tossed away. That’s all any woman can ever mean to me, be-
cause all the serious side of me is concentrated on my career.
I want to be a policeman.”
“Goodness. I suppose we ought to be grateful that you’re
willing to bother with us at all. Let’s get in your car and sit
down and be comfortable.”
“It’s locked and I haven’t got the key. Anyhow, if I sat
down I might go to sleep and I mustn’t because I’m guarding
the bull. You’d better run along. I promised to be on the
alert.”
“Nonsense.” She moved around the fender, brushing against
me, and planted herself on the running board. “Come here
and give me a cigarette. Clyde Osgood lost his head and
made a fool of himself. How could anyone possibly do any-
thing about that bull, with only the two gates, and one of
them on the side towards the house and the other one right
there? And you can’t do any work on your career, here on a
lonely road at night. Come and play with one of your toys.”
I flashed the light on the gate, a hundred feet away, then
switched it off and turned to join her on the running board.
Stepping on an uneven spot, I got off balance and plumped
down right against her. She jerked away.
“Don’t sit so close,” she said in an entirely new tone. “It
gives me the shivers.”
I reached for cigarettes, grinning in the dark. “That had
the element o£ surprise,” I said, getting out the matches, “but
it’s only fair to warn you that tactics bore me, and any you
would be apt to know about would be too obvious. Besides,
it was bad timing. The dangle-it-then-jerk-it-away is no good
until after you’re positive you’ve got the right lure, and you
have by no means reached that point…”
I stopped because she was on her feet and moving off. I
told the dark, where her form was dim, “The lunch is off.
I doubt if you have anything new to contribute.”
She came back, sat down again on the running board about
a foot from me, and ran the tips of her fingers down my sleeve
from shoulder to elbow. “Give me a cigarette, Escamillo.” I
lit for her and she inhaled. “Thanks. Let’s get acquainted,
shall we? Tell me something.”
“For instance.”
“Oh … tell me about your first woman.”
“With pleasure.” I took a draw and exhaled. “I was going
up the Amazon in a canoe. I was alone because I had fed
all our provisions to the alligators in a spirit of fun and my
natives, whom I called boys, had fled into the jungle. For
two months I had had nothing to eat but fish, then an enor-
mous tarpon had gone off with my tackle and I was helpless.
Doggedly I kept on up the river, and had resigned myself to
the pangs of starvation when, on the fifth day, I came to a
small but beautiful island with a woman standing on it about
eight feet tall. She was an Amazon. I beached the canoe and
she picked me up and carried me into a sort of bower she
had, saying that what I needed was a woman’s care. However,
there did not appear to be anything on the island to eat, and
she looked as if she wouldn’t need to eat again for weeks.
So I adopted the only course that was left to me, laid my
plans and set a trap, and by sundown I had her stewing
merrily in an enormous iron pot which she had apparently
been using for making lemon butter. She was delicious. As
well as I can remember, that was my first woman. Of course
since then—”
She stopped me at that point and asked me to tell her
about something else. Her wrap had fallen open in front,
and she drew it to her again. We sat there for two more
cigarettes, and might have finished the rest of my shift there
on the running board, if it hadn’t been for a noise I heard
from the pasture. It sounded like a dull thud, very faint
through the concert of the crickets and katydids, and there
was no reason to suppose it was anything alarming, but it
served to remind me that the nearby gate wasn’t the only
possible entry to the pasture, and I decided to take a look.
I stood up and said I was going to do a patrol around to the
other side. Lily protested that it was all foolishness, but I
started off and she came too. The bull wasn’t within range of
my light.
She hung onto my arm to keep from stumbling, she said,
though it didn’t appear she had done any to speak of when
she had been sneaking up on me. I forgot about the briar
patch along the stretch at the far end, and she got entangled
and I had to work her loose. After we turned the next corner
we were in the orchard, fairly close to the house, and I told
her she might as well scoot, but she said she was enjoying it.
I hadn’t found the bull, but he had seemed to have a prefer-
ence for the other end anyhow. We kept on along the fence,
left the orchard, and reached the other gate, and still no
bull. I stood still and listened, and heard a noise, or thought
I did, like someone dragging something, and then went
ahead, with Lily trotting along behind, flashing the light
into the pasture. The noise, I suppose it was, had made me un-
easy, and I was relieved when I saw the bull on ahead, only
ten yards or so from the fence. Then I saw he was standing
on his head, at least that was what it looked like at that
distance in the dim ray of light. I broke into a jog. When I
stopped again to direct the light over the top of the fence, I
could see he was fussing with something on the ground, with
his horns. I went on until I was even with him, and aimed
the light at him again, and after one look I felt my wrist
going limp and had to stiffen it by clamping my fingers
tight on the cylinder of the flash. I heard Lily’s gasp behind
me and then her hoarse whisper:
“It’s a … it’s for God’s sake make him stop!”
I supposed there was a chance he was still alive, and if
so there was no time to go hunt somebody who knew how to
handle a bull. I climbed the fence, slid off inside the pasture,
switched the light to my left hand and with my right pulled
my automatic from the holster, and slowly advanced. I figured
that if he made a sudden rush it would be for the light, so
I held my left arm extended full length to the side, keeping
the light spotted on his face. He didn’t rush. When I was
ten feet off he lifted his head and blinked at the light, and
I jerked up the pistol to aim at the sky and let fly with three
shots. The bull tossed his head and pivoted like lightning,
and danced off sideways, shaking the ground. He didn’t
stop. I took three strides and aimed the light at the thing on
the ground. One glance was plenty. Alive hell, I thought. I
felt something inside of me start to turn, and tightened the
muscles there. I was sorry I had aimed at the sky, and lifted
the light-to look for the bull, gripping the butt of the pistol,
then I realized there was no sense in making a fool of myself,
and walked over and leaned on the fence. Lily was making
half hysterical requests for information, and I growled, “It’s
Clyde Osgood. Dead. Very dead. Beat it or shut up or some-
thing.” Then I heard shouts from the direction of the house
and headed the light that way and yelled:
“This way! Down beyond the pit!”
More shouts, and in a few seconds a couple of flashlights
showed, one dancing on the lawn and one coming along the
fence. Within three minutes after I had fired the pistol four
of them were on the scene: Pratt, Jimmy, Caroline and
McMillan. I didn’t have much explaining to do, since they
had lights and there it was on the ground. After one look
Caroline turned her back and stood there. Pratt pushed his
chest against the fence and pulled at his lower lip, looking.
Jimmy climbed up on the fence and then climbed down again.
Pratt said, “Get him out. We have to get him out of
there. Where’s Bert? Where the hell is Bert?”
McMillan had walked over to the remains to inspect,
and now came back and asked me, “What did you shoot at?