Rodeo on Terul: Another Buck Johnson Fantasy-Adventure Space Western

By Wyatt McLaren

It's rodeo time on Terul – bronc riding, yertl tripping, dragon team roping, korth barrel racing, and dragon riding. (And if you thought bullriding was dangerous, just take a look at dragon riding at Kerluk.) These are the events at the very first rodeo on planet Terul since the revival of the Intergalactic Rodeo Association.

And Buck Johnson, Skeeter Evans, and Snort Jones are entered – using, of course, Buck's money to pay their entry fees.
Buck's nearly broke again after paying his and Snort's and Skeeters' entry fees. So, in order to get off Terul and find an easier life, they'll have to cowboy up and win some money. Still, if they hit a good lick, they can finally get off this sorry planet. But as every rodeo cowboy knows, a lot can go wrong before the final buzzer sounds and the last flag drops. It ain't over till the secretary signs the checks.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wyatt McLaren
• Release date: Jul 29, 2013
• ISBN: 9781311652218

Book preview

Rodeo on Terul

Another Buck Johnson Fantasy-Adventure Space Western

Wyatt McLaren

Smashwords Edition

Spring Lake Books

Copyright 2013

All rights reserved. This book may not be used or reproduced in any manner—by any means or in any medium whatsoever—in part or in whole without written permission of the author (except, of course, small excerpts in reviews). Please respect intellectual-property rights and help authors protect what they've created.

This is a work of fiction. The characters and situations are nothing more than inventions of the author’s imagination. If anything in here resembles real persons, places, occurrences, or institutions on Earth, it is the result of pure coincidence.

Rodeo on Terul is dedicated to a reader who likes these stories and gives me much encouragement—and who is also a big fan of rodeo clowns. So here ya go: here're your clowns (sort of).

Rodeo on Terul

Inhabiting an almost circular orbit around its two suns and having a nearly vertical axis with respect to that orbit, Terul has basically only one season. What the inhabitants of Terul are privileged to enjoy is an unrelenting year-long procession, year after year, of four hundred and fifteen days, each twenty-six hours long, of oppressive heat coupled with lip-cracking aridity—except for a brief few days once every two or three years. And during that short respite is when it rains on Terul.

But this is all from the human perspective. Native Terullians think their climate with its paucity of seasons is just dandy. But then they are all at least a little reptilian, so it would, of course, suit them.

That few days of rain had just ended. So, now, the humidity was oppressively high, and everywhere you turned, you had to wade through reddish-yellow slop. Not the best arena conditions for a rodeo—the very first rodeo on Terul.

Buck Johnson was determined not to let it get him down. He was backing Snort Jones in the bronc riding and both Snort and Skeeter Evans in the dragon team roping. And Buck himself was entered in the dragon team roping and the dragon riding. They would then pool their winnings and get the hell off Terul. All three of them, but especially Skeeter, longed for ready and frequent access to some liquid refreshment stronger than warm, brackish water, as well as for an easier life.

The rodeo at Kerluk—one of only two places on Terul with enough metal huts huddled together to be called a town—was scheduled to begin the next day. It would be the first performance of the first major rodeo since the Intergalactic Rodeo Association had been revived. Contestants and spectators had already started trickling in. The area behind the arena, behind the holding pens constructed of portable laser panels, was beginning to fill with multi-hued sky trucks, food-vendors' kiosks, and insta-construct shelters of various sizes where various kinds of illegal entertainment could be had. Beyond these, where the ground was relatively boulder free and the mud wasn't quite so deep, a few intergalactic ships were moored, one of them having flown in stock from Earth.

Buck had already paid his and Skeeter's and Snort's entry fees. All they had to do now was cowboy up when their time came, collect their winnings, and then ride on out. Buck had no doubts about Skeeter's and