Power in the Blood (58 page)

It was the hall clock that woke her, the mahogany grandfather standing like an upright coffin, with its sonorous chimes that seemed to reverberate throughout the house. Mrs. Scoville counted two strokes, but allowed she might have missed any that preceded them. It became important to her that she know the time of night, so she threw aside her covers and went to the mantel clock ticking quietly across the room. Three o’clock. She had missed only the first stroke after all. Satisfied, she turned away from the clock, and that is when she saw the man in the corner, and felt her heart begin a wild galloping that threatened to carry it from her chest.

He was very tall and thin, and wore a long dark coat that bore the aspect of drooping wings, raven black. His shoulders were less broad than the brim of his hat, also black, which hid from her a face she knew was horrible, even in shadow, because the face of the man was transfixed by a golden arrow that impaled both cheeks like some exquisite device of torture from the days of old. Then Mrs. Scoville knew her visitor for who he was, and her annoyance that God would allow so gross a violation of her bedroom was almost of a quality to stifle her fear, but it could not, and Mrs. Scoville’s heart galloped away from the dark man in the corner, so far away it left Mrs. Scoville without anything to pump her chilled blood, and so she died, vaguely aware, as she slid to the floor for the second time in twenty-four hours, that a tremendous injustice was being perpetrated by unknown forces against which God had no recourse but to absent Himself and hide within the grandfather clock, there to issue His doleful warning of what was to follow.

News of Mrs. Scoville’s passing was kept from Omie for three days, in case it should upset her and bring about a further relapse. Her recovery from whatever malady assailed her was slow in any case, and Zoe spent most of her time, day and night, beside Omie’s bed. Sometimes the furniture twitched and jumped under Omie’s unconscious influence, and once Zoe awakened from a shallow sleep to see a pair of softly chiming bells of silver come drifting through the room, tied together with undulating ribbon of deepest red. Zoe thought they sounded too sweet to be church bells, and so did not take their appearance for an omen of death. There were subtle fluctuations of temperature at odd times in Omie’s room, and the lamps often burned with greater intensity for minutes at a time for no apparent reason. Throughout all this, Omie slept and sweated and chewed her lips, and was not truly awake even when she drank water poured from the pitcher at Zoe’s elbow.

While she stood vigil, Zoe could not help but wonder if she would do the same for her husband, and if she did, would it be largely for propriety’s sake, rather than a hunger to be near the one she loved during a time of danger? She preferred not to address the question too closely. Her marriage was not without material comforts, and she still had Omie, her strange elf-girl, unique in all the world. Leo had his mines.

Eleven days after her condition began, Omie awoke from it as if from a troubled sleep, and declared herself starving for pancakes and syrup. These were made and dispatched to her, and Zoe watched as Omie ate greedily. When she was finished, Omie wiped her mouth undaintily on her sleeve and said, “She’s in a house that isn’t there, but she thinks it is.”

“Who, dear?”

“Mrs. Scoville. She’s in a house full of people, but the house isn’t there, she just thinks it is, and she tells them all what to do, and they pay her money.”

“I see. Are you … aware that Mrs. Scoville has died?”

“I know. She’s in hell, but she thinks she’s in heaven. She’s so silly. It was the dark man who did it.”

“Did what?”

“Killed her. He’s … I think he’s the angel of death. He used to frighten me, but not anymore. He frightened her, though. She jumped right out of herself and ran away. The money’s under her bed.”

“The money the people in her imaginary house pay her?”

“That’s not real. I mean the money she stole. It’s under her bed.”

“Stole from who, dear?”

“From
whom,
Mama. From us. She thought about it when she jumped out of herself and ran away. She was running away from the money as well as the dark man, but she couldn’t turn around because it was too late by then, because she was dead. She ran too far, Mama.”

“Shall I order you more pancakes?”

“I’d puke it all up.”

“Then I won’t bother. Would you like me to read to you instead?”

“Yes, please.”

Later that day, Zoe found the satchel where Omie had said. She did not mention it to Leo, who came home in a foul mood over some kind of mechanical difficulty at the smelter. He had expressed relief at Omie’s recovery, bolted a meal and returned to the blackened far side of the valley to oversee the repairs being carried out there.

