Hoodini

I despise sheep. The only place I enjoy seeing them is on my plate. I didn't always hate them. I used to think sheep were cute and soft and fluffy. It's a lie. To prove it, I will tell the tale of Hoodini.
This last summer was my second year working at a glorious summer camp for kids. That statement, in and of itself, declares an adventure. I live and breathe camp all summer - there is nowhere I would rather be during the hot, sunshiny days of June, July and August. Last summer I was a survival camp counselor and a wrangler. I was given the position of Equestrian Director this year and that was... a learning experience. Delightful - but full of lessons, both from the campers and the horses. Hoodini, however, was not a horse. Hoodini was a sheep.
It was a calm, balmy day during Blind Camp week and I was sitting in the tack room finalizing my lesson plans for Horsemanship Camp. Barb, my assistant wrangler, was oiling tack. It was pleasant and relaxing with the electric fan circulating the smells of leather, sweat and hay. I glanced up when I heard Beth's voice call Barb to come help her for a minute. Beth was in charge of the camp petting zoo and I assumed she needed help hauling feed or setting up the duck pond. I nodded to Barb and she slipped out. Seconds later, I heard a loud shriek and the panicked yells of the two girls. I dropped my pen and ran into the field.
Both Beth and Barb were running frantically across the meadow, tripping in their boots. I bolted after them and was reminded of how impossible it is to run in cowboy boots. I had no idea what was going on, but they needed help with something. I caught up to them as they paused behind some trees near the trailer park.
"Cheyanne- the sheep are out! They're running away!"
"What? Where?"
"They're in the trailer park. If we can circle around without being seen, we can chase them back in the direction of the barn. If they get out the gate, there's nothing between them and the coyotes!"
We split up, each attempting to get behind the creatures and direct them home; but sheep either have super eyes, super ears or super noses, because they broke into a run before we were halfway around them. Barb and Beth sprinted after them, and I kept ahead of them, down the road and toward the camp gate, which was open. We cut them off at the archway and stood, like a Western shootout, waiting for them to move. When they did, I swear they had a force field around them. They physically slipped right through my clutching fingers and dashed into the road, which, fortunately, was deserted as it regularly is.
The two girls cut off their escape toward the open wild, so they followed the road as it bordered our property. Technically, we were still on our land, but if we had to chase them into the forest on the other side of the road, we'd be violating the large, red and white NO TRESSPASSING signs posted everywhere along the treeline. I put on my best country-girl-run and flew through the trees on our side, hoping once again to cut them off and turn them home. I succeeded merely in chasing them into the neighbour's property. Now it was desperate - on the other side of the forest was a wheat field, with new, tender, green wheat. THAT was the real problem.
It was a flat out race. We chased the sheep between trees, over logs, through ditches of mud and sludge. The animals were filthy, panting and maneuvering through the woods with the skill and grace of a Greek nymph. I kept waiting for one of them to slam face first into a tree, but the stupid things never did. It had been at least fifteen minutes since Beth's first call for assistance and it was starting to get funny - really funny. Our laughter echoed among the trees along with the bleating of the sheep. I leaped over a log, hot on the tail of the larger sheep, and landed in something both soft and hard - like moss and twigs, but not. I stared down, horrified by what was surrounding my feet. I stood in the middle of a decaying moose carcass.
I stood for a full five seconds before I jerked my feet up and out, flying six feet in one leap. (I'm not exaggerating, I've done it before when a spider crawled into my lap. But that's another story.) Beth's call for me pulled me back to the task at hand and I sailed through the forest toward her. The sheep were cornered between two massive anthills and two panting wranglers. Finally, we had won. 
Confidence is a false friend, because the second I moved to grab their fleece, they dashed in opposite directions, rejoined behind me and bounded into the wheat field that was only ten feet away. Fool.
The sight that greeted me when I turned around, however, almost took my breath away with gales of laughter. The wheat was taller than the sheep and as they moved, tiny, shimmering green trails showed their every twist and turn. They could not see a thing and so began running in wild zigzags and circles.
"Come on!" I shouted gleefully and plunged into the waves, followed closely by Beth and Barb.
