Asian & Pacific Short Stories by Cultural & Social Centre

Author:Cultural & Social Centre
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781462912124
Publisher: Tuttle Publishing

The Bulls

[NEW ZEALAND]

by Roderick Finlayson

THE NEW young bull arrived on the farm that morning. He was a handsome two-year-old Jersey, sleek and quiet-eyed. Steve, the drover from Matapoi, brought him along and turned him into the yard. The old man and the boy came out and looked him over. The boy could tell the old man was pleased with the bull by the way he shuffled slowly around the yard with his hands behind his back looking at the animal while he whistled a little through his rangy moustache. The boy thought the bull looked good too.

"Well, you can take the old fella, Steve," the old man said.

The drover didn't bother to reply. He was a thickset florid man with a red-veined nose, hard, unfriendly blue eyes, and close-cropped sandy hair. His dog was a lean yellow cur, unfriendly too, slinking and showing his teeth when the boy spoke to him. The drover rode a gaunt chestnut mare so long-legged the man looked too tall in the saddle. He sat staring hard down on the boy.

"Wouldn't want to tag along with that man—not at any price," the boy thought, edging away from the unfriendly gaze.

"Come along in, Steve, the missus has dinner on the table," the old man said. He looked at the boy. "Come on, boy, don't keep us waiting, looking like you're dumb."

The drover dismounted and led his horse to the water trough. "Gotta be getting on the road," he grumbled as if ungrateful for the offer of a meal. "You never know when it comes to getting an old bull away from his home paddocks."

Nevertheless, once he was in the farm kitchen, he ate a real good fill, gobbling great mouthfuls of beef and potato without any sign of enjoyment and without speaking a word. But when he had had enough and was handed his second cup of tea, he sat back and smirked at the old man's wife. "Meal like this here, missus, reminds me of when I rode champion steeplechasers and was feasted and feted by the girls all up and down the country." Having made this statement he drank the tea in long sucking gulps and became as morose as before.

When the men left the house the drover went straight to his horse and mounted. "Come on, Thomson, where's old devil?" he shouted.

The old man with the boy went on foot to the back paddock, opened the gate, and called to the big red bull. "Hey-aah, bully! Hey-aah!" The red bull lumbered out with a slow toss of his horns. They followed him up the drive past the cow-paddock gate where he eyed the grazing herd.

"Run ahead and open the road gate, boy," the old man said.

The old bull, sensing what they meant to do, balked at the gate. But the drover spurred his horse forward and cracked his whip angrily. The yellow cur snapped at the bull's heels and swung on his tail. And with the horseman lashing at his hind-quarters, the old bull was rushed through the gate and out onto the open road.

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