Chapter Nine: This Is the Scary Part

Holding his ribs and grinding his teeth against the pain, Slim pushed himself up. The bull was watching. He snorted and dropped his head and pawed up sand with his hoof.

Slim took a step. The bull’s head shot up. I could tell by the look in his eyes and the way he held his ears that he was fixing to come a-hookin’.

Slim reached down and patted me on the neck. “Okay, son, it’s time for us to find out what we’re made of. See what you can do.”

It would be an exaggeration to say that I went streaking into the fight. I pushed myself up and hobbled out into the empty space between Slim and the bull. I glared at him and he glared at me. I raised the hair on my back, stiffened my tail, and extended my neck so that my nose was pointing at him like an arrow. And then I unleashed a low growl.

From the pickup, I heard Drover squeak, “Hank, be careful, he might try to hurt you!”

And then Little Alfred yelled, “Beat him up, Hankie! I hope you bite the snot out of him.”

Behind me, I heard Slim groan and take a step. The bull’s head snapped around and his eyes locked on Slim. He had just picked his target. He took a step toward Slim, and that’s when I gave him some education on cowdogs.

A lot of dogs would have barked and gone through a little warmup procedure. Not me. I figgered what we needed here was a strong and lasting impression. When you want to make an impression on a bull, you don’t bark and you don’t bluff and you don’t talk. You merely take a death grip on his nose and hang on.

And so I rushed forward, fitted my jaws around his nose before he had time to think about it, and then I went to Maximum Crunch.

Say, Old Bully didn’t like that! He snorted and bellered and started slinging his head around. Since I was pretty well attached to his nose, he was slinging me around at the same time.

I went up, I went down, I went in circles, I bounced off the ground and bounced off his horns and bounced off that big ugly hump in his neck. And yes, all this bouncing and crashing around did take its toll on my body, but the thought of slacking my grip on his nose never entered my mind.

What DID enter my mind after several minutes of this trashing was that I might not live long enough to brag about this adventure. I was taking a terrible beating, but I knew that as long as I held on to his nose, I had a chance to survive. If he ever shook me off, then he could go to work on me with his horns, and fellers . . .

Maybe my jaws got tired. Maybe he gave his head an extra hard jerk. I don’t remember. I mean, things were happening pretty fast out there. But all at once, the very worst thing that could have happened happened. He broke my hold on his nose and threw me off.

I hit the ground hard, and before I could make another move, he was there on top of me—beating me, pounding me, mauling me with those huge horns. Left! Right! Left! Right!

I squalled for help but there wasn’t any help. Oh, Drover was yipping from underneath the pickup, and Little Alfred yelled for the bull to “weave my doggie awone,” as I recall his words. And that was about all the help I got.

The blows hurt at first, but after a while I didn’t feel much pain. With each blow from a horn, my head snapped around and I could hear a crunching sound deep inside my body, but there wasn’t much pain anymore.

I felt myself slipping away into a dream, as darkness gathered around the edges of my vision. The circle of darkness grew larger, and the circle of light in the center shrank down to a tiny hole.

What I could see through that hole was what was left of my life. I watched as it slipped away from me. I kind of hated to see it go, but this was the way I’d always wanted it to be. I’d always wanted to go out fighting for my ranch.

Just before the light went out for the last time, I got some help from an unexpected source. While all this had been going on, that colt hadn’t moved a muscle. He’d stood nearby, shivering and watching all the bloodshed with his big moon eyes.

Well, all at once something must have spooked him, because he took off running and bucking, and when he hit the end of that rope, he did get Mr. Bull’s full attention. It jerked both of them down on the ground.

Bully didn’t like that even a little bit, and when he got to his feet, he’d already decided to eat him a colt for supper. He dropped his head and charged. The colt screamed, jumped to his feet, and started hauling the mail.

Say, that was something to see, those two heavy­weights tied together on the same piece of string. First the bull jerked down the colt, then the colt jerked down the bull. Then they both went down.

I mean, it looked like total disaster there for a while, but then they jerked the horn plumb out of Slim’s saddle. That nylon rope was stretched like a rubber band, and when the horn pulled out, it flew back and whopped old Bully right between the eyes.

