Rick, Mac, and a Bull

“Hey, wait up Rick, where you goin'?” shouted Mac, as he spied Rick disappearing behind the barn.

“I’m goin’ to the old shack to find arrow heads. You wanna go? ”

“You can't go over there." Mac sid, catching up to his brother. "You heard the owner tell Daddy to keep us off his property.  He’s as mean as that old bull he keeps in there.  Daddy told him we wouldn’t go in there anymore, and you know how he is about his word.  We’ll get it good, if we’re caught.”

“Yeah I know, but the owner only said that because of the bull. He thinks we'll get hurt; but shoot, that bull is so old it can’t even run, anyway it’s fenced up.  You wanna come with me?”
                       
“Well, I guess.” Mac frowned, not sure if Rick’s arguments were true, but wanting to go, he agreed.

The skinny, pre-teen, sandy-haired boys scurried across the yard kicking the hard dirt clods, trying to outdo each other in the distance they could make them fly.  They climbed through the barbed wire fence, careful to not catch their shirts on a barb.  As they walked the well-worn path through the field of dried, brittle weeds, they searched for the bull, finding it in the far corner of the pasture.  The shack stood in the middle of the unused field, in the shade of several large oak trees, just outside of a second fence containing the bull.

Rick lost no time beginning another search for arrow heads, although he had never found anything but broken bottles.  Indians had lived in the area years before, and as most ten-year-olds, his faith and his hope remained strong. {i}Someday, I will find one.{/i}

Mac began poking around, as he too had a keen interest in finding pieces of history.  They were both engrossed in their labor, and time passed quickly.  As they picked up a bottle or broken dish, they imagined the people who may have lived here a hundred years ago. 

Rick wandered down to the river bank to search among the very old oak trees.
Mac glanced across the fence, seeing something sticking up from the ground.  He scrambled under the wires and headed for it. “Shoot, it's nothin, just a soda pop bottle.”  Hurling the bottle as far as possible, he trampled the weeds down so he could see the ground underneath and continued to search. 

Rick, unable to find anything interesting among the trees and thinking it was time to go home, walked around the shack looking for Mac.   Glancing around, he watched as Mac threw the bottle high into the air, and decided to join him when a movement to the side caught his eye.

“Mac! The bull!  Get out of there!”

Mac's heart stopped, then begin beating hard.  He quickly stood,  staring toward the bull who had begun to run in his direction.  Mesmerized, he was unable to move.

“Mac, come on, what ya standing there for?”  Rick jumped the fence to hurry Mac along, keeping one eye on the fast approaching bull.  Grabbing Mac’s arm to get him moving, he shoved him in the direction of the fence.  “Move!”

Mac moved, stumbling a little on the uneven cloddy field.  “Come on, Rick!”  He continued to run as Rick ran at an angle between him and the fence, trying to get the bull’s attention by frantically waving his red bandana.  The bull stopped in his tracks and looked at one boy and then the other, confused in which way to go.   Hearing the thunderous bellowing of the bull caused Mac to risk a precious second in glimpsing back.  The bull  tossed his head side to side while doing a little dance.  Mac reached the fence and leaped, one hand grabbed the top of the post in the same instant as his foot reached the top wire and he flew over in one gliding motion.  He ran another fifty yards before stopping behind a cottonwood tree, ready to climb if the need arose.  “Rick!  Come on!” He screamed.

Rick watched in awe as Mac safely jumped the fence, then turned again toward the bull.  The mean-eyed animal watched Mac, who was still running, then turned his full attention to Rick.  When Rick saw the animal began to scrape his hoof against the ground, he stuffed the bandana in his back pocket and  began to run.  He tried to jump the fence smoothly, like Mac did, but when his foot landed on the wire it slipped off and he fell flat on his back in a cloud of dust.  Since he was down, he took advantage of the position and rolled under, leaving part of his shirt on a barb and all the time feeling the bull’s sharp horns aiming for that red bandana.

Rick scrambled around the corner of the shack to be out of sight of the bull, who was still bellowing his rage at being denied the prize of the chase.  Sitting on the ground with his back against the wall, he began to laugh. He laughed and he couldn’t stop, though his side began to ache.  He didn’t know he was laughing from relief, and neither did Mac.

“Hey, it's not funny.  The old bull could have gored me.” Mac hurried over to join his brother behind the shack.

“You looked so funny with your eyes popping out and your mouth wide open.  You screamed like a girl!  You were running so scaredy your knees were hitting your chin.  All I could see as you passed me, were elbows and knees.  Zoom, there went Mac!”

“I wasn’t either!  And you were just as scared as I was.  Why were you waving at it?  That was stupid.  You couldn’t even jump the fence you were so scared.  And I did not scream, I didn't say anything.  We better get out of here before the owner catches us, you won't be laughing then.”

“Yeah, I know.”  Rick sighed, as he slowly got to his feet.  “Hey, how did you jump the fence so good?  It’s taller than you are.  We have to tell Daddy we were here, you know that don’t you?”  Seeing the reluctant nod, he went on,  “Yeah, come on then.”

They walked back along the path as the red sun was sinking behind the distant hills.  Rick was still laughing, Mac was still arguing, and neither noticed the owner's old beat up, multicolored pickup truck coming across the field behind them.