Death and the Gentle Bull

by Frances Lockridge

  “Why Harvey,” Bonita said, and was looked at by her husband, offered him an expression utterly without guile.

  “On Wade and Evvie, of course,” Harvey said.

  “Oh,” Evelyn said, “on Wade. Entirely on Wade.”

  Heimrich nodded to that, and closed his eyes—as if, Evelyn thought, the subject had begun to bore him. But, “I’d gather he’s quite keen on it,” Heimrich said, more than ever as if he were filling in time. Then he opened his eyes, and they were very blue, and fixed on Evelyn.

  “He’s always been very interested, I think,” she said. “He’d have to tell you himself, of course.”

  Wade was back, then. He said, “Coming right along.” Harvey said, “The captain seems interested in what we’re going to do about Deep Meadow. Whether we’ll carry on with it.”

  “Why?” Wade said. Heimrich merely moved his heavy shoulders slightly, in the intimation of a shrug.

  “We’ll have to talk it over,” Wade said. “Does it interest the police?”

  There was an edge in Wade Landcraft’s voice.

  “Now Mr. Landcraft,” Heimrich said. “I merely wondered. Your manager got me interested in the setup. You and your brother do inherit the farm, of course?”

  “Sure,” Wade said. “What we’ll do—” He broke off. He said, “Come on in, Alec,” to the big man at the door of the library. He said, “All right, captain, here he is.”

  Heimrich looked up at Ballard. Wade said, “Oh, sit down, Alec,” and Ballard said, “Thanks,” and sat down. He looked with great directness at Heimrich.

  Heimrich regarded him blandly.

  “Something more you want to know, captain?” Ballard said.

  “A little point,” Heimrich said. “First, just what did happen last night? That led you—all of you—to find Mrs. Landcraft?”

  “The champ bellowed,” Ballard said. “The others took it up. We all figured something was wrong, and ran.” He looked at Wade Landcraft, and Landcraft said, “That’s right, captain.”

  Heimrich nodded. He said, “Go on, Mr. Landcraft.”

  Wade went on, speaking slowly. He had been on the lawn, with the guests. There were still perhaps a hundred people on the lawn, around the bar, sitting at tables, talking. He had moved around among them.

  “So did I,” Harvey said.

  “You saw each other from time to time?”

  “Sure,” Wade said.

  “And your mother.”

  “Yes. Obviously she left, but I didn’t notice when. Did you?” The last was to his brother. Harvey Landcraft shook his head.

  “I was sitting on the terrace,” Evelyn said. “Bonny and I were sitting on the terrace, just—resting. Doing nothing.”

  “No,” Bonny said. “I’d gone in. Don’t you remember? To—shall I say powder my nose, captain? I was still inside when—” She broke off. “I was still inside,” she said.

  “Oh yes,” Evelyn said. “I do remember.”

  “And the bulls started bellowing,” Heimrich said.

  “I was in one of the other barns,” Ballard said. “I’d been showing somebody around—don’t remember the man’s name. He came back up here. I’d started back and one of the men stopped me to ask about something—something about what he was to do during the sale. Then—”

  Then the big bull had bellowed and the others had taken it up. On the terrace, people sitting, people standing, looked toward the barns; people stood up, looked down toward the lights in the barns.

  “The barns were lighted?” Heimrich asked.

  There had been bulbs burning in the barns, bulbs lighted over the doors.

  Harvey and Wade Landcraft had, when the bellowing went on, increased, started toward the barns. After a few seconds, they were running. Several of the guests had, after a little, run after them; Evelyn, seeing the Landcrafts starting, realizing something was wrong, had run across the lawn, among the people, after them.

  “And you, Mr. Ballard?”

  He had run through the barn he was in, across the yard between barns, into the barn which housed Deep Meadow Prince. “Knew he’d started it,” Ballard said. “Got there about the same time the rest did.”

  The Landcrafts, one or two other men, Evelyn Merritt, had come into the barn from the end closest the house; Ballard from the other end. There was general agreement that the brothers and Ballard had arrived at about the same time. The bull was in the center of the stall, then, still bellowing. He faced what was in the corner of the stall, lying on the straw.

