by Jeffrey Ford
When Belius was born, his father didn’t know whether to send him to the barn or swaddle him in blankets and put him in the crib that had been built for his arrival. His mother demanded that he stay in the house. After a lengthy spell of weeping and arguing, his father finally relented, but made one demand, and that, to fill the crib with straw instead of comforters.
The doctor present at the blessed event told his patient that he had seen stranger anomalies of birth in his years as physician to the surrounding farm community. “Once, I saw a little girl born with feathers and wings. She was a darling,” he said and rubbed the new mother’s back, hoping his anecdote had been a comfort. Later, after he had done all he could, and the mother and child were resting peacefully, he whispered to the father that these types of mixed up births never survived for more than a few days.
“How could it have happened?” asked Belius’ father, his head filled with wild accusations toward his wife.
“Your wife told me that six months ago she was out in the field, over by the swimming pond, picking daisies for the supper table, when she was chased by your prize bull. Do you recall the incident?”
“Yeah, the bull broke from its pen and had wandered out there. She was real upset. It chased her down to the house, almost got her too.”
“Not being a university scientist, and not having one within a hundred miles to consult, I would say that the fright of that incident stayed in her mind, imprinting the image of a bull, so that when the child was forming, part of its growth was arrested in the evolutionary state of bovinity and did not make it all the way to becoming human.”
Belius’ father looked skeptically at the old man. The doctor raised his hands and shrugged his shoulders.
“You could say it was god’s work if you like,” he said, and then prescribed a good sized dose of alcohol for the younger man and a larger one for himself.
The child was to have been named as his father’s junior, but when it came from the womb with the promise of horns and hooves, a different name was promptly chosen. ‘Belius’ had been an ancestor on the mother’s side; a personage of antiquity whom no member of the family had any recollection of nor memorable stories to tell about. It was the oldest name recorded in the family Bible, a progenitor to that race of farmers that had taken to tilling the soil of the valley.
Once given a name, the little beast began to take on a definite personality. It did not die as the learned doctor had promised, but thrived under the care of a mother who had waited many years to have a child. She’d had to watch with mixed emotions of jealousy and regret as her sisters of the community grew heavy with joy time and again.
When Belius was born, she hardly noticed his strangeness. She saw past his robin’s egg complexion, his blunt snout, to his essence, which was child, and hers at that. She lavished affection on him, treating him as if he were the rarest gem of humanity. His exceptions became the rules by which she judged other children. Her neighbors’ little ones were sadly lacking a tail and could not keep the flies off themselves in summer.
Before long, Belius’ father almost came around to feeling true affection for the creature that was his son, not exactly loving it, but instead loving his wife’s love for it. The three of them made a family and that was what satisfied him most. It gave him a greater reason to work hard and that pleasure took him a long way.
In order to clear things with the community, so that when the time came to take Belius out in public, he would not cause an uproar, his mother, a short time after giving birth, asked permission to speak in front of the congregation after the Sunday service one week. She told about the birth, explained her love for the child and asked that her neighbors accept him as they would any new baby. The members of the parish took the news stoically, with only a modicum of murmuring. There was one extremely old woman who fainted, unable to believe that something could happen that she had never heard of happening before. The reason for the reverent silence of the event was not due to the parishioners being charitable at heart but more to the confinement of the church, for many wore their charity to mass each week the way they wore a Sunday hat. Later, in their homes, a majority of them laughed, others felt threatened, and some confused scorn for pity.
At first, the new mother believed that her son could enjoy a normal life, but the barely audible whispering and the fear that glazed people’s eyes on the few occasions she was to bring Belius to town brought her around to a realistic view of the situation. Finally, she was forced to admit his difference to herself. From that time on, she decided that he would spend his young life away from that spirit of ignorance. The young minotaur grew up believing that there was no other existence than that of the fields and surrounding woods, and that there were no other inhabitants of the universe but himself and his parents.
From the time he could first walk, he was lord and master of the farm, allowed to run wild, most anywhere he pleased. The only place that was forbidden to him was the stable in which the bull and two cows were kept. He was strictly told by both mother and father, never to enter that building. On more than one occasion, he would ask what was in there. Then his father would grab him by the horns, spin him around until they were both dizzy and let the boy fly off to land in the dirt.
“That’s what’s in there,” the rough old farmer would say.
Because Belius did not continue to ask did not mean that discovering the secret was not always on his mind. He made many a daring attempt to get inside, but was always caught just as he was pulling back the big red doors, revealing the huge darkness and foul aroma. Each time he was apprehended the punishment was a stiff whipping with a leather belt, the smell of which disturbed him more than the sting.
The cows and bull were sent out to graze at night so that Belius had no chance of coming across them in the fields during his daily adventures. His mother and father lived in fear that he would somehow discover the brutish aspect of his affliction and be shocked out of his learned human traits. The first time he recognized himself in a mirror, it took them hours of lying to make him think that his features were a developmental stage that every child went through. To further this whole charade, his mother gave up eating beef, and, although he could not bring himself to make that sacrifice, his father did vow to take these ‘cannibalistic’ meals in the kitchen, away from his wife and son.
