That Damned Old Rodeo

Dixie’s sheepish expression warmed a little as Dallas stood in front of her. She took a half step back as he lifted from his chair, her eyes lifting. She herself was a tall woman, and it surprised her a little that he had some height on her. Everything about his appearance took her a little off guard. She was pretty sure no matter how many times she met up with him for supplemental information or follow up interviews she would be shocked to the core that it wasn’t a small, bent over old man in her company. Perhaps a little rudely, she stared at their hands together, her left hand lifting automatically to hold his hand between both of hers. She was a warm person, the gesture was natural for her, and her mind was much too consumed with the surprise that his handshake felt firm and strong despite his true age.

“And ma’am is my mother,” she replied with a gentle twang, a warm smile spreading across her features. “Dixie will do just fine for me, Dallas.” She made a point of using the name he had requested, letting go of his hand and smoothing out her skirt a little, a nervous habit. Her eyes flickered back upward when he said it was a pleasure, and the thin, gentle smile returned to her features as she peered up at him. “I could say the same myself.”

In the next moment she was digging through her bag trying to find her wallet wherever she had carelessly tossed it in in her hurry. “Oh, are you sure? I had planned to get a drink myself and really it’s no trouble,” she babbled into the gaping opening of her purse. “Consider it a thank you for meeting with me, really, I’d be more than happy to—I swear I put it in here this morning.” By the end she had trailed off and away from her offer and was talking only to herself. She stood up straight again figuring she might have an easier time of finding the wallet once her supplies had been dumped from the large bag.

“I’ll need a moment to set up,” she told Dallas, pulling a notebook and a small device out of her bag. She nodded toward his seat again, mumbling, “Please, sit,” as she settled down into the chair across from him. Her thin hands flipped through her notebook until they found the page where she had already begun compiling notes about him in a neat, loopy script. Carefully, she placed the device between the two of them and caught his eye. “Would you mind if I recorded our session today? I’ll be taking notes by hand as well and I’ll be more than able to work with those, so whatever you’re comfortable with is fine.”

Dixie waited until Dallas had had time to consider and give her answer before handling the recording device. She folded her hands primly in front of her and gave a small nod. “Alright, Dallas, we’re on the record now. I’d like you to know that at any point you have the right to end the interview,” she explained in a careful tone. “You don’t owe me anything, so I want you to know that you are at liberty to choose whether or not you want to answer any of these questions. If you find I ask you something that you don’t care to speak to, I accept that—no explanation or apology necessary. You just let me know and we’ll move right along, alright?” She had looked him right in the eye as she explained all of this. For this journalistic project, it was one of the most important parts to her. These were people’s lives she was probing into, and she did not take it light or for granted. “Share what you’re willing to, you still have a right to your privacy.”

The woman sat back a little, visibly relaxing after the somber disclaimer. Pen in hand she was poised to ask her first question. She wanted to start the interviews off slow and communicate she saw her subjects as people who shared her humanity. “First question,” she said, eyes flickering away from her page of notes to check up on Dallas, “How are you doing today?” She waited politely for him to have a chance to answer. Some people laughed at her when they got this question, but she had always felt it was polite to ask and a suitable warm up for both journalist and subject. “Unless you have something else you’d like to begin with, I think it might make sense to first talk about your early life? When and where you were born? The family structure, early education, anything you remember from childhood. Does anything stand out? This session will be very… broad.” It took her a moment to think of the right word, her twangy accent a little thicker when she finally thought of it. “Think of it as me gathering a survey of your life, whatever you’re willing to share, that is, to reflect on and think of deeper questions to explore in our next session.”

Dallas wasn’t sure Dixie was ready for what she wanted to hear. In fact, the way she stared at their hands only reminded him that people had a tendency to treat him like a relic when they first met, but he had no doubt Dixie would shake off the shock. It didn’t bother him, it simply reaffirmed the fact that he had done so much in his life that nothing really surprised him lately. Perhaps the only thing that would truly change him would be finding his soulmate, and his isolation on his farm left little room for that to happen. He preferred to almost keep it that way instead of join things that were made to “help” find your soulmate in the world.

Her flurry of words as she searched through her purse actually made a smile tug at Dallas’ features. She was kind, that much he could already tell. It wasn’t very often that he found someone genuine, and already he felt more at ease with her. He sat down once she finally did, placing the hat snug on his head once more as he got comfortable into the booth. They were going to be there for a while, so Dallas figured getting slightly more relaxed wasn’t going to harm anyone. “Nah, miss’m. Y’can do whatever it is y’think is necessary,” he said quietly, looking at the recording device and figuring it would be better if she did. His accent could get thick at times, and the last thing he wanted was to have to repeat things too many times and say it incorrectly.

Dixie’s disclaimer about the interview made Dallas look up to meet her gaze again. The words were nice to hear, especially because he wasn’t sure he could make it through the whole interview. Reliving one hundred and twenty years of life was not something he did fairly easily, and he could overwhelm himself just at the thought of making things worse for himself. “I understand, Miss Dixie,” he agreed after a moment, meeting her gaze with something akin to gratefulness. 

“I’m real nervous,” he said immediately, furrowing his eyebrows as his gaze dropped down to her notebook. Dallas couldn’t see if anything was on the page, but it didn’t bother him at all. He knew she had spoken to others; thoughts about whether or not they were older or younger than him crossed his mind, but that information wasn’t for him. Dallas knew he wasn’t alone – there were many in the world that were older than him, and they’d been on the news every now and then. Many didn’t make it long enough to reach their soulmate. There was the idea that maybe your soulmate hadn’t been born yet, and waiting to find that one person out of billions was taxing. Dallas had stopped looking a while ago, and now he was resigned to his fate that would eventually swallow him whole. He had no intention on telling that to anyone, not until someone found him one day and had a burial spot for him in Arlington alongside the men he fought with in World War I. 

