As he turned off the dirt road and onto the pavement, he noticed a busy stream of traffic on what was normally a lightly used road. When he saw that every other rig pulled a horse trailer it occurred to him that this was Suicide Race week. Some races took place at night under floodlights and judging by the amount of traffic, there must be a race happening tonight.
Almost without thinking he pulled into the stream of traffic and headed towards town. Since the day had been so disappointing this might just be the thing he needed to cheer himself up.
He followed the other trucks into the rodeo grounds. Parking for trucks with horse trailers was ample and he had no trouble finding a spot. He got himself situated in his chair and wheeled around to where he could see Samson. The horse was excited and jittery with all of the noise and smell of other people and horses. “Easy boy, I need you to stay here and relax, I’ll be back soon enough.” He heard the horse reply with a soft snort as he wheeled away.
Billy had rarely been out in public since his accident and the size and volume of the crowd nearly overwhelmed him. His goal was to wheel up somewhere near the river where he could watch the racers come down the hill and cross the river to the side he was on.
The crowd of people made Billy’s progress extremely difficult. They bumped his wheelchair, stepped in front of his path, and generally drove him crazy. It was just no use he thought, as another person blocked his already limited view. He could hear the race but seeing it from this side of the river was impossible.
Suddenly he found his chair being grabbed from behind and spun around. He balled his fists up in anger ready to strike at whoever was toying with him. Before he could react though, a familiar voice reassured him.
“Hey Cuz, didn’t mean to scare you, I was just messin with you.”
It was one of Billy’s cousins who he’d gotten along with fairly well before the accident but whom he hadn’t seen since.
“Man you really are messed up! Sorry, I didn’t come see you in the hospital. I never was much for going to such a depressing place.”
“Ah…No problem,” said Billy, who was rapidly tiring of his cousin’s presence.
“Hey,” said his cousin, “me and the boys are gonna finish this off after the races, but I don’t want my dad to catch me with it. Here, you take it, and I’ll find you after the races and we can polish it off.”
With that he thrust a quart of cheap whiskey into Billy’s hands.
“Nobody will ever suspect a dude in a wheelchair. Catch you in a couple of hours, Cuz!” With that he disappeared into the crowd. Billy quickly stashed the bottle under his coat.
He dejectedly wheeled himself back to the truck. Again the feeling of overwhelming hopelessness came crushing down on him. As he wheeled past the horse trailer, Samson snorted. The sound of his horse, the horse he could never ride again, only served to deepen his depression. He climbed into the truck’s cab, rolled down the window, and listened to the race that he had once planned to participate in. Although it had been his greatest dream to race, he glumly knew that it would never happen.
As he adjusted the seat to get more comfortable, he felt the hard glass bottle poke him in the side. He took the bottle out from the inside of his coat and studied it. They say this will grow hair on you, he thought to himself. Too bad it doesn’t grow new legs. Figuring he had nothing to lose, he loosened the cap and tried a swallow. The molten liquid burned all the way from his throat to his stomach. Horrible stuff he thought, but it matched his foul mood perfectly. He took another swig and started his truck. He thought that perhaps the view of the race might be better from the other side of the river.
He pulled out of the lot and swung back through town heading for the bluffs where the race started. As he drove ahead he realized he had forgotten that over the course of time many houses had been built around where the race started. The streets became more crowded and narrow. This was no place for a big truck and horse trailer. Several cars began honking, and soon the others joined in. Try as he might Billy just couldn’t navigate the narrow streets any faster. As the honking behind him became more persistent, Billy finally gave up and pulled right up onto somebody’s lawn. They’d neither know nor care he thought because undoubtedly, they’d be at the race too.
He looked again at the bottle lying beside him on the seat. What the heck he thought. He drank a big swallow and this time felt the whiskey immediately rush to his head.
The alcohol however failed to cheer him up. He felt more depressed and lonely than ever before. He’d come so close to living his dreams but one catastrophic event had changed everything. He had lost control of his life, his legs, and his relationships. It was especially depressing to know that Samson would never again feel his weight in the saddle.
The more he thought about it, the more despondent he became. Suddenly an idea came into his mind with surprising clarity. He would show everyone that he could still get around by using Samson and his travois. He was desperate to prove to everyone that he was not a useless cripple, but rather a proud productive man. He would show them a man who was still able to move about freely, a man in charge of his own destiny.
He took another swig from the now half empty bottle and eased himself out of the truck. He struggled mightily because of his drunken condition. He just could not get his wheel chair out. In the end he gave up and decided to just pull himself along with his hands towards the back of the trailer. He was a strange sight indeed crawling along grotesquely towards the back of the truck.
