Page 19 of Rope Me, Cowboys

Ducking my head, I hurried past the barn and stables, along one of the wide paths the guys drove around the ranch on. This one was wider, the tracks worn down to dirt with just a bit of dried up brown grass in the middle. A cow mooed at me from across the field.

Of course, as I’d grown older, I’d found ways to make myself less forgettable, though I was still a nuisance to my parents. Getting in trouble was at least memorable—not to mention fun. And I’d found a partner in crime in Haley, someone who never made me feel unimportant or stupid, boring or annoying.

I smiled to myself as I walked. I still owed her a good cow picture. It was a little dark, but the cows were crowded around a feeder up ahead, chowing down on some new hay bales the guys had put out that evening.

I stopped and felt for my phone, relieved to find it in my back pocket. This was the perfect opportunity to get close enough to snap a picture, while the cows were distracted by their food. Hurrying along the road, I kept my eye on them until I drew closer, then I pushed apart the strands of barbed wire and squeezed through. It was easier now that I knew they weren’t going to electrocute me.

Stealthy as a coyote, I crept towards the cows. I wasn’t actually sure coyotes were stealthy, but I figured they must be to take down one of these beasts. As I drew closer, I could see the sheer size of them. Their jaws worked, and I could hear their grinding teeth from twenty feet away. Each one must have been a ton of solid muscle. My heart beat faster as I slunk even closer, picking my way around stinky piles of manure.

“Here, Bessie,” I coaxed in a voice barely above a whisper.

A cow lifted its head and stared at me. Holy crapoli! I hadn’t actually known one of them was named Bessie.

She stared at me a long moment, raised her tail, and shot a stream of hot, steaming urine onto the ground. I tried not to recoil in disgust. Bessie plodded into the herd, her big hips bumping the other cows, who shuffled and moved restlessly around the bale of hay. I circled a huge black tub of water that sat nearby, a tank suspended above it. And then I was there, so close I could see the breath puffing from the cows into the cold night. I could smell them, too—the warm animal smell of them, the smell of their waste, of rotting grass and dry hay and a tinge of mold.

“Here, Bessie,” I said, hoping the cow would turn around. It was too dark to get a good picture unless I used the flash, and I wanted to make sure she was looking when I took my one shot. I figured she’d freak out and run when the flash went off, maybe cause a stampede. That would give Waylon something to remember.

“Here, Bessie Bessie Bessie,” I coaxed. One of the other cows swung its giant head towards me. Its eyes disappeared into its solid black fur, so it looked like some kind of weird, blind mutant. I could only hope it would look like a cow and not a freaky sasquatch in the photo. Holding firmly to that hope, I snapped the picture.

The dumb old thing didn’t even move when the flash went off. I took the opportunity to check out the photo. But when I looked up, the beast was advancing on me at a trot.

I screamed and turned to run, but I ran smack into the edge of the water trough. Panicked, I bounced back from the plastic wall of the thing, only to see the black monster bearing down. It was only a few steps away.

“Go away,” I said, holding out a hand, as if I could stop it.

The giant sort of skipped its legs sideways, like it was having the time of its life teasing me as it prepared to skewer me. It would probably run around the ranch carrying my head on its horn like a trophy in some barbaric cow ritual.

And then I remembered seeing a couple minutes of a rodeo—or maybe it was a bullfight—in a movie. The bull skipped around just like that.

Oh shit. I’d forgotten about the bull. What if it couldn’t see in the darkness that my jacket was actually burgundy and not red?

It skipped towards me again. I turned and bolted. I expected a horn to fatally gouge me at any moment. That would give stupid Waylon something to remember. I’d be dead, so I wouldn’t be here to enjoy it, but it would serve his smug ass right.

Instead of being hit from behind, I was hit across the thighs. More accurately, I hit something. Arms pinwheeling, I gave a blood curdling scream before I promptly sprawled headlong into the water trough.

17

Amber

The water was so cold I couldn’t move for a second. I just lay there like a frozen corpse at the bottom of an icy sea. But after a second, I thought of the bottom-feeders that would come to devour me, and I scrambled to get up. My head broke the surface, and if anything, the air felt even colder than the breath-stealing water. I flailed my arms, gasping in a breath. To my horror, the bull was hovering over the trough, waiting to take me down.

Double shit. It was either die a slow death by freezing in the trough, or get skewered by a longhorn.

I figured the second sounded better—more glorious, like a cowgirl in the old west. But the choice was harder than it sounded, because I really wasn’t keen on dying tonight. I huddled against the tank of water, away from the horns of the bulls. In fact, there were two now—the black one, with the short horns, and a longhorn. So if one of them didn’t get me, the other would.

I reached for my phone, but my heart sank as I patted my pockets. I’d been taking a picture when the bull noticed me, so I’d had it in my hand. Which meant it had already met its end by one of the two means I was now facing. It was either out there being trampled by vicious bulls or lying at the bottom of the trough in a watery grave.

No phone. No weapons. No escape.

I didn’t even have anything to throw to distract the bulls. My hands were so cold I didn’t know if I could have closed them around a rock or something if I had it, let alone punch in numbers on a phone. It took several attempts just to pull my sodden jacket closed around me. Everything on my body ached with cold from my toes to my scalp, and I had skipped straight past shivering to quaking.

I had one hope left.

I started to scream.

It turned out the cows didn’t like screaming very much, and they actually backed off a few feet. But I had no doubt the second I stepped out, they’d barrel down on me, banshee shrieking or not. I could only hope the boys could hear me from the house and didn’t think it was just the wind.

And then my heart sank. They were running the tractors for some reason. They’d never hear me over the loud engines. I could see lights far off and hear the engines on the path that I’d walked the first day, when I’d gotten stuck in the fence. Maybe they were looking for me. Surely, they didn’t think I was dumb enough to get stuck on the fence twice!