  Ballard had silenced the bull, slapped him away. Prince had quietened without difficulty. They had got Mrs. Landcraft out, found her dead.

  “Who?” Heimrich asked.

  It was not clear who first had reached Mrs. Landcraft; nobody could be sure. There had been, or at any rate now remained, no clarity about the brief, hurried, frightening scene in the big bull’s stall. The three men had lifted the dead woman; Evelyn, a second or two later, had helped; had knelt beside her on the paved floor of the barn—knelt with the brothers, found nothing to be done.

  “It must have been then,” Heimrich said, “that you detected this odor, Miss Merritt.”

  Evelyn nodded, said she supposed it had been then.

  “An odor like disinfectant,” Heimrich said. “A hospital odor. When you were beside the body?”

  “Yes.”

  “You didn’t notice that, Mr. Ballard?”

  “I don’t—” Ballard began, and paused. “There’s usually a little of that around the barns,” he said. “We keep them clean. Can’t say I noticed—” He broke off again, and slightly narrowed his eyes. “Come to think of it, maybe I did,” he said. “Anyway, it’d fit in because—I was just going to call you, Mr. Landcraft, when you called me. Prince’s got a scratch on his right hind leg on the outside. Nothing to bother with but—somebody’s put stuff on it. I didn’t, and Smitty didn’t.”

  He looked from Wade Landcraft to Captain Heimrich.

  “Told you I hadn’t found anything wrong with the champ,” Ballard said. “I didn’t when I looked him over last night. But, with things the way they were, I didn’t look very carefully. After you came up here, I did—found this scratch. Guess that explains the whole thing, mister.”

  “Does it?” Heimrich said.

  “Well, it could. Mrs. Landcraft noticed the scratch for some reason. Maybe she had been showing the champ off to somebody. Saw it hadn’t been treated, and decided to put something on it. Used full strength, the stuff we use stings. Maybe Prince jumped and kicked her and then, when she fell or something—started to try to get out of the stall, anyhow—went for her. Probably the can she had the stuff in spilled on her, and maybe when he kicked her there was—well, blood. The two things together’d be likely to start him off.” He turned toward Wade. “You know that, Mr. Landcraft,” he said.

  Wade Landcraft looked at the farm manager, then at Heimrich. He nodded, slowly. He said the odors might, at that.

  “So there you are, mister,” Ballard said. “I wouldn’t have thought of it, I guess, if you hadn’t come—if you hadn’t wanted to look the place over.”

  “Hadn’t come nosing around,” he had started to say, Heimrich reflected. A reasonable enough description, too; understandable enough.

  “There’s only one point,” Heimrich said. “This—disinfectant—something like iodine, probably? Merthiolate? Whatever it was, there has to be a container, naturally. A bottle? A can?”

  “Screw top can,” Ballard said. “You’re right there, mister. Be in the stall somewhere, wouldn’t it?”

  “Now Mr. Ballard,” Heimrich said. “I’d think so, naturally.”

  “Sure it would,” Ballard said. “You know—I’ll bet it is. Pretty near got to be—down in the straw somewhere. Because—”

  He turned to Wade.

  . “Haven’t got around to changing it yet,” he said, and his tone was apologetic. “So damn many things going on. Figured when we put him out tonight would be time enough.” He turned
back to Hemrich. “Didn’t turn him out last night because people wanted to look at him,” he explained.

  Heimrich raised his eyebrows. He was told that, when the weather was warm, as it was then, the big bull spent his days in the comparative coolness of the barn, under fans; his nights in a paddock. “Usually with a bull calf to play with,” Ballard said. “Keeps him from getting sluggish.”

  Cattle would distract the big farm manager from anything, Heimrich thought; violent death was incidental to the nurturing of giant bulls. The Landcrafts, evidently, had a conscientious man in big Alec Ballard.

  “Yes,” Heimrich said. “Would it do him any harm if he were turned out to the paddock now, Mr. Ballard? And the straw changed? Because if we find the container it will clear things up, naturally.”

  Ballard looked at Wade Landcraft. To him, he said, “Wouldn’t hurt the champ, Mr. Landcraft.”

