As it turns out, for as naïve a child as Andy is, his gut was wise. For in that moment the Bull
shook him loose from his fin and whipped around, swinging one golden eye around to stop inches
before Andy's face. The bull's long hooked jaws snapped before Andy's face. The boy tried with all his
might not to quiver in fear.
“IT IS YOUR FAULT. Without your kind, I would not be lonely and Bulls my size would flood
the river.” “YOU BOY! You with your apathy and your Walls that block the river, and your plans that
take no consideration for any species but yourselves.”
And like a passing storm that vanishes moments after it came, the rage left the Bull's voice. And
in a whisper that equaled the roar expelled only moments earlier, the Bull continued, “I once thought
that us pikeminnows would forever be kings of the river. I thought that we would adapt and evolve over
every resistance to our growth.
Your kind has shown me the truth. The pikeminnow are only so strong as the world around
them. When the river suffers, the pikeminnow suffer. Without the annual flood bringing nutrients, and
backwaters to nurture the young, we the once mighty kings of the Colorado are crippled. We no longer
have the strength to fight the robbers and the tyrants. We are so desperate that we compete among one
another for what little prey hasn't already been snapped up by the others.
We are doomed boy. Even with the help of your fisheries and your scientists, I am the last Bull.
With me dies the pikeminnow. Only a shadow of our past remains, embodied by stunted pathetic
pikeminnow that would shame the Bulls of my age.”