The gateman looks at me. I nod.
The chute opens.
Satan's Gambit launches like he's got a personal vendetta against gravity. Straight up, twisting midair, coming down hard enough to rattle my teeth. I adjust my weight, keep my left arm up, and ride the first three seconds on pure muscle memory.
The bull spins left. I counter. He kicks high, trying to throw me forward. I lean back, stay centered over my hand. Four seconds. Five.
Then Satan does something I'm not expecting. He plants his front hooves and throws his back end straight up, bucking vertical, and I lose my balance. My hand slips in the rope. I'm going over his head, and there's nothing I can do to stop it.
I hit the ground shoulder-first. Pain explodes down my arm and ribs. The bullfighters are moving, pulling Satan's attention, but the bull's already lost interest in me. He trots toward the exit gate like he's bored.
I roll to my feet, testing my shoulder. Hurts like hell but nothing's broken. Blood's running down my face fromsomewhere, probably my eyebrow split open again, and I can already feel the bruises forming along my ribs.
The crowd's making noise, that sympathetic groan they make when a ride goes bad. I grab my hat from the dirt, walk out of the arena, and immediately spot Rainey Weathers standing by the rail with her camera trained on me like a scope. She got the whole thing. Every second of me getting my ass handed to me by a bull that just proved why nobody's ridden him successfully. Yet.
I walk past her without stopping, heading for the medical tent. The event medic tries to get me to sit down, but I wave him off. It's just a cut. I've had worse.
"Let me at least look at it," he says.
"I'm fine."
"You're bleeding on my floor."
Fair point. I sit on the exam table and let him clean the gash above my eye. Three butterfly bandages later, I'm technically patched up, even though I can feel the adrenaline wearing off and every impact from that ride starting to register.
When I step out of the medical tent, Rainey's waiting.
"That was stupid," she says.
"Didn't ask for your opinion."
"Satan's Gambit has thrown every rider who's tried him. What made you think you'd be different?"
"Optimism." I start walking toward the stock pens. She falls into step beside me. "Interview's over."
"We haven't started yet."
"Then it was the shortest interview in history."
She moves in front of me, blocking my path. Up close, I notice details I missed before. Freckles across her nose. Calluses on her hands from years of hauling camera equipment. The way she plants her feet like she's used to standing her ground.
"Tyler Brennan was asking questions two days before he died," she says quietly. "Questions about prize money and where it goes. Questions about stock contractors and who's getting paid what. I photographed him having a very intense conversation with someone behind the stock pens the night before his final ride."
I stop. Now she has my attention. "Who was he talking to?"
"I don't know. I was shooting the bulls, and they were in the background. I didn't think anything of it at the time." She pauses. "But I kept the photos."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because Tyler deserved better than being written off as an accident. And because I think you're the only person on this circuit who actually gives a damn about finding out what really happened." Her eyes search mine. "Am I wrong?"
No. She's not wrong.
"I want to see those photos," I say.
"Then we have a deal. You talk to me, I show you what I have."
"That's blackmail."
