Meredith's Story

OUTSIDER | MEREDITH ~ Meredith Montgomery was studying interior design in California when she met Dan Wilson. She and a roommate visited a nearby dude ranch that featured a small rodeo reenactment show. Dan picked her out of the audience to demonstrate how the good guys caught the bad guys in the wild west.

He carefully explained how to ride the horse around the arena. He didn’t know she was from Oregon—the rodeo town of Pendleton, to be exact. She played dumb, asked a lot of questions, acted afraid of the horse, and did her best to fluster him. He told her all she had to do was ride the horse slowly around the arena, and he’d do the rest.

When the time came for her to ride the horse, she gave the horse a stealthy kick and started screaming as the horse raced around the arena. Dan took off after her, tried to lasso her but missed twice. Tried to rescue her from the horse, who just happened to dodge him every time. Then once, when Dan got good and close, she threw herself into his arms, and they both tumbled to the ground. She let him take the blow while she rolled to the side and hopped to her feet.

At first, the crowd gasped. Then she threw her arms up and did a full bow. The stands exploded into applause, thinking it was all part of the show. Dan lay on the ground and stared at her. Then he got to his feet, dusted himself off, and took a bow. After a couple more bows by both of them, Dan whispered to her, “I want to see you after the show.”

“Whatever for?” she said with a coy smile. She shook his hand and walked back to her seat.

The end of the show couldn’t come soon enough for either of them.