Suddenly the other beech shook, too. A pair of dark brown brogans and heavy woolen stockings appeared.
The bull spotted her legs and snorted. It whuffled, blew and charged.
“Look out!” Gabe yelled.
The legs disappeared up into the branches just as the bull crashed against the tree. The ground beneath Gabe’s feet trembled. He muttered an imprecation under his breath, looking around wildly for inspiration.
And for a refuge, as the bull, after having hit the tree, turned around and spotted him.
Gabe remembered a rodeo clown buddy who said, “Time slows down when I fight a bull.”
As far as Gabe was concerned, it never slowed down enough for him to be sure he’d get out of the way. That was why he’d never tried bullfighting.
He was going to have to try it now.
He’d have to attract the bull, entice it, get it to run at him and away from Mrs. Peek and Charlie. It was the only way they could escape.
Slowly, keeping an eye on the bull, Gabe pulled off his jacket. If the bull got it, ripped it out of his hands, he’d move on to the hat. If it got the hat-well, he wouldn’t let himself think that far ahead.
He didn’t think about what would happen if the bull got him instead of the jacket, either. He flapped the jacket, moving away from the trees. The bull was curious, but not enthralled. He looked back at Mrs. Peek’s shoes.
“Use our sweater!” Mrs. Peek called. “Us was tryin’ to distract ’im with it. It’s down there.” A hand dipped down below the branches of the tree and pointed.
Gabe looked and, sure enough, he spotted her faded red sweater lying on the ground.
“Us’ll divert his attention,” she called.
“Right.” He wasn’t going to argue. She was reasonably safe in the tree, and the bull was once more looking her way.
Mrs. Peek lowered her legs again. She kicked them. She waggled them. She called, “Yooo-hooo,
The bull snorted and turned in her direction. Warily Gabe moved to snatch up the sweater. Then, clutching it, he shouted and waved it in the direction of the bull.
The bull stopped. It stared.
Deliberately Gabe flapped the sweater again. He started walking slowly parallel to the bull, away from the trees…trying to get the bull to charge.
One second it was staring. The next it was racing toward him. And Gabe learned it was true, what his buddy had said.
Though it all happened in the blink of an eye, somehow Gabe saw every step, every ball of mud the bull’s hooves flung high.
He waved the sweater, flimsy and insubstantial, out to his side and leapt back as-whoosh-the bull pounded past.
Breathing like each gulp would be his last, Gabe sidestepped, moving even farther from the trees. If he could get behind them and the bull came after him, they would be left in the clear.
He moved. He flapped the sweater. He said, “Come on, you big fat son- of-a-gun. Let’s see how fast you can run.”
Once more the bull charged. Gabe dodged, stumbling this time, falling to one knee and wincing as the bull skidded and turned to come at him again.
Desperate, Gabe staggered to his feet.
“Come on! Come on! A miss is as good as a mile!” He’d twisted his knee as he fell, the same knee he’d hurt more times than he could count when he’d ridden bulls. He gritted his teeth as the pain stabbed him. “Come on!”
The bull came. It lowered its head and charged-and snagged the sweater, ripping it out of his hands.
But at least he was behind the trees now, across the meadow away from Charlie and Mrs. Peek.
Beyond the bull, Gabe saw Charlie swing down out of the tree. As the bull came at him once more, Mrs. Peek descended, too. They glanced in his direction.
“Go on!” Gabe yelled. “Go!”
And the instant before he had to spin away, he saw Mrs. Peek grab Charlie’s hand and run with him up the hill.
Once they were out of sight, Gabe took a breath.
And panicked.
He had no sweater, he’d dropped his jacket before the bull had made its first pass. It turned at the hedgerow by the far end of the field and looked back at him.
Two-thousand pounds of muscle and horn and meanness was all that stood between him and safety.
Gabe almost laughed.
He took off his hat. Slowly he flapped it up and down. He took a step, then another, moving toward the bull this time, not away. “Come and get me,” he said softly. “Come on. Once more. You’ve only got one more shot, buddy. Miss one more time and I’m outa here.”
The bull lowered its head. It snorted. It pawed.
It ran straight at him.
“She was amazing,” Charlie was babbling with admiration. “Just like one of them bull fighters on the telly!”
Freddie had her arms around both of them, hugging them, almost sobbing in relief. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you. Thank you. If you hadn’t-I don’t know what I’d have done if-”
But Mrs. Peek shushed her before she could even speak the unspeakable. “Us gave ’im a little breathing room,” the older woman said modestly. “Us’d still be sittin’ up in those trees if it weren’t for your Mr. McBride.”
Mr. McBride. Gabe.
Freddie looked around frantically. “Where-”
“He’s fighting the bull, Mum!”
Oh, God. She remembered when Gabe and the children had been watching the rodeo videos. Emma had been fascinated with the bullfighting clowns.
“Were you ever one of them?” she’d asked Gabe eagerly.
“Not on your life, sweetheart. There are some things even I’m not fool enough to tackle.”
But today he was.
Freddie closed her eyes. “Oh, Gabe. Oh my God, Gabe.” She hugged her arms across her chest. She wanted to vault the hedgerow and race down the meadow and scream his name,
