Wilde West (45 page)

required the mission as surely as the mission required him.

Soon
.

Yes. And soon he would have her, this Elizabeth McCourt Doe. Soon he would show her the world of wonders that lay just beneath this one, separated from it by a veil that was the thickness, merely, of human skin.

And, yes, it would need every particle of their cunning, his and that of the Lords of Light. But cunning had been needed before and always, from his inexhaustible store, and from theirs, he had supplied it.

Like Grigsby, but of course with infinitely more subtlety and intelligence, he would watch and he would wait. The time would come; that was fated. And when it did, he would be ready.

Soon, yes, he would have her.

Soon
.

Elizabeth McCourt Doe.

Doe.

Doe Re Mi.

Doe Re Mine.

“I
SN
'
T THE FOREST LOVELY
?” asked Elizabeth McCourt Doe.

“Sorry?” Oscar turned to her. With the reins held loosely his hand, he had been blankly staring at the nodding heads of the plodding pair of horses that drew the carriage.

“The forest. Isn't it lovely?”

Oscar glanced around, noted the large number of pine trees that loomed up rather aggressively on both sides of the narrow dirt track. It was, to be sure, a forest. But lovely? It was a bit too gloomy for his taste, and the trees were a good deal too large; it resembled a typical Teutonic woodland, brooding and dim, which had somehow undergone a lunatic surge of growth.

“Ah,” he said. “Yes. Charming.”

“It looks primeval, don't you think?” Poised and regal in her red fox coat and matching muff, a wide-brimmed bonnet shading her cascade of titian hair, she appeared today—as she always appeared—stunningly beautiful.

“Primeval, yes,” said Oscar. “My very thought.”

She put her hand lightly on his forearm. “Oscar,” she said, “you seem distracted.”

“Not at all.” He smiled. “I am merely speechless with pleasure at your company.”

She smiled, slid her hand down his sleeve to the back of his hand, squeezed it, and then withdrew her own and slipped it back into the muff. Still smiling, she looked off into the tall glowering pine trees.

Normally her touch would have enflamed him, sent all the nerve ends of his body migrating to the patch of skin beneath her fingertips; but at the moment Oscar
was
in fact distracted. An hour ago, when he had clambered up into the driver's seat of the carriage, he had glanced toward the alleyway across the street from the hotel. And there he had seen (or imagined?) a large shadowy figure suddenly lurch back into the darkness. Only a glimpse it had been, lasting no longer than the blink of an eye.

Since then, he had been trying to persuade himself that the figure had been merely a phantasm, merely one more illusory member of that illusory band of bears which had lately been stalking him.

For why on earth would Biff the Behemoth follow Oscar all the way from Denver to Manitou Springs? Oscar had done him no harm. Indeed, during their encounter, it had been Oscar who was the injured party—having been lobbed through the air to tumble into that disgusting heap of sawdust. If anyone had a right to harbor a grudge, clearly it was he. And he, for his part, was perfectly happy to let bygones be bygones.

If Biff, somewhere deep within the murky corridors of his mind, nursed a desire for revenge, would he not have sought out Dr. Holliday? It was Holliday, not Oscar, who had been the author of Biff's humiliation. Surely even Biff could grasp that fact?

As he had done three or four times since leaving Manitou Springs, Oscar leaned from the carriage and peered behind them. With its twists and turns through the somber pines, the track was visible for only a hundred yards. But those hundred yards were empty. No one, apparently, was following.

Of course not. That lurching shape had been only another trick of nature, a mirage, one of those droll sleights produced by the interplay of light and shade. Like the huge ursine apparition last night—which had metamorphosed into the quite human (if admittedly still somewhat mysterious) form of Dr. Holliday.

He glanced off into the trees. Really, this
was
a dreary place. Dark, broad, towering trees rising to quite preposterous heights from pools of sunless gloom. It seemed silent and empty; but who knew what sort of creatures were skulking through those sullen depths, following the passage of the carriage with hungry yellow eyes? Wolves. Coyotes. Mountain lions. Rattlesnakes the thickness and length of fire hoses.

And of course bears.

No. No bears. The bears were an illusion.

He sat back against the rigid seat of the carriage. Perhaps the portentousness of the occasion had made him a tad uneasy. It was not, after all, every day that one asked a young woman for her hand. (Mother would have said it was not
any
day that one asked a young woman for her hand when the young woman was a penniless divorcée. But Mother would come around. She must come around, and therefore she would come around.)

The silver brooch Oscar had purchased in Denver lay in his topcoat pocket, and now it seemed to him inadequate, trivial, as tawdry as a piece of costume jewelry. It should have been gold; and it should have been a ring.

He would buy her a ring later. Today. As soon as they returned to town.

Could one buy a diamond ring in Manitou Springs?

“There,” said Elizabeth McCourt Doe. She pointed to a small clearing along the left side of the track. “There's room for the carriage.”

Oscar tugged the reins to the left and the horses drew the carriage off the track. As the animals approached the end of the clearing, he pulled the reins back. The carriage stopped. He set the brake lever, tied the reins to it, then stepped down and assisted Elizabeth McCourt Doe to the ground.

How could he worry about someone as insignificant as Biff when someone as breathtakingly beautiful as this stood (both physically and metaphorically) within his grasp?

She
had
brought along blankets (admirable woman!) and also a large wicker hamper. She placed her muff on the seat and scooped up the blankets. “You can bring the basket,” she said, smiling.

Oscar looked around him, at the forest crowding in, vast and bleak. Lightly—no apprehension here, just a simple, manly curiosity—he asked, “Is it terribly far?”

She shook her head. “A short walk.”

He lifted the hamper, which he found to be somewhat on the heavy side, and set off behind her.

