On Her Way Home (31 page)

Mac laughed, but reprimanded Sam lightly. “Don’t sell your friends down the river, son.” Mac turned his head toward Jo, laughter in his eyes.

Rather than apologize, Jo said obstinately, nodding her head toward the bull, “Well, I’m not sorry. He had it coming. He eyeballed me all day. I couldn’t even put a toenail in the pasture without him fussing about it.”

Mac looked back at the big bull, thinking to himself that it might be time to ship him somewhere else. “I suppose he got what he deserved then,” he submitted. “I don’t want either of you going anywhere near him.” Sternly looking into Sam’s face, he clarified, “Sam, you are not to set a foot in that corral. I don’t even want you on the fence. Do you hear me?”

His eyes big and round, Sam nodded his head.

“You stay completely away from him.” Mac swiveled his eyes back to Jo, making sure she understood that he expected the same from her.

His warning irked her. Obviously,
she
wasn’t going to go anywhere near the dangerous animal. She didn’t need him to order her about like she was a four-year-old. Grabbing Sam’s plate and hers from the ground, she stood up and walked to the house, too tired to battle with Mac and on the verge of saying something that would surely incite one.

***

Two days later, the threshing crew finished the harvest and departed from the ranch, moving on to a new neighbor and new fields. It was just in time too. Dark gray storm clouds hovered in the sky above the ranch, ominous and heavy.

It was early in the evening
, and Jo was inside helping Mattie wash dishes and put the chaotic kitchen back in order after four days of frenzied cooking. Peeking her head out the window, she looked at the black sky. “Shoot!” she lamented. “I forgot to bring the pails in from the field. I wonder if I have time to get them before this storm opens up.”

Mattie came to stand by her at the window, peering out at the sky. “I think you’ll end up soaked if you go for them now.”

Jo clucked her teeth. “I suppose I don’t really have a choice. I won’t have a pail for Shirley’s milk if I don’t go.” The decision made, Jo hustled out the back door, not even stopping long enough to grab her coat from the hook. A strong wind had picked up, causing Jo’s dress to whip furiously around her legs. She held it down with one hand while running across the yard.

“Jo,” Charlie yelled from the barn, “where are you going?”

Shouting loudly so that Charlie could hear her over the howl of the wind, she said, “I left the milk pails out in the field. I need them for Shirley.”

“I’ll go get them,” Charlie called, taking a step out of the barn toward Jo.

“No,” Jo called back to him, “I’ll be quick.” She waved at him and took off toward the pasture, shielding her eyes from the blowing dust. Jo crawled between the rails of the pasture, awkwardly wrapping her dress tightly around her legs in a habit of modesty. Wagner’s cows had been munching the grass for over a week now, but it was still up to her shins, and she felt it scratching against her legs as she sprinted over its green stalks. The cows were huddled together at the bottom of a slope in the field and barely noticed Jo as she ran past them and up the other side of the low hill. Her flight across the pasture was fast but not fast enough, as the first drops of rain dripped from the black clouds above her. Scampering through the fence on the other side, Jo charged across the field of chopped wheat stalks to the pails. The metal buckets were still lined up on a makeshift table of logs and boards that Leif had set up at the edge of the wheat field. Jo grabbed a pail and dumped the remaining water from it as the storm grew more violent. The trees bordering the field began swaying drastically from side to side with each gust, their heavy branches tossing and turning wildly in the air. Just as Jo was emptying the last bucket, a crack of lightning sliced through livid sky, and a deafening peel of thunder rattled the ground under Jo’s feet. Quickly, she shoved the pails together, one inside the other and dashed back across the wheat field and into the pasture fence. Rain was pelting her face now, and it was growing harder to see as the tiny water bombs stung her eyes. Jo had never been scared of storms, quite the opposite in fact. At home she loved to sit out on the veranda, watch the lightning brighten the sky, and listen to the rain as it beat against the metal roof of the barn.

