(NOTE: This is a completely fictionalized account of an automobile accident I saw a few weeks ago. No fictitious cows were harmed in the writing of this story.)
Jake Trumbull settled into the driver’s seat of his white 1972 Cadillac El Dorado. It was a Texas Limousine: complete with red leather interior and a four-foot-wide set of bull-horns for a hood ornament. Jake had bought the car when he found oil on his land. The royalty checks weren’t enough to make him rich, but they certainly padded his retirement check.
Jake had always dreamed of a car like this. Hell, every Texan either had one, or wanted one. Jake was tired of being in the “wanting” crowd. He’d spent his entire life, forty-two years of it in the logging business, wanting what other people had. Now he was retired, and Providence had seen to it that he could at least look the part of the “having” crowd.
And Jake certainly looked the part. He had the ten-gallon hat. The turquoise in his belt buckle shone against the sterling silver. The points in his ostrich-leather boots were new and sharp. He was every bit the oil man he’d wished to be. He took a slow swig of Dr Pepper and turned the key in the ignition. It was Thursday afternoon, and that meant gambling.
Jake had taken to poker as his preferred method of slowly wasting his retirement fund. He wasn’t particularly good at it, though he wasn’t particularly bad, either. He spent most weekends at the Horseshoe, taking breaks from marathon sessions of Texas Hold ‘Em to visit the buffet. “Maybe I’ll spring for a suite,” he thought as he pulled out of the gas station.
Visions of the Horseshoe’s marble floors and the casino music of winning slot machines had preoccupied Jake. He wasn’t paying attention as he approached the stoplight. He never saw that it was red. And he certainly didn’t see the cow trailer as he plowed the front end of his perfect Cadillac into its bumper.
Jake woke up from his daydream, startled but otherwise unhurt. That was one of the benefits of driving two tons of steel and horn: you generally walked away from an accident. “Daaaaammit,” Jake said as he turned off the car and unbuckled his seat belt. “Reckon there’ll be no poker tonight.”
Jake got out of the car to inspect the damage. He met the driver of the cow-trailer at the scene. “I’m terribly sorry, pardner. I reckon this was my fault.”
The driver smiled and just shook his head. “Mister, we’re both driving steel tanks, I doubt there’ll be much to fix. As long as Clover’s all right.”
“Clover? Damnation, there’s a cow in there?”
The other driver didn’t get a chance to explain that Clover wasn’t a cow, as much as a rodeo bull. An angry bleating, low at first, gave Jake all the answer he needed. The bleating grew as the back door to the trailer started shaking. Horns poked out as Clover’s bleating grew in volume and pitch. The trailer door finally broke from its hinges, landing on the hood of that pristine Cadillac.
“Hoooooly…”
Clover stepped out, onto the Cadillac’s hood. The bull looked down at the bull horns, then to Jake. Clover glared at Jake as if to say, “Those were my brothers, you bastard.” Clover started stomping, each time putting another hoof-shaped dent into the hood. Clover’s bleating became grunts of pure bovine fury.
Clover worked his way to the windshield, stomping glass and breaking through into the Cadillac. His front legs fell into the dashboard as his rear end kicked at the trailer floor, trying to break free.
The trailer driver started screaming as he ran back to his truck. He put the truck in neutral, allowing Clover to push the truck free. The bull stumbled as it landed on the asphalt. He was officially stuck, and that did little to improve his demeanor.
The other driver got out of the truck and approached Jake with a gun. “What in the hell do we do now?” Jake asked.
“This cow’s ruining my car!”
“Mister, your car’s already ruined. Clover’s going to have a heart attack if we don’t calm him down.”
“And how do you propose we do that?”
The trailer driver held up his gun. It was long, with a silver hue to it. “We’ll have to shoot him.”
“Oh no we don’t! I’m not going to have a cow die on my car!”
“Calm down! It’s a tranquilizer gun!” The trailer driver held up the gun, slowly aimed and fired a round into Clover’s hindquarters. Clover went even more wild, tearing the roof off the Cadillac as he bucked. The bull then began to stumble a bit. A few moments later, and Clover’s head was lying against the steering wheel.
The police showed up soon after. A crane was brought in to lift Clover out of the car. The trailer drive had called a veterinarian, who determined that Clover should be all right, if a little sore for a while. The cow trailer drove away as the Cadillac was towed. It was eventually scrapped for parts. Jake got another Cadillac, this time black with white leather.
There were no horns on the hood.
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