The Stone Bull

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  I went to the wide door on the lake side and watched for a time as guests came in from walking, or went out, and as carriages started up the trails. Then I saw Keir in his truck, with Magnus beside him, turning up the mountain. In the truck bed rested the headstone I had seen Magnus working on behind his cabin. Floris’ stone. So they must be heading for the cemetery.

  A special group of guests had come to the Mountain House for the weekend, and there were more people than usual abroad on this Saturday, so I didn’t have to worry about being alone. When I reached the road that climbed toward the McClains’ burying ground, I found walkers ahead of me, and I slowed my pace to keep them in sight. Only when I reached the cemetery trail did I strike up through the woods by myself. The truck was well ahead of me, but I would soon be with Magnus and Keir. Besides, no one knew I was up and around as yet—except Naomi and Brendon.

  By the time I reached the iron gate, the two men had the stone out of the truck and were setting it up in the hole that had been dug to receive it at the head of Floris’ grave. They were working silently with spades, absorbed in what they were doing, and I stood back a while, waiting to be noticed.

  When Magnus spoke, however, I knew I had to listen. “Who do you think substituted that boat?” he asked his father.

  The older man paused in spading earth around the bottom of the stone. “I think I know. But I don’t want to talk about it yet.”

  “You’ve got to,” Magnus said. “If you know anything, you’ve got to say so.”

  “Say so to which one of them?”

  “To start with, to me.”

  Keir shook his head gravely. “Least of all to you. I don’t want you rushing off to do murder yourself. When you get mad you act like a bull. Just let things simmer down for a while. Jenny will go away, and that will be the end of it. I don’t think Brendon will let her talk to the police now. He’s afraid to.”

  “As you are?” Magnus asked. “Because you’re both protecting the same person?”

  Keir ignored that. “The sooner the girl’s gone, the better. You know that as well as I do.”

  I dared not hear more. I had to make my presence known, and I walked toward them as though I’d just come through the gate.

  “Good morning,” I said. “I saw your truck heading up this way, so I thought I would come along. I wanted to thank you, Magnus, for saving my life.”

  They both turned and stared at me as though I were some sort of apparition that had stepped out of the woods. Then Magnus’ look softened and his wide smile split the red beard.

  “You’re looking fine, Jenny. How do you feel?”

  “I’m not sure. How does one feel after—after nearly drowning?”

  Both men were silent, still staring, and I walked around the stone with its handsome engraving of Floris’ name.

  “I’m luckier than she was,” I said.

  Magnus tossed his spade aside and came toward me. “When will you pose for me again? Or are you leaving right away?”

  “Now is as good a time as any, if you’re going back to the cabin. I’m not leaving at once.”

  Keir made a snorting sound, though I wasn’t sure which he disapproved most—my staying here or my posing for his son. The words I’d just heard from these two men—about protecting someone—were disturbing, but I didn’t know how to follow them up, short of asking a question that wouldn’t be answered.

  Magnus ignored his father’s disapproval. “Fine, Jenny. I’ll take you up on that. Will you drop us off at the cabin, Dad?”

  The headstone stood with dignity in its place, though the grave remained without flowers for this woman who seemed not to have been very much loved, and was now so little missed. At least, when I followed Keir toward the truck, Magnus stayed behind for a moment, his head bent, perhaps beset with older memories of long before the time when Ariel came to Laurel Mountain.

  Keir got into the truck and motioned me into the seat beside him. He stared off through the windshield as he spoke to me.

  “You’re the sort to go hell-bent for trouble. First Brendon—who never should have married you because he’d never got over her. And now you’re sticking your neck out with Magnus. But he’s a lot bigger trouble than Brendon. Too much trouble for you to handle.”

  “I’m only posing for Magnus,” I protested.

  “That’s what you think,” he said.

  Before I could find a strong enough answer, Magnus climbed into the seat beside me, and we drove in silence to the cabin. When Magnus got out, waiting to help me down, I put a hand on Keir’s arm.

  “Please don’t worry. I’m not like Ariel.”