Jo was about halfway through the pasture and just coming up the slope where the cows were huddled when she slowed her pace, figuring there was no point in running now that she was already soaking wet. The pails swung briskly at her side as she cut her way through the wet clingy grass. All of the sudden, an unexplainable alarm sounded in Jo’s brain. She froze in midstride, the pails halting their back-and-forth momentum in her hand. Surging into her conscious was an innate sense of danger that all creatures, both animal and human, possess. Slowly, Jo turned in a circle, squinting and searching her surroundings for the threat that had sent chills up her spine. The sky was growing darker by the second, making it difficult for her to see what danger lay in its depths. Still alert but unable to see anything, Jo cautiously took a step backward. As she did so, another streak of lightning split the heavens. Its brief illuminating light fell across the heaving muscled shoulders of an animal fifty yards behind her. A white puff of steam escaped from its snorting nostrils as its rolling black eyes met Jo’s.

***

Leif and Charlie were in the barn fixing a piece of equipment when Mac and Kirby rode in, sheets of water dripping from their slickers. Mac swiped his hat off of his head and beat it against his leg to get the water off. All afternoon he’d been anxiously waiting for the threshing crew to clear out so that he could ride out on the range with Kirby and make sure everything was satisfactory before he and Leif had to join the threshing crew in the morning. He had only been a quarter mile into the tree line, headed for the summer pasture, when the sky opened up and rain poured down. Now, he’d have to leave without checking on the cattle and without the security of knowing trespassers hadn’t been slinking around. Mac cursed to himself. The unnerving impression that something was amiss settled in his gut.

He swung down from General with a heavy, angry clump and began brusquely undoing the saddle. “I didn’t want that bull put back out in the pasture yet,” he said gruffly to Leif. “I wanted to wait a few more days and then move him and Wagner’s cows up to the ridge together.” Mac’s jaw ticked angrily as he snapped the reins around in frustration.

“He’s still in the corral,” Leif answered tightly. “I didn’t put him back with the cows.”

“Well, we just rode in, and he’s not out there,” Mac glared at him.

Charlie, who was leaned over a bale of hay using it to support a piece of wood he was sanding, stood straight up. His sudden movement caused all heads to turn toward him. Charlie’s eyes widened in horror, and his face turned ashen as he whispered, “Jo.” Her name rang from his mouth again in a panicked agonizing breath, “JO!”

Before, Mac, Leif, or Kirby could ask a question, Charlie shot wildly over the bale of hay, racing toward the barn doors. In his frantic dash, he slipped on a pile of hay and slid onto his stomach, pounding into the dirt floor. In an uncontrollable frenzy, he scrambled to his feet, kicking hay and dust up behind him and shouting Jo’s name in a desperate cry.

The barn doors bashed angrily against the wall as he hurtled through them. Leif, Mac, and Kirby chased out of the barn after him, confusion and chaos exploding around them as they tried to make sense of Charlie’s panic. Rounding the corner, they saw Charlie rush to the corral fence, jump onto the first railing, and peer into it through the rain. He jumped down and charged to the end of the corral where the open gate was swinging wildly in the wind.

“Jo!” he shouted her name again, cupping his hands and running down the fence line.

In the throbbing black storm, Mac saw the air leave Charlie’s lungs and his eyes roll white with fear as he stared into the pasture. Following Charlie’s gaze, Mac felt his heart stop in his chest. Jo was standing stock-still in the middle of the pasture, a pail dangling from each hand. The bull, about fifty yards away from her, shook its sharp horns side to side aggressively. Tearing his eyes away from the frightening scene, Mac jerked around and sprinted to the barn.

***

The dull cry of her name slipped into Jo’s consciousness through the deafening rain. Cautiously, she glanced over her shoulder, making sure to keep the bull in her sight as she did so. She saw Leif, Kirby, and Charlie at the pasture fence, shouting at her, but she couldn’t understand them over the storm. Fear pulsed in every nerve of her body, and she could taste its bitter acidity in her mouth. She didn’t know what to do. The bull was pawing at the ground and snorting at her, and though her mind shouted at her to run, she was positive that the slightest movement would send him barreling down on her.

Charlie and Leif began to climb over the fence, but Kirby yanked them down hard from the railing. “If you go tearing in there, you’ll make things worse. He’ll charge her for sure.”

