A Dusty Tires Short Story

By Ken Drenten

Learning about the rodeo had all started on Ethan’s first day at the one-room schoolhouse at Buena Vista, New Mexico Territory, where he joined only three other eighth grade students, two girls and one other boy. The rest of the students were younger. He had come with his father and uncle from Ohio, drawn by jobs in the copper and silver mines.

One of the older girls sat in the front row. She had long dark hair, a complexion that suggested a mysteriously mixed ancestry, and dark eyes that flashed his way once or twice. She even smiled at him.

“Hi, my name is Isabelle,” she said to him on that first day of school. “What’s yours?”

Somehow he had croaked out a response. Never before in his 13-year-old life had a female affected him this way. It was altogether new and exciting, yet troubling. He rubbed his red hair and tried to get rid of the cowlick on the back of his head. He had no idea what else to do.

Nothing had prepared him for a course of action in this kind of situation and he was far too embarrassed to ask anyone for fear of ridicule. Most guys, it seemed, acted like they just knew what to do concerning girls.

He once approached his father to see if he could help him with his dilemma. “I – um – I – uh,” was all he could get out of his mouth, and his father looked at him quizzically.

“Hand me that wrench,” his father replied.

In the weeks that followed he got to know Isabelle a little better. The class was divided into smaller groups to allow them to practice their budding skills in sums and letters using chalk tablets. The four older students helped the younger ones, and he and Isabelle often found themselves near one another.

He found that he enjoyed seeing Isabelle’s smile and hearing her laughter, so he instinctively attempted to say things that would draw laughter from her. That this behavior would be commonly called flirting was completely unknown to him. As the school year went on, he became infatuated with her.

In December a Christmas party was planned at the school, and he made plans to go. He had no idea, however, what he would do. He just knew that everyone would be there, and so would she.

At the party, held at the freshly scrubbed school, students milled around eating cookies and punch as a fiddle player and guitar player performed. Teenaged youths from across the county had been invited. Some boldly risked asking others to dance, while most others stood by in uncertainty. He was among the latter.

He glimpsed Isabelle with a group of her friends, including two from his school, Michael and Lisa. Isabelle wore a yellow gown with frills and lace, looking amazingly beautiful. Her eyes met his for a moment, then his eyes cast downward in doubt and despair. He had no idea how to do what he knew he was somehow obligated to do. If he asked her to dance, he might as well have invited her to jump out of a galloping buckboard wagon with him.

He spent the rest of the party having cookies and punch, listening apathetically to the music, and feeling depressed and awkward. He finally left and walked home, having barely even spoken to Isabelle at the party. In the terminology of the increasingly popular activity of bull riders in rodeos, he’d been bucked off before the eight second count.

From that day on, he avoided parties and dances, as well as most social situations involving larger groups of people. It was just too overwhelming to try to figure out what to do and say.

Ethan and Isabelle remained friends after that for the rest of the school year, and if her attitude toward him cooled a bit, he was not aware of it. But it most likely had.

Eighth grade was officially the last year of school, but the schoolmaster encouraged him and the other older students to continue in their studies after their duties at home were done. So he went back to school the following autumn. He was eager to again share time studying lessons with her — Science, Mathematics, and English grammar. They also helped tutor the younger students.

One day in September, Ethan’s friend Michael approached him with an invitation to go to a hayride, bonfire and corn roast at a nearby farm. Michael would be going, along with Lisa, who had become his sweetheart.

“Isabelle will be going, too,” Michael said with a wink.

Ethan had heard of hayrides before, but what he might expect to happen during such an activity besides riding in a wagon he had no idea. But he eagerly agreed. He vaguely understood that a sympathetic friend was striving to get him and Isabelle in the same place together, but he still did not comprehend exactly what his own role would be in the matter.

The evening arrived, and he walked on a dusty road to the farm where the hayride would take place. His friends were already there – Michael, Lisa and Isabelle. He began to climb into the hay wagon to sit next to Isabelle, and found she had invited another friend, Rosalie. This made an already awkward situation even more so.

