The Spirit of Rodeo: Short Reads, #10

By Beth W. Patterson

It's an anxiety dream come true.

Curtis Baum, frontman for the up-and-coming rock band Frozen Wanda, is forced to be a rodeo clown for one night, sparring with a snarky shape-shifting bull. This boanthrope, known as Luke Tureaud in human form, is ready to buck his own job and deliver some bovine intervention.

Curtis urgently needs to reunite with his band on the eve of their breakthrough tour, but now he's a clown about to go down. The unlikely duo hatches a daring escape plan. Freedom and the rock-and-roll road await Curtis and Luke if they manage to pull it off.

What could possibly go wrong?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Black Hare Press
• Release date: Apr 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393119296

Book preview

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PART ONE

A Companion Most Obtrusive

I’VE GOTTA HAND IT to you, kid. Most people would have a mudslide in their pants upon seeing a ghost, especially the ghost of a blood-soaked clown. But then again, you always did flirt with disaster, which naturally made you my favourite nephew. Well, you were until recently.

Anyway, where were we? Oh yes, I was getting to the part where I had that fateful meeting.

Ya tryin’ to be funny? he bellowed. The gold ring in his nose made him more menacing looking than a bouncer. That didn’t faze me so much. What had my undivided attention was the wicked pair of horns atop his head, aimed at me like twin machine-guns.

This was an awkward first meeting, what with the bull pawing the ground and snorting, and me in my rodeo clown suit. It didn’t take a clairvoyant to know that this wasn’t going to end well.

The fact that an animal was speaking hadn’t caught me by surprise as much as his New Jersey accent. I’d thought he’d have had a Texas twang or something.

Hey! I’m talkin’ to you! Are you deaf or something? I asked you if you’re tryin’ to be funny?

I looked around to see if anyone else was bearing witness to this. But it was just we two: the bull in his holding pen and me off to the side, both waiting our respective turns to shine in this barbaric redneck coliseum. It really was a high school football field that seemed to serve as an all-purpose community centre for this tiny Mississippi town. Even being from this state, I had never heard of it.

Licking my lips nervously, I gagged at the sudden taste of grease paint. No. No, I most certainly am not trying to be funny, I gulped, trying to keep my voice steady.

I saw you pinch yourself, he thundered. You’re doubting a talking bull. I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of boanthropy. I hadn’t done mushrooms in ten years but was cursing the possible aftereffects. A hallucination was the last thing I needed right then.

No, I haven’t. I’m a musician. A little light reading when I’m on the road keeps my mind open, but that’s a new word to me. Trying to suspend disbelief was like trying to keep a bowling ball over a volleyball net.

Well, said the massive aurochs, a long stalactite of drool now making its way down from his boiler-room mouth, you’ve heard of lycanthropy, right? Werewolves?

Um, yeah, I mean, who hasn’t? I answered, trying to keep my eyes locked on his massive brown ones and not stare at his football-sized testes.

Well, boanthropy applies to people who can transform to mighty oxen, he elucidated with what could almost pass for a smirk across his wedge-shaped mouth.

For the barest of an instant, I wondered if this protean power could be a contagious affliction like rumoured lycanthropy, and if so, would it be worth it to be converted if it meant being similarly endowed.

So then, if you’re a shape-shifter, you obviously can’t remain in bull form all the time, I ventured. What is it that you do when you’re not tossing cowboys?

I’m a music critic, the bull replied.

Bullshit! I snapped.

Exactly. Comes naturally to me in either form. So what are you doing all gussied up? asked my bovine counterpart. You don’t look much like a guy who makes it a career choice.

I looked down at my garish shoes. There was no fooling anyone. Even with rainbow-coloured suspenders holding up my overalls, a polka-dotted shirt, mismatched striped socks, and my long blond hair tucked up under a bowler hat, it was obvious that I would have rather been performing some other form of entertainment. Even the makeup I’d applied to my face, intended to resemble a luchador mask, looked way too much like