," I repeat. My voice comes out steady, which is a minor miracle. "The bull rider who died in Las Cruces."
"The bull rider who was murdered in Las Cruces." He says it the way other people say the sky is blue. Flat. Certain. Daring me to flinch. "But you already knew that, right? Since you're covering the circuit."
"I've read the reports. They said?—"
"The reports are horseshit." He leans in, and the closeness is a weapon, designed to crowd me, to test whether I'll step back. I plant my feet. "Thornton Livestock supplied a bull named Tombstone's Revenge for the Las Cruces event. That bull was doped. Corbin drew that bull because somebody made sure he drew it. And two months later, nobody's asking why."
The blood is covering his shirt collar now. He doesn't seem to notice. Or care.
"Are you saying someone killed Grant on purpose?" I ask the question like a journalist. Measured. Probing. Inside, my belly feels like a cage of razor wire.
"I'm saying I watched that bull's footage. Tombstone's Revenge was a different animal in Las Cruces than he was at every other event that season. Faster. More aggressive. Targeted the rider like it had instructions." His mouth goes flat. "That's not an accident. That's an execution."
"And Thornton Livestock?"
"Supplies stock across the whole circuit. Every venue. Every event." He holds my gaze. "You want your feature piece? Thereit is. But I'm guessing you won't write it, because nobody on this circuit has the balls to put their name next to that accusation."
He turns away again.
"Why do you?" I ask.
He looks back over his shoulder.
The blood has reached his jaw now, and the overhead lights catch the scar tissue on his forearms, a roadmap of every bull rope that's ever bitten into his skin.
"Grant Corbin was the best man I ever knew." He stops. The rest sits behind his teeth for a beat before he lets it out. "He's dead. I wasn't there. So no, I'm not worried about making friends."
He walks into the darkness behind the stock pens, and I let him go.
