A Bull Named Ferdinand

Emily shivered and hugged her knees to her chest, pulling her thin nightgown down over her legs. The barn was cold and the hay around her prickly, but it was still better than being inside the house. From where she sat, she could see the kitchen light through the rickety loft window. She planned to wait until the house went dark, and then sneak back inside and into bed. If she was lucky, there would be no night-time visit to her room, no flick of the hallway light switch and consequent ominous silhouette appearing in the rectangle of light cast through her doorway.

He always said that it was a special thing between daddies and their daughters, and it was how she could show how much she loved him. Emily would try not to cry when it happened, but it hurt so much. He would get angry when she cried, and he would start to hit her and accuse her of not loving her daddy like good little girls should. Sometimes after he left, when she was very sure that he wouldn’t hear, she would bury her face in her pillow and sob for her mummy. She had only faint memories of the pale, thin woman with the loving smile, who read her stories and cuddled her when she was sad. One day she had just woken up to find her mummy gone, and her father had refused to talk about it. He got angry whenever Emily asked, and she quickly learned that any mention of her mother would result in a barked command to shut up, punctuated by a blow.

As Emily waited in the barn, burrowing further into the itchy hay in an attempt to shield herself from the chill, she heard sounds coming from the stalls below. Some of the cows were due to calve soon and her father had moved them into the barn. She peered over the edge of the loft and saw that one cow was moving around restlessly, lying and then standing again, swishing its tail from side to side. It eventually lay down on its side but the restless tail movements continued.

Emily clambered down the ladder from the loft and went to the cow’s stall. She climbed onto the gate and looked in at the cow. As she watched, the cow’s hips lifted and she could see something like a water balloon poking out from underneath the cow’s tail. The cow heaved again, and the balloon pushed out even further, something dark apparent within. Emily thought she could discern two little hooves through the semi-transparent layer. After many more heaves and pushes from the cow, the balloon was lying on the ground and Emily could clearly see the small brown body of the calf within. She watched anxiously as the calf lay still inside the sac, while the cow lay on its side, ribs heaving, seemingly unaware of it.

Emily was worried. She was pretty sure the calf couldn’t breathe inside the bag and the cow wasn’t doing anything. She climbed over the gate and knelt in the hay next to the calf. The shiny covering was slippery, but she gripped hard with both hands and pulled. It gave way to her efforts, and she tore it away from the calf’s head as quickly as she could. Fluid dribbled out from the calf’s nostrils, but it still didn’t move. Emily couldn’t think what to do, but - almost instinctively - she picked up a thick piece of straw and poked it into the calf’s nostril, trying to scoop out the fluid. Suddenly, the calf jerked its head back, gave a little shake, and sucked in a breath. It took another, then another. Emily gave a little crow of delight, and hugged the calf, oblivious to the sticky birth fluid covering it. The cow finally responded then and turned its head to lick at the calf’s coat.

Emily felt very tired. The house, visible through the barn windows, was dark, and it should be safe to go to her bed now. She bent and kissed the calf on the forehead, climbed back over the gate and slipped from the barn, a little shadow flitting across the dark yard and into the house.

She slept soundly after her excursion to the barn, without the feared interruption. When she woke, she climbed out of bed and dressed quickly. Mornings were her favourite time; her father was out doing the farm work by the time she woke, and the house was quiet and peaceful and threat-free. She had to get her own breakfast, of course, but she’d been doing that since her mother had left. After breakfast, wearing an old pair of jeans and a pink sweater, she hurried out to the barn.

She was excited to see the calf standing up and sucking keenly at its mother’s udder. Its spindly legs were splayed out slightly, and that’s when Emily saw the dangly bit behind its tail. Her heart sank because she knew what that meant. The calf was a boy, just like her father. A mean, awful boy. She was turning to leave when the calf stopped suckling and looked up at her. The big eyes seemed sad, a little lonely, and not the least bit mean. She decided then that even if the calf was a boy, she was going to love it anyway. She held out her hand and the calf hesitantly stepped over and nuzzled it. Its mouth was milky, and Emily giggled as the milk dripped onto her hand and the calf licked it off.

She had a book about a bull that liked flowers, and her mother used to read it to her at bedtime. Emily liked flowers too, and even though she couldn’t read she still liked to look at the book and the pictures of the bull smelling the flowers. She smiled down at the dopey-looking calf, “Your name is Ferdinand,” she declared, “like the bull in my book. Good boy, Ferdinand.”

