Down Low (Down Home Book 1) Read online

  Down Low

  Down Home Series: Book #1

  Parker St. John

  Contents

  Dear Reader

  1. Another One Bites the Dust

  2. Country Roads Take Me Home

  3. Small Town USA

  4. Son of a Preacher Man

  5. Bad Blood

  6. Born to Lose

  7. Old Friends

  8. Forgiveness

  9. Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys

  10. Like a Wrecking Ball

  11. Folsom Prison Blues

  12. The Old Rugged Cross

  13. Empty Saddles

  14. Kentucky Rain

  15. A Place to Fall Apart

  16. A Picture of Me Without You

  17. Fast as You

  18. Desperado

  19. Time Marches On

  20. Walk On Out Of My Mind

  21. The Moon, the Stars, and Me

  22. I Still Believe in You

  23. Ring of Fire

  24. Trainwreck of Emotion

  25. One More Ride

  26. You’ve Got to Stand for Something

  27. Rodeo

  28. You’ll Always Be Loved By Me

  29. Love Without End, Amen

  Also by Parker St. John

  About the Author

  Dear Reader

  Thank you for reading!

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  Enjoy!

  1

  Another One Bites the Dust

  His legs quaked as he climbed the weathered plywood fence. His sneakers were worn so thin there was no traction left, and he slipped twice before managing to straddle the top of the pen. His heart roared like a bulldozer in his chest, and his lungs squeezed his breath into rapid little puffs that steamed against his face in the summer heat.

  Inside the pen, a monster waited. That was fine with him. A monster waited at home, too.

  At least he had a fighting chance with this one.

  “That is the rankest bull I’ve ever had the displeasure of getting in a chute,” Frank, the chute boss, declared. He shook his head, reaching into his back pocket for a can of Skoal and tucking a wad of dip beneath his lower lip.

  A chambray bull lunged as the chute gate locked. He shook off the cowboy tying the flank strap and hooked his front hooves over a rung as if he were preparing to climb out of the damn thing.

  Calvin Craig shrugged, chewing on a mint-flavored toothpick and crouching low to stare into one huge, rolling black eye. The bull glared back like he was already deciding which way to stomp Cal into the dirt.

  “I’ve ridden worse,” he muttered.

  “Like hell,” Frank drawled, the creases around his eyes deepening with his smile. “He’s got a ninety-eight percent buck-off rate. It was pure bad luck that you drew him on your first night back. How’s the shoulder?”

  Cal didn’t break eye contact with the animal as he rapped his knuckles against the front of his shoulder. That earned him a sharp twinge from the injury, but he covered it well. “Doc cleared me.”

  “That’s not an answer.” Unsurprisingly, the chute boss had a good nose for bullshit.

  “I’m good,” Cal said with a chuckle.

  He felt good.

  Good enough to fake it, anyway.

  Lane had slipped him an Oxy last night, but it still sat on the cheap laminate end table in Cal’s trailer. Narcotics left his head muzzy and his reflexes slow the day after, so Cal had muted his pain with whiskey instead. Too much whiskey, but never enough to give him an uninterrupted night’s sleep. Pain ripped through his shoulder whenever he raised it above a ninety-degree angle, and now a hangover squeezed his eyeballs until they felt as if they would pop.

  But pain had never stopped Cal a day in his life, and it wouldn’t stop him now.

  Any day riding was usually a good day, but today everything felt slightly off. His ears rang from the anthem rock blasting through the arena speakers, and the high-powered stadium lights blinded him. The acrid stench of the pyrotechnics burned his throat, so strong that he could barely catch the old, familiar smells of sawdust and animal beneath the smoke. The sports medicine team had taped his shoulder too tightly, and three fingers tingled from a pinched nerve.

  None of that mattered, though. When the chute boss gave the signal and that gate opened, nothing else existed but one man, one bull, and the eight seconds of breath between them. They were the simplest, easiest moments of Cal’s life.

  Frank called his name, and Cal stood on the top rung of the gate and gazed down at the death machine in the chute. They called him Ghost Pepper. He was a beautiful animal with a sleek, pale hide that gleamed with sweat. His horns were cream-colored and curved almost elegantly above his broad head. White showed all around his irises, and those big black eyes gleamed with pure malice.

  “That big bastard is gonna give Bodacious a run for his money someday!” Lane shouted up at him from the arena floor. His colorful jersey was streaked with dirt from when Nitro rolled him, but the shit-eating grin never left his sweaty face. Bull fighters like Lane lived for the tussle just the same as Cal lived for the ride.

  “He ain’t wrong,” the flankman beside Cal drawled, bracing a knee across Ghost Pepper’s withers and holding him still as Cal mounted up.

  His tongue stuck to the roof of his dry mouth, but that was dehydration; not fear. Fear was too familiar to Cal. He’d lived with it all his life and made it his friend the day he’d snuck into Ed Brewer’s bullpen on a dare.

  Fourteen years old, and Cal had gotten his first taste of power when he’d harnessed two thousand pounds of muscle to his will for three whole seconds. He’d broken his collarbone in two places, but he’d won fifty bucks, and those two seconds had lit a fire in his belly that only blazed hotter every day since. He’d ridden those flames to the top of the sport, all the way to the World Finals, and he’d earned himself a reputation as one of the fiercest bull riders on the circuit.

