by Sandy Nathan
“Course they weren’t wearin’ bits. I didn’t have time to train them into it,” Leroy snapped. “I just started trainin’ them on Wednesday. I was lucky to get them to stop and turn so nice.”
Their slack jaws might have been funny if Leroy had been in a mood to laugh.
“Where have you been on the rodeo circuit? You could go to the National Finals if you worked at it a little.”
They were fans, not enemies, looking at him like he was the horse trainer in that book. Total bullshit. Anybody with a feel for livestock could do what that book said. Doing what Leroy did took real talent. More’n’ that; it took magic.
“I don’ want to go to the Finals. I don’ like crowds.” They laughed. “I like bein’ at my ranch where it’s quiet an’ nobody bothers me.” They didn’t take the hint and leave.
“What are you? Six foot eight?”
“An’ a half.” He looked through the bars of the gate in front of him. His daddy was out in the arena in his green and yellow clown outfit, walking just fine. The healing he was giving him was working.
“I’m real glad I can go to your father’s party tonight. I’ve admired him all my life. You look just like him, ‘cept you don’t have white hair,” one of his new sidekicks observed.
The chute’s gate flew open and another cowboy spun, one hand holding on to the rigging strapped around his bull like it meant his life.
A commotion caused Leroy to look behind him. A bunch of people were approaching from the dirt concourse that ran around the arena. That was a doughnut covered with the same stuff the arena was. It ran under the stadium outside the main ring. It was made for moving cattle, cowboys, and cowgirls to and from the barns without entering the arena. The people who were approaching didn’t have horses or chaps. They weren’t in the rodeo. Leroy didn’t know how they got that far with the tight security. The crowd made its way to the arena’s entrance where Leroy stood.
The interlopers waved signs that said, “Animal abuse!” “Cruelty isn’t a sport!”
“Oh, let’s see how they spur the bulls,” some rattle-brained girlie shouted, jumping forward and sticking her face between the slats next to the bull chutes. The cowboy on the other side was just settling on his bull. The creature reared up at the girl’s onslaught and hit the rider in the face with back of his horns. The kid surged back, mouth open to show blood and missing teeth, then he fell forward, passed out over the animal’s shoulders. The other boys scrambled to get him out of there while the bull kept jumping up and down.
Blood––cowboy blood––splattered the young woman.
“Ooh. Did it do that because of me?” She looked at Leroy, horrified.
“Yes, he did, ma’am. Y’ cost that boy some money in dentistry an’ now he don’t have a chance at the purse to pay for it. You don’ need to spur bulls, by the way. They’ll kill you just for nuthin.’ Why don’t you and your friends go demonstrate where you can’t get anyone hurt? Like at a shopping mall?”
Leroy’s deep voice and size were enough to back off anyone, but one of the other demonstrators came forward.
“I saw you!” he pointed at Leroy. “You jumped off a horse and twisted a cow’s neck until it almost broke. You won a bunch of money for doing it.” He stuck his face closer to Leroy, his mouth hard.
Leroy swung toward the kid, taking in his tight jeans and bleach-faded shirt, and the specially molded, hip-cowboy hat that no cowboy would be seen wearing.
“Yeah, I won. I needed to win. You know what I’m going to do with my winnings?”
Bleached shirt shook his head, backing away. Leroy’s size had registered.
“I’m gonna go visit my grandpa. Winnin’ that purse was the only way I could afford a airplane ticket. I gotta get down there fast.”
“You twisted a cow’s neck until it almost broke so you could see your grandfather?”
“No, I didn’t. It was a steer, not a cow. An’ I twisted two steers’ necks to win. I did one yesterday to qualify, and one today for the championship. An’ you should know I roped a couple of calves and won for that, too.” The cowboys who’d been talking to him laughed.
“You think that’s funny?” Leroy whirled on them. “How ‘bout I twist your neck? See how that feels? How ‘bout I put a bucking strap around your skinny ass and spur you all up to make you buck?
