“Jenkins has got a bull.”

“Jenkins would never let you near that thing,” Jack says.

“Oh, come on, he would never know, the man is half blind—Bernie down the road has a small one too, that might be better, I think that’s the one they used a few years back.”

Sam laughs from where she lies stretched out on the floor of my bedroom, turning pages of a magazine. It’s something girly—nothing like what she usually reads. I try to decipher the titles over her shoulder, but the light through the window catches the paper’s gloss, so I can’t make them out.

“What,” I say, “I’m going to do it whether you are there or not.”

“I’ll be there,” she says without looking up. “Wouldn’t miss you getting thrown for nothing.”

“Jack, tell her I’ll be on that bull for longer than anyone in this town can claim.”

“You’re sitting in the same room as a future Glendale champion,” Jack says, poking Sam in the ribs with his shoe from where he sits at my desk. “He’ll be on that baby for a full 8 seconds.”

“Might believe it more if Mr. McBride over here had ever been within 50 feet of a bull.”

I throw a pillow at her as I sit up on my bed. It hits her in the head, and she gets up on her knees to hurl it back at me.

“Eight seconds is the bare minimum, by the way,” she says.

“It’s not my fault no one in this town will let me try it,” I say.

“There’s a reason for that.”

“Sam, doesn’t your uncle have one down on his land?” Jack says and leans forward in his chair. “He’s going to that same convention this weekend up in Albuquerque my dad is heading to, right. All the local guys are going.”

“Absolutely not,” Sam says. Jack and I look at one another and fall to the floor next to Sam.

“Please, Sam, please, you’ve got to help us,” our voices chorus together.

“No,” Sam says.

“Please, Sam, you know what this means to me. Sam, it’s perfect—”

Before I can say anything else, she stands.

“Don’t ask me again. It’s a stupid tradition; you guys might as well drop it. I got to head home anyway, dinner.”

She pulls her shoes on and turns to leave. She leaves most of her stuff behind, scattered across my carpet, when she grabs her orange backpack from where it hangs on my doorknob. The front door slams shut.

“What’s her problem today?” Jack asks, and I sigh.

He leaves soon after that, and I pick up Sam’s magazine from my floor. It’s got a tall, lanky girl on the cover. The inside has a ton of writing and a lot of pictures of girls with nice smiles and large breasts.

 

I cut some flowers from my mom’s garden the next morning and drop them in Sam’s lap during study hall, placing all the other stuff she left at my house on the table; the flowers are pretty and blue. She’s sitting in the library with an open notebook.

“Nice try,” she says.

“Just hear me out,” I say. She looks through her stuff, shoving the magazine deep into her backpack. She places the flowers on the table and begins to write again.

“No,” she says.

“Sam, it’s going to happen whether you help or not,” I say. “I don’t know when you turned into such a girl about this stuff.”

Her pen stills, and she looks up at me. She stares for a long time before she speaks.

“You’re not going anywhere near that property without me, and I said no.”

She puts her stuff into her backpack and stands.

“Won’t be around later, got a big essay due for Clarke,” she says. “I’ll see you later.”

She grabs the flowers off the table and walks away. She pauses by the doors, glances back at me, and chucks the lilacs in the trash. The bell rings, and I watch my classmates filter through the library like ants. I pass Jack in the hall later and shake my head.

Sam doesn’t meet us after school for a ride home from Jack, and she avoids me all the next day. She finds me on Thursday after her science lab. It’s a dusty October day with a strong sun, and I am sitting outside eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

“How would you do it?” she says from behind me. I swallow my bite as she slides onto the bench adjacent to me.

“How would I do what?” I ask.

“It,” she says. “You can’t be thinking about trying to jump on one with no help; there’s no point.”

I take another bite of my sandwich and chew slowly.

“Well.” I’m talking with my mouth half-full, which bothers her, “I know some seniors who work at the ring in Glendale in the summers, they said they could help me set it up, help the tradition live on, and all that.”

“There’s so much that could go wrong,” she says. “My uncle would kill me; your parents would kill me.”

“No one would know. Let’s be real, I won’t be on it long enough to hurt or do any damage to it or anything, if you’re worried about that. Plus, these guys I know are good. They’ll calm the bull down and get it out of the way.”

She doesn’t say anything for a while.

“Sam, it really will be okay. There’s nothing to worry about.”

“I’m not worried.”

“You seem like it.”

“I just don’t want to get in trouble because of you idiots.”

“You won’t.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Of course, I do, if anyone does find out—you were never even there. No one will rat you out.”

“Swear it to me,” she says. She props her elbow up on the table between us and sticks out her pinky finger. I link mine around it.

“I swear it, Sam.”

 

We meet at Jack’s house on Saturday night. It’s a mile from Sam’s uncle’s ranch, and with his dad out of town, we’re alone in the house. My legs are restless as we sit at his kitchen table.

“They’ll meet us there,” I say.

“Are you sure you gave them the correct address?” Sam says, “It’s hard to find in the dark.”

“They got it.”

“What made you change your mind?” Jack asks Sam.

“Just would rather be there if it’s going to happen anyway.”

I trade glances with Jack, who looks unconvinced.

“Plus, I’m the only one that knows CPR,” she says.

The crickets buzzing in the dry heat outside seem to get louder. Jack fiddles with a spool of rope that’s sitting in between us, before standing and walking towards his basement door. He disappears down the steps and returns carrying a short work light.

“For the ring,” he says and grins at me. “We should get going.”

I pull the rope off the table, and we get into Jack’s car. I sit in the back, leaning against the seat in the middle. He drives slow along the dirt slope that connects his house to the main road and keeps the lights off. No one speaks; Sam points directions to Jack, and he turns down an even bumpier path. I button and unbutton the cuff of my shirt.

