I WANT TO GO TO HER and wrap her up in my arms to squeeze this nightmare into a good memory. She needs peace now without distraction. This is why she is here. I can’t interfere with her job.

Bill escorts Noa from the arena after fighting him a few more times to help put Wes’s body on the stretcher, and then to ride with the ambulance to the hospital. He finally got her settled with her friend. In the helpless state of shock Myla was in, she promises to take care of Noa, but I’m not sure who’s going to take care of who. They’re both a mess right now.

Bill closes down the events for the evening, as the spectators throw roses and stuffed animals into the arena for Wes’s memory. This is a memory that most likely will never fade from people’s minds as they recall it. Especially the children who stood and watched in horror; their parents doing their best to shield them from it, but not succeeding.

I can only imagine what is circulating on the news. In this day and age of social media, it doesn’t take long for the pictures to leak. The one I can’t get out of my mind is the anguish captured on Noa’s face as she screams and tries to get back to Wes; Bill pulling her away with all of his might. Her arms are outstretched reaching for her patient. My heart aches for her.

‘Ride or Die’ is the bull rider’s motto. Each one of us is willing to give our last breath for the eight seconds of pure adrenaline that we get from controlling a one-ton beast, but no one thinks it will ever happen to them. Cowboys are cocky by nature, and even though he was a prick most of the time, no one deserves a death like that.

I look around at the crowd and see nothing but tired, colorless, frightened faces.

In the background of the tour, word spreads quickly. Girlfriends and wives come running to console their loved ones and friends. The loss is a hard pill to swallow in our tight-knit family, no matter who it is that’s passed. The ladies make their way over to the mess tent and start making rounds of coffee and putting snacks together. It’s gonna be a long night.

“Come on,  honey. Let’s go get some strong coffee and see what Bill needs us to help with,” Hazel says to me as she and Bill approach me on their way back to camp.

“Alright, but I need to change first.” We make our way out of the arena and wait at the light to cross over to camp. Milwaukee is a busy city, but there’s no hustle and bustle with the heavy mood in the air. News vans are lining up, attempting to obtain interviews from anyone with a story to tell about tonight’s events.

This shit is about to get crazy, and all I want to do is find Noa and leave this town.  I want to protect her from this crap because I know what I shouldn’t know. He shouldn’t have been riding.

The Harkins’ drop me off at my place, and I see Noa’s friend sitting on the couch as soon as I enter. Her eyes are downcast, lost in thought. Her head pops up when my boots scrape the door threshold. Worry lines etch deep grooves on her forehead, and smudged mascara is darkening the soft skin under her eyes and cheeks. She’s been crying.

Bill waits patiently, leaning against the kitchen sink as Noa copies medical records onto a thumb drive. Before I can make it to her, she pulls out the drive and hands it to Bill, before crossing her arms and warning me away. “Here is what they’ll need. It’s a copy of all of the PBR records collected on him before my time, and from the four times I’ve seen him as a patient.”

“Thanks, Noa. Try to get some sleep. Good sleep— alcohol-induced sleep if you need it. It’ll get worse before it gets better.” He steps to the side to allow me to enter the room, and heads toward the door to leave.

“Oh, Bill,” she calls after him, unfolding her legs to stand from the bench seat. Her voice strains and her dull eyes connect with mine before walking past to Bill.  “I almost forgot. He keeps a big, green folder of his medical history too. It’s well-worn and falling apart at the seams. I’m sure there’s more to it than there is on that thumb drive.” 

“Thanks, Noa. I’ll get it. Now, get some sleep.” He slips through the door and the silence of the night invades the camper.

“Brax, I think I’m gonna stay with Myla again tonight at the hotel.”  She tells me without looking me in the eyes.

“Hey, come here.” I hold out my arms to her and wrap them around her when she steps inside. I pull out her falling ponytail, and run my fingers down the back of her hair soaking up it’s warmth.  I lift her chin with the crook of my finger and stare into those slate gray eyes. “Don’t talk to anyone, okay? No matter what they ask or holler out to you, keep walking. When word gets out that he was riding on painkillers and alcohol, they’re gonna come gunning for you as his doctor.”

She nods her head to me, too tired to speak, but I kiss her forehead before letting her go. She turns and heads into her bedroom to pack a bag. A few minutes later, I hear her in the bathroom fishing around the cabinet for toiletries as I write my cell number on a sticky note and hand it to Myla. “If she needs anything, you call me. No one else. Just me. I’ll take care of her.”

She smiles warmly, but warily at me. She doesn’t know me from a rock on the ground, but I’d do anything for Noa. Anything.

She comes down the hallway with her bag thrown over her shoulder. ‘C’mon. Let me give you a ride. It’s too dark and crazy out there for you to walk.” No one says one word in protest, so we load into Colossus and make the short drive around the block to the hotel.

News crew and already parked haphazardly around the block in various locations, a few of them are here at the hotel, begging for details. As we pull up, one of the reporters heads in our direction. I lean forward and pull a baseball cap out of the glove box. “Here. Put this on and pull it low. And don’t say a word. Just walk with purpose and get inside. Wait for me to come and get you.”

I slide out and go around to open her door, but she’s already pushing on it and feeling for the step bumper with her foot. I grab her hand to help her, and she’s shaking like a leaf. It trembles inside mine, so I squeeze it tight. Myla takes her bag for her, and we walk to the revolving doors without incident. I guess that reporter decided we were no one.

I walk them to the elevator and wait until they are inside before asking, “For safety measures, what room are you in?” I put my hand on the elevator doors, holding them open.

“814,”  they both drone.

