Between the Living and the Dead by Bill Crider Read Free Book Online

which would make a lot more sense. Not that bulls had an abundance of sense. This one especially. If it had any sense, it wouldn’t be running down the highway.
    For the first time, Rhodes wondered how the bull had gotten there and why it was on the loose. If Dr. Stanton was involved, the bull might have come from his clinic. Maybe someone had been unloading it and it had escaped. Not that it mattered. It was here now, and they needed to get it corralled. Too bad there wasn’t a corral handy.
    Rhodes heard the bull snorting as it approached. The men following it had dropped back a bit, but Alton Boyd was making an attempt to regain his lost ground. He wore cowboy boots and ran awkwardly, but he was catching up.
    â€œDon’t scare him,” Rhodes called out. “He might turn.”
    Too late. Boyd was twirling his lasso in a wide loop above his head as he ran. It appeared that he was going to attempt to rope the bull and stop it before it went any farther, and Rhodes was afraid things wouldn’t go according to plan.
    They didn’t.
    Or maybe they did, since Rhodes didn’t know what Boyd’s plan had been. If it had been to lasso the bull, he succeeded.
    It was what happened next that Rhodes suspected hadn’t been a part of any plan, or if it had been, then Boyd hadn’t thought it through. He was strong, stronger than a lot of people Rhodes knew, but he wasn’t strong enough to stop a running bull. Hardly anybody was, except maybe Hercules, and Boyd was no Hercules. Years ago Rhodes had seen a series of badly dubbed Italian movies on television that went under the general title of Sons of Hercules. Boyd wasn’t one of them, either.
    He tried, Rhodes had to give him credit for that. He dug in the heels of his boots and leaned back as the rope tightened, but the bull didn’t even slow down. Boyd was jerked forward and onto his stomach. It was like a scene from some old B Western. Rhodes had seen a few of those, too.
    â€œOh, boy!” Jennifer said.
    Boyd was dragged along the side of the road for a few yards, churning up dust and gravel as he tried to dig in his heels. He released the rope. When he did, the bull did just what Rhodes had feared he might and swerved right into the entrance to the parking lot.
    Rhodes was right in his way. If he’d had a red cape, Rhodes might have waved it and danced lightly aside. Lacking the cape, he jumped awkwardly to his left and almost fell down.
    â€œOh, boy!” Jennifer said.
    Rhodes didn’t have time to worry about how he was going to look in the now sure to be viral video. He had to do something to stop the bull, which was headed straight for the entrance to Walmart. Two men who had just left the store took one look, turned around, and ran back inside so fast that the automatic doors barely had time to open for them.
    The opening and closing of the doors seemed to have confused the bull, and he slowed down. Rhodes went after him, though he had no idea what he’d do if he caught up with him. He could grab the rope, but the idea of getting pulled across the Walmart parking lot and getting asphalt burns all over his body didn’t appeal to him. Jennifer Loam would love it, but Rhodes didn’t feel any obligation to get her video any extra hits.
    The automatic doors opened again, and a woman came out pushing a cart. Obviously no one had warned her about the bull, because when she saw him, she pushed the shopping cart away from her and went back into the store, leaving whatever she’d bought to the mercy of the bull.
    The bull slowed even more and looked at the cart.
    â€œMaybe the two of us could stop him,” Alton Boyd said.
    He was standing right behind Rhodes, who hadn’t heard him come up.
    â€œI think it would take more than two of us,” Rhodes said.
    â€œHe’s just walking now,” Boyd said. “We could do it.”
    â€œNot worth the risk,” Rhodes said, keeping a wary eye