The Bronc Tamer

“Why through a cloth?” Phil, sprawled on the beach, asks curiously with a grain of affront, rolling the slippery sensation of the floating silken cloud in his memory. “Didn’t want to harsh you,” Bronco examines his own paw: corns, scars, deep stains of earthen dust and soot around his nails, clipped close to meat with brutal negligence. “But I did want you, a lot.” Phil shaves more often than he even needs, but beard and moustache still refuse to grow. His lips are of weird outline, he isn’t blind not to see. Neither is Bronco, his thumb tracing over them in fascination. “D’you know you have a beautiful mouth,” he states without question. “And teeth, too.” Phil’s lashes, faded to antique gold at the ends, droop down as he opens up for Henry. Of all Henry’s worn and jagged hand, the pad of the thumb is the only polished, tender place. It enters Phil’s mouth; massages his canine, bicuspid — who would have thought that teeth can be so sensually responsive! — and gently ascends up his gum to the palate, caressing its ridges and crevices almost intangibly. For insufferable tickle, torturous and desired, Phil digs his fingers into the grass, bucks his leg, beats the ground with his sole. He wants Bronco Henry again. Only him, for ever and ever. “Hey, steed, slow down,” Henry chides, not without a hint of pleasure. “An old dog like me can’t run that fast.” Phil playfully suckles on his thumb, blankets it under his tongue, and there’s something about his slanted eyes and cheekbones that kindles sparks in Bronco Henry’s darkened pupils. The thumb emerges, glistening to the point of dripping. With the nail still downwards, Henry draws a line along Phil’s torso, leaving an invisible trace mark under the skin, evades the most yearning place, whirls upon the shameful one, and, never letting go of Phil’s gaze, slowly, carefully and firmly penetrates. It’s more painful than the lake act, but Phil’s body oddly knows how to relax, and with the stretch, fast as a tear, Phil abandons himself: groaning, writhing, gaping like a fish on the hook. Bronco watches, going on; watches, lowering his head, and only when his lips envelope the utmost peak of Phil’s burning need, his eyelids go halfway down. Phil is electrocuted. Alternating current runs between the poles of dry and wet, sharp and soft, wave after wave — and then his fuses burn. “God, the way you are,” Bronco Henry sprinkles water on Phil’s face. “Hair stood on end on the scruff of my neck. But as for the rest of me, just as I said, gotta wait.” “How much?” Phil revives. “Well… at least half an hour. Or better two.” Games like that, fitful and furtive, in the water, on the land, spur on the rest of the summer. Phil still has one long year left at college. Less than a year! Once his term is finished and a bachelor’s degree achieved, he dreams to break away from his parents’ ranch, into a dashing cowboy life with Bronco Henry, hitting the road like one tumbleweed. Henry tries to reason with him, but in vain. To wait till his twentieth birthday and the following spring — that’s the only compromise he manages to reach. For Fatso, his first year became his last. The dean himself, having summoned Phil to praise, hinted that, for the sake of family repute, George should rather drop out himself than be expelled with disgrace. Phil told his brother exactly the same: wake up and use your noodle, or at least save the scraps of pride. But he won’t heed the warning, and with oxish obstinacy (if clumsy oxen had the vigor of young rams) battered his bean against the granite wall of science till the end. Accordingly, the much-anticipated Burbank family feast fell flat in June 1904. At the moderately exquisite dining table sat a moderately elegant Old Lady, a pensive Old Gent, George, sweating in his suit-and-tie, his only merit being an excellent grade in bookkeeping, and a scruffy Phil on pins and needles, looking forward for escape to join the cowhands, who, in honor of his deliverance, were already preparing for the fun of a rodeo. Three fiercest mustangs remained unbroken in the corral out of the spring’s catch: the leader — a black-brown five-year-old, and his brownish progeny. Sensing foul play on the part of men, they still tried to protect mares and growers with their rumps and fearsome hooves, making themselves easy targets for catch ropes and bolas. One by one, the stud and the colts were forefooted, tugged off the herd, and thrown down to the side, feet pulled out from under them abruptly. That’s how broncs are busted: while a helper, sitting on a horse’s head, keeps a merciless hold of his nostrils, the roper ties the bottom