Wranglers

This is how it came to pass that on a recent Sunday I was standing waist-deep in brush waiting to wrangle a bull:

Our families celebrated a little early Christmas and the birthday of our good friend Robert on an overnight at Robert's farm just outside of Austin. After a late night by the campfire, we were enjoying a batch of breakfast tacos on the porch when Robert came back from checking on his horses.

"Anybody want to go help wrangle a bull-calf that got loose?"

It's safe to say I never expected those words to be directed at me. In fact, I wasn't sure what wrangle meant. I pictured wrestling. Although you might think I would turn down the invitation with that mental image, I jumped up with Tiffany, my brother Brandon, my best friend Zac and Zac's girlfriend Kate to get some wrangling gear on (Brandon's girlfriend, Lindsay, was in bed with a head cold. No wrangling for her.).

Brandon came back pulling on a lavender Provincetown sweatshirt of my mom's (perhaps the first wrangler to ever so do). Zac emerged buckling his favorite leather belt, which has his last name etched into the hide. Tiffany, Kate and I couldn't think of anything we couldn't wrangle without. I did wish, however, that I'd put my contacts in earlier. I was wearing what Kate has dubbed my "special occasion" glasses. These are the glasses I bought two years ago ostensibly to replace the glasses I bought twelve years ago. Instead, I wear my old glasses most of the time to extend the longevity of my new glasses. I didn't see how wrangling could help in that regard. Alas, there was no time to waste.

Zac drove his truck, with the rest of us, plus my mom and Zac's mom Marilyn, piled in the back. Marilyn's cell phone rang as we bumped along the gravel road.

"Can't talk now! We're wrangling!" she answered.

Wrangler Robert shook his head, laughing.

A couple of pastures away, we met Robert's neighbors who had only moments before nearly wrangled the wayward bull into a trailer. Our task was to re-wrangle the bull.

We introduced ourselves.

"I'm Rebecca," I said, shaking the hand of a woman who was busy trying to call the bull. She wore a sweatshirt that read "No Outfit's Complete Without a Few Cat Hairs."

"Hooooo---woooo," the woman responded. I thought her bull-call sounded more like a train whistle, but who was I to judge?

A man in a cowboy hat passed a long rope to my brother.

"You get close enough, toss this over him," the man said.

My brother nodded, mute.

"Then, I'm warning you, you're going to want all your friends tugging on that rope," the man went on. "That bull's gonna fight."

And with that, we traipsed off into the brush.

"Is this a problem?" Tiffany asked as we set out, looking down at her red scarf.

"No," I said. "I think the bull will be more offended by Brandon's lavender."

(It turns out Brandon was an okay shot with the rope--he was able to lasso my arms to my side without any trouble at all).

Early on, Robert got within touching distance of the bull with the help of a bucket of feed. But, because we had not snuck around to cut off the escape route, the bull trotted off without any difficulty. We pursued, at one point breaking into a run ("Oh no," Kate said, as she fell in line behind us, dodging the branches we flung back as we went, "I'm not wearing my running shoes!").

But we never did wrangle that bull. In fact, if there is such a thing as unwrangling, that's what we did because we never even saw him again.

We had a lot of fun, though.

Yes, that's one thing we know how to do.