The Wild Bull

The Wild Bull

Subtitle – seeing red

It was in late July when the Saskatoon berries were full on the trees. The warm summer winds blew the leaves around my feet. My grandmother was the world to me. If she asked me to do something, I would do it without hesitation. My grandmother wanted to make some Saskatoon pies and jams but she ran out of berries. Me and 4 other cousins weren’t doing anything else but playing around the yard. She asked all of us kids to go and pick her some berries. She gave us each an ice cream pail to hold the berries. So we set off to a place in the field, close to our house but we had to cross a field with barbed wire fence to be able to get to the old road where on both sides of the old road, the trees were dripping with nice big juicy Saskatoon berries.

The 5 of us ranging in ages from 6- 11 set out about noon for a few hours and picked and ate some wonderfully delicious berries. As the sun was starting to go down, our pails were full, so we decided we had enough berries and started to go toward home again. We weren’t hungry because we ate some berries too! We had to watch out for the cows and the bull on the farmer lady’s land. Her name was Tilly, she had a nice big farm with cows, chickens, pigs and a bull. She always told us kids that if we ever needed anything for our families like eggs or milk or to go on her land, we would be welcome just to ask her and she would let us. She did warn us that when the cows and bull was in mating season, be careful, he could be very territorial. We found out just how territorial he could be that day.

We walked about a quarter of a mile to where the fences were. There were 2 fences with barbed wire that we had to cross. In between the two fences was and open field where the cows and the bull were. We didn’t know what mating season meant and as kids, thought nothing of it. We crossed the first fence, bent the middle up so that everyone could go through. As we were walking back through the open area where the cows were, we heard a snort! Here was a bull standing there, watching us as we were walking. Bulls by nature are kind of blind. So I said to everyone, stand absolutely still and don’t make a sound! Bulls don’t have very good eyesight and won’t see you if you don’t move, I told everyone. Everyone stopped in their tracks and froze. I looked at everyone and saw that Leslie had on a red sweater. I knew that from stories that bulls were attracted to red as the bullfighters in Spain used to use a cloak to taunt the bull. My mom said that red made them mad, so never wear red clothes around a bull. So I figured that is why the bull was snorting at us because one of us had on a red sweater. He didn’t seem to see us as we stood still. He still knew we were there, maybe they have a good sense of smell instead? So, I asked Leslie to slowly take off his sweater and pass it down the line to me. I was the last in line and Leslie in the front, he slowly passed his sweater down the line to me. I then slowly moved away from them and told them to slowly, as in slow motion move towards the second fence wire. As they moved away, I got the bulls attention and started waving the red sweater around and telling him to look at me, “Over here bull, I said”. He stopped looking at the other children and made his attention towards me. He started walking towards me a bit. I kept talking and he was confused but kept looking at me and back at the kids. As they were almost all through the fence, I started slowly moving towards the fence myself. He started pawing at the ground and I knew that he was getting ready to charge! I threw the red sweater as far as I could to the opposite directions as to where I had to go. The second I let the sweater go in the air, the bull charged the sweater, I ran as fast as I could towards the fence where everyone was waiting and watching me with the bull. As soon as the bull realized he was duped, he started running towards me, I could hear him snarl hot on my heels as I was almost at the fence, I didn’t dare turn around or look back. I was scared he was almost upon me. He had big horns and I didn’t want to be gored. I was at the fence but didn’t have enough time to go through so I made a flying leap and flew over the fence. I did a tuck and roll on the grass and laid on my back, panting. I was breathing hard and everyone was looking at me to see if I was ok. When I looked back, the bull had stopped right at the fence and was looking angry at us for invading his space. The others noticed that my jeans were sliced open and blood was pouring out of a new large slash in my leg. I must have got caught on a piece of barbed wire as I flew over the fence and tore my leg open. I ensured everyone that I was ok. I asked them to take all the berries to grandma and let her know that I had to go home to get fixed up. I grew up as a tomboy, so not many things scared me. That freaked me out and a little bit scared that day. I was more scared for the other children. I wanted to make sure that they were safe and sound. Everyone was worried that I took the chance to save everyone. What else was I to do? I didn’t want anyone to get hurt. I went home, got my leg fixed and was good as new. I got a scar to prove it! Every scar tells a story my mom says. Yes, this one was an epic story…….