Chapter 2: Dallas

I saw the angry bull off to my side as I stood on the railing of the cage. The barrel men were lined along the opposite wall, and I couldn’t help but feel a tremor begin in my legs. I took a few deeps breaths to slow my breathing, but I couldn’t help but get angry at the nerves I was feeling and the unbearable urge I was feeling to attack. I clenched my teeth, trying to ignore the ache in my jaws, my natural predator’s instinct trying to emerge.

It had been a few years since I’d ridden a bull, but it was like riding a fucking bike; you just get back up there and do it. There ain’t no practicing or trial runs or nothing like that. You just hop up, jump on, and feel the bull underneath your legs.

See, that’s the thing about bull riding--everyone always thinks you gotta tame the bull and somehow control its rage. But you can’t control the rage of a bull any more than you can control the path of a tornado. It just takes off, and all you can do is protect yourself and move your body in contrary motion to how the bull is bucking. I picked my eyes up and looked around the stadium, realizing every single seat was full. Sure, I’d been advertised a bit around town with getting back into the swing of things, but I didn’t think this many people would show up just to watch the ride.

It calmed my nerves a bit, seeing all them out there.

I love performing for a crowd. Yeah, sure, I got myself my own ranch and all, but there ain’t nothing like riding for a crowd. Making people smile has always been a thing I’ve enjoyed, and if I can make them smile while doing something that makes me smile, then even better. I just had to be careful to maintain my control. The people may have wanted a good show, but I was pretty sure that show didn’t involve me shifting into my alternate form and scaring the shit out of both them and the bull; mountain lions weren’t supposed to be a part of the program.

“Mr. Rawlings? Time to go.”

One thing I’ve always prided myself on was that I never had a re-ride. Even if I knew something had gone wrong with the equipment, I always knew I could hang on. I never needed the barrel men to dig me outta trouble, and I always felt confident at the draws before the competition. Bull riding ain’t ever about the animal you get. It’s always about how you can cope with the situation handed to you for eight solid seconds.

Don’t sound like much time, but when that rough stock drops for the first time and that bull takes off, it sure as hell begins to feel like a lot of time. Add in the constant struggle to stay in the right frame of mind, not to mention the battle to stay in human form, and those eight solid seconds quickly start to feel like nothing short of an eternity.

Of course, the draw this time around for my homecoming ride was that they had given me the bull that had almost killed its last rider. When any rough stock ends up wounding or killing its rider, there’s usually some sort of investigation that happens to determine whether the animal should be retired or not. After this bull’s investigation, they decided that the rider didn’t do everything he could’ve to roll off the bull right, putting his body in the bull’s way.

I had to keep that in mind when finally rolling off this bull after my ride because if I rolled off wrong and almost got hurt, my own natural predatory instinct would kick in, and the mountain lion inside of me might pop out. Then I’d have a hell of a lot of explaining to do. All my life, I’d known the normal world didn’t know about shifters. And the way humans could be so hateful and timid about things they didn’t understand was all the more reason that my identity as a shifter had to be kept secret.

I took a deep breath and hopped onto the bull, immediately feeling his muscles starting to twitch beneath my legs. When I did not get off his back, he began flinging me around in the pin, and I had to adjust my body weight in order to not slide off. Bulls flinging like this usually frightens even the best of bull riders, but for me, it was just a little sneak peek into what was to come. Nothing more than a little practice run to test how the bull moved. I could tell a lot about a bull by its preliminary shakes in the cage, like where it liked to throw its weight, which hooves were more dominant, and whether the bulls liked to rear backward or forwards. It’s like a little cheat sheet for the next eight seconds.

When my name was announced over the intercom, the crowd went wild and I wrung my hand in the rope before I set myself. My shoulders were back, my head was high, and I watched the assistant open the gate before the bull I was riding shot outta the cage like a piston in a car. He leapt forward, tossing me with him, and I shifted my weight just before he dodged to the right.

I kept my breath even with his kicks, making sure never to try and take in a breath while he was rearing up on his haunches. When he dropped his front shoulders down to the ground, I flung my weight back as far as I could. The bull was volatile, I’d give him that. Most bulls I rode kept their weight centered while they jumped in the air and bent their backs out, but this bull was dropping every side of him into the ground to try to knock me off. I halfway considered whether it was because the bull sensed something about me…It was entirely plausible, even if I didn’t want to think about it. Animals can be far more intuitive than humans at times, and it certainly wouldn’t be the first time I suspected that a bull sensed my inner being as a shifter. I’d come from a rather long line of shifters, and the one thing we shared in common, generation after generation, was that we had an affinity towards animals. Some we loved, and some we hated. Some, we just felt compelled to overpower and exert control over, literally like cats playing with mice.

