Bucked Off by the Bull Rider

Three weeks before the finals, Jesse Vance gets bucked off a bull named Hallelujah and blows out his knee. The Copperhead charter can't cover a man who won't quit, so the president hauls him to a ranch in the panhandle and leaves him at the gate — a bull contractor's place, eighty head, one bad shoulder, no patience for riders. Jesse is supposed to heal, ride two practice bulls, and go home. Instead he spends ten weeks on the contractor's side of the chute and learns what it costs to keep a bull alive, fed, and sold — and what it costs to want a man like Dell, who stopped wanting anything a long time ago. When the finals come there's a buckle at one end of the drive and a ranch at the other. Jesse takes the buckle. He just doesn't take the score.