And Saladine nodded and said: “Yes. But—there’s more to it than that, Lee. More than we know, I figure. Something hidden behind it all. A black thing, if the whole truth was to come out. Or so it looks to me.”
Saladine was a steady, thoughtful man, and Motley respected his opinion, and thought upon the matter much thereafter; but he was to come to no conclusion.
On his farm the change in Evered manifested itself in more than one way; in no way more markedly than in his lack of energy. He left most of the chores to John; and, what was more significant, he gave over to John full care of the huge red bull. It had been Evered’s delight to master that brute and bend it to his will. John and Ruth both marked that he avoided it in these later days. John had the feeding of it; he cleaned its stall; he tossed in straw for the creature’s bed. The bull was beginning to know him, to know that it need not fear him. He was accustomed to go into its stall and move about the beast without precautions, speaking gently when he spoke at all.
Ruth never saw this. She seldom went near the red bull’s stall. She hated the animal and dreaded it. On one occasion she did go near its pen. It was suppertime and the food was hot upon the table. She called John from the woodshed, and then came to the kitchen door to summon Evered. He was leaning against the high gate of the bull’s plank-walled yard looking in at the animal. Ruth called to him to come to supper, but he did not turn. She called again, and still the man did not move.
A little alarmed, for fear he might have been suddenly stricken sick, she went swiftly across the barnyard to where he stood, and looked at him, and looked into the pen.
Evered was watching the bull; and the bull stood a dozen feet away, watching the man. There was a stillness about them both which frightened the girl; a still intentness. Neither moved; their eyes met steadily without shifting. There was no emotion in either of them. It was as though the man were probing the bull’s mind, as though the bull would read the man’s thoughts. They were like persons hypnotized. Ruth shivered and touched Evered’s arm and shook it a little.
“Supper’s ready,” she said.
He turned to her with eyes still glazed from the intensity of their stare.
“Supper?” he echoed. Then remembrance came to him; and he nodded heavily and said with that wistfully ingratiating note in his voice, “Yes, Ruthie, I’m coming. Come; let’s go together.”
He took her arm, and she had not the hardness of heart to break away from him. They went into the house side by side.