The only time his parents regretted not having told the truth from the beginning was the night on which little Belius first heard the sound of the cows lowing in the field.
“Father, what’s that noise?” he asked, running from his bedroom.
His mother and father looked at each other. Being caught unprepared, his father, not a man of quick wit, said, “It’s a ghost—spirits of the dead, complaining.”
“No it isn’t, dear,” said his mother. She thought for a short time before she came up with, “It’s simply the wind. Your father is trying to frighten you.”
“It’s no more the wind than a wind from my ass. It’s ghosts!” he repeated.
“The wind,” she said.
Belius left them to quarrel. Back in his room, he noticed that not a leaf of the tree outside his window so much as stirred. From then on, when he heard the strange noise, he would crawl under his bed and cry with fear, his sobs almost identical to the sounds that sent him into hiding.
When Belius grew old enough to do more than just charge through the corn rows or ram, with his horns, the old door his father had set up for him against the weeping willow, his mother started him working for a few hours each morning in her garden. This early experience led to him always keeping a garden for himself. He turned out to have a special affinity for understanding the needs of vegetables and flowers. She had no idea that he would benefit her small crop so much. In fact, she thought his ungraceful movements and unbounded energy would leave the neat rows in chaos.
By initiating this work period, she hoped to bring Belius around to the point where he could help his father with the daily chores of the farm. Sh
e knew that her husband had always wanted a son who could share with him the summer’s hard work and the satisfaction at harvest time. He never thought that Belius might be capable of more than just frolicking in the fields. She had told him to try the boy at some small tasks, that it would make him feel good to be more useful now that he was older. To this, her husband replied by shaking his head in reproach as if she were making a cruel joke.
By way of the perfect order and prodigious output of the garden, the farmer realized that the genetic mishap had not stolen his son’s ability to work. In a solemn voice, he told his wife, “I think it’s time Belius learned to farm.”
Belius did as well in the fields as he had in the garden. After a relatively short time, he gradually grew less talkative and more thoughtful. He ignored the old door that leaned against the willow, and, when he entered the corn field, he went about with reserve, not charging blindly, but instead keeping his eyes trained on the stalks for signs of blight or pests. All of the thousands of questions he had been in the habit of asking were now no longer spoken. Instead of haranguing his father for answers, he watched for them in silence. The earth, sky, rain and wind gave the most satisfying replies. He grew stronger with the heavy work, his muscles taking on real definition. His parents knew it was not possible, but to both it seemed that he had grown a whole foot taller in just the first month of farming.
When he and his father would spot each other on the opposite boundaries of a two acre expanse of alfalfa and wave ‘hello’, that is when both felt most content at being partners. As long as there was a fair distance between them they were the greatest of friends. It was only when they were forced into close quarters, forced to speak, that the father panicked as if he were trapped in a broom closet with an actual bull.
At noon, when they took their lunch break behind the barn, they would sit on bales of hay, facing each other. The old man would lean forward with his elbows resting on his knees, a sprig of hay jutting from the corner of his mouth, and drawl forth a strange mixture of simple wisdom and complex ignorance. Belius hardly ever uttered a sound during these sessions, except when his father told one of his obtuse jokes concerning the stupidity of people who lived in towns. Only then would the son force a laugh because he did not want to disappoint his mentor. His father would stay silent for some time out of a sense of false modesty but eventually would join in and react to his own joke. For only a moment, he would feel a closeness to Belius that was even stronger than the one they shared from each side of a wide field. Then he would forget and look up so they were face to face. To see that snout raised toward the sun, to see the large gleaming eyes filled with intelligence and hear the deep animal laugh was more than he could bear. His laughter would stop abruptly, and, whether it was two minutes or twenty into the break, he would return to work.
Belius had begun to be treated more like an adult by his parents. At night, though, he was still forced to stay inside as the cows and bulls were let out and led to pasture. When he heard their eerie moans now, he discounted his previous belief in ghosts and decided it must be the wind. What forced this change in thinking was not so much that he had lost all his childish fear, but more that he had grown so large that he no longer fit under his bed.
One morning in autumn when the leaves in the woods were at the meridian of color between bright yellow and that final blaze of red, Belius’ father screamed for him. At the moment the minotaur first heard the voice, he was sitting on the ground beneath the weeping willow, his horns aching, his head spinning from having just taken a charge at the old door. The result was that nothing remained of the target. He had run at it this time with his new strength and weight, and his points went through the solid oak as if it were paper. When his thick skull made contact, the entire barrier seemed to disintegrate like a dream meeting daylight. At first, he thought that his father’s wild yell was the audible groaning of the willow, since he had deeply scarred its trunk. When the call came again, though, his head was clearer and he understood. He got off the ground and ran through the stubbled corn field, picking splinters from his arms and chest.
