El Solo Toro, The Bull With the Not-So-Delicate Ego

It was Thursday last week and we were returning from our weekly foray to put in supplies and patronize the merchants of Hell's Valley (Nashville, AR). The forecast was calling for three straight days of rain so we had topped off our provisions lest the roads be rendered somehow impassable.
I turned down our sleepy little street and hadn't driven a half block when I spied a familiar bovine in the neighbor's front yard grazing peacefully on their forsythia bush. Hardly believing what I was seeing, I stopped and fumbled in the console of the Jeep for my camera with one hand while rolling down the window with the other.
By the time I had accomplished both tasks and screwed myself around in my seat to snap a picture the white Charolais bull was on his way over to the car to see what was up!
This bull belongs in the pasture behind my yard, not on the street in front of my yard!
Mineral Springs is an incorporated town struggling to be more than just a wide spot in the rural road but it is not unusual to hear roosters crowing and goats bleating from various yards up and down the streets. On at least two occasions horses have been loose in my front yard. One horse even did some damage to my window screens raring up and pawing at them like Hi-Ho Silver. Now this!
Ferdinand the bull followed me right into my driveway where I parked and watched as he moseyed onto my lawn and began munching contentedly on a patch of clover that grows there. What to do now? It was lunch time and we wanted to get the groceries in the house but we daren't open the garage door, or dare we?

Then I remembered the cell phone I take with me whenever I'm in the car so that I might summon aid in the event of dire circumstances. -- LIKE THIS!!-- I am not a cowboy and I am not equipped for this encounter either by training or by experience. I called Howard County Animal control since that number is in my phone memory.

I told them my name and address and announced "I'm in the driveway of my house in Mineral Springs and there is a twenty-five hundred pound bull loose in my front yard!!"

Animal Control: "Oh, wow! did he get out again? We've already had several calls about him. I thought the police put him back in his pasture! (giggling) Is it a white Charolais?"

Me: "Yes, well he's out again. What are we going to do?"

A.C.: We don't do bulls. They don't fit in the back of my truck. (nyuk, nyuk) You'll have to call the police."

As I thank them and hang up I'm thinking, "No, I need to call Rowdy Yates from Rawhide!" What are the police going to do? The bull's owner doesn't even live on the property. He is a non-resident part-time cattleman. We have never met him and, while the cow pasture he leases is, technically, in the city limits, no one seems to know who this person is. He pays his water bill in cash.

Let's see, last time I called the local number for the police department no one answered. (Andy and Barney must've been out on patrol.) A recording told me to call 911.
To me, this didn't seem like a 911 type of emergency. No one is hurt (yet). Nothing on fire, no one getting murdered or robbed. "Hmmm, I don't want to be the next laugh of the town like the woman that called 911 because McDonalds was out of McNuggets."
I tried the Police number from memory. No one answered, not even the machine. The bull continued munching my turf. It was getting stuffy in the car. I got out and snapped a picture or two. I then screwed up my courage, preparing to get a tongue lashing from an operator, and called 911.

Ferdinand saw me out of the car and headed in my direction to say "hi".
I know from previous encounters when I've been working in the back yard, ol Ferdinand has the habit of coming over to the fence to see what's up. Or is it that he harbors a desire to come into the yard and help me? Perhaps he longs for the excitement of the Corrida and I get to be Matador! It's hard to tell but when he starts snorting and acting curious on the other side of my li'l ol' chain link fence, I demur to caution as the better part of valor and usually take my business to another region of the property.

Now, the lady at 911 was quite cordial, and told me yes, the police had been notified and "someone was on the way". How reassuring. I thanked her and hung up. El Toro was now at the rear of the Jeep and coming around the fender to meet me. I eased around the front, keeping the car between me and certain peril. He moved to the driver side and I to the passenger side. My wife hollered "Roll up the window!" As if that were a button on my remote key fob. I had left the driver's side window rolled down and taken the key. Ferdinand was acting like he might poke his head in! She managed to put her key in the switch and was able to close the offending aperture before any of that disgusting slobber got on the seat.

The game of tag around the Jeep was getting us nowhere and becoming tiresome. Then, finally, help, of a sort, arrived.

One of the local gendarmes, a fellow I know only as Elmer, showed up in the city's new and nifty, electric car which is little more than a golf cart with a roof. It's perfect for dashing about the little town on various civic errands plus it is "green", and I don't mean the color. It is not, however, much heavier than a large dog, let alone a mature Charolais bull.
As El toro turned and eyed Elmer's little car I seized the opportunity and hustled back into the relative safety of my car.

Evidently ol' Ferdinand was unimpressed with the tiny cart and he turned his attention back to the spare tire on the Jeep. He began butting it! Three, four times he butted the rear of the car, nothing violent, just gentle nudges that would have knocked a small tree over. Happily, he was busy with the spare tire, the sheet metal and glass were of no interest. Then Elmer got out of his car and Bossy decided to go see him.

This development emboldened me and I, after satisfying myself the bull was, for sure, headed the other way, emerged from the Jeep. Señor Bull took a huge dump on my sidewalk and proceeded to the street to get cozy with a golf cart.
Now it was Elmer that was playing tag with a bull and, poor fella, he didn't have much of a barrier to hide behind!He jumped in his vehicle and, what do you know? Ferdinand began playing push-car. Down the street they went, a mini-parade, headed for the pasture. The neighbor lady was taking pictures of it all too.
It was like a little game. Elmer would scoot forward and the bull would catch him and give him a little nudge.Every now and then it was necessary to stop and gobble up a particularly enticing clump of grass.
Then the cops finally got there. A high level meeting was convened. Ferdinand looked on.
After some discussion, the cop backed up, turned around, and took the lead in the procession. They made their way down the street and around the corner to the pasture gate.

I followed the group having been reminded that we knew of a gap in the pasture fence. I felt the police might appreciate that little tidbit. A storm almost a year ago had toppled a huge tree across the west end of the pasture fence and tore down the barbed wire. The gap had gone heretofore unnoticed by the pasture residents as it was in a particularly dense section of woods and, I'm sure, a clear path was not obvious to the cows. The bull, however, must have gotten the wanderlust and discovered the breach.
When the little procession got to the pasture gate, they found it closed and securely tied. The cop told me this was the third time he had put the bull in the pen since last night. No one could get hold of the owner.
They led the bull into the pasture and re-closed the gate. Ferdinand busied himself making faces of contempt!
I imparted the unwelcome news about the open-ended pasture to the pair of impromptu cowboys and we chatted for awhile. I left them plotting the best strategy for babysitting Bossy until the fence got fixed. My work here was done. Not wanting to get deputized, I excused myself and made my way back home.

"Wow", I mused, "People in the Big City just have no idea what life in fly-over country is really like." I wouldn't move there for anything in the world!