Death and the Gentle Bull Read online

  Evelyn did, literally, although knowing Bonita had intended more.

  Margaret Landcraft was beyond doubt formidable. She strode toward them. She’s as tall as Wade, Evelyn Merritt thought. Why does she wear that dress?

  The dress was pinkish; it probably was pink linen; it had been, conceivably, intended as a golf dress. It was, alarmingly, alien to the woman who wore it. From its sleeves—which were of precisely the wrong length—muscle-corded arms projected as if they sought escape. Above its round collar, which under other circumstances might have appeared demure, Mrs. Landcraft continued—neck as muscular as arms, long face long-weathered, gray hair cut short, cut almost in a masculine brush. Formidable, almost masculine and yet—no, by no means masculine. The sinewy arms depended from a body which, in hearty curves, was as feminine as a body might well be. And Mrs. Landcraft’s legs—stockinged in the heaviest of nylon, feet shod for utility—were as smoothly contoured as a girl’s and, unexpectedly, as slender.

  “She must have been very handsome when she was younger,” Evelyn said.

  “In a large way,” Bonita said, and then grinned suddenly, with unexpected frankness. “Yes, I’ll give her that. However it hurts, I’ll—But for me, Evvie would have died of thirst.”

  This was to Wade, and to Harvey, who came to join them.

  “I doubt it,” Harvey said. “She’s a big girl now. Spreading your wing again, Bonny? Mother henning?”

  “Not me,” Bonita said. “Form a hollow square, boys. Women and children first. It’s a wonderful party, Mother Landcraft.” The last was louder. “And Life really came.”

  “Glad you think so,” Margaret Landcraft said, with no evidence that she meant a word of it. She looked at Bonita as if she had not been looking at her before. “I do hope you don’t catch cold,” Mrs. Landcraft said. “It turns cool after the sun goes down, this time of year. In the country.”

  “You mustn’t worry, dear,” Bonita said, all concern. “I never do. Do I, Harv?”

  “Never,” Harvey Landcraft said. “She never does, mother.” He was more firm about it than one is usually firm about so little. “Don’t you think she’s looking well?”

  “Very,” Mrs. Landcraft said. “I merely felt that perhaps she was not very warmly—”

  “Yes,” Harvey said. “We both understand. Can’t I get you something?”

  “Not now,” Mrs. Landcraft said. “Food’s ready.” She raised her voice. “Food when you want it,” she said, generally. A number nodded and smiled and continued to drink. “Try to get them started, Wade,” Mrs. Landcraft said. She was abrupt.

  “Yes’m boss,” Wade said. “Dinner’s served, Evvie.” But he had an almost full drink in his hand, and he sipped from it, and showed no immediate intention of doing more.

  His mother looked at him and waited. She was not pleased; her tanned, ruddy face grew perceptibly more ruddy. She looked at her younger son intently, but of this Wade seemed unaware. Then she turned her intent, her insistent, gaze on Evelyn Merritt, and pointedly waited. An offer herself to “get them started” hesitated on Evelyn’s lips, and she stopped it there. “Watch yourself, lady.” So she merely smiled, pleasantly, pointedly unaware of stress.

  Mrs. Landcraft continued to wait, and the waiting time passed slowly, grindingly. But finally she merely made a sound, which was not a word, and turned and went off among her guests. She strode off.

  “They’d better snap into it,” Bonita Landcraft said to no one in particular. “If they know what’s good for them they—”

  “O.K., Bonny,” her husband said. “O.K. The point’s made.”

  “Oh hell,” Wade said. “I’ll pass the word. Come along, Evvie?”

  “The point’s unmade,” Bonita said.

  But at that, Evelyn shook her head. She put a hand on Wade’s arm, went beside him to pass the word.

  “On the whole,” Bonita said to her husband, “I guess she’s right at that.”

  “You’re very subtle,” Harvey said. “Or something. You do rub her the wrong way, Bonny.”

  “I?” Bonny said. “More rubbed against than rubbing.”

  “She’s all right,” Harvey said. “Likes to have her own way. So do you, come down to it.”

  “Like to have my own man,” Bonita said. “Not anybody’s son. See what I mean, darling?”

  She was told she was clear enough, that she made too much of it.

  “What the hell?” Harvey said. “A couple of times a year.” He smiled suddenly. “So you never catch cold, don’t you?”

