After the day I'd just had, I didn't need any encouragement to start tossing back shots at the party Wally took us to.

Private pachanga at this big old barn of a bar just outside one of the tiny towns near the rodeo grounds. And when we got there, the riders and the people who did all the dirty work behind those stalls were whoopin' and hollerin' and stompin' around the dance floor like they hadn't just been flung all over that arena by angry animals all day long.

It was big enough to have a whole restaurant, game and pool room along with the bar part. Took me back to the days when John Travolta made that movie that was like a cowboy Saturday Night Fever and college kids started learning how to Boot Scoot.

Wally didn't like the more modern country music. But Rita fell right into the old school steps he was used to and let the younger folks whirl and twirl around them.

High point of the night for me was busting a gut watching AJ and Ronnie getting spun off one of those mechanical bull things. They'd gone out of style along with that country craze died. And the big bars were converted into big "family fun" joints with all the video games and whatnot.

But some legendary bars survived 'way out in the sticks where country was always more than just a craze. And folks from all the little towns dropped in on weekends to get drunk and disorderly.

This one had a Coke machine outside that someone had shot up for not giving him the soda he paid for. Yeah, that kinda drunk and disorderly.

Our boys were pretty chaotic that night, too. The Patrón hit their dead tired bodies a lot harder than usual.

The Buffalo Trace bourbon Yoli and I had tossed back liquor had the same effect on us, too. It was Rita's favorite, and after we'd tossed back a few shots, Yoli slapped me on the back, crowed, "You go girl," and let out a little whoop as Wally and Rita went Texas Two Stepped by like a couple of teenage kids on their first date.

"I like that woman," I said.

And Yoli said, "He likes 'er more. And your man likes you so much it scares me."

"Cause it's too much too soon, maybe?" I asked her. Trying to focus through the alcohol-induced fog clouding my brain.

She sat back, folded her arms and said, "I got one word for you, baby: Cali-fuckin'-fornia."

I leaned toward her and squinted. "You sure that's one word?"

"Alls I'm sure of is whenever you start doubting this thing, think back to what your life was like back there. Cause right now, you're finally doing what you always wanted to do with a man who loves everything you do right by your side."

"Yeah but I don't even really own that truck, remember. Didn't that first one we got from AJ's people, either. I'm livin' on borrowed...everything. And AJ's ideas."

She raised up a foot and shoved me so hard with it that I almost slipped off my chair. And bellowed, "You know how Oprah got what she got? You know how it started?"

I righted myself and laughed, "No, but you're about to tell me, though, right?"

And she slapped the table and said, "Date with that Roger Ebert guy, used to be a movie critic. Had that TV show with another guy where they'd vote thumbs up or thumbs down, remember?'"

"A little bit."

"Well, he recommended her to some producer or somethin' and pretty soon she was the hottest host in Chicago. And you got that Belle Bondurant tryin'a help you now, too."

"I've had people say stuff like that before. They grin in your face, talk you up and then they see somebody else they like better or that can give 'em a bigger boost in the ratings than you can. Don't forget, I lived with a man whose mind got all twisted up from believing in people like that. Chasing after 'em and being disappointed damned near every time."

Yoli put a hand on my shoulder and said, "Yeah, but I can feel your ship finally comin' in. Can't you see that little tip of a sail 'way out there on the horizon?"

She paused there staring out at that imaginary horizon so long that I waved a hand in front of her eyes.

And then I said, "What if it's an iceberg, though?" My favorite little metaphor again...

She dropped the last shot she'd ordered down into the beer I hadn't drunk yet and cried, "Bombs away and bottoms up! Do it!"

"We have to prep early tomorrow morning, woman! Cut up allat fruit and whatnot."

"Let tomorrow take care of tomorrow—innat what you told me?"

"That's what AJ's mother told him."

"Well, mama was onto something, baby girl! We're here right now! Down the hatch!"

"I needa pee first," I said, squinting around trying to make my eyes work well enough to find some kind of sign or something...

"Lookit them out there," Yoli said, nodding toward Rita putting Wally through his paces on the dance floor. Happiest man on the planet had finally met a woman to match.

I just laughed and plowed into the crowd figuring I'd stumble around 'til I found the Ladies somewhere.

But somebody else found me first.

Yep. That Butch guy let go of the really pretty Mexican woman he'd been dancing with to grab hold of me.

"He rode that bull pretty good, your cutie pie there," he said. "Got the moves, huh?"

