Educational Experience

Part II--Chapter 16

A "ghost" from the recent past returns...the harbinger of things to come...and a reminder of the world Colt tried to run away from for a few days. We leave for the madness of Vegas soon. But for now, a little madness has breached the ranch walls...

I had one more night of “official” duties before I could just hunker down with my kids and my crew and just do damned near nothing for a whole five days or so.

So, at the end of the opening day rodeo events, I gave ‘em a big old corny, “Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehah,” on the mic as I ran up the steps to the big stage set up in the middle of the arena. And when I got up there and starting waving my hands at the crowd, some girl yelled out, “LOVE you,” real loud.

And when I said, “Backatacha, baby,” the crowd started whistling and laughing and carrying on. And then I added, “But don’t tell my girl up there, right? Keep it on the down low.”

I looked up toward our box to see what Wyatt was doing and it cracked me up. She had covered her face with both hands and the girls were trying to pull them down. But I could see her sort of shaking like she was laughing, so I wasn’t worried that she was really upset or anything.

Shorty Wilson, the announcer we had every year, gave me a slap on the back and said, “Naw, let ‘er go on’n’ break it up so I can have a chance! That’s a fine filly you got there!”

I shaded my eyes and looked out at the crowd and said, “See what you started?”

They like it when I talk to the audience directly, even if I don’t actually know where the hell that “Love you” or whatever came from.

So after we’d all had a good giggle, Shorty, who was as tall as me, by the way—there’s just always a Shorty Something at rodeos--waved the high scorer of the day over our way to stand between us.

We were going to give him two grand and this fancy buckle the size of a dinner plate almost. It was real silver with gold letters and curlicues and weighed a ton. If he ever had to hock that sucker—and at that level in the rodeo game, some of ‘em wound up doing that a lot--it would be worth a few grand, probably.

The crowd gave him a nice ovation, and then Shorty said, “We’re gonna let the boss do the honors here,” and gave me the buckle.

I hefted it and down just for show and said, “Boy, you’ve got to be a manly man to handle all this hardware, man. And we got one right here, don’t we? Mr. Benjamin Biilagody, from White Cone, Arizona, today’s Tuff James Top Dog--stomp it out for ‘im folks! He just won $2,000 and some serious silver!”

They love to make the bleachers shake, the folks who come out every year. The new bleachers can take it, though. There are permanent concrete stair step looking ones and metal temporary ones we put up if the place gets really packed. And they’re reinforced all kinds of ways.

And while they were stomping and cheering, Ben raised his buckle up over his head and did a slow 360 so everyone could get a good look.  He was a little bowlegged Navajo bulldog and only 19, too. And he would probably never be on TV or in any magazines, but he was just about as good as any of the big names.

There are a lot of really good riders all over the place that would never make it to the PRCA or PBR or anything. The Indian ones were just getting some attention in the big leagues because of a couple of guys who’d made good recently.

Ben was just a deep rez boy with no interest in fame at all. He’d learned to rope from working with sheep and cattle on the rez, and had tried his hand in the arena mostly because some of his teachers thought he should.