with his feet divided between two stout Arabians.
In the far towering Absarokas, a gopher and a rattlesnake faced off under an Engelmann’s spruce. Mountain shadows, saturated with ultraviolet light, sifted forty miles down the slopes toward the Livingston fairgrounds. And far, far above this confrontation between two denizens of the ultramontane forest, a cosmonaut snoozed in negative gravity and had impure thoughts about a tart he met in Leningrad or Kiev, he forgot which.
“Folks,” said the announcer mellifluously, “ah wont to speak to you about croolity to animals. We have got the broncs coming up here in a minute or two. And as some of you good people already know, certain bleeding hort spatial intrust groups is claiming croolity on this account. But I wont you good people to see it this way: If you wasn’t watching these broncs here today, you’d be lickin the pore devils on some postage stamp.” Far, far from the grandstands and box seats, the announcer raised hopeful hands to those who would see.
And announced the next six riders on the card.
The first was Chico Horvath of Pray, Montana. “Let’s try the horse, cowboy! Yer prize money’s awaitin!” Chico got himself bounced right badly and marred the stately cowboy’s retreat with a slight forward bend from the waist indicating damage to the stomach. A clown ran out and collapsed in the dirt, jumped in and out of a barrel, frequently permitting his pants to fall down. Two good rides followed, in the order of their appearances, by Don Dimmock of Baker, Oregon, on a horse named Apache Sunrise, and Chuck Extra of Kaycee, Wyoming, on Nightmare. The fourth rider, Carl Tiffin of Two Dot, Montana, was trampled by a part-Morgan horse name of Preparation H. The fifth rider scratched.
“Our Number Six rider,” went the announcement, “is a newcomer and an unusual one. Our cowboy is Nick Payne of Hong Kong, China. Nick spent his early years fighting Communism. Let’s watch him now. He draws hisself a mean ole roan some of you know by reputation. Let’s watch now, Nick Payne of Hong Kong, China, on Ambulance!”
“A Chinaman bronc buster,” exclaimed Wayne Codd. “I have seen spooks and redskins but this here is some sort oftopper.” The Fitzgeralds, their interest galvanized, competed, clawing, for the binoculars. It was herself, La Fitzgerald, who confirmed their awfulest suspicions.
“It’s him,”
she breathed. Ann raised her telephoto lens to the arena, her hand perspiring on its knurled black barrel.
Giddy with horror, Payne stood on the platform beside the Number Six bronc chute looking slightly down at Ambulance. He could not look straight at the horse. The ears of Ambulance lay back on his vicious banjo-shaped skull and the hoofs of Ambulance rang like gunshots on the timber. A man in a striped referee shirt—falsely suggesting that this was a sport we were dealing with here—ran up to Payne. “God damn it, cowboy! Get aboard!” Artfully, Payne avoided the nazzing of his undies. He looked down at his gloves. He moved as though underwater. Jim Dale had resined his gloves for him and they were sticky as beeswax. Looking, then, at Ambulance he wondered which of them was to end as glue. Everyone was yelling at him now. It was time. The strapped muscle of Ambulance’s haunches kept jumping suddenly at the movement of hooves cracking invisibly against timber underneath.
He got on. Friendly hands from behind pulled his hat down so he wouldn’t lose it. Payne tried to keep his legs free by extraordinary Yogic postures—inappropriate here at the rodeo—then dropped them into the stirrups and took his lumps. As Bohleen had shown him, Payne wrapped his gloved and resined hand palm up in the bucking rope. When the rope was wrapped to the swell of thumb, he closed his grip and mummified quietly. Then Payne lifted his left hand in the air where the judge could see it was free and clear.
Payne’s joy—filling him now—was steady and
In the far towering Absarokas, a gopher and a rattlesnake faced off under an Engelmann’s spruce. Mountain shadows, saturated with ultraviolet light, sifted forty miles down the slopes toward the Livingston fairgrounds. And far, far above this confrontation between two denizens of the ultramontane forest, a cosmonaut snoozed in negative gravity and had impure thoughts about a tart he met in Leningrad or Kiev, he forgot which.
“Folks,” said the announcer mellifluously, “ah wont to speak to you about croolity to animals. We have got the broncs coming up here in a minute or two. And as some of you good people already know, certain bleeding hort spatial intrust groups is claiming croolity on this account. But I wont you good people to see it this way: If you wasn’t watching these broncs here today, you’d be lickin the pore devils on some postage stamp.” Far, far from the grandstands and box seats, the announcer raised hopeful hands to those who would see.
And announced the next six riders on the card.
The first was Chico Horvath of Pray, Montana. “Let’s try the horse, cowboy! Yer prize money’s awaitin!” Chico got himself bounced right badly and marred the stately cowboy’s retreat with a slight forward bend from the waist indicating damage to the stomach. A clown ran out and collapsed in the dirt, jumped in and out of a barrel, frequently permitting his pants to fall down. Two good rides followed, in the order of their appearances, by Don Dimmock of Baker, Oregon, on a horse named Apache Sunrise, and Chuck Extra of Kaycee, Wyoming, on Nightmare. The fourth rider, Carl Tiffin of Two Dot, Montana, was trampled by a part-Morgan horse name of Preparation H. The fifth rider scratched.
“Our Number Six rider,” went the announcement, “is a newcomer and an unusual one. Our cowboy is Nick Payne of Hong Kong, China. Nick spent his early years fighting Communism. Let’s watch him now. He draws hisself a mean ole roan some of you know by reputation. Let’s watch now, Nick Payne of Hong Kong, China, on Ambulance!”
“A Chinaman bronc buster,” exclaimed Wayne Codd. “I have seen spooks and redskins but this here is some sort oftopper.” The Fitzgeralds, their interest galvanized, competed, clawing, for the binoculars. It was herself, La Fitzgerald, who confirmed their awfulest suspicions.
“It’s him,”
she breathed. Ann raised her telephoto lens to the arena, her hand perspiring on its knurled black barrel.
Giddy with horror, Payne stood on the platform beside the Number Six bronc chute looking slightly down at Ambulance. He could not look straight at the horse. The ears of Ambulance lay back on his vicious banjo-shaped skull and the hoofs of Ambulance rang like gunshots on the timber. A man in a striped referee shirt—falsely suggesting that this was a sport we were dealing with here—ran up to Payne. “God damn it, cowboy! Get aboard!” Artfully, Payne avoided the nazzing of his undies. He looked down at his gloves. He moved as though underwater. Jim Dale had resined his gloves for him and they were sticky as beeswax. Looking, then, at Ambulance he wondered which of them was to end as glue. Everyone was yelling at him now. It was time. The strapped muscle of Ambulance’s haunches kept jumping suddenly at the movement of hooves cracking invisibly against timber underneath.
He got on. Friendly hands from behind pulled his hat down so he wouldn’t lose it. Payne tried to keep his legs free by extraordinary Yogic postures—inappropriate here at the rodeo—then dropped them into the stirrups and took his lumps. As Bohleen had shown him, Payne wrapped his gloved and resined hand palm up in the bucking rope. When the rope was wrapped to the swell of thumb, he closed his grip and mummified quietly. Then Payne lifted his left hand in the air where the judge could see it was free and clear.
Payne’s joy—filling him now—was steady and
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