A wind whipped down into Highland Bullring. Riding the wind, blacker
than the clouds, the inquisitive turkey buzzard glided over the rim of
the stands with air whistling through the spatulate feathers of rigid
wings. The buzzard swooped a foot above Moe's horns and soared swiftly
over the opposite side of the ring.
That started the panic, although Moe's charge accentuated it. He crashed
into the sagging section of the barrier. Cloven hooves scraped the
wooden inclined plane, and Moe stopped with front feet in the first tier
of the stands. He bellowed.
The bull killed only one spectator, a man on whom he stepped. The
hundreds who died killed themselves or each other. They leaped from the
towering rim of the ring, and they jammed the exits in writhing heaps.
Moe's precarious stance slipped. Slowly, he slid back into the ring,
where Ringmaster Oswell, quivering in a red toga, gestured from the
darkness under the stands. The fat man squeaked and waved. Moe's charge
embodied the genuine fighting rage of a maddened bull. The scarlet door
closed behind him.
Stonecypher, with fists bloody and a heap of unconscious fear-crazed
spectators piled before him, sat down. "Well, Moe," he whispered, "I
reckon you got even for a few of the bulls that's been tortured to death
to amuse a bunch of nuts. Maybe it wasn't the right way to do it. I
don't know. If I'd only had the gun--"
Catriona turned a white mask of a face up to Stonecypher. "They killed
him, in theah?"
"Sure. Bullfightin' never was a sport. The bull can't win. If he's not
killed in the ring, he's slaughtered under the stands."
"You have moah smart-bulls, Stony."
The black copter came in with the sunset and hovered over the sand. The
face of Duelmaster Smith peered out under his black tam, while a hooded
man, with pistols tattooed on his hand, aimed an automatic rifle. The
duelmaster smiled at Stonecypher and cried, "You really should have
waited until you were farther out in the Lake, before you dropped that
little buzzer in the water."