As Ferdinand grew, he was moved out of the barn and into the fields with the other cows. Emily used to visit him every day, and he always came up to her to nuzzle her hands and to try to lick her face. As he grew even bigger, he was separated from the rest of the herd and kept in a field of his own. Sometimes her father would let the cows in to visit him, but most of the time he was by himself. Emily worried that he would get lonely and spent much of her time with him.

She never gave much thought to the fact that she was growing bigger too, but then some serious-looking people visited the farm and asked her father lots of questions. After that, she was told that she had to go to school.

School was not fun for Emily. She missed the farm; most of all Ferdinand, but also the skinny cats that lurked around the barn and the chickens that scratched in the dirt of the yard. She didn’t make friends. When the other children weren’t avoiding her, they were making fun of her. They called her smelly and dirty, and said that she must sleep in the pigpen. Emily tried to say that the farm didn’t have any pigs, only cows and chickens and stray cats, but the children would just make oinking noises at her until she ran away.

As Emily grew and ceased to be a little girl, she thought that maybe her father would leave her alone. In reality, the only difference was that she was now big enough to fight back. Her father was stronger, however, and her attempts to fend him off enraged him and resulted in worse beatings than ever. Every day she went to school with bruises hidden under long-sleeved shirts and pants. He was always careful not to hit her where it would show, and she was scared that if she told anyone about it she would have to leave the farm and never see Ferdinand or the other animals again. There was no-one to tell, anyway. The other children had long tired of their teasing and now just ignored her, and the teachers took little notice of the quiet girl who laboured over her schoolwork and rarely spoke in class. And so Emily kept to herself, and after school she would hurry home and visit Ferdinand.

He was huge by now, an imposing creature composed of heavy muscle. Wickedly curved horns protruded from either side of his forehead, conferring a fearsome look, but he was always as gentle as a lamb with Emily. She would talk to him, stroke his massive head, and wrap her arms around his neck without any fear at all. He would rub his muzzle on her shoulder and seem to listen. With her father, it was another story. Whenever he had to tend to the bull, Ferdinand would snort and paw at the ground. Her father would curse and threaten to send the bull to the packers, but as Ferdinand never actually moved against him and produced such good calves, her father never carried out his threats.

Emily was out with Ferdinand one sunny afternoon following a particularly bad night. It had been a brutal beating, ending with hideous prying hands and painful violation. She hurt everywhere, and she was starting to wonder how much longer she could go on like this. She was sitting on the fence crying out her pain into Ferdinand’s neck, when suddenly she felt a pair of iron hands on her waist, pulling her backwards.

She was wrenched around and found herself looking up into her father’s face. His first slap came out of nowhere, stinging her cheek and bringing fresh tears to her eyes. Another slap, and then another. He didn’t speak, but she could see the fury in his eyes even though she couldn't comprehend why he was so angry. Then, tired of slapping her, he punched her hard in the belly and she doubled over, the air driven from her body in a shocked gasp. He shoved her down onto the dirt, and she lay in front of the fence separating them from Ferdinand’s pasture. She was held down on the ground with a foot, her father's coarse fingers unbuckling his belt. Emily closed her eyes, knowing there was nothing she could do, just hoping it would be over soon.

But instead of feeling rough hands on her body, Emily heard an odd, strangled grunt. She opened her eyes to find her father still standing over her, hands on his belt, and looking down at her with an expression of what seemed to be confusion on his face. Then he coughed, and bright blood sprayed out of his mouth. As a scraping noise came from behind him, he collapsed forward and landed on Emily, gurgling breaths escaping his throat. She pushed at him in panic, managing to roll him off. Only then did she look up and see Ferdinand standing behind the fence, head down, one horn covered in blood. The bull lifted his head, looked at her and snorted gently. She stood and reached out to him, pressing a hand to his head, feeling his rough coat and his warmth. Behind her, her father gasped a final breath and was still. She didn’t even look at him.

Inside the house, Emily picked up the telephone and dialled the emergency number. “There’s been an accident,” she told the operator, “I think my father is dead.” She gave her address and hung up, looking around the quiet house. She would need to feed the chickens, she thought, then an early night and a good sleep. There would be a lot of work to do on the farm tomorrow. Sirens wailed in the distance as Emily made her plans, free at last.