The air today was mild. Back in Manitou Springs it had been almost warm. Here, higher up, along the slope of the mountain, it was cooler but still comfortable.

As he trailed behind Elizabeth McCourt Doe, he could smell the dusky fragrance of her perfume, blended now with the drab, prosaic odors of the forest: earth and pine, and also something dank, something heavy and oppressive which must have been mold or fungus, and which reminded him of graveyards and crypts.

Despite his admiration for the woman, her notion of a short walk was one to which he could not wholeheartedly subscribe. They marched for what seemed like miles through the shadows, over glum gray hillocks and around them, deeper and deeper into the dusky wood. (However had she found this place of hers? Guided there by some local Chingachgook?)

Beneath a slippery cover of brown pine needles, the ground was soft and spongy, threatening now and then to engulf his shoes, and possibly his entire body. He began to perspire elaborately. The wicker hamper grew increasingly heavy and cumbersome, and he had run out of arms into which he could shift the thing. Perhaps, he thought, he should perch it atop his skull, like a cheerful native bearer, and begin to sing cheerful native bearer songs. Whatever they might be.

Finally the two of them emerged from the gloom into a small sunlit glen. A blue patch of sky hung overhead, stretched taut between the faraway black treetops. At the clearing's opposite side ran the promised brook. It was not, however, babbling. On some earlier occasion it might perhaps have babbled; but today—swollen, presumably, by meltwater—it thundered like a small but determined Niagara. Gushing, whooshing, it slapped and slammed against its banks as it blundered down the slope.

So much for the idea of dipping their feet into its laughing water. Any foot dipped into that current would be wrenched off at the ankle.

Elizabeth McCourt Doe spread out one of the blankets and sat down on it, arranging her skirt about her. She looked up, smiling, and patted the blanket. With aching arms, Oscar lowered the basket and sat down beside her, disguising his small gasp of exhaustion as a sigh of pleasure: “Ah!”

She leaned toward him, kissed his cheek, then sat back. “Isn't it perfect?” she asked. Oscar could just make out her voice over the roar of the stream.

“Perfect,” he said, and swallowed. His breath was coming in frantic little puffs.

“Wouldn't it be wonderful to live in a place like this? Away from all the crowds, all the bustle and noise?”

“Yes,” he said. For a day or two, if one had a wealth of provisions and virtually no other choice. “Delightful. You don't care for Denver, then?”

She made a face, shook her head. “ It' s so dirty and crowded.” She turned to him. “Is London like that?”

He laughed, suddenly lightheaded with relief. This was evidently going to proceed more easily, with far less awkwardness, than he had dared hope. (Why, then, had his heart vaulted from his chest to his head, where it now hammered against his ears?) “Not at all. There are areas in London that are sublime. Filled with gracious homes and lovely parks.” And, alas, with spiteful estate agents.

“Parks? Really? There are trees?”

“Masses of them. And Ireland, where I've a small piece of property, has still more. A plenitude of trees. A positive welter of trees. You'd very much like Ireland, I think.”

She smiled. “I'd love to see it one day.”

Once again Oscar felt as though he were hovering at the brink of a precipice.

And once again he leaped. “Then you must permit me to show it to you.”

She turned to him again. She laughed. “I don't think I'd be able to persuade Horace to take a trip to Ireland.”

Oscar smiled. “Well, naturally, the invitation doesn't extend to Horace.”

Her smile became quizzical.

Oscar said, “Elizabeth, since the first moment we met I've known that you and I were destined for something grand. There are some souls so finely attuned to one another that instantly, when they meet, they fuse. They become a single entity. I've known, since I saw you that first night, that we were such souls. I flatter myself that you've known this as well.”

Now the smile was pleased—no, delighted. She put her hand along his thigh. “It
has
been grand, hasn't it?”

“And it will be grander still. You'll love London, I know you will. The galleries, the shops, the. restaurants, the parks, the homes. We'll find ourselves something modest at the start—” He laughed. “Which will no doubt astound everyone who knows me. But this modest little haven of ours, Elizabeth, together we'll transform it into something wonderful, something so stylish it shall become the envy of the entire city. And that shall be, as I say, only at the start, only for a year or so, perhaps. I have great prospects, Elizabeth. Glorious prospects. Soon my play will be produced in New York. Afterward, it's certain to be produced in London. And then, as soon as possible, we'll move into something still more suitable.”

Her smile had gone from pleased to quizzical again, and then it had simply gone. “Oscar,” she said, “Horace and I are going to get married.”

He put her hand over hers. “I understand how you must feel. He seems a good man—a bit limited, of course, but essentially good—and I know how it must trouble you, the idea of bringing him any pain or distress. But you needn't worry, Elizabeth. I'll speak with him myself. I accept the responsibility, and I accept it gladly. Once he learns what's passed between us, what we've become to one another, I'm certain that he'll free you from any promises you may've made. It's what any decent chap would do.”

“He already knows what's passed between us.”

Oscar looked off. “Perhaps,” he said thoughtfully, “perhaps it's not a matter of our
becoming
something. Perhaps we were conjoined even before we met. Perhaps the Hindu sages are right—perhaps through countless lives, countless millennia, you and I—” He turned to her. “What? What did you say?”

“He already knows what's passed between us.”

He frowned. “You've told him, you mean?”

“Of course.”

He smiled, hugely pleased. “But that's splendid! He knows, then. He understands. And surely he'll set you free? He wouldn't stand in the way of your happiness?”

Her hand was still lying on his thigh, his own still lying atop it. Now she used hers to push lightly at him, once, twice, like a gentle mother trying to rouse a sleeping child. “Oscar, Horace and I are getting
married.
”