By Chance: Day 5

Word Count: 30,014

Summary of Events:

Steele's rodeo photographer friend Shai and her dad Alder came by Steele's place with an offer to drive him out to his workplace to get his truck and fill out paperwork required to report the accident to the worker's compensation board and other people who needed to know for official or insurance reasons. In addition, since his foster father still had the stuff he'd bought to bathe sitting down while he'd recovered from his leg injury, Alder and Shai offered to take Steele there to pick up the stuff since he needed to bathe sitting down in order to keep his knee immobile, during which time Alder and Steele discussed the logistics surrounding Steele's injury…

Excerpt of the Day:

“You think you’re going to get a list of people?” Alder asked.

“I don’t see why not,” Steele replied. “Everybody seems so worried about me, and the further the news spreads, the more people will be worried, to the point that nobody might have the chance to drive me twice, and some might even miss out on the chance to drive me once.”

“Hm,” Alder said. “I don’t quite know about that.”
“After all the fuss about me they made over the weekend?” Steele asked.

“True,” Alder conceded. “But you don’t strike me as the sort who’d accept rides from just anybody.”
“Even still, there’s enough people around here I would take rides from that I might have more than enough rides to where I need to go,” Steele replied. “Especially since I don’t anticipate that I’ll be going a lot of places.”

Alder nodded. “Not that you’ve answered my question though; is it worth the risk of pushing yourself going wrong to push yourself to be good to go at least a week early?”

“I don’t know that I am going to be able to push myself that much at all,” Steele replied. “And I certainly don’t want to go too hard until I’ve got through my prescriptions, because so long as I’m taking them I can’t feel my knee, or, at least, how sore it actually is, so I’m not able to feel if I’m overdoing anything.”

“So then should you even go to the physiotherapist on Tuesday?” Alder asked.

“I want to at least consult with somebody,” Steele replied. “Like I said.”

“There are things that you can’t hurry along though,” Alder said.

“And if I can’t hurry it, I can’t hurry it,” Steele said, letting a little irritation into his voice. “I just want to be able to keep myself from possibly, in any way, physically regressing. I want to be able, once I’m given the green light, to go back to doing exactly what I was doing before I got hurt, as opposed to having to build myself back up to that point before I could even think of maybe going past it.”

Alder nodded. “Okay, sorry to get under your skin like that, I just don’t want you to get any unrealistic ideas, as those could just make things worse.”

Steele nodded, grateful for Alder’s apology, as Alder had been starting to annoy him with his pressing the issue as if he believed that Steele was obsessed with getting to the CFR or something. He certainly didn’t really want to miss it despite his virtually nonexistent chances of winning any money at all — forget the championship — as it was the first time he’d ever had the chance, and he felt that going and competing would at least give him some valuable experience that would allow him to be better prepared for the time when he was able to compete for the money.

Pronunciation:

Shai: shay

By Chance: Day 4

Word Count: 24,042

Summary of Events:

Steele and his coworkers were helping unload cattle from a truck, one of which was a very angry steer who upset a particularly anxious horse one of Steele's coworkers was riding. The coworker got bucked off the horse and hit his head on the metal fence, losing consciousness, and laying on the wrong side of the fence. Steele roped the steer to get him away, prompting the steer to take a run at Steele and his horse, who escaped the blow, but the steer, while still behind Steele's horse, spooked her into running forward along the fence so close that Steele's knee hit a fencepost. As a result, once the steer had been taken care of Steele accompanied his unconscious coworker to the hospital, from which he was actually discharged and allowed to go home one his injury had been treated…

Excerpt of the Day:

Carefully Steele removed his crutches from under his arms and set them down on the stairs so that they slid down to the landing. He then used the solid railing on either side in lieu of crutches and made his way down to the landing, where he adjusted his crutches to slide them down the second flight of stairs before he hobbled down after them.

At the bottom of the stairs, Steele sat down on the bench that he’d never used before, but he was pretty sure had been placed as a functional decoration by the Czajkowskys, and removed his boots, the left one with his hands, the right with the aid of the boot remover.

He then unlocked and pushed open the door into his area and took up his crutches before standing and hobbling inside, where he placed his boots on the boot rack beneath the coat pegs just inside the door.