hind foot to the forelegs. Once haltered, head in the air, the animal is roped around the neck; to that rope, a longer end leads, limiting the top hind leg. Then the bottom leg can be freed, which lets the captive clamber to his feet. A few knots, entwined with the mane, won’t allow shedding the yoke, and three footholds are not enough to run, only to stumble along where you’re led. The cribs, called bucking chutes, are so narrow that the bars of their fencing make a double ladder for a cowboy to descend atop the mount he’s saddled. The second fellow, from below, fastens the gear and unties the horse; three more hands control the gate to the arena. One to release the locking cord, another pulls the string that opens the door, when a third would loosen the rope on the bronc’s neck. Hands number six and seven, standing on the lower bars on either side of the rider, hold the mustang by the mane and by the special flank strap. Even the craziest beast won’t buck as much as he does at a rodeo. It’s simply that the strap is tight like hell on delicate areas. Bob the Whistle doesn’t last even five seconds on a colt’s back. He tumbles down headfirst, only to break an arm. Accompanied by a condolent choir of booos, he’s stumping to the kitchen for a splint, while the runaway winner is hampered right and left by the Twins on their grey dappled mares (as the cowhands joke, “those dapples are for telling one O’Donnel brother from the other”.) They urge the brown to the corral, fix him to the fence by the thick braided sisal rein that trails down from the halter, cast a blind over his eyes, and finally remove the damned flank strap. The guy has earned a break before the real breaking. Rough Rudy has better luck. Half-pint and sluggish, he waggles like a puppet for a whole ten seconds, slowly slides to the side and flops down on his ass. The second brown, caught by the rein, is ushered out to cool down. That must be Paddy… or Rory, can’t see a thing in such a cloud of dust. Rudy receives a storm of greetings, shoulder pats and back slaps. The leader is left for Bronco Henry. Henry is already seated on the fencing of the chute. Save for the Stetson, everything he’s wearing is brand new: a sharp-nosed boot, carelessly resting on the saddle, his jeans, his chaps, shirt, vest. His neck cloth is square, the color of the faded August sky. Having caught Phil’s stroppy eye, Bronco winks lakewards. Meaning: there it is, waiting for you, in the chest. And don’t you think Phil’s ogling like a fool. Even if his sky-washed eyes blossom forget-me-nots at the sight of Henry, that can’t be seen in the shade of his hat. The black bronc is devilishly handsome. A rare color for a feral thing, exceptional points — a pure outburst of old Andalusian blood. He stamps violently, kicks the crib with thunderous sounds, and tries to bite a booted calf of good old Harry, perched above his mane. Black Bill is in charge of the flank strap. Bronco Henry glides down into the saddle. Left hand on the gate, his right takes a confident hold of the rein. Those grinding, melding movements of adjusting to the seat rise. That very glance. The left hand lifts up lazily: ready. The stallion shifts weight backwards in a catlike flexing, low to high. The door swings open. Grey Harry bends the prancer’s crest still lower down, then slaps his cheek away. Black Bill yanks the strap’s end toward himself and keeps pulling, until it breaks free. A graceful shadow flows out of the crib, with a tilt to the left, and everyone, including Bronco, is aware of every millisecond of what’s coming next. Hind legs take the first slanted push-off, sending the rider’s body into counterbalance. Forefeet halt the forward intention, making the stud’s spine coil like a spring. With a new push, the soaring mass of crupper twirls around to the right. A pendulum. A vortex. A deadly loop, engulfing Henry. The power of inertia sweeps him down, to the space already cleared by the front hooves in their next contorted bounce. Alright, then, a fall is a fall. Been there, done that a thousand times. Reach for the ground, like a cougar; pull it together; roll over your back. But the bronc hammers at the ground again, almost vertical on his forefeet, swings his rump to change direction, and within a single moment when Henry’s ribs are still exposed, with a tight shot of heels into the declining sun, the front hooves crash into his supine chest. Phil, clawing the fence, can’t even scream. At first, everything is too unreal, and then it’s too late. Meanwhile, the bronco shoots through an entire circle of one hundred eighty, at human head hight — in a victory dance, or in warding off possible threats, — and continues to buck, even galloping round the arena in search of a way out, head-butting a dapple grey’s rear, until he’s thronged against the fence by both O’Donnels.   