I tried to knee him. But he twirled me away and then right back up against his body just as Wally swooped up and did this real slick "exchange" that left Rita where I had been a second ago.

I swear, the booze and the look on Butch's face made me laugh so hard that my very full bladder almost let go.

"B'lieve you'd best get on back to your boy over there," Wally said as he danced me away.

So I said, "I was looking for the Ladies Room when he did that," and he danced me back to the little corridor where the restrooms were and gently twirled me into before heading back to rescue Rita.

AJ was there when I came out—Wally's doing, of course. And when AJ chuckled and said, "Little wobbly, huh?" I knew Wally had wisely kept the full story to himself.

We were heading back to our table when a gang of rowdy ass white guys busted into the bar with a couple of bouncers right behind them.

They were a burly bunch. All muscle and meanness.

And one of them glared at another bouncer who'd fallen in with them and barked, "You sold out, too, now? To them flatheads?"

"What the hell are you talkin' about?"

"You never shut this place down for nobody else before! And they're the only ones got the kinda money might make you do it, right?"

Hadn't heard that word "flathead" for a long time. But some people still called Native people things like that. And worse.

The Natives in the bar tensed up--so did the people they worked with on the circuit. And sensing the rising tension, AJ wound us around and through the crowd toward our table as nimbly as he could, keeping an eye on the mob and bouncers.

But then this guy shoving his way through the crowd like a human bulldozer stepped in front of a little group we'd fallen in with and grunted, "Damn, we got niggers and chinks and I don't know what all up in here tonight—big old buck out there dancin' like 'e owns the place. Handle that, Cody!"

Cody must've been the guy who snatched away the white woman Butch had been dancing with. And the second Butch shoved him for snatching her, we were swept into a full-on, Western movie brawl.

Glasses, chairs and tables went flying—AJ pulled me into his arms looking for a clear shot at the door. But then someone grabbed him by the shoulders from behind and he went all Tasmanian Devil on that poor fool.

No, seriously, he turned into a human tornado. A blur of flying arms and legs that just beat hell out of the dude who'd grabbed him.

I swear to you, it was like a scene from one of those ninja movies where one guy slices up a whole gang by himself. Freaked people out so bad they kind of froze in place. Which gave the bouncers a chance to shove the other jerks out into the parking lot where the cop cars were arriving already.

And as the dude he'd unloaded on sank to the floor all dazed and confused, I grabbed hold of AJ to look at the bruise on his cheek from the only hit that had landed.

And Ronnie ran up and cried, "That was some real Bruce Lee shit right there!"

"Muy Thai," AJ told him. "Company made us train in case somebody tried to kidnap us or something."

I sighed and said, "Well, those guys'll think twice before they mess with anybody again."

And someone behind me hissed, "Anybody like us?"

It was Butch, who stuck out a hand to AJ and said, "Bad mother fucker, huh?"

And when I glared, he winked at AJ and said, "Gave her a little grief about you earlier. Butch Carter. Stock contractor like that guy right there."

He nodded toward Wally, who had just walked up with Rita, who was dabbing at a few scratches on his face with a little bar napkin.

He grunted, "You good, big man?"

Butch wrung a hand and said, "I reckon I gave as good as I got. Gonna hit the road as soon as they clean up some o' that trash out there."

"Well, you be careful on the road, too," Rita warned him.

"This ain't my first rodeo, girl! Lemme go chip in on the damages right quick. So we're not the last ones like us they let in here."

"Best idea I've heard in awhile," Wally said. "Lemme get in on that, too."

"I'd like to chip in," AJ said.

But Butch said, "This one's on me, boys," heading over to pick up that expensive hat that'd been stomped down pancake flat on the dance floor.

"Damned hat cost more'n' the damage will," Wally quipped.

Rita shook her head, watching him go. "I grew up with buttholes like the ones busted in here. That was dinner table talk, sprinklin' names like flathead and wetback and that N-word over the food like table salt. We were white trailer trash--kind you see gettin' chased down alleys on Cops, you know? And insteada tryin'a better ourselves we hadda blame somebody else. Guys'd get so riled up sometimes they'd go out lookin' to bust up every brown face they saw."

AJ glanced down at me and asked, "How could anyone hate this face?"

Which sort of melted my kneecaps, of course. That and the booze, though the fight had pretty much sobered me up.

Yoli gave me a look and cooed, "Oooo, I think somebody's gonna be extra sleepy tomorrow morning."

And she was right about that. Just wrong about why.

Really wrong...