Cowboy Summer - 11. Throw Down

Sam took off running. Rhydian waited until he’d crossed the rope line which Caleb had lain out on the sand in the school, then squeezed Shura, kicked the horse with his heels, and lashed the reins against his neck. Shura broke from a stand into a flat out gallop, and Rhydian found his head empty of his instructions, thinking about nothing but his breathing, the thud of hooves, and beat of Shura’s great heart underneath him. He was gaining, gaining… His feet left the stirrups at exactly the right moment and Rhydian leapt from his horse with a yell. Slamming into Sam, they both fell to the ground, but Rhydian’s lack of grip and added momentum kept them rolling. Two seconds of breathing later, Sam grinned above him, jumped up and helped haul the boy to his feet.

“Well, at least you hit me.” The big Texan offered, along with a small smile. He dusted off Rhydian’s hat and palmed it back onto his head, “Better than last time.”

“He’s not going to think so,” Rhydian jerked his thumb at where Caleb stood, arms crossed and leaning against the fence post back by the starting line, “I’m never going to get this right.”

“You will.” Sam shook the back of his neck gently, “I still think we should give you a large goat and get on with the real training. My back hurts.”

Rhydian started walking back to the starting line. Well-practised, Shura had already circled around to return there and wait for his rider to join him.

“I am not letting him use an actual goat until I can guarantee he’s not gonna get gored and bleed everywhere.” Caleb shook his head, “You shaved time off your start, but it was still wrong in many ways.”

“So get him a goat without horns Cay,” Sam strode over to his lover, rubbing his shoulder, “Give the kid a break, he’s doing really well.”

Rhydian glowed with pleasure when Sam spoke. Less than a week ago, it would have been pride and lust, but not anymore. If his experience with Jase had taught him anything, it was that he needed to be a lot more careful with his heart. Sam was handsome, lovely, smiley, a nice guy. But he was also Caleb’s nice guy, and Rhydian didn’t want to be something that came between them. Being friends with both was way better than having Caleb mad at him, and Sam pitying but supportive.

“Hey boys!” All three turned at the shout, to find Jase riding up the path on Sugar. The palomino tossed her head and whinnied, “What are you three up to then?”

Caleb turned back to Rhydian with a glint in his dark eyes.

“I have an idea.”

Rhydian swung up onto his horse and grinned. He liked Caleb’s idea.

Jase took off running and Rhydian didn’t have to think. He didn’t need to count his breaths or feel for Shura shifting his weight. He knew exactly what he wanted to do. Jase run over the line, and there was no conscious thought. His mind and body just said GO! And off they went like the bullet from a gun. The angle was right, the speed was perfect and Rhydian simply dropped the reins, let his feet fall from the stirrups and jumped.

Two seconds later he was kneeling over Jase, holding both the man’s wrists and both his ankles in the air. He was panting, he’d lost his hat somewhere, but Sam was whooping and Caleb had shouted in surprise and pleasure. Jase grunted. Rhydian let him go and rocked back on the heels of his cowboy boots. He grabbed his hat, which had ended up behind him, and put it back on. From his prone position on the ground, Jase smiled at him in a lazily sexy sort of way.

“Don’t I get anything for my trouble?” His hand squeezed Rhyder’s thigh, fingers working up for the hem of his shirt. Rhydian heart raced, but it wasn’t for Jase.

“Nah,” He shrugged and jumped up, “I’m good.” When he offered his hand, the big cowboy took it and hauled himself upright. Being near Jase still felt like standing ever so slightly too close to a deeply sexy fire, but Rhydian knew what was down that road. And anyway, there were way more interesting things to think about than what Jase looked like naked.

Rhydian jogged to where Shura stood waiting for him and swung up into the saddle like he’d done it every day for years.

“So now do I get a goat?” He grinned, and Caleb was smiling back.

“You realise you’re probably only the second person to ever deny him, right?” Caleb picked dust from under his fingernails.

“Yeah.” Rhyder touched the brim of his hat, “I’m learning from the best, right Cay?” He turned Shura back towards the starting line, “So do I get a goat?”

“Oh yeah!” Caleb put his hand on his hips and smiled like the sun shone from his side, “You’ll do good.”

