BAE BOY

2-16

Kendall frowned and said, "So, okay...why didn't he get any points again?"

I handed her watermelon "water" back-no soda anymore-and said, "Cause the guy on the horse broke the barrier before the steer cleared the chute, sort of. You have to hold your horse 'til the steer runs out, and then you can take off."

"So, the steer gets a head start, sort of?"

"Yup, if you do it right."

She sort of frowned and nodded and said, "Well, I guess that's fair."

"Uh, oh. You gonna call PETA on us or what?"

She gave me a smile and took a little sip.

And then she said, "I used to think it was cruel until this one guy in that Future Farmers of America thing at school showed me how they did the same things working the cattle on a ranch every day. To give them shots and stuff, they had to rope them and flip them over like that. So it's basically just making a show out of stuff the ranch hands had to do anyway."

Rick turned to look at us-we were in this special box up by where the announcers sit, of course-and said, "I'm starting to like this girl more and more every day."

"Well, to be fair, it can get a little shady sometimes," Duke said, just to lend some balance to the discussion.

He was sitting next to me and two girls down from Aisha. I was watching him and Aisha like a hawk of course. But they were playing it real cool, which impressed me, actually.

And when Kendall asked him, "Like how?" he took a swig of Corona and said, "There's just some contractors and rodeos that don't care for their animals all that well. I never wanted to be a contractor for that reason, me."

"Traitor in our midst," Rick said.

And Duke shoved him upside the head and said, "Well, they use cattle prods'n' straps and stuff to make 'em run and buck. How would you like to be treated like that?"

"Cattle prods, eh?" Rick said. "Could be kinda kinky in the right situation."

I laughed, thinking back to an earlier conversation. And Mike said, "Are we talkin' about foreplay again?" giving Rick another shove.

Duke leaned toward Kendall to point at the steer roper guy heading back to his horse after tying down a calf.

"As long as the calf doesn't get up, he's probably gonna have the fastest time so far," he said.

"So that's why his horse is so still?"

"Yep. Tryin' not to drag 'im or get him riled up. Cause they're not tied all that tight, so sometimes those little suckers just roll over and run for it."

"He's being good," Kendall said, watching the little calf lie there nice and quiet for the required seconds. And when the cowboy doffed his hat and the crowd cheered, she yelled, "Good boy! Girl! Whatever!"

I threw an arm around her, gave her a little squeeze and said, "We seem to keep runnin' into the same problem all the time, huh? Girl, boy, whatever...."