  “Well, almost never,” Bonita said. “And thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  “Probably,” Harvey said, “you were standing with the light behind you. A matter of legs.”

  “So?” Bonny said, and the quick grin came again. It was, Harvey thought, a grin which ought to go with freckles. “Just because Angus have none to speak of?” She sobered. “The point is she hates me. She’ll hate Evelyn when she and Wade are married. That’s the point. It’s not a funny point, darling.”

  “I wouldn’t call it that,” Harvey said. “Hate, I mean. Anyway, it’s not you exactly.”

  “What, then?”

  Harvey was silent a moment. Then he shrugged.

  “Possibly,” he said, “she thinks that if you weren’t around—and Evvie wasn’t—we could all settle down and concentrate. Here, I mean. On the Deep Meadow Herd. On getting a grand champion of all grand champions.”

  “Wade doesn’t give a damn,” Bonita said. “You’re one of the best around in video. Doesn’t she—?”

  “No,” Harvey said. “She doesn’t. She never will. And—it’s something we have to worry about a couple of times a year, isn’t it?”

  “Oftener than that. But, yes, I suppose so. I think I’d like—” She looked at the bar, now only desultorily in action. “No,” she said. “I guess not. As you said, the point’s made—whatever it was. Let’s eat.”

  A line was forming, now, at one end of the buffet table. Evelyn and Wade were in it. They dropped back to join Harvey and Bonita at the end. The four filled plates, found a table at which four could sit. They had half finished when an ample woman in a print dress walked across the lawn toward them. She held a plate in one hand and an old-fashioned in the other. She had white hair in a coil, and a firm pink face and small blue eyes. She said, “Hello, folks. Room for one more?” There was great cheer in her voice.

  “Hi, Florrie,” Wade said. “Lots of room. Get you a chair.” He was standing by then, as was Harvey. “Florrie Haskins,” Wade said. He named the others. “Missis Haskins,” Harvey repeated and the pink-cheeked woman said, “Miss, young man,” and put her plate down. She retained her glass and took a deep drink from it. Wade came back with a chair. They sidled chairs together and made room.

  “What’s the matter with the big ’un?” Miss Florence Haskins asked, and, with some intentness, speared a piece of cold turkey.

  “Prince?” Wade said. “The matter?”

  “Peaked,” Miss Haskins said. “Don’t tell me, Wade. Off his feed?”

  “Come off it, Florrie,” Wade said, and grinned at her. “You’re jealous.”

  “Sure I am,” Miss Haskins said. “Good beef. Yours?” She chewed, contentedly.

  “No,” Wade said. “There’s nothing the matter with Prince.”

  “Don’t tell me,” she said. “I just came from the barn. Look.” She indicated her feet, in brown oxfords, fashioned for support. The oxfords were, stained. “Went in his stall. Pushed him around. He’s peaked.”

  “Listen,” Bonita said. “This is Deep Meadow Prince you’re talking about. A big bull? You pushed him around?”

  Wade and Miss Haskins looked at her with surprise which seemed honest. Harvey widened his eyes, lifted his eyebrows. “City girl,” he told them all. Bonny said, “No, really?”

  “Prince is as gentle as a kitten,” Wade said. “Children can push him around, Bonny. Children have.”

  “The milk of bovine kindness,” Harvey
said. He saw disbelief in his wife’s brown eyes. “Really,” he said. “Likes to have his ears scratched. Phlegmatic type.”

  “I suppose,” Bonita said, “he likes to smell flowers?”

  “Probably,” Wade told her. “He’s never said, but probably.”

  Bonita looked at Evelyn, who nodded. She looked at Florence Haskins.

  “Sure,” Florrie said. “Quiet as they come. Most of the doddies are.”

  “Look,” Bonita said. “He’s a bull. He must weigh—oh, tons.”

  “A ton and a bit,” Wade said.

  “And,” Bonny said, “people push him around?”

  Florence Haskins laughed at that. She said people pushed. “He doesn’t give much,” she admitted.

  Bonita Landcraft studied four faces, with the air of one who suspects a point missed. She looked longest, most enquiringly, at Evelyn Merritt, and Evelyn smiled, and nodded quickly, reassuringly.

  “All right,” Bonny said. “It sounds funny to me.” She considered. “Of course,” she said, “I don’t meet many bulls.” She returned to her plate.

