Free Handful of Sky by Tory Cates

him the best possible grip.
    “Get the gate.”
    Shallie jumped down and ran around to the front of the chute. She grabbed the rope attached to the gate and looked up at Hunt. The mental energy he had produced had taken on a physical life of its own. It coursed into his broad shoulders, his sinewy right arm. It brought the well-defined muscles of his back to quivering life. The energy flowed down into the firm hills of his buttocks, the columns of muscle that were his legs. It streamed through his body, pumping every bit of tissue with the same iron determination that locked his brain. He eased down on the bronc’s back.
    The startled roan twitched. The sting of fear trapped Shallie’s breath. She had no proof yet that the horse wouldn’t rear up, crushing Hunt beneath its muscled bulk. The horse kicked an angry hoof into the creakingplanks of the chute, then settled down, allowing Hunt to claim the position that would best allow him to control the animal between his legs. He turned his toes out, locking his ankles, his spurs aimed directly at the bronc’s shoulders. Then, with the practiced precision of a conductor raising his baton, Hunt nodded his head.
    “Let’s see this horse.”
    Shallie yanked on the rope in her hand and the gate snapped open. In the same instant Hunt threw his free hand high and the bronc broke into the arena. All the animal’s pent-up rage was directed toward one objective: ridding itself of the man on its back. Shallie caught a glimpse of the horse’s eyes and her pulse pounded faster. They flashed with a fiery light far brighter than that reflected from the moon. They recalled to Shallie’s mind the rage-darkened eyes of stallions painted by El Greco. The roan lunged to the center of the arena, making one heart-stopping buck so high that it seemed he thought he could escape along the platinum avenue paved by the moon. For a fraction of a second, horse and rider hung in the air, suspended in a moonbeam’s glow. It was as if Pegasus lived again, called back to earth by a man with a spirit to equal the mythical greatness of his own. Shallie felt the ground shudder when he landed. Hunt took the jolt with a rollicking cry of exultation that pierced the night. Shallie felt as if she were witnessing a savage ritual in which man and beast mingled their natures.
    The roan leaped for the moon again, fishtailing its body with a wicked shimmy. Hunt clung to the blue-dappled back anticipating each move and matching it. The hooves pounded down again, pointed like a diver’s hands outstretched to pierce the water. Shallie half expected the earth to part beneath the animal’s onslaught. It didn’t. Hunt absorbed the impact, letting it ripple fluidly through him. Tales of the greatest bronc riders in rodeo’s hundred-year history flipped through Shallie’s mind. She could find none to equal what she was seeing. Hunt combined raw physical strength and technical mastery with a kind of artistry Shallie had seen all too rarely in the arena.
    Then, with no warning, the crafty roan changed tactics and tore out in a dead run heading straight for a section of fence shadowed by the concrete bleachers.
    “Jump,” Shallie screamed. Hunt was one move ahead of both Shallie and the horse. He turned the rigging loose and rolled off the runaway horse’s back, landing with a catlike grace on the plowed dirt of the arena.
    The instant the hated weight fell from his back, the roan stopped dead. His goal accomplished, he became the picture of docility. Hunt sprang to his feet, ripped his riding glove from his hand, and tossed it into the air with a wild whoop. Shallie ran to him. The moonlight bounced off his face, reflecting an expression of the purest joy she had ever seen.
    As they met in the middle of the arena, Hunt swept her off of her feet and whirled her around, his strong hands spanning her waist. Like survivors of a shipwreck or winners of a sweepstakes they were joined by the magnitude of the experience