It turns out that humans cannot run faster than sheep and sheep cannot run faster than humans - at least in a wheat field. The sheep were bouncing - literally - through the thick wheat and the people were stepping just as idiotically to clear their feet of the tangled stalks. The sheep stayed just ahead, and as I slowly came closer, laughing hysterically, I prepared myself to tackle. At the precise moment that I leaped, I also tripped and executed a face plant that would have become a viral video had it been recorded. I was convulsing with laughter when I heard another person laughing with me.
"That was quite amusing," said a male voice and I lifted myself up to see Chad, another wrangler, standing on the edge of the field, sweaty and smiling broadly. I had no idea why he was there, but I was having too much fun to care.
"Don't just stand there - help us!" I gasped. At that moment, one of the sheep ran by and he reached for it. Missing, he leaped after it and joined the chase, laughing just as loudly as me.
For a brief moment, it was like a music video. My wavy blond hair was down and flying, my cowboy hat was bouncing against my back. I was dressed in a red plaid button down shirt, jean shorts and cowboy boots. The sun shone down on the field, making every blade of wheat sparkle and every golden hair on my head shine. Chad was tall, handsome and athletic. His smile lit up his face and he leaped and jumped with playful abandon. With the music in my head and the two of us running side by side through the green, never ending sea, it was perfect. Minus the two other girls, the twigs in my hair, the mud covering Chad's shoes and the frantic sheep running just ahead of us. The sudden thought almost paralyzed me with its humour. After another five or so minutes, Chad took a valiant dive and landed on top of the larger sheep. Pinning it to the ground with his body, he looked up at me.
"Now what?"
"Flip it over and we'll carry it," I replied, still snickering. I really couldn't stop. After about two minutes, I realized that Beth and Barb couldn't catch the other sheep on their own, so I sent Chad back to help them after we settled our sheep across my shoulders. 
I felt like King David or the Good Shepherd as I walked down the road, carrying my "little" lost lamb home. It was pleasant - like a story book - until the little lost lamb threw a temper tantrum and began trashing wildly. His tiny, sharp hooves jabbed me in the throat over and over and over again. I stumbled, thrown off balance by the epileptic thing on my shoulders. Within seconds, the sheep was back on the ground. I'd love to say I was strong and gentle and lowered him to the road, but the truth is I tripped again and while falling, flung him off my shoulders and onto the gravel. He laid there, a little stunned and I took the opportunity to put him back on my shoulders. Ya - good luck with THAT, stupid. I was like Rabbit straining against the carrots in his garden. So I sat, in the dirt, with both hands embedded in the sheep's wool, waiting. For someone. Anyone. And I waited a while.
Finally, Chad, Beth and Barb appeared, chasing the other sheep back toward the barn. Chad took the sheep from me and manhandled it onto my shoulders again. The exact same thing happened after only a few steps. Chad took pity on me and picked up the sad, bruised monster, carrying it against his chest, his biceps flexed and taut to keep it there. And that's when the sheep peed. 
I died in the middle of the road. I couldn't breathe, couldn't talk. I could only cackle like Honey Hotwings, the petting zoo chicken. Poor Chad set a grim smile on his face and walked all the way back to the petting zoo, the screaming sheep in his arms. He placed it inside the fence and turned around, slowly. 
"I'm going to go change. I may be late to work," he stated. 
"Of course," I replied in a mock serious tone. "You have done us a great service and duly earned the right to retire." I laughed once more and said, "Go shower, Chad. Barb and I can start rides on our own."
He was half-way across the field when I turned back and yelled, "Don't forget to check for ticks!" He broke into a dead run and Barb and I had to hold onto each other to save ourselves from our laughter.
That was the first time I chased Hoodini. It was not the last. In fact, we had a daily date together and our games of tag were routine within a week. He could jump any fence we built, no matter how high or how thick. Somehow, he was always on the other side, staring at me across the field with mellow eyes that sent a silent, secret challenge. Fortunately, he always left Sidekick at home and we never had to chase the two of them together again.
As much as I hated the stupid thing, I miss him too. He gave me a story that every camper loved hearing and he gave me a title too. Admittedly, though, I'm not sure The Sheep Wrangler really flatters me as much as Chad says it does.