H
ardy! Where the hell are you!” Frank Knowles hollered for the third time as he approached the rear of the arena’s back pens where the animals would be kept. “Hardy! Damn it man, we need some help.” Hardy Prescott secreted the bottle in its spot and moved into the alleyway. “Alright already, you don’t have to shout. What’s the problem?” The older man walked toward him with a noticeable limp and a scowl on his face. Knowles was the assistant arena director and was charged with making sure all the contracted stock for the evening’s rodeo events were unloaded, placed in their holding areas, and had water available. He was also responsible for just about anything that went wrong. He knew, like a lot of others working the rodeo, how many times a person could break a leg before not being able to walk right. “I’m a man short and need someone to help the stock contractor who can handle the roughstock. You up to it?” he asked, knowing the younger man’s ways. “Reckon so,” came the reply. “Lots of time to get ready for my work.”
“Okay. Just so you know, one of those bulls we’re about to unload is downright mean. He’s the big brindle-colored one. Bullriders say he’s rank ‘cause he’s only been ridden once in his miserable life, but I’m telling you he’s mean. It’s in his eyes. So, you watch yourself,” Knowles cautioned. An hour later all the roughstock had been unloaded from the stock contractor’s trucks. He finally had a few minutes to himself before he had to start to get ready. Knowles had been right about the brindle bull. He was a handful just to get unloaded and into the holding pen. He didn’t envy the rider who would draw him. — “What are you doing?” Prescott jumped, startled by the loud question. He glanced around quickly looking for the source. Then he looked down and spotted the kid standing next to a steel fence panel only a couple of feet away. “I was minding my own business and taking my cough medicine,” he fired back, quickly replacing the brown
