Wild Heart (2 page)

She could see through his earnestness to the satisfaction underneath: he was pleased as punch about this new feather in his professional cap. Some people, especially jealous fellow professors, called her father an eccentric behind his back; but he had more supporters than detractors, and a few of them called him a genius. An ambitious young associate professor—like Charles—could do
a
lot worse than link his fate with the brilliant if erratic Dr. Harley Winter.

"And so." He took off his glasses and stuck them in his vest pocket; in the deepening dusk, his large brown eyes looked sober and intent. "I'm asking you again, my dear."

She didn't pretend not to know what he meant. "Oh, Charles," she sighed, feeling tired all of a sudden. He reached for her hand, and she let him keep it.

"If I'm going to live in your house, don't you think we ought to at least be engaged? For propriety's sake?"

She looked up to see if he was joking. He wasn't. "No," she said, "I think it's just the reverse. If we're engaged and you're living in my house, tongues really
will
wag."

He frowned for a second, then his face cleared. "Then we'll have a secret engagement. Sydney, haven't I waited long enough? You said you'd give me your answer when you came back from your trip."

A rash promise; she'd only given it so he would stop asking the question. She'd never known anyone as persistent as Charles. "I think it's too soon. I'm still—"

"It's been a year and a half."

"No, it's been fifteen months."

"Time enough. You were a child when you married Spencer. Now you're a woman. Marry me, Sydney."

She stood up and moved away, but he followed her, slipping his arms around her waist from behind to keep her. "Marry me," he whispered against her hair. His breath was warm; she leaned back lightly and let him hold her. His reddish beard prickled against her temple. "I do love you, Syd. And I'll take care of you. I promise."

She closed her eyes, beguiled by a cloudy vision of Charles taking care of her. Putting her first, doting on her. Even Spencer hadn't loved her like that. "Oh, Charles," she said again. "Can't we just go on as we are? I'm so fond of you. Can't we just keep being friends?"

"You know I won't stop asking you."

Oh, yes, she knew that. "What do you see in me?" she wondered a little desperately. "Why do you even want me?"

"Why?" He laughed. "Because you're beautiful."

"That's no reason. It's not even true."

"And you make me happy."

And I'm my father's daughter?
If she was wrong, that was an unkind speculation. But Charles was, first and foremost, an ambitious man.

"And you care for me a little, don't you, Sydney?"

"You know I do." But she didn't love him. She had married Spencer, for love, or at least out of friendship and deep caring; she knew what love felt like.

"Just say yes, then. It'll be easy. You'll never have to think about it again."

"Could we live here?" Immediately she regretted the question—it would give him too much hope.

"Here?"

Spencer had had to promise that, that they would live here in the house on the lake, where she'd always lived. "Because of Sam," she explained. "I can't leave him, Charles, he's too little."

He didn't hesitate. "Yes, of course. We can live anywhere you like."

That was easy. Spencer had been much harder to convince. "But your aunt can take care of Sam," he had argued, until she'd pointed out that she would die an old maid before she'd entrust the happiness and well-being of her little brother to Aunt Estelle. Spencer had given in reluctantly—but then, Spencer Winslow Darrow, III, had lived in a Prairie Avenue mansion. Charles West lived on his associate's salary in two rooms of a seedy boarding-house on Dearborn Street.

"Say yes, Sydney." He had his nose buried in her neck; she could smell his flower-scented shaving lotion. "I've missed you so much. God, it's good to hold you."

It felt good to be held. For a grieving widow, she certainly was free with herself, she thought hazily, at least with Charles. He'd been courting her in earnest for months; on virtually the one-year anniversary of Spencer's drowning, she had let him kiss her. She'd let him do a bit more than that since then, and her only excuse was loneliness. Oh—and fondness for him; of course she was fond of Charles. He had any number of very nice qualities, absolutely nothing you could point to that was really wrong with him. He wasn't particularly handsome, but he certainly wasn't ugly. And he would not leave her alone—honestly, she was ready to accept him out of fatigue if nothing else. Was that a basis for a marriage?

No, of course not. But it was so hard to care. Three months in Europe hadn't cured her of her ennui after all.

He was nibbling at her earlobe, and a wave of weakness made her leg muscles flutter. How easy it would be to give in.
I'll
take care of you
... the promise whispered to her, seducing her as cleverly as his hand sliding up from her midriff to her breast. She watched its slow glide, thinking he had nice hands, pale and smooth against the white of her dress, a gentleman's hands. He started to kiss her neck, and her head fell back on his shoulder. She let herself drift, just for a minute. . . .

Would it be so wrong to marry him? He was murmuring that he loved her, that he would make her happy. She couldn't quite believe it, but the idea moved her all the same. With a lax smile and half-closed eyes, she let him caress her, even slip his fingers inside the buttons of her dress, to touch her through her underclothes. Part of this illicit thrill, she knew, was Aunt Estelle's ignorant proximity to it. Childish of her, but there it was.