It had been a while since Dixie Rutherford had gotten her first writing gig. There were dozens of magazine articles penned by her in numerous respectable magazines, she didn’t have to worry about too much white space on her resume, and she was pretty sure she had more magazines offering her a spot on staff than she had ever applied to work at. She was a seasoned, published writer and a competent professional. She was also nervous as hell.

Freelance had always been a term that scared the woman, and now it was her reality. She had stepped away from her cozy little world of assigned articles and a corner office in favor of a sabbatical to write out her passion project that she hoped someone would pick up. TIME would be nice, she thought, or National Geographic if they cared to pick up this sort of thing. It was jarring to her that she was chasing down a story about something much deeper than fair trade coffee or humanely harvested leather. The topic of the article had been like an itch she couldn’t scratch since she had noticed her comfortable domestic situation with Mark was too comfortable—no aches, no bad knees, no grey hairs, no again.

The two of them had let denial be a comfort to them for too long. They had created a routine and the silent agreement that came annually to wait one more year in hopes of a grey hair or crows feet came more than once or twice. Finally, it was time to face the fact that their arrangement, albeit comfortable, was not a true sign of compatibility. That, and Mark’s infidelity made it unbearable to stretch the denial out a few decades of partnership. Dixie had loved Mark, but it wasn’t enough. Parts of the relationship was real, but more of it was fabricated and convenient.

Dixie had decided to live more genuinely, and that was a lot of what had lead her to quit her job and pursue the topic of the new work she was compiling interviews for. It was going to be a piece on exploring the lives of those whose waits to meet their soul mates, or even longer if she was able to find them. It was her passion project, but the idea also terrified her. She was secure with the lack of income and she had the drive to execute it, but she was afraid of who she might meet, what she might feel, that she didn’t have the necessary sociology or anthropology backing to pull it off, and that even if she did, despite all the barriers, no one would care about the writing anyway.

But here she was anyway parking her car in front of a rustic looking café. She had chosen the café specifically due to its location in the clean outskirts of the city and the relaxed atmosphere it provided. Her hands fumbled her purse and she huffed out a small sigh as she recollected the belongings that had spilled across her passenger seat before stepping out. She was meeting somewhere here for only the third interview she had set up for the project. A Dallas Landry. From what research she had gathered he was far into the elder side of the spectrum. When she had spoken to him on the phone his soft spoken, young sounding voice had caught her off guard. As she tentatively stepped into the café she found herself looking for an older man at first before she remembered that despite his age he wouldn’t look a day older than herself.

It was that disconnect she was so fascinated by. She wasn’t sure exactly how old he was, she wasn’t able to access the records. It was one of the first questions she intended to ask him, but it was also the heart of her writing. What was it like to move through the some of the most perennial moments of the world with the same body and consciousness and have decades of wisdom already? To watch those around you grow old and leave you behind, not once, but generation by generation? And the apparently limitless time, how would one fill it? And what would happen when one ran out of ways to fill it? She had had pictures shown to her that broke her heart, heard stories that warmed it again, and her reflection reminded her of her own empty heart that pushed her to work on the piece. She was barely 50 years old, which more widely was pushing the older side of things waiting to meet a soul mate, but she wanted to tell the stories of the outliers, the ones who had been waiting much longer than herself.

The crowd in the café was spotted with a few older couples, but most were young. Dixie wondered how many of them knew and which of the couples were waiting for that telltale sign of aging. There was only one person seated alone, their back turned to Dixie toward the middle of the seating area, a few plush arm chairs and a couch set up around a fire that was always lit, summer or winter, rain or shine. She held her work bag close against her side as she approached them, a nervousness bubbling up inside her. Interviews made her work powerful, but interviews often made her feel powerless.

There was a shyness to the woman as her eyes locked with a pair of bright blue eyes and she knew looking at them that they didn’t match the man’s young face. “Are you Mr. Landry?” she asked anyway, sticking out a hand for him to shake. She hoped she wouldn’t notice she was nearly shaking herself. “I’m Ms. Rutherford, we spoke on the phone… Can I get you anything to drink before we begin?” She glanced over her shoulder at the barista behind the counter, still standing awkwardly in front of the chair where her subject had chosen to sit.

World War One was his life. 1918 was the year Dallas Landry considered himself dead to the rest of the world. Sure, his body might still carry on and forward, but his mind never had. It was the bloodiest time to be alive, but Dallas wasn’t sure that’s what he would call living. He’d been young, 18, when the war had started and he had been thrust into the trenches of Europe. It wasn’t pretty, and it wasn’t anything like the movies wanted it to be. He had been just another soldier, and with his uniform still folded and placed back in the safe in his closet, he felt like he’d never left. 

It was strange to live a life solely to meet someone to complete it. Fate had thought it was funny, but Dallas definitely did not. Too many times he’d buried a platoon mate; their bodies being lowered into the ground at a ripe age of 60 since they’d met their soulmates before or after the war. He’d watched countless flags get folded and handed to their soulmate, as the person gave heartwrenching sobs at the funerals. Dallas had left them just as numb as he’d arrived, wondering when he’d finally be put into the ground to rest. 

If there was anything one could tell by the man, it was that he was tired. His life was normal, at least, as normal as he could make it. He had never been asked to serve in World War II, or in Vietnam and Korea when the times had come. Dallas was past his prime, despite the fact that his body remained there. He’d met a few people over the years, gone as far as to sleep with them with the idea that he’d recognize his soulmate in an instant, but nothing had happened. No spark of life was reignited in his mind, and he’d left just as broken as he’d appeared. 

