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midway."
    The only thing we all agreed on was that we would meet for the nine thirty Oak Ridge Boys show.
    "Nine thirty in front of the fountain," Dan told everybody for the tenth time as we dumped our plates in the trash and headed our separate ways.
    Dan and I wandered our way through the cows, sheep and goats, stopping often to chat with proud parents who pointed out their children's award winning 4H animals, or acquaintances who urged us not to miss something or other. Ladies Lead was starting.
    “ Let’s watch.” I tugged at his hand.
    “ Why do you want to watch decorated sheep?” Dan looked toward the beef cows and tugged back on my hand.
    “ They aren’t decorated, they’re dressed up. To match the girls leading them. It’s a fashion show, showing how to use wool.”
    Dan wasn’t impressed. He led me over to the next barn. “Now, that’s showmanship”.
    A half dozen small 4H boys and girls were showing swine. Or maybe it was the other way around. The pigs were huge, the children weren’t, and the canes they used to tap the pigs in a desired direction didn’t always work. We watched long enough to see to a father jump over the rail with what
    looked like half of an old door, shove it between two pigs who were clearly mortal enemies, and jump out again.
    “ I’d call that a draw,” Dan said with a grin. We moved on toward the exhibits, and were standing before an enormous selection of portable spas, all churning away, when I saw him.
    I clutched Dan’s arm. "Dan, look."
    "I am." His eyes seemed glued on a blond woman in too tight black spandex pants who was demonstrating the bubble maker.
    "Not her,” I told him scathingly. “Look. My pirate."
    "Your what?" Dan, with more reluctance than I cared for, turned back toward me.
    "My pirate. I ran into him today. He has a very rude parrot."
    The pirate was surrounded by a growing group of people listening to his chatter, admiring his parrots. I pulled on Dan's arm and headed toward them. "Come on. I want to see this."
    Dan smiled broadly but didn’t move any too fast. I practically had to push him forward into the circle where the pirate was showing off his birds, letting them hang upside down from his arms. He put birdseed between his teeth for one of the birds, the rude one I thought, to gently remove. A little girl, about ten, jumped up and down with delight and the pirate put his hand out to her.
    "Here, girlie." His gruff tone didn't faze the child, but her mother reached out as if to snatch her back. The pirate pulled the child a little further into the center of the circle and offered her a bird. Awestruck, she put out her arm and the bird obediently hopped on.
    "Want to give him a treat?" Before she could answer, or her mother grab her, the pirate had placed a seed between her lips. The bird gently reached for it, then squawked and flew back to its perch on the pirate hat. The crowd exploded with applause.
    "How about the rest of you?" the pirate asked after the clapping subsided. "Any brave souls here?"
    He started around the circle, offering the bird. When he came to us, he stopped.
    “ How about you? Want to feed the bird?” He directed his question to Dan. Then he laughed. “Or maybe your girl friend’s the brave one.”
    “ We’ll take a rain check.” Dan smiled but his eyes didn’t look too friendly. Dan had me by the hand and before I knew it we were on the outside of the circle, drifting away from it.
    "Quite an act." Dan glanced down at me, then quickly away. "How did you say you met him?"
    "I didn't. I ran into him this morning, right after I found Rusty."
    "What do you mean, ran into him?" Dan smile lingered but I didn’t think there was much amusement in his eyes.
    "Exactly that. I was watching the horses and didn't see him, and I ran into him."
    "Why doesn't that surprise me?" He thought that was funny. "And his parrot was rude to you."
    "He was." I hadn’t thought it was funny then, and it was getting less funny by the