Broken Strings

Five

Travis

Being brave isn't the absence of fear. Being brave is having that fear but finding a way through it – Bear Grylls

It was hot and humid at the fairgrounds in Austin. Hotter and humider, still, inside of the arena where the bronc event was taking place later in the afternoon. Part of the heat was due to the sheer amount of people packed inside of the arena, squashed in like sardines in a can. They were a boisterous crowd, hooting and hollering as cowboys wrestled steer to the ground.

That event had taken up half of the arena for the entire morning. Often, cheers and clapping followed each run but Travis knew well enough how to pick out the sounds of a wrestle that hadn't gone well. He hadn't seen anyone being carted out on a stretcher yet though, so he was considering that to mean that the day had been successful.

Travis had never seen the appeal of steer wrestling. Too many horns that could stick you in a bad spot. It was why he'd never been attracted to bull riding, either. As far as he was concerned, it took a special kind of stupid to hop atop a raging bull and try to ride it.

His sister's boyfriend, Noah Hartley, was a former professional bull rider and had retired a year and a half earlier. He'd gone out on top, winning the PBR World Championship in Las Vegas before calling it quits. Noah could still be persuaded to join Travis on the circuit for a few events each year but those were mostly of the roping variety.

The way Travis figured it, broncs didn't hold much of a challenge for Noah Hartley. Sure, the animals moved differently and reaction times weren't the same. But jumping onto the back of a bucking bronco was a hell of a lot saner than riding a bull. That wasn't to say that broncs were animals to ride. No, it was just as physically demanding and riders were still easily injured. At the very least, Travis was able to avoid getting impaled on the horn of a raging bull by saddling up a bronc instead of climbing atop a bull as Noah once had.

Even retirement hadn't kept Noah from the bulls entirely. He'd gone from retirement to coaching with surprising ease and students flocked from all over to sign up for a coveted spot at the Tishomingo Rodeo School that Noah co-owned with a long-time Tishomingo local Dwayne Stannard. The number of pupils vying for Noah's attention had tripled after his world champion title and so between coaching and looking after his own ranch, Noah hardly had time to breathe, much less join Travis on the circuit.

Sometimes, when he wanted company, Travis talked Jake or Stephen or his father into coming with him. Jake used to be more willing before he'd gone and gotten engaged. Like Noah, Jake was often strapped for time – scheduling cake tastings and visits with the florist around his work at the vet clinic and finishing his studies.

Then there was Stephen. Once, Stephen had eagerly engaged with the rodeo circuit, travelling across the country with Travis to compete in events near and far. And then he'd gotten hurt, breaking his back in two places and shattering his left leg in one fell swoop.

Though Stephen had been more than lucky. After surgeries and extensive physical therapy, he'd managed to regain most of his mobility back. If it wasn't for the limp in his leg and the way he always seemed a bit stiffer on rainy days, it might even go unnoticed.

But the injuries had sidelined Stephen. One bad fall and he could find himself paralyzed, or so the doctors said. It was a risk that he wasn't willing to take however much he might want to. Occasionally, when Stephen was feeling reckless, he could be convinced to team up for a roping event but there was no denying to anyone that Stephen's days on the broncs were gone. Travis knew that whenever Stephen was relegated to watching his former colleagues complete from the sidelines, it broke something inside of him a little bit.