"Matt!" said Lynn. She had squeezed to his side. "You're not going down
there?"
"I'm going after Pendergrast."
She said, "Matt, please don't go. Let someone else." She took his hand,
kissed it shamelessly and pressed it to her breast. "Wait till morning,
Matt."
"He might be alive. You go on to your cabin and get out of those wet
clothes."
"I'm not moving a foot until you get back." She still held onto his
hand.
* * * * *
After a few minutes the chief engineer pushed through the press and
handed Matt the rifle. "I'll take the light," he said. "We'll both go
down."
"Thanks," said Matt. He made sure a cartridge was in the chamber and
then began to climb down the ladder.
From over his head, the chief engineer's light flashed, probing the
brush below. Matt could see no sign of a bull or of Pendergrast. He
reached the soggy earth and waited until the chief joined him.
"It was over that way," said the chief, flashing his light toward a
clump of brush beyond the circle that had been charred black by the
jets.
They began to advance cautiously. The light picked out a wet shapeless
bundle on the ground a yard or two this side of the thicket.
"That's Pendergrast, I guess," said Matt in a tight voice.
"Yes, I suppose so!" The chief sounded sick. "What's that?"
Matt had heard it, too, a crashing in the thicket. He halted and swung
up his rifle.
The next instant the head of a large Jersey bull came into view. The
animal stalked into the circle of light. The bull lowered his head and
snorted, pawing the mud.
Matt fired. He fired for the neck. The bull's knees folded; he slumped
gently to the ground.
"Got him, by God!" said the chief. There was a ragged cheer from the
ship behind them.
"Well," said Matt in an unhappy voice. "We may as well get it over
with. Pendergrast might be alive."
But he wasn't. Pendergrast had been an old man, and the bull had gored
him cruelly. Matt doubted that he had lived more than a minute or two.
They hauled his broken body up with a rope and laid it out on his bunk.
From outside there came the eerie hoot of an owl. Somewhere in the
distance dogs were barking.
"There must be a farmhouse in the neighborhood after all," the director
said, closing the door to Pendergrast's cabin.