Madison Glory's Day of Reckoning

Madison Glory's Day of Reckoning

  By Lisa Barker

  Copyright © 2013 by Lisa Barker

  Cover image courtesy of Tina Phillips / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

  All rights reserved.

  Thank you for your support.

  All characters in this short story have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names.

  Discover more works by Lisa Barker at https://www.LisaBarker.com.

  Ty Weston stood with his buddies near the bull chutes. Well, he called them buddies. Most everyone else thought he was a jerk. He talked a good talk, but that was it. Ty Weston was average and everyone sure got a thrill out of seeing him thrown.

  No one knew that Ty couldn't read very well. He wasn't stupid, he just didn't know that he had a little problem called dyslexia. So he skipped college and joined up with the rodeo circuit. Truth was, Ty Weston was hanging from the loft with one sweaty hand grasping at straws.

  Madison Glory didn't care. She'd waited two years at home for Ty to keep his promise and marry her. Go to college, he'd said. Get your degree. It's important. I want you to be whatever you want to be. And then he ran out on her and she had to wait until he took time off the road to see him . . . and he kept hedging.

  Well, July 21 had arrived--Madison's twenty-fourth birthday--and if Ty Weston thought she'd wait around until she was a granny he had another thought coming.

  The sun shown right over the grounds of the Salinas when Madison's bright, shiny red pick-up joined the main street congestion. She made it just in time to watch the bull riders and see Ty get thrown twice--both times under score.

  Madison waded upstream through the crowd and a security guard caught her before she could get near the pens. She saw Ty dusting himself off and salvaging what was left of his pride and that's where her eyes soldered. If it wasn't for Lenny Bodego, Ty's half brother and two-time world class champ bronc rider, she'd have been hauled off by Mr. 'Scuse-me-ma'm-you-can't-go-back-that-way'. No one was going to save Ty from Madison.

  "Go gettem, Maddy." Len grinned and tipped his hat back and every other cowboy in the vicinity stopped to watch. You could just feel a branding in the air.

  "Ty Weston!" Maddy marched up to him, right fist clenched.

  He turned, but didn't have time to placate her with his good-looking gaze, the one that made her believe most things he said and forget all the rest--all those lonely nights at home while the rest of the town was going out. "Maddy?"

  She hit him right across the jaw.

  He spun and there was a communal grunt from the others. They'd have liked to have done it themselves, but there was something just and satisfying about a woman knocking Ty Weston on his round ass. Someone applauded.

  "What you do that for?"

  "You obtuse ass!"

  "Maddy?"

  "Yeah, Maddy. You remember me? We've been like peas and honey since kindergarten." She eyed him. "Only now I'm the honey and you're just pee." She spat on the ground.

  "You look awful when you do that."

  "You look awful when I have to hunt you down."

  "No one asked you to."

  She paused, hurt. "What are you saying, Ty?"

  "Get a clue, woman." He got up and rubbed his jaw and walked passed her, staring down the others unless they said anything.

  "Ty Weston, don't you walk away from me! Did you forget what today is?"

  He stopped and turned around. "It's Thursday."

  "It's two days before the day you're going to marry me."

  He held her gaze for a moment. "I don't remember that." He turned and walked away.

  Maddy blinked and looked at everyone who suddenly found great interest in anything but her. She wiped the back of her hand across her eyes and braced her hands on her hips and loud as she could, as if that would change the course of things, she yelled out, "Ty Weston, this ain't over yet. You ain't seen the last of Madison Glory!"

 

  ***

  Friday morning Madison paid her way in at the gate and sat with the general audience in the new aluminum stadium. She scanned the program for Ty's name. She knew he was lurking around the back arena, probably spying on her just the same, when he should be loosening up for the day's go-round, and God help him if a bull killed him before she could.

  She sat through all the events and lived off hot dogs and popcorn. She waited. When they started announcing the bull-riding event, she unrolled the bright yellow sign that said in large block letters TY WESTON IS A BIG FRAUD. She sat there mute. A solitary protest of the man who broke her heart.

  Ty hadn't said much that afternoon, though he tried a joke or two. No one listened to him, probably because of the scene the day before. So he set his mind on the task ahead, the eight second ride that would either help make this the best last rodeo of his career or the worst. Maddy didn't know it, but he was retiring. He just didn't know what to do about her. And he didn't want to think about that. He had nothing to offer.

  A dust of hearty laughter kicked up around him. He perked his attention for the joke. Then, the announcer, "Oh, sweet lady. Now what have you got against Mr. Weston?"

