Taken By The Bull

Chapter 8

Oh my God! Staci almost dropped the phone held in her hands at the sight of the two huge creatures locked in combat outside the window; she had a perfect view of the whole scene as they pushed and labored against each other, hooves digging into the ground as they used all their strength and weight to push one another back.

Steve had mass and a level head on his side; but Seth was fueled by sheer rage. First one had the upper hand, and then the other – and all the time those wickedly sharp horns were inches from each others eyes as they strained and fought, heedless of the danger.

I can’t believe this is happening! Her thoughts yammered in her head as she automatically kept the two of them in the center of the frame; her hands shook as her heart-rate soared. Just – don’t hurt each other, okay?

Seth’s back feet came up against an exposed tree-root, giving him leverage – and with a low baying sound he redoubled his efforts, pushing Steve back into the fence. The post and rails shattered upon impact, littering the ground with fragments of wood.

Steve’s shoulder hunched, the moonlight catching the ripple of pure solid muscle as he pushed back – and this time it was Seth who gave, driven backwards towards the house. Right into the wall beneath the hallway window.

Staci yelped and sprang backwards just as the impact reverberated through the building, rattling the boards and the windowpane. It sounded as if the place had been struck head-on by a small truck.

Okay – calm down. Calm down! Forcing herself back to the window, she was in time to see the two separate, circling each other; the half-light glinted in their dark eyes, shone on their hides like wet velvet.

Then Seth put his head down and charged again; Steve met him head-on, but stumbled, almost driven to the ground. Seth pushed again, harder, and Steve slid back digging deep furrows into the earth; but then he steadied himself – and with one tremendous surge of raw power forced his brother back, back into the grove of trees where the moon flowers climbed and reached delicately towards the sky.

Seth kicked and struggled against it, but couldn’t match Steve’s strength and determination. His feet slid from under him and he half-fell onto his side, tearing the grass from the earth, bruising the delicate blossoms that wound around the tree trunks. Saplings bent and broke, and the site of the evening’s passions was torn apart as easily as if a small hurricane had hit it.

With one last powerful shove Steve forced Seth down onto his side and then stepped back as the golden bull struggled brokenly to his feet, sweat pouring from his skin. The elder brother stood with head lowered, dominant, silent; and the two locked eyes for over a minute until Seth lowered his head, half-turning away in submission.

With a low rumbling snort, Steve turned and moved away, back towards the ruined fence; an animal in appearance, but still a man who was probably already sizing up the damage and planning how to fix it.

Behind him, the golden bull put his head down, pointed his horns in the direction of the retreating beast, and charged.

Staci opened her mouth to call out but no sound came; she could only watch, helpless, as Seth’s surprise attack caught Steve full in his unprotected side, a curved horn puncturing his body as easily as a knife.

“The problem with having two angry bulls in the same place,” Steve had said. Back at the barn, “Is that half the time they’ll kill each other.”

“No…” In the instant before panic seared into her, it felt as if a great cold hand had descended onto her heart, and squeezed with all its might. “No no NO NO!”

Again, the image of her mother’s tear-stained face slammed into her mind; but this time it was a memory, and those weren’t tears of pride or joy. “Doing what you do, this journalism thing – you can stop things like this happening, can’t you? You can get answers. You can tell people what’s really going on. And you can help keep them safe.”

She remembered how her mother’s hands clutched the edge of the casket; the somber expression of the boy inside, who looked like he was only sleeping. “You’re such a good girl, Staci. You’ll always do what’s right.”

Steve bellowed in pain and pulled himself off of the horn that had pierced him; unsteadily he wheeled around again, but Seth was already circling, still on the attack.

Steve put his head down, and launched his bleeding body at his brother. The two hit each other, head on, with a force that could shatter bones as if they were made of porcelain.

“STOP!” Staci threw the phone down without stopping to hit the ‘save’ button, discarding it as if it meant nothing; she didn’t even see it power itself off, the footage she had been so eager to capture lost forever. She fled down the hallway, hands catching on the door and throwing it open with a resounding crash. She called out, a scream of pure desperation. “Stop it! Just stop it!”

Vision blurring as she sprinted towards the power struggle playing out, her breath tore through her lungs like dragon’s fire. Her bare feet slipped on the earth torn up by sharp hooves, but she didn’t fall. The combatants lurched and fought only forty feet from the house – but it felt to her like it took a hundred years to reach them.

“Enough!” She seized hold of their horns – Steve’s in one hand, Seth’s in the other – and pushed apart with all of her strength. She might as well have been a mouse attempting to move a grand piano with its feet. “Enough!”

It was as if she didn’t even exist in their world, no more than an errant breeze that could shift the leaves and small branches of a mighty oak, unable to disturb the trunk that twisted from the earth. They wheeled to the left and she was dragged along behind, only her stubbornness and frustration keeping her on her feet. “STOP IT!” she yelled. “NOW!”

She felt her hands, locked on the horns of the struggling bull-brothers pull apart as the black beast backed off, tail swishing; the golden one held his ground, head lowered – whether in exhaustion or defiance, it was impossible to tell.

Immediately Staci released her hold and pushed herself into the space that opened up between them, arms out, palms raised; one facing Steve, the other facing Seth. “Look what you’re doing! Look! You’re going to kill each other, don’t you see? Over nothing! Over nothing!”

She turned her head to stare at Seth, hair whipping around her face. “And then you’ll have no-one! You’ll be alone in the world, forever, knowing it’s all your fault!”

Then she looked to Steve, bleeding, beaten but unbowed. “You’re destroying everything you’ve worked to hard to hold together, and for what? For what? Do you even know the answer to that!”

Blood ran down the face of the golden bull as he shook his horns and snorted, eyes fixed on his brother; blood stained the wide chest and flank of the black bull as he pawed the earth. Blood pounded in Staci’s heart and ears and a sudden prickling heat blurred her vision and hurt her eyes; a rise of emotion that was impossible to push down, rising and breaking like a tsunami crashing down on the land.

“You’re both idiots! Both so stupid! Don’t you know how lucky you are, to have a brother, to be safe out here in your big house? You should be thanking your lucky stars you got this, that you got each other!”