  “Maybe I’m thinking of Brendon too,” he said. “He wouldn’t want you up here.”

  “There’s nothing wrong about my being here. I have to belong to myself. I’m proud and pleased that Magnus Devin wants to use me as a model.”

  “Because you look like her,” Keir said.

  Magnus reached out one big hand and plucked me out of the front seat of the truck. “No!” he told his father. “Because Jenny looks like Jenny. Because she is Jenny. There’s not going to be anything of Ariel in what I’m doing now.”

  Keir remained unimpressed. “She’s still Brendon’s wife. Just remember that.” He put the truck into gear, backed around and drove off with an air of repudiating both of us.

  Magnus looked after him ruefully. “He’s a great guy, but sometimes he’s seemed more like Brendon’s father than mine. I suppose having a sculptor for a son has been hard for him to take. It’s not what he regards as a ‘real’ job. My sort of success will never impress him.”

  I followed Magnus into the cabin and watched while he picked up a few things he wanted to take to the glen. “What was your mother like?” I asked.

  “She was exactly right for him. She loved the outdoors and she could work hard at physical things right along with him. He’s been lonely without her.”

  He handed me the plaid blanket, gathered up his box of tools and as we started through the woods he spoke of his mother.

  “She was his first love,” he said. “And maybe first love is something you never quite get over.”

  As Brendon was mine. I wondered who had been Magnus’ first love. Had it been Floris? A young Floris, different from the sour, hateful woman she had grown into? It was depressing to think of how much people could change—of how even in this short time Brendon and I were changing.

  “I wonder if Irene is happy with Loring,” I mused as we reached the glen where the bull waited for us.

  “Why wouldn’t she be? She married him of her own choice, and she has what she needs—someone to tell her what to do, think for her. That’s what she wants, isn’t it? Isn’t that what she clings to?”

  “I’m not sure. I came on her in the cemetery yesterday and she was crying beside Bruce’s grave.”

  Magnus sighed. “I’m very fond of Irene. After my mother died, she took her place to some extent. She encouraged me in what I wanted to do when no one else cared. I’m sorry if her life isn’t a happy one.”

  “Anyone who could choose Loring—” I began, but Magnus broke in on my words.

  “We’d better get started. You’re not dressed for this today, but I’ll work on the general form. You’d better keep your coat on. It’s getting cold.” He had turned from the subject of Irene with an abruptness that made me wonder why I had been cut off so suddenly.

  I let the matter go and spread my blanket, climbed upon the bull’s back, patting him between the horns as I did so, because he was my friend now and willing to endure my weight as I stretched myself along his back. Magnus uncovered the marble and I saw that the work had advanced still more since I’d last posed for him. The bull was emerging from the stone, and I had a feeling that was almost excitement at sight of the head, and the horns just becoming defined. I could understand a little of what Magnus meant about the feeling of discovery as the marble opened its secrets to him. Yet the figure he was uncovering was not the bull on who
se back I lay.

  “He’s going to be different, isn’t he—your new bull?” I asked. “His head is up in a challenging sort of way, and I don’t think he’s charging.”

  Magnus’ goggles were in place again and once more there was the rhythmic sound of steel against stone. “Yes, of course. As I’ve told you, I don’t like to copy. This will be a different concept. You know, I did a lot of reading before I started work on that first bull. There are more legends about bulls than I’d dreamed, and in more countries. I suppose they were always a symbol of male aggressiveness. In India the bull is a god of thunder and storm. But in most countries he was cosseted and then sacrificed. Before they used the knife, the Egyptians called down upon him all the evils that might befall the people and their land. He went to his death saturated in human wickedness, carrying the curses of the gods.”

  “Poor bull,” I said, and patted the stone beneath my hand.

  Magnus laughed. “At least the bull that’s coming out of this piece of marble is different. His is only the disguise worn by a god enamored of a maiden. Interesting that the bull was the disguise Zeus chose for his escapade.”

