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email: tom@tomtownsend-toyland.com
off: 936- 858-3514 cell 713-502-4377 3123 CR 2407, Rusk, TX 75785
By Tom Townsend | |
 read the excerpt below |
Contemporary Fiction; Ol’ Hook never
did have much use for humans, coyotes, or horses. Coyotes killed his mother,
horses chased him. Humans took away his freedom, his only friend, and cut his
off his horns. So when they hauled him to a rodeo and made him a bucking bull,
Ol’ Hook figured it time to get even. The Ballad Of Ol’ Hook is the story of a rodeo bull, a girl from east Texas who immortalizes him in song, and a wild young cowboy who must ride him at the moment when everything including his life hangs in the balance. ISBN 1-932196-91-9 Price $15.95
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THE BALLAD OF OL’ HOOK by Tom Townsend Chapter 1 . . .and a lifetime can pass in one eight-second ride . . . “Ladies and gentlemen, another season of rodeo is all most finished,” the announcer’s voice boomed above the murmurs of almost twenty-thousand fans who crammed the Las Vegas arena, “and after all the blood, the mud, the broken bones, and the glory, the Professional Bull Riding World Championship hangs on this one ride. To win it, all Cory Stone has to do is stay on the bull they call Ol’ Hook for what just might be the longest eight seconds in the history of rodeo. Because if Cory Stone makes it to the buzzer here tonight, he’ll be the World Champion and he’ll be the only person to ever ride Ol Hook.” Cory Stone could block out the announcer’s voice, but he still felt the eyes on him, staring from beyond the bright lights, forty-thousand eyes here and millions more through the TV cameras focused on him. “Pull it tighter, tighter.“ he said and felt the bull rope tighten. He took his wrap, then laced the resin soaked rope through his gloved fingers and pounded on his closed fist. The suicide wrap, they called it. Made it real hard to loose your rope. Made it even harder to get loose if you fell. Pure adrenalin pounded through his veins, pumped on by the crowd, the lights, the thrill and the cold terror that went with every ride on every bull. He felt Ol Hook breathing beneath him. A mass of hot, sweating muscle pulsating like a boiler of scalding steam, ready to explode. “Ain’t no bull born I can’t ride, no bull I can’t ride, no bull I can’t ride.” Over and over he whispered the words, like some prayer or magical chant. Cory Stone believed. Cory Stone had to believe. That’s what bull riding was all about; believing. Somewhere, far away, the announcer’s voice droned on. “Now, any cowboy will tell you that bulls are predictable. Most of them buck a pattern. They’ll come out of the chute, make a certain number of bucks and then start turning, some to the right, some to the left, some may change from right to left. With Ol Hook, there’s really only one thing totally predictable, and that is, he’s here to get the job done. He may take two jumps and turn right, but just about as often he turns left and some times he doesn’t take any jumps before he turns, and other times he don’t turn at all. But once he gets a cowboy on the ground, the game’s only half over ‘cause Ol’ Hook’s gonna do everything can to horn ‘em, kick ‘em and stomp ‘em into the dirt. Some of you may remember last year in Fort Worth, when he threw a bull fighter clear into the fourth row of seats, or just this fall in Kansas City when he broke the back of a cowboy who ain’t rode anything but a wheel chair since. “It’s been said that he’s meaner that the great bull Bodacious, that he bucks higher and stronger than either Little Yellow Jacket or Hammer. He’s kind of like all the rankest bulls in the history of rodeo rolled into one big bad bucking machine. “The truth is, most cowboys who draw him don’t care all that much about making a qualified ride. They feel pretty lucky if they can just get off him, get out of the arena in more or less one piece and still be in good enough shape to ride another bull another day. But tonight, with a World Championship on the line, Cory Stone, does not have that option. ” "No bull I can’t ride, no bull I can’t ride." Cory pulled his hat down tight over his ears and bit hard on his mouth piece just as Ol’ Hook lunged in the chute. One horn slashed at a camera man leaning over the rail. The bull’s head rolled back then, slinging silver strings of drool and snot onto Cory’s face. One huge, fire-filled brown eye up glared at him, boring into him as if it could see clear to his soul. For a tiny splinter of time he was fixated by it and he knew Ol’ Hook remembered him, remembered how it all began, remembered everything. * * * Old people said the thickets along Panther Creek were haunted but Cory never could remember whether it was by the ghosts of early settlers killed by Indians, or Indians killed by settlers. In early Spring when clouds of shadow-filled mist drifted along the banks, turning the black limbs of every dead, fallen tree into monster claws, and every hollow log became a crouching beast, it was easy to believe there were restless spirits here. On this wet, gray, stormy morning the restless spirit Cory searched for was a mean old one-horned Brahma cow they called Short Cake , and the shadows moving in the mist were coyotes. Nobody remembered why Grandpa named the cow Shortcake. She was born tall, and although she had been called a lot of things, sweet was never one of them. She had always been a renegade, an outcast from the herd who grazed by herself until feeding time, then butted the other cows to take their food. When she was younger, she hunted buzzards. For hours, she would stand stone