Bryan slowly returned to an alert, more or less, consciousness, but he felt strange. He tried to shake his big head, and that's when he experienced a sharp stab of pain.
Punched through his nose was a bright ring of gleaming stainless steel attached to a chain secured to a post driven into the packed dirt of the corral. In a panic, he tried to toss his head again, only to trigger that intense pain again.
He had no recollection of the process when the vet had used a metal implement to punch holes in his septum to install the nose ring. Now, whenever Mr. Peace or his ranch hands needed to guide him, it would be a simple task. He could literally be led by the nose, due to the incredible sensitivity in that area.
He still felt groggy from the drug they'd used to knock him out. The horrors that had increased since his impulsive use of the Chronivac came back to haunt him. So far, he had been evicted from his own home, transported to a country cattle ranch, branded with a red-hot device and now had been humbled with a nose ring like… like…
Like a stupid, dumb bull, he realized. Like the bull he had become. He snorted.
His ears began to pick up on snippets of conversation. The vet, his job done, was ready to depart. "But I can come back if you change your mind."
"Naw, don't think I'll have that done right now," Mr. Peace said. "I'm hoping to use that big guy as a stud for my cows, so I'll let him keep 'em for now."
The vet laughed. "Well, I'm sure he will be glad that he got a reprieve. See you, Peace."
Had he just heard right? Bryan felt a chill. Had the vet really been thinking about…
He felt the weight of his heavy balls hanging beneath him, very glad to still find himself intact. But that meant the rancher expected him to perform as stud. With real cows.
Forgetting about the nose ring, he shook his head and though, "Hell, no," but a jab of pain stopped him in his tracks.
"Damn!" Bryan thought and bellowed his displeasure. He had to do something. This was really going too far...