Fifty More Bales of Hay. Rachael Treasure

      She really wished her roommate, Sally, had come with her, but Sally was living it up at a rave somewhere out on the eastern side of the city. Sally didn’t like the country. It was too uncouth for her. Even Anne’s boyfriend, Simon, had passed on coming with her on the trip, despite her offering to pay for a motel room. He had said he was busy with his computer networking thesis, but Anne knew he would be going to see Eddie, and his housemates, to spend the weekend drinking beers and playing stupid computer games.

      She could picture (and smell) the wobbly-gutted Eddie now, sitting in his tip of a bedroom, while her pale, thin boyfriend, Simon, would be plugged into his laptop in the lounge room, blinking behind his glasses. The other housemates, Skeet and Thommo, would be in on it too, isolated in their own rooms, but linked into the same virtual reality game via wi-fi. They were games involving warriors and bomb making and the boys were obsessed with them.

      Early in their relationship, Anne would go with Simon to Eddie’s and sit at Simon’s feet reading her books while he played on the computer. But the male testosterone that lurked in the house, the smell of boy farts and lack of sunlight started to get to her. She discovered early on it was best to leave Simon to it when he was gaming.

      As she got out of her car, she felt the heat of the afternoon wrap around her. She tugged down her high-waisted black pencil skirt and kicked a grass seed off the top of her dainty little foot, which was encased by delicate red cloth-covered flats, trimmed with tiny black bows. She grabbed for her natural-fibre woven overseas-aid bag from the front seat, which contained her pad and pen, and picked up her iPhone so as to record this so-called ‘U.S. rodeo star’. As she locked her car, she felt apprehension gather in her. She was about to throw herself into this very male and brutish domain of animal cruelty and machismo.

      As Anne walked around a big corrugated shed, she was met with a sight she hadn’t been expecting. The rodeo ground was shaded by large leafy trees and beneath them sat groups of people on beautiful green lawns. Mostly families on picnic blankets. There were cowboy-type dads pushing strollers, young girls lying in the sun in cut-off jeans and kids running about, their faces painted, balloons in hand. Mums sat chatting or passing food to their kids. Up in the stand were more clusters of families, all wearing hats against the brightness and heat of the summer afternoon, watching the dusty space of the arena that lay before them surrounded by high metal railings.

      Gingerly Anne sidestepped up the scaffold seating in her rather restrictive skirt and sat. With a sudden burst, gates clanged open below. A calf sprang from nowhere. Two riders pelted out twirling ropes and within seconds, before the dust even had time to rise, they had lassoed a little horned steer the colour of caramel slice. The horses stood stock-still, keeping the ropes taut, the cowboys leaping off and hitching the calf, the crowd thundering applause like rain and the commentator revving the show along with an excited twang.

      Anne wasn’t sure what she had just seen, but as the men let the little calf up again, she watched as it shook the dust from its coat. It instantly cast its ears forward to the gate where its friends were waiting. Calmly the calf trotted back from whence it had come. The men ambled back over to their horses, took up the split reins, smoothed grateful gloved hands down the perfectly muscled necks of their well-trained mounts, stepped back into their saddles and, like the calf, calmly walked their horses from the arena. As the announcer introduced the next roping pair, Anne looked about. She wondered which of the cowboys around the ground might be Randy Carter.

      ‘Hat, love?’ came a voice beside her.

      She turned to see a middle-aged woman with two freckled redhead kids sitting beside her. ‘Pardon?’

      ‘Would you like a hat? I’ve got a spare,’ the woman said, offering up a cap with Darren’s Stock Transport embroidered on it. ‘Wouldn’t want to see that pretty little face of yours get burnt.’

      Anne frowned. What was it with these people and the ‘pretty little’ line? She shook her head. ‘No. I’m fine, thank you.’

      ‘Not in an hour you won’t be. I suggest you sit in the shade, if you’re not gunna wear a hat. This sun will sting that lovely pale skin of yours.’

      Anne tugged the skirt down over her white knees and looked at the woman as if she was an irritating insect. ‘You wouldn’t happen to know where I’d find Randy Carter, would you?’

      The woman laughed. ‘Randy Carter! Ha! Why sure I know where to find him. Every woman knows where to find Randy.’

      ‘Yes, but where would I find him?’ Anne asked, hot and irritated.

      The woman looked at Anne for a moment, her head tilted quizzically to the side, as if she was reading something about her. Eventually she said, after a subtle lift of her eyebrows, ‘Round the back of the bull chutes, I expect. But he’s on after this. He won’t be done until at least after five. I reckon you’re gunna have to wait.’

      Anne sighed and stood up. She had to find some water. As she went to leave, the woman called after her, ‘My pleasure, love. No worries.’

      Bull riding was the last event of the day and Anne, who was now lobster pink, stood beneath one of the giant elms, feeling her skin pulling taut painfully from sunburn. The noise from the bar was lifting. She was hoping to witness some rodeo male aggression there, but so far the lads and older men stood chatting in a friendly manner, stopping every now and then to watch the arena events. A buzz seemed to rise when the bulls were let up into the chutes and cowboys in white hats and tight safety vests emerged on the rail.

      Anne couldn’t help but notice the fitness of the men. Their fringed leather chaps opened up to denim in the crutch area at the front, and at the back highlighted perfect denim-clad backsides. Every one of the cowboys seemed to have on a colourful shirt with Wrangler written on the sleeve or back. And each had spurs and dusty white hats that curved upwards at the sides. She had to swallow down a feeling that the men looked sexy. Really sexy. But in an aggressive over-the-top masculine way. Not like Simon who wore slip-on shoes, with long shorts and, mostly pilling, polo tops he bought from the op shop. He preferred to spend his money on computer games than clothing.

      Over the loudspeaker, country rock music cranked loudly, the strains of a maniac harmonica blared and deep thumping drums kicked out a Garth Brooks tune as the first gate was swung and a bull rocked from the crush. On the giant black beast’s back sat the most athletic man Anne had ever seen. He was flung this way and that, one arm cast back high in the air, the other clutching a rope around the bull’s neck. She wondered for a moment if that was Randy Carter. She hadn’t caught the commentator’s call. She was feeling a little giddy. Then she heard a bell ring and a cheer rise up from the crowd. She watched as a man who had been standing behind a colourful barrel sprinted towards the beast and leaped in front of the big horned bull. He was dressed as a clown and darted this way and that as another clown dived in to help unhook the rider who was clearly stuck fast to the binding on the bull’s rigging and was getting tossed about like a rag doll. It looked rough. It looked dangerous. It looked … and it was at that point, Anne fainted.

      When she woke, Anne found herself on a St John Ambulance stretcher bed, with the doors of the cab wide open, revealing the leafy canopy of the shady trees. Above her was a red-faced man and a pimply young woman.

      ‘Where’s your hat, young lady?’ said the man.

      ‘What?’

      ‘Heatstroke.’

      ‘But…’

      ‘Don’t worry, love. Someone’s gone to find Randy. They said he was a friend of yours.’

      ‘Randy?’ Anne said, sitting up and feeling woozy, knowing that it was more than just heatstroke that had caused her to faint. After another fight with Simon she’d partied pretty hard this week. Memories of her drug-fuelled rave came back to haunt her. She was still toxed. She knew it.

      At that moment, at the back of the vehicle, the rodeo clown she saw earlier appeared. He wore runners, bright red skins that showed off perfectly formed legs, big oversized denim shorts held up with yellow braces and a pink shirt with large stars of various colours splashed