"Hey Val," Ferdinand looked across the feeding trough to the one-horned bull. Currently, the herd was in the barnyard enjoying a mid-afternoon snack. The bull in question made eye contact, signaling that the black beast had all his attention. "Why aren't you notched?"
The brown bovine coughed, spitting grain on the ground. The rest of the cattle and Lupe stopped their actions as they watched Valiente wheeze.
"What?" Valiente groaned out as he recovered from his hacking situation.
"Why aren't you notched?" Ferdinand wagged his ears, emphasizing his point. "I mean, the others are notched because of Casa Del Toro and I'm not notched because Nina and Juan don't believe in it, and tattoos won't show up on me," Ferdinand explained.
The oldest of the bulls took a deep inhale. Bones and Guapo moved closer to the pair. They were curious as well. The day they had been notched, Valiente was left alone.
"Yeah, Val," Bones wondered aloud. "Why weren't you notched with the rest of us?" Valiente flattened his ears as he swayed his head. He took another deep breath.
"What breeds are you?" He asked. His face was disengaged. Guapo's faced pulled into a confused smirk.
"How does that-" Valiente cut him off.
"What breeds are you?" He verbalized, his speech nearly desperate. His eyes were screwed shut and his ears were drawn even tighter.
"Jersey" Bones replied.
"Angus" Guapo replied
"Highland"
"..." Manquina grunted. (Belted Galloway.)
"Chianina," Ferdinand told the smaller bull. He took another inhale.
"I'm a cross-breed." The herd nodded along, not one of them understanding where the mellowed out bull was going with this. "My dad was a texas longhorn and my mother was a brahman. Both breeds are well known for their ability to survive." He divulged.
"They are also well known to be used in Spanish and American rodeos." Lupe hopped onto the cross's flank as he spoke.
"Why?" She belched as she sat on him.
"Those breeds and crosses of them are for some reason considered the cleverest, but also labeled as the wildest, meanest, and most dangerous. So naturally, humans wanted to entertain themselves by harassing dangerous animals." Valiente bitterly chuckled.
"You two remember the first day they took me and my dad in a trailer?" Valiente swung head to Bones and Guapo. The pair nodded.
"Yeah, you came back all quiet, and cover in paint and dirt, and Tenaz was extra pissed, and his sides were bleeding," Guapo evoked.
"Moreno had rented us out to the rodeo that weekend." Valiente shivered, unintentionally throwing Lupe off his flank. "I was put in calf wrestling and team branding while my dad was in the bull riding event." The bovine shook his head.
"Branding?" Ferdinand all but jumped in the air. He spontaneously rushed to the smaller bull's flank and checked for any branding signs. Valiente rolls his eyes and snorts and pulled his flank away from the protective bovine.
"Relax will ya?" Valiente reassured the bigger male.
"As I was saying, the first rodeo I was in, I was awestruck. The biggest fiercest bulls didn't fight, they were built for bucking. Most of the time, they were treated better than the riders," Valiente chuckled, "There were pretty heifers and cows, lots of show livestock. They were pulling my dad and me through the corrals. After a bit, I was separated from him. He was thrown into an isolated pin, while I was ushered with a group of calves."
"What happened?" Angus questioned. Valiente breathed.
"One by one, little calves were plucked out of the pin. The first time, a little heifer was pulled. She was timid, wondering why she was here, then again, so was all of us. The cows, steers, and bulls next to our pin refused to say anything. After a few minutes when she was taken we all heard a scream." Valiente's ears flattened "A few bulls chuckled when the scream went on for a bit. 'What a pair of lungs' some ass said. He looked at me when I glared at him. He told me, I'd be next. A steer in the pin over told us that we were getting branded." Valiente swallowed thickly.
"The threw her into the next pin over. She was crying, on the floor just sobbing her little heart out. The scent of burnt flesh filled the air. The ranchhands came into the holding pen and took a colt next. In no time we heard his yells echo the stadium. We smelled his charred flank before he came back into sight staggering and bawling. " Valiente looked up into the sky.
"Eventually I was the last one in the pen, they wrapped a rope around my neck and led me through the underground area. I passed by my dad. I begged him to do something, to help me, give me advice, anything." Valiente's eyes harden and he uttered coldly. "He told me not to embarrass him too much. He turned his flank on me. " The originally Casa del toro trio gawked. They knew Tenaz had been hard on Valiente, cold even. But that was a new level of disinterest.
"When they forced me into a chute, I was crying. I already smelled fire. The rider's horse told me that it was just better to give up now. I was sobbing." The bull lamented. "The moment the chute open I took off. I remembered watching Bones evade us in the training yard. When he didn't want to get hit, he would run in a zigzag pattern. So I did." Valiente's eyes flickered back and forth, revisiting his past.
"I kept at it for a while, changing pace at random while zigzagging chaotically. Then I zigged when I should have zagged and found myself up between the wranglers and the branders. The grounders and rider were drifting closer and closer. I knew I couldn't evade all three of them. " Valiente smirked darkly before continuing "So I ran straight for the brander. As he was leaning down to grab me with one hand, I pivoted and kicked the brand into the air."
