Carma's Corner: Three Seconds (continued)

In the last column, I started telling a story, the story of Nathan Hendricks. Nathan is a young man who grew up watching the rodeo and cheering on his dad. But now at 17, Nathan is pursuing his passion of riding the bulls. It’s his passion that has brought him to face the legendary bull, Gangucha Fury. Let the showdown begin…

Three Seconds

“I’ll be at the fence. See you after the fall of Gangucha!”

****
The bright lights slowly dim to perpetual darkness; the craziness and noise fade into a soft murmur; the poking, prodding, and pain diminish in intensity, and the essence of life feels like a game of jeopardy. Nathan’s senses dissolve into nothingness. Questions are fired at him: “Nathan, can you feel this? Do you have any allergies? How tall are you? What exactly do you feel now?” He knows the answers, but he isn’t able to give them.
“Keep him immobilized,” the doctor commands. “We don’t know the extent of the damage, but we can’t risk moving him for x-ray either.” The nurse gently tugs the sheet up to his shoulders; he notices that he can’t feel the sheet, but only sees it through a blurry haze. Everything suddenly goes silent, and the darkness overwhelms him.

****
Nate grabbed his chaps, vest, gloves, and extra pair of cowboy boots from the pick-up truck. He strapped on his chaps that bore the red and black design of his dad’s ranch brand, HH. His dad gave him these chaps for his sixteenth birthday; it was his first pair that was custom made for him. When Nate first started riding, he always used his dad’s old chaps, but now with his own chaps, he truly felt he belonged to the sport. He slipped the protective vest over his arms and fastened it tight. The vest was so heavy; he often wondered whether the vest did more harm than good. “How in the world can I be balanced if I am so top heavy?” Nate thought to himself. He jerked on his boots, pulled on his gloves, and topped off his costume with his black cowboy hat.
Nate started walking toward the bucking chute when he realized he forgot to put something on. He raced back to the truck and snatched up the red handkerchief lying on the front seat; he tied it around his neck. He never rode without the handkerchief around his neck. His mom had given him the handkerchief. She said, “You wear this every time you ride. Just think of it as me giving you a hug every time you fall.” His mom never came to the rodeo; it wasn’t that she didn’t support him; it wasn’t that she didn’t have time; it was that she just couldn’t bear to watch her son get defeated by an animal. He had showed her all the protective gear; he had the stats to prove that he was good; he told her, “I had the best teacher, mom. Don’t you trust dad?” But nothing he did or said convinced her to come, so he carefully donned the handkerchief each time.
Nate arrived at the bucking chute to find a very ill-tempered Gangucha. “So you are the lucky one who gets to ride the devil,” one of the cowboys said.
“I’ll consider myself lucky once my ride is over!”
“Smart kid. I’ll tell you something…don’t try to do any showboating out there. Just land well and then run like hell.”
“You don’t have to tell me that I need to run!”
“All right, Hendricks, you’re up,” a rodeo hand called. Nate grabbed the top panel of the chute and climbed up; he looked down at Gangucha. The bull was restless, kicking his hoofs every which way. The rodeo hands did their best to calm the bull enough to allow Nate to straddle him. After a few minutes of angry chaos, a ranch hand shouted, “Get on now!”
Nate carefully and quickly lowered himself onto Gangucha’s flank; he pulled the bull-rope and began wrapping it around his hand. It was less than a second before Gangucha’s body shifted up and down and sideways. Nate grasped the side of the chute trying to steady himself. “What in the world am I doing?” he thought.
“Are you sure you want to do this, boy?” a cowboy said from the other side of the chute. Nate looked down and yanked the bull-rope tighter; he was going to do this; Gangucha was just another bull. He closed his eyes, released his hold on the chute, and tried to envision the ride.

(To be continued…)