Jase mounted up and good naturedly agreed to act as Rhydian’s outrider, a flat out reversal from the first proposal he’d ever made to the boy. Sam got the goat that Caleb had grabbed from the stall it’d been napping in, and it took Rhydian two more goes before he managed to not only pin down the big broad shouldered beast with the rather large horns, but actually get all the legs in the air as well.

By the time the lunch bell sounded at the house, they were all tired, all hungry, and Jase and Rhydian were sweaty, gritty and Rhydian was grinning from ear to ear. Moreta put down a big platter of cold meats and cheeses in front of the boys and turned to get the bread.

“Leave some for the other guests boys!” And that slowed down their consumption a little bit.

Jase spent some time assembling a pointlessly tall sandwich while Sam got three beers and a cream soda from the cooler. Rhydian gulped gratefully. He knew he’d already had enough of beer, whiskey and corn liquor to last him, if not a lifetime, at least another six months. They ate fast, hungry from the morning’s work, and when the other guests started rolling in, Rhydian was going over the finer points of team penning with Caleb. The native man had decided it was going to be his other event at the starters rodeo, and because rodeo was all about ‘learning by doing’ that was what they were going to be working on in the afternoon.

“So you and you’re team mate start out here,” Caleb began drawing the arena on the table top in a pattern of condensation, “And there’ll be about thirty young beef cows at the far end. They all have numbers, you get a random number, and you have to go, sort out the steer you want and push him down the other end, and you have to get both your team’s cows into the back of the pen.”

Rhydian imagined the scene in his mind.

“How long do we get?”

“Well if it takes you longer than ninety seconds, you’re technically disqualified, but tomorrow rodeo is starter’s, it’s all people practicing, so they’ll let you finish either way OK?” As Caleb spoke, Rhydian had already decided there was no way he was getting disqualified.

“So how do I get Shura to cut a cow out of the herd?”

Caleb looked levelly across the table at him, but it was Sam who spoke.

“Rhyder, how do you get that horse to do anything? Just ask him.”

“Oh my god, are you doing rodeo?” One of the pony-club girls asked. She was looking at Jase in a breathless sort of way, “Can we do it too?”

Rhydian snorted, but Caleb kicked him under the table.

“It can’t do any harm for you to have a go. We’ll do some speed penning trials, one on one.”

Caleb gave the demonstration. They’d divided the school in half down the middle, built two little pens at the far end and placed a dozen of the larger goats in each half of the school. The goats crowded at the other end of the school and Boy-Latte stood in the little pen, breathing hard and slow. Sam finished painting numbers in fly-spray on the side of the last goat and nipped over the side of the school.

“Ready?”

“Ready!” Caleb gripped the reins in one hand, his knees already tight on Boy-Latte’s sides. The horse paced sideways, head up, eyes wide and focusing on the goats at the far end of the school.

“Number six Cay,” Jase was sitting on the fence by the little pen, and he had the dinner bell from the house in one hand, stopwatch in the other, “Go!”

Boy-Latte turned out of the little pen and thrashed down the length of the school. Both rider and horse were totally focused on the goat they’d been assigned. Boy’s ears were turned forwards, his nostrils flaring. The goat was deep in the herd, but Caleb wasn’t letting him go anywhere. The big cremello quarter horse stopped directly in the front of the number six goat, drew back over his hocks, his haunches bunching, and the movement allowed the goat to move forwards and towards his left side. Man and horse span in the tight space, separating the goat off and chased him down the other end of the school. Caleb got him into the little pen like it was nothing, and held him there until Jase rang the bell. When Boy-Latte stepped back, his tension visibly dropping, the goat trotted back to be with his herd.

“Right then people,” Sam was grinning from ear to ear, the pride he felt for his lover shining through his features, “That’s how it’s done. Rhyder and Emma, you’re up first.”

The girl mounted up little Darkie from the mounting block, but Rhydian jumped into the saddle directly from the corral wall. He’s missed Sam’s running commentary of how the cutting out was done, but he’d seen everything. He knew he could do it.

“All these horses have done penning and cutting before, they know what to do.” Sam patted Darkie’s neck as the girl took up her place in the little pen. Caleb clapped Rhydian on the shoulder as he passed him. “All set Jase!”