“There ain’t a thing you do in that arena that looks anything like what we do on the ranch. An’ I never seen a hand show up at our place wearing pink and green chaps like yours.”
Leroy clenched his fists and stepped toward the two Stetson-hatted rodeo cowboys. “Those kids ‘re stupid and couldn’t fight their way out of a pay toilet, but they’re right! Rodeo is cruel. That’s why I’ve never done it before. I’m here because I needed the money.”
Leroy jolted like something had struck him. The stadium seemed to roll under his feet. Leroy reeled backward and went silent. He stumbled into the wall, barely able to stand. Grandfather’s image floated before him, surrounded by fuzzy light. He radiated joy, smiling as he always did. He gave Leroy a message, imparting it in a wordless burst of meaning, which took a fraction of a second to impart.
When the vision of Grandfather disappeared, Leroy felt like the anvil had fallen from the barn roof onto his head.
“Oh, God,” he put his hands over his face. This was the worst possible news. His grandfather had been very insistent that he attend at the Meeting. Leroy thought the vision had appeared to chastise him for missing the two previous retreats. That wasn’t it. His grandfather wanted him because he was dying. Soon, maybe that week.
Grandpa was dying. The man who had raised him and saved him. His father and mother and holy man. The one who was always there. His message said that not many people knew about his impending death. He should keep it quiet. The shaman didn’t want the hysteria that followed his heart attack.
“Come my son. Spend time with this old man,” the vision had said. Come, because I’ll soon be gone and you won’t be able to see me again. Leroy’s chest heaved. A sob escaped. Tears ran down his face.
Leroy looked up. Not only were the animal rights protestors staring at him, the cowboys were, too. He didn’t care.
He glanced toward the arena’s gate and saw his daddy floating in the air, a red bull’s head and horns suspended beneath him. It was his fault; his attention had strayed.
Leroy charged to the fence and clambered into the arena. His father lay motionless on the turf. The bull rammed a horn into his fallen body. It pulled back, and then rammed Leroy Sr. with the other horn.
Leroy sprinted toward them. His father moved only in response to the bull’s assaults. He seemed dead.
11
BULL SHIT
Austin Zemsky got it all on his video camera. Out of nowhere, Leroy Watches Jr. leaped over the arena’s gate and ran at the bull. The men on horseback spun away. Watches grabbed the bull’s tail and pulled on it. The animal began to move slowly away from the fallen bullfighter, pulled by the grasp of Leroy Jr. The bull bellowed, turning its head like it might go after the younger man. It didn’t: the end of the tail broke off. Watches fell backwards, landing on his butt, holding a tuft of hair and a bloody hunk of backbone. The bull leaped forward, savaging the elder man again.
Leroy Watches Jr. roared and charged the bull.
Austin not only saw, but filmed, blue beams coming out of Watches’ eyes. They hit the bull’s head first. It exploded like a missile. Flesh and bone scattered like shrapnel all over the crowd. Then the younger Watches aimed his eyes at the animal’s body. The blue beams struck it. The huge carcass lifted off the ground at least a yard and exploded. The detonation was so colossal that a good portion of the audience was splattered.
Austin and the kids looked liked they’d been in a slaughterhouse; they were front and center. He had had the presence of mind to clean his camera’s lens after the head blew; he was able to fully capture the body’s detonation. It exploded like a bloody warhead. Nothing was left but the gor
e splattered everywhere. People screamed, too shocked to run for the exits.
This was more disgusting than anything he could imagine. Austin was revolted. When he thought of an animal blowing up, Austin imagined blood and red meat. Bone fragments. The bull had far more than that. He had organs in colors that Austin didn’t know existed in a living creature. All fifteen or however many stomachs a bull has exploded. The contents of the animal’s intestines flew everywhere. Austin had once stepped in a cow pie. That was nothing to being sprayed with the partially digested contents of a full set of bovine stomachs. There were green things and white things, all blown up into slivers and shreds, completely covering him and the kids, and everyone. The stench was worst of all.
