Garth Brooks sang about the “the bulls and the blood, the dust and the mud” of a rodeo. Aside from the mud part, he didn’t get today wrong. I pulled off my sheriff’s ball cap and wiped sweat off my forehead, then lifted my ponytail to catch a non-existent breeze.

Ten-year-old Toby Wright trotted by on his pony kicking up a cloud of dust and chased by nine-year-old Lacy Stewart, whose feet barely reached the stirrups on her older sister’s paint. Behind them, Lacy’s mother hollered for them to get out of the crowd. But between Bill Hardy announcing upcoming steer wrestling and the general confusion of the July 3rd rodeo, not a single soul paid attention.

My face was gritty from hanging out here since before noon, trading jokes, commiserating with ranchers about dry pastures, teasing, and being an assuring law presence in a county that didn’t really need a lot of law enforcing. But since my not-so-loving sister had filed a recall petition against me, low-key campaigning seemed called for. Thank you, Louise.

Truth is, I’d probably be out here sheriff, recall, or not. In a county with less than 5000 people, you show up at pretty much every social event from weddings and funerals, to ball games, and especially the county rodeo.

I marched toward the stock trailer parked behind the bucking chutes, where it had no business loitering. But Dwayne Weber, being a wheeler-dealer and believing rules didn’t apply to him, probably stopped there to flash his logo on the side panels where everyone could see. He and his wife, Kasey, were making a splash on the rodeo scene with their bucking bulls.

Dwayne leaned toward a guy, his face held exaggerated friendliness, and even from here, words like pedigree, futurity, and payout filtered to me. There was a lot of money to be made in bucking bulls but it was risky business, the same as blackjack or sports betting. This guy should be cautious because Dwayne was slick enough to sell wool to a sheep.

I didn’t wait for a break. “You got a bull in there?” A snout the size of a football sniffed at the slats of the trailer. Through the narrow opening, his black head loomed above me, and the trailer rattled when he shifted his two thousand or so pounds.

Dwayne lifted his chin in an arrogant way. “That’s Alameda Slim. I just saying how—”

I didn’t let him slide into his pitch. “We’ve got mutton bustin’ coming up, and we don’t need a wild bull scaring the sheep.”

Dwayne winked at the guy. “Slim won’t scare anyone. He’s bred to buck in the arena, but other’n that, he’s a pussycat.”

I gave him my serious sheriff-taking-no-guff face. “You need to move your trailer. You’re blocking the entrance.”

A squeal and scratch sounded from the loudspeaker in the crow’s nest. Bill Hardy had been the rodeo announcer so long even the ’yotes in the surrounding hills recognized his jokes. “Calling Sheriff Fox. You’re wanted in the arena.”

Toad farts.

Dwayne sneered at me.

Before I spun away, I said, “Get that trailer moved.”

Bill’s voice echoed through the grounds. “Did you hear about the snowman who got upset when the sun came out? He had a total meltdown.”

I tried for a jaunty pace to the middle of the arena, sweaty not only because of the temperatures in the nineties, but because I hated being in front of a crowd and, even worse, having to speak.

The sun felt like a spotlight, and I did my best to appear relaxed and capable. Thankfully, most of the crowd focused on the cute three-foot-high cowboys and cowgirls entering the arena by the bucking chutes.

The outsider with Dwayne had wandered off, but Dwayne hadn’t moved that trailer. I’d given that yahoo all the slack I intended to today, and as soon as I rounded up my nephews, I’d slap a citation on Dwayne.

I focused back on the stands but before I took another step a clank and shout interrupted me. I whipped my attention to the gate and the kids, sheep, and stock trailer.

Holy… The back of Dwayne’s trailer gaped open and banged closed again. With the gate unlatched, the behemoth of a bull could escape out the back. Before I finished the thought, a big, black, snorting mass of muscle and mad banged the gate open and leaped into the dust at the mouth of the arena. Forget about a bull in a china shop—this guy was big enough to take out a tractor dealership. With all the finesse of an elephant on ice skates, he whacked the rattling gate with his butt, which seemed to fire him up even more.

Slim, who was anything but, flew away from the trailer and pounded onto the sand with a clatter of hooves and a crash of rippling mass like a fire-breathing, leather-coated dragon.

About eight kids, ages three to six, milled around in the arena, most of them standing along a fence waiting for their turn to climb on a woolly sheep and hang on while the docile critter ambled a few paces, maybe turned around, and, in a wild move, shook. A safe form of bull riding for the tykes.

Most of the sheep were in a pen, but the one meant for the first rider, four-year-old Tyler Kirshenbaum, had somehow escaped his wrangler before Tyler could be mounted on his back. That must have upset the little guy, because he was chasing down the sheep, who seemed intent on running to the bull for protection.

Not aware of anything except his chance at winning a ribbon skittering across the dirt, Tyler pumped his short legs as fast as he could.

Directly into the path of the snorting bull.

Bull’s Eye, A Kate Fox Mystery Book #8
Genre: Traditional Mystery
Release: January 2024
Format: Print, Digital, Audio
Purchase Link

Was his death a tragic accident—or a murder in cold blood?

Caught between juggling her dysfunctional family and a looming recall election, Sheriff Kate Fox feels like she’s on a bucking bronc with one hand stuck in the air. When a top bull breeder is mauled to death at a rodeo, Kate quickly realizes that this so-called accident hides a much darker truth.

Dropped from the case to protect her upcoming election bid, Kate is forced to cowboy off on her own when she fears the victim’s wife is being targeted unfairly. After her snooping reveals a list of shady suspects, each with their own reason to want the victim dead, Kate finds herself caught up in a deadly web of lies and fraud at the heart of the competitive world of rodeo.

But when her investigation takes a terrifying turn, Kate starts to question everything. How deep does the corruption go? And who will be left standing when the dust finally settles?

About the author
Shannon Baker is author of the Kate Fox Mystery series. Set in rural Nebraska cattle country, according to a starred review in Library Journal, “Baker’s writing evokes the beauty of the Nebraska Sandhills, and her colorful cast of secondary characters adds a depth of charm.” Now a resident of Tucson, Baker spent 20 years in the Nebraska Sandhills, where cattle outnumber people by more than 50:1. Shannon is proud to have been chosen Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers’ 2014 and 2017 Writer of the Year.