M. Stonecypher lifted his reed sun hat with the square brim, and used a
red handkerchief to absorb the perspiration streaking his forehead. He
said, "The pup'll make a good guard, 'especially for thrill parties."
L. Dan's golden curls flickered in July 1 sunlight. The puppy growled
when Dan extended a gloved hand. "I don't want a guard," the hobbyist
said. "I want him for a dogfight."
A startling bellow rattled the windows of the dog house and spilled in
deafening waves across the yard. Dan whirled, clutching his staff. Light
glinted on his plastic cuirass and danced on his red nylon tights. His
flabby face turned white. "What--" he panted.
Stonecypher concealed a smile behind a long corded hand and said, "Just
the bull. Serenades us sometimes."
Dan circled the dog house. Stonecypher followed with a forefinger
pressed to thin lips. In the paddock, the bull's head moved up and down.
It might or might not have been a nod.
The crest of long red and blue-black hairs on the bull's neck and
shoulders created an illusion of purple, but the rest of the animal
matched the black of a duelmaster's tam. Behind large eyes encircled by
a white band, his skull bulged in a swelling dome, making the distance
between his short horns seem much too great.
"He's purple!" Dan gasped. "Why in the Government don't you put him in
the ring?"
Stonecypher gestured toward the choppy surface of Kings Lake, nine
hundred feet below. He said, "Coincidence. I make out the ringmaster's
barge just leavin' Highland Pier."
"You're selling him?"
"Yeah. If they take 'im. I'd like to see 'im in the ring on Dependence
Day."
Glancing at the watch embedded in the left pectoral of his half-armor,
Dan said, "That would be a show! I'll take the dog and fly. I've a duel
in Highland Park at 11:46."
"The pup's not for sale."
"Not for sale!" Dan yelled. "You told--"
"Thought you wanted a guard. I don't sell for dogfights."
A sound like "Goood!" came from the paddocked bull.
Dan opened his mouth wide. Whatever he intended to say died without
vocalization, for Catriona came driving the mule team up through the
apple orchard. The almost identical mules had sorrel noses, gray necks,
buckskin flanks, and black and white pinto backs and haunches. "Great
Government!" Dan swore. "This place is worse than a museum!"
"Appaloosa mules," Stonecypher said.
Catriona jumped from the seat of the mowing machine. Dan stared.
Compared to the standard woman of the Manly Age who, by dieting,
posturing, and exercise from childhood, transformed herself into a
small, thin, dominated creature, Catriona constituted a separate
species. She was taller than Dan, slightly plump, and her hair could
have been classed as either red or blonde. Green overalls became her
better than they did Stonecypher. With no trace of a smile on face or in
voice, Stonecypher said, "L. Dan, meet Catriona."
* * * * *
Like a hypnopath's victim, Dan walked to Catriona. He looked up at her
and whispered, but too loudly. Stonecypher heard. His hands clamped on
the hobbyist's neck and jerked. Dan smashed in the grass with sufficient
force to loosen the snaps of his armor. He rolled to his feet and swung
his staff.
Stonecypher's left hand snatched the staff. His right fist collided with
Dan's square jaw. Glaring down at the hobbyist, Stonecypher gripped the
staff and rotated thick wrists outward. The tough plastic popped when it
broke.
Scuttling backward, Dan regained his feet. "You inhuman brute!" he
growled. "I intended to pay for her!"
"My wife's not for sale either," Stonecypher said. "You know how to
fly."
Dan thrust out a coated tongue and made a noise with it. In a memorized
singsong, he declared, "I challenge you to a duel, in accordance with
the laws of the Government, to be fought in the nearest duelpen at the
earliest possible hour."
"Stony, don't!" Catriona protested. "He's not wo'th it!"
Stonecypher smiled at her. "Have to follow the law," he said. He
extended his tongue, blurted, and announced, "As required by the
Government, I accept your challenge."
"We'll record it!" Dan snapped. He stalked toward the green and gold
butterflier parked in a field of seedling Sudan grass. Horns rattled on
the concrete rails of the paddock.
"Burstaard!" the bull bellowed.
Dan shied and trampled young grass under sandaled feet. His loosened
cuirass clattered rhythmically. Raising the canopy of the butterflier,
he slid out the radioak and started typing. Stonecypher and Catriona
approached the hobbyist. Catriona said, "This is cowa'dly! Stony nevah
fought a duel in his life. He won't have a chance!"
"You'll see me soon then, woman. Where'd you get all that equipment? You
look like something in a circus."