26

The room, when finished, would be known as the Grand Concourse, and be filled with sofas and love seats, the furniture of dalliance and flirtation. It occupied virtually all of the first floor of a building at the edge of Denver; upstairs were a further two floors of bedrooms. The Grand Concourse had windows along the front, but these would be kept under permanent cover by heavy velvet drapes, the color of which would be determined by Nevis, once he had completed his artistic work on the walls. For the moment, he required the light that came streaming through onto his three vast “canvases.”

His employer, the finely dressed gentleman who had appeared at his bedside, was Mr. Adair, but Mr. Adair would not say for whom he worked. Nevis Dunnigan had been hired to decorate a new brothel, but he reminded himself it would not be just any brothel; when completed, it would be the finest between Saint Louis and San Francisco, and he had been promised that his signature would never be erased from the walls. In addition to the chance for immortality and the direct appreciation of his talent by large numbers of people, Nevis was being paid handsomely for his creative endeavors.

Mr. Adair had left the proposed mural’s theme open to Nevis, merely stipulating that it should be “of the most uncompromisingly sensual nature, Mr. Dunnigan, the kind of thing that makes a man hard, you see, the moment he lays eyes on it. Minute detail, lascivious poses, much mounting of female flesh by the rampant male is what’s called for here, don’t you think? Breasts and buttocks, sir, the artist’s bread and butter.”

Nevis pondered his commission. He had no qualms about depicting nudity, this being the
sine qua non
of the painter, but felt he should grant the project an air of intellectual justification by pursuing some classic theme, rather than covering the walls with anonymous and random acts of copulation. Inspiration steered him before long to a worthy subject, and he made it known at once to Mr. Adair.

“The Rape of the Sabine Women. Yes, yes, I like that idea, Mr. Dunnigan. We have inherent in the theme a great deal of fornicatory possibilities, yet we also have the, how shall I say it, the prestige and artistic authenticity of ancient times to commend the thing, make it more …”

“Acceptable?”

“Acceptable, yes. The clientele anticipated will not be riffraff, Mr. Dunnigan, and they will appreciate, some of them, the historical significance of the event you intend depicting. I am most pleased. Make a list, if you would, of all your needs: paints and brushes, models and so on.”

“Models?”

“Dear me, yes. Without the human form to work from, how can we expect an artist such as yourself to give of his best? You shall have as many bodies as you need, sir, and the humor of it is that they’ll all be working here in any case when the preparations are complete. I hadn’t actually considered that before. Why, a customer might make his selection from the wall, so to speak, if the young lady is occupied elsewhere at the time, and unavailable for inspection in the flesh. Now, that’s a selling point, Mr. Dunnigan, a wonderful crowd-getter, not that we’ll be catering to crowds as such, but word of this will get around, oh, yes, and won’t they flock here to see what you’ve done and compare it with the goods on display! Most pleased, Mr. Dunnigan.”

Nevis quickly assembled a series of scaled-down drawings that conveyed his intention for the room as a whole. There were fifty-three nude studies to be made in all, thirty-seven of them female. All the Sabine women would be nude, or draped with wisps of flimsy material so fine their nipples could be seen, and their male assailants would be partially armored, as befitted troops of the conquering Roman army, but such armor as Nevis granted them would largely be confined to the upper torso. “Include the male appendage in abundance, Mr. Dunnigan,” his employer had instructed, “and be sure to enhance its dimensions somewhat, for added effect. Clubs, Mr. Dunnigan, cocks and balls, orbs and scepters, the weaponry of love, don’t you know, every man a stud horse and every woman a mare in submission.”

Nevis was disappointed that the first of his models was a young man. Mr. Adair apologized for this, and explained that the girls could not be spared just yet from their more lucrative work, but they would be forthcoming, one at a time, as Nevis required. Meantime, he could complete studies of the soldiery with the aid of the young man. Mr. Adair made it known that male models were a sight harder to come by than females, at least in Denver, so Nevis would have to use the one and only willing participant thus far to create several different poses, altering his physical characteristics a little each time, so as to make it appear there had been many individual models.

Nevis began work, arranging his model, in breastplate and helmet, in an attitude of uncompromising threat, with sword held high in one hand, while the other cupped an invisible breast. This left hand was missing its little finger, but Nevis could overlook the loss and sketch in the digit. While he worked, he asked the model for his name.

