Rock Roden loved to bet on anything and got up some small wagers among the men. Being broke, me and Joe and Tom were excused. Big Joe won all the money, and the guns were put away. We repaired to the bed of Charlie's pickup, where a galvanized tub of iced Budweiser in long, brown bottles lay under a gunny sack. The men uncapped beers for themselves; then, after mock debate and dire warnings against telling our mothers, they offered one beer each to us boys. Tom declined, saying he was in shape. Me and Joe figured we were in pretty good shape ourselves, but we kept quiet and thirstily quaffed the proffered suds.

The talk covered topics from shooting to other sports to bicycling, with the two ranchmen and Big Joe curiously examining the Rodens' bikes. Then came the claim that was to change the lives of me and Joe.

Rock seemed to inflate his chest a few inches as he flatly stated, "A man on a bicycle can outrun a man on a horse over a long distance."

I thought Big Joe, Charlie, and Jimmy were going to choke on their beer. I was pretty taken back myself. Joe chewed a stem of tickle grass and looked inscrutable.

A heated argument broke out, the horsemen snorting at the idea of a dude on a pedal machine even being in the running against any decent horse. Rock stuck to his guns (and his bicycles) and said he would pit Tom against any horseman that could be enlisted in a 10-mile race.

"And I've got a hundred dollars that says he'll win," he declared.

Charlie and Jimmy each counted $100 from their wallets, and Big Joe wrote a check. There would be a race. No details were worked out then. Everyone left the caliche pit a little mad. The horse set retired to the Bishop house for a council of war. Charlie Burke took the floor.

"First thing we've got to do is pick a horse and a rider. It won't look right to have a man ride against the Roden boy. Joe and Skeeter can both handle a horse. One of them will do. I got the horse."

Me and Joe raised a clamor. He wanted to ride Nick, his old gray gelding; I nominated Freckles, my little roan. Both were rejected, Nick because he was too old and Freckles because he was too soft and fat.

"I got just the horse," repeated Charlie. "I was down on the Milliron Ranch last month receiving cattle. They gave me this little dun to ride, and he was plumb dandy. Fast, gentle, smart, and tough as a boot. Everybody else had to change horses during the middle of the day, but I gathered cattle on him all day, and the boys out at the place have been using him every day. He's hard and just right for this race."

The next decision was the big one for me and Joe. Who would be the rider? I thought it was kind of cold-blooded when the men put us on a bathroom scale, but that settled the matter. I weighed almost 10 pounds more than the rawhide Joe. He would ride.

Joe cast a look of sympathy at me, and I averted my eyes. Just once, I would have liked to have been the hero. I kept my mouth shut.

The next day, Joe's dad told us he had made the final arrangements for the race with Rock. It would be 12 miles instead of 10, the course being Highway 60 from Hereford to the hamlet of Summerfield, a distance of 6 miles, and return. The bicyclist would ride on the blacktop, the horseman on the soft dirt shoulder of the road. The race would take place on the last Saturday in March, three weeks hence.

Me and Joe were waiting later in the week when Charlie Burke backed his horse trailer up to the corral behind Joe's house. He unloaded one of the best looking horses we had ever seen, a light dun with a dark stripe from the end of his mane to the base of his tail. His mane and tail were the same brown as the narrow stripe. He was a typey quarterhorse with powerful hindquarters, a wide chest, short neck, and trim, clean legs. We could see muscles ripple under his rough winter hair.

And he was dog gentle. After an investigatory circle of his new pen, he walked to me and Joe to let us pet him and scratch his ears. We both rode him there in the lot, bareback and without a bridle.