Bullheaded

assured him, and Reese chuckled.
    Vern stood up and held out his hands. The other two joined him in a circle and bowed their heads as he said a quick prayer of thanksgiving for their safety in the ring that night. “Okay, see you boys tomorrow. No drinking and staying out late tonight.”
    Watching the slim, bow-legged man amble down the hall, Johnny asked, “He always bring up about not boozing it up?”
    “Nothing to do with you, kid. He’s AA and proud of it. Been in recovery twenty years steady. Couldn’t ask for a better partner to fight bulls with.” Reese picked up his hat and put it on. “Last time he had a drink, he ended up with a broken shoulder in the ring. ’Course, he was younger then. Just wants to make sure we all keep safe.”
    “Oh, I thought it was because I’m Diné. Some people think we’re all drunks.”
    “Nah. He don’t think that way. He knows being a drunk ain’t a race thing.” Reese tipped his hat. “Get some rest, rookie. We get to do it all over again tomorrow.”
    “Will do. You too, Reese.”
    Johnny let the other man precede him into the parking lot and stood still to take in a deep breath of air. Then he grinned to himself. He was beginning to get used to the way Vern analyzed the entire night’s action while they watched the DVD after the event. At first Johnny had thought it was his way of keeping them safe by pointing out where they fucked up, but right from the start, the three of them mostly worked together as if they had some kind of ESP. Rider injuries had been fairly minor since he’d come up from the NBR touring division. He’d thought it might be tough stepping into a regular team as a substitute after Chris Bellow got hurt, but from the start it had been an easy transition, thanks to Vern and Reese.
    One thing he had noticed, though, was that during the time Vern was yakking at them, all the riders and tour staff went off to the bars, and it dawned on him maybe all Vern wanted was some way out of the inevitable invites that wasn’t too obvious.
    It was times like these he wished he still smoked. He would have liked the calming effect of taking in a deep drag of the smoke, watching the burning ember arc through the air when he tossed it away to land in a little shower of sparks, grinding the butt out with his heel….
    He’d started up at fourteen to look cool, but quit once he began working on a ranch after school. He needed to be fit to ride. And now there was no way he could run and jump and turn somersaults in the ring if he smoked. It was a dirty habit anyway. He hated littering, and the parking lot was enough of a mess without him adding to it. When he used to smoke, he always picked up the butt after stepping on it and tossed in a litter bin because he was kind of a stickler for keeping Mother Earth clean.
    He shoved his hands into his jacket pockets and started walking. He would have time for a shower before Cody made it back from the bars.
    The sight of Cody’s hand stuck in the rope had terrified him. A rider could be hurt bad hung up like that, especially if he couldn’t stay on his feet next to the bull. He’d been too far away to reach Cody and yank the tail of the rope, and yet he’d done it. The bull had then sent him flying when Cody finally came loose and rolled to a stop in the dust. When Johnny saw over a ton of beef poised to crash down on Cody, somehow he grew wings on his heels. That was the only explanation for how he managed to run the bull down and then fly over its head to distract it. When Vern played the video of the evening’s program, he saw how it happened. He jumped and the bull had gotten under him somehow. The horns got caught in his baggy shirt and flipped him. He laughed when he thought about how simple it was in retrospect.
    Vern was right. It was a good night when the riders and the fighters all went home.
    The hot shower felt like heaven, beating down on Johnny’s sore shoulders. After one final, bone-crunching stretch, he turned off the water. It was good to feel clean again. He loved his job, but after a good night in the ring, gritty dust got stuck in the sweat, and there was the smell of the bulls that clung to you. He corralled his long, wet hair into a ponytail and put on a clean pair of jeans before wandering through the connecting door into Cody’s room.
    The room was a giant step up from the ratty motels he’d stayed in when he used to work the touring division, clean and luxurious. Cody could