Austin knew a national security emergency when he saw one. This was an act of terrorism. He grabbed his cell phone and tried to call the sheriff. It didn’t work on the lower level, so he ran to a higher part of the stadium. Austin dialed Bill Rodriquez, the County Sheriff. He had known the contact would be valuable.
“Bill, it happened.”
“What happened, Austin?”
“The terrorist activity we were afraid of. I witnessed it and I’ve got it on video. Terrorists for sure. Two explosions here at the rodeo at the Thomas & Mack. Blood all over. I need support and medical assistance for the wounded.”
“What exploded, Austin?”
“You won’t believe it, Bill. They developed the perfect weapon. No one would think of it: a bull. Someone in the arena blew up a bull––you’re not going to believe this, but I’ve got it on film––he did it with blue beams coming from his eyes.”
“Oh,” the sheriff paused. “Is there any substantiation of the attack?” Austin could feel his incredulity.
“You better believe it. Half the people in the stadium filmed it. This is big, Bill.” He could have kicked the cement seat behind him in frustration. The sheriff thought he was out of his mind. “If you don’t believe me, I saw Antiterrorism Force personnel all over this place. Call the ATF and ask them.”
“Hold on. I’ve got a call coming in.” Austin waited, irritability rising from his toes. The sheriff thought he was some nut case. People always did. But he wasn’t a conspiracy theory bozo. The conspiracies he reported were real. This was real. And it was the case that would get him promoted, if he got the chance to handle it.
“Austin, Bill. I’m back. You’re right. That was the ATF team leader. She reported what happened exactly as you described it. She said there were a lot of wounded. Bone splinters. Sorry for doubting you. It’s just so crazy.”
“No problem. Let’s get on to the next step. It’s my case. I’m the senior officer. I called in the act of terrorism first. The FBI can handle this better than the ATF.”
“It’s yours, Austin. I’ll send the Metro police over now. All the assets we’ve got are yours.”
With Bill’s blessing, Austin reported what had happened to his superiors in Washington. They gave him full authority to move ahead, especially when they learned that ATF agents were on the scene.
“We’ll send you a team right away, Austin. There are a few agents on duty around Las Vegas. The ATF was already there?”
“Yes, sir. They were looking for terrorism, but I found it.”
“Good work, Austin. I’ll get you whatever I can. May take a while. Commandeer office space at that stadium for headquarters.
With the Bureau and the sheriff behind him, Austin ran to the rodeo announcer’s stand. He declared a state of emergency, ordering people to stay where they were.
“We have experienced a terrorist attack on the United States of America. This is a state of emergency. You must stay in the stadium until you have been debriefed and samples of any … animal matter … are taken.” Wails louder than those elicited by the stricken clown and exploding bull arose.
Having made his declaration, Austin turned to the announcer and said, “Talk to them. Keep them in calm and in place. We have to question everyone and take samples of the … bull. This could be bioterrorism––some new strain of bacteria that we can’t kill. Could be anything. I’m calling the Center for Disease Control. If you can’t keep the people in the stadium, the sheriff’s riot squad is right outside. The sheriff has given orders to deploy them to control the biohazard.”
Austin left the glassed-in room, leaving the announcer to handle the crowd. That’s what announcers do. He did not realize that the sound equipment had been on when he was speaking to the guys in the announcer’s booth. Everyone in the stadium heard what he said.
The announcer did a great job for a while, but when a pressure cooker gets rocking, it’s hard to keep the lid from blowing. Pressure cookers can also be goosed by turning up the heat.
“Ryan,” the announcer said to one of the guys in the booth, “Did he say flesh-eating bacteria? Or was it antibiotic-resistant bacteria, or new stuff that we can’t kill?”
“I thought he was talking about mad cow disease. Isn’t that what that CDC handles?”
“I didn’t hear that one. Mad cow? Shit. This is a disaster.”
“That’s what he said: a national emergency.”
That conversation was broadcast, too. The stadium went silent. They had been exposed to three types of deadly bacteria and mad cow. The riot police were right outside, ready to shoot them. People froze. Then they hunkered down, creeping towards the exits, trying to be invisible.
