Page 1 of Rope Burn

PROLOGUE

SLADE

Last Season

The steer breaks the barrier at a full gallop. That's the whole trick of steer wrestling. The animal is already running when the chase starts.

The hazer pushes alongside on the right, keeping the steer straight, and my horse closes from the left until I'm level with the horns at a dead sprint. There's nothing between me and six hundred pounds of panicked livestock except the length of my arms and whatever passes for judgment at this speed.

I lean out of the saddle toward the steer, and my hands lock onto the horns. Then the horse is gone from under me and my boots hit dirt. Heels plow twin furrows through the loose ground while the steer's momentum drags us both forward in a grinding collision of mass against leverage.

I dig in and let the steer's own speed swing its hindquarters wide. My shoulders take the load as I twist, dropping my hip and rolling the animal's neck until its legs leave the ground. The steer goes over with its legs pointed in the same direction, and the flagman's arm drops.

The board flashes a time under four seconds. It's the best of the event, and no one else is even close.

The arena noise registers in pieces. Boots stomp the bleachers, and an air horn cuts through from the cheap seats. The announcer's voice bounces off the metal rafters, already moving to the next competitor because rodeo stops for nothing, especially not for a steer wrestler covered in dust who just laid down the run of the night.

I stand, brush the worst of it off my forearms, and walk back toward the competitor area. My left shoulder burns where the impact loaded through it. My right knee has the grinding hitch it carries at every event now, the accumulated toll of years spent throwing my body at animals that outweigh me three to one.

The body keeps its own records. No one asks to see them.

Behind the chutes, the circuit goes about its business. Stock handlers push livestock toward holding pens. A farrier hammers a shoe on a portable anvil near the contestant parking, the ring of steel carrying over the lot. Two barrel racers share a cigarette on the tailgate of a Dodge, their legs dangling.

Clint Wilson and Quinn Gallagher are at the team-roping trailer, loading out their horses after the evening performance. Quinn has the lead rope on a rangy bay gelding and a tired look on his face. Clint is doing what Clint always does: talking, laughing too loud, gesturing with one hand while the other loosens his sorrel's cinch. He catches my eye across the lot and tips his hat with the easy grin that never changes.

I nod back. It's the same scene in the same lot at a hundred different venues across the Southwest Circuit, and none of it means anything worth watching.

I sit on the tailgate of my own truck and pull the tape off my wrists. The adhesive leaves pale ghosts on skin that carries a permanent tan from forearms that have spent more hours in the sun than indoors.

My phone sits beside me on the tailgate, and I let it stay there. Agent Torres, the fed out of Albuquerque, is ten days away, on the far side of the circuit finals in Prescott, and that appointment is the only thing keeping my boots pointed forward instead of toward the nearest state line.

I've been managing both sides of the law for months, competing on weekends while I run errands for one of the guys on the wrong side of this whole thing, Neil Vogt. Sealed packets move between venues with compliance codes I'm not supposed to read and routing designations I'm not supposed to remember. Somebody's initials, S.H., show up on every approval that crosses my hands. I've tried tracing the letters without asking questions that get noticed, but every trail dead-ends at the APRA compliance office.

The packets are one job. The introductions are another. Neil arranges women for riders with money through an agency called Glenna's, and my part is making the meeting look social instead of paid. I've given myself one rule about the work: I hear it from the woman, not from Neil. If she knows the terms, what she does with her weekend is her business.

The work is ugly and probably illegal, but it's not my business as long as no one's there against her will.

My head stays down, my mouth stays shut, my parole officer stays satisfied, and the Torres contact stays alive. All of it rides on my ability to keep each side from learning about the other.

Torres knows I exist. She knows I've seen enough to make her want me in a room. She's told me to come in, and I've told her I need time to get clear. Then I walk into her office, put everything in front of her, and let a prosecutor decide whether what I know is worth more than what I've done. All I need is a few more days of keeping my head down.

"Carrick."

Neil's voice comes from the left, from the shadows between two stock trailers where the overhead floods don't reach. He gravitates toward those margins. Everything about him is calibrated for forgettability: slim build, pressed shirt, clean boots, nothing that catches the eye or lingers in memory. He stands outside the light and speaks from the edges, and the circuit has never once wondered what he does.

"Good run tonight," he says.

I don't look at him. I keep pulling tape. "Thanks."

He holds out a padded envelope. "Clint's trailer. Route exception's already approved."

I take it without looking twice. Standard weight, same compliance codes on the exterior. The S.H. initials are stamped in the corner where they always are.

"There's also a woman at the party tonight," Neil says. "Sandy Canutson, with Glenna's. She's expecting an introduction to Clint."

"She know what the weekend looks like?"

"Ask her yourself." His voice is flat and instructional. "Make the introduction and stay out of the rest. Tonight," Neil says. It isn't a question.