"Ah used to be in a cahnival," Catriona said. She kept Stonecypher in
place with a plump arm across his chest. "That's wheah you belong," she
told Dan. "That's all you'ah good fo'."
"Watch how you address a man, woman," Dan snarled, "or you'll end in the
duelpen, too."
Stonecypher snatched the sheet from the typer. The request read:
Duelmaster R. Smith, Watauga Duelpen, Highland Park, Tennessee.
L. Dan challenges M. Stonecypher. Cause: Interference with
basic amatory rights. July 1. 11:21 amest.
Stonecypher said, "The cause is a lie. You got no rights with Catriona.
Why didn't you tell 'em it's because I knocked you ears-over-endways,
and you're scared to fight without a gun?"
Dan shoved the request into the slot and pulled the switch. "I'll kill
you," he promised.
While the request was transmitted by radiophotography, minutes passed,
bare of further insults. Catriona and Stonecypher stood near the
concrete fence enclosing the rolling top of Bays Mountain. Interminable
labor had converted 650 acres of the top to arable land. Below the
couple, the steep side of the mountain, denuded of timber, dangerously
eroded, and scarred by limestone quarries, fell to the ragged shore of
Kings Lake. Two miles of water agitated by many boats separated the
shore and the peninsula, which resembled a wrinkled dragon with
underslung lower jaw distended. The town of Highland Park clung to the
jutting land, and the Highland Bullring appeared as a white dot more
than four miles from where Catriona and Stonecypher stood. The
ringmaster's barge was a red rectangle skirting Russel Chapel Island.
Dan pulled the answer from the buzzing radioak. He walked over and held
the radiophoto an inch from Stonecypher's long nose. It read:
Request OK. Time: July 4. 3:47 pmest.
Two attached permits granted each duelist the privilege of carrying one
handgun with a capacity of not more than ten cartridges of not less
than .32 caliber. Below the permits appeared an additional message:
L. Dan due at Watauga Duelpen. 11:46 amest. For duel with J.
George.
"Government and Taxes!" Dan cursed. Throwing Stonecypher's permit, he
leaped into the green and gold butterflier and slammed the canopy. The
four wings of the semi-ornithopter blurred with motion, lifting the
craft into the sky. The forward wings locked with negative dihedral, the
rear wings angled to form a ruddevator, and the five-bladed propeller
whined, driving the butterflier in a shallow dive for the peninsula.
* * * * *
Catriona said, "Ah hope he's late, and they shoot him. Ah knew you'd
finally have to fight, but--"
"You keep out of it next time," said Stonecypher. "I happen to know that
feller's killed two women in the pen. He don't care for nothin'. Oughta
known better than to let him come here. He made out like he wanted a
guard dog, and I thought--"
"Nevah mind, Stony. Ah've got to help you. You nevah even fiahed a gun."
"Later, Cat. The ringmaster may want to stay for dinner. I'll look after
the mules."
Catriona touched Stonecypher's cheek and went to the house. Stonecypher
unharnessed the Appaloosa mules. While they rolled, he took, from an
empty hay rack, a rubber-tipped spear and a tattered cloth dummy. The
dummy's single arm terminated in a red flag.
Stonecypher concealed spear and dummy beneath the floor of the dog
house. Going to the paddock, he patted the bull between the horns, which
had been filed to a needle point. "Still goin' through with it?"
Stonecypher asked.
"Yaaaa," the bull lowed. "Yaooo kuhl Daan. Err'll kuhl uhhh kuhlerrs."
"All right, Moe. I'll kill Dan, and you kill the killers." Stonecypher
stroked the massive hemisphere of the bull's jaw. "Goodbye, Moe."
"Gooodba," the bull echoed. He lowered his nose to the shelled corn
seasoned with molasses, the rolled oats, and the ground barley in the
trough.
Stonecypher walked down the road to the staircase of stone that dammed
the old Kingsport Reservoir, abandoned long before Kings Lake covered
the city. A red electric truck crawled up the steep road hewn from the
slope of the gap formed by Dolan Branch. When the truck had crossed the
bridge below the buttressed dam, Stonecypher spoke to the fat and
sweltering man seated beside the driver. "I'm M. Stonecypher. Proud for
you to visit my farm. Dinner's ready up at the house."
"No, no time," smiled the fat man, displaying stainless steel teeth.
"Only time to see the bull. I thought we weren't going to make that
grade! Why don't those scientists develop synthetic elements, so that we
can have atomic power again? This radio-electric is so unreliable! I am
Ringmaster A. Oswell, naturally. This heat is excruciating! I had hoped
it would be cooler up here, but something seems to have happened to our
inland-oceanic climate this summer. Lead us to the bull, Stonecypher!"