“Ilium.”

“Pardon me?”

“Jay Ilium.”

“Unusual name, Mr. Ilium. You’re probably aware that Ilium was the Latin name for Troy. Have you read Homer, Mr. Ilium?”

“I have.”

“Also the name of a bone in the human skeleton. Let me think … I was familiar with them all as a student of anatomy—an art student, I mean, not the medical kind, but we did receive a thorough grounding in such basics, just to ensure we could draw a foot that looked like a foot. Ilium. Not a foot bone—talus, tarsal, metatarsal. Let me think now … atlas, axis, coccyx, costal, humerus, radius, ulna, carpal, metacarpal … pelvis, ischium, ilium! Hipbone, sir.”

“Bones aren’t as romantic as Troy.”

“We are not responsible for what we’re called, Mr. Ilium. May I call you Jay?”

“Please do.”

“Nevis is the name I bear, but Dunnigan is what will appear on these walls: N. Dunnigan. Have you engaged in this line of work before, Jay Ilium?”

“Nope.”

“What line do you regularly pursue, if I might ask?”

“Any line at all, so long as it pays.”

“A free man, then. I am bound by my calling, for better or worse. Are you a wanderer, by any chance? Free men often are.”

“I’ve strayed this way and that.”

“Adventures?”

“Incidents,” said Drew, after reflection.

“Mine have been confined to canvas. For the next month or two it will be my task to rape several dozen women, figuratively speaking. How did you happen to be chosen for my first model?”

“Your friend Mr. Adair came up to me on the street and asked if I was hungry, which I was, and he bought me a solid meal. The least I could do was listen. He’s paying me a dollar an hour to stand like this, not bad wages.”

“And what will you do with your hard-earned dollars at the end of the day?”

“Get another meal,” Drew lied. He intended getting back his gun. Since deserting from the army three years before, he had worked as hired hand for a number of outfits, farming or cowboying, and lately had become discontented over his inability to accrue a sizable wad of cash. Drew was twenty-two years old, and he did not like his life. The only solution to such disappointment seemed to lie in the immediate gratification of his need for money, in quantity. A gun would give him the means to that end. He had owned a Colt on first arriving in Denver, but had been obliged to pawn it. He would redeem the pawn, since the gun had sentimental value, and the cost of a new gun would not be covered by the limited nature of the work he was engaged in. When it was back in its holster, he would enter a bank and rob the place. He had not yet selected which bank to make the withdrawal from, but was in no particular hurry. Drew was aware that haste is the enemy of success.

This unusual job of art modeling was special, in that it would be his last lawful employment. He had broken the law many times while working for Marion de Quille back in Texas, but avoidance of import taxes had hardly been a hanging offense. Bank holdups would be different, a whole new way of life, and Drew was cynical enough, young as he was, to believe that not much else would give him any kind of satisfaction. He had made his choice, and intended making his move.

“America is dying, Mr. Ilium, Jay.”

“Is that right.”

“Don’t be misled by the hustle and bustle of the big town. There is spiritual decay abroad in the land. I don’t refer to a general turning away from God, no, I’m of atheistic persuasion myself, but I have seen a steady whittling away at our moral armature, the skeletal values, so to say, of society. There are few idealists left. Everything must be done for the sake of the dollar, and for no other reason. Art and beauty have no intrinsic worth unless they be of a type worth marketing to an uncultured populace, and that, sir, is a tragedy. I myself would prefer to decorate a house of flesh than to paint portraits of rich men and their jeweled wives. No such toadying for me. This enterprise we both are engaged in, each in his fashion, is more honest than that, I truly believe.”

“Could be you’re right.”

Nevis sketched on, thinking of Lovey Doll Pines and the many other women who had rejected him for his poverty, while Drew stood with raised sword, thinking of his gun.

Business was bad for Noble Burgin; the Arcadian Players had not succeeded in winning either the hearts or the attention of their audience during their latest engagement at Behan’s Theater and Saloon. Noble had always been leery of alcohol’s close proximity to any stage upon which he took his troupe, and Behan’s had proven once again that the mixing of drink and drama resulted in poor performances on the boards and wounded dignity backstage.