  That had been five years and a host of injuries ago. It felt like a lifetime.

  His heart thumped painfully beneath his sternum, but it wasn’t nerves. It wasn’t his run of bad luck, or the way his last sponsor had dropped him after a poor performance in Amarillo. Cal couldn’t put his finger on what was bothering him, but his head wasn’t in a good place. The whiskey fog clouded his mind, and like an old man, his thoughts kept drifting to the past.

  He woke that morning to the scent of blackberry and pine drifting through the tiny window of his trailer, a fragrance that never failed to stir nostalgia no matter how far he fled from Oregon.

  When he’d arrived at the stadium entrance that afternoon, a dusky-skinned girl with messy braids had caught up to him with an autograph book. She’d reminded him so much of Faith that he’d barely managed to swallow the lump in his throat when he went down on one knee to talk to her.

  Cal hadn’t seen his sister in ten years. She’d be a woman by now, but in his mind she was still a gap-toothed little girl.

  Without the distractions of money and success, Cal found his thoughts straying to her often these days.

  Eli, too.

  Cal saw him everywhere.

  Every dark-haired man that he approached from behind was Eli. The cashier at the gas station with the killer smile was Eli. He was the cowboy down on one knee, praying before his ride. Until that cowboy looked up and his eyes were blue, not the deep, sinful black that penetrated Cal’s dreams and left him aching in the middle of the night.

  Eli’s ghost was all over him, driving him craz
y, until Cal had begun to wonder if something might have happened. Maybe he had been killed, and his spirit decided to have one last laugh at Cal’s expense. Cal was as superstitious as the next bull rider, and if his sister were still speaking to him, he might have called home and asked if she knew where Eli had ended up.

  Cal had never gone in for social media, but halfway through his bottle of whiskey last night some idiotic urge overcame him. He’d laid back against his lumpy pillows, searching every unlocked profile named Eli Jackson that he could find. He woke that morning, fully clothed and gritty-eyed, with his phone still laying on his chest. It was not one of his prouder moments.

  Ghost Pepper lunged beneath him, slamming the side of his leg into the gate and forcefully jolting him back to reality. Cal licked his lips and steeled his jaw; this was no time for daydreaming.

  “Wake up, Craig!” Lane shouted, hopping onto the gate and knocking Cal’s hat askew with a slap to the back of the head. “You okay?”

  “Top notch,” Cal grunted, adjusting the battered brim of his hat and turning his attention to what needed to be done. This was his job. It was the only thing he’d ever been good at, and it would all be over in eight seconds.

  He worked his gloved fist up and down the rope to warm the rosin, enjoying the sticky crackle against his leather-clad palm. The familiar ritual helped ground his wandering thoughts.

  Lane squinted suspiciously. “Big money tonight.”

  “Yup.”

  Cal wasn’t hungry for the money, even though he desperately needed it. Money wouldn’t fill the anxious pit in his belly; the one that was charred and black from where the fire had gone out. The only thing that filled the emptiness now was fear.

  But for eight seconds, Cal would be whole.

  He shook his bells down and looped the rope between his pinky and third finger before lashing his fist down tight. Ghost Pepper shifted and snorted beneath him, rattling the gate again in his eagerness to bust through it.

  Lane scowled down at his grip. He hated when Cal used a suicide wrap, but to hell with him.

  Years ago, the bull fighter had seen something kindred in the scrawny new rider on the circuit, and he’d taken it upon himself to befriend Cal. He’d acted as both the devil and the angel sitting on his shoulder ever since, but he couldn’t tell Cal how to ride. No one could.

  “Keep your head in the game, Cal,” Lane warned, his eyes on the restless bull.

  “Keep him from poundin’ me into jello, Lane,” Cal muttered, checking his spurs to be sure they were clear of the rope.

  “That’s my job.” Lane’s grin was cocky as he leaped off the gate and rejoined the other bull fighters at the edge of the arena. They looked like a bunch of scruffy vagrants just off the range, laughing and giving each other shit, but their eyes were sharp. The second that gate opened, they were stone cold professionals.

  Lunatics, every single one of them. Cal might ride the bulls, but as soon as his boots touched earth, the only thing he wanted was to get the hell out of their way. Lane ran toward the damn things. It was like taking on a freight train.

  Cal tossed the tail of the rope over his thigh and adjusted his weight once more. Time slowed to a crawl. The deafening noise of the arena faded into the background, drowned out by the thud of his heartbeat and the ragged sound of his breath. A beautiful calm swept over him, the kind that was getting harder and harder to find these days.

  He gave the nod, and the chute opened.

  With a mighty leap, Ghost Pepper rocketed into the arena. Every fraction of a second became a crystal clear eternity as the universe whirled, flinging Cal to and fro like a rag doll. The bull was all power and speed, ridiculously graceful for such a heavy animal.

