There is a great swooshing silence as every cowboy hat in view is swept from a head and clutched to a chest. The men sitting on the top rail of the bucking chutes blend at once into the background, and the rodeo queen shakes out her curly hair like a slow motion shampoo commercial. Every eye moves to a gate slowly opening on the side of the arena. Just as a tall, quiet horse steps out, carrying a cowboy with red chaps and a gold-fringed flag, the unmistakable voice of John Wayne crackles and booms over the loudspeakers.

"Why do I love her? Let me tell you...." Soon, that quiet horse is galloping at full speed, the flag snapping and the cowboy leaning forward as John triumphantly ends his emotional speech on the qualities of the fifty states. "THAT.....is why I love her!" The horse, cowboy and flag pound out the north gate in a cloud of dust.

I sit in these grandstand seats, too-shiny boots on the rail to keep them out of the grease and spilled pop, and wonder how the woman to my right would have described this evening of Navajo tacos and white horns flashing behind green rails. Sitting down at her cool kitchen table, the kind that is hard and speckled with a metal edge, she picks up a pencil and begins. "Dear Norma, We took the kids to the rodeo last night. They had fun. Someday little Dan is going to be a great cowboy, I can tell. He went to bed in his boots..." And the guy a few rows below me, a Budweiser hatband and great-fitting jeans, what would he have said over the phone, since he didn't look like the letter-writing type? "Hey Steve! I have got to tell you. I went to the rodeo to watch Brian ...yeah, he was there...No! I have no idea how he rode, because I couldn't keep my eyes off this girl. The longest blonde hair and the biggest paint horse..."

"I went to the rodeo." And these people in who-knows-where, Oklahoma or Idaho or Ellensburg, they understand. They understand the hushed anticipation that builds up in the crowd before they open a gate for a bull named Copenhagen's Kid and whatever unlucky guy is on his back. They understand that you don't clap at least until the horse goes around the second barrel, and that you mostly reserve your enthusiasm for after the last turn, when you should "cheer her in, ladies and gentlemen, it looks like its going to be a good ride and......15.7!! We have a new leader in the ladies' barrel racing." They understand how kids that were raised on weekend rodeos go to public school for the first time and come home saying, "Mom! I learned the rodeo song!"

"Well, how's it go, son?"

"Oh, say can you see," he sings honestly, with a little hand across his heart.

My roommate, Lisa, nudges my shoulder, pointing at a cowboy in the arena limping back towards the chutes, his hat in his hands. "What happened? Why doesn't he get a score? He stayed on, didn't he?" Her voice is clear and strong, assertive over the murmurings of the crowd, and several people turn to look.

"Ah...well, to get a score he had to come out on the first buck out of the gate with his heels above the horse's shoulders." The people turn around, satisfied. I am strangely relieved at the opportunity for people to hear that I know about rodeo, even if I have the company of a wide-eyed friend wearing a North Face fleece and clogs. I wonder if bringing her here is just providing fodder for her next paper, one she will effortlessly include half the dictionary in, describing the primal sporting nature of man, or the ease with which the common man identifies with the crowd. I halfway wonder if I will ever describe a bull rider as intransigent.

My eyes follow the halftime show around the edge of the arena. Two riders are dragging a clown on water skis; he is weaving and squatting and desperately trying to keep a straight course through the dust. Cowboys are lined up on the rail, watching and laughing, while the cowgirls sit high on antsy horses, peering into the dust cloud that used to be the clown. My horse had been a dark dappled palomino, and I knew that proud way of sitting high, having done it at dozens of rodeos. Waiting impatiently for my events, taking her out to a field to warm up, riding calmly through the crowd that was milling by the hot dog stands... My dad and I spent summers loading up the horse trailer for long trips, matching tack all hanging in a row, my dog in the back of the truck, and the small-town country station that played the same songs all day.

I wish Lisa would turn and ask how I know about rodeo, so I could tell this to the people sitting around us. My voice would be low and sure and they would pretend to not be listening. But she is smart, like most people at school, and I'm sure her next question would be why I'm not still doing it, so I'm glad she doesn't ask.

My half-eaten nachos in their red-checkered paper tray are slowly coated in the fine dust being stirred up by the team ropers, bulldoggers, and bareback riders. Lisa suddenly speaks up, distracted. "How many events are left? I have that philosophy paper that is due tomorrow..."

"Just one more. Bull riding e it's the best."

"Okay, then I think I will head home as soon as its over. I see Carl over there, maybe he can give me a ride."

They block off a section of the arena with temporary fencing for the bull riding, and the cowboys gather around. Wild bursts of dance music erupt over the loudspeakers with each bull's leap from the gate, and the crowd is on its feet. Lisa has a look of disdain and amusement as she finally notices the people around us. I picture her at her computer that evening, thoughtfully thumbing through highlighted pages, then smirking to herself as she remembers the hat thrown from the triumphant bull rider in the back of a pickup truck, and the fight in the bleachers that followed.