Jase grinned.

“Alright then. Pretty boy, you get number nine,” Rhyder scoured the herd for a large goat with a piebald colouring, “Girly, you are asking for number three.” When they had both nodded, Jase grinned. “Go get ‘em kids!”

The bell sounded. Turn, squeeze; they pelted down the school; stop, pull back; For half a breath the goat and horse stared at each other and Shura drew back over his hocks, the goat began to follow; turn, one leg on, one leg off; Shura spun around in his own footprints, driving the goat away from the herd; chase, loop, pen. The bell went and Rhydian backed off and let the goat run back. Only then did he look up, realising Emma hadn’t even managed to select off her goat. She was still in the saddle, but she was looking frustrated and angry. Jase whistled to get his attention and showed him his time. It was only a little school, and only one goat, but he’d done in in eighty seconds dead.

“I did well?”

“Your form was great,” Jase wasn’t paying any attention to where Darkie was still trying to show his rider what to do, “The draw was really nice Rhyder. You two make a great team.” Jase smiled at him, “Too bad you won’t have an excuse to jump on me any more huh?”

Rhydian felt himself shiver at Jase’s words, but Shura bent his head back and nudged his knee.

“I think you’ll do great as my outrider Jase,” Rhydian smiled, but kept his tone light, “I have this feeling we might be way better off being friends who don’t make out.”

“Damn boy.” Jase hopped off the fence, “You do know how to give a cowboy blue balls huh?”

He shook his head.

“Jase, I reckon you’ll live.” He turned Shura around to face the heard again, “Let’s go!”

*

The klaxon went and Rhyder and Shura both leapt forwards. He’d picked out the steer with the frosted ears easily, and Shura was fixed on it too. It wasn’t a deep cut, and Shura stopped dead, drew back on his hocks and pulled the beast forwards. A slight let up on his cow side leg and they had the steer away from the herd and pushed him back down the other end. Boy-Latte jumped in the moment Rhydian was clear of the herd and Caleb separated off his own all black steer. Rhydian was waiting for him, sitting deep in the saddle, and together they drove the two cows into the small pen. When the horn went again, Rhydian found himself grinning like a lunatic. There was cheering from around the arena, the voices of friends and family of the competitors, and those who had come down simply to have a bit of fun, raised in celebration of a good run. Rhydian backed Shura off and let the cows go.

They walked the horses out of the ring and past the chutes, which were pretty empty this evening and Rhydian swung down into the open arms of Sam, who hugged him tight before catching Caleb as he dismounted. Jase grinned and knuckled his shoulder.

“You guys rocked!”

“Yeah?” Rhydian knew it had been a good run, the latest of many, but it still made his heart beat hard to hear it from someone else, “How was our time?”

“Sixty one point three,” Jase read off the stop watch, “You shaved off another four seconds since the last run.”

“Not bad.” Caleb clapped him on the shoulder, “We get one last run, you wanna try and make it under sixty flat?”

“Yes.” Rhydian voice was hard, and his fingers tightened automatically around Shura’s reins. “I ain’t going home unless we get under sixty.”

“Well lookit that,” Sam came to stand next to Jase as the other men mounted up again, “He really has got the making of a rodeo cowboy.”

“No shit!” Jase hopped back up on the fence by the empty chutes, “Screw him going back to England or whatever he’s supposed to be doing. In a year the kid could be making a decent living as a cowboy.”

“Jase…”

“Seriously Sam! He ran his first ever steer down in six seconds. That’s not nothing.”

“And this isn’t all because he decided not to go in for the second go around with you?” Sam lowered his brows as he spoke. “We do all know how you hate to be denied anything.”

“Especially something that pretty,” Jase sighed, but shook his head, “Nah. I suppose he’s a bit young for me anyway.”

“That’s all?” Sam sounded suspicious.

“Shaun’s back.” Jase’s eyes flashed heat and lust.

“Good timing.” Sam shook his head, then focused his gaze to where Rhydian and Caleb were waiting for the herder to give up holding the cows at the far end of the ring, “I always thought you two could be more than a one-time kinda thing.” The klaxon distracted them, and both men were on their feet half way up the fence, hollering their friends on.