This interview was supposed to get things into perspective for him. He’d been contacted by a woman who had obviously done her research, and at this rate, all Dallas had was time anyway. His life on his little ranch was quaint, and the small town had kept him afloat the past few years. He was still paid by the government for his service in WWI, and he added that to his salary of breeding horses and rounding up cattle every now and then. Dallas had no family. They’d left him a long time ago, and it wasn’t like he could try and start one without his soulmate. He was trying to do good by the world still, a world that needed all the help it could get as of late.

The café was just as small as the town, and Dallas had been in there enough to recognize the people who came in there frequently to the strangers that were just visiting. He’d found himself an empty booth in the back, pulling his ball cap down slightly to tame his curls that only seemed to cause him more harm than good. Older women fretted over them, and half the time Dallas was older and felt like a child again. He wanted to be done with life sometimes, but he wasn’t a quitter. Instead, he lived his lonely life and dealt with it whatever way he could. Therapy or no therapy. It wasn’t until blonde curls were in his peripheral that he looked up, meeting a shade of blue that matched his own, “Ma’am,” he said slowly, standing up to take her hand and pull off his hat, “Please, sit. ‘N you can call me Dallas. Ain’t no one called me Mr. Landry in quite a while, miss’m.” 

There was still a large, conscious effort on her part to keep so much of her disorder under wraps, to keep it hidden from him as she tried to support him and herself.  She was hurting herself again, and that was what sent up the red flags in the back of her mind. It was never purposeful and never a coping mechanism. The harm she did to herself was always symptomatic of her rituals and compulsions, but there was a desire growing in her that had been there with her in that dark patch after Mark, when her thoughts were clouded enough that taking her own life felt like an option. Trying that again didn’t make sense now, and she doubted it ever would again, but she felt like something large and inescapable was building back up inside of her, and the intrusive thoughts that came with her particular diagnosis were more frequent and disturbing by the day. Dixie, of course, felt she could tell no one about this without causing them burden.

The woman giggled softly at the shocked look on his face. She guessed she could have asked him to diffuse a bomb and gotten the same reaction. “Hey, slow down there, cowboy,” she cut in as he described potential trees with about the same vigor as One Fish Two Fish. “We pick one out from the farm a year ahead’a time. It’s a tradition we keep goin’ right after Christmas and a little before New Years. You just gotta go and tell them you’re there to pick up the Rutherford’s pick for the year. They’ll cut it down and bring it to you, strap it on to the back of your truck and everything. Tell them that Dixie sent you, it’s already paid for and all, so don’t you let them tell you otherwise, okay?” She eyed the man carefully to make sure he really was okay with the arrangement before repeating directions how to get to the tree farm and walking him to the door to send him on his way.

“Be careful driving, you hear?” she warned him in a fake stern voice as he began to step outside the front door. Once his back was to her, her arms shot out and grabbed his arm. An instant panic that she might have alarmed him rose up in her, but all that came out was, “Be careful driving.” It still felt wrong, and she repeated for a third time, “Be careful driving”, before she could even stomach the idea of letting him off to run his little errand. She stood in the door way ignoring the cold wind whipping her hair around and snowflakes catching with her eyelashes feeling ashamed and embarrassed, but somehow better after repeating the phrase for the third time.

The time that he was gone picking up the tree was a godsend. A terrible, bleach-scented, three-times over godsend. She worked in an absolute fury to work the place three times over with disinfectants and wipes and sprays. Then, it was her turn. She was amazing their wintery little cabin could produce such scalding water, but she scrubbed herself near raw three times over before she was satisfied. She dressed in a hurry and redid her face, worried Dallas might notice the irritated redness of her skin and the splotches from the too-hot shower water.

Every inch of her skin prickled and stung, but it was a price she was willing to pay if it meant she felt clean. Dixie tiptoed back out toward the wide, open living room to see if Dallas had made it back and set up the tree in the stand she’d laid out for him. Dixie slipped a classic Christmas CD in the player. She glanced at the ornaments not remembering there having been so many before. The idea of decorating the tree after her cleaning sprint wasn’t exactly welcome. She was already exhausted and ready to welcome sleep, but she’d sooner be damned that allow Dallas to catch any lapse of enthusiasm from her.

Dixie following Dallas’ lead just barely aware that she was being guided around the grounds. She felt so wrapped up in him that he probably could have lead her right into the pit himself and she wouldn’t have noticed.  “But so could you,” Dixie pointed out in a gentle tone, one that came from what she had to imagine was displaced concern. She didn’t really know this man, it couldn’t possibly have been for him she tried to rationalize. “That could happen to you too, and brain injuries—I mean—you brain, your mind, it’s… isn’t that everything?” She paused for a moment, pens and notebooks far from her train of thought. “Why do you still do it?”

The woman wasn’t sure whether or not she was supposed to take his patting his vest as an invitation to touch it, but she did. She held it between her fingers, pinching it slightly to see what the texture and durability was like before trailing her manicured fingers along the patches sewn into it. She lifted the corner of one that didn’t seem to be sewn on so well any longer. “I could fix that,” she offered, knowing that with a needle in thread in her hands she could likely make it work. She pulled the tip of a finger over the letters of his last name last, reminding him, “You didn’t tell me if it was heavy or not.”

Dixie’s light blue eyes settled on the glove in Dallas hand as he held it out to show her. Ever someone to look with her hands, she pulled it off of his palm and examined it, listening to his little explanation for it’s use. She pulled it onto one of her hands, flexing and unflexing her fingers for a moment before making a little face. “It’s sweaty,” she half giggled, looking at her thin, straight fingers poke out of the holes with plenty of room to spare. She examined the palm of his hand next, without taking the glove off, cradling the back of his hand in one of her own hands and dragging her fingers along his palm. She turned his hand over, looking at his fingers for a moment, their twists and their calluses, before pressing her gloved palm to his bare palm to compare the size of their hands. “Think I’d be any good at this sort of thing?” she giggled, pretty sure she knew the answer.

