Wilderness Double Edition 18, page 25
Count Prospero snorted. “Fools. Dolts and blockheads. Oafs and ignoramuses. Flotsam caught up in the current of their self-absorbed self-importance. They do good because they believe it will earn them a seat on high after they have been torn from this earthly vale.”
“No, they’re decent by nature and good at heart. Religion is just added incentive, the topping on the pie.”
Shakespeare and the count locked eyes, and after a minute the count grinned and said, “We are at polar extremes, you and I, but I respect your right to be misguided. I have known others like you. My own father was equally naive. He, too, believed in the essential goodness of humanity.”
“You hold that against him?”
Prospero’s face twitched and his mouth scrunched up as if he had sucked on a lemon. “Not that, per se. We are all entitled to our illusions. But I resent the harvest of his stupidity.” He had grown as red as a beet.
“What harvest would that be?”
“Later, perhaps,” the count said. Lowering his chin to his chest, he placed a hand to his forehead and groaned.
“Are you in pain?” Shakespeare started to rise.
“Be at ease,” Prospero said. “My bitterness has festered over the years like a virulent sore, and at times near overwhelms me with the potency of its toxin.” Raising his head, he smiled thinly. “I will take your word for it that you are an honest man, although to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.”
Shakespeare smiled, and continued the quote. “‘That’s very true, my lord.’” The next lines leaped to mind. “‘For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a god kissing carrion—have you a daughter?’”
Count Prospero slapped a stick leg and cackled lustily. “‘I have, my lord.’”
“‘Let her not walk in the sun,’” Shakespeare quoted on. “‘Conception is a blessing; but as your daughter may conceive—friend, look to it.’”
“You know the bard!” Prospero happily declared.
“As I know every pimple on my body,” Shakespeare responded.
“Oh, my.” The count clasped his hands to his chest. “You have no idea how much I miss his works, how much I miss plays and books and concerts.” Tears brimmed at the corners of his eyes. “The royal balls, the theater, the poetry readings, the life at court. I would give anything except Miranda to be restored to my rightful station and privilege.”
“If you want to go back to Wallanchia, my wife and I will be glad to help you and your daughter reach the States,” Shakespeare offered. “We’ll see you to New Orleans, and you can book passage on a ship from there. As for Kaliban, I don’t know—” Shakespeare hushed up. The count was crying, openly crying, tears pouring in a torrent. Not knowing what else to do, Shakespeare stood and placed a hand on the other man’s shoulder. “Listen, hos, I didn’t mean to get you all rattled.”
Prospero’s pale, thin fingers glued themselves to Shakespeare’s. “Your humanity, sir, touches me deeply. While I am my father’s kindred by flesh, I suspect you are more his kindred in spirit.”
Shakespeare took that as a compliment. He was searching for the right thing to say to cheer the count up when footsteps padded on the hard stone floor and Blue Water Woman and Miranda hastened up.
“Father! Father!” the beauty cried. “They have come at last, as you always claimed they would!”
In an instant Count Prospero’s tears stopped flowing. Wiping his face with his sleeve, he shifted toward them. “Are you certain, daughter?”
“Kaliban just brought word. He saw them from the ridge.
Soldiers are approaching. Many soldiers. And one bears a banner with the royal crest of Wallanchia.”
Shakespeare glanced from the beauty to the scarecrow. “You’re acting as if it’s the end of the world. They’re your countrymen. You should be glad to see them.”
Count Prospero had been restored to his frigid self. “You know not what you say, my friend. They are our countrymen, yes, but they are also our executioners.”
Eight
From a high ledge atop the east side of the canyon Shakespeare McNair could see for miles. Raising a hand over his eyes to shield them against the bright glare of the late morning sun, he saw a column of riders winding westward across the rock wasteland. They were too far off to tell much about them until Count Prospero handed him a folding telescope taken from a cabinet in the cavern.