And all at once it was over. The bull staggered away with blood dripping out of his nose. The colt bucked a few more times and nickered, and then he went to the trailer and stood there. And the dust that had filled the air began to settle around us.

Dust and silence.

Next thing I knew, Drover and Little Alfred were there beside me. Tears and dust had streaked the boy’s face. He went down on his knees and threw his arms around me and hugged me a whole bunch harder than I wanted to be hugged right then.

It hurt and I yelped.

“Hankie, get up. We have to take Swim home.” I tried to stand up but couldn’t do it. “Huuwy, get up! We have to go home.” I tried it again. Couldn’t do it. “All wight, I’ll have to pick you up.”

He tried to carry me to the pickup but that didn’t work. He just wasn’t stout enough, and even if he had been, I couldn’t have stood the pain.

Just then we heard Slim’s voice. He had managed to crawl into the cab of the pickup and was sitting on the passenger’s side, with his head propped up on his hand.

“Button, come here.” The boy went over to the pickup. That left me alone with Mister Day-Late-and-Dollar-Short.

“Gosh, Hank, are you hurt pretty bad?”

“As bad as I need to be, thanks.”

“You’re welcome. I sure meant to come out and help you, but when that bull . . . did you see how big and ugly he was?”

“No, I wasn’t close enough to get a good look at him, Drover. Was he pretty big and ugly?”

“He was terrible, just terrible! I came out to help you, honest I did, but then he . . . I just . . . oh Hank, I feel so guilty! I don’t know if I can stand myself anymore!”

“You’ll find a way, Drover. I’ve got confidence in you.”

“Don’t say that! Don’t be nice to me, I don’t deserve it. Tell me I’m worthless and chickenhearted. Tell me I’m a failure. Tell me I should stand in the corner for the rest of my life.”

“I would, son, but it hurts to talk.”

“Oh, this guilt is more than I can stand! You can’t believe how much it hurts me to see you hurt. If there’s anything I can do, Hank, anything at all, just tell me.”

“Okay, be quiet. I want to hear how Slim’s going to get us out of this mess.”

“Sure, Hank, just anything. I’ll be quiet, but I want you to know that . . .”

“Hush.”

He hushed and I listened to what Slim was saying.

“Button, here’s what’s got to be done. We’ve got to get me home and I can’t drive. If I put the pickup in Grandma Low, reckon you can steer it back home?”

“Me, dwive the pickup? I don’t think so, Swim.”

“Sure you can. You did it coming up here. Just keep it in the road, that’s all, and if anything goes wrong, turn off the key.”

“Well, maybe. I can twy.”

“Good boy. Now, I want you to walk over to that colt, real quiet and slow, and catch his reins. Then lead him over here as close to the pickup door as you can.”

“But Swim . . .”

“Don’t be scared, Button. He was acting crazy because that bull was trying to hurt him. He’ll be all right. Just be smooth and don’t make any sudden moves. Talk gentle to him. Go on.”

Alfred looked pretty scared when he walked up to the colt, but he did just as Slim told him. The colt’s eyes got big when he saw the kid coming toward him, and he had rollers in his nose, but he stood his ground. Alfred caught the reins and led him over to the pickup.

Slim reached out the window and unbuckled the cinches: back cinch, front cinch, and breast collar. “Button, there’s one more buckle and I can’t reach it. It’s under his chest, where the breast collar hooks into the front cinch. You’ll have to get it.”

Slim held the reins and talked to the horse while Alfred reached under and unbuckled the strap. “Good boy. Now, step back. I’m going to turn him a-loose.”

Slim unhooked the throat latch and slipped the bridle off the colt’s head. As the colt turned to leave, Slim grabbed the saddle and let it fall to the ground.

The effort of doing all that seemed to wear him out. He leaned his head back against the cab and closed his eyes for a moment. Then he said, “Let’s go, Button.”

“What about Hankie?”

“For now, we’ll have to leave him. I hate it as much as you do, but we’ve got no choice.”

HUH?

Leave me alone in that big lonesome pasture? Holy smokes, night would be coming in a few hours and hungry coyotes would be out looking for a meal, and they were going to drive off and leave me there?