A little wary of making sure none of the dirt that was now on his sleeve got onto her suite, Dixie hooked arms with her new found cowboy friend. She had to step carefully to keep from getting in anyone’s way or stuck herself. She felt like a pretty big idiot showing up the way she had today, and she would have felt comforted that Dallas was so friendly about it if she hadn’t looked even more out of place next to him.

“Oh, well, I don’t—not that it doesn’t sound nice,” she stuttered trying to grapple with his sudden hospitality. She didn’t want to say no, but she was also a little too vain to stuff a bunch of napkins down her front or to walk around with a bitch sauce stain for the rest of the day. She felt the head in her face rise, noticing now how many people really were looking at her. She looked good, she knew that, but she looked stupid as hell in the current setting, too. A moment later, her heel was stuck in a soft spot on the earth, and she jerked back a little from him not having expected to have gotten stuck.

“I have,” he answered eventually, holding open his palm to show a few fingers that had been obviously broken, “Bull stepped on my hand once,” he curled his fingers into a fist before dropping his hand to his side. Dallas wasn’t really keen on showing people his bull wounds, but he at least had never gotten a serious head injury. “I got a couple cuts on m’torso. Broke a few ribs. Cracked a bone ‘r two. Ain’t like there’s much we c’n do t’stop it all, Miss Dixie.” He answered her, knowing the dangers of the sport. However, others, like himself, used the rodeo as their only source of income. Dallas couldn’t afford hospital bills after every single injury, but there was no need for Dixie to know all that. “Y’do it for the thrill,” he gave the typical, journalism answer, forcing a slight smile on his face. 

Dallas followed her gaze down onto his vest, huffing out a laugh, “Ain’t that heavy. Not when y’get used to it. But s’pretty light now that I’ve had it on for so long.” He felt a flush hit his face when she traced his name, and he tried not to stammer, “I don’t know, Miss’m. Maybe with a bit’a pract’ce, y’could be as good as me,” he joked, smiling a little bit more at her since he found the reaction easy and light. Most of the time, he didn’t talk too much to others, but with Dixie’s arm against his, it felt all the more natural. 

However, when Dixie started to obviously freak out, Dallas found himself at a loss as well. He reached out to grab her elbow, simply so she wouldn’t lose balance as she moved to put her shoe back on, “Dixie– Miss Rutherford, y’gotta be careful. I ain’t–” he eventually let go of her, and he moved a hand up to fix his hat that had been slightly tilted when she’d gotten stuck. “Uh...” he tugged it off, putting it against his chest, “S’been m’real pleasure, Dixie. Y’really gotta leave, though?” he asked slowly, looking far more like the lost child he actually was than before. “If it’s uh...the food...they got other stuff ‘round here that’ll be better if y’ain’t really into ba’bacue.” He was fishing for something, maybe anything, to get the blonde journalist to stay, but if she wasn’t comfortable, he didn’t want to pressure her.

The smile on the woman’s face faded noticeably when Dallas admitted he’d forgotten his stocking, or maybe just didn’t think to pack it. She hoped he wasn’t under the impression she was insulted or angry, because though she was upset it wasn’t for either of those reasons. Truthfully, she felt a little sad he’d be lacking representation up on the mantle, but she recovered as quickly as it took for a bright little idea to pop into her head. “That’s okay, sugar, we can share mine,” she suggested, pecking him sweetly on the lips. “Cuz mine’s got a D for Dixie, and yours would need a D for Dallas. We’re the double D!”

Dixie forced a very serious look on her face when Dallas asked her to be honest, though it still had a bit of silliness around the edges. She could never quite strip it entirely, she felt pretty affectionately toward the man. She nodded a little. “Okay, Dallas, you asked, so I’m gonna be straight with you,” she told him. She lifted a hand to rub his upper arm, but there was no part of her hand not irritated enough be the cleaning chemicals to comfort him with. It felt like the fibers of his shirt were pulling at her skin, hurting it, so she just rest her hand there instead. “Mama doesn’t drink much, but she’ll still thank you for the bottle, because with her it’s always the thought that counts. So, if she doesn’t drink any, it’s not that you did wrong. But Carter will love it—and Mom will love that you thought to do anything in the first place.”

Dixie’s footing shuffled slightly when Dallas bumped into her, but she just glanced back toward him with a gentle patience rather than any sense of annoyance. “Sorry, Sugar,” she apologized quietly before glancing back at the stair case. She knew the fact she was hung up on something must not have made any sense to Dallas. It made no sense to the logical side of herself, but there she was anyhow. The woman hadn’t realized how quiet she had become until Dallas half begged her to give him some sort of directions. When she looked back to him she saw quite easily something she never wanted to see. There was an element of alarm in him, though probably mild at this point, but she recognized it nonetheless and its presence made it a little more clear why meaningful connection was such a long shot when she wasn’t well—and she was rarely well. She felt guilty immediately.

“Come here,” Dixie directed, her low voice little more than a whisper. She lifted a hand, gesturing for him to come to her in a relatively benign command as if he needed assurance she wouldn’t hurt him. When Dallas came close enough she drew her arms around him slowly, though she was quite tense at first. After a few seconds she dropped her head against his chest, the familiar smell of him having an allover affect on her, causing her muscles to relax and the flurry of thoughts and needs in her head to slow down for the moment. “I’m sorry,” she told him, meaning it with total sincerity. “I’m slow to settle in, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to upset you.” And she was upset with herself too, because it was obvious she was getting worse and not better, and she didn’t know what to do about it.

He was as horrible at shopping as he was at cooking, but the truth was, he had no idea what he was supposed to get Dixie. Dallas’ thoughts about presents and the cliché bottle of wine he had brought for Dixie’s parents were interrupted by the quick peck on the lips he had gotten, giving him a half dopey smile as he looked back at her. “Double D, huh?” he snickered a little, shaking his head.