“Here. Use this. The man whose vanity is pinned to his chest is Duke Viktor Alonzo. He was my father’s superior, and my father’s destroyer. Because of him I fled to the ends of the earth. Because of him my daughter and I live like animals.”
Kaliban had carried Prospero to the ledge as effortlessly as Shakespeare would carry a leaf and was now hunkered behind the count, his good eye visible, fixed on the long line of glittering soldiers and their high stepping horses.
Adjusting the eyepiece, Shakespeare spotted the duke—a short, burly man with a close-cropped beard and drooping mustachios, his red uniform decorated with rows of gleaming medals. A metal helmet crowned his head. Boots that had been polished to a sheen were thrust through his steed’s stirrups. He rode with his chest puffed out, like a peacock on parade. Twenty three of the remaining twenty four riders were similarly dressed. All were armed with sabers and side arms and had rifles in saddle scabbards. The sole exception, a tall young man in a blue uniform and beaked blue cap, trotted beside Duke Alonzo. “Why is the one coon different?” Shakespeare asked.
“Blue is the color of the imperial family,” Count Prospero disclosed. “Only the king and his immediate family may wear it.”
The young man rode with a fearless air, his handsome face aglow with the vigor of youth, a striking contrast to Duke Alonzo’s bitter scowl. “He looks a little young to be a king,” Shakespeare observed.
“When I was forced to flee my homeland, King Ferdinand was ruler,” Prospero said. “Perhaps the young man is one of Ferdinand’s sons, in which case he is a prince of the realm. I don’t recognize him, although he is vaguely familiar.” The count shrugged. “Then again, for all I know Ferdinand is dead or has been deposed. It’s been fifteen years.”
Miranda gestured at the telescope. “I would like to see, too.”
Shakespeare handed it over, saying, “Kings, princes, dukes, and counts. How do you keep track of who is what?”
“The ranking of royals differs somewhat from country to country, but in Wallanchia it is quite simple,” Prospero said. “The king is our ruler, naturally. Under him are his sons, the princes. Next in importance are the dukes, his advisers, each of whom oversees a dukedom granted them by his lordship.”
“Where do men like you and your father fit in?”
“Each dukedom has a number of counts, barons, and earls who have titled holdings of their own but are nowhere near as powerful. They answer directly to the duke they serve, who in turn relays their concerns to the king. It’s not that hard to understand.”
“What I don’t understand is why they are after you,” Blue Water Woman mentioned. “Or how they knew where to find you.”
“I will explain why later,” Count Prospero said. “As to how—” He glanced at his daughter, who had her eye molded to the telescope. “Blame a headstrong child who never heeds parental advice.”
Miranda was oddly loath to lower the eyeglass. “I admit it. I’ve put our lives in jeopardy, and I am sorry.” She turned to Shakespeare’s wife. “As you probably know, the Oregon Trail is a few days’ ride north of here. Kaliban took me to see it once when I was a little girl, and I’ve been back scores of times. I never tire of watching the wagons go by and imagining who the people are and what their lives are like.”
“If that were all you did, we wouldn’t be in danger,” Count Prospero said.
“It’s a sore topic with us,” Miranda explained. “You see, when we arrived in your country all we possessed were the clothes on our backs. When I outgrew mine, my father had Kaliban make me a garment of deer hide. It was smelly and itched, and I hated it.”
The hunchback whined pitiably.
Miranda paid him no heed. “I used to lie on a hill near the Oregon Trail and envy those women with their pretty dresses and gay bonnets. Then one day I decided enough was enough. I took a handful of coins from my father’s saddlebags and rode up to a circle of wagons. A lady there was all too glad to part with one of her daughter’s old dresses.”
Count Prospero took up the account. “But it didn’t stop there. Against my wishes, she has gone back many times over the years to buy items she felt we needed. Dishes, tools, more clothes, needles and thread to repair my uniform, flour and other food. I warned her there would be talk. I warned her people would tell stories about her and show off the coins she gave them.”
