Barreled
A Short Story
By Maryanne Peters

“Barreled - verb - drive or move in a way that is so fast as to almost be out of control.”

My then girlfriend Lisa, was a barrel racer. For those who know nothing about the great American tradition of rodeo, barrel racing is “something for the ladies” – an event where women riders can compete with one another without all the risks associated with riding bulls or broncos. Riders use a quarter horse (bred for speed and agility) to ride out of a gate and follow a clover leaf shaped run around three barrels and back through the gate. The timer on the gate determines the quickest ride and that rider is the champion for that event.

Now, while in proper rodeos this is just for competitive women, both sexes can and do, participate in barrel racing in youth grades, which is how I gained my skill in this event. Sheer speed counts for something when you are roping cattle against a clock in the arena, which is what I did before I broke my back. I was back in the saddle after a few months, but my career as a competitor in serious rodeo was over.

The problem for me was that rodeo was in my blood. As every cowboy says – “Rodeo is not just a sport, it’s a lifestyle”. You can give up a sport but few people are ready to give up their lives. It was going to be hard for me and I knew it. I guess that I was on the edge of depression but it was only biting now that I faced a future that could never see me in front of the crowds again.

Lisa was my girl before the accident, and she supported me through my recovery, but I had a feeling that our relationship would not last. I had changed. It was not just that I had lost weight and that I was strapped into a brace, and that I had not cut my hair since the accident, I knew that a spark had gone out in me when it became clear that I was not going to be a real cowboy any more. I had lost my swagger, as they call it. People said that I did not look anything like the man I used to be. I had to agree when I looked in the mirror. Once a lion I was now a mouse.

I supported Lisa’s continuing participation in barrel racing from the hospital and from my home. I was watching her on TV when she had her fall. Just as I was recovering she was now out of action. It was not a serious an injury as mine, but she was out for the season, and her team, which was our team, was now down a barrel racer.

I guess that we were both feeling sorry for ourselves when she came up with her crazy idea.

“You can ride the barrels faster than me anyway,” she said. “Why don’t you take over my spot. It is time that you got back on a horse and back into the box. Why not do this?”

“Maybe because I ain’t a woman,” I replied.

“Maybe you could be,” she said. “Maybe you should be. Our team can ride this event, and maybe it will help you to get back riding and enjoying being in front of a cheering crowd again.”

“You’re crazy,” I told her. “I couldn’t pass myself off as female – not in a million years.”

“Well, if I prove you wrong in that, promise me you will take my spot,” she said. That was how it all started. That was how I got barreled. I guess it is like being inside a barrel rolling down a hill. You just realize that you have no control and while everything is spinning around you, you can only wait until in stops and the barrel comes to rest.

I had thick longish hair, a style that hung out the back of my Dakota style hat. Her idea was that I should have long extensions woven in, to make the hair a feature.

“You might appear a little boyish, but then we pull off your hat and all those honey blonde curls will fall out, and they will know you are female,” she said. “But we still need to work on your face. Those eyebrows will need to be plucked, and that chin and top lip.”

It all sounded like a nightmare, but I was stuck in that barrel. I had agreed and let go of the reins. She was turning me into a girl, and I was letting it happen. I sat through the hair and makeup and I struggled into the shapewear she had for me, to give me a feminine shape in the saddle.

She said that I needed a girl’s name, and she suggested “Ellie”. She had a full name for the team list the had to be lodged with the Rodeo organizers. I had to train with the team too, and she insisted that whenever I spoke or called out, it had to be in a woman’s voice. That seemed the hardest thing to get right, but I knew how important it was. I felt that I looked the part, and she was right about the hair when it was down, but a man’s voice would blow my cover. I needed to practice and then maintain the voice tone, even when just talking to her.

The day of the rodeo was coming up, and she said that special care needed to be taken to get ready. I had the shape outfit on that included fake breasts that moved like the real thing when I was galloping, and over that I wore jeans that sat tight over my padded butt, a bright pink shirt right and a brand new white hat.

“Don’t overdo it,” she said. “We want a team win, and you don’t have to stand out.”

The problem was that I was competitive. I had broken my back by pushing too hard, and if you had told me then not to overdo it, I would not have listened. Even with the pain that still continued revisiting me on the second run, I put in 110%. I was not a mouse anymore – I was a lioness. I clocked the fastest run of the season, and suddenly everybody wanted to know the new girl – Ellie.

“You have brought this on yourself,” said Lisa. “Now they will want the crowd to see you up close. This is not what we wanted.”

The barrel was rolling even faster. My head was spinning.

