Little Will held her hands to her temples. Pete looked at her. She looked up Mange. "Mange, this is... like I told you when I saw the rocks coming down on Pete and the bulls. It's the tungberries."
"What's the tungberries?"
Little Will leaned forward. "Mange, it's the tungberries. That's the cure for the bug!"
Mange smiled and shook his head. "We tried that. A lot of troupers have died who ate tungberries by the bushel."
"The pits, Mange! Did they all eat the pits?"
Mange sat back and rubbed his chin. "I don't know." He held out his hands. "It still doesn't explain why the newborn babies on the Central Continent don't get the bug. They eat tungberries, but I've never seen a kid that liked the pits. It's an acquired taste."
Little Will frowned, then looked back at Mange. "Did you ever see a kid spit out the pits? They don't crack them for the sour taste, but they don't have any teeth, either."
Mange studied Little Will. "So they swallow the pulp and the seeds whole." He looked down at the table top. "And just about everyone has the bug on Midway, including the kids, because... they don't have tungberries at all over there!" He looked again at Little Will. "Maybe. Just maybe." He picked up the plate of tungberries and began squashing the grape-sized fruit with his hand. Then he picked out the small handfull of pits from the mass of pulp then stood up and grabbed the jug of sapwine.
Little Will looked up at Mange. "How are you going to try them?"
"Butterfingers McGuinea pig."
The vet turned and ran into the street. Shiner Pete looked at his wife. "It looks like our dinner party is playing to an empty house." He broke some cobit. "I sure hope the tungberries are the answer."
Little Will looked down at her food, then turned her head and looked through the doorway at the night. "They'll work." Images danced in the darkness. "I see other things, too, Pete. What are we going to be without the bulls?"
"We'll be man and wife. There are other things you can—"
She faced him. "I mean the bullhands! What will they be without the bulls?"
Pete shook his head. "Just like everybody else." Little Will stood. "You don't understand." She walked out into Miira's dark street and headed toward the kraal. She walked the incline, climbed the fence, and studied the shadows. She whispered to herself. "Without the bulls, we are nothing."
The beginnings of the things Little Will saw that night unfolded as the years passed. By The Season the sixth, the Porse Cutoff had been constructed. The success of the tungberry experiment had everyone eating the things—pits and all—and shipments of fruit and tungberry plants being sent to Midway. By The Season the seventh, the "bug" had been eliminated, and the Momans prepared once again to hold the celebration in the Town of Tarzak. As she rode Reg across the delta bridges, Little Will again saw the roadside watchers counting the bulls. They counted seventeen. Ming had died in Tarzak, the two Emerald Valley bulls had sickened and died from eating the poisonous spring ferns that grew up north, and one of the three bulls in Kuumic had died in a mine accident. There were a total of nineteen bulls left upon Momus.
During Put Up that night, they learned who had survived the bug; who had died. Duckfoot Tarzak, Leadfoot Sina, Fisty Bill Ris, Grabbit Kuumic, Dogface Dick, Cholly Jacoby, Madam Zelda, and many others passed into memory.
That night Spats Skorzini introduced himself as the Master of the Great Ring of Tarzak, and introduced Warts as the Master of the Tarzak Priesthood. The spielers in Tarzak were calling themselves barkers; the candy and fizz butchers were calling themselves merchants; and the canvasmen and razorbacks were calling themselves roustabouts.
The bullhands were still bullhands.
On the way back to Miira, Chilly Ned's bull, General, went outlaw, killing three hostlers and two children, and had to be executed. The only method available to them was an ancient one. They anchored General's back legs to some trees, and then attached a strong team of Perches to a slip-ringed chain around General's neck. To Little Will the strangulation of General seemed to take forever. The execution filled everyone's mind, and no one noticed Chilly Ned walking off alone into the darkness.
Sixteen bulls made parade in Tarzak for The Season the seventh. The two Kuumic bulls still lived, and then there were eighteen bulls upon Momus. Passing onto the Big Lot were Amazing Ozamund, magician; Packy Dern, boss elephant man; Stretch Dirak, advance car manager; Electric Lips, barker; Ptomaine Tilly, candy butcher; Skinner Suggs, boss hostler; and Chilly Ned, bullhand.
Before they had left Miira, the bullhands elected Little Will boss elephant man—Master of the Miira Bullhands.
On Put Up, the Master of the Tarzak Priesthood disclosed the official religion of the Moman priests. A survey had been conducted, and the priests had agreed in advance to take on the religion of the majority. The majority preference was "no preference." And the Master of the Tarzak Priesthood spake: "In accordance with our agreement in Porse, then, the priesthood's official religion is the majority's: No Preference. It might be time-saving to take notes of rituals and prayers supplied by those with religious afflictions in case the need of such rituals and prayers pops up in the future."
And Poge Loder stood and spoke from the Miira section of the Great Ring. "I want to know about profanity. A priest shouldn't go about talkin' the way Waxy does."
Warts studied upon the request, then replied to Poge. "Among other complaints, I have pondered the use of the name 'Momus' as an oath, and I see little objection. Momus was an ancient mythical Earthling deity specializing in ridicule. The Governor named this planet after that deity as a joke. Hence, I cannot see how using the name as an oath would constitute blasphemy. Since we are officially No Preferencians, I can't imagine what would constitute blasphemy.
"However, along with your complaints, Poge, I have received many complaints concerning the use of certain words by priests, and these complaints do not all come from the religiously distressed. At burials we should have no more send-off phrases such as 'Give 'em hell, you son of a bitch,' 'When you get there, save one with big knockers for me,' 'You were a beautiful bastard,' and 'Death sucks.'
Warts turned to the other members of the Moman Priesthood standing in the ring with him. "I would add that in recording pregnancies and births, the proper word is fetus, not 'watermelon' or 'loaf of bread'; the word for womb is not 'the old patch' or 'oven,' and the process by which this event accrues is not to be referred to by the expression you are currently using."
Waxy placed his arm upon Turtlehead's shell. "Could you please go up into the Miira stands and explain the proper pronunciation of our trade to old Poge?"
"Why?"
"He seems to be missing the goddamned point of what the hell it is to be a damned priest. That's why."
"The proper pro—"
"I know. I know. But tell Poge. He needs it."
Turtlehead moved off into the cut-stone steps of the Miira blues.
Warts cleared his throat and addressed the Great Ring. "In answer to the question put to me by many of you, the invention of the telephone has been postponed for lack of interest."
On The Season the eighth, they learned that Jingles McGurk, Goofy Joe, and Mootch Movill had taken on apprentices, and were demanding new job titles. From that day on, loan sharks were to be known as "cashiers," gossips as "newstellers," and liars as "storytellers."
Only twelve bulls made parade that year. Four had to be retired; too weak to make the trip to Tarzak. Little Will had remained in Miira along with Mange Ranger and Shiner Pete. Before the bullhands returned to Miira from The Season, Mange placed into Little Will's arms a baby boy and a baby girl. She named the boy Johnjay, after John J. O'Hara. She named the girl May, after the month that used to begin every show—a long time ago.