The beast on the hill

They told me he was mad. Everyone did. As far back as I can remember, people would point out the beast at the top of the hill and say ‘watch out for that one’.

But I never quite believed it. To me he always looked more sad than anything. Big, yes. Scary too, with those bloodshot eyes and horns almost the same size I was. But sad most of all.

I’d have been sad too, left all alone like that. Tied up in that tiny pen in the wind, rain and snow, with no shelter, or company, or kindness.

Sometimes as a child I would stare up at the distant hill from my window, imagining I could see that poor giant bull in his tiny prison, wishing there was something I could do to help.

Whenever I could find an excuse I’d go up there, never quite daring to approach the edge of the pen, but taking any snacks I could find and pushing them under the fence from a safe distance using a branch.

The bull would never move. He would stand deathly still, hanging back at the far side of the pen, his eyes boring into me until my courage failed me and I ran away.

That was all I ever saw him do. Stand and stare.

But the next time I dared to return, the snacks would always be gone. Maybe the birds had scavenged them or maybe the old farmer cleared them away, but I always liked to imagine that the bull took them himself. That he appreciated my silly, small, childish acts of kindness.

Others weren’t so kind. For many of the kids in my school, taunting the old beast was a sport. A way to show off their bravado. Groups of them would sneak up to jeer and throw things, and dare each other to see who could get the closest until the farmer finally woke up and chased them away.

Most adults weren’t much better. There were the usual idiots who would drink too much and play the same games as the kids, but I always thought the worst of all were the farmhands and the old farmer himself.

They were probably just scared. Scared of how big the bull was, and how strong. How sharp those horns were. Of how badly they’d treated him all those years.

So they never dared to get close. They steered him from a distance instead, with chains, clamps and whips, and that damn cattle prod.

One of the farmhands showed me how it worked once. He used it to shock a spider, and it flew halfway across the room trailing smoke. It lay twitching for several minutes before it finally died.

The farmhand thought it was hilarious. I couldn’t eat my dinner that night.

So I could hardly blame the poor bull when it finally snapped. Day after day, year after year of being shocked by that thing - of being taunted and restrained and shackled, of never being allowed out of that tiny pen - I’d have snapped too. I think anyone would.

Not that the why seemed to matter. He was just a mad old bull, everyone knew that. Poor little Billy had been top of the class, a star in the making.

When I heard what had happened, my first thought was ‘I bet he deserved it’. I felt guilty almost straight away, but that’s what I thought in that moment all the same.

If I’m totally honest, part of me still thinks it now. Billy was up at that pen at least twice a week, jeering and taunting the bull for clout. He used to boast about the time he’d hit him with a rock

‘Right between the eyes,’ he’d say with a grin.

So was it any wonder that when Billy got too close, the bull swung his horns? There was nowhere he could run, nowhere he could hide. Not in that tiny pen. He was cornered. How else was he supposed to defend himself?

Billy lived, but only just. His spine was ripped to shreds. They set him up with a wheelchair, and he never returned to school again. I’d see him about town from time to time with his parents, but he couldn’t do anything without their help.

People always said he looked sad, but I thought his eyes looked angry. Trapped and helpless.

The bull wasn’t so lucky. When Billy was rushed to hospital, half the town marched up that damn hill. I wanted to stay home, but my parents made me come too.

There were hundreds of us. Hundreds of voices screaming and jeering.

In those final moments the bull didn’t look big or scary at all. He looked terrified. Small and trapped.

He was desperately trying to break free of the pen, but the farmhands shocked him into submission. It was Billy’s dad who lifted the bolt gun and pulled the trigger.

Right between the eyes.

The mob was satisfied then. The fury died down and we all went home, content that justice had been done.

The pen stayed empty after that. But still sometimes I’d look up there, with a dull ache in my heart that I could never put into words.

‘It was a monster,’ my dad had told me that night, before I cried myself to sleep. ‘It had to die.’

But I think we make our own monsters. And even now, in those strange still moments on the darkest nights, I can’t help but think back to that poor lonely beast at the top of the hill.