The Sunstone Brooch (Celtic Brooch Series Book 11) Chapters 1, 2, & 3

Sixteen-year-old Ensley MacAndrew Williams practiced a kind of bull-riding air guitar several times, circling in the dirt, clutching invisible bull ropes while her free hand waved above her head. Girls close in age watched from their folding chairs, cradling puppies and talking on their cell phones.

They weren’t there to watch Ensley ride. Nope, not at all. They were there for the guys wearing clean button-down shirts, cowboy hats, and crisp 20X Wrangler jeans with colossal belt buckles.

They all looked good in clean clothes with shirts tucked into waistbands. But like her, when it came time to ride, they all traded crisp blue jeans for old, dirty ones.

Except for when she rode bulls, she wouldn’t be caught dead in dirty, stretched-out jeans. And hers were so hopelessly gross that even a spritz of lemon juice and water couldn’t take away the stench. 

Randy Myers, a former bull rider who managed Ensley’s parents’ ranch in North Dakota, stopped chugging a can of Rockstar energy drink long enough to applaud. “You look ready to go!”

“If I can go ninety seconds on a mock bull, I can go ninety on a real one.”

“That’s what they say, monkey.”

Randy had called her monkey since she climbed her first fence as a toddler, and while it embarrassed her as a preteen, she’d gotten over it. Now the affectionate term always made her smile.

“Will you tape me up, please?”

“Let me see you stretch.”

“I’ve already done it.”

He chugged the Rockstar again then tossed the empty can into the trash. “Do it again.”

“Gnrr.” She kicked a denim leg onto the uppermost fence railing (it was a short fence) and stretched like a dancer on the ballet barre. Then switched legs. “Good enough?”

“Nope. Do it again.” He got up off a hay bale stacked against a barn piled with old tires and dusty mechanical equipment. “Other leg, too.” He removed his gray Stetson, wiped his forehead, and donned his hat again.

She stretched out the other leg, sweating in the North Dakota summer heat, which people from the South called a warm winter day. “Anything else you want me to do?”

“Yep! Go home.”

“Not gonna happen.”

She waved to a group of cowboys who smiled and winked when they strutted by. But they were more interested in the other girls—the ones sitting in folding chairs. The ones not wearing dirty jeans. The ones who didn’t smell like shit. And the ones who gave out Snapchat handles as quickly as flirtatious glances.

They were the buckle bunnies.

Ensley wasn’t a buckle bunny, and the only handle she had was attached to her bull rope. She was a rodeo gal who didn’t date her competition.

“Will you tape my wrist, please?” She always asked nicely, or he’d snap at her for acting like a princess. She didn’t want to be a princess. Hell, no. She wanted to be a rodeo queen. She was smart and pretty enough to be a queen, but she was a little conflicted about her long-term goals. When she couldn’t ride anymore, she wanted to do something with books. Whether that meant she’d be a librarian or an editor, or—in her dream of all dreams—a writer, only time would tell.

Randy whipped out a roll of tape from the back pocket of his jeans. “Got it right here.”

She pulled up her sleeve and held out her arm. He started about four inches above her wrist and layered it down and over her wrist bone and across her palm. Then he started over again. The only time she’d broken her wrist was when she did the taping herself. Since then, he always wrapped her wrist. She could do her ankles just fine, but getting her wrist wrapped the way she liked was impossible.

Cowboys had often asked why she wanted to ride bulls. If she was in a ballbuster mood, she’d say, “Because I like sweaty flesh between my legs.” Then she’d give the obnoxious cowboy a once-over and say, “And you’ll never be big enough. So go away.”

She’d fallen in love with the sport dominated by men years before her parents allowed her to get on a bull. First, she had to prove she was serious about it. And the way to do that was to attend a three-day session at Sankey Rodeo School and pay for it with her own money. The first time she got bucked off, the cowboys said she wouldn’t get back on.

They were wrong.

Randy finished taping and held out her vest. “Here you go, monkey.”

She zipped it up, adjusted the neckroll, and then collected her mouthguard and helmet with its attached face mask.

“I like your new girl-bull-rider patch. The colors even match the fringe on your chaps.”

“It came in the mail the other day, but I don’t know who sent it. It’s cool, though, isn’t it? But it makes me wonder if I have a stalker.” She brushed off her custom-made leather chaps with their coordinating long, flowing fringe—the same dusty orange as her granny’s favorite piece of jewelry, a sunstone brooch.

