Bullet knew what it didn’t mean. His parents could afford to live anywhere in the world they wanted to, so it wasn’t about money.
He wanted to suggest they look near Colorado Springs, or Crested Butte, since that was where he and Grey would be most often, but that would be selfish. Just that they’d be in the same state made him feel better.
“How was Gram?” Lyric asked.
“Same as always. Says she misses us, but that she wants us to live our own lives.”
Their grandmother was the single consistent force in his life when he was growing up, and still to this day. She believed in her son-in-law’s career enough to encourage her daughter to travel the world with him, while she took care of their twin babies. Now that he was older, with kids of his own, he understood how much Gram had sacrificed for them. It was one of the reasons he’d wanted to name his son after his grandfather, her husband. To honor her, and in some small way, thank her for all she’d done for him and his sister.
“She ask you about getting on bulls?”
“You know she did.” Gram was the reason Bullet and Lyric got into rodeo in the first place. She’d been a world-class barrel racer back in the day. That was how she met Gramps, a bull rider himself.
Their mom, Guinevere, was the only child Gram and Gramps had. She’d never been interested in rodeo, only rock music. When Guinevere and Nate got married, and he was starting out in the music business, Gram helped manage his band. She’d get Satin booked at fairs and festivals where she was also booking rodeo events. Soon other acts asked Gram to manage them. She was in her eighties now, and still managed a handful of bands.
“She never let raisin’ a couple babies stop her.”
His sister was right. Gram still did more in a single day than most people accomplished in a week. This coming summer, she was being inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame for her decades-long support of the industry. The ceremony would take place at the organization’s headquarters in Colorado Springs. He and Lyric, along with their parents, would be there to celebrate with her.
“Listen, I gotta go. Grey’s wakin’ up from his nap.”
“Wait. Bullet? You still there?”
“Yeah, I’m here.”
“Callie wasn’t my favorite person, you know that. But I’m still sorry she’s gone. I can’t imagine how hard this must be for you. I’m sorry I wasn’t at the funeral.”
“It’s okay. Gram was there.” After the service at the graveside, she asked him to take her home rather than to his in-laws’ house. When he dropped her off, she invited him inside.
“It wasn’t your fault,” she’d said to him. “People like Callie need professional he
lp. They need medical help. If they choose not to accept the help they’re offered, there’s little the rest of us can do about it.”
Gram had told him their grandfather had struggled with the illness too. “They didn’t call it being bi-polar in those days. They called it manic depression. Your grandfather would go for weeks being the happiest guy on earth. Suddenly he’d change, and sink into terrible depression.”
Gram had never told Bullet this before. He wondered if Lyric knew. Gramps hadn’t tried to kill himself as far as Bullet knew, and Gram hadn’t said anything to make him think he had. What she did say, more than once, was there wasn’t anything Bullet could’ve done. “It was the illness,” she’d said. “Not you.”
“I’m glad Gram was at the funeral with you.”
“Thanks, Lyric.” Bullet hung up before he started crying again. He hoped he could get Grey to bed early tonight. He badly needed the sleep himself.
When he finally did fall asleep, he was plagued by dreams of Callie trying to tell him something. Just as she was about to, he’d wake up. When he fell back to sleep, there she’d be again.
When he woke the next morning, he couldn’t shake the feeling that his life was about to change. He hoped it was for the better.
1961
Bill kicked at the dry dirt under his feet as he walked down the driveway. He turned, when he reached the road, and looked back at the house. He’d probably never see it again. When he would return home, his mama and baby sister wouldn’t be living in it anymore. It no longer belonged to them.
It’d been a long three years since his daddy first got sick. Bill was only eight when it started. Life was good back then. In the summer, folks would come to their ranch for a week or two at a time. In the fall, the dude ranch part of their business shut down, and hunters would come.
That’s how his daddy got sick. They still couldn’t say what it was, but his mama remembered seeing a bite after he spent a day guiding hunters. He wasn’t the same after that.
At first he got real weak. Bill had to pick up more of the chores when that happened. As his daddy’s health got worse, they had to cancel the rest of the hunting trips, and then in the spring, he didn’t have enough strength to get the dude ranch operational again.
His mama started selling off cattle to pay the bills. Next went the bulls, and finally, the horses.
When his daddy died, last week, his mama told him two things. The first was they had to sell the land and their house to pay off the medical bills. The second thing she told him was that, as the man of the house—even though they wouldn’t have an actual house for a while—it was his responsibility to find work and help support the family.