Free Dream Wheels by Richard Wagamese Page A

spread its front paws wide above Joe Willie, who stood rapt in curiosity. All he could see was bear. All the light in the room was absorbed into the immense wall of fur and he felt that if he let himself he could fall right into it and keep on falling, falling, falling, falling, deeper and deeper into this strange and utter mystery. The bear dropped down onto all fours, shook its head and turned back in the direction it had come. People simply stepped out of its way again, laughing, enjoying themselves. The bear took four steps and turned to look at him, took four steps and turned to look at him, the click of its claws rattling on the floor. When it got to the door it turned its head and Joe Willie saw the face of the old woman again. The smell of the medicines and the buckskin swirled about him again and he shook his head to clear it. The bear was gone but he could hear the claws as it walked away beyond the door. Click. Click. Click.
    He opened his eyes. His grandfather sat at the table by the window, tapping his fingernails on the tabletop. Click. Click. Click. A thin tendril of medicine smoke rose from a smudging bowl at his elbow. Joe Willie groaned.
    “What do you need, boy?” his grandfather asked.
    He closed his eyes again and breathed as deeply as he could. Despite the pain it caused him, it felt good, this flood of air. He grimaced and shifted himself as best he could.
    “Damn,” he cursed.
    “What? What is it?” his grandfather asked, moving closer.
    “Damn this place,” he said.
    “Yes. It’s surely an uneventful location, that’s for sure.”
    Joe Willie tried to move his arm but it was wrapped tight against his side. “This gotta stay this way?” he asked.
    “I suppose. That’s how they want you for a while.”
    “Pretty snug.”
    “Yes. They coulda fit you with a latigo, I suppose, then we could have eased it off some to give you a rest now and again.”
    “Sure. And a hackamore to keep me in line.”
    “Cowboy needs that now and then.”
    “I could get by without it.”
    “Yes.”
    The two men looked at each other. A quiet ran between them. It was a calmness defined in the bonds formed in the dust and dirt and struggle of the cowboy life. Trust. They wouldn’t have called it that. The world gives outsized names to simple things and, for Joe Willie and Lionel, trust was too big a loop to throw over the horns of what they felt. It was an elbows-on-the-fence-rail kind of thing, all leaned back and casual, existing without definition or borders, a line of certainty that ran from the edges of what they did to the uncertainty of the risks they took.
    “It’s done, then? Rodeo?” Joe Willie asked.
    “Yes.”
    Joe Willie nodded. He could feel a bubble of anger rise in his belly. He tried to shift again but the pain almost made him black out. He settled for lifting his good leg and smacking itinto the mattress, scowling and sneering at the cards and flowers on his bedside table. The anger rose in him and as it gained its height he recognized it as the bear, its great girth something he could fall deeper and deeper into. When he tried to shift his shoulder the burn there tore at his senses and he jerked suddenly, driving a long spike of agony down the line of his fractured thigh. He edged closer to the bear.
    “Boy?” his grandfather said, looking down at him.
    “Squeeze the damn pump.”
    “You sure?”
    “Squeeze the damn pump,” he said again.
    The rage contracted his stomach muscles and he scowled at the effort but pushed against it as hard as he could. It felt good. He felt a wave of sorrow, deep and hot, building alongside the rage, and as it washed over it and he began to feel the ache of the loss, began to see it framed in his mind, began to see the huge black hole in his life, he squeezed his good hand hard into a fist and pounded it on the rail of the bed. Hard. Hard. And as the drug seeped into him, he was glad for it, grateful for the haze he settled into, and he flexed the