Boots and Diamonds[2]

I’d been up since four, same as every festival day, hauling crates of peaches and jugs of cider out the back of the truck before the sun had even decided to commit to rising. By the time the crowds started rolling in I already had sweat ringing my hat and my braid coming loose at the end, same as it always did by midmorning. Didn’t bother me none. I liked this kind of work — the kind where you could look at the end of the day and see exactly what you’d built. A stand standing. A line of folks waiting on cider. People walking off happier than they walked up. Down the strip a ways, past the funnel cake stands and the rodeo pens, somebody’d set up a whole different kind of operation — white tents, glossy as a magazine, with a line of photographers already three deep before noon. I didn’t pay it much mind. Wasn’t my world. I had peaches to sell and a gate latch to check on the cider stand, and that was plenty to keep a person busyI heard the bull before I saw it, and I knew that sound the second it hit my ears — that low, furious bellow an animal makes right before it decides the whole world’s done it wrong. By the time I turned, it was already two streets up and coming on fast, knocking over a popcorn cart, flattening a row of chairs, sending grown men diving into hay bales like they’d never seen four hundred pounds of angry beef before. I didn’t think. Wasn’t really a thinking kind of moment. I was just already moving toward my horse, already building a loop in my rope before my brain caught all the way up with my hands. That’s just how I was raised — you see trouble, you go toward it, you sort the rest out after. I came down that strip at a dead gallop, and that’s when I saw her — a woman standing dead still near the white tents, purple hair, fancy dress, looking like she’d tried to run and her shoes wouldn’t let her. The bull was bearing down on her like she was the last thing standing between it and however far it meant to run, and she wasn’t moving. Couldn’t move, by the look of it. I hollered, loud as I could, hoping to pull that bull’s attention even half a second my direction — and it worked, just enough. I threw the loop, watched it drop clean over both horns, and wheeled my horse hard left, bracing with everything the farm had ever put in my arms and back. That bull hit the end of the rope like it’d run into a fence post. Staggered. Bucked once. And then it just stood there, snorting, beat, not ten feet from where that woman stood frozen solid in her fancy shoes. Nobody said a word for a second. Including me, if I’m honest, on account of I was still catching my breath.“You alright?” I was off my horse before the dust even settled good, looping my rope back round the saddle horn like my hands needed something to do that wasn’t shaking. She looked at me like she didn’t quite have the words ready, which I gathered later wasn’t usual for her. “I — yes. I believe so.” She checked herself over quick, like she was making sure all her pieces were still attached, then looked up at me proper. “You just — you rode in and lassoed a bull.” “Folks do that where I’m from.” I tipped my hat back, on account of I was getting my first good look at her too — purple hair done up in curls that must’ve taken somebody the better part of an hour, a dress that probably cost more’n my truck, and a face that was equal parts shook up and about the prettiest thing I’d seen all festival. “Name’s Applejack.” “Rarity.” She smoothed her skirt down with hands that weren’t quite steady yet. “Then I am eternally grateful you happened to be from there.” About then a fella came running up — her brother, turned out — with a whole pack of photographers right on his heels, cameras already lifting up toward me and my horse like we were the main event of the whole festival. Never much cared for getting my picture taken. Didn’t mind it so much that day, long as she was standing in the frame too.They got the bull back to its owner, who looked a sight more embarrassed than the bull did. The fancy tent got back to business an hour late, and from what I heard, that silver dress of hers sold for more money than I make in a season — partly ’cause it was a fine dress, I expect, and partly ’cause every paper in three counties ran a photo of her standing next to me and that bull like it was the most natural thing in the world. Come evening, once the crowds thinned out and the lanterns came up, I found her sitting by herself at the edge of the strip, shoes off finally, bare feet right there in the grass like she’d never tried such a thing before. “Didn’t peg you for the barefoot type,” I said, setting two cups of cider down before easing onto the curb next to her. “Desperate circumstances.” She took the cup with both hands, looking me over proper now there wasn’t a bull or a camera in the way. “I don’t believe I caught your name, given the chaos.” “Applejack.” “Rarity.” She laughed, easy, like she meant it. “I suppose we’re a matched set of unlikely names.” “Suppose we are.” I looked out at the lights a minute, then back at her. “You did good today, by the way. Standin’ your ground like that, even when you couldn’t run. Takes nerve.” “I should think you’re the one who showed nerve.” “Ma always said there’s more’n one kind of brave.” I shrugged. Wasn’t looking for a compliment, just saying what I saw. “Yours just comes in heels.” She got quiet a second, studying me — my hands wrapped round that paper cup, my boots worn soft from years of actual wear, however unhurried I was about most everything. I got the feeling she wasn’t used to being around folks who didn’t rush. Didn’t seem to mind it none, though, far as I could tell. “I don’t suppose,” she said, careful, like she was trying the words out before she let ’em all the way loose, “that farm girls and fashion designers have much occasion to see one another again, once the festival packs up.” I turned my cup over in my hands a minute, taking my time on it, on account of some things deserve thinking through proper. “Reckon that depends,” I said, “on whether either one of ’em wants to make the occasion.” She smiled then — not the kind I figured she gave for cameras. A real one. “I believe,” she said, “I’d very much like to.”

Rarity: Applejack, darling, I hope I’m not interrupting anything terribly important. Applejack: Just mendin’ a fence post. Reckon it can wait a minute. Rarity: How dramatically rustic. I called to say the photograph of you and that bull has now appeared in four publications, and I’ve had no fewer than three clients ask if you do appearances. Applejack: Tell ’em no. I got cattle to wrangle, not cameras. Rarity: A pity. You’d photograph beautifully if you ever stood still long enough. Applejack: Funny, comin’ from somebody who couldn’t move at all when it counted. Rarity: That was the shoes, and you know it. Applejack: (laughing) Sure it was. Rarity: …I was wondering, actually — and stop me if this is forward — whether you might let me return the favor for saving my life. Dinner, perhaps. Somewhere with chairs that don’t require a tetanus shot beforehand. Applejack: That an insult to my festival or an invitation? Rarity: Both, I should think. Applejack: Then I reckon I’ll take you up on it. Long as you don’t make me wear shoes I can’t run in. Rarity: Applejack, I would never dream of putting you in heels. Applejack: Good. ‘Cause if a bull gets loose at your dinner, I ain’t sure I can save us twice in one week