Several passersby started to help him but he shook them off. “I don’t need anybody’s help!” he shouted.
Several of the people looked at him shaking their heads. “Drunken Indian!” one of them muttered. That last comment cut him deeply.
He hurled the bottle at the retreating people. As it smashed into the asphalt he screamed, “I’ll show you what a drunken Indian can do!”
Almost maniacally he opened the back of the horse trailer and pulled out the travois. Samson snorted nervously sensing his master’s distress. But being a loyal and bright horse he obediently backed out of the trailer which made Billy’s job of hooking up the travois that much easier.
His paralysis along with the alcohol made every task extremely difficult. The one thing that he did have on his side was extreme stubbornness and in the end he got everything hooked up and ready to go.
As Samson started off at a trot, Billy had a very difficult time guiding him around cars and past people. Luckily most of them stepped aside when they saw him coming, although a few made snide comments when Samson nudged them out of the way. The closer he got to where the race started the more crowded the streets became. Finally he came to the fence where the horses were staged before the upcoming races. He could go no further.
There he sat for the next half hour hearing the races starting yet not seeing them due to his poor position. People hemmed him in but other than the occasional odd look, they left him alone. Depression again set in. He had come all this way for nothing. Nobody at all was seeing what he could do. His despair must have been apparent, because a sheriff’s deputy with a police dog came up to chat with him. The cop remembered Billy from before the accident. He was a little suspicious about how Billy was acting, but he figured that Billy’s personality had changed due to the terrible accident. As they talked, the dog and Samson reached an uneasy truce. Finally the officer smiled and said, “I don’t think it would hurt if I let you into the starting area where you will have a better view.”
As he slid open the gate, Samson and Billy squeezed in. Billy thanked the officer and guided Samson to a much better spot. As the horse pulled him around he was able to visit with some of the other riders. Most of them knew him and knew of his accident. For the most part they were polite but since Billy was no longer able to ride, the conversations gradually ended. Billy had been hoping that he could reconnect with his old riding buddies but he could see now that it would never happen. He did not share the same bond with them that he once
had.
Again he felt his bitterness building up. He felt like a hopeless freak getting around in a travois the likes of which his tribe hadn’t used for many years. The whiskey had him depressed and light headed. He felt as if life had played an incredibly cruel joke on him.
Suddenly two events happened simultaneously that would forever change Billy’s life and everyone else around him who witnessed the event. First the gun sounded starting the next race. At that precise instant the police dog that had moved next to Samson let out a loud aggressive bark. It will never be known whether the horse mistook the bark of the police dog to be that of his enemy the wolf, or if he heard the starter’s gun and simply reacted. Whatever the cause, the end result was unchangeable as Samson took off at a dead run joining the other horses heading directly for the lip of the cliff.
CHAPTER 22
In a split second Billy was both living his dream and about to die because of it. Samson had caught up with the middle of the pack. All of the horses were seconds from plunging over the cliff to the river at the bottom. By instinct Billy simply went with the situation. He neither tried to stop Samson nor encourage him on. He just held on with firm resolve to see this through to the inevitable conclusion.
The crowd seemed shocked at first to see Billy and his sled careening towards the sheer drop. A few however did not pick up on the gravity of the situation and roared their approval. Billy heard those roars and all of the months of frustration and anguish came to a head. There was no time for fear, only action. He grabbed the reins tightly, let out an Indian war whoop, and whipped Samson’s flanks with the leather guides.
It was everything he dreamed it would be. The crowd was going wild. There was the deafening sound of horses’ hooves pounding the earth and riders screaming as they goaded their horses towards the plunge. The travois jerked wildly from side to side as it pulled nearer and nearer to the other horses’ thundering hooves. Billy held on with his heart racing but mind surprisingly at ease. He knew now as most of the audience did that this would literally be his suicide plunge in every sense of the phrase.
Suddenly Billy heard nothing but silence as his sled started to sail over the abyss. He got a surreal sensation of floating as he shot out from the edge. Calmness came over him because he knew what the result would be when his crippled body landed in the midst of the charging horses. He would have freedom from life restricted to a wheelchair, freedom from being half a man. He embraced his impending death with a dull sense of satisfaction. He was going out his own way. He closed his eyes and imagined himself soaring above the crowd into the heavens.