  I was glad to see Magnus relaxing a little, seeming to be less watchful of me than he sometimes was, less wary. Now I could take him off guard with a question.

  “You do have some ideas, don’t you, about who might have substituted an old boat for Brendon’s good one?”

  He raised his head to look at me sharply, his eyes concealed by glass. “If I had, do you think I’d tell you?”

  “Which one of them are you protecting?”

  “Mainly myself,” he said. “I’m very good at that. I hope you’ll go away soon because I’d like to see you stay out of trouble. I’ve come to like you a lot better than I ever did Ariel. For a while I loved her. But I never really liked her.”

  “I don’t see how the two can be separated. I couldn’t love anyone I didn’t like.”

  He wasn’t smiling now and his mouth, what I could see of it, seemed grim and straight. “If you want to talk, stick to the innocuous.”

  “I can’t do that,” I said. “It’s hardly innocuous that someone wanted my death enough to try to drown me.”

  For a moment the blows of his mallet rang through the glen, but his beard hid the expression of his mouth, as the goggles hid his eyes.

  “I should think you’d be interested in staying alive,” he said after a moment.

  “I do have a certain interest in that very thing.”

  “Then why are you here in the woods alone with me?”

  It was my turn to smile my brightest. “I trust you more than almost anyone I know. Perhaps as much or more than I would trust Brendon.”

  “You’d better explain that.”

  What I said surprised me as I thought out loud. “I think I trust you not to hurt me. I don’t mean physically. Perhaps you’re rougher than you know. But you can be gentle in other ways. Lately Brendon only wants to hurt me. I suppose that’s because I can’t stop loving him, and that makes me vulnerable.” I couldn’t think why I was saying these things—I only knew that I wanted to talk to someone—and Magnus was there.

  He reacted gruffly. “Spare me the confidences, please. I’m not interested in your love life. In other words—shut up and let me work.”

  I wriggled a little on my hard bed; pushing lumps out of the blanket and pulling my coat around me. Somehow I was still smiling. It was strange, but Magnus’ harsh words never lacerated the way Brendon’s did. I could be comfortable with Magnus. He wanted nothing of me, nor I of him.

  So, feeling comfortable, I yawned widely, rested my head on my outstretched arm and went to sleep.

  So often these days I seem to find myself resting before wood fires, entranced and hypnotized by leaping flames of yellow and red and sometimes blue. This fire burns in the grate of Naomi’s sitting room, where I wanted never to come again, and I sit on her sofa staring at flaming logs, trying to lick my many wounds. For once I have turned off the lamps and am willing to sit alone in the firelight trying to find answers to questions that are as elusive as ever, but which have grown in number.

  From above the white marble mantel the portrait of Ariel as Hagar in Pillar of Fire watches me. Even though her eyes are closed—or nearly so—I fancy a faint gleam beneath the lids, as though she peers slyly out at me, wondering what I mean to do next. How strange that if it hadn’t been for Ariel’s actions I would not be here now. I would never have known Brendon or Magnus, or any of them. I would never have seen Laurel Mountain or have nearly drowned in its icy waters. When I think this, everything begins to have a dreamlike quality, as though nothing can be real. Surely Ariel Vaughn is somewhere tonight dancing on a stage, and I am busy teaching at some school, believing in my work, accepting my accustomed way of life. Nothing has really happened. It can’t have happened. Then I hear the echo of words spoken only a little while ago in this room—and I know it is all too real. Everything is real and frightening, and I am lost.

  How long I lay asleep on the back of Magnus’ stone bull, soothed by the rhythmic blows of his mallet, forgetful of the world around me, I don’t know. Once or twice I opened my eyes drowsily and glimpsed Magnus working in deep concentration on the figures taking shape beneath mallet and chisel. I could see the form of the maiden now as she emerged from the marble. Magnus seemed unaware of the times when I watched him, though now, strangely, I had a feeling that something had changed in him, and there was a growing distrust toward me. I couldn’t understand why, but it was nothing I wanted to ponder since I knew it would trouble me, so I fell asleep again.