Closing the door, he made his way toward the couch and sat down heavily on the cushy upholstery.

After basking for a moment in the comfortable upholstery, Steele removed the white paper bag and teal-green pill bottles from one of the breast pockets on his shirt.

He read the stickers applied to the pill bottles, which not only told him the complex medical names of what he’d been prescribed, but when, how, and how often he was to take them.

The doctor and the pharmacist had both told him that he should take the one immediately upon getting home, but could wait with the other until suppertime. He didn’t want to get up, but he forced himself to do it and took the dosage as instructed.

He then made his way back to the couch, sat down, and looked at his knee. According to the x-rays, he had a hairline fracture of his tibial plateau, which actually impressed the medical staff, who’d expected more damage.

A locking knee brace that was holding his leg at something of a 45˚ angle was, thus, all that had been put on, and he’d actually been released to go home when part of him had expected he’d be staying overnight.

Nevertheless, he was grateful, the only thing was, he wasn’t allowed to drive until the brace was off, and when he’d asked about riding a horse, that had been ruled out almost emphatically for the entirety of the — as far as the doctors were concerned — minimum six weeks of recovery time.

Even though they did admit that hairline fractures could heal faster — as well as healing stronger — than more severe breaks, the medical personnel who’d attended to his injury all agreed that he wasn’t likely going to be able to even walk on his right leg until the six week mark, by which time the CFR would be a week in the books.

Steele didn’t like that news, as the more he’d thought about it, the more he felt sorely disappointed to think that he could end up missing the CFR, and especially because of a flukey accident.

Pronunciation:

Czajkowskys: chaikohvskees

By Chance: Day 3

Word Count: 18,030

Summary of Events:

The Monday immediately after the rodeo, as he'd done every year, Steele immediately returned to work at his winter job at a local feedlot, although he made sure that his boss had him marked as on holidays for the first week of November, when the CFR happened. As part of his job, Steele was given a different horse to ride every so many days, and he learned from his coworker to his immense surprise that the filly he was riding was so valuable she was locked up in the barn at night to ensure she didn't get stolen, and purely because of who her forebears were. He found riding her to be quite enjoyable, leaving him feeling a little reluctant to get off at the end of the day…

Excerpt of the Day:

Standing in the stirrups, Steele let out a quiet sigh of reluctance before drawing his right foot out of the stirrup and bringing it over the filly’s back. He leaned across the saddle seat as he slid his left foot out of its stirrup before sliding down from the saddle. Even if he mounted from the right, he was genuinely more comfortable dismounting from the left, which prompted some people to scratch their heads in confusion as to why, if he, in a way, couldn’t dismount to the right, he couldn’t mount from the left.

Steele draped the reins over the rail and headed into the barn to get the halter and grooming bucket from the tack room. He heard the office doorknob rattle, evidencing that Mr. Winchell hadn’t grabbed it right again.

He was exiting the tack room when Mr. Winchell got the door open, muttering frustrated profanities under his breath.

“That doorknob didn’t want me to catch you,” Mr. Winchell said. “I swear that thing has a will of its own.”

Steele smirked.

“Once you’ve brushed the filly bring her in here and I’ll take care of the feed,” Mr. Winchell said.

Nodding, Steele started off toward the exit.

“Aren’t you going to ask why?” Mr. Winchell asked.

“I’ve already heard,” Steele replied.

“Oh,” Mr. Winchell said, sounding almost disappointed.

Steele carried on to the rail, where he found the filly standing with her head at a low, relaxed level and her hind leg cocked, tilting her hip.

He traded her bridle for her halter and untacked her without her hardly moving a muscle outside of those required to breathe, even as he brushed her, including a vigorous working over the hair that’d been packed into place under the saddle pad and moulded by sweat.

Once he’d groomed her, he carried the tack inside the barn before taking her lead rope and leading her into the barn, where Steele found the stall closest to Mr. Winchell’s office prepared with a clean and cushy bed of straw.

Steele removed the filly’s halter before exiting the stall and closing the door, which he locked, leaving the filly contained securely in the wooden walls of the lower half and the metal bars of the upper half.