Austin walked into the Thomas & Mack business office and held up his badge. “I need to requisition office space for the FBI.” The secretaries recoiled from him, faces filled with terror.
He looked at his sleeve. He was covered with blood and guck from the bull. “I’m sorry. I was front and center at the attack. I need to set up offices for FBI headquarters. Street level with outside access. I need them now.” The women moved on it.
“Give us fifteen minutes and we’ll set you up.” He had his office space.
“Where can I get cleaned up?”
Before hitting the locker rooms under the stadium, Austin requisitioned clothes from a vendor on the concourse. All black; a western shirt with pearl buttons, jeans, a black silk scarf like Roy Rogers once wore––and best of all, a black Stetson hat. The shop owner even told him how to put it on properly.
He emerged from the locker rooms resplendent: the FBI’s only western-themed special agent.
The offices the stadium gave him were everything he could hope for: computers and net access were already in place, as were desks and phones. It looked like the space had handled ticket sales. Rodeo posters and prints for rock bands covered the walls.
His four new agents arrived. He set them to work implementing the FBI’s protocols. Clean-cut people dressed in black and white moved quickly into the computer room. Austin loved the FBI.
This was a terrific set up. There was even a large window next to the exterior door so he could keep tabs on the parking lot.
His jaw dropped. Through the window, he could see the head of the Antiterrorism Force striding toward their door. She looked like a dog groomer. Her apron had multi-colored brushes tucked in it and little neckerchiefs for the dogs. Something even more offensive to Austin’s sensibilities was approaching. The ATF mobile command vehicles pulled up on the curb.
“You can’t put those buses there,” Austin barked. He would never allow anything like the rag-tag pieces of shit they were trying to park near the FBI’s headquarters.
“Of course we can,” the dog groomer said. “I’m the same grade you are. We’ve been here for weeks. The populace has adjusted to us.”
The ATF Mobile Command was a couple of old hippie buses from San Francisco, all painted up with flowers and dancing gypsies. Animals. Rainbows. “Let’s go to the zoo!” was painted on the side of one. What kind of a government agency would have a mobile command like that?
They did blend in with the retirees’ RVs that dotted the parking lot. Old timers stuck in the Summer of Love. The ATF even had a mobile kitchen installed on the side of one b
us. People began lining up for hot dogs. Austin had to admit that no one could tell that the vehicles housed a top-secret government operation.
“Come inside.” He pulled what’s-her-name into the FBI HQ. “What are you doing here?” Austin’s voice rasped.
“That’s classified,” she said.
“Listen, we can play, ‘I’m higher ranked than you are.’ Doesn’t matter who’s higher ranked. I can make one phone call and put you on the line with someone will chew your ass to hamburger. Somebody who lives in a big white house.”
The ATF officer lowered her voice, even inside the FBI headquarters, where they were recording her every heartbeat, of course.
“It’s mad cow. Extremist cells of the animal rights movement are trying to bring a new strain into the country. They aim at killing people; animal deaths are extraneous to them. The new form of the disease is spread by contact with infected flesh. It works very quickly and is deadly. It’s bioterrorism at its worst. The cell leader is hidden among the people picketing the Thomas & Mack. We’ve been after them for years.”
Austin gasped.
“We chased them from England.”
“England? They like cows there.”
“Via the Middle East.”
Austin gasped again. Then thought out loud. “Why would animal rights groups, who protest cruelty to animals, want to spread a disease that would destroy animals?”
“That’s how extremists are. They don’t really care about what they say they care about. The issue is power. Terror. World domination.”
This thrilled Austin. He wanted a big splashy case to make his career. This was bigger than he reckoned for. “We need to get the Center for Disease Control here.”
“I have already called the CDC. They should be setting up a portable lab right next to you.”
Austin looked out the window of the office. A couple of tasteful beige vans with black lettering rolled up. Center for Disease Control was lettered on them. That’s a proper governmental vehicle.