Just as the bull was going completely out of control, I remained in control. I relinquish the muscle tension in my arms and legs in favor of contracting my core and making sure my torso stayed as stable as it could.

With every breath I took, I counted the seconds up. My last ride had been just shy of eight seconds, and I was determined to go the full eight this time around. My tan rawhide hat went flying through the stadium. From the corner of my eye, I saw it hit the ground beside me.

So did the bull.

He sharply and abruptly turned his body, sending my entire ass sliding off to the right. I tugged at the rope as far as I could, but couldn’t get my body back up on the back of that thing. His hooves stomped my hat, I felt my chaps riding off to the side, and part of me began to panic because I just knew I was about to fall off. The clock was only at four seconds and I had to find a way to hang on for another four while the bull dropped and dodged, determined to get me off of him.

But I wasn’t losing to him today.

I closed my eyes and felt the bull’s muscles shift dominance underneath my legs. Once his hind legs made contact with the ground, I swung my torso back to the left, forcing the saddle to slide back into place. The crowd went wild before the bull lunged forward, resulting in my nose connecting with his back. My eyes momentarily teared from the pain ringing through my nose, and the crowd’s cheers were replaced with loud collective gasps. Still, I held on, my body feeling like it was being pulled apart join- by-joint. Catching a glimpse of the clock, I realized we’d just passed six seconds. Only two more to go and I would officially beat my own record.

My hand was starting to swell and I was pretty sure I had dislocated one of my fingers, but my competitive streak was too strong to give up now. As my grip began to slip, I clenched my thighs around the bull’s strong back, although he didn’t like that one bit. He flung himself around in a circle, making my body lean off uncomfortably to the side again. And just when I thought my hand was going to give way and throw me to the mercy of the bull’s hooves, I heard that telltale air horn that every bull rider loves to hear.

I’d made it the full eight seconds.

I loosened my grip from the rope, and the bull felt me shift. The barrel men came running out to capture the bull’s attention, and with a swift kick of his back legs, I went flying through the air. I tucked my head and protected my neck, trying to get a good idea of where the ground was before I came down on it, and when I rolled my body away from the bull, I heard the stamping hooves of the pickup men.

The crowd began to scream…

I opened my eyes and saw the bull’s hooves hovering right above my face.

I threw my body off to the right and rolled out from underneath him just as his legs came down where my neck would’ve been less than a second ago. Someone grabbed my arms and dragged me off to the side before I could scramble to my feet.

Offended, that damn bull had come after me and almost crushed my skull. I knew as I stood up and looked him in his eyes that I would be the last person to ever rode him. If it wasn’t clear with the last rider that the bull had no intentions of hurting him, but it was certainly more than clear now. Plus, one look in its eyes let me know that the grudge this bull held toward me was personal. He knew who I was, or what I was, rather.

Being a shifter, I had learned long ago that my affinity for animals came with a cost. I had a natural predatory instinct inside of me that I had to keep under control at all times. Yet, even as I kept it under control, it was still there, and plenty of animals knew it. So, when faced with an animal that had predatory instincts of its own, sometimes trouble was bound to ensue.

I could remember as a kid, meeting my friend’s dog one day. That dog was usually sweet to other people, but was known to be aggressive toward other animals. The second it saw me, it got to growling and snarling up a storm, its fur standing up along its back and everything. And my friend, who knew nothing about me being a shifter, hadn’t been able to figure out why.

“That’s so strange. He only gets like that around cats mostly,” my friend had said.

All the while, I had been standing there, hissing in my throat and trying my best to not claw at its nose every time it came to close to me.

“You all right, Mr. Rawlings?” one of the barrel man yelled.

As the crowd was roaring and chanting my name, I panned my gaze around before jogging out of the ring. My heart raced and my hand ached, but when I hopped the fence, I turned towards the countdown clock one last time before smiling and shaking my head.

8.4 seconds.

I’d stayed on that damned bull for 8.4 seconds.

The barrel man brought me my crushed rawhide hat, and I hooked my legs into the large pen fence before I dusted it off. I put it back on my head, saluted the crowd, and hopped back down before starting towards the back of the stadium.

All the while, the crowd continued chanting my name until I got back to my trailer.