“Order some food, and relax. Then sleep late. There’s no need to get up early. Do not answer the door unless you are expecting someone. Promise?”

She nods her head, and I remove my hand from holding the doors open. They slide shut quietly, taking her away from me. She’s in good hands, and relief floods my mind, grateful that her friend is here to help.

****

MY PHONE BUZZES ME awake at 3:00 am. My gritty eyes won’t open more than a slit so I can’t see who’s calling. I blindly slide the green arrow and touch the phone to my ear. “Hello.”

“I got her drunk and made her go to bed. She fought me on taking her phone away from her, but I have it now that she’s asleep.  It’s blowing up. I think everyone that knows her has called. Even her parents. I don’t know what to tell them. Fuck, they’re calling again right now. Have you seen the news?” She’s whispering, but her voice cracks on the ‘F’ word.

“No. I fell asleep. Hold on.” I reach for the remote and wait for the bright light of the screen to come on. I flip the channels looking for anything, but I stop on the video that shows Bill pulling Noa off of Wes as she attempts CPR. “Fuck,” I growl loudly.

“Should I call them back, so they don’t worry? I don’t want to deal with Marlena Knight. She hates drama, and this will set her off.”

“No. Turn it off and set it by her. Let’s pray it dies to buy her more time to deal with this shitstorm. Search the web or something to use up the battery first.”

“Okay. I can do that. Thanks for answering the phone. I appreciate it.”

“I’d do anything for Noa, and since I know you feel the same way, that includes you now too.”

“Thanks, Braxton. You’re exactly what she needs in her life.” She hangs up the phone, and I flip through the rest of the channels getting a feel for the local news. The video of Noa is played over and over on four different news channels. I’m sure it would be more if I had cable, but I don’t. Thank God for small miracles.

I’ve wasted an hour and a half of my life endlessly searching for bad publicity for the PBR in this mess. I see risk mitigation all over the place, and it’s got my mind reeling.

It’s almost time to get up anyway. I can hear the birds chirping in the distance, so I kick my way out of my rumpled sheet, and get dressed for a seriously fucking early morning jog.

****

IT’S RAINING. “FUCKING perfect!” I say aloud as I hold my hand out to gauge how hard it’s hitting my skin. It’s more of a light, misting rain, but as a whole, I’m still going to come back soaking wet. There’s nothing worse than wet socks in wet shoes.

I stretch my leg out onto my top step and see Bill coming out of Wes’s trailer with stacked boxed in his arms, as I bend forward into my stretch. Our eyes meet across the lot, and even at a distance, I can see the nervous strain on his face. As I stretch my other leg, Virgil comes out with a few boxes in his arms.

I shake out my legs and jog over to them both as they stand at the tailgate of Walker’s truck. “Hey, I would have helped with this had I known you were doing this overnight. You need an extra hand?”

“Nah, Brax. We’re done,” Bill says, taking one of the last drags of his cigarette.  “Virgil got the last of it.”

“Alright. What’s gonna happen with his trailer and truck?” All three men look at me with bloodshot eyes. They’ve had two very long days so far, and this one has no end in sight it seems.

“I called his brother, who wanted nothing to do with him or his shit. He told me to burn it.”

“Damn, now that’s sad— his only living relative...,” Virgil shakes his head in amazement. “What leads a person to burn all their bridges to die alone? I’ll never understand waste like that.”

“That’s because you have a good heart, Virgil. Like most of us do. Wes was just that one person we all knew, but didn’t want to know for all the same reasons.”

I bow out of the conversation at that point; I don’t like to speak ill of the dead.  I flex my back side-to-side and turn to run, but Bill stops me.

“Braxton, wait a minute.” I stop and head back in their direction, curious about what he wants.

“Have you ever seen Wes working on the underside of his trailer? I know he always parks near you and the Harkins’.”

“Hell, no. I’m not sure he knew where the underside of his trailer was. Why do you ask?”

“He told Dr. Knight he pulled his back muscle working under his trailer this morning, but she told Bill that it was a serious muscle tear. What could he have been doing under there to cause that much damage?” Walker asks.

“Knowing Wes, he was sneaking out the back of a woman’s window as her husband was coming in the front door. He didn’t know how to fix anything. Hell, Hazel pulled out his king pin when it got stuck in his fifth wheel in Tallahassee last year.”

“Alright. Go enjoy your run.” With those words, I bend forward to stretch my legs out for a minute and take off.

Walker has my mind reeling. What the hell Wes could have been doing to hurt his back so bad? There’s no way he was fixing anything under his trailer.

I run along the back side of the arena and down toward the lake. The city streets are quiet until I get back to camp. The sun is coming up, and I decide to run by the hotel to check on Noa.

I turn the corner, and every square inch of the street is taken up by news media trucks. Reporters and camera operators are everywhere, drinking coffee and going over their notes scribbled on paper. I run up to the closest one, “What’s going on? Why all the media?”

“Did you hear a bull rider died here last night?”

“Well, yeah. It was on the news.”

“The doctor that tried to save his life is inside. There’s a video of her blowing up the news, and we want to talk to her. We need her side of the story.”

“I don’t think she’s going to talk to you about patient-doctor privileged details.”

“We have a right to know, and we’ll find out.”

“No, you’ll speculate and spread gossip; maybe even ruin her career.”

“That’s why she needs to talk to us. We are not fake news. We report the truth.”

“Braxton. Braxton Ryder,” one of the reporters hollers out, recognizing me. They practically mow over other reporters to get to me.

I take off on a fast run to avoid the press. This is what we don’t need right now.