In the Moon of Red Ponies (Billy Bob Holland 4)

Almost all the riders came from Montana and Wyoming. Most were young and wore red or purple or green chaps, outrageous shirts, and hats with huge crowns and sloping brims; none of them had a teaspoon of fat on his body, and all of them seemed to glide across the ground rather than walk. When they came out of the chute, the only thing between them and a ride into the sky was a suitcase handle stitched to the slender piece of leather rigging on the horse’s withers. Larry Mahan once said bareback riding was easy, that it was just like loading a suitcase with bricks, hefting it up by the handle, then stepping out of a ten-story window.

Then I saw Wyatt Dixon mount the side of a bucking chute, rosin the palms of his gloves, and slide down inside the boards onto the rigging of a horse named Drunkard’s Dream. At first it seemed Wyatt was having trouble getting set, dipping his hand repeatedly into the rigging and tugging back on the suitcase handle. The horse began rearing its head, banging Wyatt’s legs into the boards, trying to clear space to get off a solid kick.

For no reason that made any sense a rough stock handler poked a battery-powered hotshot through the boards and jolted the horse’s forequarters with it. The horse went berserk. But Wyatt hollered, “Outside!” anyway, and he and Drunkard’s Dream exploded into the arena.

First bounce out of the chute, he roweled the horse’s neck, his legs extended in front of him, his back almost touching the horse’s rump. Drunkard’s Dream corkscrewed, sunfished, and came totally off the ground, but Wyatt’s lock on the suitcase handle was so tight his small, muscular buttocks seemed stitched to the animal’s hide.

“Wyatt Dixon, thirty-nine years young! Look at that cowboy ride, ladies and gentlemen!” the announcer yelled with genuine excitement and admiration.

But in a blink it went south. Wyatt seemed to slip and lose balance on the horse’s back, as though the arena were tilting. Drunkard’s Dream raked him against the boards, and Wyatt and his rigging went over the side, under the horse’s hooves.

The crowd was on its feet, horrified. They could see Wyatt through the horse’s legs, curled in a ball, his forearms raised defensively. They could even hear the uneven sound the horse’s hooves made as they trod over both the sod and Wyatt’s body.

The clowns and a pickup rider were the first people to get to Wyatt. When they tried to lift him onto a stretcher, he pushed them away and rose to his feet, falling back against the boards for support. His face was dazed, filmed with dust, blood leaking from a cut in his scalp. He reached over, almost falling down again, picked up his hat, and slapped it clean against his leg.

Regardless of his injury, Wyatt had ridden to the buzzer, and the judges gave him the highest score so far in the bareback competition. But Wyatt seemed to be completely indifferent to either the crowd’s applause or the points just given to him for his ride. He left the arena at the far end, where the rough stock were kept, then circled back under the stands.

I walked to the concourse, where I could see the unlighted area behind the concession stands and under the seats. The man who had used the hotshot on Wyatt’s horse was eating a chili dog out of a paper plate, his face bent close to his food. He was a tall man with a pot stomach, narrow shoulders, and flaccid arms. He was a rough stock handler, not a rider, a man who would always be a candle moth and never a player. When he looked up from his food, his face turned gray.

“The cinch busted. It didn’t have nothing to do with the hotshot, Wyatt,” I heard him say.

Wyatt’s back was turned to me, so I could not see his face or hear his words. But when he spoke, the handler nodded his head up and down, then shook it from side to side. His chili dog slid off his plate onto the ground. People were starting to gather now. An older man stepped forward and patted Wyatt on the shoulder, then I saw Wyatt look away at the people passing by the concession stands, as though he were leaving one reality and entering another. In profile his face and exposed eye possessed the same flat, bloodless and brutal luminosity as a passing shark’s.

Then he simply walked away, his mouth down-hooked, his shoulders sloped forward, a rivulet of blood glued to the side of his eye and down his cheek, like paint on an Indian warrior.

I was sure he had not seen me. I drove back to his house by the Blackfoot River and left the following note in his mailbox:

You think a jailhouse jerk-off like you is going to sell information about us to a defense attorney? That cut cinch was just a warning. Take it to heart, sperm breath.

HE CALLED the house Saturday morning. “I just received a communication that’s a test for my thinking powers, Brother Holland,” he said.

“You need to take my number out of your Rolodex,” I said.

“Got the shit kicked out of me under a horse last night. This morning I find this note in my mailbox, accusing me of trying to sell information about certain parties to a defense lawyer. You been telling people I done that?”

“I sure did. To anybody who’d listen.”

“I am very disappointed to learn that. I thought we was operating on a basis of lawyer-client confidentiality.”

“I want you to hear this, Dixon—”

“Brother Holland, I know you wasn’t raised up on a pig farm. It’s impolite to call folks by their last names. You done sicced some bad people on me, sir. That means you owe me.”

I hung up, but I knew he’d taken the hook. He called back fifteen seconds later. “I think somebody put acid on my cinch so it looked like it busted from dry rot. Last night I was fixing to rip the arms off the wrong man. Glad I have calmed down and got my Christian attitudes back on the front burner,” he said.

“Leave me out of your life.”

“No-siree-bobtail, we’re in this together. Remember, I have already given your name as my reference with President Bush. That means both you and me are in the service of the red, white, and blue. I ’spect I’m gonna be making some home calls on a few folks. But whatever I do, I’ll keep you updated as

my counselor. Have you been to Brother Sneed’s church up at Arlee? I think you would find it an uplifting experience.”

“Have a great weekend, Wyatt,” I said, and eased the receiver into the phone cradle.

The kitchen was full of sunlight, the hills a soft green from the spring melt. Temple stood in the doorway, staring at me in disbelief.

“You’re trying to manipulate a lunatic like Wyatt Dixon?” she said.

“Got any other solutions?” I replied.