A/N: My friend Casey told me to write a rodeo chapter, so this one's for you, Case. I had to split it into two parts, though, because it was getting too long! Let me just say here, I have NEVER been to a rodeo, and certainly not one in Oklahoma in the 1960s. I know a bit about thre Professional Bull Rider's Tour, but that's it. I tried to do some research, but if anything here is way off or wildly unbelievable, let me know. (nicely, though ;-))

A million thanks to all my reviewers so far!

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I was shocked that, even as geared up as I was to go to the rodeo that morning, somebody still had to wake me up. Luckily, it was Darry this time, not Soda. Darry was decidedly less violent about it, though the end result was usually the same. While Soda pounced, Darry would tiptoe in and put his face right up to my ear.

"Scout?" he'd whisper.

"Scout?"

Finally, I would begin to stir.

"Scout?" He was patient, but persistent.

"What, Darry?" I'd ask, half asleep.

"This!" he'd yell, digging his hands into my sides and tickling me awake. It always seemed amusing to me that, afterward, he would apologize and be really nice to me. I asked him once why, instead of doing it and then having to apologize, didn't he just not do it in the first place. His answer was, in typical boy form:

"It's just too easy."

He laughed at my response, which was, of course:

"So, how do I make it harder?"

He had no answer for that, so I just learned to prefer his slightly slower attack over Soda's full-on ambush. This morning, Darry was feeling particularly bad about his tactics and, after a minute or so of torture, he rubbed my back while I lay on the bed, face down in my pillow, hoping for a few extra minutes of sleep.

"So, Scout?"

"Mmmm?" I was awake, but would have preferred to not be.

"I have to go to work. Seriously, I'm trusting you to use your head today, out with the boys, OK?"

"Mmm-hmm." I was planning on falling back asleep the minute he left my room. Unfortunately, he wasn't going to accept that.

"Scout, c'mon, turn over." He pulled my arm out from under me and turned me over. I kept my eyes closed against the light.

I could feel him staring so, eventually, I opened my eyes up at him.

"I mean it, Scout. This is a big deal, letting you go with the boys. I need to know I can trust you. And I want you all home by five. It gets way too rough out there once it starts to get late."

I looked straight at him. "You can trust me," I said.

"I'm holding you to that," he said.

I gave him an exasperated look. "Go to work, Darry. I'll be fine."

He rubbed my head and stood up. "I'm counting on that." He stood, cracked a smile at me, and was gone.

I wanted to go right back to sleep, but I could hear the boys in the kitchen, and I knew the next one in to wake me would be Soda, so I got up and grabbed some clean clothes, then headed into the bathroom and showered. I dressed and looked at myself in the mirror, experimenting with my hair, trying my best to not look like a little kid. I would never tell Pony, but I was sort of regretting cutting my hair, because getting it out of my face was all of a sudden a major hassle. I managed to wrangle it back into two pigtails with the aid of a few barrettes Anna had lent me and, along with the pants and top I had picked, I thought I might pass for at least my age. Being short, I couldn't realistically hope for much more than that.

I didn't really have any shoes that would seem appropriate for a place like the rodeo; I mean, it's not like I regularly wore boots or something. In fact, the only person I ever knew who had regularly worn cowboy boots had been Dally, so I just put on a pair of sneakers that I'd had for a while and wouldn't mind getting dusty. For some reason I had this idea in my mind that it would be dusty.

By the time I made it into the kitchen, Soda and Pony had already eaten and cleaned up.

"Ah, there she is, Miss America," Soda wisecracked as I came in. "You're on your own for breakfast, kiddo. We're leaving in ten."

So I grabbed a piece of cake – my family is completely obsessed with chocolate cake – and a glass of milk, and called it breakfast. I was just putting my clean plate into the dish rack when Two-Bit came in. It turned out that, since Two-Bit was coming anyway, we were going in his car. I was plenty glad to have Steve out of the equation. Soda grabbed the portable radio he had from Christmas so we could listen to it in the car (you never could count on Two-Bit's radio) and we all headed out. Soda sat in the front with Two-Bit and Pony, and I sat in the back.

It was so rare that I got the chance to go anywhere lately that even the car ride was fun. I opened the window and stuck my head out, letting the wind wreak absolute havoc on the hair I had fought so hard to wrestle into submission earlier. I figured there must be a mirror somewhere there where I could fix it. For the moment it just felt so good to feel the wind in my face and look at the scenery flying by.

