Bryan hated ol' man Peace's gloating, condescending attitude. "Stupid ol' geezer probably doesn't know an app from a doughnut, but I've got to do what he says or he could make things even worse," Bryan groaned silently. "I just wish he would drop dead."
Suddenly, his bovine ears picked up a strange, strangled cry and the hand that Peace had been using to scratch Bryan's bovine head convulsed and clutched at the short hair between Bryan's horns.
"Let go," Bryan bellowed.
He heard a soft thud and noticed that ol' man Peace had collapsed face-down on the other side of the gated stall. Bryan was no expert, but he didn't think the old man looked like he was breathing. He bellowed.
Peace remained motionless on the hay-strewn floor of the barn for the next 20 minutes until Zeke and Cal returned. They found Peace where he had fallen and Bryan, mute witness to the entire scene, ensconced within the stall.
"He's dead as a doornail," Cal drawled after he knelt next to the bulky body and tried to get a pulse.
"Well, hell!" Zeke exclaimed.
While Bryan had little reason to feel fondly toward the ornery rancher, he really hadn't meant it when he had wished Peace would just drop dead. He had even more cause to regret it when Zeke recovered Peace's phone. "Damn, he must have fallen so hard he done busted his new phone," the ranch hand remarked as he picked up the pieces of Peace's shattered phone.
"Fuck!" Bryan thought as he shifted his legs and stomped his hooves. The old man's phone with its Chronivac app represented the only sure way he knew of to regain human form.
"Zeke!" He bellowed. "Cal! It's me! Bryan!"
"Now the damn bull's all stirred up," Cal complained.
Bryan, wisely, decided it would do him no good to antagonize the two ranch hands and ceased his bellowing.
A couple of hours later, after the departure of the county coroner and his team with Peace's body, Bryan began dwelling on what would happen next...