I cast one last glance at the old bottle of Tylenol in the open cupboard, at the place where the label lifts from the bottle, age and wear evident in the yellow discoloration of the plastic body. It’s been six years, but that hollow feeling in my chest, that hole in my heart where my entire world used to comfortably fit, feels new every single sunrise.
Dr. Vargas tosses a final amber bottle into the bag, rolling down the paper top with a smile. She passes it to me. “This should get you through the next month.”
Instead of taking the bag, I fish my wallet out of the back of my jeans, and dig out a few crisp bills I just got at the bank. “I sold a mare yesterday.” Snickerdoodle’s sister, in fact.
Elena smiles, the kind of smile that sayspoor guy, the kind of smile I’m sick of being the recipient of. People used to stare at me, point my way, take pictures of me walking into the feed store, side saddle at my diner table and beg for an autographed napkin. Some mornings, after a wild ride at a roaring rodeo, Amelia and I would wake up to people lingering outside our property, hoping to steal a photo of Landry Vaughn, toughest roughie around.
Now people avoid lookin’ my way, and when they do, I get this.This pseudo smile.But I can’t blame any of ’em. How would I look at a man who had it all, and is now struggling to keep his land and animals? Probably not far from the way they look at me.
Despite the expression, Elena is different from the rest.
“Landry, you know you don’t have to—” she starts, but I press those crisp, sharp, pungent bills into her palm and keep our hands pressed together, green between them.
“Please,” I croak, my voice thin and hoarse, the way it was after a rodeo years ago. All the hollering and whooping paired with celebratory cheers, I’d leave there sounding like a smoker of thirty years. The remaining slivers of my ego clamber together, driving out one more sentence, but not before peering back to make sure the little office door is closed. I don’t want anyone knowing about my failures, not unless they have to. “It’s not even about the money, Elena. I need to feel like I’m—like I can…” I lose steam halfway through my thought, but she picks up on it easily, taking her hand away to stash the bills into her jacket pocket. “Okay,” she concedes softly. “Thank you.”
Colic treatments, hurt hind quarters, that time Snickerdoodle got her leg cut on the broken fence and needed a house call, foaling, Big Bertha’s meds, the antibiotics for the chicken feed—you name it, and Elena’s been coming through for Vaughn Ranch in the last five years.
I’d be dead in the water without her generosity and big heart. I hate that I need the help, but with Sadie in the picture, I can’t deny that I do.
Adjusting the Stetson on my head, I nod. “Thank you. But please, I have to ask that you add the rest of the debt to my line of credit.”
Elena’s head tips to the side, and her lips part, irritation wrinkling her forehead. I lift my palm, unwilling to hear her argue. “One day I’m going to pay every cent back,” I start.
“I have zero doubts,” she says softly.
We stand there, staring at one another a moment before Elena quietly passes me a bag loaded down with meds for my stud, Fabio. Our fingers brush when I collect the goods, and Iwonder if she is thinking about the last time our hands touched. The day of Amelia’s service, when she came to the side of the casket, and took my hand while saying a lot of very nice things about my wife.
A knot of emotion erupts dead center in my chest, climbing my throat until it’s so wedged in there, my eyes burn and I don’t think I can speak. Her sad smile returns, but this time, I tip my hat and manage to muster a broken, “Thank you,” before turning on my heel and heading out.
At the end of the hall, with dogs barking and some chickens crowing from somewhere inside the busy office, my eyes land on the community bulletin board near the front doors.
I’ve walked past that bulletin board a hundred times. Top left is a blue flyer from 2013 about Sable Sky High Sober Grab Night. Below that, off-kilter and somehow staying on the board with one bent pushpin, is a yellow piece of paper. The words have long been sun-bleached, but it remains. The last flyer in the bottom right corner is for the biannual spay and neuter clinic held in the Feed ’n’ Seed parking lot.
I stop short in the hall, a sudden thumping behind my ribs that has me tugging my hat off my head, holding it to my chest.
There’s a new flyer.
It’s white, with the image of a man breaking in a bronc, front and center. Next to it, another photo, a young rider on a bull, spine curved backward, eyes wide, the animal angry and airborne. A burning sensation floods my spine, and the back of my neck suddenly aches as I narrow my eyes on the bold, blue words scrawled over the images.
SABLE SKY RODEO CHAMPIONSHIP RETURNS!
B.R.A.A. SANCTIONED BRONCO & BULL RIDING
JULY 3rd, 8th, 14th
GRAND PRIZES (TWO): $150,000 for TOP BRONC & BULL RIDER
There’s a lot more information on the flyer: ticket prices, colt auction information, Jasper Jeweler’s and the Feed ’n’ Seed logos listed as sponsors, and a litany of other prizes listed.
Sweat beads along my brow, and heat halos the collar of my shirt. The last time there was a rodeo here in Sable Sky, I limped to that announcer’s booth and collected my trophy.
Ireceived that winner’s check.
It was the head start we’d been hoping for, the thing that made putting me through pain and risking my long-term body health so we could add to the ranch and ranch house worth it.
Three days after I’d won, and two weeks after Sadie’s birth, Amelia found that lump. A tiny lump, not much bigger than a pea. Not even one full centimeter, in fact.
But that lump took everything from us.