  The sound of a horse’s hoofs awakened me. I lay for a little while longer with my eyes closed, aware of where I was but wondering why one of the carriages would have come up this private road. Then the sound stopped and there was an intense silence in the glen. When I opened my eyes I saw Irene sitting astride a beautiful brown mare, only a little way off, watching me and watching Magnus.

  She looked slim and surprisingly sturdy in her checked riding jacket and fawn jodhpurs, a billed hunting cap on her brown hair, and short brown boots on her feet. Her elegance was a little startling here in the woods, where everyone dressed as casually as possible.

  “Hello, Irene,” Magnus said at last, and I had the feeling that he did not welcome her coming here.

  “So this is where you’re working?” she said. With a quick, lithe movement she flung a leg backward and dismounted, holding the mare firmly by the bridle.

  I felt unexpectedly self-conscious in my sprawl on the bull’s back, and managed to pull myself to a sitting position, stretching cramped arms and legs. She came toward me, drawing her mount after her. The mare, however, seemed skittish at the sight of the bull, and Irene had to pause to calm her with pats and soothing sounds. When this wasn’t entirely successful, she took her back to the edge of the clearing, looped the reins around a sapling and then returned to me, her expression mildly reproachful.

  “We didn’t expect you to run away, Jenny. Naomi came over to the hotel to tell me that you were getting up and wouldn’t listen to sensible advice.”

  She reminded me of Mother, who often treated me as though I were a child and slightly half-witted.

  “I’m not sick,” I said. “There were things I wanted to do.”

  Magnus sighed gustily, and when he spoke his voice grated. If he was fond of Irene, he was not showing it now. “Somebody has tried to drown your daughter-in-law, Irene. Perhaps she would like to know who and why.”

  “But that’s exactly why we don’t want her roaming about the mountain alone. Brendon would like to have her return to New York as soon as possible.”

  “I told him that I was staying,” I said. “I don’t think I’m in any danger here with Magnus.”

  “Nevertheless, I’ve come to take you back to the hotel.” I sensed a firm intent beneath her gentleness that surprised me. Most of the time I liked Irene and I didn’t want to fight her.

  “All right,
” I said. “Do you mind, Magnus?”

  He moved his shoulders in a shrug. “What can I say? It’s too bad, since I’m just beginning to get the form of Europa on the bull’s back. But perhaps I can work without you for a while. I’ve a pretty good mind’s eye.”

  Using the stepping stone, I got down more decorously than usual and walked over to Irene. She slipped an affectionate hand through the crook of my arm and nodded to Magnus—perhaps a tiny bit triumphant.

  “Come along then, Jenny. I’ll take the reins and Mildred will follow us nicely.”

  I stared at the handsome mare, cropping grass at the glen’s edge. “Mildred?”

  Her laughter had a pleasant ring to it, and I realized that I had never heard her laugh before.

  “Loring named her. He said she had a Mildred look in her eyes and no other name would do.”

  Magnus looked up from his work on the maiden’s head. “The mare’s name is Gazebo, in honor of Laurel Mountain, where she was born. Perhaps it’s not appropriate either, but I like it better.”

  I felt a reluctance to leave him so abruptly. I owed him a very great debt—my life. But he had returned to his work, as though he had already dismissed me. When we started down the trail, I looked back and saw him staring after us. No smile parted that great beard, and I had the feeling that he would not be surprised if I never returned to pose for him again. I didn’t want him to think that, and I stepped away from Irene and the mare to wave to him urgently.

  “I’ll be back, Magnus. I promise I’11 be back.”

  He shook his head at me. “Stay out of the woods when you’re alone. Phone me if you want to pose and I’ll come after you.”

  I nodded at him and fell into step beside Irene as she led the mare down the path. She looked a little sad again.

  “We all wish you wouldn’t come up here,” she said. “When he was a boy I was very fond of Magnus and I thought he had great promise. But he has turned into a barbarian. He has disappointed Keir all his life, and lately he’s been miserable to Brendon. I find it hard to forgive him that.”