Bull Run

Young and convinced that their mutual careless obliviousness of consequence must be Love, the two teens, Misti and Henri, absorbed in each other’s “i’s”, had cut the last period of high school (again) and could be found acting the role of summer lovers on holiday two towns away from where they both lived and attended school. 

They reached Bloomsbury by a combination of hitch-hiking down the two-lane highway, tromping through open fields of farmers properties, and trespassing through horse stables and pastures with their hands firmly locked together the entire journey. As the two strolled, ambled and galloped along, Misti’s backpack, heavy with History, swayed and hit the back of her knee making her wished she had forgotten it at home, Henri wished he had his motorbike.

By two o’clock that afternoon, the duo were sitting leisurely on the sidewalk porch of Bully’s drugstore slurping sticky root beer floats and were giddily consumed with watching the sun change from its yellow dress into its evening orange robe. 

Main Street had everything a town could need including; a small market, post office, bank, a bakery, the sheriff’s station and of course a busy bar. 

Not much happens in a rural town with a total of 300 residents, many of which are related. A stranger or two passing through doesn’t cause any of the local residents to bat an eye. Despite what one would think, most often the people of tiny towns and busy farming or ranching communities are more consumed with their own kith and kins’ comings and goings, making sure to stay updated on one another’s failures more than successes. Their presence went unnoticed. Still, they both intended to make it back home to Toredo by sundown and now the only way to do so would be by catching the last truck out of town.  They had an hour or so of peace and frolic left.

And then, shouts and raised voices pierced the calm late afternoon hum. Looking eastward down Main, a mushrooming cloud of dirt masked the source of approaching turbulence.  Suddenly a horse shot out of the brown plume, its tight red breasts bulging, nostrils flaring and its ears were pinned back almost flat to its withers. The beast headed straight toward the two teens standing frozen, ice cream on their tongues. The steed was charging directly at them but at the last horse-length decided to change direction and continued on past, leaving silty street dirt in now their teeth and wake of freshly disheveled hair.  

Turning their attention back to the east down Main, they now realized that they were suddenly in grave danger. The smell of sweat and manure flooded the air around them.

The townspeople that had rushed out of the roadside buildings all screamed and scattered.  Hats, newspapers, shopping bags flew and floated in the brown air before littering the streets. Plumes of red dirt kicked up by unstoppable, unforgivable shod hooves carried dozens of bulging and wide glassy brown eyes into direct focus. 

It was a cattle stampede, a running of bulls.  This feral bovine flock had escaped their pen and moved with a mob mentality.  Enflamed and storming down Main, the head of brazen beasts performed their freedom march with December passion.  

Most of the townspeople realizing the real danger ducked back into the buildings from which they popped out and proceeded to lock and bolt down the front doors.  Stacked faces lined the panes of store windows. The teens, locked out, stood bravely under the awning of the drugstore, swirling their straws in their plastic cups and were calmly slurping up any last drips of sweet creamy vanilla heavenly paired with bitter sarsaparilla. They showed no fear.  They were too young to know love is mortal. With their hands clasped, the renegade herd drew closer to brave Henri and Misti. They could feel the hooves like an earths drumroll and each thought it was the other's heartbeat.  Neither conceived that they could be hurt standing in the middle of a stampede. They never once thought of consequence, they could not see any danger in their proximity. They were in love, and love is blind. 

A wire newspaper stand crumpled like the papers it held, the young couple said nothing but both were smiling, wincing but facing the danger in the front row. A tire rolled up to the door of the bar across Main with a loud thud, a dog yelped as though he was being beaten, a baby wailed as babies do, men barked angry orders, women shrieked in helplessness-and then it was over. 

At 2:30 not a speck of dirt floated. As quickly as the cattle had come tearing through town like escaped convicts they had been rounded back up by their rancher who had outwitted the hangry herd. He waited for them at the other side of town. He knew that reckless pursuit often drives things away.  

The next cloud of dust to appear, nostrils flaring was Misti’s father who had come to round the two wild youths up and place them back in their separate pens. 




Painting by Jan Siberechts c. 1694 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.