He put the halter away and went to the treat area of the tack room, where there was a small bin of oats, as well as a bucket full of bruised apples that the Winchell kids weren’t willing to eat because the bruises were too big or prominent.

Taking up an apple, Steele took it over to the stall and dropped it into the trough that was built into the wall the filly’s stall shared with the adjoining stall.

The filly, who’d been drinking water from the water bucket just inside the door, startled at the sound.

“Sorry,” Steele said softly. “But you should go have a look at what it is.”

Relaxing because the noise didn’t repeat itself, the filly moved toward the trough warily before poking her nose inside. In moments she’d found the apple and bitten into it, taking half of it into her mouth, where she chewed it juicily.

By Chance: Day 2

Word Count: 12,033

Summary of Events:

Steele watched the events of the Hanna Rodeo that preceded his own before going back to where his horse was to get ready for his event, which was the second-last of the night. He went fairly early in the competition and set a time good enough for second place, but with the two ropers he was duelling with for the final slot in the CFR yet to go. The first one, who was holding the coveted slot going into the rodeo, got a time penalty for breaking the barrier, meaning he was out before the calf was released, while the second one set a time only fractions of a second slower than Steele's…

Excerpt of the Day:

Sighing Steele reached forward and rubbed the gelding’s black neck. For being an inferior among superiors, he’d done well, but even though Steele was entitled to greater prize money than the man who’d just gone, Steele wouldn’t get in.

In fact, he’d been unwelcomely presented with the math that told him that if he got third place and neither of his rivals beat him, he would’ve qualified for the finals by a matter of ten cents. If he got second and neither of them beat him, it would’ve been a few dollars advantage, but if one of them got third, he’d be out. If he won and neither of them beat him, it would be a healthy margin of advantage, but if one of them even got third he would be beat by a dollar or two.

As a result, unless the last man to go — who was actually fighting through a minor shoulder injury to finish the season — could get a third-place time, even though he’d do well at his ‘home rodeo’ Steele wouldn’t be in the finals.

Considering he was fighting through a shoulder injury that’d come from being bucked off a young horse he was starting on his farm a couple weeks ago, Steele didn’t anticipate that he was going to be able to come up with the required result, as he’d not done well at the preceding rodeos which had come after the incident.

Nevertheless, he watched as the horse — a chestnut gelding with a broad white blaze down his face and long white stockings up his legs — backed into the corner, then surged forward, the rope sailed through the air, soaring around the calf’s head.

The time was visibly quicker than Steele had expected to see — not that he had, in fact, expected to see a time at all, if he was honest — but Steele had no idea if it was going to be good enough, considering he’d expected the time of his rival to beat him, only for it to fall short of his time by two tenths of a second, not that he did any timekeeping to check against the official timing.

As a result, Steele startled when the announcer proclaimed that the time which had just been set was one scant tenth faster than his own, meaning that he finished the competition down one place from where he’d been, but also pushing the other roper out of the money and sealing his place in the Canadian Finals Rodeo, to be held in just over a month’s time.

This fact was summarily highlighted by the announcer, which prompted a particularly loud and enthusiastic cheer to rise from the partisans in the stands. Steele felt dumbfounded.

The ropers nearest to him in the sideline cluster immediately slapped his back and offered their congratulations, and he belatedly acknowledged the cheering by a raising of his hat before reaching down to rub the neck of the gelding. Somehow they’d actually pulled it off, and Steele couldn’t honestly say that he was entirely processing how it could’ve happened.

By Chance: Day 1

Word Count: 6,063

Summary of Events:

With the second-last rodeo in the books and the chance that he might yet qualify for the CFR hanging on by a thread, Steele arrived in Hanna, which happened to not merely be the town hosting the final rodeo of the season, but also the town in which he lived. Because of his incredibly slim chance of qualifying for the CFR, the citizens of Hanna were quite excited, as it'd been a few years since a local had made it to the CFR, but Steele wasn't particularly appreciative of the attention, which included his being made to go through the Saturday morning pancake breakfast line first as the guest of honour…

Excerpt of the Day:

“Good morning everyone,” the mayor said into the microphone. “We’re about ready to get started. As usual, there’s a bit of housekeeping before we can dig into all this food that’s smelling far too tasty for its own good.”