“Well, if any man dares to mess with a girl bull rider, it just goes to show you what a dumbass he is.”

“Ha, ha.”

“Be extra careful on this ride.” He checked her chin strap and tightened it. “No broken bones today.”

“Wrist, arm, ankle, and ribs are enough for me.”

“And one concussion.”

She wiggled the helmet to check the stability for herself. “Only one?”

“If you get another one, I won’t stick around to pick you up again.”

Randy didn’t have to remind her that a bull rider usually got an injury in one out of every fifteen rides, and this was the fifteenth since she broke a rib.

She threaded the bells through the end of the bull rope, made a large loop, and secured it with a big knot. “Mom and Dad won’t stick around, either. It’s hard enough watching from the bleachers.”

“Your dad wants to be your barrelman.”

She tested the strength of the knot. “No way. Only one of us needs to be out here.”

Randy laughed. “When I told him no, he said he’d fire me so he could be your flankman.”

“Good luck with that. He’d make me too nervous.”

How many times had her dad told her that bull riding was a macho pastime on par with race car driving and the most dangerous eight seconds in sports? Dozens. No, maybe hundreds. Riders got stepped on, landed on their heads, dislocated joints, pulled groins, and broke bones. But she enjoyed participating in a sport rooted in the mystique of the Wild West, and riding was in her soul. She was born to be a fighter, and right now, riding a fifteen-hundred-pound bull that weighed as much as the truck she drove was her form of fighting.

She played the game, took the pain, and was willing to pay for what she loved with sore muscles and occasional broken bones. It had to be the biggest adrenaline rush in the world. And unless she broke both legs, she’d always get up and walk, hop, or hobble out of the arena.

Tonight, though, would make it all worthwhile. This event was the last one before she had to either quit or step up to the next level, where the competition would get much stiffer. If she won, it would make moving up easier, although there wasn’t much opportunity for her to become a professional bull rider.

The announcer called, “Williams 511, let’s go. Put your rope on.”

Randy rapped on the top of her helmet again. “Time to cowboy up.”

Adrenaline was surging now as she climbed up into the bucking chute, carrying her bull rope and bells. Slowly she eased down on the bull’s back. Her pinky toes lined up with the bottom rungs on the gates, so her spurs faced north-south, not east-west.

From here on out, it was all muscle memory. Her mind had to go blank. If she thought about what she was doing, she’d be a second behind, and she had to be in the correct mindset to react instantly.

She dropped the bull rope with the attached bells—jingling against the rungs of the chute—down the right side of the bull.

“I need a hook.”

Randy stood on the left side of the pen, his rubber boots sinking into the stinking muck and excrement. He used the flank hook to grab the knot tied at the end of the bull rope. After running it underneath the bull, he handed her the loop. She ran the rope tail through it and pulled, tightening it around the belly of the bull, and continued tightening and adjusting it until she positioned the handle on the rope just right.

Then she ran her gloved hand through the handle and adjusted the position once more. Satisfied, she took the tail of the rope and wrapped it over the top of the handle, and closed her hand over the rope, tightening the grip.

Adrenaline was pouring into her veins now.

She wrapped the rope tail around her wrist again, across her palm, and finished with weaving the rope through her fourth and fifth gloved fingers, forming a tight fist. Then she punched down on it.

The rest of the tail she pulled over her right leg.

It was time.

She reached way up on the railing and pulled her lady gooch to her pinkie—slide and ride. She sat slightly cocked to one side to avoid smashing her face on the slide gate when the bull pitched in the chute.

Then she grinned, winked, and gave a calm verbal command to Randy and the gateman. “Okay, boys.”

The gate flew open, and the clock started when the bull exploded from the chute. The clock would stop when Ensley’s hand came out of the rope, her feet touched the ground, or her free arm touched the bull.  

The bull bucked with an explosive upward movement that forced her body to rock back like she was sitting in a rocking chair tipped back as far as it would go, while the front end dropped when the animal hit the ground, jolting her.

One, two, three bucks as the bull spun in a circle.

She flung her legs high to spur the bull, hoping to earn bonus points.

The bull went into another spin while bucking, and she struggled to get into the bull’s rhythm. The bull then kicked out to the side and twisted its torso, tilting her to the opposite side, putting pressure on her arm.