Belius had no idea where his father was calling him from until, rounding the side of the barn, he heard echoing within, a sudden riot of thuds and screams. From the opposite side of the field, he had not recognized the thick vein of agony pulsing through the cry. As he made his way to the entrance, all of the commotion inside grew still and his father’s voice fell silent.
The usually secured doors were thrown open wide. From where he stood, bathed in the brightness of the morning sun, he could only make out the vaguest of shadows. Past rebukes from his parents leaped up in his memory and repelled him with a force equal to that of the attraction. He might have stood there for a very long time if his father hadn’t again called in a weak gurgle, “Belius, help.”
“Father, you want me to enter?”
There was no reply.
Like a traveler trying to make headway against a storm, he leaned forward and took his first step. He continued past the dividing line between day and night and plunged into the shadow. As he waited for his eyes to adjust to the new surroundings, he noticed an unusual aroma permeating the atmosphere. It was an earthy smell, a ripe vegetal smell, but closed in and made stale by the confinement of the wooden walls. It was as if a mound of earth had risen up and taken on the properties of life. He thought it similar to the odor of the plough horse, but it was not as gentle. When he took it into his lungs, it made his facial hair bristle and drew planting rows of bumps from the human flesh of his chest and stomach.
“Belius,” his father whispered from somewhere at the back of the barn, “be careful.”
“I’m here,” Belius called out. He was about to travel down the dark aisle when he heard the unmistakable sounds of the night ghosts. Again, he was unable to move. “They’re in the barn,” he thought. The distance that he had always felt separating him from his father suddenly disappeared. He put his head down and charged up the aisle between the stalls.
It happened so quickly, as if a mirror had magically appeared in front of him. The bone and horns of Belius’ head made contact with what seemed to be a double of themselves. There was a jarring impact. He was lifted off his feet and thrown onto his back. His vision was blurred, but he could, for the first time, make out the enormous figure of what he took to be one of the ghosts. It backed away from him, recoiling for another confrontation. Belius pulled himself up using the stall next to him for support. The monster bellowed, kicked holes in the planks at its feet, and lowered its head, preparing to charge.
This time Belius didn’t bring his head down for protection. He was so dizzy from the first encounter that he knew if he leaned forward, he would continue on to the floor. He stood upright, making himself an easy target. The monster smashed a hole in the back wall of the barn and daylight rushed in around it. As if the sunlight hitting its flank were fire, it lunged forward. Belius waited until the moment when the long, sharp horns of his opponent were only inches from his chest. With all the speed and strength of an animal, and not a single thought in his head, he raised his right arm and brought it down like a sledge hammer on the crown of the enemy’s brow, directly between the horns. There was the fleeting sound of a great egg cracking open, and the monster stopped dead in its tracks. It reared onto its hind legs and then fell to the floor with such force that the vibration knocked Belius to his knees.
Blood seeped out of its ears and snout and gushed from the crater in its head. Its eyes were wild. Belius could feel the fear in them. Its jaw moved and it filled the barn with deep raspy squeals—death sounds that rose and fell in a strange rhythm. With each interval, they went through a transformation that brought them closer to speech. Belius listened as if to some piece of music his mother might play on the upright piano in the parlor. Slowly, the sounds evolved into words. “I wanted to see the sun,” the monster said to Belius. For the first time, the minotaur realized that the head of his victim was much like his own and that the
hooves that carried its massive weight were identical to his and that, whereas neither his mother nor his father had horns, this thing did.
“Speak to me again,” Belius pleaded, but the bull was dead.
In the farthest left hand stall, across from the one that held two more creatures similar to the one he had just killed, Belius found his father’s body. The horns had passed directly through the stomach and chest. He lifted the limp form in his arms. As he stepped back over the bull on the way out, its two hornless sisters cried, “Murderer, murderer.”
Belius took his father into the house and laid him in his bed. Then he sat down in the chair next to the headboard. Until his mother returned from town later that afternoon, he did not move or speak but for the entire time felt the dizziness he would experience when, as a child, the farmer would answer by grabbing his horns and spinning him round.
He sat next to the corpse in the parlor, watching a parade of strange faces pass by the open coffin. His father’s old friends and their families spent more time staring at him than they did at the dead man. After the first hour, their whispers had consumed every aspect of reverence the ceremony had originally held.
One man came forward to where Belius was sitting, patted him on the head and fed him a sugar cube. The rest kept their distance but eyed his horns suspiciously after seeing the condition of their neighbor’s body. He heard their words, but they did not think he was capable of understanding.
Two hours before the wake was to be over, he motioned to his mother who was in the back of the room, speaking to a distant cousin. His mother came up close to him and leaned over, putting her ear to his snout as if the sound of his voice might frighten the mourners.