When Dixie told him to come closer, he only did so after a brief second of hesitation. Dallas already knew he’d have a hard time saying no to Dixie when it came to anything in their life, and he took her hand when she gave him the go ahead. He would be lying if he said he wasn’t nervous, but Dallas didn’t want to do something wrong – especially since he didn’t really know what the hell was going on inside Dixie’s head. He wrapped his arms around her, resting his chin on her head and taking a deep breath as he held her against his chest. Dallas didn’t say much to her apology, unsure if he was even supposed to accept it or tell her that one wasn’t even needed. He settled for kissing the top of her head, “I ain’t upset i jus’...I jus’ ain’t too sure on what t’do,” he finally answered quietly, pulling away to rub the back of his neck. 

Even if the entire competition and premise of a rodeo wasn’t something Dixie neither knew about nor had participated in before, she couldn’t help but to feel a sort of buzzing excitement well up within her chest. It started low in her stomach the moment he began to walk away, flooding upward by the time he mounted the twitching, thrashing beast. The moment the gate opened Dixie’s heart was in her throat.  

Dixie wanted to cheer for him, but realized she didn’t exactly know how. She had been so completely and totally wrapped up in their conversation during the interview that it half surprised her that anyone else was in the stands to begin with. She definitely hadn’t been watching their actions for some sort of model or social cues. This, of course, was secondary to the fact that she felt absolutely immobilized with both excitement and fear over how Dallas’ performance on the bull might go. For Dallas the entire ride might have flown by, but for Dixie 8 seconds may as well have been eight minutes, and long minutes at that. Finally, the man disengaged from the massive bull. Dixie could have sworn she felt some part of the impact too as Dallas slammed into the pitch, She flinched from her seat up in the stands. 

It was next to impossible for Dixie to believe Dallas was alright. He stood up like nothing had happened at all, but Dixie knew she probably would have felt like she’d been hit by a car. She couldn’t blame him for not walking halfway up the stands to come collect her again, but she did have to wonder who he thought he was making it harder for him. The moment he tipped his hat to her her heart felt so light it might float away and her legs feeling like jello were no help in getting her down the bleachers either. So much for a professional relationship.  

“I can’t believe you just did that.” The answer came out before Dixie even realized she was saying it, and certainly before it went through any sort of filter. She felt a little bad, but how anyone could last a single second on that animal, even inside the pen, was beyond her little bird brain’s comprehension. She looked at his arm, but didn’t take it, shaking her head quickly, her hair shaking just as much around her shoulders. “Not after that! I gotta ask ya some more questions, and uh… you got-you got a little something…” Dixie trailed off, pointing to the dirt caked side of his face. Something she noticed now, looking at it, was a slightly darkened and pinkish ring shape below the dust. A kiss mark.  

“Have I ever jumped off the wrong way?” Dallas gave a half laugh, masking the fact that he’d much rather walk off with her than stand and talk about himself for much longer. He wanted to hear about her instead, though that was probably going to have to wait.  “Nah, miss’m. S’real hard t’do somethin’ like that wrong. Ain’t really a ‘way’ t’jump on off. S’more like...wherever there’s some dirt, y’just go f’r it. Sometimes y’wanna start runnin’ for the fence as soon as possible if they’re real mean. ‘N that’s how most’a us end up in the hospital. For that reason right there.” 

The questions about injuries made Dallas sober up a bit quicker than he had intended. Of course it was difficult to swallow when he had known people who hadn’t been as lucky as he had. Dallas held onto Dixie’s arm gently, pulling them out of the way of the large crowds that were leaving the stands now that the round was over, “’Course we do,” he said quietly, though that was simply how his voice was anyway. “It ain’t real easy knowin’ that one’a your friends c’n git on up ‘n then come down a completely different person. S’a real surprise they ain’t passed no laws t’make it a bit safer, but it’d be a lil’ impossible t’even try ‘n ride a bull with a helmet.” Dallas patted the chest pad vest he had on, which had sponsor labels all over it and his last name on one of the sleeves, “This helps when we hit that there ground real hard, but I reckon’ s’a little less than we c’n do,” he shrugged, dropping the subject for now.

Dallas pulled off his fingerless glove, placing it on his face up palm to show Dixie, “S’to make sure we got a good enough grip ‘n we don’t tear up our hands too much,” he explained after a moment, “We only need one ‘cause if yer other hand comes down for balance, y’re out. Pretty damn strict ‘bout the whole thing too,” he smiled a little, wiping at his cheeks with his sleeves since he was late to the party with her comment about having dirt on his face. 

She felt sad about it all of a sudden, or at least sadder than she normally did. Her OCD would cause them a lot of things going forward if she continued to struggle to keep it in check. Travel and trips were impossible, even small spontaneity threw her for a loop and made her grossly uncomfortable. Intimacy was difficult, especially so with someone she cared about. There were humiliations about it that she wished to forget herself, but she couldn’t. Instead, she was paralyzed with fear that they would surface with her and Dallas if her mental health continued to deteriorate the way it was—compulsions during sex that had lead to rawness and ripping and blood and intimacy problems because somehow it never felt exactly right, and more likely than not the real heart of the lack of faithfulness Mark tried to hide until he had finished with school and with it his dependency on Dixie’s bank account to pay his bills.

Dixie was too consumed in those bad thoughts and the dark shadows of those memories to really pay attention to what he was doing in the house. The harder she scrubbed the further she felt from the past and the more secure she felt about the uncertainty of the future. As long as things were cleaned right, done properly, felt correctly everything else ought to fall into place, or so said the schema of her broken, compulsive mind.

