Wild Heart (4 page)

"Oh, Philip, it's him," she breathed, jumping up from the sandy blanket. "The lost man."

Philip stood, too. "I've never seen him up close before."

Instinctively they both started toward Sam, who stood stock-still, staring intently, rudely, ignoring the waves breaking over his calves. The dog dashed ahead, skidded to a halt just shy of the two approaching men, and began to run around them in excited circles.

Sam was safe, Sydney knew that, but by the time she drew level with him she was out of breath from rushing, and she put both hands on his shoulders from behind, to keep him from going any closer.

"Hi," popped out of his mouth as if he were greeting a school chum. But he was nervous; she could tell by the quaver in his voice. He'd never been this close to the lost man either.

Hector jumped up on the man's legs, leaving wet sand all over his dark trousers. He was bent over, head down, gently squeezing the pup's floppy ears and letting him slobber all over his hands.

"That's Hector," Sam piped up. "He's a hound dog. He's one year old. I'm Sam Winter. What's your name?"

Hector finally backed off, and the man straightened slowly to his full height.
Why,
Sydney thought,
he's just a boy.
He was tall and too thin, and his blue-black hair had been cut very badly, as if with a dull-bladed knife. She remembered his face from the photographs, the white scar on his cheek, his strong nose, his wide, hard mouth, expressive even though he wasn't smiling. His clothes— black coat and trousers, a white shirt with a celluloid collar—looked strange, unnatural, and not just because they didn't fit him. Under the too-short cuffs of his pants, his bare white ankles showed above a pair of bulky old brogans.

"He don't understand you, son," O'Fallon explained, grinning indulgently at Sydney and Philip. He was using Sam to make it seem as if they were all together, the adults against the child. Sydney resented him, but not only for that. O'Fallon had a habit of leering at her when they passed on the grounds or in the house, where he took his meals with the servants. His broad, hulking, prizefighter's body intimidated her. She didn't like him. Most of all, she didn't like his treatment of the man he was only supposed to be preventing from running away. She knew for a fact that he kept a policeman's truncheon in his belt and a coil of rope in his pocket.

"How do you know? Maybe he just doesn't want to talk to you." Sam, normally polite, didn't like O'Fallon either.

The big man pretended to laugh heartily. "That's a good one, that is! Might be yer right, but I doubt it. I'm thinkin' 'is brain's about the size o' that dog's, there." He laughed again, but nobody joined in. They were offended, not only on the man's part, but also on Hector's.

The man, who had been peering at Sam with great interest, lifted his gaze to Sydney. Immediately she saw that she'd been wrong—he was anything but a boy. His face had a superficial innocence, but that was only a matter of the arrangement of his features. It was his eyes that gave him away. She had thought they were gray or silver from the photographs, but they were pale, pale green, and as clear as the light on the lake in the morning. There was a look in them, a kind of knowing . . . something old and uncanny. Not like anything she'd ever seen before. She couldn't look away.

"That your professional opinion?" Philip asked lightly, but Sydney heard the distaste in his casual tone. Now it was unanimous: they
all
disliked O'Fallon.

"Here. Look." Sam pulled something out of his pocket. "You can have it if you want." He held the object out toward the man, who, after a startled second, bent over at the waist to see what it was. "It's a puppet, see? You put it on your finger like this, and then you play with it."

Sydney recognized the knitted yellow giraffe with felt ears and a black yarn mane and eyelashes; she'd made it for Sam years ago. Amazing that he hadn't lost it before now.

"Now, boy, you don't want to be givin' things to this one," O'Fallon warned, still trying to sound jovial.

"Why not?" Sam asked, taking the words out of Sydney's mouth. But she had a nervous moment when he reached for the lost man's hand and pulled it toward him. O'Fallon stiffened; Philip stiffened. "See, look. You just stick it over your ringer like that. Now you wriggle it"— he twisted the man's long, strong finger back and forth— "and make it talk. 'Hi, I'm Gerry the giraffe!' " he trilled in falsetto. " 'Who're you?' "

The lost man blinked down at the little yellow tube covering his first finger. He flexed his knuckle, and the dots on the tip of the covering, meaningless to him before, came into focus. A face—they made a face.

"See? It's a giraffe," the boy said to him, looking right into his eyes.

Ger-af. He couldn't remember ger-af. It was a gift, though, he knew that, and gladness filled his chest like a sudden deep breath. He wriggled his finger into the face of Sam, the boy, who opened his mouth and laughed, a sound like water trickling over rocks. He laughed, too, and then he looked up into the face of the woman.

She had hair like a fox, shiny red and gold, and she made it stay on top of her head, not fall down. Her scent was mixed, something sweet and something you could eat, and over that, the smoky smell that the man had, the man beside her with dark hair and the same blue eyes. She had so many clothes on, and she had skin like no skin he'd ever seen. The pink bellies of newborn racoons looked that soft. Her lips curved up, but was she smiling? Was she happy? Did she think he was funny?