At the last second, the back end of the travois hit the edge of the precipice and was smashed to pieces. Billy was flipped up and over Samson’s head. He landed with a sickening thud on the steep hill. His mind only comprehended one thing; impending doom as a dozen sets of horse hooves tore into his helpless body. He felt, rather than saw, a horse looming over him and he braced for the violent impact. That impact never came.
The looming horse was Samson, and in Samson’s last act on this earth, he stood and protected his master’s body with that of his own. Like a rock in the middle of a stream, Samson stood and took the blows of horse after horse. The blows which would have torn Billy to pieces were instead impacting on the brave horse’s body.
Some of the riders were able to steer their horses around the obstacle in their path. Unfortunately however, most riders could not avoid it in time. Over and over, Billy felt and heard the ugly wet sound of flesh striking flesh, as horse after horse slammed into Samson at full speed. Samson took each blow with a determination that seemed impossible to keep up. He shielded Billy’s helpless body with every ounce of strength he had. To Billy it seemed that the punishment Samson took went on forever. Reality was that it was all over in the course of 10 seconds or so but in those 10 seconds, dozens of flailing hooves cut the horse to pieces.
Suddenly the sounds of the race moved downhill from Billy. A couple of the last riders had been able to rein their horses up short of the plunge and those two riders immediately forgot about racing and rushed to Billy’s aid. Billy sat up with their help and it was apparent that he would be alright.
Samson on the other hand was not so lucky. Scores of open wounds covered his body which bled freely. Billy shook off his two helpers and crawled to his horse. Samson’s head was on the ground and as Billy crawled to him their eyes locked. One set of eyes was tearful and knowing, the other set of eyes had already begun to glaze over. Billy hugged his horse’s head with one arm and pounded the sand with the other. He had seen enough dying animals to know that Samson’s time left in this world was short. As he watched an ever widening pool of blood stain the sand, he felt a hand touch him lightly on his cheek. He looked up and saw Carolyn at his side. He noticed her official smock which read “Race Veterinarian.” He also noticed her black bag of instruments and medicine. No words passed between them as Billy nodded towards the bag. Tears streamed out of Carolyn’s eyes as she nodded back. She knew what needed to be done. Swiftly she withdrew a hypodermic syringe. A quick plunge of the needle into the horse’s neck ended all of his suffering.
CHAPTER 23
The race that so nearly ended Billy’s life really wound up saving it. All of the townspeople and tribal members who witnessed the event that day would be forever changed. Never in the history of the tribe had a horse and rider acted with such courage. He went from being an anonymous cripple, to a beloved hero.
After the race Billy reconnected with his father. The two became a team on the road. Wherever Burt went with his big rig, Billy rode along as the navigator. Billy had plans of taking over his dad’s driving spot whenever his father decided to retire. The 18 wheeler could be remodeled and adjusted to accommodate Billy’s condition.
Carolyn eventually became the head veterinarian and owner of the clinic in Omak. She had a guest house built next to the clinic where Billy stays whenever he is not on the road. They both continue to love and care for horses. They even own two horses who are Samson’s brothers. The courageous horse’s attitude is carried on in their genes.
Whenever the Colville tribe gets together for their annual Pow-Wow a good portion of that time is spent honoring Billy and Samson. The tribe had a bronze statue of the horse made. It sits proudly above the river. It permanently keeps watch over the race course.
During the ceremony, both Billy and his father now sit in the highest place of honor. The elders have given Billy a new name too. The name “Goes Ahead First” is a testament to their pride in Billy’s will, determination, and the bravery he showed, in the Suicide Race.
Author’s Note
The inspiration for this book came from a story I heard about an Indian who lived in the 1870s called “Useless Legs.” He was a native of the Blackfoot tribe in Montana who at the time were the most feared Indians in the west. Useless Legs, like Billy, had been injured and as a result was unable to use his legs. He got around by using a travois. He was generally looked down upon by the men of his tribe.
In one of the tribe’s last battles against the US Army, the tribe found itself having to attack a long line of dug in U.S. troopers in order to escape. The situation looked grim because the Blackfoot warriors would have to take enormous casualties in order to make their escape. Suddenly, Useless Legs, who had been left in the rear to watch the ponies, appeared. He was riding his travois and he raced it in a dash parallel to the Army positions.
He went back and forth several times as the troopers fired round after round into him. In the end his body was cut to pieces by the trooper’s fire but his brave ride gained his tribesmen enough time to escape. From that day forth the name Useless Legs was never again used when referring to him. Instead the tribe honored him by giving him the name “Goes Ahead First.” Like Billy, he will ride forever in immortality.
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