Leif shoved his arm away roughly. “He’ll charge her either way! I’ve got to get close enough to distract him,” he shouted angrily into Kirby’s face.

Kirby pointed in either direction down the fence line, barking orders at them. “Charlie, go down the fence line fifty feet, and Leif you go left. When you get into the pasture, move slowly. We only want to distract him, give Jo a chance to back away.”

Lightning ripped through the sky again as the three of them climbed through the fence. The lightning and noise from the thunder unnerved the bull, and Jo could sense his aggression growing more determined. She had to act. Had to do something. Anything.

“Heavenly Father. Oh please, Heavenly Father. Help me. Please.” As Jo prayed aloud, it gave her the courage to lift her foot off the ground. Slowly, she placed it behind her, letting her weight fall on it. The bull stared at her but didn’t advance. Again, she lifted a foot, inching it to the ground behind her. The bull whipped its head up and to the right. From the corner of her eye, Jo could see a figure moving down the fence. For the first time in several minutes, the bull’s fuming eyes weren’t trained on her, and she quickly took several more steps backward. Too late she realized her steps had been too fast, and she had alarmed the bull. It swung its ugly black head back in her direction and lowered its horns, deadly intent glaring in its eyes. Mud sprayed into the air behind it as it dug its hooves into the ground and barreled down on her.

Her name ripped through the air. “JO!” someone bellowed. “JO!” another horrifying tearing of her name sounded in her ears.

Jo knew it wouldn’t do any good to run, that the bull would be on her in seconds, but her mind had a will of its own. She spun around and pumped her legs, overwhelming terror coursing through her body. She could hear its thundering hooves behind her, closing the gap. Her shoulders hunched as her body involuntarily prepared for the painful impact. Three more strides and the threatening mass of the bull drowned out all other sound from her conscious. Jo could feel its presence at her back but could go no faster. All she could see through her black pit of fear was the fence up ahead, only thirty yards but still too far. Feeling the oppressive beast at her back, Jo pulled her arms into her chest, curling her body into a ball and squeezed her eyes shut…

A shattering hammer exploded in her back as Jo was thrown forward ten feet, landing hard on her stomach in the mud. Her lungs gasped for the air that had been expelled violently from her chest. Clawing in the mud to her knees, she looked desperately over her shoulder, expecting the horns of the bull to slice through her. She saw the bull, its hooves churning at the ground as it whipped around to charge at her again. Jo froze in horror. Just before it reached her, a massive black blur raced in front of her, blocking its path. Everything was chaos, the storm, the hooves pounding brutally into the ground.

“JO! JO!” a savage cry ripped through her stunned, immobile mind. “RUN!” it bellowed at her. “GET UP! RUN!”

Jo didn’t know whose voice it was or where it came from, but she obeyed. Frantically, she scrambled to her feet, pushing herself up off the soggy grass with her hands. Once again her legs were pumping.

Suddenly, Leif appeared alongside of her. “Keep going!” he shouted.

The fear in his voice staggered her, and she twisted her head around, frantically looking for the bull. Leif grabbed her by the arm, pulling her with him as they sprinted toward the fence. The echo of pounding hooves expanded in her ears again. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the outline of the massive bull rearing toward her again. She cringed toward Leif, bracing her body for impact once again, but it didn’t come. To her side, she saw the same black blur whip between her and the bull. Finally, the fence was within reach. Leif swung her up in his arms and pitched her over the top of it. She crashed violently over the fence into Charlie’s arms, taking him to the ground with her in a shuddering ball of terror.

Jo lay in the pooling water, her limbs shaking violently, still terrified beyond comprehension. Kirby, Leif, and Charlie swarmed around her asking if she was hurt, shouting in her face, but she was unable to answer them. The same black blur that had bounded between her and the bull tore into the ranch yard, coming to a sliding halt directly before her.

Mac swung down from General’s back, rushing to her so swiftly that he had to stop by throwing himself to the ground. “Jo.” He slid into her, grabbing her by the shoulders. “Jo,” his voice grated harshly in her ears. “Are you hurt?” he shouted.