"You should take your shoes off," the boy said, pointing at his feet. "You can walk in the sand barefooted, but no place else. That's what Aunt Estelle says." Sam kept talking, too fast, the words stopped making sense. He tried to sort them out, but he couldn't while he was looking at the lady. Everyone had talked but her. How would her voice sound?

Soft. Not high and not fast. Like purring. "It's getting late. I think we'd better go up now." She had her hand on the shoulder of Sam, just touching, not pressing or squeezing, and Sam didn't hate it. The lost man couldn't take his eyes off the long white fingers of the lady, curving over the shoulder of Sam. The dark-haired man said something to her he couldn't understand. He looked into her eyes. Human eyes, clever and secretive, hiding things. She was hiding things. She let her eyelashes come down, so he couldn't see into her mind.

Sam put out his hand. Did he want ger-af back? No, his hand was sideways, the palm not up. Confused, he stood very still, not looking at anyone. "Shake," Sam said, and took him by his other hand, the empty one. They made their touching hands bob up and down, and while it was happening, a memory flared into his head. He had done this before. And some words in his book made sense now.

In a social gathering, do not attempt to shake hands with everyone. If your host or hostess offers a hand, take it; a bow of acknowledgment is sufficient for the rest.

"All right, then, lad." O'Fallon grabbed his arm, laughing his lying laugh. "That's enough o' that, now."

He tugged out of O'Fallon's grasp, not even looking at him. There was something he had to do.

He bowed.

O'Fallon laughed again, but the lady didn't. Neither did the boy or the dark-haired man. They all made their eyes big and round in just the same way—so he knew they belonged together. They were a pack. Then O'Fallon turned him around and made him walk away.

In the room with the bar on the window, O'Fallon said, "Oh, yer a rich one, you are, boyo. Quite the gentleman now, ain't you?" He turned away, and O'Fallon shoved him in the back, so hard he hit against the wall. He swung around, holding his cheek. O'Fallon had the black stick in his hands, and he thought how easy it would be to kill him. Pull his throat out with his teeth and watch the warm blood gush, slower and slower until it stopped.

"Hungry, boyo? Too damn bad. You just sit in here, practicin' how to be a
gentleman.
Take a few more bows." The door closed, blocking out the hate in his face.

Why were they enemies? Weren't they both men? The fury in O'Fallon's eyes made him feel wild, mad, but not like an animal. Like a man.

Chapter 3

Sam and Sydney began to wait every day for the lost man. O'Fallon took him for a walk in the afternoons at one o'clock, while Papa and Charles ate lunch in the office and went over their notes, discussing the morning's progress. At first O'Fallon wouldn't stop, even when Sam begged him to, and a wet and sandy Hector tried his best not to let either man pass. But the guard, apparently out of nothing but meanness, wouldn't let his charge linger even for a moment. "Got no time," he'd say, one of his pawlike hands shoving at the lost man's shoulder as they hurried by. "Professor wants 'im back by two." Once he shouted out, "Have a care, lad!" when Sam came too close to suit him. "No sudden moves—no tellin' what he might do."

"He wouldn't do anything," Sam retorted furiously, and Sydney was torn between scolding him for rudeness and echoing him. She thought of talking to O'Fallon herself, trying to reason with him. She disliked him too much, though, even to speak to him—probably out of proportion to his offenses, but she couldn't help it. Instead she went to her father.

"Is that man dangerous or isn't he?" she inquired, catching his attention, so hard to get, by taking him by surprise. His study was his sanctum, and anyone who entered it during his workday had better have a good reason. Charles was with him; both men looked up from their desks and stared at her.

"The lost man, the Ontario Man—is he a threat to Sam and me, Papa?"

"Don't think so." He took off his pince-nez in surprise. "Wouldn't have him here if he were. Gentle as a lamb."

"Well, as to that," Charles began, then halted. He never liked to contradict his employer.

"Then why can't he stop with us when Mr. O'Fallon takes him for his walk on the shore?"

"He can."

"He can?"

"Certainly. Do him good, needs the company. Been thinking of suggesting it. More contact. Might help. Supervised, of course."

Thrown off her stride, she was momentarily speechless. "Tell him, then, will you?"

"Who?"

"Mr. O'Fallon. Tell him to stop acting like a prison warden." She waited, but her father already had his nose in his book. "Why does he carry a club?"

"Hm? What's that?"

"A club. He carries a billy club, Papa. Why?"

"Hm! Can't imagine."

"Well, will you please tell him not to? It scares Sam," she fabricated. He nodded vaguely. "Charles,
you
tell him not to," she tried, despairing of her father remembering to do any such thing. Charles was smiling at her, taking the opportunity to flirt. "Please, Charles, would you say something to him?"