“Don’t mention it,” she replied breezily. “You’re a guest and this is how it works.” She felt a huge sense of relief wash over her when he said he would put up the tree. Dixie wondered if he would be disappointed that she didn’t plan to help. She could, but if she did it would take well into the morning. Every glistening ornament would need to be cleaned three times over and hung who knew how many times. And each time she placed an ornament on the tree the configuration would bother her. Despite the fact that Dixie loved the holiday season she sometimes had to wonder how the hell she ever survived it in the first place.

Dixie wanted to enjoy the soft kiss he pressed against the back of her hands, but it just hurt. She smiled gently at him, the color rising in her cheeks a degree—she loved the gesture, but it caused her pain. Her hands felt raw and enflamed by his touch, the chemicals causing the skin to prickle and burn. His contact with it exacerbated the irritation, but not so much that she couldn’t swallow any nonverbal signals that displayed her pain. “Did you bring your stocking with?” she asked in a gentle tone. “If you did then we can hang it on the mantle with the rest of them when the tree is done.” She elbowed him, gentle and playful. “You can hang it up next to mine.” She was really wondering what Dallas might say if he knew how hurt her hands felt after only the first of many rooms she would clean that night if she had her way.

He felt like he was intruding on something almost personal with the way Dixie had so quickly thrown herself into her needs. Dallas remained where he was for the time being, listening to her when she answered his questions and only offering a few conversation continuers. He would never really understand how someone could get the way Dixie did, and perhaps that was what worried him most of all. Dallas would always try his best to do whatever she needed whenever she needed it to be done. If he was even going to come close to accepting himself and his life, then that would just have to be put on the back burner until Dixie was able to do what she needed. “Thanks for uh…invitin’ me. I ain’t really spent a holiday with anyone in a real long while,” he was sure he had said that already, but he was compelled to say it once more when Dixie said he was their guest.

The cowboy’s cheeks heated up slightly when she asked about the stocking, and he shook his head, “No, m’sorry, Dix. I didn’t know I was s’posed t’bring it. I jus’ assumed that uh – I dunno, really. But be real honest with me ‘ere. I got y’r parents a fancy bottle ‘a wine. ’N i ain’t really sure if ’s fancy ‘r not. I just went by price ’n what the guy at the store told me.” It was a silly thing to be worrying about at that moment, but Dallas simply couldn’t help himself sometimes. Her comments had reminded him of that, and now he wanted the reassurance that he hadn’t done something royally wrong in his Christmas gift giving.

It was already dark when Dixie finally shut the passenger door of Dallas’ truck behind her and took in the dark outline of her family’s cozy cabin against the moonlit mountain air. It was pitch black, assuring the woman that she and Dallas had arrived before her parents. She fumbled through her purse to find the set of keys she had double, triple, quadruple checked that she had packed feeling exhausted. She could only imagine how tired Dallas must have felt since he had driven. She handed him the keys by the front door to spare him the time it would take her to unlock it seven or eight times before the click would sound right to her ears and the feeling of the bolt locking and unlocking would feel correct against her fingers.

In the truck Dixie had developed a suspicious sort of feeling that made her feel Dallas might have been hiding something from her. She tried to shake it from her mind as she stepped inside, careful to make sure none of the bags they had brought with were left out in the cold, crisp mountain air. With a single sweeping glance her mind began to prioritize cleaning, alert her to threats of contamination, and warn her of the unlikely but somehow real consequences of ignoring the red flags her OCD set off. She felt uncomfortable in an instant.

“So, sugar, why don’t you go ahead and take a seat on the couch, remote’s right there and everything, just get cozy alright?” Dixie directed, touching Dallas’ chest gently with one hand before pressing a kiss to his lips. It wasn’t right. She tried a few more times before it was. “If you give me a bit maybe I can find some popcorn or something but I gotta-“

The woman cut off, already heading across the room to pull open a pack of disinfecting wipes. Everything had to be cleaned three times over in the kitchen, every inch of counter, every chair, the counters, if it was there it had to be cleaned. Eventually she found popcorn, only to find her ability to cook it stunted by the need to clean the inside of the already spotless microwave. She felt exhausted by the time she passed the bowl off to Dallas, but too restrained to actually sit beside him.

“So when was the last time y’all were up here?” he asked, glancing back at her with a brief smile. Dallas knew his poor excuses in the truck would eventually come back to haunt him, but the last thing he wanted was his life ruining the nice weekend he was supposed to have with Dixie and her parents. He hadn’t felt a part of anything of the sorts since he last met Dixie during this time of year, and even then a box of candy canes had been a pretty pathetic gift in his opinion. Dixie had gotten him a stocking, something he hadn’t really had before in his years of life. Christmas hadn’t been a large holiday for him at all, and even when he had been sent from family to family, a couple gifts here and there from the nicer ones had always been written down in the book he had kept. Emergency homes weren’t exactly in good cheer when it came to Christmas.

He turned his attention onto Dixie when she placed her hand on his chest, and he gave a dopey grin when she kissed him, kissing her back each time she did so. Dallas placed their bags down, walking towards wherever Dixie had wanted him to go. He felt that it would be a lot easier to do as she asked of him, especially since he could see her running off without finishing her thought process. 

Instead of sitting, Dallas put his hands in his pockets, deciding to be nosey while Dixie was otherwise preoccupied. He mosied over to the fireplace, looking at whatever pictures and other small things that there was. He listened to Dixie just in case she said anything, before he eventually made his way back to the couch, taking the popcorn bowl that had been thrust at him. Dallas grinned slightly, putting a couple pieces into his mouth before winking at Dixie. “Y’know, darlin’, y’re allowed t’take a break ‘fore makin’ me comfortable,” he told her after a minute, setting the bowl down onto the table. He put his hand on her shoulder, squeezing lightly, “I don’t mind puttin’ up the tree. Ain’t ever done that ‘fore,” he shrugged with a smile, taking her hand and placing a kiss on her knuckles. 

