Page 13 of The Wildest Ride

“Let’s grab breakfast. You can tell me your plan, and we can talk how best CityBoyz can spend the prize money.”

“You haven’t won it yet, but I’ll let you buy me breakfast.”

“It’s as good as done, and you know it. I’m the greatest bull rider there’s ever been.”

3

Lil stood one footed on top of a large rubber exercise ball in the center of the corral. She had been in the position for two minutes and counting. Piper, perched on the top bar of the corral, was doing the counting. She was also playing Cupcake Crush on her phone.

That was fine with Lil. Sweat beaded along her hairline and dripped down her face and nose.

Conversation was the last thing she needed.

She had drawn her focus inward, resting it in the quiet center that even a thousand pounds of raging animal couldn’t shake. Her breathing was slow and even, her heartbeat steady. She was fluid and still at the same time, her standing leg faintly rolling along with the movements of the ball in order to remain centered on its top.

Piper’s alarm went off, nearly startling the woman off her seat on the fence.

Lil didn’t budge.

“Time to switch legs!” Piper called out once she had found her own balance.

Lil had returned from her morning training run before the sun had come up. She’d fed the farmyard animals, exercised Rory, and headed straight to the barn. It was past noon now, and she planned to stay in the barn, painstakingly scraping the rodeo rust off until well after sunset—just like she had every day for the past two weeks.

It was the training program of a champion. She knew because it was what her granddad had taught her—the same training methods and wisdom he’d applied for years himself—and he had been a rodeo wunderkind in the arena. They only had a couple of grainy and short videos of it, but no one rode like her granddad. He’d been the best of the best—a king of the rodeo world—at least in the sliver of it where he’d been free to compete.

Her granddad had been old-timer enough that trying to ride in the white rodeos as a Black and Native cowboy from Indian country would have been asking for trouble. And while he probably could have made a place for himself there, he’d never felt like he fit in at the Black rodeos. While he shared a skin tone and the experience of racism with the cowboys there, they didn’t share a recent lived history and Muscogee values.

Gran walked into the stables as Lil began the slow transition from one foot to the other.

Lowering her lifted leg, mostly relying on the unshakeable balance she had been born with—“a gift,” her granddad had called it—before she raised the other.

She would stand there, moving only with the gentle sway of the ball, for another three minutes, same as always—just like her granddad taught her.

Gran smiled. “Glad to see you’re not sittin’ on your laurels. Just got word that AJ Garza is delaying his retirement to try out.”

Lil’s ankle wobbled on the ball. On a deep inhale, she steadied herself to remain on the ball and opened her eyes.

“Where’d you hear that?” she asked, surefooted again. Or close. Her voice and leg were steady, but her pulse jumped.

“I read it in a headline this morning.”

Lil sighed, and Piper’s timer went off, once again startling the woman from her perch on the fence.

Lil hopped down from the ball and wiped her brow with the back of her hand. “Gran, this is crazy.”

Task completed, Piper climbed down from the fence, her khaki shorts and green khaki steel-toed calf boots looking more appropriate for a wildlife safari than the day on the ranch she was due to start. Lil mentally rolled her eyes. Like she did with everything else, Piper would do things her way, or no way at all.

Brushing bits of fence and dust off her shorts, Piper asked, “Who’s AJ Garza?”

Lil answered, “Undefeated rodeo champion. He retired three years ago and has been on a farewell world tour in Europe ever since.”

Piper eyed her from the corners of her huge grass-green eyes. “You sure know a lot about him...”

Lil snorted. “He’s the greatest bull rider alive.” She added, “And he’s half-Black, too.” Lil couldn’t help the glow of pride that crept into her voice.

AJ Garza had inspired a whole generation of riders like her, proving without a shadow of a doubt that grit could rule in the arena. He was a six-time Triple Crown winner, plus took top prizes at three additional PBRA world championships and had set a high score for a bull ride that had yet to be beat.

Lil sighed to Gran, “This isn’t going to work. We’ve got to come up with something else. If AJ Garza’s involved, there’s no way I’m winning.”