On the hayride, the driver took a circuitous route around reddish colored rocks and scrub pine. The sun fell as the ride went on, and it was soon dark, with a bright harvest moon to light the way.

At one point, the wagon driver went slowly over a bumpy bridge.

“Okay, has everyone heard about the old man who was killed here at the bridge?” Michael asked. “It’s true. It’s said that if anyone crosses this bridge too slowly, you’ll see his ghost for sure.”

The intention, of course, was to make the girls scared enough to seek comfort in the arms of the young men. But Ethan guilelessly said, “Is that really true?”

Michael gave him a disgusted look.

They dropped him off later that evening uneventfully, and he realized soon afterwards that the bull had once again left him in the dirt, dusting off his jeans.

A few weeks later he helped raise a barn at a nearby farm. Everyone turned out to help, even the miners. When the work was done, he walked up to one of the long wood plank tables laden with bright red and green chili peppers, beans, tortillas, roast chicken, corn and stoneware jugs of cider. He happened to meet Isabelle’s younger sister, Hannah, who was helping serve meals.

He said hello and introduced himself because she looked so much like her sister.

Hannah’s eyes became animated. “Oh, so you’re Ethan,” she said. “You’re all Belle talks about, all day long — Ethan, Ethan, Ethan!”

He was flabbergasted by this news, but he had no idea what to do with the information. Surely it meant that, in spite of all his missteps over the past year, she somehow still liked him. But self-doubt and immaturity still ruled over him.

The next Monday in school, he for some reason began moving his mouth before his brain. He blurted out the following to Isabelle:

“I met your sister the other day. I heard that you talk about me at home,” he said, giggling.

Isabelle’s face went pale, and then flushed an angry red. Her lips formed a firm closed line. She did not speak a word to him, but turned on her heel and got back to her schoolwork.

From that point forward, she spoke to him only when she had to do so, in impersonal, curt terms. Obviously, he had embarrassed her, but instead of apologizing he withdrew from her as well. He was defeated, bucked off at the gate this time, and it was final!

A month passed. It was now November with chillier weather. These days, he had become friendly with a slender, comely-looking girl named Martha who worked at the dry goods store when he went into town with his father for supplies.

Martha had completed school and was a year older than him, and had her own horse, a sleek black mare. She sometimes offered him rides home in her secondhand surrey, and the two began flirting a bit with each other. This stage of romance, at least, he was familiar with.

In mid-December a group of youths from Buena Vista took the railroad to a rodeo near Santa Fe, a town he had never been to before. He wanted to get to know Martha better, but he didn’t know how. This feeling was unfortunately also familiar to him.

They left on a Saturday morning for a trip on the railroad train that took about two hours. It was the first time Ethan had been on a railroad train trip without his father, and that in itself was exciting.

Watching the bull riding was a serendipitous experience, since it was clear that the bulls and the broncs had their way most of the time. Only a few of the most experienced riders went the full eight seconds.

That afternoon, after they had lunch in the stands, he went with others to watch the cowboys work with broncos in a corral a little distance away from the main bull riding ring. Martha came with them too and playfully talked with him. It was clear now, he felt, that she was definitely interested in him.

Then some people wandered over to a nearby orange grove. He and Martha followed and found that some of the group — young men and women about their age — were already there.

Several youths were sitting in pairs in a rare grassy area surrounded by fragrant orange trees. They seemed to be talking earnestly to each other. One couple was even kissing passionately, oblivious to those around them. He tried not to stare at this unusual display, and he was again surprised to be in a situation he had never before encountered.

He and Martha sat down in the shade of an orange tree. Some people nearby were playing a card game, others were smoking, and many others were pairing up for more amorous reasons.

“Ethan, I’ve been wanting to talk with you,” she said.

“Uh — about what?”

“Oh, you know.” She smiled coyly. She pulled some grass and threw it at his head.

