Black Question

             Black Question was a bull. He was not just any bull, but one of those old bucking Brahma bulls you see on the rodeo circuit. From a distance he didn’t look so tough, but up close that critter was downright scary. He was coal black from stem to stern except for one little white patch shaped like a question mark right in the middle of his forehead. That is where he got his moniker. He took the activity of bucking off would be rodeo hands to a fine art.

            Jim was not much of a rodeo hand, but like so many young men out “west of the hundredth” he loved the sport. Some say that rodeo is all about the need of man to gain dominion over beast. Others maintain it is the competitive challenge that drives young males to enter the rodeo arena. However, I am pretty sure that the dances afterward where pretty young girls wearing friendly smiles and tight-fitting jeans have about as much to do with it as anything. Anyway, Jim would occasionally crawl on some four-footed critter that could buck, but he was not particularly keen on bull riding. It probably had something to do with that concussion he got that time down at Fort Worth.

            Jim and Black Question got acquainted at the junior rodeo down at Big Spring one memorable spring night. A bunch of us had entered the bull riding, mainly because West Texans just plain don’t like bucking horse events, and besides we couldn’t afford a good roping horse for the calf roping. Jim went along for the dance. He definitely didn’t plan to enter any of the events. As the evening progressed, we managed to get him somewhat inebriated until at our urging he finally consented to enter the bull riding contest along with the rest of us. He drew Black Question for his ride.

            We all went out to the stock pens behind the arena to check out our respective mounts. When Jim saw that big black bull you could almost see the blood drain from his face. I thought there for a minute he was going to back out, but after a couple more drinks the color returned and he regained what little confidence he once had. The die was cast and before long the show began.

            I don’t know whether it was good bucking stock or bad karma that night, but every bull rider in the contest was getting thrown before the whistle blew. Finally, it came time for Jim to come out on Black Question. He borrowed my bull rope, used about a ton of rosin on his riding glove, and took a firm grip. That boy was scared to death. When that bull left the chute, he was bucking. He jumped and bucked and spun and did everything I ever saw a bull do to throw a rider. But old Jim sat up there like a tick on a dog and rode that bull till the whistle blew. He was the only one of us who finished in the money.

            Jim never mounted another head of rough stock after that night. The truth of the matter is that after getting his riding hand hung up in that bull rope and for once in his life being forced to finish a ride, he had accomplished all he wanted in the way of rodeoing. However, he remained a fixture at all the rodeo dances for years afterward as the man who rode Black Question. As far as that bad Brahma bull, he became famous for being the only rodeo bull ever ridden only once in his entire bucking career.