After about twenty five minutes, we pulled off the main road, following a bunch of beat-up old cars and trucks into a dusty lot next to what looked like an old football stadium surrounded by circus tents. I definitely had been right about the dust; the second I stepped out of Two-Bit's car, I felt like every breath I took was at least fifty percent dirt. I coughed despite myself, and wondered how nobody else seemed to notice. Soda flung his arm around my shoulder and gave me the brotherly lecture as we went up to the main entrance.

"So, if anybody gives you a hard time, you tell me or Two-Bit, okay?" Pony looked a little bit offended. I didn't want to tell Soda, but if I was looking for somebody to defend me, Two-Bit was definitely gonna be my first choice.

"I will," I promised.

"Here," Soda shoved a few dollars into my hand. Just in case we get separated, okay? We'll meet back in the main arena if we all lose track of each other."

"Okay…" I said, hesitantly. I'm pretty sure Darry hadn't intended that me being off on my own was gonna be part of this adventure, at any point.

What hit me immediately was the smell. Horses. There was no mistaking it. Soda used to ride and hang around the stables a lot as a kid, and Dallas had always carried the slight smell of horses. It wasn't necessarily a bad smell, just…distinct.

The minute we went in, everyone headed in separate directions. Pony headed immediately for the stands, watching what I noticed were girls riding horses around some sort of obstacle course. Two-Bit headed immediately to where all the girls were waiting to ride, standing in a group behind the gates where the horses waited. Soda headed past where Two-Bit went, into the stables, in a tent behind the main arena, where the horses waited for their turn in the spotlight. I followed him, figuring I'd likely relate better to horses than either Ponyboy or rodeo girls.

I don't think Soda realized I was with him at first. He started at the first bay and went from one to the next, caressing the horses, offering them a taste of hay or whatever lay in their trough and whispering at each in turn about how beautiful or handsome they were, depending upon the sex. They seemed to react viscerally to him, making horse noises and nuzzling up against his touch. I had never really been around horses before and was fascinated.

"Do they bite?" I finally asked, wanting to touch one. Soda turned and smiled to see me there.

"I thought you'd wanna watch, with Pony," he said.

"I wanted to come with you," I said. "Is that okay?"

"It's great," he answered, messing my hair even more. I had forgotten how I had planned to fix it after we got there. I'm sure I looked like a disaster.

"So, do they?" I asked.

"What?" He looked puzzled. Clearly, he had not been listening before.

"Do they bite?" He was looking at me like I was crazy. "The horses, Soda! I want to touch one! Will it bite me?"

He laughed. "Not if you talk to it," he said. "Here," he offered, and pulled over some sort of crate for me to stand on. He looked on the bay door for the horse in the nearest bay's name.

"This one's named Ruckus," he said, standing next to me. "Just tell him how handsome he is, and pet him on the head." I hesitated and Soda took my hand and put it on his nose, petting him. He snorted in agreement.

"That's right, Ruckus, you're a handsome boy, all right," Soda said, taking his hand off mine to feed him some hay. I moved my hand up to pet him on his mane and he stared me right in the eye. I was awestruck. I had never stared at a more majestic, powerful animal in my life. Suddenly I had a profound respect for those people who tamed and earned the trust of these animals, and I felt sad that I would never see Dally ride. He had told many a story about the rodeo, and had mentioned many a horse, and I struggled to remember if he had ever mentioned one named Ruckus. I hoped he had, and I leaned up close to him and whispered in his ear,

"Dally says hi."

Soda caught me whispering to him and said, "Now you're getting it, Scout! You gotta talk to them. They have feelings, too."

I believed him. I walked down the rows with him, admiring them, one after another. I was, again and again, amazed at the feeling I saw in their eyes as they looked up to take in who it was that was admiring them. More than once I stood and stared into their eyes, as Soda moved on. I wondered how, in Oklahoma, I had made it to age twelve without ever really coming face to face with a horse.