  “He doesn’t weigh over two thousand now,” Florence Haskins said. “Or not by much. You can’t tell me, Wade.”

  “Oh,” Wade said. “That’s what you meant. Yes, Alec’s fined him down a bit. Vet said he needed it.”

  “Peaked, if you ask me,” Florrie Haskins said. “Not what he was.”

  “You hope,” Wade told her. “Florrie’s the Rocking River Herd,” he told the others. “Got a bull she claims is as good as Prince. Only—Prince won the big one. Right, Florrie?”

  “With some of the judges you run into—” Florence Haskins said, and stopped. “All right, Wade,” she said. “I’d get a new vet. Or a new—” Again she broke off. “It’s your herd,” she said. “Or Margaret’s.”

  “Hers,” Wade said. “And Ballard’s good. You know that, Florrie.”

  “Sure,” Florrie Haskins said. She speared the coiled pinkness of a shrimp and her plate was empty. She looked at her glass, and saw it empty too.

  “Get you something?” Wade asked. She hesitated, shook her head. She waved a hand, unexpectedly small, in front of her considerable abdomen. “Got to remember,” she said. She stood up, and the men stood. They were told to sit down. “Want to walk around a little,” Miss Haskins said, and walked, carrying her glass. She walked toward the bar, and lights went on in a string above it.

  “Saw her start,” Wade said, amusement in his voice. “Quite an old girl, Florrie. Got quite a herd, too. Up in Dutchess. Bigger than ours, but no grand champion. Irks her a bit.”

  “Look,” Harvey said, “there isn’t anything wrong with the old boy, is there? He’s where the money is, you know.”

  Wade looked across at him, smiling slightly, the smile not quite straight.

  “I do know,” he said. “No, he’s all right, Harv. Trimmed down a bit, as I told Florrie. Perhaps a little more than—” He broke off. “The vet and Ballard know their business,” he said. “Mother agrees with them, which settles it.”

  It was a few minutes before eight that the lights went on over the bar; that two of Mr. Pringle’s waiters began moving from table to table, lighting candles in hurricane chimneys. (But the evening was so still that unprotected flames would hardly have flickered. Nor had the temperature fallen appreciably as the shadows lengthened.) Beyond the hills the sky had burned, then smouldered. People sat at tables still, and smoked and drank; they walked in the dusk, and cigarettes formed little groups, like congregated fireflies. The groups formed, dissolved, reconstituted. The conversation was of cattle, of sales of the previous spring and those set for late winter; of shows past and still to come.

  It was afterward difficult to establish the whereabouts of anyone between eight or thereabouts and eleven forty-five. Those who were asked had answers ready enough, but the answers were vague. Wade Landcraft and Alec Ballard, the farm manager, had “circulated.” Harvey had, with another drink, talked for some time with a man he had run into, and not quite clearly got the name of, and had talked about sports cars. Arnold Thayer had visited the barns, with two other breeders, and they had left the barns at a quarter of ten. They agreed about that; but afterward they had separated. Thayer had sat for a time, for long enough to smoke a cigar, in a chair at one end of the terrace and then, since he was staying overnight at the Landcrafts’, had gone up to his room. He had gone up, he thought, at a few minutes after eleven.

  Bonita Landcraft and Evelyn could confirm part of that—could confirm, at any rate, that someone had sat in a terrace chair and smoked alone. But as to time, they could tell little. And Bonita, at a time also not definite but considerably before eleven forty-five, had got up from the chair in which she had been sitting, talking to Evelyn beside her, and remarked that when a girl had to go she had to go. Bonita had thereupon gone. Evelyn, relaxed, with a forgotten drink, had sat on, thinking of Wade. She had been almost dozing at eleven forty.

  The time became important because, at eleven forty-five, Deep Meadow Prince bellowed furiously from his box stall in the nearest barn—bellowed and kept on bellowing. After a time, lesser bulls in the other barns bellowed too. They made a great noise in the soft night.

  It was rather theatrical that, at almost the same time, thunder began to roll behind the hills which lay protectingly around Deep Meadow Farm.

