Sunlight filters through the stadium seats, dust pooling in swirling motes about the cowboy's jeans. In the mottled shadows the girl stands, arms folded, feet placed widely apart in the dirt. They talk briefly of the rodeo as the smell of steer shit wrestles with the sour stench of fear and exertion.
Beyond them, a young bull rider from some dying town in Oklahoma is kicked in the face by a 1,600-pound Angus named Taz. The crowd sucks in its collective breath. The cowboy flinches, but keeps his gaze on the girl. Their conversation is brief. He has to get back to the ring — she, the city.
That night, bags of cubed ice resting on his knees, he again thinks of her. Thinks of that night in Austin, circuits earlier, when he had met another city girl. Both women have that hair — that red, red hair. He adjusts the ice on his left knee and drinks another beer.
The following weekend finds him in Cheyenne. Sweat pops through his face paint as he hides behind the barrel, taunting the enraged bulls away from their riders.
He knows rodeo clowning is an art; knows the fine line he must walk between life and carnage. Two worlds separated by one thing. Concentration.
The hot sun dips beneath a western cloud, catching his eye and reminding him of the girls' hair. The bull's horn catches the underside of his rib cage, puncturing a lung. Tons of bone and flesh fling him like a doll into the dirt.
The rodeo physician arrives in time to hear him whisper his daughter's name into the dust-choked air.