A collect gasp broke out among the group.
"I heard later from a dog that the brand ended up hitting the guy in the face, scarring him for life. I remember running back towards the horse and barreled straight in her legs, heard a few snaps." Valiente spoke grimly. "As she was going down, I bunted one of the ground contestants and chased the other one over the safety fence. After that, I was gasping for breath in the arena. Besides the groans coming from the branding team, the stadium was silent. I watched a medical team go out onto the field to put down the horse. And the cowboy I bunted wasn't moving on the ground." Guapo grabbed a bucket as he threw up his snack.
"I heard the announcer say for the first time in history, a calve beat the team and the clock. A gate was opened and I recall bolting for it. I didn't want to be in that stadium any longer. I knew I had killed them, but I couldn't take it. That corridor led me back to the other calves still bleeding at the flanks." Valiente lowered his head.
"My dad also had his fair share. The spurs on the cowboy's boots tore up his belly. He killed a rider too that day and put three more in the ER. We became known as the Corazon Duo." The bulls laid his head in the feeding trough. "After we got back, I couldn't help but think of the agony all the other calves had gone through, just for entertainment. I was stuck watching my dad's bleeding sides for hours on the trip back." Valiente sighed.
"Wait why were you called the Corazon Duo?" Lupe was perplexed. She blinked blankly as the previous bully.
"How long have you been our nanny?" Valiente smiled gently at the goat. She coughed up a tin can, then chewed on it again.
"About a year and a half." She answered nonchalantly, her words slurred together by the chewing of her can.
"And you still don't know our full names?" He cackled. She paused her munching to stare at the bull.
"Full names?" She let the idea linger, "Like you have more than one name?"Her eyes sparkled with the thought.
"Yeah, since we're papered we have 'unique' that relate to our parents. Helps breeds identify whose who." Valiente explained softly. "My full name is Corazon Valiente (Brave Heart), I'm part of the Corazon bloodline. My dad's name was Corazon Tenaz (Tenacious Heart)." The nanny goat did a happy trot in place. She zipped over to the red and black bull.
"What's your full name?" She put her two front hoofs on the bigger mammal.
"I'm Muchacho Guapo, and my dad was Senor Guapo." He flashed a smile at the older goat.
"Oh, and you Ferd!" She swung her head at the bull.
"Oh um, Arreglalo Ferdinand (Fix-it Ferdinand) and my dad were Rompelo Raf (Wreck-it Raf)" He reminisced about his loving father...
"Angus!" She singsonged.
"I be Angus McDuffin of the Shire!" He called back proudly. "An' I'm the firstborn son of Faolan McDuffin of the Shire!"
"Anyone know Maquina's?" Lupe looked around.
"His name is Máquina Viudas," Valiente smirked, the rest of the herd looked at him in confusion, Maquina himself included. "His sire is Haciendo Viuda."
"How do you know that?" Lupe sat in front of him, her little tuff of tail wiggling in anticipation.
"I know just about everything about everyone." He shrugged his shoulders. Then he gave them a sarcastic look. "Did you really think I was all muscle? The best way to beat anyone is by being observant." He didn't offer any more information.
"What about you, Bones?" Lupe moved on, despite hearing the slightly disturbing news of Valiente knowing a lot about them.
"My real name is Two-Tone Bones, my daddy was Yellow-Skull." Bones hummed out before turning to Valiente again. "So a rodeo is what happened every time you left?" His voice sounded uneven now.
"Yep, every once and a while Moreno would load dad and me up, and ship us off to a rodeo that would pay big bucks for the most dangerous bull and calf to get tortured. I got a couple of close calls I'll tell you that. But one day, dad misplaced his foot as he landed from a jump. He never got back up. They euthanized him right then and there. I watched him take his last breaths." A tear rolled down Valiente's left cheek. "Bastard didn't even say goodbye." Valiente hiccuped.
"I'm sorry Valiente." Ferdinand nuzzled the smaller bull.
"When I asked the other cattle why, why did they do this?" Valiente was yelling now, "You know what they said? They said this is all we're good for, once we can't entertain them any longer, we aren't worth anything! We're dead meat." Valiente whispered the last piece. He nuzzled Ferdinand back.
"I killed a lot of people...I'm not proud of what I did Ferd." Regret filled the oldest bull's voice.
"You're worth more than that you know." The black bovine told him. Ferdinand could tell his emotional outburst from earlier was playing on loop in his head. It had probably played in his head for years after Tenaz was killed in front of him. Valiente had told as a calf he was nothing more than entertainment. Casa Del Toro had only made him believe it. Ferdinand was going to have to prove to the other bovine that he more than just a plaything.
"It's going to take a while," Valiente warned him, practically reading Ferd's mind. Valiente just wanted to let the bigger bovine know that he was thoroughly fucked up in the head. Ferdinand just nuzzled him again. The rest of the herd join in for a group hug.