Steele had heard the same spiel, even if in different words, by different people, and even in different towns before, so he didn’t bother listening. As a competitor, he’d paid for his meal in his entry fee, so he had a meal ticket instead of having to pay cash for the meal like the non-competitors had to, so once he was allowed to, he could go forward, turn in his ticket, grab a plate, and get it loaded up by the people waiting behind the stainless steel chafing dishes on the tables lined up along the front edge of the tent.

Once the preamble was over, Steele stepped forward, accepting a paper plate from a volunteer was taking the job of separating the plates from the stack one at a time — which was something that could be easier said than done at times — then came a sealed packet of plastic cutlery that had a small-looking napkin and little packets of salt and pepper included in it, which Steele shoved into his back pocket beside his wallet.

He then proceeded down the line, taking two golden pancakes onto which he set two little packets of what he was pleased to see was genuine butter, versus margarine, as even if margarine was quicker and easier to thaw and spread, butter tasted better by a vast distance.

After about a minute, during which he watched the guy in line behind mutter profanities as he both fought to get the dollop of butter out of the packet, and then to spread it over his pancake, Steele opened his butter packets and poured the butter out. It wasn’t fully melted, but it was at least softened, allowing him a much easier time of spreading the butter around his pancakes before adorning them with syrup and carrying on, to the appreciation of two guys who’d skipped the butter and taken only syrup, who’d actually been prohibited from carrying on until he did so.

Next was sausages, bacon, and finally eggs that Steele could tell weren’t just eggs, they had milk or something in them, as they looked wet still, as opposed to dry-but-moist, as he liked his eggs.

Then came the drink options. Steele chose orange juice before walking off to the picnic tables laid out in about half the parking lot for people to dine at. A woman he knew was a member of the group that organised Hanna’s rodeo waved in an attention getting way.

“We have a table for you,” she said.

Steele barely suppressed the loud groan he wanted to utter, and was only able to keep from rolling his eyes until he’d fallen into step behind her, when he rolled them hard. He didn’t feel like the pomp and circumstance was justified until he was coming back to Hanna as the reigning champion or maybe the season leader.

November Novel Essential Information

Novel Title: By Chance

Time Setting: 2021

Genre: Life

Minimum Word Goal: 90,000 

Timespan: Late September–October

Location: Hanna, Alberta

Main Character: Steele Henningsen

Background Information: 

Born the only son and child to his parents, whose names and occupations he never learned, he lived with his parents only until he was five years old. At that time his father murdered his mother and he fled the house to preserve his own life, being taken in by neighbours who handed him over to government custody shortly thereafter.

As a result, Steele was sent to a foster home, where he lived until he was ten, when an interaction between one of his fellow foster children and one of the biological children of his foster parents prompted the authorities to remove all the fostered children from the family.

Steele was sent to a couple who had one other fostered child, and whose biological children were adults. Having developed a defensive nature in response to overzealous extroverts and bullies in school, Steele ended up coming into conflict with his new foster parents because they were very strict and expected him to be an impeccably-behaved child.

Thus, they were displeased when he came into conflict with overzealous extroverts and bullies at his new school and reacted just as he had in his old school, as well as being upset when he rebelled against their other strict demands, including that he not go randomly wandering about outside, which was something he’d always loved doing, finding solace in the quiet and isolated surroundings of nature after spending long days at school surrounded by people, even if those people didn’t pay attention to him.

Eventually the conflict with his foster parents prompted him to be transferred to a new foster home that was headed by a man who’d been a police officer until he was shot by a criminal he was trying to arrest, which damaged his leg enough to leave him with a permanent limp and an inability to run.

His foster family enrolled Steele in riding lessons that helped him learn how to trust, as did a friendship he developed with the patriarch of the family that taught the riding lessons, who had suffered in his childhood not unlike Steele had in his.

In addition to being introduced to horses, Steele was introduced to rodeo when he was observed to have a knack with a lasso, prompting those around him to recommend he go into one of the roping events at a rodeo.

