He said, "Hiya, girlie. G'wan back to shuteye. We got to tear-down tomorra night. You won't get much then." His hand groped in his pocket and came out with the two lumps of sugar he'd swiped from the cookhouse.
The soft, questing tip of her trunk nuzzled his palm and took the sugar.
"Damn ya," Pop said affectionately.
He stared at the huge dim bulk of the bull. Her eyes had closed again.
"Trouble with you," he said, "you got temperament. But listen, old girl, you can't have temperament no more. That's for prima donnas, that is, and you're a working bull."
He pretended she'd said something. "Yeah, I know. You didn't used to be-- But then me, I wasn't always a bull man, either. Me, I was a clown once. Remember, baby?
"And now you're just an ol' hay-burner for shoving wagons; and me, I ain't so young myself. I'm fifty-eight, Lil. Yeah, I know you got fifteen years on me, and maybe more'n that if the truth was known, but you don't get drunk like I do, and that makes us even."
He patted her trunk and the big ears flapped once, in lazy appreciation.
"That there Shorty Martin," said Pop. "Baby, does he tease you, or anything? Wish I could ride you in the parade, drat it. You'd be all right then, wouldn't you, baby?"
He grinned. "Then that there Shorty would be mahout of a job!"
But Lil didn't appreciate puns, he realized. And jokes didn't change the fact that pretty soon he was going to be out of a job because Tepperman Shows was going to sell Lil. If they could find a place to sell her. If they couldn't-- Well, he didn't want to think about that.
Disconsolately, he walked over to the jig village back of the Harlem Casino.
"Hi, Mista' Pop," said Jabez, the geek. "Lookin" kinda low."
"Jabe," said Pop, "I'm so low I could wear stilts and walk under a sidewall 'thout lifting it."
Jabez laughed, and Pop got a pint on the cuff.
He took a swig and felt a little better. That stuff had authority to it. More you paid for liquor, the weaker it was. He'd tasted champagne once, even, and it had tasted like soda pop. This stuff--
"Thanks, Jabe," he said. "Be seeing you."
He strolled back to the crap game. Whitey Harper stood up as Pop came under the sidewall.
"Bust," Whitey said. "Keep track of those dice for me, Bill. I'll get 'em later. Hi, Pop. Stake me to Java?"
Pop shook his head. "But have a slug of what's good for what ails you. Here."
Whitey took the offered drink and headed for the cookhouse. Pop borrowed a quarter from Bill Rendelman, the merry-go-round man, who was now winner in the crap game. He took two come-bets, one for fifteen and one for ten, and lost both.
Nope, tonight wasn't his night.
Somewhere toward town, a clock boomed midnight. Pop decided he might as well turn in and call it a night. He could finish what was left of the pint in his bunk.
He was feeling swell now. And, as always, when he was in that first cheerful, happy stage of inebriation, he sang, as he crossed the deserted midway, the most lugubrious song he knew. The one and only grand opera song he knew. The aria from Pagliaccio.
Yeah, that guy Pagliaccio was a clown, too, and he knew what it was all about. Life was beautifully sad for a clown; it was more beautifully sad for an ex-clown, and most sadly beautiful of all for a drunken ex-clown.
He'd finished the third full rendition by the time, still fully dressed except for his shoes, he'd crawled into his bunk under the No. 6 wagon back of the Hawaiian show. He forgot all about finishing what was left of the liquor.
Overhead the dim, gibbous moon slid out of sight be-hind skittering clouds, and the outside ring of the lot, shielded by tents from the few arcs left burning on the midway, became black mystery. Blackness out of which the tents rose like dim gray monsters in the still, breath-less night. The murderous night-Someone was shaking him. Pop Williams opened one eye sleepily. He said, "Aw, ri'. Wha' time zit?" And closed the eye again.
But the shaking went on. "Pop! Wake up! Lil killed--"
He was sitting bolt upright then. His eyes were wide, but they wouldn't focus. The face in front of them was a blur, but the voice was Whitey Harper's voice.
He grabbed at Whitey's shoulder to steady himself. "Huh? You said--"
"Your bull killed Shorty Martin. Pop! Wake up!"
Wake up? Hell, he was wider awake than he'd ever been in his life. He was out of bed, almost falling on Whitey as he clambered down from the upper bunk. He jammed his feet into his shoes so that their tongues doubled back over the instep; he didn't stop to pull or tie the laces. And he was off, running.
There were other people running, too. Quite a few of them. Some of them from the sleeping cars, some of them from tents along the midway where a good many slept in hot weather. Some running from the brightly lighted cookhouse up at the front of the midway.
When he got to the Hawaiian show, Pop stole a glance around behind him to see if Whitey Harper were in sight. He wasn't.
So Pop ducked under the Hawaiian show sidewall, and came out at the side of the tent instead of the front of it, and doubled back to Tepperman's private trailer. Of course, Tepperman's wife might still be there, but there was something Pop had to do and had to do quick, be-fore he went to the bull. And in order to do it, he had to gamble that the boss's trailer would be empty.
It was. And it took him only a minute to find the high-powered rifle he was after. Holding it tight against his body, he got it under the Hawaiian show top without being seen. And hid it under the bally cloth of the platform.
It wasn't a very good hiding place. Someone would find it by tomorrow noon, but then again by tomorrow noon it wouldn't matter. They'd be able to get another gun by then. But this one was the only one available tonight that was big enough.
And then a minute later, Pop was pushing his way through the ring of people around old Lil. A ring that held a very respectful distance from the elephant.
Pop's first glance was for Lil, and she was all right. What-ever flare of temper or cantankerousness she'd had, it was gone now. Her red eyes were unconcerned and her trunk swung gently.
Doc Berg was bending over something that lay on the ground a dozen feet from the bull. Tepperman was stand-ing looking on. Someone called out something to Pop, and Tepperman whirled.
His voice was shrill, almost hysterical. "I told you that damn bull--" He broke off and stood there glaring.
"What happened?" Pop asked mildly.
"Can't you see what happened?" He looked back down at Doc Berg, and Berg's glasses caught and reflected the beam of somebody's flashlight as he nodded.
"Three ribs," he said. "Neck dislocated, and the skull crushed where it hit against that stake. Any one of those things could've killed him."
Pop shook his head, whether in grief or negation he didn't know himself.
He asked again, "What happened? Was Shorty tormentin' her?"
"Nobody saw it," Tepperman snapped.
"Hm-m-m," said Pop. "That where you found him? Don't seem likely Lil'd have throwed him that far if she did it."
"What do you mean, if she did it?" Tepperman asked coldly. "No, he was lying with his head against the stake, if you got to know."
"He must've been teasin' her," Pop insisted. "Lil ain't no killer. Maybe he give her some pepper to eat, or--"