“Is it sort of a natural born talent then?” Dixie asked. She was genuinely interested, but diving head first into an answer he seemed more proud of also seemed like a fantastic out to her previous blunder. She stopped her writing an in instant, the first time her pent had come to an abrupt halt the entire interview and looked at him. Her blue eyes settled on his face for a moment, exploring the features. “There’s a lot more to life than money and a home,” she said, fully aware that neither had been things she had ever been left to want. “Like, there’s always love… and enjoying your job. Good dessert!”

“Well then enlighten me,” she grinned, relaxing her posture to listen to his second explanation. She nodded as he went on displaying her understanding, although her features always gave away her confusion. A little pout or the knitting of her brows despite her intention usually betrayed her, but this… this she understood. “So, when that big old bull and those eight seconds are finished with you,” she asked slowly, “how in the Sam Heck are you supposed to get off him?”

“I’ve been to Wyoming,” Dixie told Dallas in a smooth, soft voice. The notebook and pen in her grip seemed to have been long since forgotten. She smiled, a little giggle punctuating the expression. “There’s nothing in Wyoming, you might end up being the only thing out there.” She listened with a particular curiosity, though carried on taking notes when he explained how they got the pulls to actually buck. She nodded down at her paper to show she was interesting. “Well, that’s a whole lot better than what I heard happened to ‘em to get them riled up, but I don’t want to say what I heard from someone outside the business. It’s not delicate.”

Standing in front of him, her eyes locked onto his hand lingering in the air between the two of them for a second. Dixie realized that she was anticipating the touch, a hopeful anticipation. But he pulled his hand back suddenly, as if her face had translated some sort of sense of dread. It must have—they looked like two entirely different people from different worlds, which was exactly the problem. She was supposed to be on the outside looking in, strictly observing, not wanting to feel the rough touch of his calloused hand. Dixie realized in that moment that she was the scandal in the rodeo.

“It’s what?” she asked softly, trying to decide if she was in too far now to turn back. The attraction she felt to this boy was real, even if it was fleeting. But there was a part of her that wasn’t’ sure if she was able to separate it from the potential of a steamy story. Was she okay with exploiting him? Was it worth it to use, manipulate, lead on for the sake of a couple good pages? And did she want to walk away at the end? It was certainly something far too soon to tell, but Dixie knew better than to think she could make a story of out of this and any potential to build a relationship at the end of it. 

Dixie lowered the notebook, watching the man carefully and listening. She looked away at the giant screen and marquis to confirm that his go was coming up quickly. Her stomach turned in tight little flips, for some reason anxious at how he might perform. “You should go,” she told him quietly, though she certainly wasn’t leaping at the chance to send him away. She looked back at him, smiling a little. She chewed her bottom lip a little to try and disguise the way that her smile was growing. His gentle sheepishness and humility made her fell warm and light on the inside. She wished she hadn’t dressed this way in the morning to project the image she was something and new from the city that he wasn’t allowed to touch. She wanted to level with him, article be damned. It didn’t have to be about Dallas. She’d scrape something acceptable to be published together at the last minute, she always had before. 

The cowboy dropped his hands back to his sides, trying to bring back the confident body language instead of the shy redneck thing he was inadvertently pulling at the moment, “It’s jus’ real early for ya t’be goin’.” Dallas hoped that this wasn’t absolutely boring to the woman, especially since it was more than obvious that she wasn’t one who came to visit these parts on a weekly basis. The thought that Dixie would exploit any part of the rodeo or himself didn’t even cross his mind, and every now and then someone would tell Dallas that he was much too trusting, but he didn’t have it in him to live his life in reckless anger or fear that someone was going to stab him in the back now that he was an adult. 

At her soft words, Dallas hoped that he didn’t look too much like someone had crushed his hopes and dreams. He had to remember to chide himself at certain points in the conversation, and he wasn’t sure why he hadn’t done that to himself yet. However, the smile she was trying to hide wasn’t something Dallas had missed completely, and he held onto that shred of hope that he had convinced Dixie to stay for just a bit longer. He found himself mirroring her smile when she finally agreed indirectly, and he couldn’t help but send a quick prayer in hope that he would actually do well and be able to lead her around as  “winner”. “Well, uh, thanks, darlin’. I–” Dallas lost his words when she kissed his cheek, and if he wasn’t red yet, he definitely was now. The dopey smile the cowboy was now showing off was real as he looked back at her, slowly making his way down the bleachers. 

Dallas felt more confident than he had before, especially now that he had a lady watching him. It was different than having just a plain crowd that was looking for fun entertainment, holding their breath as each cowboy got saddled on top of the next bull. Everyone would be on the edge of their seat waiting for the buzzer or for the man to get thrown off. With Dixie up there, Dallas felt like there wasn’t anything he could do to make him lose. 

He forced himself not to look back, pulling on his gloves as he flexed his hands. Taking a couple of deep breaths, he made his way to the back of the pens, now out of sight of the bleachers and the many people that were crowded into them. The guy before him had been thrown off four seconds into his run, landing with a hard thud on the dirt before he got up and got the hell out of the ring. Dallas vaguely remembered which bull he had pulled for the round, fixing his hat. He heard his name get called over the loudspeaker, taking a glance at the board when his stats were brought up. Dallas fixed his padded vest, making his way over to where the cages were set, his own bull ramming into the sides of the very small space they had temporarily put him in so Dallas could get on. He felt his friend slap him on the back, and he gave a half smile before he lowered himself onto the bull. 

There was silence that was almost deafening to Dallas, since the only thing he focused on was the raging animal beneath him that was slamming into the gate. He gave an imperceptible nod to his friend, who pulled the line to send the gate swinging open. Dallas gripped the saddle with his hand, his knuckles already white as he went along with the bull. There were points for style, something he idly forgot to tell Dixie about. The eight seconds went by rather quickly for the man, and when he heard the sound of the buzzer striking the 8.0 seconds, Dallas pushed himself off of the bull, getting a mouthful of dirt as he landed on the ground. He quickly got to his feet, jogging away as the bull gave a couple more bucks before running back down the shoot to the pen. 