  II

  Captain M. L. Heimrich of the New York State Police read the New York Times, ate a sandwich and drank thick black coffee in the barracks of Troop K in Hawthorne. The news in the Times was, as usual, depressing; the situation of mankind continued to deteriorate. Captain Heimrich was mildly cheered by the thought that, when he finished lunch, he would start on a brief leave, which he could use. The case he had just completed had been tedious—a hit and run with complications, involving people unrelievedly dull, hackneyed homicide and motives as obvious as methods. It had, nevertheless, taken time and much plodding; Heimrich felt as if, for two weeks and more, he had been slogging along a featureless road, ankle-deep in dust. He proposed now to lie somewhere on sand, now and then to dunk himself in ocean.

  Captain Heimrich wore glasses as he read the Times. He was a broad man and a solid one. His face appeared, now as he read and ate, to be a carving from some hard and darkened wood. He finished his coffee, neatly rearranged the Times and then dropped it into a waste-paper basket. He folded the paper in which his sandwich had been wrapped and dropped the neat square in the basket with the Times.

  A uniformed trooper, young, properly wedge-shaped, walked to the desk Heimrich occupied and stood in front of it, his stance military. He said, “Sir.”

  “Yes?” Heimrich said.

  “The sergeant said I should take it up with you, captain,” the trooper said. “He says there’s nothing to it, but take it up with you if I want to. My name’s Crowley, captain. Brewster sub-station. About this thing at the Landcraft place, sir.”

  Heimrich merely shook his head.

  “It was in the papers,” Crowley said. “Nothing much. I’ve got it here some place. On page ten of the Times.” He reached toward his hip pocket. Heimrich reached into the waste-paper basket and retrieved the Times. He turned to page ten. “There,” Crowley said, and pointed. Heimrich read:

  BULL TRAMPLES BREEDER

  Brewster Woman Hurt Fatally

  by Enraged Angus

  He read on. The dateline was Brewster, New York. He read:

  “Mrs. Margaret Landcraft, widely known breeder of Aberdeen Angus cattle and owner of Deep Meadow Farm three miles north of this Putnam County village, was fatally injured late tonight when a prize bull, supposedly gentle, trampled her in its stall in one of the farm barns.

  “The accident occurred during a buffet supper Mrs. Landcraft was giving prior to the annual sale at Deep Meadow Farm, which was to have been held tomorrow. More than a hundred persons, including Mrs. Landcraft’s two sons, were within sight of the barn in which the accident occurred. Several, including the sons, Harvey an
d Wade Landcraft, ran to the scene when they heard the bull bellowing violently, but arrived only to find Mrs. Landcraft dead in the animal’s stall.

  “The animal was generally considered harmless, according to Wade Landcraft, who assisted his mother in operation of the farm, and Alec Ballard, the farm manager. What caused it to turn on its owner is unknown.”

  Heimrich finished reading and took off his glasses. He looked at Trooper Crowley.

  “Regrettable, naturally,” Heimrich said. “But we can’t arrest the bull, can we?”

  The younger man flushed slightly. “No sir,” he said. “The sergeant mentioned that, captain.”

  “I’m sure he did.” Heimrich closed his eyes momentarily. He opened them. “Go ahead, Crowley.”

  “I know the bull,” Crowley said. “Went around with Dad once to look at him. Wanted to see a cow worth eighty thousand dollars.”

  “Um-m,” Heimrich said. “That much?”

  “More, probably,” Crowley said. “It’s insured for that much. I understand it’s as high as you can go. The Deep Meadow Angus are famous, captain.”

  Heimrich waited.

  “He’s a damn big animal, captain,” Crowley said. “Weighs a ton anyway—more, probably. Got very short legs and no horns. Maybe you know that, sir?”

  Heimrich shook his head.

  “Black Angus are beef animals,” Crowley said. “My father runs a dairy farm, but he’s interested in Angus. Only—you’ve got to have a kind of money we haven’t got.”

  Heimrich waited.

  “Dad sells hay to Deep Meadow sometimes,” Crowley said. “I went there with him once, and he showed me this bull. Dad went into his stall, pushed him and said, ‘Move over, Prince,’ and Prince just moved over. Dad said to come on in and look him over and I said, ‘Not me.’ Dad laughed and said he knew kittens that were more dangerous, that Prince wouldn’t hurt a fly—or, he guessed, anything but a fly. Then when Dad heard about his being supposed to have trampled Mrs. Landcraft—well, he said he didn’t think it was possible.” Crowley paused. “Dad knows animals, captain.”