"Say yes, Sydney."

"Charles ..."

"Say yes."

This must be what the last stage of freezing to death was like. Simply giving in ... moving toward the long, warm sleep. So much easier than continuing to fight. . .

A flicker in the barred window; a pale oval pressing close to the glass;
a face.
Frozen, Sydney saw light eyes under dark brows, a scarred cheek, a straight mouth, the lips parted in shock or astonishment. For an endless second her eyes locked with the eyes of the man in the window. The lost man. In spite of the distance, she knew when his silver stare fell to her breasts. And Charles's hands making free with them.

Muffling a yelp, she jumped away, twisting in his arms to face him. "He saw us. My God, Charles, he's watching us."

"Who?" He looked terrified.

"The man, the—Ontario Man! From the window!"

Charles's frightened expression turned to irritation, then tolerant amusement. "Sydney, for heaven's sake, what difference does it make? He doesn't know what we're doing. It's like—it's like undressing in front of your dog." He laughed at her. "He might be interested, but he doesn't have the slightest idea
why."

He was so wrong, so completely mistaken, she gaped at him. But rather than argue, she seized his hand and tried to pull him toward the house. "Come, they'll be waiting dinner on us. Hurry, we'd—"

"Sydney,
wait."
He forced her to stop. She could see him controlling his temper, schooling his features back into affability. "I think there's a question pending here. You haven't forgotten it, have you?" His smile was false; he was genuinely angry.

But everything had changed. She barely had the patience to speak to him. "How could I forget?" she said distractedly, darting a glance behind him at the bungalow. The window was black again, but the feeling that they were being observed was even stronger. "We can't discuss this now," she all but snapped, and Charles's eyebrows shot up. "I'm sorry—it's just—it's not the time. Later, all right? We'll discuss it later."

"Sydney—"

"Please,
Charles. Let's go up to the house."

He gave in. She tried to take his hand, but he took her arm instead—he liked to be in control. She didn't care; she just wanted to get away. Even in her haste, though, she couldn't resist a last look back, before the turn in the path hid the cottage from view. There—was that a flash of something white? Or no ... perhaps it was her imagination.

No matter. She knew what she'd seen before, and that quick connection, that seconds-long stare between herself and the unknown, unnamed man in the window had woken her up. Her mind felt sharp and perfectly clear, as if a stiff breeze had blown through it. Poor Charles! How was she going to tell him that what had seemed so tempting a minute ago had become absolutely unthinkable?

Chapter 2

18 May 1893 Notes—Ontario Man

Caucasian male. Est. between 22 and 28 years of age. (Mental age, undetermined.) Height, 187 centimeters; present weight, 77.3 kilograms. (Weight at time of capture, 72 kg.)

Distinguishing marks: broken bone in great toe of left foot, imperfectly mended, but causes no limp or apparent discomfort. Evidence of broken ribs, long since healed; left collarbone, ditto. Hands and feet thickly callused. Numerous scars, incl. one on face, two on throat, five on left arm, three on chest and abdomen, one on back at base of spine, one on left buttock, four on right leg, three on left. Twenty in all; evidence of long and total abandonment.

General health is now excellent. All senses extremely acute, smell and hearing keenest of all. Physical reflexes continue normal to supernormal.

Obeys simple commands
—
"Stand up," "Come here," etc. But no verbal response of any kind to date, despite lack of evidence of injury or trauma to vocal organs.

Accepting small pieces of cooked meat now, and eating them without vomiting. This is progress; in univ. lab, would eat only raw meat and fish, berries, chestnuts and acorns (crushed under his bare feet), and insects.

Objective tests of intelligence have been difficult to administer so far, results ambiguous at best. Subject is in depressive state, refusing to cooperate unless bullied or bribed. Lethargy began at university; subsided somewhat after removal here, but is recurring. O.M. stands at window in his room and stares out for hours, silent, morose, melancholy. Has stopped throwing off his clothes, but still refuses to wear shoes or socks unless coerced. Delights in outdoor walks, but must be closely guarded. Escape attempts at univ. repeated only once here, so far.

22 May 1893

Personal Notes (Sydney, N.B.!)

Linnaeus's
System of Nature
classifies Wild Man
(Homo ferus)
as a distinct human species, noting ten instances of these creatures, eight girls and two boys. Also, Birch cites the case of a child taken in Lithuania among bears in a bear-hunting. Attempts to civilize these children all proved unsuccessful.

