Torn between the desire to pet him and the urge to draw, I gave myself permission to do both and started stroking his soft coat as soon as he’d finished eating.
“Ohh, wow, he’s so soft. I didn’t expect you to be this soft, boy,” I murmured to Alfie as he stretched out his neck to allow me to reach spots he seemed to truly enjoy having scratched and stroked. He was so sweet, it was easy to linger and lavish attention on him before pulling my sketchbook back out and giving the floof on the top of his head a tousled, windblown look, so it covered one eye. The playful skater vibe that emerged on the page was the beginning of a brand new character, aloof and oblivious, but totally down to have a bit of fun. While I wasn’t sure who to pair him with on the page, he’d already developed into a character I looked forward to sketching more.
“Your mind works fast when you’re creating,” Master Thorin declared when I finally finished a trio of rough designs depicting Alfie in several skater poses, and a wide board that he could fit three legs on while pushing with one.
I couldn’t wait to craft ones showing him mid-trick, but I’d need my tablet for photo references before I could draw them. Plus, I was still torn on who his audience would be and if there would be one in the crowd looking on with concern instead of appreciation, because that would be a cool character to add to the comic strips. Oh yeah, he definitely needed a worrywart friend standing by, with a first-aid kit and 9-1-1 on speed dial.
“It does, but it can be exhausting sometimes too,” I admitted. “That’s why I need to have things to do with my hands that I can lose myself in. It’s the only way I can ever get my thoughts to slow down enough to let me step away from my sketchbook, so I don’t wind up burning myself out.”
“I’m glad you shared that with me,” he said as I stepped closer to him.
He closed the distance and enveloped me in the hug I needed to help me shift gears, something he seemed to recognize I needed without me ever having to ask.
“Can you tell me about your boots?” I asked Master Thorin as I knelt in front of him, slowly shaking off the memories so I could focus on the here and now
Calf-high and embroidered with flames, they were a deep tan beneath the dust and both well-worn and well-maintained.
“Not to come off sounding completely superstitious or even a little hinky, but they are the only boots I wore during my bullriding career. I absolutely refused to get on the back of a bull without them.”
“I can attest to that,” Master Wylde said. “You should have seen the panic the one time he couldn’t find them when he had to head to the shoots. The array of curse words coupled with the damage left in the wake of his search was downright legendary.”
“Really?” I murmured as I carefully began wiping the dust off with a soft cloth.
As a new bootblack, I’d made the mistake of spraying water first, until a veteran had taken the time to explain that water before wiping just created a potentially muddy, murky situation that made it more difficult to get them clean.
“My grandfather gave them to me when I started riding professionally,” Master Thorin explained. “Presented them to me right before my first event. Talk about nerves. It didn’t matter that I’d been riding in junior rodeo events since I was old enough to enter; making the jump to the pros, having qualified to do that, had sent me into a tailspin of what-ifs and worst-case scenarios.”
Not only was it helpful to know the history of the boots but hearing him talk about them gave me more insight into one of the men who was rapidly tattooing himself on my heart.
“How dangerous is bull riding?” I asked. “I have to be honest, I know very little about it outside of a wagon train event I attended with Sterling. The food was mouthwateringly amazing, even the baked beans, which I’d never been particularly fond of until then. Not only did I clean my plate, but I also went back for seconds.”
“Must have been some impressive beans,” Master Wylde said. “And to answer your question, it’s about as dangerous as a sport can get.”
“The average bull is roughly 1,700 pounds of solid muscle and raw fury. Its only goal is to unseat the rider in the quickestand most brutal way possible,” Master Thorin explained. “The majority of rider injuries come from hitting the arena floor, but bulls have been known to try to stomp or gore riders after they’ve fallen, which is where the rodeo clowns come in. They are lifesavers in every sense of the word, putting their bodies between us and the bull, distracting it while we get to safety, or helping us there if we can’t make it under our own steam.”
“Every ride is this crazy, terrifying, electrifying burst of adrenaline-fueled chaos, where you’ve got to be one with the animal while still holding this image in the back of your head of how you’re going to get the hell off when that eight seconds is over, because that part is just as dangerous as getting on,” Master Wylde added as I finished cleaning the dust from the boots and gently misted them so I could move on to phase two of the cleaning process. “Riders have gotten their hands caught up in the rope. That’s the part that goes around the bull and gives the rider something to hang on to while on its back.”
“Not only do we have to cling with our knees, but we can only hang on to the rope with one hand; the other remains in the air, helping us balance and shift our weight in the direction the bull is spinning,” Master Thorin continued.
“It’s honestly crazy how athletic the bulls are,” Master Wylde said. “And how they develop their own strategies for unseating riders. Some are legendary face breakers. They will throw their heads back as they land, which means the rider’s weight is already shifted forward in preparation for when the hooves hit the ground. There’s no way to avoid contact when that happens, and those skulls of theirs are like concrete. One guy had to have plates put in his face after an encounter. Needless to say, he was completely unconscious when he hit the ground, and that bull tried to step on him to add to his misery.”
“Oh my god, have either of you ever been hit that way?” I asked because the image they painted was downright terrifying and something I never wanted to witness.
“Fortunately, no, but one of the reasons we’re here is that we’re retired from injuries sustained after rides gone wrong,” Master Thorin declared, shooting Master Wylde the same look he’d given him the first time talk of bull riding had come up.
I wished I knew them long enough to interpret the meaning behind it, because the tension in his face and the intensity in his gaze hinted at fear and concern, which made me wonder if Master Wylde wasn’t as retired as Master Thorin declared them to be.
“How often do rides go wrong?” I asked.
“Anytime you get bucked off before the eight-second bullhorn, the ride has technically gone wrong for the rider,” Master Thorin explained. “But the kind of wrong we’re referring to is usually called a wreck, and that’s when someone gets hurt badly. Sometimes that happens in the shoot, after the gate has been opened, when the bull is free to buck while the rider is still surrounded by metal bars. Bulls have been known to stand on their front legs and smash riders into those bars or twist and slam their legs into the bars, which hurts like hell and can even break bones.”
“So, being superstitious, wearing the same boots, or having rituals you follow helps you mentally prepare for getting up on the back of an animal that might wind up severely injuring you?” I asked, beginning to put the pieces together.
“Yes, yes it is,” Master Wylde said. “For Thor it was the boots, always the boots. He refused to go to the shoots until he found them. It turned out that a friend of ours had removed them from the RV and put them in the back of the truck to air out. Once Thor found them, he was ready to go, but that half hour ofsearching was one of the most chaotic moments I’ve ever been a part of.”
“Yeah, I may have come completely out of pocket,” Master Thorin said. “In hindsight, I could have handled it better, or at least not tossed around accusations of sabotage.”
Master Wylde snickered at that. “Yeah, that wasn’t one of your finer moments.”