As I caught up to Soda at the end of a row, he was knee-deep in conversation with a girl who was brushing her horse. He was leaning toward her in the way that I had seen Darry leaning in toward Alison in the past, and I figured maybe this was what it would take to get him over Sandy. So I made an about-face, re-admired each horse on my way out, and went back toward the arena to look for Pony or Two-Bit. Before I even made it all the way back to the arena entrance, however, I found Ponyboy talking to, of all things, a girl – and a beautiful one, at that- standing next to a beautiful horse in a bay marked "Magnum."

He looked annoyed to see me coming, but I didn't know where else he expected me to go, so I stopped where he was.

"Hey Pony," I said.

The girl he had been talking to turned around. She looked like a movie star. He hair was beautiful, autumn red, and she looked at least five years older than Pony. How the two of them were even talking to each other I couldn't imagine, though she looked slightly familiar.

"Hi," she said, "You must be Scout. My name is Sherry, but people call me Cherry… the hair," she motioned, which only made me think about how bad my own hair must be looking. "Ponyboy told me about you." Then I remembered her from the paper, too, just like Randy. I didn't know whether Pony was smart or crazy, to be hanging around with all these friends of a kid in whose murder he had been involved. I was gonna hope for smart, hoping that if he was friendly with them, maybe they would help him stay out of trouble.

"Your horse is beautiful," I said. And so are you, I thought.

"Thanks," she said. "Would you like to ride him?"

I was shocked.

"No, well… I mean, I would, but I… I've never ridden a horse. I never was really around any horses until just now."

"Well, that's a shame," she said, "Growing up in Tulsa and all. But that's no problem. Magnum's a softie. He likes beginners."

I looked at Pony. I knew he wanted to make this Cherry girl happy, no matter what.

"I won't tell," he said.

"Okay," I shrugged, and Cherry grabbed a stool and put it next to the horse. She just leaped on without the stool, then helped me up, from the stool, into the saddle in front of her. I couldn't believe it. I put my hand down on the horse's chest and felt it's muscles tensing, and it's heart beating, as it walked. She took us outside, where we trotted between the rows of cars, and finally we came back through the bays, where I yelled to Soda, still putting his moves on that girl. He looked up, startled, and waved, grinning crazily when he saw me and realized from my expression that I could easily become as horse-crazy as he was. Then, when he saw the girl behind me, he did an absolute double-take. I had to laugh at what a contrast we must make, me with my dark, messed up, wind-whipped hair and her with her perfect red hair pulled back into a loose ponytail. I was an urchin and she was a movie-star.

"Cherry?" I said, before we got back to Magnum's bay.

"Yeah?" She stopped the horse to listen to me.

"Don't talk about Johnny or Dallas to Ponyboy, okay? It gets him real upset."

She looked down at me and said, "I know. Randy told me about what happened when he went to see him. Is he gonna be okay?"

"I don't know," I answered. "My brother Darry said he just needs time."

"Will he be able to testify in court?" She sounded worried. I wondered if what Pony had to say would help keep her out of trouble.

"I don't know," I admitted.

"Well," she said, signaling the horse back to a walk, "I just hope he's gonna be okay. Your brother's a real nice boy."

I thought I might like this Cherry Valance.

Pony was waiting for us, and helped me down off the horse.

"That was tuff, Scout. You gonna become a rodeo girl now?"

"I don't know, maybe," I said.

"Well, I've seen you play basketball, and if you're half as good at riding as you are at that, then you'd be great," Cherry said.

I was shocked. I couldn't imagine when Cherry could have seen me play until I remembered that sometimes the cheerleaders waited in the bleachers for the buses to take them to the boys' away games. Those were the days we got the gym early, so we were in there practicing while they waited. I remembered now that she was a cheerleader. I remembered seeing the hair, just had never put a face with it. I was shocked that the cheerleaders had ever been actually watching us. I'd figured they just sat there gossiping and doing their makeup until the buses came.

"Thanks," I said. "Maybe I just better stick to the basketball, though."

"Why don't you go see what Two-Bit's up to?" Pony suggested suddenly. Clearly, I had intruded on enough of his time with Cherry. This was the first time I had ever seen Pony even talk to a girl, and, given the fact that it was a girl of this caliber, I was more than happy to take off and let him have a go at it.

"I think I will," I said. "Thanks for the ride, Cherry," I added.

"My pleasure, Scout," she said. "It was real nice to meet you."

"You too," I called as I headed off to find Two-Bit.

Yeah, I thought, that girl is okay in my book.

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