"Of course I will," he said solicitously. "I'll do it today."

She beamed at him. "Thank you."

* * * * *

The next day, O'Fallon, clubless and scowling, sat on a rock thirty yards from where Sam and his new friend knelt in the surf, their pants legs rolled up to the knees, building sand castles.

Or rather, Sam built them and the lost man watched, grave and silent, shy and a little awkward, but profoundly curious. Within minutes, Sydney's nervousness changed to fascination. She sat a ways behind Sam on a blanket in the sand and stared at the man's face, the expressions ghosting across it, transfixed by his emotional transparency one minute, his intriguing opaqueness the next. Time after time she thought he would speak. His mouth, she could swear, formed a
k
whenever Sam said the word "castle," and he appeared to be spellbound by the crenelated shapes of walls and gates and towers her brother made with his inverted bucket. Sam kept up a ceaseless monologue, childish chatter that he listened to with care and politeness, and occasionally confusion.

"You should have a name," Sam told him. "What name do you want? What would be a good name for you?" The answering silence had no effect on Sam's garrulousness; he took it for granted that the lost man didn't talk. Neither did Hector; it was just one of those things.

"How about Lancelot? Do you like that? He was a knight of the Round Table in the
Morte d'Arthur.
That's my favorite book. Sydney used to read it to me when I was little, but now I can read it myself. Lancelot was Arthur's right-hand man. Lancelot," he repeated, trying it out, sizing his companion up with a long glance. "Lance," he amended doubtfully. He looked over his shoulder. "Can we call him Lance, Sydney?"

She laughed; it struck her as silly. He didn't look like a Lance-to her, he looked like . . . himself. The lost man. "Lance is fine," she said—and happened to catch his eye.
He knows,
she thought suddenly.
He understands all of this.
Then he looked away, and her certainty faded.

His big hands held the tin bucket, dwarfing it, turning it slowly in his fingers. A red line marked his chin, where he must have cut himself shaving. Or—she chilled at the thought—where O'Fallen must have cut him. Yes, more likely; they wouldn't give him a razor, she was sure. O'Fallon must be the one who had cut his hair, too.

At Sam's insistence, he had taken off his coat. "Roll up your sleeves, too," he'd instructed, showing him how with the shirtsleeves of his own Russian blouse. It was charming, really, the unlikeliest friendship. And yet—it wasn't really possible to see it as cute or sentimentally touching, or the lost man as a big, harmless, overgrown boy, the way one might view a sweet-natured, retarded adult at play with a child. Because whether he was walking with his keeper or sitting in the sand or staring out the barred window of his room, the lost man was always exactly that, solitary and alone, and always a man.

The next day, Sam brought his rubber ball to the beach. Bright blue, the size of a grapefruit, it was currently his favorite toy. "Here, catch!"

The lost man—Lance—caught it somehow, purely by reflex, then stood staring at it for a full minute. The expression on his face made Sydney press her lips together to keep from laughing out loud. If Sam had tossed a glowing meteorite to him, he couldn't have been more flabbergasted. The squishy texture bewildered, then entranced him. "Throw it back," Sam kept saying, but he wouldn't relinquish it. He had to smell it, squeeze it; he put his tongue on it and bit it with his teeth. "No, don't eat it!" Sam yelled, laughing but alarmed, and the man frowned at him uncertainly. "Come on, throw it to me. Throw it. Like this." He gestured, using one arm. "It's a game, see?"

Imitating Sam, the man tossed the ball in the air, high and straight up. It landed at his feet without a bounce.

Sam ran and snatched it up again. "Good," he said encouragingly. "Now I throw it back to you—" Again the man snagged it with one hand. "Okay, now throw it to me." Sam held his arms out wide. "Me, throw it to me."

Slowly, tentatively, the lost man lobbed the ball in Sam's direction, and he caught it on the run.

"Good!" he shouted, as thrilled as if he'd taught him how to write his name.

A game of sorts ensued, with Sydney watching from her place nearby, trying to see what, if anything, the man made of all this. Gradually the fierce concentration in his face relaxed, giving way to that look of pleasant, empty-headed absorption men wore when they engaged in mindless sporting contests. He had much more natural agility than Sam, of course, and it wasn't long before the dynamics of the game reversed, with the man throwing carefully and accurately, the little boy more often wildly.
Father should see this,
Sydney realized. Unnoticed, she scrambled up, intending to go and get him—and saw that she didn't have to. He and Charles were coming down the path from the house, and now stopping at the edge of the trees, staring in surprise. She lifted her skirts and trudged through the sand toward them.

"Great heavens." The breeze blew her father's wispy hair sideways, like a rakish white hat. "How long has this been going on?"

