Wild Heart (9 page)

They all froze, listening.

"It sounded like an animal."

"Must've been Hector."

The long glass doors to the terrace were open. The sound, a furious, low-pitched howling, had come from the direction of the lake. Sydney's eyes met Sam's. He knew what she knew: that wasn't Hector. Before either of them could move, the muffled sound of a shot shattered the listening silence.

"Good Lord! Was that a
gun?'

Sydney jumped to her feet, but Sam was already scrambling out the door. "Stop!" she called. "Sam, you wait!"

He halted on the terrace steps, jumping up and down with impatience. She made a dash for him and caught his arm while the others spilled through the doorway and rushed toward them.

"Stay with your aunt. Stay with her!" she insisted when he tried to pull away. Aunt Estelle came out of her confusion and grabbed his hand. The men were sprinting for the guest house, and Sydney raced away to catch them, ignoring her aunt's shouted commands to come back. She was halfway to the small white bungalow when she heard another shot.

"Stay back," Philip called out over his shoulder, but she ignored him, too.

The outer room of the guest house was empty. She headed for Michael's room
_r
where she could see Charles in the doorway. He turned when he heard her. "Syd, don't come in—" but she shoved past him without a thought. Her eyes were on the blood.

So much blood, everywhere. And Michael was snarling and spitting like a dog gone mad, half sitting and half lying on top of O'Fallon, his hands around the bigger man's neck as if he were throttling him.

"Get him off me!" O'Fallon shrieked. "Somebody get him!"

Michael turned his head, and Sydney shrank back, aghast. His bared teeth horrified her. Saliva ran down his chin; his pale eyes were narrow feral slits. Bright blood soaked O'Fallon's shirt collar; brick-colored blood in sprayed drops seeped into the pine floorboards all around him. Then Sydney saw the gun beside his shoulder.

The terrible vibrating snarl in Michael's throat tapered off and finally stopped. He took his bloody hands off O'Fallon and rose to a crouch over him.

"I knew something like this would happen," Charles claimed, voice quivering.

Michael straightened to his full height. With his bare foot, he kicked the gun away; it skittered across the floor and struck the wall.

"He tried to kill me." O'Fallon sat up and scooted away a few feet. "He was bloody going to
eat
me."

Backing up with an unsteady gait, Michael hit the wall with his shoulder and leaned there. He was holding his left hand against his chest with his right. His face slowly drained of all color, and she saw him brace his knees to keep from sliding down the wall.

"Oh, my God," she whispered, and started toward him, shaking off Charles's hand when he tried to stop her. "It's not his blood. Can't you see? It's Michael's blood. It's all Michael's."

He was panting, locked inside himself. The wildness was gone from his eyes, but she had to touch him before he saw her. "Let me see. Is it bad? Let me look." She took his left wrist gently, beating back her revulsion. So much blood. His hand was covered with it; she couldn't see the extent of the damage.

Philip plucked the gun off the floor and examined it in wonder. "You shot him."

"I'm telling you, he attacked me. The man's a maniac."

"Sam!"

Aunt Estelle didn't grab him in time. Sam flew across the room and flung his arms around Michael's knees. Michael blinked down at him, dazed.

"Better bandage that," Sydney's father advised. "Pillowcase? Towel," he decided, pulling one off the wash-stand and handing it to her. "Tight, now, Sydney." After a startled, uncertain second, she began to wrap the towel, as gently as she could, around Michael's shaking left hand.

"Are you all daft? That bastard tried his best just now to murder me!"

Papa grunted, leaning over to snatch up the billy club from where it had rolled under the table. "Hm," he said, hefting it, smacking it lightly against his palm. "Thought we got rid of this. Let's see your injuries, Mr. O'Fallon. I observe a great deal of blood, but where are your wounds? Show us the tooth marks. Show us the savage cuts left by the beast's claws."

"I fought 'im off. I had to shoot 'im or he'd of killed me."

"You fought him off?"

OTallon looked around at seven pairs of disbelieving eyes.

Sam still clung to Michael's knees like a barnacle. "Let him go," Sydney said softly. "Let him sit down, Sam."

Sam unwound his arms, staring up into Michael's face. "Please don't die." Michael shook his head and tried to smile.

