“I see your shoes. Hold the fence for me and I’ll grab ’em. If I see the skirt, I’ll pick it up.”
“Okay, but be careful. I think I pissed off that cow.”
“I was born a rancher, remember? I think I can handle myself. Besides, it appears you scared her off.” Ben placed his shoe on the middle wire between the barbs and grabbed the top wire of the three-line fence. “You remember how to do this, don’t you?” He pulled the top wire up and pressed down with his boot on the lower wire.
“It’s been forever, but yeah, I think I can handle it,” she said, mimicking his words and adding some sarcasm. She stretched the barbed wire fence open and Ben ducked through.
He stood up. “Hey, you remember that time in middle school when a whole group of us snuck onto old man Fred’s property to play by his pond?”
“Yeah.” She smiled. “I wanted to see the dinosaur prints that are supposed to be in the rocks over there.”
“And I wanted to catch frogs. That was a good day,” Ben said.
“It was until old man Fred started shooting his rifle.”
“Eh.” Ben shrugged. “He wasn’t really tryin’ to hurt anyone. He was being crotchety about us kids trespassing all the time. Everyone still visits his pond. He doesn’t care anymore as long as you don’t leave trash behind.”
“I didn’t know at the time. I thought he was trying to kill us. I was so scared about how much trouble I was going to get into at home.”
“So was I,” Ben admitted. “The old man never even called our parents.”
“Thankfully.”
Ben strolled across the meadow, smiling about the memory he hadn’t thought of in years. He retrieved Maleah’s sandal, but the second shoe was closer to the top of the small hillock, and sure as hell, she hadn’t been lying. A dozen cattle grazed on the backside of the hill and to the north. From the road, you couldn’t see them. Ben moved a couple yards farther up the shallow slope and looked around for the missing skirt.
“What color is your skirt?” he called back to Maleah.
“Dark blue with bright red flowers!” she yelled back.
Ben squinted into the setting sun, searching the hillside, but didn’t see anything but cropped grass littered with cow pies. His gaze lifted and settled on the bull. Ben felt some empathy for the poor guy. Maleah’s skirt was tangled on one horn and draped over the back of his head and down his neck. Ben shook his head at the predicament for both the bull and Maleah.
He’d grown up with Herefords and had known many bulls. Often, they had been like pets for him and his brother. This particular two-thousand-pound bull was out grazing with his breeding group and didn’t deserve to be tangled up with Maleah’s flowery skirt. Ben walked over to see if he could help the dude out.
Maleah called out, “Where are you going?”
He pointed, not wanting to yell and possibly scare the bull into a run, and then headed in his direction.
Most people might think bulls are aggressive and don’t want to be messed with, and it could be true at times, but a lot of bulls were used to people and fairly tolerant of human interaction. They were raised to be so.
“Hey there, big guy,” Ben said as he approached with caution. He’d feel out this bull’s temperament and see if there was any way of helping him out. If not, then at least Ben had tried.
A tickling sensation moved along his inner calf and he reached down to scratch his leg. The bull eyed Ben, pawed the ground once, then twice, and went back to grazing. So far, so good. The bull wasn’t too upset with Ben being in his zone. Ben took a couple more steps closer, but wisely kept thirty feet between them.
“You want that off your head, big guy? I can help you out.” He eased in closer.
The bull ignored him. Another tickle caught his attention, this time on his shin. He ignored the sensation because the bull lifted his head and stared hard at him. His nostrils flared slightly. Ben listened to the bull take a snorting breath.
He wasn’t ready to give up yet. “How about I get that silly skirt off your horn, hmm?” Ben kept his voice and heart rate calm as he walked a little closer. “Easy there, big guy. I’m here to help.”
Throughout his life, Ben had approached cattle in every type of situation. This one didn’t belong to his family and wasn’t used to his scent or the sight of him, but he wasn’t too worried. Especially when the bull wasn’t showing signs of aggression. Ben now had the attention of the nearby grazing cows, and they were curious and wary of the stranger in their pasture. They kept their eyes on him.
When Ben was within fifteen feet and the bull hadn’t started walking away, he thought he might be able to pull off this miracle. The bull turned his head and eyed Ben as if suddenly deciding Ben was challenging his territory. He’d seen that look before, and it wasn’t good. The bull snorted. Snot, bits of grass, and dirt huffed out of his large nostrils.
Ben moved back, respecting the animal’s personal space. “Easy there. I’m going to take that skirt off your head.” Ben spread his arms and hands slowly. The gesture was supposed to make himself look bigger and help discourage the bull from charging. But he forgot about the shoe missiles in his hand.
He could see and feel the exact second when the bull recognized the shoes. The bull’s instinct-to-kill switch had flipped. His rear end swung around and the beast lowered his head.
“Fuck this,” Ben said and paused, waiting for the exact right moment to move. The move that would save his life. The bull charged and Ben dodged to his left, evading the horns and the skirt. For a beast that weighed as much as a car, he was as nimble as a ballet dancer.
The bull ran, bucking and kicking right into the middle of his breeding group. The cows bawled, broke into two groups, and began a stampede. Four or five cows, along with the bull, were headed straight toward Ben. Jesus, if it were one or two cows, he could move out of the way, but with a herd coming at him, he didn’t stand much of a chance. He ran like… like four tons of cattle were about to mow him down. He made it to the crest of the hill, glanced back, and saw they were gaining on him.
Ben’s legs began stinging and his mind couldn’t connect the sharp stabbing pains on his calves with the motion of sprinting for his life.
When he saw Maleah, he yelled, “Get back! Go! Get in the car!”
“What?” she asked, barely stepping away from the fence.
“Move!” he yelled as he barreled down the slope.
Ben veered away from Maleah as she screamed, “Cows!”
He reached for the top of a fencepost and stepped on the wire in one swift move. Vaulting over a barbed wire fence isn’t a skill you learn in gym class. Ben improvised the best he could as he jumped and swung his legs over the top wire as he leaned most of his weight on one hand against the top of the post. It would have worked better if the cuff of his jeans hadn’t snagged a barb.
He fell to the ground, rolled, and landed on his back. He had enough sense to glance back and make sure the cattle weren’t suicidal enough to plow through the fence. Three cows went left and one went right. The others hadn’t followed over the hill.
With eminent doom no longer breathing down his neck, Ben stared up at the raspberry-streaked sky. The colors of the sunset added a superb backdrop to the thundering beats of pounding hooves and his heart. A laugh moved through his chest and he felt mildly delirious. That was until Maleah’s face came into view.