  Maddy wanted to jump up and shout it out to the world, but she clamped her mouth shut and burned her vision across the arena where the bulls were and one particular bull-shooter.

  Ty got up on the fence and peered across. He could see the big yellow card and saw his name. He squinted for the rest. "Ty Weston is . . . a . . . big . . . "

  "Fraud!" Someone laughed in his ear.

  Ty turned and glared at Lenny. "Who's that out there?"

  "Who do you think?"

  Instant knowledge on Ty's face. "Not Maddy . . . "

  Lenny chortled. "You sent her to college. What do you think she was doing all that time? You think they tamed her?" Lenny pat Ty's back. "Hell, you created a monster, Ty, and now she's come to collect her dues."

  "Shut up, Len." Ty scowled across the arena and felt a fear he'd never known with a bull. They were predictable compared to Maddy. Set a bull out to pasture and he knows what to do. Send Maddy to college and does she find a better man to make her dreams come true? No. He decided to ignore her and concentrate on his performance.

  Three throws later, he was fit to be-- "Madison Glory!" He said it like a curse and everyone knew she'd won the round that day. Ty stalked off to his truck, day two of the Salinas dust under his boots.

  ***

  On Saturday Ty had his mind made up. He would not think of Madison Glory at all. Trouble was, everyone was talking about her well before his ride because she sat there all day with that dang sign perched over her head. He hoped her arms would fall off. Fool. Didn't she know yellow was an unlucky color? What, did she want him killed? That was it. He knew it and he shivered. He'd hurt Maddy and deserved to die for it even if he did it for her own good.

  On this day he kept his anger in check and was too busy not thinking about Maddy protesting him out there in the bleachers to even bother with the other riders. They almost missed it.

  Six years ago he'd promised to marry her. He'd brought it up. But he knew how much Maddy wanted to go to school and he insisted on it. There wasn't any point in him going, he'd never had the grades. But Maddy, oh, she was smart. That's why he hoped she'd forget about him. Why'd she want to marry someone who couldn't even earn half as much as she could, who hadn't succeeded in one dang thing in twenty-four years?

  He wasn't a bull rider. He did better at the saddle and tack store back home, but. . . . Ty envied Lenny his silver buckle. He
wanted one. He wanted something to prove how hard he worked--his throat tightened and his jaw hurt--how hard he'd worked to show Maddy how much he loved her, that he could provide for her. But he couldn't. If he'd been a two-bit cowboy before, now he was a broke one trying to make himself a rodeo star.

  Ty straightened up and closed the door of his mind on Madison Glory. Crazy girl. He should have never let her tag along . . .

  What are you looking at?

  What do you think?

  It had to be Ty Weston that the frizzy haired girl with freckles had to follow around, but he'd been five then and wise. He thought, Just like Momma and Daddy. I'm going to marry Maddy someday. And he'd thought that all the way up through high school. But she talked about college and things he didn't understand, dead people with philosophies he couldn't grasp. She never spoke down to him, even in college, but it wasn't right for her to be stuck with him.

  And now she had to sit out there and protest him.

  Ty Weston took two falls short of the time and threw away his last ride when he stalked across the arena and horse track and climbed the wall by the bleachers.

  "Looks like a show down, folks!"

  “Madison Glory, what do you think you're doing?"

  She ignored him, fortified by her loyal onlookers.

  "You're being stupid, Maddy."

  Well, that always got her. Stupid was a sour word for both of them. Maddy jumped up. "Tyler Weston you're the biggest fraud I know. You lied to me. You led me on!"

  "Stop saying that, Maddy."

  "We're supposed to get married today and you're standing me up."

  The crowd booed him, softly, under its breath.

  Ty fell off the wall and stood up quickly. "I was a kid. I didn't know what I was saying." He didn't say it so she could hear, he just left, his pride as bruised as his rump.

  Maddy bit her lip and threw down her sign. Who needed Tyler Weston anyway?

  ***

  The day after they were supposed to get married, Ty Weston rode a near perfect ride. But it gave him no joy. There weren't any yellow signs protesting him in the bleachers.

  The second ride they called miracle of miracles. Ty rode Diablo like a burr. Nothing was getting him off. The only problem came when he got hung up, but there was an assist and he walked away from that one--not even shaken.

  Third rides a charm, Ty thought and even the other riders were with him today, wanting him to make good time. Ty had the heart. He wouldn't make any buckles with his career or with the victories he'd made today, but for his own record, he was finally going to walk away a winner, and he'd have a decent purse. . . . If only he could find Maddy and explain everything to her.