Aunt Estelle wanted explanations. "What exactly is going on here?" she demanded, and everyone stood a little straighter, even O'Fallon.

"He tried to beat me," Michael said, speaking slowly but clearly. "For nothing. I took the stick. I made him stop."

"He was going to kill me!"

Michael turned on him so quickly, O'Fallon flinched and scuttled back against the table, almost toppling it.

"You're a man," he said, with fatigue in his voice. "I would not kill a man."

There was a pause.

"He smells like a gin mill," Philip noted, eyeing O'Fallon with distaste.

"He was drinking the other day," Sydney remembered. "I saw the bottle." She had her arm around Michael's waist. His body trembled in spasms, but she knew he wouldn't sit down. Not until O'Fallon was gone.

"Harley, did you know this man had a firearm?"

"No, Estie, I certainly did not." He turned to Philip. "Go up and call the doctor, will you?"

"Rather stay here, Dad, and throw Mr. O'Fallon out on his ass."

"Hm, yes. Don't think it'll come to that, though. Mr. O'Fallon's going to take himself off very quietly."

"You're giving me the sack?"

"Yes, very much so. Clear out now, and no trouble. Wouldn't want to have to call the police out, too."

O'Fallon swore.

For Aunt Estelle, it was the last straw. "Out!" she commanded, skinny arm and bony finger pointing to the door.

O'Fallon did what most people did with Aunt Estelle. He obeyed her.

Chapter 6

O'Fallon didn't waste any time. Before noon the next day, four newspaper reporters and three photographers swooped down on the house. They had all taken the same Illinois Central train from Chicago and arrived on the front doorstep in a breathless dead heat.

"What's the story?" they clamored to know from a bewildered and terrified Inger, who had the misfortune of opening the front door. "Is it true the lost man went on a rampage and tried to kill his guard? Are they going to lock him up again?"

Then the worst happened. Sydney, who happened to be sunning herself on the side porch, saw it all and couldn't stop it. "Hey," cried one of the reporters, pointing down the path to the side of the house. "Look, it's him!"

Michael and Charles halted on the path, catching sight of the reporters at the same moment. Michael took a backward step, but Charles, out of confusion or stupidity or who knew what, grabbed his arm and held him still. Cursing out loud, Sydney bolted from her chair and started toward them, but she was too slow—the shouting, shoving, bumping hoard of journalists got to Michael first.

Charles let himself be butted and shouldered out of the way; good for nothing, he stood off by himself, looking piqued rather than concerned, as if he thought the press ought to be asking
him
questions. Over all the bobbing heads, Sydney saw Michael's white face, stiff with alarm. "Let me by," she kept saying, and finally the reporters let her push her way through to his side. "Stand back, will you? Get away from him! Can't you see he's been hurt?" She made her body a shield between them and the bandaged hand he was cradling against his middle. "Get back. Please, let him alone." The reporters wouldn't budge; they kept shouting their questions and taking their photographs, relentless as dogs scuffling over a bone.

Rescue came when her father rushed around the side of the house, calling, "You there, get away from that man! For God's sake, West, make them move!" Philip ran after him, and finally the crush loosened and began to give way. The reporters recognized Papa from the interviews he'd given months ago as the university's spokesman. They veered away from Michael, aware by now that they weren't going to get a story out of him, and surrounded Dr. Winter like bees swarming a new hive. Charles asserted himself at last by sidling through the crowd to stand next to him. That gave Sydney a chance to get Michael away, with Philip's help, and the three of them made an unencumbered dash for the house.

The next day, Michael's picture was on the front pages of the
Herald Examiner,
the
Tribune,
and the
Times,
and in every one he looked wild-eyed and dangerous. In adjacent photographs, O'Fallon, in a sober suit and tie, looked grim and aggrieved. "Lost Man in Violent Melee with Guard," read one caption; "Wild Man Attacks Keeper," blared another.

Luckily the stories accompanying the photographs were much tamer. Sydney's father simply denied all of O'Fallon's lying allegations, and the tone of the articles indicated that the authors were more inclined to believe him than the ex-janitor and habitual brawler. In the process, though, Papa was forced to disclose the full extent of Michael's socialization, his ww-wildness, so to speak—something he hadn't planned on revealing to his superiors, much less to the world at large, for a lot longer. Thanks to O'Fallon, the jig was up.