  Ghost Pepper sank low on every forward leap, attempting to toss Cal over his horns and forcing him to lean further back than he preferred. It threw off his center of gravity, and the telltale shift of his torso to the left told him that he was about to fall. Then the bull lunged with such momentum that Cal rocketed forward, those curving, ivory horns filling his vision. They were as thick as his wrist and coming straight toward his face. Alarm spurted through him.

  Black.

  In an instant, the world disappeared.

  It was back mere seconds later, as Cal came to with blinding pain screaming through his left hand and shoulder, so intense that he almost blacked out again. The world was a nauseating blur of color and light and sound. His hand had gotten caught in his wrap, twisting the rope around his wrist and trapping him against the side of a bull that continued to buck and spin like a dervish.

  Cal scrambled to keep his boots clear of the flashing hooves, but every time he found some brief purchase on the ground, the bull tossed him like a frisbee and he lost his footing again. Ghost Pepper’s hide was smooth and hot against Cal’s face as the animal dragged him through the dust. The audience roared like Romans in the Colosseum, hungry for blood.

  Beyond the crippling agony, Cal sensed the bull fighters converging on him. Toby and Diego darted recklessly close to Ghost Pepper’s head, luring him to give up his spin and chase them instead, while Lane threw himself across the bull’s back to cut the rope.

  Cal slammed into the dirt, but before he could roll clear Ghost Pepper’s rear hoof came down on the side of his knee. The thick leather hide of his chaps offered scant protection against such a brutal force. A sickening pop radiated through his knee, and Cal knew he wasn’t going anywhere.

  He tried, though.

  He did try.

  As Ghost Pepper strutted across the arena, head high and chest thrust out, Cal staggered to his feet. It felt as if he’d taken an ice pick to the kneecap the moment he stepped onto his right leg. With a cry, he collapsed and rolled onto his side, clutching his knee.

  The crowd was silent now.

  “Cal!” Lane dropped to his knees beside him, chest heaving and a wary eye still on the bull. “You need the medics?”

  “No,” Cal gasped, “just help me up.”

  Lane draped Cal’s good arm across his shoulders and leveraged him onto his feet. With his friend taking most of the weight off his right side, Cal limped half a step. The crowd roared its approval. Sweat slid down Cal’s face as he stared breathlessly at the stands.

  A man who looked like Eli descended the bleachers holding a little boy’s hand.

  The girl who reminded him of Faith stood beneath the catwalk and waved.

  He hung his head and took a deep, trembling breath. Clenching his teeth in agony, he lifted a shaking fist to the crowd, and they cheered so loud he felt it in his chest.

  Bitterness filled his throat, and as he hobbled toward the gate under Lane’s care, Cal finally accepted the truth he’d sensed breathing down his neck for too long.

  He was finished.

  2

  Country Roads Take Me Home

  Summer berries were long gone, but the trees were putting up a valiant fight against the encroaching chill of eastern Oregon evenings. Their leaves were a checkerboard of pale green and yellow, and they shimmered with the recoil of Eli releasing the rope swing and hitting the water with a mighty splash.

  Powder Creek was a popular swimming hole in the summer, but school was in session now, and the banks were empty of everyone but them.

  That was the point.

  Cal stood on the bank, gangly and dripping, in a pair of swim trunks that he’d almost outgrown. The breeze gusted, carrying a hint of wood smoke, and goosebumps shivered across his flesh.

  “C’mon in,” Eli called, tossing wet hair out of his eyes and grinning. “I don’t bite.”

  He did, though.

  Eli stood, water streaming from his torso, and pulled Cal into his arms. His lips were hot against Cal’s chilled throat, and his teeth were sharp when they nipped a mark into his skin.

  Thunderheads were building on the horizon, purple and gray with stiff black peaks, but the cooling rain was still a long way off. On the loneliest stretch of highway in eastern Oregon, everything w
as a long way off. Cal stood in the middle of nowhere, wiping sweat from his eyes and squinting down the flattest, dullest stretch of highway on God’s green earth.

  The only signs of life in the last four hours had been two minivans that blew right past his upturned thumb, a few grouse, and an endless wave of groundhogs diving into burrows as he walked by.

  Reconstructive surgery on his shoulder and knee had cleaned out the last of his savings, and he’d sold his truck and trailer to pay for physical therapy. He’d hitched a ride from a long-haul trucker in Reno for the first leg of travel, but it had only gotten him as far as a rest stop outside of Prairie City. It was only June but already hot as sin in the high desert, and the rest of his journey would be on foot.

  Cal’s shoulder ached from the weight of his broken saddle, so he set it on the side of the road and lowered his cranky body down beside it. He settled back against the leather, skinny legs stuck out in front of him like toothpicks capped with dusty boots. Hot gravel poked through the worn seat of his jeans as he pulled his cell phone from his back pocket and checked the display. Prairie City had been the only place big enough to boost signal reception since he’d crossed the state line, but it had grown spotty a few miles north of town.

  He scrolled past a text from Lane and checked the time. If he hustled, he’d be sleeping in a bed before nightfall. Probably. The strain on his leg wasn’t easy to ignore, but if he couldn’t make it, well… it wouldn’t be the first time he’d roughed it.