Dinner had passed in graveyard silence. Fatso never shone with eloquence, even at the best of times; Phil turned to stone, and the Old Folks deemed it improper to compromise the meal event by corrective conversation. The air was dense with bell-clear nagging clatter of silver and porcelain. Only once, a knife slipped with a screak, but no one moved a muscle. At last, coffee was served. Having waited for the maid to leave, the Old Gent marched to the china closet, where, in turn, hung the key from the buffet containing batteries of select whiskeys and gins. He added a splash of Chivas to his coffee cup, covered the bottom of a glass for Phil, and made a gesture towards the three armchairs by the furnace. Only after the Old Lady had occupied her place, facing the ashes, the father and the son took theirs at the sides. “God rest his soul.” That was all. Burial of hands was meant to be a foreman’s chore. The ranchers were more concerned about their assets. “Care to explain, young master, why you have shot the horse.” “He was dangerous, obviously,” Phil banged the glass down on the chess table. “Come on. Nothing they haven’t handled before. May I paraphrase: what made you shoot without thinking and in public?” “He killed a man,” Phil expounded, drawling flatly. “An inherent risk,” the Old Gent shrugged one shoulder. “No real damage, aside from that you’ve made. Or is it about the man?” — his phlegmatic look sharpened. “And if it is, so what?” — the son returned the look with mirror precision: pale and spiky with constricted pupils. “Too impulsive a gesture, even for a friendship, darling,” the mother interfered. “Barely decent for a filthy cowboy, but aren’t you…” “…what? Different? No, I’m in no way different from them. And I’d better live with’em in a barrack, than share a home with you, darlings.” “Oh, indeed, that won’t be necessary”, the Old Lady uttered, her face betraying no emotion. “We have long wanted to move closer to civilization, haven’t we?” — she cast a weighty glance at her husband. “Exactly so. To Salt Lake City,” — his tone went down, almost enough for a statement. Phil wondered detachedly, what that might look like in writing, while his mind inscribed a shrick into a question mark.* In less than a week of austere packing, a trust deed was issued to George Burbank, and a rent established for the Old Folks’ lifelong enjoyment of the fruits of progress in a dainty hotel room facing the snowy range of Wasatch Mountains. In dry legal terms it was made clear to Phil that, away from Their benign selves, he could treat himself to any eccentricity, math being his only judge — in the sense of his share in annual income and future inheritance. As the head manager of the ranch, first thing Fatso fired Black Bill. Phil Burbank was made the new foreman. None of the hands objected. Phil held no grudge against his peaceful brother anyway. Little did he need in the material world. But how can you ever fill the empty saddle, polished with Henry’s body, still warming your palms with its heat? * Just touch that saddle, and I’ll knock you off. Long are the strips of rawhide. Peeled, scraped, and macerated properly by the industrious sissy, right enough to finish the promised rope. Phil no more gives a damn whether Pete, with that sudden gift of his, was toadying, hopeful to make the new friend and protector more lenient towards his worthless momma, who’d pawned off all the hides to stinky Indians for a pair of beaded gloves, or truly wanted to become like Phil, become Phil. How ironic: to fully become Henry only after his bones have turned to dust. Li’l bastard, what you’re doing with the bloody rollie! Phil’s wounded hands are lost in braiding, whereas Peter’s belladonna gaze, sleepily vigilant, and lips, just moulded for a punch, are getting ever nearer. Phil can but stone-facedly slobber at the cigarette they have to share. Fine. The brat is teasing, playing hard to get, watching out for a step to turn against him later. And Phil has once braced himself at the height of blinding bronca, melted into gratitude equally scalding, — nor would he surrender to the hungry whispers of loneliness. Hell, he’s already engaged. “Therefore in the resurrection, whose wife shall she be of the seven? for they all had her. Jesus answered and said unto them: Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.”** Then, if even there he cannot be with Bronco Henry, Phil Burbank wants no heaven.