Appealed to by the idea, Steele decided to pursue the tie-down roping event, and quickly distinguished himself in the high-school level before making his way into the professional circuit as soon as he was old enough.

Steele is still relatively new to the rodeo circuit, but he’s considered a promising young talent, and going into the final rodeo of the current season, he has a chance to qualify for the Canadian Finals Rodeo, as well as an outside chance — considering he’s nowhere near the top of the standings — to become the Canadian champion in the tie-down roping event.

As cool as that would be, though, Steele is well aware that he’s not likely to become the champion the first time around, and personally would be content with simply qualifying for the CFR to get that experience under his belt before making a more significant championship charge next season.

Inadvertently Entangled: Day 15

Word Total: 90,079

Year to Date: 900,396

Summary of Events:

Pierson struggled to get used to his moustache, and was chastised by the young woman for fiddling with it, lest he give away the fact that he was unused to it. Mr. Nyilas expressed doubts in Pierson and the young woman's idea of Pierson masquerading as a German businessman, owing to the fact that Pierson wasn't supposed to be staying in Hungary for the long term. Pierson and the young woman nonetheless forged ahead, even finding an identity for Pierson to adopt with the help of the young woman's sister-in-law's family. Several days later, Pierson was waiting for Mr. Nyilas to return from escorting the young woman home in some bad weather, which made Pierson anxious of something bad happening, thus he was quite relieved when Mr. Nyilas finally returned…

Excerpt of the Day:

He unlocked the door and let Mr. Nyilas in, glancing at the clock as he did and feeling alarm at the time it displayed, which was nearly forty minutes beyond when Pierson had been expecting Mr. Nyilas to return.

“What happened?” Pierson asked. “Why are you so late?”

“Her parents invited me in for a tea to warm up before I headed back,” Mr. Nyilas replied.

“Tea takes forty minutes?” Pierson asked.

“No,” Mr. Nyilas replied. “While we were having tea a caller came to the back door in need of men, so her father and I went to help, and because of where we were, I made an errand stop on my way back and got this.”

He held out an envelope that looked similar to the one the coded message from Kraków had come in.

Pierson took it while Mr. Nyilas removed his coat, hanging it over two hooks on the coat tree to expose more of its surface area to the warm air of the apartment, that the snow on it would dry up by morning.

Mr. Nyilas then took the envelope back from Pierson and went over to his desk to puzzle out the message, Pierson supposed.

He was going to watch Mr. Nyilas until he remembered that he’d left cards scattered all over the dining room, so he went and picked them up instead.

“Oh dear, did I startle you while shuffling?” Mr. Nyilas asked.

Pierson startled, going to straighten up without remembering that he was under the table, prompting a significant jolt of pain to his head that made him crumple to the floor, grasping at the contact point.

“Again,” Mr. Nyilas said. “I’m sorry, I thought you heard me. Are you alright?”

Pierson moaned.

“Shall I go outside and get you some fresh snow?” Mr. Nyilas asked. “It’s piling up quite thick with all this wind.”

“I should be fine,” Pierson mumbled, carefully moving out from under the table before slowly straightening. He felt a little dizzy, but thankfully not so dizzy as he’d felt at points in Kraków.

“My apologies,” Mr. Nyilas said.

“It’s alright,” Pierson said. “I should survive. What’s that about?”

“Broadway’s gotten back to me,” Mr. Nyilas replied.

“And?” Pierson asked, setting the cards he’d picked up onto the table.

“They’re aware of the Kraków situation,” Mr. Nyilas replied. “And they do still want you to get to a safer location, but, for the time being, you’re to stay in Hungary, and preferably to lay as low as possible.”

“If I lay any lower I’m going to be six feet under,” Pierson muttered.

“I’m well aware of that,” Mr. Nyilas said. “Thus I sent back immediately enquiring if they would permit you to take on a minor role in operations here until they’ve determined where you’re to go from here.”

“Thank you,” Pierson said.

Mr. Nyilas nodded and left the room. Pierson sat himself on a chair, feeling genuinely glad that he’d not only be able to remain in Budapest, but that Mr. Nyilas understood his need to be doing something instead of sitting around.

Next Post: 30 October