The rodeo is over, and the crowd drains from the grandstands. Carl comes over, and with a quick wave, Lisa's short blonde hair disappears into a maze of tight jeans and tucked in shirts. I jingle the keys in my pocket, trying to decide what to do. I finally start to walk slowly around the back of the arena. The large grass field is filled with pick ups, some towing huge horse trailers, others with coolers and Wranglers on the tailgate. Sheep dogs are leaping and panting on flatbeds, scattering the hay that they are sitting on. Older men are already packing up and driving out, their wives in the middle of the bench seat and long mustaches under the brims of their hats. My professor asked the other day what defined America. Most of my classmates said something like democracy, or liberty, or consumerism. I said rodeo.

"Hey! Speakin' a ugly, how the hell are ya?" I watch a group of cowboys not far from my age bantering with each other, leaning against a truck. They don't seem to be looking at each other, so I turned to see what was the center of their attention. A girl in pants without back pockets is reaching up to halter her horse. Her hair curls down her back and her belt is shiny silver like her hat brim. Wearing dusty boots with a fringe below the laces and pants that fall easily over the heel, she turns and demurely leads her horse out of the stall. She looks up and grins at an admiring comment from one of the truck-leaners, responding with, "Oh yeah, well, at least in my event we can stay on for longer than eight seconds!" A laugh shoots up in the air from the group and they still follow her with their eyes.

I walk through the rutted dust, probably fitting in with my boots and jeans, but not having anybody to go to. Girls are walking up to their fathers, who pat them on the back and congratulate them on their time, and guys are trying to figure out which bar is closest so they don't get lost on their way back to the parking lot after they have danced all night. A few are alone, and they silently load their horses and drive towards the road, getting stopped by a few people on the way who lean through the window and ask if they will be at the next rodeo and maybe offer a place to stay.

If I had a horse, this would be easy. I would throw some hay next to my trailer, and tie my horse up while she ate. As usual, somebody would wander over and say that they couldn't help but notice how beautiful she was, and what an unusual color. In a few sentences, they would know where I was from, where I was going next, and my name. Perhaps an invitation to go dancing, or go get a beer. Their friend would come over, and every one would be at ease, put on common ground by a horse and a trailer.

As it is, the people I am on common ground with in this town all carry around huge books. "Oh, you've read Milan Kundera?" "Did you finish your microbiology homework?" "Hey, do you want to come over tonight for a French study session?" I can see clear across the parking lot even when it is full, because the cars are all compacts, and the only trucks in the whole area come and go with the construction workers. The young men pride themselves on papers with titles like "Montaigne's Vision of Socrates' Perfect Soul," but couldn't change the oil in their Saab if I handed them a filter wrench.

I sigh and walk over to an open stall door. Leaning on the door, I cluck softly at the blue roan in the corner. Ears perk up, and he slowly turns towards me. I rub the smooth side of his neck, up near his ears, and two arms appear on the door next to mine.

"Like him?"

"Yeah. Unusual, such pure color." I turn my head to get a better view of face under the hat. A little older, and his eyes were surprisingly clear for all the dust in the evening air. "I saw a horse like this sell for seven grand once, just because of his color."

"Now where was that?"

"Montana, at the Nile."

"The Nile?! I rode at the Nile last year. Got a one-heel penalty though, woulda won if I hadn't screwed up." His eyes were pointed at the ground. Then he looked up. "Did you ride in the Nile?"

"No...nope." I was in no mood to explain that I had gone there with a boyfriend who claimed to have cowboy aspirations, only to find out he was severely allergic to horses and dust.

"So, did you ride here today?"

"Nope. Just watching. Used to ride, though."

"Oh...why'd you quit?"

I closed my eyes for a moment and thought about how much I wished my roommate had asked that question, far away from a Sunday evening rodeo crowd. She would have understood my answer, but now I had to explain it to a cowboy with beer on his breath and the lead rope for this blue roan in his hands.

"Well, I got a scholarship. Spend most of my time studying, and we don't exactly have a rodeo team..." I trail off and turn back to the horse nudging my arm.

He pushes his hat up for a moment, scratching his head, then pulls it down again, hard. "Right. Too bad. Better load up, Pendleton tomorrow. Black coffee and I'm good to go."

"Well, have a good trip." But my words are lost in the squeak of the stall door and the excited stomping of the blue roan. I don't get a second look from him as he walks towards his trailer.

I watch those Wranglers leave, trying to remember how I ever walked away from this world in the first place. The keys in my pocket are a sharp reminder that I have my own paper to write tonight, and I know that staying here longer will only deepen my sense of desperation, so I put my eyes on the ground and start walking, too.

My windows are rolled down and the music is playing loud when I drive by him in my blue and silver pickup. I can never figure out if the song says, "Whatcha gonna do with your cowboy, when he done saddle up and ride away," or "...when he don't saddle up and ride away." Either way, it seems appropriate to be singing as I drive slowly out of the parking lot, easing by the horses tied up and eating next to the trailers. He is in his truck, settling his coffee into the cup holder or finding the right tape for the night's drive, so I go even slower. I watch him in the side mirror, but he never looks up. As I pull out onto the highway, my gray-eyed dog in the back spins and whines in her bed of hay.