Clinging to the slatted truck bed, Stonecypher directed the stoic driver
to the paddock. The electric motor rattled and stopped, and Ringmaster
Oswell wheezed and squirmed from the cab. The ringmaster wore a vaguely
Arabic costume, in all variations of red.
The bull lumbered bellowing around the fence. His horns raked white
gashes in the beech tree forming one corner. He tossed the feed trough
to splintering destruction.
"Magnificent!" Oswell gasped. Then the ringmaster frowned. "But he looks
almost purple. His horns are rather short."
"Stay back from the fence!" Stonecypher warned. "He's real wide between
the horns, ringmaster. I reckon the spread'll match up to standard. Same
stock my grandfather used to sell Boon Bullring before the water.
Wouldn't sell 'im, only the tenants are scared to come about the house."
Oswell fingered his balloon neck and mumbled, "But he's odd. That long
hair on his neck ... I don't know...."
The bull's horns lifted the mineral feeder from the center of the
paddock. The box rotated over the rails and crashed in a cloud of
floured oyster shells and phosphate salt at the ringmaster's feet.
Oswell took cover behind the truck driver, who said, "Fergus'd like him.
Jeeze! Remember dat brown and white spotted one he kilt last year on
Forrest Day? Da crowd like ta never stopt yelling!"
Ringmaster Oswell retreated farther, as, under the bull's onslaught, a
piece of concrete broke from the top rail, exposing the reinforcing rod
within. "Fergus does like strange ones," he admitted.
Stonecypher said, "Don't let the mane bother you. There's one of these
long-haired Scotch cows in his ancestors. He's not really purple. Just
the way the light hits 'im."
Oswell chewed lacquered fingernails with steel dentures. His bloodshot
eyes studied the spotted and speckled Appaloosa mules chasing around the
pasture, but the sight failed to register on his brain. "The crowd likes
a good show on Dependence Day," he proclaimed. "I considered trying a
fat Aberdeen Angus with artificial horns for laughs, but this may do as
well. I must find some shade! I'll take him, Stonecypher, if fifteen
hundred in gold is agreeable."
"Sold," Stonecypher said. The word cracked in the middle.
While the ringmaster, muttering about trying bulldogs sometime, retired
to the narrow shadow of the dog house, the driver backed the truck to
the ramp. Stonecypher opened the gate and waved his handkerchief. The
bull charged into the truck, and the driver locked the heavy doors.
From within his red burnoose, Oswell produced a clinking bag. "Fifteen
hundred," he said. From other recesses, he withdrew documents,
notebooks, and a pencil. He said, "Here is a pass for you and one for
any woman-subject you may wish to bring. You'll want to see your first
bull on Dependence Day! And here is the standard release absolving you
of any damage the bull may do. Oh, yes! His name and number?"
"Number?"
"Yes, his brand."
"Not branded. Make it Number 1. Name's Moe."
Oswell chuckled. "Moe. Very good! Most breeders name them things like
Chainlightning and Thunderbird. Your GE number?"
"I'm not a Government Employee."
"You're not?" Oswell wheezed. "How unusual! Your colors? He'll wear your
colors in his shoulder."
"Yeah. Black."
"Black?"
"Dead black."
Oswell, scribbling, managed a faint smile. "Sorry I can't accept that
invitation to lunch." He struggled into the truck. "Hope this bull is
brave in the ring. Nice antique old place you have here! I don't see a
feed tower, but you surely don't use pasture--" The ringmaster's babble
passed down the road with the truck.
Stonecypher watched the vehicle descend the dangerous grade. He lifted
his square hat from his black hair, dropped it on the ground, and
crushed the reeds under a booted foot.
The temporary house, a squat cubical structure, stood at the end of a
spruce-lined path beside the ruin that a thrill party had made of the
century-old farm house. The plastic screen squeaked when Stonecypher
opened it. He stood on the white floor of the robot kitchen and dug a
fifty dollar gold piece from the bag Oswell had given him. Glaring at
the head of the woman with Liberty inscribed on her crown, he muttered,
"Thirty pieces of gold."
Catriona called, "Oswell's lucky he couldn't stay foah dinnah! Ah had
the potassium cyanide all ready."
Stonecypher passed through the diner door into a room containing more
yellowed history books and agricultural pamphlets than eating utensils.
Catriona waited by the table. She held a large revolver in her right
hand.