Sure enough, the ring announcer called me forward. I tried very hard not to walk like a man. I sort of ran out with my hands up and jumped about with pretended excitement. I said something like – “I dunno where that came from. I am just so excited to be out her in front of all these wonderful people!” I delivered in a squeaky tone that had everybody in the crowd smiling and laughing.

“What are you doing?” said Lisa. “Now you are the crowd favorite. Your life won’t be you own.”

I had no idea what she was talking about. I was putting it on a bit, but what I said was true. I had been told that the arena belonged in my past. I had no future in rodeo after my back was broken. I needed to look elsewhere and forget the cheers of the crowd. But then suddenly, I was back. It was the same crowd but a different event, and in this one I was right up there.

I was barreling on. I was still rolling with it.

There was an evening function and Lisa said that the whole team had been invited, and that meant me too. But it would mean a shower (in private in my case) and a change of outfit. I could wear a nicer pair of jeans and a cowboy shirt, but Lisa suggested a dress with ankle boots, and a different look with my makeup. I went along with it.

The crazy thing is that I knew some of the guys at that party, and they should have known that it was me, but nobody did. One guy asked me if I was related to “that guy who broke his back” (he couldn’t even remember my name) and I said that guy was a cousin, just because it seemed like a good idea. He starting explaining that the accident was all about bad technique. I guess this is what the girls call “mansplaining”, but I had to listen rather than tell him that he was talking about me.

But I suppose that that was the first time that I started to see Ellie as being another person. I think he was right about that ride. Like a lots of guys in rodeo, I guess, the guy who broke his back thought he was better than he was.

“I don’t know how you guys put yourselves through it,” I said to him. “I race hard, but my horse wants to keep me in the saddle. We work as a team. Racing or roping we are a team, she and me.”

I meant it. It put things into perspective. Riding bulls and broncos is man against animal, head to head in conflict. Men love that stuff. Women are not like that. Lisa and I were a team, working to get me back into competition. All the girls in our racing team worked to make one another better. It is the way women work. Somehow it seemed like the right way.

“You rope too?” he said. “You sound like the perfect gal. Do you think you could rope me and lay me out for branding?”

“Sure … if I wanted to,” I said.

He laughed, but he must have told others what I said because another older guy came over to talk to me.

“So, you are Ellie, the fastest girl in the arena … and you can rope steers as well?” he asked. “My name is Garrison Hall, and this is my rodeo show.” I recognized the name, but I had never met him before, or even had him pointed out to me.

“I am just racing at the moment,” I said. “I just like being in the circuit, and being a member of a team.”

“I think that you could add to the spectacle as an exhibition piece, a woman as good looking as you with all that flowing hair,” he said. “People like to see a girl like you doing a man’s job. Women might want to be like you, and men … well, men might want to tame you.”

“Do you want to tame me?” I said.

“Let me see you rope first,” he said with a smile that seemed to make my heart miss a beat. I had never had a single sexual thought about a man until that moment, but looking back it seems to me that the whole evening had served to bring out in me a feminine side that I never knew I had.

The following day I foot roped a calf for him, something that is not easily done. He was impressed. He said that he would pay me to do the same thing in front of a crowd, and it would be done at a time that would not interfere with the barrel races.

For me it marked a return to heart of rodeo, which I suppose is man against beast, but in my case I was a woman.

When Lisa recovered from her injury she could take back her place on the barrel racing team, and I could be “Ellie and her Lasso”. The problem was that being Ellie was no longer a disguise. The team could hide me, but being back in the show meant that there was only Ellie. The man who broke his back was gone and forgotten, like all the other victims of rodeo life.

The time came to tell Garry Hall, but by that time I had been on hormones for months to maintain my feminine appearance. I knew that he would be motivated to keep me on, but I was not expecting his reaction.

“I have to say I am shocked, Ellie,” he said with a sad look. “The fact is that I was becoming very attracted to you, but now I don’t know what that makes me. You are an important part of the show, but I have to say that it is going to be difficult to see you every day, knowing that you are not really a woman.”

“Why would you say that?” I said – I didn’t want to lose my place. “The fact is that women come in all shapes and sizes, and some are a bit more different from others. Perhaps you need to know me a little better before you accuse me of not being a woman?”

He had to agree. It was only a matter of time before he knew me in every sense of the word.

And when I found a man, Lisa did too. It has worked out for us all in the end. I am not sure how long I will keep riding out into the dusty ring, but I will always be where I want to be. I am a rodeo gal, sure and simple, the wife of a rodeo man.

The End
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© Maryanne Peters 2025

Author’s Note: Fictionmania was invited to suggest some scenarios for stories and one correspondent “99889988” sent in a bunch. This was one – “Rodeo cowgirl gets hurt, and needs her brother or boyfriend to take her spot in upcoming event”