“Fifty nine point six!” Caleb shouted from Boy-Latte’s back, “YEAH!”

Shura neighed in a way that meant delight and tossed his head. Rhydian, holding the reins with one hand on the pommel of his saddle, took off his hat by the peak and waved it above his head. It was a classic sight, and Sam felt his heart swell with pride. The boy was doing great, and a little part of his mind worried Jase was too close to being correct. A lot of people who came out to Iron Hill Lake didn’t want to go home again, but Sam couldn’t see a single way in which Rhyder was ever going to want to leave.

Rhydian jumped off Shura’s back and went around the horse in a circle, loosening all his straps and buckles, removing his bit and saddle before he started to rub the horses all over with the heel of his hands, massaging the muscles that had worked so hard to propel them across the rodeo arena. Sammy came by and patted the horse on the shoulder, and Rhydian found he was too exhausted and elated to be self-conscious and nervous. He could make easy conversation with the big man who owned the rodeo. The chatted absently about the horse Sammy had bought from the shouting man for a few minutes while Shura cooled down, and Rhydian made his excuses and walked with his horse over to one of the many deep troughs. Shura snickered at his shoulder, plunged his face into the water and drank like there was no tomorrow.

“Hey.”

Rhydian turned from his horse, one hand still in Shura’s thick mane, to see a boy about his own age standing just off to the side of the trough, thumbs in his front pockets, smiling at him.

“Hi.” Rhydian took in the short, slightly spiky blond hair, the very smiley green eyes, the crisp dark denim jacket over the rather worn looking shirt, and found himself smiling back.

“I saw you in the rodeo. You were really good,” The boy bit his lower lip when he smiled and Rhydian felt his face getting warm, “Are you sure you’re a beginner?”

“Yeah. But I have great teachers,” He didn’t even glance around for Sam or Caleb. He didn’t want to stop looking at the boy, “Thanks by the way.”

“You’re English?” The boy sounded shocked, but he’d stepped a little bit closer, standing just across the width of the water trough. Shura was still drinking, making happy sloshing noises.

“Um, yeah.” Rhydian wondered why it bothered him, “I’m staying up at Iron Hill Lake.”

“I thought that was Caleb riding with you. I know him from rodeo school,” The boy added quickly, “Sammy runs a rodeo school in the off season for kids. I used to go every year. Mum said it kept me out of trouble.”

Now what keeps you out of trouble? The words burned in Rhydian’s throat, but he held them back. The boy talking to him was making his crotch feel tight and his head spin in circles. Rhydian gulped audibly. The boy stuck out his hand across the water trough.

“I’m Bryce.”

“Rhyder,” Rhydian could feel his heart going a thousand miles an hour as he gripped Bryce’s hand. Strong, dry, rough, just like his own, “So did you not ride tonight?”

“I was gonna, but you would’ve beaten me.” He paused long enough to let a look of horror cross Rhydian’s face, “Nah, our horse box decided to fall off its axle this afternoon. My sister is a really bad driver. I’ll ride another time. You here for a while?”

“’Nother two and a half weeks,” Rhydian found himself praying somehow all the planes would fall out of the sky so he’d never have to leave. Shura took that moment to stop drinking and pressed his sodden muzzle against Rhydian’s chest before snorting, spraying his shirt with water, “Oh that’s attractive.” Rhydian rolled his eyes and knuckled the horse’s long neck good-naturedly, before un-snapping his shirt so he could twist most of the water out of the front “He’s got a wicked sense of humour.”

“Oh I don’t know,” Bryce was looking at him with a sort of hot and wistful expression. Rhydian realised he was basically bare chested in front of this boy with the perfect smile and blushed, “I think he has good timing.”

“Rhyder!” Sam was calling him, it was time to pack the horses away and get going.

“Um…”

“Look,” Bryce sounded every bit as desperate as Rhydian suddenly felt. He didn’t want to be pulled away from this boy, “My parents own the saddlery and Western shop in town. I work there. My shift finishes at three, maybe…”

“Yeah,” Rhydian could only just find his voice around his heart trying to beat its way out of his throat, “I’ll be there.”

Bryce bit his lip again when he smiled, and Rhydian knew he was going to be able to think of nothing else while he was trying to fall asleep.