That afternoon Dr. Winter's nemesis paid a call. Chairman Slocum, according to Papa, had never liked him because he was rich and didn't have to work for a living. That made him a dilettante in Slocum's book, a reproach her father deeply resented.

The chairman stayed an hour, locked up in the study with Charles and Papa. Sydney sat in the living room and tried to read, keeping one eye on the hallway and jumping at every sound. Finally Slocum left, and a second later she went into the study.

"What happened? What did he say?"

Both men looked stricken and dazed. Her father tried to focus on the question, but the cloud of his abstraction was too thick.

Charles answered for him. "There's no more project. He's cut off our funding. We're finished."

"We get to keep him, though," Papa rallied to point out. Charles nodded glumly. "He'll be more useful to the natural historians now, but we still get to keep him. Better for him, I told Slocum. Can't keep shuffling the fellow around." He ducked his white head into his shoulders, his retreating-turtle trick.

"And we can still get an article out of him, sir. At the very least. Once they're written up, our experiments are sure to interest a few journals. Not for the nature-nurture debate anymore, maybe, but on general questions of ethology."

Sydney could barely hide her elation. "You have to stop experimenting on him, you mean? And he can stay here with us?"

Papa looked up and smiled. "He'll be a sort of country cousin come to visit. You'll like that, won't you, Sydney?"

She liked it very much. "Can he stay in the house?"

"Hm? Don't know about that."

"Sir, won't he still be needing a guard? What if he tries to escape?"

Sydney snorted. "Heavens, Charles, he's not a prisoner," she said, trying to laugh. But inside, she was torn. The idea of anyone keeping watch over Michael repelled her now—but what if he ran away? "I don't think he would try to escape," she declared with more conviction that she felt. "After all, where would he go?"

"Anywhere," Charles argued.

"Where?
He can't go back to Ontario, and that's the only home he knows. Besides ours. Really, Papa, I think he would stay here. I think he
wants
to."

"I still say it's too risky, sir."

"And I still say he's not a prisoner." Again Sydney took the snappishness out of her voice with a laugh. "Who's guarding him right now? No one, and I'm quite sure he's sitting quietly in his room, nursing his wound and waiting for somebody to bring him his tea. Well, Papa?"

Above all things, Sydney's father hated making decisions. His hand strayed to his pipe and hovered over it on the desktop. Once he took it up, she knew any hope of a resolution would be lost.

"He could stay in the guest room on the first floor," she put in hastily. "We'd all be around, not guarding him exactly, but watching him. Looking after him."

"But that's—" Charles's mouth snapped shut, but she knew what he had been going to say:
That's my room.
She'd taken the mental leap that he would be moving out, now that his project had been canceled. She watched his face darken; his eyes glaring at her behind his bifocals contained not a hint of affection.

A lot of things became clear to her in that moment; it was as if a moving blur had suddenly been caught in a clean, sharp photograph.

"Hm. Hmm." She waited, as tense as Charles, for her. father to make up his mind—or not, put off the whole bothersome subject to another time. "Suppose he could stay in the house. Sort of like having a guard. Estie's a bit of a guard, isn't she? Ha. University's done with him, Charles, on any formal basis. Means he's free. Can't hold a man against his will."

"But," Charles sputtered, "he's not a man."

"Hm! How's that? 'Course he's a man. Point is, he's only good for magazine stories now, not anthropology journals. Got to give him up, West. Writing's on the wall. Time for us to move on."

Charles had to turn away and look out the window to keep from showing what he thought of that.

* * * * *

Sydney ran into Inger in the hallway. "Are you taking that down to Michael?" she asked, eyeing the maid's laden tea tray.

"Ya, to Michael." Her smile faded when Sydney reached for the tray and took it from her.

"I'm going down myself. I'll take it to him, shall I?" Inger, she noticed before she turned away, looked bereft.

The front door to the guest house stood wide open. "Michael?" She crossed to the inner room; that door was open, too. "Michael?" She poked her head inside. Nobody there.

