That's a lot of bull

It is a classic tale of man against beast.

For the record, I am the man in this story.

It all started innocently enough several years back when my wife wanted to spend a few days at a ranch visiting her dad, step-mom and other relatives.

I know, not the most thrilling vacation ever, but what can a guy do?

We loaded up the family, including my niece, who was staying with us, and headed to the backwoods to spend a few "relaxing" days with the in-laws.

The first thing we had to do was find the ranch, which was several kilometres down a narrow, winding, dirt road.

You know you are in redneck country when it takes you 30 minutes on a dirt road to get to your destination.

The scary part was we were not 100 per cent certain we were on the right road and turning around a mini-van hauling a tent trailer on a single-lane dirt road would have been a challenge.

Eventually we arrived at the ranch. The first thing we saw was a cousin working on fence without his shirt on.

He was a typical cowboy. He had on a cowboy hat (of course), tight jeans (um, er, not that I noticed) and was absolutely ripped (um, er, not that I noticed.)

I'm not gay or anything, but damn.

He had been doing physical labour for years and it showed. I looked down at my somewhat ample middle section and knew that there was no way I was taking my shirt off around this guy.

If I were on fire, I would rather roll in the dirt and risk third-degree burns than doff my shirt next to Billy McStud.

But he is not the beast I am was making reference too earlier in my rambling.

No, this was a beast of the massive variety: a big, mean, ugly, nasty looking bull.

Now, I have nothing against bulls – as long as they are behind an enclosure or on my barbecue.

The problem was, this monster was neither.

It was day three at the ranch and I had managed to injure my leg on day two and could barely hobble my way across the driveway.

Of course, that is when fate decided to have a little fun with the bald, flabby, injured guy.

I was limping past a barn with my niece when we noticed that big, mean bull was staring at us from the wrong side of the fence.

Somehow, the beast had gotten loose and was stomping around looking for trouble.

What he found was me and a 10-year-old girl.

Close enough. 

He looked at us and snorted.

I don't know a lot about bulls, but I knew this was a bad thing. I told my niece that if the bull came at us, we would simply duck under a fence that was about five metres away.

As the word “away” left my lips, I looked up to see a trail of dust as my niece set a land-speed record running to the farm house.

That left just me and the bull, who noticed my niece sprinting across the yard and decided to amble over and see what I was all about.

I began to move toward the nearest enclosure when Billy McStud rode to my rescue.

He was on a horse and put himself and his steed between me and the beast.

He corralled the bull back in its pen before riding off into the sunset.

Well, actually he just rode over to the barn, but the sun was in that general direction, so close enough.

The owner of the ranch heard about the bull incident and promised to send us a couple of steaks from the offending bull in the fall.

They were delicious.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.