Small, Poor Ranches
Wheel shook hard under his touch, rattling like a lion in a cage; truck didn't want to stay on the road but Jack Twist was having none of it, not today, not now. He'd had enough. He'd fix the thing when he damn well pleased and not a second before—one more word from his old man about how the thing was a piece of junk and he was likely to bust a new one.
He didn't care if it was a piece of junk. Least it was his piece of junk, earned fair and square.
Brokeback again. Another summer of those stinky ass sheep, the beans he was still tasting a year later. He fingered the feather, checking that it was secure in his hat. The best thing to come off of that mountain, looked mighty fine if he did say so himself. Callused fingers held onto the fighting wheel, hard skin rasping on worn plastic. Jack Twist was ready to get up off his pockets and into the control zone. Wasn't any truck that would stop him from doing that.
When it started coughing fifty miles out of Signal he cursed the windows foggy, banging on that wheel and telling it to keep the fuck going, because if it was the last thing he did he'd get his ass to Signal. God knew he needed the money to light out on his own.
No turning back now. Not after the word's he had with his old man.
Never gonna be nothin', boy. Don't you be lookin' higher'n you can reach. Yer wallowin' down here in th'mud with the rest of us, y'know.
A muscle jumped along his jaw.
Gonna rodeo, pa. Nothin' you can do t'stop me.
The backhand had hurt, but not as much as the certainty that he would never have his father's respect.
He redlined those last forty miles, arms locked tight around that steering wheel. Tires flew so fast they were just teasing the road.
When he sputtered into that parking lot he send a prayer of thanks heavenward, thanking the Pentecost and the Holy Ghost and everything else he could think of that he'd made it. Didn't stop him from kicking the damned thing when he'd gotten out, but here he was and wasn't a force on Earth that would move him now.
Time to be a man.