The car stops in front of a long ranch house. It stretches over a small hill, and it has two large front doors, painted dark—in the dim light, it looks like a gaping yawn.

No one moves to get out when Jack flips the key off. He flinches when a car approaches behind us, its wheels crushing the gravel of the driveway. They flash their brights at us once, twice, and I step out of the car. The driver rolls down his window; he has a round rim hat on his head.

“You excited, kid?” he yells over the engine. He turns the car off, and boys spill out. I recognize most of them; they’re all tall with strong arms and the jaws of men. Sam and Jack get out behind me.

“You’re not going to believe what you’re about to see,” Jack says as he comes up behind me. He slaps his arm around my shoulder, and I wrap mine around his.

“Longest ride you will ever did see,” I say, and step out of Jack’s grasp to shake the hand of the other driver. “Henry, thank you for the help.”

“Anytime, man, anything to keep the tradition alive,” he says. He starts to point and name the guys around him, and I smile at them.

“Now, let’s see this bull.” His friends cheer around him, and Sam motions for us to follow her.

“Watch your step,” she calls over her shoulder. We make our way down the hill, and I hear some of the guys behind me whispering about Sam’s jeans. I keep my eyes down, stepping over roots and rocks that jut out of the ground. We walk for a while before Sam comes to an abrupt stop; I look up to find a white cattle barn looming over us. She looks at Henry.

“You better know what you’re doing.”

She turns back around and pulls the door along its tracks to open it. The barn is dark, and a heavy musk hits my face before my eyes adjust.

Henry grabs my shoulder before we walk in.l

“You and Jack should go hang out by the ring,” he says. “Go settle your nerves, kid.”

He turns and follows everyone else inside. Jack pulls me towards a field by the cattle pen. We sit on the ground next to one another. The tree line on the property looks miles away, and so does the dark sky, starless tonight.

“I’ll be fine,” I say.

“You’ll be just fine,” Jack says. I have never been able to tell when he’s lying, even when we were kids. He stands up.

“I think they’re calling us,” he says and pulls me to my feet. “Your time to shine.”

As we get closer to the pen, I can see them all gathered around one of the gates. The sound of them talking fades away. The bull is grunting behind them, hitting itself against its confines. Henry sits up on one of the gates, looking down at it.

“Going to be one hell of a ride,” he says to me. “He wasn’t too happy to be woken up.”

“You’ll be fine, though,” one of the other boys says. “Bail when you need to, we’ll handle it.”

I nod, and Sam comes to stand by me. Jack sets up the work light, running an extension cord to the barn and back. Two of Henry’s friends sit up on Sam’s uncle’s horses by the far entrance, lassos in hand. They’ll shuttle the bull out of the area once I’m off it.

“You ready?” Sam asks.

“Of course I’m ready,” I say, flexing and unflexing my fingers.

“His name is Twinkles.” I laugh without meaning to, and she bumps her shoulder into mine.

“Knew that’d get you to laugh.”

Jack gets the light on, and I see Twinkles for the first time. He’s tall, and the muscles in his back are throbbing; snot is dripping from his snout as he paws the ground. Someone has already tied my rope around his abdomen, and his dark body strains against the skinny tan band. The light catches his eyes, and they glint like rubies.

“Come on, kid.” Henry motions towards me.

Jack slaps me on the back, and I jump up on my toes a few times to get the blood flowing to my legs. I move towards the fence, but Sam grabs my arm.

“Be careful,” she says. “Or I’ll kill you before the bull does.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” I say.

I climb up on the fence next to Henry, and I’m leaning down over the bull when he takes the hat from his head and puts it on me.

“Now you’re a real cowboy,” he says. “Just eight seconds, remember; now, get in there.”

I scoot forward on the railing until I’m next to the pen. I swing myself over, landing square on the bull’s back. It bucks forward, and I grab onto the rope. Its body heat envelopes me as I lean down against its spine, wrapping the rope around my palm four times. I can hear only his breathing beneath me, hot, heavy breaths that make my legs move forward and back against his sides. Short black hair runs rough against my hands as I push myself up into a seated position. The points of his long white horns are inches from my face as I look towards Henry.

He jumps into the enclosure that I’ll ride into, holding a long rod. His friends spread out along the fence but stay on the outside. Jack and Sam stay by me, and the bull beneath me begins to groan and buck, tension rolling through its muscles beneath me. I tighten the rope in my palm and tuck my knees tight against its ribs. I look to Henry, who nods.

He reaches for the rope attached to the latch, and I stop breathing. The others are shouting around me, but my eyes are on the bull’s neck and then the latch as it raises. The bull breaks forward and bucks upwards. My left hand is raised upwards. The bull’s feet land on the ground again; I feel my bones compound with the force, and the air leaves my lungs.

Somewhere around me, they are counting slow seconds. Dust floats up around me, and the rope cuts into my soft palm. The bull bucks again, and my legs loosen their grip against its sides. Its sour stench has entrenched itself in my nose. The light shines off the sweat dripping down its skull; I do not know if it is from me or the bull. The animal stops short in its run and bucks again. The hat falls from my head, and my hair flies into my eyes. The bucking is becoming more violent, more erratic, and the braided rope burning my skin loosens.

The bull bucks one more time, and I am in the air over its horns. I glimpse its jeweled eyes before my back hits the hard earth, and my head smacks backwards. Someone screams. My legs lie crumpled between me and the bull, and I barely notice the boys getting it away from me.

The sky is navy, and there are the first signs of dawn. Sam’s face appears before mine, and I have to blink hard to realize Jack is there too. I can still hear the bull, but I cannot hear them.

“Hey, hey,” I hear, and it is Sam’s voice.

“Can you hear us?” I nod slowly.

“How long?” My voice sounds far away.