  Ty lowered himself on the back of Too Late Now, his bull from the draw. He cinched his right hand high on the broad shoulders and pulled himself up close, finding the right fit. He gave a series of short quick breaths and threw his left arm up and nodded quickly. The gate swung open and he couldn't hear a thing, just the pounding and the snorting of a two-ton bull beneath him, charging for daylight.

  Ty kept that left arm forward, taking each machine gun thrust and spin. He almost bit the dust when the bull changed direction in mid-air, but Ty corrected throwing that left arm forward again, striking the balance, riding high on the well. For a second or two, rider and bull were one in circular motion and Ty knew that nothing would tear him from this ride . . .

  Just a glance. There was that sustained high in that last second, when a body feels suspended in mastery, that moment of perfection, and it was endless. He wanted her there with him in this eternal moment where he was everything he could be.

  A flash of yellow and his inward grin. She saw him, knew he was there, even if she was mad as all hell at him and wanted him dead--

  "Oh! Ladies and gentleman, Ty Weston has just set a record, but it looks like he's having a little trouble there. . . . Oh! "

  For Ty, the dot of yellow cut to a swirl of brindle, then a face full of churned manure. He felt a solid block simultaneously slam his rib cage and thrust him high while he scrambled to his feet . His body slammed the earth, and he rolled, breathless, the survival instinct screaming in his ears. RUN!

  The bull hooked Ty and plowed his body.

  Cloudless blue, chocolate turf, primary color and grease paint kaleidescoped.

  There was snot and blood and saliva. His reflection in a beast's eye the size of a dinner plate.

  Then earth. Stillness. Silence.

  His leg on fire. Shards of glass with each breath.

  On his knees and down again, limbs like rubber. Daylight, darkness . . . daylight gray like dawn. Shadows.

  "On three. One, two, three."

  He floated.

  They closed the ambulance door on him.

  ***

  Madison brought the lemonade.

  "What are you staring at?"

  She grinned. "What do you think?"

  She sat next to him in a lounge chair on the back porch. He was hot and miserably itchy in the upper body and leg cast, but sitting outside was better than inside. Maddy laughed at him.

  "What?"

  "You."

  "What about me?"

  She laughed harder. "You look like you're about ready to buzz right out of there if you could."

  "You go ahead and enjoy yourself."

  "I'm sorry."

  "No, you're not."

  "You're right. I'm not the one who took my eyes off the bull."

  He snapped. "Who told you to wave a yellow sign like that?"

  "I didn't wave. I just held it up."

  "Protesting me."

  "Yeah, but it was a different sign. . . . Don't you want to know what it said?"

  "Drop dead, Ty Weston."

  She laughed again. "No. It said 'I love you'."

  He looked at her. "I thought you wanted me dead."

  "I do. But not until I've had you for about fifty years or so first."

  "Well, you got me now."

  Maddy reflected on the new gold wedding band. "If I'd of known that all it took was breaking every single rib . . . "

  "And puncturing my lungs and kidney and liver . . . "

  "Yeah, yeah. The point is, I would have run you over with my truck a long time ago."

  He smiled a little. "You would have."

  "Yes, I would. Why didn't you want to marry me?"

  He sighed, something that caused more pain in his body than his heart and soul. He'd let her call the minister and they got married right in the hospital room between weeks of surgery and recuperation. He grinned at the stupidity of what he had to say. "I thought I wasn't man enough for you."

  "What?"

  "You're smart, Mad. I'm not. I thought you'd get bored with me."

  "I haven't, yet."

  "I know. I wasn't thinking."

  "Well, next time you decide not to think, don't."

  He frowned at her, then laughed. "All right." It hurt to laugh.

  "What's the matter, Ty?"

  "Just a little sore."

  "Want your medicine?"

  "No."

  "You're gonna get better."

  "I know."

  "Do me a favor?"

  He studied her, the way the sunlight hit her hair and riddled it with shocks of red. He thought she looked supremely pleased.

  "Build me a house, Ty."

  "A house, Maddy? You want a house?"

  "Yeah." She stared at the peach tree hanging heavy with fruit. "You got enough from that purse you won to put a down payment on some land."

  "All right. " He could do that. He could make her a fine house and they could live in it until they died and she'd know with every room how much he loved her.

  "You'll have plenty of time to think it over."

  He closed his eyes, drowsy from pain and sun. "Mmm-hmm."

  Maddy leaned t
he umbrella over him and let him rest. There'd be plenty of time.