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Show /at twice as protective of her colt as of the adopted calf, ferocious as a hoofed lion. 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. Mule-like, he wouldn't respond. Sure, a mule will eat sugar from your hand all right; he'll eat it for five years and then one morning he'll kick you in the balls. Because he doesn't care, can't care, has no reason to care. No sex. It's as if his hybrid nature has as its center not heat but cold, a little hollow of cold. He had the lines and the color of beauty all right, but it was as impersonal and sterile as a piece of commercial art. We named him Buster. In the summer of 1941, after highschool when Dad was paying me wages so I could save for college that fall, Buster then three years old, Davy caught him one afternoon running his purebred Hereford steer. It was the 4-H calf which Davy was feeding out to show, confident he would win a blue ribbon, and it and Buster were in the same corral and Buster was running it until it was sweating and heaving to breathe. It was more than So.4 let-running fat off it, bad enough, but.toe- would have run it to death, and Davy came straight into the house to Dad. It was Sunday after dinner, Dad and I were playing cribbage and while Dad listened to Davy's complaint about the mule, he went on looking through his hand, put two cards aside for the crib, shrugged. "If he's such a bother, why don't you just shoot him?" He winked at me, Davy turned red with anger, and after ten minutes later he came back inside the house to announce that he had shot the little mule between the eyes. Dad didn't believe him. We all walked down to the corral where the mule lay on his side with a little drying blood running down over one eye into the dust. The calf stood at the nam manger, peacefully eating. "Why you damned fool.'" said Dad. He still couldn't believe it. "You said to," said Davy, his face set. "Said to.' A pretty little thing and smart like that? I could of sold him to a circus or something." |