Then there was Itard's "Wild Boy of Aveyron," found in 1799. "When wild in woods the noble savage ran," Rousseau rhapsodized. The truth of the Wild Boy was that he was a dirty, frightened, inarticulate creature of 14, with a mental age of 6. Itard, believing that environment is everything, attributed his subnormality to a lack of intercourse with other humans. But after 2 years of ceaseless, intensive training in a most sympathetic and humane environment, the Wild Boy still could not speak, was barely socialized, and was "human " only in a technical sense.

Slocum warns we’ll have no better luck with our Ontario Man, but I believe otherwise. Itard's boy was a mental defective, afflicted with spasms and convulsions; he swayed back and forth endlessly like a zoo animal, grunted and bleated, ate filth and refuse, threw violent tantrums, scratched and bit any who opposed his childish will. Our man, on the other hand, has never exhibited seriously hostile behavior to anyone (except O’Fallon). He doesn't speak, but I think his manner indicates he could if he would.

And what are we to make of the claim of the Audubon team that he
did
speak, repeatedly uttered the word "lost" when ill and semiconscious? His eyes are sharp and intelligent; when I have his attention, they miss nothing. He comprehends my speech a great deal better than he lets on.

Why won't he speak? What does he fear? No one here has hurt him. West and I find ourselves devising ways to catch him, trick him into revealing himself. If he is dissembling, it's a most unwise act. Slocum wants progress by summer's end, progress meaning publication. But we have no starting point; without a developmental base line, how can we measure a
man's
progress? Logic is always lost on Slocum, though. Says if we haven't gotten anywhere with O.M. by Sept., he'll have him committed to an asylum.

24 May 1893

Notes
—
O.M.

Getting nowhere. He performs sensory perception exercises effortlessly, impatiently, no longer hiding his frustration. Still no violent episodes since initial capture, although he clearly detests O’Fallon. (Not surprising; O’F. guards him all day and locks him in a small room at night.)

He was wearing rags and the untanned skins of animals when he was discovered above Echo Bay. His one possession, tied around his waist with a piece of braided willow, was a book.
A book!
Small (a child's book?), torn, pages stuck together, words faded and illegible, the title on the pulpy, mottled cover completely obliterated. Even now, he keeps it in his pocket, will not be separated from it. A talisman, a token. Is it possible he was once able to read it?

25 May 1893

Personal Notes

Particularly bad day. O.M. speechless as ever, and bored, and resentful. Ethics and altruism tests not even begun; meeting monograph deadline is hopeless. Is Slocum right? Perhaps the Ontario Man is not a savage (in Itard's sense, meaning incompletely civilized). Perhaps he's really just a poor idiot.

Sydney flipped back in her father's double casebook to the grainy photographs at the front, tucked away inside a black folder. She took the pictures out again self-consciously, a trifle guiltily. There were five of them, and two showed the Ontario Man naked from the front. She passed over those hastily, although her interested eyes missed nothing. But really, she told herself, it was the contrast between then and now that intrigued her, the image of the man in these pictures compared with the real one she'd seen twice now, from a distance, walking beside the lake with Mr. O'Fallon. That man was quite ordinary-looking at fifty yards, dark-haired, tall, and very lean, dressed simply in trousers, a white shirt, a jacket.

The man in these photographs was anything but ordinary-looking. Nude, he crouched against the stark white wall behind him in a defensive posture, clearly frightened, of the camera's flash lamps if nothing else. He was thin to the point of gauntness, with scars, punctures, and abrasions checkering and scoring his body like tattoos, like decorations. He had shoulder-length hair and a bushy black beard that made him look like a wild animal. But he also had a fine, two-sided blade of a nose, the skin stretched tight across it accentuating his gauntness. She couldn't see his mouth; the bristling mustache concealed it. But she remembered his eyes from that day he had watched her with Charles through his window. She'd seen pictures of wolves with eyes like that, intense and unblinking, too light to be quite natural. Blind-looking eyes that still seemed to see everything. She turned back to her father's notes.

26 May 1893

Notes, O.M.

We are reduced to interesting but unimportant observations. West nailed a mirror on the wall in O.M. 's room. From our peephole we watched as he saw himself for the first time. His initial fear wore off in seconds (we deduced he has seen his reflection before now, imperfectly in water, ice, or the like), after which he exhibited dismay, then hilarity, then fascination. He touched and poked at his face, made grotesque expressions, walked to the far wall in order to see as much of his body as possible. After about ten minutes, however, he lost interest and returned to his usual place by the window.

We observe that flowers, regardless of how showy or fragrant or beautiful, do not hold his interest even momentarily. Give him a square of bright red cloth, however, or any shiny metal object, even the lid to an old pot, and he is as absorbed as a child with a toy. Anything that glitters or gleams holds him spellbound. West gave him a new horseshoe, and now he keeps it with his other treasures, his bottlecaps and shells, his colored handkerchiefs.