She set the tray on the neatly made bed and wheeled around. The wooden bar, still nailed over the window, blocked half the light. At first the room looked completely empty, as if he had packed up and left. But then she saw that his possessions, what there were of them, were here. He had one change of clothes in the large, black-painted wardrobe. A heap of blankets lay in a corner of the room, and something about their shape, the long, telltale curve among the folds and wrinkles, told her that that was where he slept. Not in the bed but on the floor, on those blankets. She turned away, uncomfortable with her discovery.

The paper tablet and pencils she had given him lay on top of the room's only table. Half the tablet was ruined, as if water had gotten spilled on it. There was no sign of his famous book. Perhaps he'd hidden it.

The only other object on the table was a cigar box. She opened it without thinking, and saw that his cache of treasures had grown more sophisticated since the days of bottle-caps and bright pieces of cloth. Now he had the wooden bird call Philip had whittled for him one day on the beach; a folded picture of two deer, a buck and a doe, obviously torn from a newspaper—Sydney remembered the article, something about wildlife conservation in the Sunday feature section a week ago. Had he made friends with deer when he lived in the wild? If so, these photographs must be a reminder of that, a comfort. She smiled when she saw that he'd saved one of Sam's drawings of her, one of the slightly less primitive-looking ones, with her name carefully printed at the bottom. The last object was a folded white handkerchief, and it wasn't until she turned it over and saw the monogram, SWD, that she realized it was hers.

Michael had saved her picture and her handkerchief.

The queerest feeling came over her as she quietly closed the box of treasures and put it back in the precise spot in which she'd found it. She had a sense of excitement and dread, anticipation and . . . something else, almost like fear. Not that it was any revelation that Michael thought about her. When they were together there was always awareness, and interest carefully controlled, on both sides. But these small, worthless keepsakes solidified the attraction, didn't they? Took it out of the much more comfortable realm of—at least for her—the abstract. In a way, they changed everything.

She went outside, calling his name again. No answer.
Could
he have run away? The presence of his belongings had reassured her before, but suddenly they didn't. Why would he take them? He wouldn't—he would just go, just walk away.

"Michael!"

No answer except the soft lap of waves and the chirp of crickets in the grass.
Oh, God,
she thought,
what if he's gonet
She should've listened to Charles. This was bound to happen, how stupid she had been—

"Michael!"

"Sydney?"

She saw him at the edge of the pine woods. He ran toward her at the same time she hurried down the two shallow steps to meet him. He ought not to run, she thought; he was still weak from his wound.

"What's happened?" he said in a quiet voice when he reached her, his eyes darting everywhere, searching for danger. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing, nothing. I didn't know where you were, . that's all." Her heart was pounding, but not from exertion. She felt weak with relief. "What's that?" she said, so he wouldn't guess what she'd been thinking. He had something green and filthy around his bad hand. His bandage was gone! "What
is
that?"

"I think it's called moss."

She stared at him, slack-jawed. "Oh, Michael,
no.
No, you can't put that on there, you can't. It could fester, become infected. Don't you see, you could lose your hand! Come inside"—she pulled on his arm—"and let me clean it. Get rid of that." She plucked the damp, nasty clump of green stuff—it
was
moss—off his hand and threw it on the ground and pulled him the rest of the way into the house.

Luckily Dr. Cox had stitched the wound closed, so Michael's home remedy hadn't had time to do any harm. The bullet had torn through the flesh between his thumb and first finger, breaking only one small bone. Dr. Cox had wrapped a medicine plaster around his hand to keep it immobile, but somehow he had managed to unwrap it.

"What were you thinking of?" she scolded while she soaked his hand in a basin of cold water, gently spreading soap over the closed wound with her fingertips. The sharp black stitches felt strange against the smoothness of his skin; they must feel even stranger to him. "Does this hurt?"

"Yes."

Always honest. "I'm sorry. I'm almost done." She glanced at him and saw that he was watching her face instead of her ministering hands. His unblinking regard made her clumsy and oddly self-conscious.

The doctor had left bandages and a bottle of brownish swab. She blotted the wound with the medicine, which didn't seem to sting, and then set about rebandaging his hand. "Dr. Cox is going to have to come back and plaster it again," she said sternly, "and this time I want you to leave it alone. Understand?"

"Yes, ma'am." He didn't smile, but his eyes sparkled. Was he teasing her?

"Why on earth did you put moss on it?"

"Sometimes it heals."