  It seemed to Evelyn that Wade hesitated perceptibly, that—for no reason which came quickly to the mind—he looked at his brother before he answered. But when he answered, it was to say, “Sure, Alec. May as well get things cleared up, since the captain feels there’s something—” He turned to Heimrich then. “What do you feel, captain?” he said, and again his voice was edged. “You suspect something?”

  “Now Mr. Landcraft,” Heimrich said. “I told you. We like to have things neat. They want everything explained. That’s all it is.” He smiled. “Afraid we don’t know as much about cattle as you people do,” he said. “But if it’s not too much trouble, we might as well find the container. As long as Crowley and I are here.”

  He stood up, then, and the others stood. But there was, Heimrich pointed out, no need to trouble any of them but Ballard; he had troubled everyone too much already. He appreciated the patience of all of them—of Mr. Landcraft and Mr. Landcraft, of Mrs. Landcraft and Miss Merritt. Once they’d finished at the barn, found the container—as he had no doubt they would—they would be on their way.

  It seemed to Evelyn Merritt that, with that, a certain tension departed. She had been only partially conscious that there had been tension—only something in Wade’s voice had been tangible. It was odd, and a little disturbing, to find how conscious she now was of a general relaxation. They were all, she thought, glad to see this solid, unhurried man on the point of leaving. Well, that meant nothing—she was herself. It was merely that they had all been under strain, grown tired under strain.

  They’re all very glad to see me go, Heimrich thought, going with Ballard, with Crowley behind them. It was most natural that they should be. They had been up most of the night, were physically and emotionally tattered. And then, for no apparent reason, an enquiring policeman had come. It was to be expected that Wade Landcraft should not quite hide his impatience; that his older—and rather more experienced—brother should just contain his; that the young and pretty Mrs. Landcraft should light and stub out, light and stub out, cigarette after cigarette. Evelyn Merritt had been very conscious of Wade Landcraft’s edginess—had seemed, at times, almost worried about him. Well, it was to be presumed she was in love with him, since she was on the verge of marrying him. She would be concerned about him.

  They walked down the sloping lawn to the first of the white barns. Heimrich and Crowley waited while Ballard, aided by another man—by Smith, William Smith, the herdsman—haltered the great bull and led him from the stall, through a door, into a railed paddock outside. The bull passed, very docilely, within a few feet of Heimrich; the scratch on one of his short hind legs was, now that he was no longer standing in deep straw, easily seen. It was not, Heimrich thought, a serious scratch, particularly for so large an animal.

  “Not much hurt,” Heimrich said, to the young trooper, and pointed to the scratch. “A little thing to cause what it seems to have caused.”

  “That’s right, sir,” Crowley said. “That’s—” He stopped speaking; he looked at Heimrich.

  Heimrich nodded slowly. He said it was, of course, a very small thing.

  With the bull gone, Smith ran a tractor into the barn, dragging a hay cart behind it. He and another man forked straw from the stall to the cart, shaking each forkful carefully. They were almost down to the cement floor when metal tinkled against the tines of a fork.

  The can was almost flattened; the label half torn off.

  Ballard picked it up, handed it to Heimrich.

  “He’s been standing on it,” Ballard said, and it was clear Prince had been standing on it. The odor of antiseptic was very evident, emanating from the can.

  “Well,” Ballard said. “I guess that does it, mister.”

  “Yes, Mr. Ballard,” Heimrich said. “I guess that does it.”

  They went, then. When they were in the car, before Crowley started it, Heimrich asked a question.

  “How long ago would you think the bull was scratched, Crowley?”

  “Twelve hours or so,” Ray Crowley said. “At the outside.”

  “At the outside,” Heimrich said. “Probably rather less. Perhaps a good deal less. Still dried blood on the hair. Notice that? He’d been standing in straw, moving around, naturally. Dried blood would rub off.”

  “Yes,” Trooper Crowley said.

  “I’m afraid,” Captain Heimrich said, “that somebody’s played rather a dirty trick on the bull, aren’t you, Ray?”

