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I’m sure she didn’t appreciate that very much. I think that’s why he broke it off with her, that jealousy. I’m guessing she didn’t take it well at all. I’m just speculating, but I’m a pretty good observer of human nature. April is as fierce as she is good-looking, and I can’t see her just shrugging her shoulders and moving on.”
    Joe shook his head, not understanding. Dulcie picked up his cue.
    “Did April try to get back at him somehow?” she asked.
    “Oh, he never told me anything like that,” Brenda said. “But I think the breakup affected him. It happened just before Houston, which is probably why his head wasn’t in the game and he got bucked off and hurt so bad.”
    “So it was April’s fault?” Joe asked. He’d once again broken his agreement by speaking up, and Reed gave him a disapproving look.
    “I didn’t mean it that way,” Brenda said, looking aghast. “I just meant that he didn’t ride with the kind of total confidence and concentration he’s known for. You can watch the tape of it and see for yourself. I’m not blaming that poor girl for anything at all.”
    “So he came home alone,” Reed broke in. “Did you two pick him up at the airport?”
    “He drove,” Eldon said.
    “He drove back from Houston with broken ribs?” Joe asked, incredulous.
    He noted that Brenda again gripped Eldon’s thigh with her hand. This time, she appeared to be applying real pressure, but the man looked ahead stoically.
    “Like a lot of boys around here, Dallas has a thing about his pickup,” Brenda said. “He’d never leave it, no matter what. He never likes to be without it. Even if he was dying, he’d drive. Imagine how tough that kid must be. He drove from Houston to Saddlestring all alone with broken ribs and a dislocated shoulder. I don’t know how he did it.”
    Joe raised his eyebrows and caught Dulcie’s eye. The dislocated shoulder was new information. She’d caught it also.
    “Which arm is dislocated?” she asked Brenda.
    “His left, thank goodness,” Brenda said. “That’s because he has to grip that bull with his right hand. So he’ll still be able to do that.”
    Joe visualized the act he’d seen many times. Bull riders lowered themselves carefully into a steel chute filled with a two-thousand-pound animal. Often, the bull was so big there was barely enough clearance on either side of it for the cowboy to mount it. A flanking strap lined with lamb’s wool was cinched to the rear quarters of the bull with an easy-release snap. After the cowboy had jammed his gloved hand into the opening of his bull rope, which was cinched around the middle of the bull, the gate was opened. It was a common misconception that the flanking strap was attached to the bull’s genitals, when it wasn’t at all. As much as trying to get the rider off its back, the bull was just as concerned about ridding himself of the flanking strap, which was alternately pulled tight and released and served as an irritant. It took a tremendous amount of upper-body strength and balance for a rider to stay on the bull while it spun, twisted, and bucked.
    That kind of upper-body strength, Joe knew, could produce a hell of a beating.
    “So how long has he been home?” Reed asked them.
    “Three days, two nights,” Brenda said with finality. “And from what I understand from your deputies, poor April was just found this morning. And since she definitely wasn’t with us, that means she got here with someone else.”
    She pushed the bulk of her weight forward on the chair and leaned across the desk toward Reed.
    She said to the sheriff, “I hope you find whoever did it and put that man in a cage. And if he resists arrest and gets himself shot in the process, I don’t think anyone would have a problem with that. Dallas feels the same way.”
    “Then where is he?” Joe asked. “Why isn’t he here now?”
    Brenda’s eyes flashed when she turned to Joe. There was real anger there, and it surprised