Then the bull bucked her off, and the ride turned into a complete shit show.

Ensley was on her feet, but caught her hand in the bull rope. She flopped against the bull like a rag doll. With all her weight pulling down on her arm, it forced her hand to clamp shut when she needed it to open so she could break loose.

The bull tried to hook her with his horns, determined to get her off and away from him. She was stuck, trying to hang close until the bullfighters came out to help her break free. Seconds ticked off the clock. The snorting bull beat her up as he twisted and bucked.

“Damn,” she screamed, struggling with the rope.

The bull twisted so hard that her hand finally came loose. The force, though, knocked her to the ground, where the bull kicked her in the hip, sending her flying. When she landed in the dirt, the impact knocked her out.

She floated above her body without any pain, disconnected from the injured girl on the ground and the aghast spectators whispering their fears.

Men ran toward the body while others ran after the bull. And she watched all the action from her perch high above the arena where there was no pain.

You must go back, Ensley.

I’m too broken.

You must be the warrior you were born to be. The Keeper will need you for the coming war.

What war?

You will discover that in time. But always remember you carry the handprints of your ancestors on your heart. And when you are ready, your true love will find you.

Then the voice blew a breath of warm air across her face. When she looked again at the injured girl, the image of an ash tree supporting the universe with its roots extended into the underworld appeared on her forehead.

What’s that?

You are marked. Never forget.

And then the warm air blew it away.

Chapter 3: Napa, CA (1881)—James Cullen, Age 13

The light went out.

His head throbbed, and blood trickled down his face.

He was scared and tired and hungry, and he wanted to go home. And now he was in total darkness.

Don’t be scared, wee laddie. Ye come from a long line of Highland warriors. Don’t ye give up. Not today. Not ever.

His heart pounded in his chest, his throat, even in his ears, and he almost pissed his pants—again. “Who’s there? Who are you? I can’t see you.”

He plastered himself against the wall as soon as he realized he didn’t actually hear the voice. It wasn’t as if a woman stood next to him. He sensed her voice, like mental telepathy. He shook his head hard, just like Tater Tot shook when he came out of the lake.

“Who are you?” he asked again.

The disembodied woman said, A guardian.

Anxiety still gripped him, but he wasn’t afraid of her. “Like an angel?”

Nay, not an angel.

“A Jedi Knight?”

I’ve never met one.

“A see-through person, then. A ghost, like Uncle Cullen?”

Aye, a see-through person. I’m Kristen.

“Uncle Cullen had a sister named Kristen. I’ve seen her name on my family tree. She drowned.”

Aye.

“I heard she saved Uncle Cullen from drowning after he was shot.”

I’ve always watched over him.

“Are you watching over me?”

I’m watching over ye both.

“Is Uncle Cullen in trouble, too?”

That’s why I’m here. Ye have to go back.

“What do you think I’m trying to do?” he said in a frustrated singsong voice, waving his arms for emphasis. “I lost my light.” A touch, soft as a feather, brushed James Cullen’s cheek, sending shivers up and down his spine.

Before ye were born, young Cullen, ye were given the gift of sight. Ye’re blessed.

“What’s the gift of sight?”

The ability to see what others cannot.

“Like Superman’s X-ray vision?”

Ah, wee laddie. The gift is limitless, but it doesn’t all come at once.

Okay, this was getting too weird for even a campfire ghost story. “Do you have the gift?”

Aye.

“But you’re dead.”

I don’t have an earthly body.

He was hallucinating. That had to be the answer. The moldy smell he’d been smelling must be those hallucinogenic mushrooms.

It’s time for ye to use yer gift.

“How can I use it? I don’t even understand what it is.”

Understanding will come.

“When? Why can’t I understand now?”

What ye seek will be revealed.

“You’re talking in circles.”

Clarity will come, too, young Cullen.

“The only thing coming my way are the men with butterfly nets. See, I don’t believe you, and what I seek, you’re not capable of giving me. I want to go home.”

It’s not my purpose to give ye anything.

A faint breeze washed over him, and his hair fluttered. He jumped to his feet, turning in circles. “Hey, wait, Lady Yoda. Don’t go. I didn’t mean to be rude. Tell me more about the gift.” The air grew still, and he knew in his heart he was alone again.

Copyright material – Katherine Lowry Logan