  V

  Still there were things to do, things to be seen to, to be decided. But for some time after Heimrich went out of the house with Alec Ballard, the four sat where he had left them, doing nothing and saying little. They had hurried and hurried, Evelyn thought; had been driven and so hard driven that there had been no time for thought. Now she must pull herself together, get her car, drive home. But she did not pull herself together, nor, for a long time, say anything about going home. There was a feeling of incompleteness in her mind; an impression that, before she went, there was something which she would have to do.

  “What gets you,” Wade said in the silence, after it had persisted for many minutes—“what gets you, is that she loved that bull. You know what I mean?”

  He looked at Evelyn, rather than at the others, and Evelyn nodded and said, “Yes, Wade,” and only then, after she had spoken, realized that she did know what he meant—what he meant by Margaret Landcraft’s “love” for the big bull. You could call it that; she had liked to stand and look at him, and it was not all—it was not even chiefly—that he represented, in addition to money, a special kind of triumph, a kind of culmination. Margaret Landcraft, Evelyn thought, had looked at the bull so long, so often, because he was, in himself, so perfect an animal. Evelyn had herself felt that, and she knew of the Blacks only what she had been told. With a breeder’s special knowledge, Mrs. Landcraft must have felt the animal’s perfection with far greater intensity. But probably it had been more, even than that—and perhaps the word “love” was only an approximation. To some very considerable extent, Margaret Landcraft’s life must have centered around the black bull which had killed her.

  And what I feel now, Evelyn thought, illumination coming rather suddenly, is the lack of a center here, in this house; what I am waiting for, have been waiting for, is for her to come into the room, and take over the room and—when I have thanked her as a guest—release me.

  “It’s hard to realize she won’t walk in,” Harvey said, and Evelyn was startled for a moment to find their thoughts so parallel, but then realized there was nothing startling about it—thought that they had all, in some fashion, been waiting for the big, the indomitable, woman to take charge.

  “This gets us no place. We all need a drink,” Wade said, then, and his voice was louder than before, and when Evelyn said that, on the other hand, she ought to be thinking of going home, he said, “Nonsense. Anyway, we’ve all got to talk,” and went out of the library. “You’ve been told,” Bonita said, from the depths of a chair, her voice tired.

  She had, in a way, Evelyn thought—and found that, with the thought, she felt lighter, as if she had begun to come ou
t from under something.

  “Funny thing about the cops,” Harvey Landcraft said a little later, while they still waited for Wade to return with the drink tray. “Hadn’t realized they went to so much trouble.” He paused for a moment. “In the country,” he added.

  “You make it,” Bonita said, “sound like the African veldt.” Her voice trailed off a little. “Not that they aren’t particular on the veldt, probably,” she added.

  “Particular?” her husband repeated.

  Bonita merely looked at him; Evelyn felt that some acknowledgement passed between them—acknowledgement of a thought shared. But Harvey seemed to deny that, shaking his head sharply. Wade came back, then, carrying a tray of bottles and glasses, and Alec Ballard came after him, with a deep ice bucket. Ballard was unexpected; his presence underlined the change in the house. Yet the emphasis was subtle. Ballard was often in the house; he was often, of necessity, in the office. But it was, nevertheless, surprising that he appeared, now, to be coming in to have a drink with them.

  “Well,” Wade said, and put the tray down. “They found the can. The can mother must have been using. Went away satisfied, apparently.” He looked at Alec Ballard and the big man put the ice container down on the floor by the table on which Wade had put the tray, and then stood up and nodded, slowly.

  “Never any reason they shouldn’t have been,” Harvey said, with emphasis.

  “Sure not, Mr. Landcraft,” Alec Ballard said. “Young cop trying to make a name for himself.”

  But that was wrong, Evelyn thought. Ray Crowley wasn’t a young policeman over-animated by zeal. Or, she didn’t think he was. He was a boy she had gone to high school with; a quiet boy, prone to thinking things out quietly. Ballard made him sound—

  “He looked like a nice boy to me,” Bonita said, and then Ballard said, “Sure. Didn’t mean he wasn’t, Mrs. Landcraft.”

  “Anyway, they’ve gone,” Wade said. “So that’s that.” He began to put ice in glasses. “Thought Ballard might as well be in on it,” he said, and began to pour on ice, to hand drinks to Evelyn, to Bonita, finally to his brother. He filled two more, one for Ballard, and turned to face them.