Fall had come to town and the saddle shop was busy with the mix of new orders and repairs that had built up over the summer of hard work. It was a busy time for Bill who worked as an apprentice in the shop. He did a lot of the repairs under the watchful eye of Frank, the head saddle maker.
This year seemed particularly busy, with lots of equipment coming for repairs and new orders and such. It was keeping Bill busy with work and some long hours. With the fall days rapidly getting shorter as October came to a close, Bill found himself working into the dark evenings more and more. But he didn’t mind. The extra work meant extra pay and Bill was a hard worker.
The first time it happened it had just gotten dark outside. Bill heard a noise from the back of the shop where the leather was stored. It sounded like someone was ringing a cowbell. At first Bill ignored it as he tried to stitch a new piece of leather to a well worn headstall. The cowbell kept clanging, enough so that it started getting on Bill’s nerves. He walked to the back storage area expecting that Frank or Toby would be pulling a prank on him. Toby was particularly known as the shop prankster.
But when Bill got back to the leather storage racks no one was there. And he couldn’t find a cowbell either. He walked around the shop and didn’t find anyone. He eventually found Frank and Toby out front of the shop talking to one of the neighboring business owners. Very strange…..
The next few days were quiet and uneventful. But then a couple of days before Halloween it happened again. This time it was later in the evening, and Bill was working late itaking apart an old saddle. Working late alone. He knew Frank, who was an early riser and liked to start his days early, had gone home about an hour ago. Toby had left about the same time.
While working to take off some of the old worn leather he heard it again. The cowbell. Just a ding – ding – ding. Then silence. Then he hear foot steps. No, more like a clopping sound that hooves make on a hard surface..
This time Bill didn’t hesitate. He hurried back to the storage area where he had heard the noise. This time he was going to catch whomever was pulling the prank.
No one was there.
Bill looked around confused. He was certain he had heard the bell and the banging. He looked though the shelves of leather, trying to see if there was a bell somewhere that he hadn’t noticed before. Maybe the wind was finding a way through the walls and ringing a bell, or something that could sound like a bell? Maybe something was banging against the wall?
In his searching Bill somehow caused one of the shelves to shift. From the top of the shelf a rolled up side of leather fell and almost hit Bill on the head. He wasn’t hurt but he didn’t know how he managed to knock it off. Not that it really could have hurt him. It startled him more than anything. He put the side back and went back to his workbench. Nothing more unusual happened that night.
The evenings were quiet in the shop until the night of Halloween. It was a quiet Halloween in the saddle shop and Bill was working late again. He didn’t have anywhere in particular to be that night so he didn’t mind working. Wile finishing up a project he heard it again. A cowbell.
It was coming from the leather storage area again, and this time heheard the clopping sound loudly too. In fact is sounded a lot like hooves. The bell was ringing loudly and it sounded like someone had let a bull loose in the storage room. An angry bull.
Before Bill could do anything to check what was going on, the lights in the shop went out. And then he heard what sounded like a bull charging towards him.
Frank found Bill the next morning when he came into work.
No one could figure out what had happened. Bill looked like he had been trampled. Like he had been caught in a stampede and run over by several cows. One appeared to have very statically placed a hoof right into his heart. Yet there was no evidence the body had been moved and nothing else in the shop had been bothered, except for a bunch of leather hides that had been knocked down in the storage room.
Happy Halloween.