And, of course, his book. This object seems to serve as a totem for him, providing a zone of safety to which he retreats when upset or fearful.

21 May 1893

Notes, OM.

Introduced him to domestic animals today, with intriguing but ultimately unfortunate results. West pushed Wanda (Winter family cat) through door to O.M. 's room, then immediately retreated to join me at our peephole. No response after initial meeting; some mutual sniffing, then both ignored each other.

Next, cat removed and Hector (family hound) put into room. Immediate fascination on both sides! After two minutes, O.M. and Hector were romping together in the manner of puppies, with much playful growling, wrestling, nipping. O.M. lay on his back and let Hector torment him, jump on his stomach, chew his hair, feet, hands, face.

Observation: O.M. can make sounds (but not words) and can laugh.

Experiment backfired, however. Hector (part bloodhound) accidentally sniffed out our hiding place when their horseplay dislodged the heavy chair that had partly concealed us. O.M. peered into hole and saw me. His face registered amazement, then deep embarrassment; he actually blushed. He paced the room, highly agitated, casting angry glances at the peephole. Then he dragged over the chest of drawers to cover it.

Evidence of problem-solving intelligence was interesting and noteworthy. However, the end of our secret observations is a very disappointing loss.

"Sidney, there you are."

She almost jumped; she'd been so absorbed in his notes, she hadn't heard her father open the door and come into the study. "Papa, I was just—I was about to start transcribing these—I had just . . ." She trailed off, abashed. She wasn't supposed to be poring over her father's old notes, she was supposed to be typing up his new ones, and separating into two casebooks the personal from the more formal observations he would eventually submit to Chairman Slocum. But what did it matter? He hadn't noticed what she was doing anyway, and wouldn't have cared if he had.

"Here," he said briefly, dropping another loose-leaf binder on the desk in front of her.

"You want me to type these?"

"Hm? Mm." He was already at the bookshelf behind her, searching for something.

Sydney stood up, frowning, full of warring emotions. "What happened to Mr. Smith?"

"Smith?"

"Your secretary. The one who typed all your notes while I was in Europe."

"Ah, Smith. Let him go."

"Why?"

"Hm?" He finally focused on her. He spread his arms, and his gentle, charming smile lit
up
the room. "Because now I have you again," he explained, and went back to book-rummaging.

She shook her head at him, hands on her hips.
Just say no,
Philip was always advising her.
You're not a child anymore, Syd. Why do you let him take advantage of you?
In this case, she decided she had two reasons: one, habit; two, the Ontario Man. He fascinated her.

Her father found what he was looking for and headed for his desk. Sydney got out of the way before he could bump into her—out of distraction, of course, not rudeness. His thin, white, flyaway hair was ridiculously long; obviously no one had cut it since she had, last February. He sat down in his chair, no longer aware of her presence. She watched him a moment, smiling in spite of herself, taking note of his high, intelligent forehead and the vague blue eyes behind the thick lenses of his pince-nez. He was looking all of his sixty years these days, pale and painfully thin, as if the bulk of his physical energy had been diverted to his brain. He had on one of his ancient frock coats, seriously frayed at the cuffs, and a pair of checked trousers with a shiny seat and baggy knees. At least his shirt was clean. Aunt Estelle muttered all the time that if he ever got lost in a bad Chicago neighborhood, he'd be arrested for vagrancy on the spot.

Sydney thought his carelessness mitigated in a way his blindness to other people's little vanities—her new dress, for example, or the way she was wearing her hair nowadays. You couldn't blame him for not noticing those things about others when half the time he couldn't match his own socks. Truly, he took the cliche of the absentminded professor to new heights.

"Bad day," he mumbled, a quarter to her and three-quarters to himself. "Accomplished nothing. Man's truculent. Getting nowhere. Preliminary report's late. Look like a fool. Slocum'll gloat. See it all now."

She was used to his cryptic, staccato style of speaking, as if he were making verbal notes instead of talking. His students had a field day mimicking him. He had embarrassed her to death in her childhood, but thank goodness she'd finally outgrown that. Embarrassment still plagued Philip, though, and it was just starting to torture Sam.

"Papa?"

"Hm."

"Did they really keep the Ontario Man in a cage when he first came to the university?"

"Hm? Yes, after his wound healed."

"Why?"

"Because he kept trying to escape."

"Yes, but—a
cage."

"Frightened people. Didn't know what to make of him."

"But—"

"Damn shame in retrospect. Boy had lice, fleas, what-all, and they deloused him with lye. Had internal parasites—gave him emetics, diuretics. Had good, strong teeth but a couple of rotten ones in back—gave him laughing gas and filled 'em with gold. Traumatized him. Cut his hair—had to hold him down. Scared hell out of him all around. Damn shame."