In the Bull's Eye

A true story...

The name’s Gus. I’m a rodeo bull. You know, big shoulders, sharp horns, bad attitude. Life’s pretty good from my end of things. I get to buck a few times, toss a few cowboys. Chase a rodeo clown or two. One day, I’m going to catch me a clown. Maybe that joker in the blue shorts. And then, I’ll…er…never mind. Like I said, life’s pretty good. The other day we pulled into a new town. Big place. Think I’ve been here before, but you never can tell. My schedule is the old “if it’s Tuesday, it must be Cheyenne” routine.

That evening, the man came to get us, pushed my buddies and me into the arena. They like to chase us around a new arena. Well, we went thudding down the alley, shaking horns, and doing the bull thing. I was first out of the gate and was I surprised! A whole arena full of horses. Now normally, I don’t mind horses. They put the bucking horses in with us. We stay at our end, they stay at theirs. But these horses were something different. Drill team horses. City horses. As soon as my buddies and I came into that arena, the horses went berserk. There were more crowhopping horses than flies on a cow’s ear.

Some little black horse, a pony really, shot past me and skidded to a stop. The rider glared at me. I sized up the little pipsqueak, who barely cleared my elbow, and shook my horns. Those two took off in a big old hurry. I took a closer look. Not one of the riders had a rope. Now this could be fun.

I went towards a buckskin. He took one look at me and headed for the fence. I could hear the rider yelling at the arena man to open the gates ‘cause she was going though it or over it and he’d better get out of her way! My buddies had gotten into the act by then and we were chasing those horses up and down the arena. This was more fun than the time I trapped that clown in a barrel!

I heard two riders on red horses having a yelling match with the arena man. Something about having made written and pre-approved arrangements to ride in the arena, and what the hell was he doing, letting bulls in with a bunch of city horses! One of the riders had a helmet on—reminded me of the last cowboy who went eight seconds. So I headed over there, revenge in my eye.

Just then, a big paint horse slid between me and my target. I could tell from her look and the rider’s that they weren’t city slickers. I tried a horn toss and a half hearted bellow, and all I got for my pains was to be hustled back to the bunch and herded up and down the arena. Still it had been awfully fun, chasing those horses. As I thundered back down the alley, I bellowed to the next group of bulls to have fun and charge a few riders. But by the time they got out there, all those riders, except that old paint, were gone. Sure was disappointing to those other bulls.
Well, maybe I’ll have some more excitement at the next rodeo. Nothing like city horse to make a rodeo bull feel mighty big and bad.

Gus

This was originally published in "The Fence Post" in 2009