The American Gun Mystery (Death At the Rodeo)

3: Requiescat

There is a story somewhere of a man for whom time stood still; or perhaps for whom time stretched, so that what was the blink of an eye to a normal being, a beat of the heart, the flick of a finger, was to him a full slow hour. This is not so fantastic as it sounds. There is indeed a garden between the dawn and the sunrise; and it may be found only at such rare cosmic moments when the normal activity of the real universe ceases. In human crowds, for example, such a moment solidifies and reigns to the exclusion of all coarser phenomena; it is a time when a molecular instant becomes an infinite interval — the interval between mass realization and mass panic.

It was such a manifestation of infinity which caught the densely peopled Colosseum at the instant when Buck Horne tumbled to the tanbark track and was swallowed up in a tangle of snorting, rearing horses. In that instant, which lasted only a second and yet endured for hours, no breath was drawn, no muscle twitched, no tiniest sound was made. The tableau below stiffened into phantasmagoric stone; and the tableau above was eternal. Had there been an observer perched at the apex of the vast ceiling, looking down upon the petrified thousands below, he might have thought himself the lone spectator of some gigantic museum-group in complex marble, fixed to the sides and bottom of a titanic well.

Then the real world pushed through and the instant flashed on into eternity. There came a wordless noise, a plutonic sound, a rising groan of pure horror which rumbled from the basso of the gamut up the scale until it keened off beyond the perception of human ears into an eerie vibration sensed rather than heard. And the screams of the fighting riders broke through, and the terrified cries of the horses as they made spasmodic efforts to avoid trampling upon that invisible figure on the spot where the man on horseback had plunged to the ground.

As one, twenty thousand people sprang to their feet, shaking the Colosseum to its foundations.

As in a dream, the dream passed.

What followed was normal for what should follow. There were cries, thin shrill questions, restless movements toward the exits — movements instantly halted by the jack-in-the-box appearance of attendants at the gates and runways. In the arena some semblance of order was crystalizing. The horses were drawing off, apart. Out of the eastern gate ran a bareheaded man carrying a black bag, and under his arm a hurriedly snatched Indian blanket. Simultaneously in the center of the arena Wild Bill Grant — whose horse, whose hat, whose hand, whose very eyes had not moved — came to life and kicked his animal toward the nucleus of the confusion.

The occupants of the Mars box had been tiny members of the large tableau of silence — all of them, without exception. But there were four persons there who, for significant reasons, came out of their trance before the others, whose nerves were more sharply attuned to the exigencies of the moment. These were the Queens, father and son — the one a policeman to his neat shoe-tops, trained to respond to emergencies; the other a mental machine whom no amazement could paralyze long; Tony Mars, the sensitive creator of this monument to sport which of an instant had changed into a mausoleum to a sportsman; and Kit Horne, who more than all the others was to feel the full anguish of reaction. These four, in pairs, vaulted the rail of the box to thud onto the tanbark ten feet below, badly jarred but unmindful of the shock — leaving their fellow-occupants of the box behind, too stunned to move. Julian Hunter’s cigar had dropped quite out of his mouth, and his mouth remained open; Mara Gay’s thin body was quivering, and the blood had drained out of her cheeks; Djuna sat utterly bewildered; and Tommy Black stood rocking on his toes like a dazed pugilist warding off a rain of blows.

The riders had dismounted now; some were busy soothing their horses.

Kit and Ellery were in the van, leading the Inspector and Tony Mars by a dozen feet. The girl sped on wings of fear toward the scene of the accident, closely pursued by Ellery, whose brow was furrowed and whose eyes were still blinking at the suddenness of the tragedy. They dashed into the group surrounding the still crumpled figure on the tanbark, and stopped dead. The man with the black bag, who had been kneeling by the side of the figure, rose hastily at sight of Kit Horne and flung the blanket over the thing on the floor.

“Uh Miss Horne,” he said in a hoarse voice.

“Miss Horne. I’m so very, very sorry. He’s... dead.”

“Doctor, no.”

She said it very quietly, as if by remaining calmly sane she might alter the physician’s verdict. The rodeo doctor, a shabby rugged old man, shook his head slightly and backed away, keeping his earnest eyes on her white face.

Ellery stood thoughtfully by her side, watching her.

She dropped to her knees in the dust with a choked cry, and touched the edge of the blanket. Curly Grant, his face dead, and Wild Bill Grant, stupefied, made instinctive movements to intercept her. She waved them back, scarcely looking at them; and they stopped in their tracks. Then she lifted the blanket the merest bit; something remarkably pale here and remarkably red there that had been a living face was starkly uncovered. The features, drawn, bluish, distorted in death, spattered with thick blood and dirt, looked sightlessly up at her, as it were in uncrushed but pitiful dignity. She dropped the blanket as if it were a malignant thing, and knelt there in silence.

Ellery dug his knuckles into the muscular ribs of Curly Grant. “Come alive, you fool,” he said softly. “Get her away from here.” Curly started, flushed, dropped to his knees beside her...

Ellery turned to come face to face with his father. The Inspector was puffing like Boreas.

“What the — what’s happened to him?” he gasped.

Ellery said: “Murder.”

The old man’s eyes goggled. “Murder! But how the devil—”

They stared at each other for an instant, and then something cloudy suffused Ellery’s eyes. He began slowly to look about. A cigaret which he had from habit stuck between his lips drooped toward the sandy blooded tanbark. As he took it from between his lips and crushed it between his fingers, he panted: “Oh, God, what an idiot I am! Dad...” He dropped the fragments into his pocket. “There’s no question about the murder part of this. He was drilled in the side; must have gone through the heart. I saw the wound myself as the doctor dropped the blanket over him. This is—”

The Inspector’s color returned to his gray cheeks; his bird-like eyes snapped; and he darted forward into the group.

The group parted, engulfed him.

Curly’s wide shoulders hid the bowed shining head of Kit Horne.

Wild Bill Grant stared and stared at the blanket as if he could not see enough of it.

Ellery squared his shoulders, drew a long breath, and started off at a lope toward the northwestern part of the arena.