Taken By The Bull

Running her hand through her hair, she sighed and closed her eyes. This heat! It’s so drying on my hair. But I don’t have time to worry about sitting around with conditioner on for an hour. I’m not about to give up on Steve, quite yet. I have to get something… Some kind of story to bring back. I wonder-

The phone on her dresser sparked to life, the screen blinking on, the case rattling; playing the same factory-setting jingle that it had come installed with. Someone was sending her a message.

And that message is, don’t get too comfortable, Princess. Grumbling, she hauled herself up and went to grab it. Her body, so happily resting a moment before, ached with the sudden motion. Given how the day before she’d been climbing trees in a panic and crawling around to escape a charging bull, it was a wonder she didn’t feel much worse.

Looking at the screen, she saw a line of text from Mikey, asking how she was doing. “Just fine,” she muttered, rubbing the back of her neck with other hand. “Daring escapes, healing hands, angry dames and a lack of leads. It’s like a pulp noir thriller over here, no, really.”

She was halfway through typing a somewhat more restrained reply when the cheap plastic phone on the bedside cabinet rang. “Really?” she complained, dropping the cellphone as she reached for the other. “Can’t a girl get a moment of – Staci Wilder, speaking.”

“Miss Wilder, this is Miranda, from reception.” The carefully-modulated and heavily accented voice on the line struggled to be heard over the crackle of old wiring. “I have a message here for you, from a Mr Law?”

There was no denying the little lurch that Staci felt in her stomach at these words. “Oh! What did – what did he say?”

*****

Seven o’clock, he’d said; and yet, here she was at twenty past six, pulling into the shade of trees that arched over the little road like a covered avenue a little way from the ranch house, out of sight of the building.

It wasn’t because she was so eager to meet him again, as she constantly reminded herself. It was just too good an opportunity to miss. Have a little scout around the place, have a poke into any secret corners and buildings that the tour ‘happened’ to have missed, and rock up to the door dead on seven – what reporter worth her salt could pass up a chance like that?

Just as long as I stay on the good sides of the fences, and out of the way of any angry bulls, I’ll be just fine.

Cutting the engine, she stepped out of the smart silver rental car and onto the dirt path that led up to the house. Her old sneakers were comfortable on her feet, the cool air pleasing against the skin revealed by the cut-offs she’d donned. An hour before they’d been a part of the jeans torn by her flight from Ol’ Thunderbutt. She’d left the slacker look behind in her mid-teens, and wearing jeans with holes in them wasn’t exactly her thing, so now they’d been re-purposed into something a little more practical for the summer heat.

So, let’s play ninja. Throwing her trusty bag over her shoulder, she closed the car door quietly behind her. Rather than heading straight up the path she took a detour through the trees, her step light and eager as she circled around the house. The early evening sun dappled the ground at her feet with a shifting lacework veil of light as the branches stirred above with a soft breeze; and a sense of calmness, almost of serenity came over her as she walked.

I think, I could really come to like living out on the edges of the country like this.

Brown-furred rabbits scattered at her approach, and birds sang jubilantly all around. She was almost saddened to find that the trail ended, the trees opening up near the back of one of the barns that scattered throughout the Double Thunders ranch.

She had no idea which one it was – barns all looked the same to her – or what she might possibly find that would bring her closer to uncovering whatever secret Steve was keeping from the world. All that mattered, was that there was no sign of anything bull-shaped in the vicinity.

Drifting around the perimeter of the building, she let the fingertips of her hand trail over the sturdy wooden siding. The only thing that would make this more typical, she thought as she passed by a little window, was if the thing was painted bright red.

She paused as she rounded the far side, and saw the house in the distance. Every ninja knew that daylight and a direct line of sight wasn’t exactly beneficial to a bit of sneaking around, so she ducked back and retraced her steps to the window. Peering inside, all she could see was a stack of hay bales obscuring her view.

Most people would have found that discouraging, even boring – but to Staci, it only deepened the mystery of what was hidden behind those bales.

Pressing her hands against the window, she pushed first inwards, and then upwards; and she grinned like a child when the window slid slowly up, dust clouding the air.

The window was small, only just wide enough to let her wriggle in; and almost four feet above ground level. It would require a bit of ungainly clambering, but Staci certainly wasn’t above that kind of thing.

Hooking her hands on the inside of the sill she hauled herself upwards, feet braced against the barn siding; for a moment she was sure her arms wouldn’t have the strength to pull her up, but after a few wheezes and a heart-stopping moment when her left foot slipped, she was up. Her stomach pressed hard against the sill as she kicked her legs and pushed herself through, landing in a breathless heap on a soft, prickly bed of hay.

There. There! I’m in! Climbing back to her feet, she brushed herself down with quick, delicate strokes, standing with her feet pressed together demurely; back to business, as if that little bit of ungraceful flailing had been some other woman. So! Let’s see what we got, here.

Light filtered in through a skylight far above and from between the half-open double doors, illuminating the front half of the barn clearly; a hay loft, bins of feed, lines of tools – nothing very interesting. The back though – what the hell was that?

Staci squinted and took a hesitant step forward as her eyes adjusted to the contrast of dark and light, and slowly a shape against the far wall came into focus; four-square, heavy-shouldered, horns curving up and out –

She drew a deep breath and stepped back as she recognized it as the shape of a bull, standing perfectly still. No no no, not again! She was about to move back towards the window as quietly as she could in order to make a quick exit, when she saw that the thing had no legs and only the suggestion of a head; that part of its ‘hide’ gleamed with a metallic luster.

“Oh, damn!” she laughed in relief and shook her head, the braid she’d pulled her hair into coming to rest over her left shoulder. “Almost got me, there.”

Still, there was an instinctively wary cadence to her step as she crossed the wooden floor of the barn towards the mechanical bull; and it wasn’t until she laid her hand on the leather upholstery, and found it to be as lifeless as any automaton, that she fully relaxed.

Held in place and anchored to the ground by a system of oiled pistons and hydraulics, the whole thing smelled faintly of WD40 and leather. A coil of rope hung from one of the synthetic horns that adorned the abstract shape of the machine’s head; no danger, nothing more than a handy peg to hang things from.

“You’re not so big and bad, are you?” She patted its shoulder as if it were a feeling, living thing. “Poor old guy, hanging around here in the dark.”

“There’s nothing ‘poor’ about that guy,” said the slow, drawling voice from behind her. “Sparkplugs there has thrown me on my ass a hundred times.”