He brushed the grass out of his red hair. “What?”

“Oh, come on, Ethan, do you really not know?” She nudged her shoulder to his.

“I’m not sure.” He frowned.

She looked at him more appraisingly now and less teasingly. “Ethan, um, have you ever kissed a girl before? Have you ever had a sweetheart?”

He looked at her in wide-eyed panic, then shook his head slowly and turned his head down in shame. Here it was 1894, he was now 14 and he was completely at a loss!

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Martha said. “I didn’t say that to make fun of you. People just grow into these things at different rates is all. Maybe you’re not ready for something like that right now. It’s okay.”

She put a sympathetic hand on his arm, and his skin tingled from the unexpected contact. “But if you must know, I think it makes you even more cute,” she said with a dimpled smile, and then sighed.

“I want to be ready for something like that,” he said. “I like you.”

“I like you too, but maybe it’s just not time yet for you. Maybe it would be best if we enjoy being friends for now,” she said. “Okay?”

His mouth was dry. He croaked a response. “Friends. Yeah, I guess so.”

She was quiet for a moment, then spoke. “Didn’t you go on a hayride with some young people earlier this fall? How did that go?”

He hesitated and then told her about Isabelle and each painful dusting-off along the way. Then he tried to explain where it had left him. Once he got going, the words spilled out.

She listened. “Sounds like you really liked Isabelle a lot.” He nodded.

“Maybe you could chalk it up as a learning experience and try and do better the next time with someone else. Or maybe it’s something you’d want to take up with her. I don’t think it’s too late if you do it soon. Could be you’ll regret it for a long time if you don’t do something about it,” she said.

He sat there, staring into space.

“Just talk to her. Tell her what you just told me. The worst that can happen is that you’ll be where you are right now with her.”

He continued to sit for a while with his knees drawn up. Then he finally spoke. “You’re right. Thanks,” he said. “You’ve given me a lot to think about.”

“I’ve enjoyed talking with you,” she said. “Just don’t think on it too hard. Do something one way or another. You know, I’ve noticed that all the good bull riders, when they get bucked off, they get back on that mean old bull and try again pretty quickly.” She patted his arm, got up and slipped away.

A couple of weeks later when school reconvened after the holidays, he felt he was ready.

At the end of the school day as they were gathering up to go home, he stirred up his courage and walked over to Isabelle. “I’d like to talk with you,” he said.

She turned away. “I have nothing to talk with you about,” she said, and walked out of the school building with a flip of her long black hair.

The next day at school forced them into close proximity again. Again he asked to speak with her, and again she declined, but with slightly less heat this time.

The following day he said, “Isabelle, I’ve wronged you three times and I’m sorry. Please let me explain and make it up to you.”

She paused. “How would you do that?”

He looked her in the eyes. “I’d like to start by talking with you. I mean, I’d like to have a real conversation with you. As a friend.”

Isabelle swallowed hard and then nodded. “OK, friend. Let’s talk.”

So they began to talk.

Many years later, Ethan returned to the site of the old rodeo grounds and orange grove where he had once received advice from a young woman who was older and wiser than he had been. The place was now a Texaco gasoline station and a Ford dealership lot lined with coupes, sedans and pickup trucks parked in neat rows.

He turned to his wife of many years, whose name was neither Isabelle nor Martha. Her name was Jane.

“It may not look like it, but this place here means a great deal to me. This is where I started learning all about the rodeo,” he said.

“Yes, I remember the rodeo grounds here,” said Jane.

“For me, it wasn’t about just watching the rodeo. I learned that it’s tough to stay on a bull or a bronc for eight seconds. And if I don’t make it the full eight seconds, to get up, dust myself off and try again. I’m still learning that last part.”

Jane hugged her husband and chuckled. “I know. I’m glad we’re still learning that together.”

Ken Drenten is creator and editor of Dusty-Tires.com, a travel blog for out-of-the-ordinary places in Ohio.

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