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Show ? UNHEARD MELODIES 219 By winter she was heavy widi it, her trim little barrel swollen, her udder rich, and it became her, her temperament too. For early in her pregnancy she had turned as mild and gentle as family pets are supposed to be: I swear she got a soft misty look in her eye. And I could touch her anywhere, curry her, stroke her rump and flanks and belly and even her swollen udder and she stood there and preened and practically purred. I believed she didn't want to jolt die foal in her, probably hormonal changes had much to do widi it, but whatever, something growing in her had certainly eased the torment that pack of kids had caused her, as if, fulfilled, she had come at last fully into serenity. It lasted until one moist May day when she went through the pain and blood of birth, taking it pretty cheerfully, and we had anodier mule, male, though a lot of good it would do him. He was Beauty's offspring, no doubt of that, black and white with her lively intelligent eyes. He had longer ears, of course, and a longer head, was diinner and eventually taller than she, but he was vivid: he caught the eye and held it. But he had the personality of one of those spoiled pretty children who make you ache to smack diem, and a lack of concern for anything other than himself that was appalling. I'd thought Beauty was independent but she, after all, had a sexual tie widi the rest of the world. She was also back to her old ways, touchier if anything, and twice as protective of her colt as of the adopted calf, so ferocious that going into her corral was like stepping into a cage with a lion, a lion with hooves, and even after she weaned him she brooded over him so that to get near either one we had to separate them. Then I tried to woo the colt as I had his mother, but he wouldn't respond. As far as I know, no mule will. He'll eat sugar from your hand all right; sure, he'll eat it for five years and then one morning he'll kick you in the gonads. Because he doesn't care, can't care, has no reason to care; it's as if his hybrid nature has as its center not heat but cold, a litde hollow of cold. He had the lines and color of beauty all right, but it was as impersonal and sterile as a piece of commercial art. We had named him Buster and it was early in the fall when he was two and a half diat Henry found him chasing his purebred calf, a pretty little Hereford steer which he was going to feed out and show. He had visions of winning Grand Champion with it, but at the time Buster and the calf were in a corral together and, for no other reason than his own malicious pleasure, Buster was running the calf until it was sweating and heaving to breathe. He would have run it to death, and Henry came straight in the house to Dad, mad as hell. It was Sunday after dinner and Dad and I were playing checkers, and nobody interrupts Dad's checker games. "Well why don't you shoot him if he's such a bother?" he said, irritated but grinning at Henry's red face. Henry looked at the checkerboard as if it was the most insultingly trivial thing in the world and stomped out. I thought it was |