It was a pleasant fall afternoon. The air was crisp and the leaves were beginning to change color. Walking down the road from my house I was happy. My Dad had given me permission to visit a friend of mine. She lived over on Helton Creek – about a mile away. “Be back before dark,” he said as I was leaving. Now, if I could get past our neighbor’s big dairy farm without their old bull seeing me. I was afraid of him. He had tried to hurt his owner. When he saw anyone walking by on the road he went along on the other side of the split rail fence making a rumbling noise in his throat. It sounded like low thunder and almost jarred the ground. He wore a metal ring in his nose. A chain was hooked to it and then fastened around one of his ankles. That day I did not see him and he did not see me.
At my friend Brenda’s house, I forgot about the old bull. Out of sight, out of mind. We spent some time begging for my friend to come home with me for the night and more time doing her chores before she could come. It was evening when we started down the road giggling and talking girl talk. At eleven and twelve years old, there was lots for us to talk about. My friend and I stopped by the general store and enjoyed bottles of pop right out of the cold water in the drink cooler. When we left the store the sky was overcast and it was beginning to get dark. We hurried down the main road and turned off on our one lane road that went past my house. It was flat a little ways, then up a hill to a sharp curve going around into the holler. Brenda and I stopped when we got to the curve. It was very dark ahead of us. There were trees on both sides of the road. The bank on the upper side went straight up and on the lower side it went straight down.
Then I heard a familiar clanking and rattling noise like a chain. Cold chills ran over me and the hair stood up on the back of my neck. My heart was pounding. I took hold of Brenda’s arm and whispered, “That old bull is in the road.” Quietly we turned around and quickly walked back down the hill. When we got to the main road my friend and I ran all the way back to the store. Mr. Powers, the store owner was sympathetic, but he could not help us. He did not have a vehicle and nobody had a telephone.
About that time Roger, who lived up the road above me, came into the store. After he heard our story he offered us a ride home in his car. When the vehicle reached the top of the hill and rounded the sharp curve THERE HE WAS! The headlights spotted him immediately. The old red bull was standing in the middle of the road with his eyes a blazing. My neighbor tried to drive his car around him but the road was too narrow. He honked his car horn loudly. The bull responded by butting the vehicle several times while making that rumbling noise in his throat. That shook the car pretty good. My friend and I in the back seat were simply scared to death. Roger kept easing the car forward just a little bit and finally we got around the old bull and came on home. Dad had just started out to look for me. He could hardly believe what happened. It was good to be safely home…until the next time.