still in the pasture, watching them circle, and when at last one would dare to land nearby by, she would bellow and charge at it. She was equally intolerant of dogs, deer, field mice, snakes, and most humans. Shortcake was old now but once or twice a year she still broke down a fence to go off on some great adventure across Panther Creek. Cory’s father had awakened him just before dawn while rain pounded on the ranch house roof and lightning zig-zagged across the pitch-black East Texas sky. “Shortcake busted out last night,” he said, handing Cory a cup of coffee. “Her calf’s gone too, so you best go find ‘em before school.” “What for?” Cory had answered sleepily, “Neither one of ‘em worth a lick.” "I’m takin’ her calf to the sale barn Saturday.” Cory fought to pull on his jeans. “You won’t get anything for him.” “Won’t be much, but we got to sell off a few head, take a loss just to make the feed bill ‘till the spring grass gets up. Besides, got no use for another bull around here.” Cory had turned seventeen that winter. It was an “in between” age, not a kid anymore, but not quite grown either, an age when emotions, muscles, and brain fought daily battles with each other for control. If he could just make it to eighteen, Cory reasoned, everything would be alright. He reached for his shirt on a chair by the door, tripped over one of his boots, and bumped his head against the shelf which held is high school rodeo trophies. He managed to catch the First Place cup for the District Junior Bull Riding Championship before it hit the floor. By the time he reached the kitchen where is mother was backing biscuits, he had on his hat and rain coat. “You ridin’ in the practice round at Athens tonight?” His father asked as he started out the back door. “Yes, Sir. I will if they got any good bulls.” Cory noticed the Winchester rifle leaning against the wall.. “Might oughta take that,” his father said. “I heard a bunch of Coyotes.” An hour later, his paint mare picked her way along the wet gravel of the creek bank. She whinnied nervously as a coyote shadow splashed across the stream and faded into the mist. “I see him,” Cory whispered and petted the mare’s neck. He slipped the rifle from its scabbard and let it rest across his saddle. Swelled by last night’s rain, the muddy waters of Panther Creek ran swiftly rushing, bubbling along over the rocks and gravel, but as Cory moved upstream, streaks of red began to mix with the brown. The trail crossed the creek at a rocky ford, and there he found what was left of Short Cake. Her partially eaten carcass lay half in the water, and trailing blood downstream. Her tongue hung from her open mouth and her eyes stared sightlessly up at the sky. Already, the flies had found her. Cory had seen a lot of dead cows in his life. His Grandpa had believed cows always knew when it was their time to die and accepted it easier than humans. Cory read the jumble of coyote and cow tracks and decided Shortcake may have known death was coming, but there was no sign she had accepted it. The coyotes had chased her and finally cornered her here, but she had hurt several of them and gone down fighting to the last. “Her calf, where’s the stupid bull calf?” He looked around for another carcass. Maybe they’d killed it first, somewhere back down stream, or maybe they killed it here and then dragged it off. He searched the ground and found more blood, then another set of tracks, smaller hooves than Shortcake’s, and they led away, up the creek bank toward the pine timbered ridge beyond. Coyotes yapped suddenly nearby, the way they sound when they are closing for a kill. “My God,” Cory whispered, “the calf must be still alive.” He urged his horse across the stream and up the steep slope to the ridge crest, throwing the Winchester’s lever to chamber a round as he rode. He broke out of the trees, into a natural clearing, and there Shortcake’s dirty, brindle-brown calf stood snorting and pawing blood stained ground as the coyotes circled him. Cory’s first shot dropped a big female and the pack scattered before he could work the Winchester’s lever to get off a second round. As silence settled behind the rifle shot, he dismounted and only then did he notice the other dead coyotes. Two lay in untidy heaps beside the calf and a third was crumpled at the base of a near by tree. ' "Dang,” Cory said aloud. “You might grow up into one bad bull." The bull calf turned slowly and focused wild eyes on Cory. Blood dripped from his stubby young horns, and mixed with the dirt and sweat which matted his coat. He panted and drool dripped from his mouth as his head swung unsteadily from side to side. Still, he pawed the ground, throwing up small clods of dirt which landed on his back and added to the filth. Then, the bull calf charged. Cory had grown up around bulls, but he never saw this one coming. The calf hit him squarely in the stomach, throwing him up and over the horns, to land hard on top of a dead coyote. For a moment he lay there, watching the tops of pine trees spin in a lazy circle before he remembered you don’t ever lay still after a bull hits you. You get and run, and if you’re hurt too bad to run, you crawl. Cory rolled over and staggered to his feet, fairly sure that nothing had been broken. The bull calf stood facing him. “What did you do that for?” he asked as he limped toward his horse. “You know, I could have just let the coyotes eat you.” He hurt all over as he pulled himself up into the saddle. “I guess you aren’t going to come along peacefully either,” he said as he untied his lariat and built a loop. For a moment the bull calf eyed the rope suspiciously and then limped away into the trees. |