“Well then how did you go on and get wrapped up in this sort of life?” Dixie asked as a follow up question to his answer. “Did you grow up in it? It’s a little hard to imagine someone waking up just deciding this was the life for them and then really pursuing it, or really even seeing it from day to day and wanting to do it. That’s probably just me though. I don’t get the appeal of it. Where’s the reward in it?”

Dixie scribbled at her notepad diligently, taking notes in short hand with a passionate looking scrawl. She stopped suddenly, her brows knit together, completely perplexed as she looked at Dallas. “Then what happens if you’re on the bull right about the same time and he’s bucked the same number of times? I can’t imagine this is much of a sport for calling it a tie, and I don’t care how many placed it’d put me behind, y’couldn’t get me back on that bull for a redo.”

“Where was your first championship then?” Dixie asked, hoping it might lead to some sort of interesting thread to pull on and weave her story from. She tried to ask thoughtful questions, but only heard herself asking incredibly generic space holders for fluff pieces. Maybe this assignment wouldn’t be her diamond in the rough after all. “What’s the worst experience you’ve ever had during a championship? Have you been injured before? Badly? And what happens if you get hurt again? And where do the bulls come from anyway? Is it always the same ones once you advance to a high enough level? And, I promise not to go all PEETA , mortality crusader for animal rights, but… Well, what do you door to the poor things to get them so angry and aggressive in the first place?”

Dixie looked halfway to alarmed when it was obvious this Dallas Landry character was making an effort not to laugh openly at her. “That’s… it? That’s the whole reason right there?” She was completely dumbfounded. It was a good enough reason for anyone else, but she was pretty sure if she used that quote in a draft at any level her editor would set fire to the piece and demand she pack her desk and go. “Aren’t you good at anything else, too?”

“No, miss’m,” he answered once he found his footing once more. The basic questions were easy enough for him to do, and Dallas could feel his confidence rebuilding after he had stumbled oh so gracefully through her response and smile. “I ain’t been here all m’life. I started when I was about seventeen. ‘N I was real good at it. I aged outta the foster system ‘n this is where I ended up. Rodeo’s like a real big family t’me, and it really ain’t that bad a life at all.” He rubbed the back of his neck and shrugged, another small smile on his face, “Same as e’ryone wants in life. Money ‘n a place t’live.”

The question was easily misunderstood, Dallas realized a few moments after she had about the bucking and the seconds. He had to find an easier way of explaining it, though through his accent, he was sure it was easy to miss, “Y’misunderstood me, darlin’,” he leaned forward, pulling his knees towards him to rest his arms on them, “If a bull’s got a high buck count, it done means that no ones been able t’stay on ‘im for eight seconds. ‘S a record of a sorts. One bull might have 20 consecutive buck-offs, ‘n when someone manages t’stay on ‘im for the eight seconds, his count goes on down back t’zero,” he explained, waiting to see if she finally understood or had any other questions, way too enthralled in her expressions to realize he had called her “darlin’”.

“’M first championship was down in ‘Bama, ‘n then we made ‘r way up on t’Wyomin’. S’a real nice place up there. ‘Reckon I’d like t’stay up there one day. Whole lotta land; ain’t a lot of people,” Dallas gave a crooked grin at his comment, wiping some dirt off of his hands on his jeans, only to look back at his palms and realize he was only getting them dustier. The questions came at a rapid fire pace, and Dallas’ eyes widened almost comically as he tried to keep up with the pretty journalist and not get lost in her sweet hint of an accent and blue eyes. “Worst experience, well I–” he cut off as the next question came, and he patiently waited until she was done before he hid his laugh with a cough, biting his bottom lip to knock off his smile, “I’ve been hurt before. Only a couple times I landed in the hospital. All of us ain’t bull-proof, that’s a helluva fact. Broke a couple ribs once; got a nasty head wound. S’all the normal stuff we gotta deal with.”

Dallas glanced down at the bulls when she mentioned them, taking in the different tags on their ears and how they all seemed pissed off enough to run everyone over. “They’s been bred t’do that, miss’m,” he patiently responded. “Bulls ain’t meant t’be ridden. S’why they get so hell bent on gettin’ us all off of ‘em. There’s also a flank strap we put on ‘em. Just a little bit’a pressure when we get up on their backs, ‘n when we’re off, the pressure lets off. Don’t harm the animals ‘r nothin’. Kinda like a bridle on a horse; puts pressure on their mouth when y’get on ‘em, but it ain’t nothin’ they can’t handle,” he finished, looking quite satisfied with his response, especially because he knew how upset people could get about animal cruelty. 

The cowboy’s grin simply got wider when Dixie asked if he was good at anything else, though he didn’t get to answer when she suddenly got up, stammering something about how he needed to be focusing. His heart seemed to leap out of his chest for some odd reason, and he felt the need to swallow back the harsh bite of disappointment at her haste to leave. Dallas wondered if he had said something to set her off, and tried his best to listen to her hasty words and how she was trying to pack up like the rodeo was on fire. He had stood almost immediately after she did, reaching out a hand to touch her before thinking better, pulling it back against his chest like he couldn’t bear to smear any sort of dust or dirt on her gorgeous figure, “Wait – I ain’t – I swear it’s...” He rose an eyebrow at the show of her putting the notebook between them like a shield, gazing at it before looking back up at her. Dallas knew he could be selfish, but this felt like a whole new level. It was most likely that this angel would walk right on out of his life when she realized that a rodeo wasn’t as exciting to housewives as she had hoped, but he didn’t want it to end just yet.