'Twenty minutes or so. Yesterday they built sand castles. Didn't O'Fallon tell you?"

He shook his head. "Look, Charles. Look at his face."

"Yes, sir. Very animated."

Papa could hardly contain himself. "And they said he was probably an idiot!" he gloated, rubbing his hands together. "Ha! Won't tell 'em this yet—they don't deserve to know it. Of course. Of course. Should've seen it."

"What's that, sir?"

"It's Sam—Sam's the key. We'll use him. Come on, West. You, too, Sydney. Come on, got work to do!"

* * * * *

When the top wolfs muzzle turned gray and his teeth yellowed, his back legs stiffened and his eyes clouded, he was finished. Unless he had a wife who stayed with him because she was old, too, he went off from the pack to die by himself. A new wolf, the strongest one, became top wolf.

With men, it was the opposite. Dr. Winter was so old, all his hair was white. He couldn't run and his eyes were watery and weak. But the professor was the top man in his pack, and nobody fought him, not even the one named West who was young and fit. Stranger still, the lowest man was O'Fallon, even though he was the strongest. But he was stupid and mean. Wolves would not have let him be the leader, either.

There was another man, Philip. He was the brother of Sam and Sydney. He was kind, not mean, but he held himself aloof; he tried to stay out of the circle of the pack.

The top woman was "Aunt Estelle." The lost man stayed away from her. They all did.

His days began to change. There was a place behind the big house with walls around it made of crumbling red stones. A garden, they called it. He could have climbed over the wall, but they didn't know it; they thought they had him, so they didn't make O'Fallon come inside the garden to watch him. The professor, West, Sam, Sydney, sometimes Philip—they all came into the garden with him, and at first he couldn't look at them. He would stand apart, listen to them speak and breathe, and think about jumping over the wall. There were woods beside the house. He could run there, and no one could catch him.

But he didn't run away. Because even the stars couldn't help him here. He was too far away to get home.

"Experiments," Dr. Winter called the things they made him do in the garden. None of it made any sense. The professor would sit in the shade on a little chair that could fold up, and make writings on paper while watching him do—nothing. Walk from here to there, or there to here; eat an apple; scratch his head or shut his eyes tight; give half of his apple to someone else. Nonsense, all of it, but after a few days he didn't care, and he lost his self-consciousness. (A new word; he had learned it from West. "He's too self-conscious, sir; he can't act naturally in this setting.") The garden was better than the lake, because he could smell the earth and the dark trees, hear the insects burrow in the grass and the birds lay eggs in their nests among the leaves, and almost believe he was home. He stopped caring that the people were watching. He began to watch them.

Sydney. Syd-ney. He could spell her name, because he'd seen Sam write it under a picture that he drew with a pencil. Sam meant for the picture to look like her, but it didn't. Not at all. She had pink and white in her face, a sort of blue in her eyes, like sky but different, darker, shinier—he wished he knew more words. He tried to catch her true scent, the one under the scent she put on herself. (Why did she do that? To hide? Was something hunting her?) But he had to be careful because if he got too close all the men, especially West, went on guard around her.

He could close his eyes and listen to the sound of her voice, not the words but just the sound, and know who she was talking to. Sam was easy; to him she talked softly while she smiled, always smiled, and when she laughed it was because of Sam. No—sometimes Philip, but then the laughter was lower, shorter, deeper in her throat, as if what was funny was also not funny. She hardly ever laughed with her father, and when she talked to him her voice got thinner, tighter; her breath stayed high in her chest and sometimes when she sighed it out he could hear sadness.

West. She called him Charles, his other name. She didn't talk to West very much, so he listened to the silence between them. It meant something. It made him wonder if they were mates. His skin got hot when he thought that. They had touched; he'd seen them. She had rested her back against West, and he had rubbed her with his hands. They had done that in secret, thinking no one saw. Then they'd stopped. If they were mates, was it for life or only for the summer?

He didn't like West. He stank of something he put on his head, and his eyes when he looked at the lost man were sharp and hungry but still cold. Sometimes he touched Sydney on her back or behind her arm, petting her when he thought no one saw. Sometimes she let him; sometimes she moved away so he had to stop.

He wanted to shoulder him away from her, bare his teeth and warn him to keep away. Animals did that in the mating season. But he wore a man's clothes now, ate cooked food, slept on a blanket. Did that make him a man? He couldn't be sure. He still wanted to fight for Sydney, though. If she wasn't West's mate, he wanted her for his.

* * * * *

"Sydney, close your eyes this time."

"What?"

"Stay where you are, but just close your eyes. I think he'll go closer."

Obediently, she shut her eyes and waited, leaning her head against the back of the wrought-iron loveseat. The garden door squealed on rusty hinges as her father went out. Silence for a moment, just the buzzing of a bee in the ivy. Then the door squeaked open and the lost man came in.