A For Anything

14

On a fine morning in July, the Boss and some men of his inner circle were standing, dressed for the hunt, waiting to board the express car that would take them to the valley floor. The men of the circle had been scrupulously early; the Boss had been even later than usual, but now he seemed in no hurry. He stood at the edge of the terrace, a little separated from the group, staring out through the glass at the clear, bright arch of the sky, palest of blues, with a few high streaks of cirrus visible. A contrail was slowly prolonging itself from left to right in the middle distance; the Boss watched it, absently pulling one glove tighter and then the other.

The white line of vapor suddenly bloomed at the end: petals of gray sprouted and spread. There was an exclamation from someone in the group; heads turned.

Seconds went by; then the glass rattled suddenly and fiercely to a rushing whoom of sound that passed overhead. "My God!" said someone. The gray cloud was diffusing; there were some descending streaks of vapor. The contrail was still etched across the sky, ending now in a round blur. Lower down, three or four small craft began to converge toward a spot on the ground.

The Boss turned his head slightly and asked a question; one of his secretaries scurried forward and answered it. Nothing more was said. The Boss signed for the car to be opened, and they all trooped aboard.

Half an hour later, by chance, two of the men met beside the body of a freshly killed buck. It was in a stony clearing in the foothills south of Eagles; the airport was only a quarter of a mile away, invisible over the rise. The Boss's helicopter, from which he had shot the buck, was hovering not far away. Two foresters were working over the body, poisoning it for the vultures that wheeled high overhead.

"Those carrion eaters are getting to be a problem," said Palmer, casually, reining his horse nearer. He was the Boss's Transport Secretary, a choleric man with deceptively mild blue eyes.

"They are," said Cruikshank, stroking his red-gold whiskers. Both men glanced up, not at the vultures, but at the hovering copter.

"Do you know who was on that plane?" Cruikshank asked.

"Certainly. It was Rumsen, on his way back to Ischia."

"I was afraid of that," said Cruikshank. He was the Secretary of the Army. "The question is now, what will the Duce do?"

"Send another messenger next time, I suppose: that much is all to the good."

"No." Cruikshank turned to look at him directly. "It's a bad business, Gene. I've seen them go like this before. They're like old rogues; they get the taste of it and can't stop."

Palmer took out a cigarette and lit up, blinking at Cruikshank over the pale flame. "He'll never kill anybody in Eagles. That's an obsession with him."

"No, but are you safe now?" He saw Palmer glance up involuntarily toward the dark shape in the copter. "Will you be safe tomorrow, or next month? You know he's tired of slaves, Gene -he wants bigger game."

Palmer said, "I've got to think about it."

Cruikshank sat his horse quietly. The sun was warm on his shoulders; beyond Palmer, the buck's filmed eyes stared up at him. It was a good buck, an eight-pointer. Flies were clustered on the spot of blood that had welled from one nostril. It was a duped buck, of course; plentiful as game was in the surrounding country, they had to stock these few hundred acres for the Boss's hunts. It even seemed to Cruikshank that there was something familiar about the buck; after all it was possible; how many times, he wondered, had this same buck died here in the sun? Palmer said, "If I thought there was any alternative -- " Cruikshank said with gloomy satisfaction, "But there isn't."

"I wonder if we'll like the next one any better?" Cruikshank smiled grimly, gathering up the reins. The foresters were finished and walking toward their horses; the copter was drifting off to westward.

"Julius, Augustus, Tiberius," said Cruikshank under his breath, "Caligula, Claudius, Nero ... "