Shakespeare recollected hearing such a story himself, years before. About a wild girl who appeared out of the night at a wagon train encampment and paid for a bunch of towels or some such with a sterling silver coin. He’d assumed the “wild girl” was a settler’s daughter and hadn’t attached much importance to the account.
“Wallanchian coinage, all I was able to take with me,” Count Prospero said. “Eventually word was bound to reach the Wallanchian delegation in Washington and they were bound to take an interest.”
“So you’re saying those soldier boys down there are scouring the countryside for you because of a few coins your daughter passed around?” Shakespeare said.
“They were important clues the duke needed to our general location,” Prospero responded. “Fifteen years ago his agents chased us across Europe to Paris, where I booked passage on a ship to America. They were on the very next vessel, but we disappeared into the interior before they arrived on these shores. Here we have been ever since.” The count gazed at the column. “Now he has come in person, so this time there won’t be any mistakes. He won’t rest until we are dead.”
Blue Water Woman was using the telescope. “These mountains cover a lot of territory. How is it they know right where to look?”
“That, I do not know,” Count Prospero said. His fingers flowed in sign language, and Kaliban carefully picked him up. “They are still a long ways off, and the odds of them finding our hidden canyon are slim. Still, I feel it wise to return to the cavern. I’ll have the hunchback stand guard at the canyon entrance. They will never get past him.”
Shakespeare wasn’t so sure. Kaliban was formidable, yes, but so were two dozen of the latest European rifles in the hands of professionals. He watched the giant start down, and after Miranda moved to follow, he snagged his wife’s wrist and motioned for her to wait a moment. “What do you make of all this? I’m not hankering to be caught in the middle of a blood feud.”
“There is more to it than that,” Blue Water Woman said. “We cannot run out on them. They might need our help.”
“We don’t owe the Prosperos a thing,” Shakespeare argued. Not after what the count had put them through. “It’s not like they’re kin or anything.”
“I like Miranda, husband. I will stand by her in this. She cannot be blamed for whatever happened long ago. She was only three at the time.” Blue Water Woman’s tone brooked no argument.
Shakespeare sighed and took the eyeglass. Once she put her mind to something, changing it was as easy as changing the course of a river. “As usual I’ll back your play. Go on down. I’ll join you in a bit. I want to keep an eye on the duke’s outfit.” He trained the telescope on the Wallanchian troopers, muttering, “Where’s a Blackfoot war party when you need one?”
The column had halted near a ravine. Duke Viktor Alonzo had uncapped a canteen and offered it to the tall young man in blue. Suddenly he and everyone else glanced toward the ravine as if they had heard something. Shakespeare shifted the eyeglass and spied two riders coming out of it, frontiersmen in buckskin and moccasins. As casually as could be, they trotted up to the duke and commenced holding a palaver.
Shakespeare focused on their faces. One was a skinny weasel whose grizzled chin jutted to a point. The other was a stoop shouldered barrel-belly in a coonskin hat. “Trent and Culo,” Shakespeare said aloud. Shifty, grimy sorts, they once made a living at raising plews but were never much good at it. The other trappers never liked them much. Everyone suspected the pair of swiping beaver from traps they didn’t own, but no one could ever prove it. The last Shakespeare had heard, after the fur trade died out Trent and Culo hired themselves out as guides to wagon trains bound for the Oregon Country. “Wagon trains,” he said thoughtfully. A coincidence? Or something more sinister?
The column was on the move again, Trent and Culo out in front, scouring for sign.
Shakespeare lowered the eyeglass. They were vermin, but they were savvy vermin. They were good trackers, considerably above average, and had a better than average chance of finding the Prosperos’ hideaway. He couldn’t let that happen. His wife had thrown in with Miranda, and if shots were exchanged she might be caught in the crossfire.
Rotating, Shakespeare hastened after the others. He caught up as they were about to enter the tunnel and explained what he had in mind.
The count’s eyebrows arched. “You would do that for us?”
“What if they suspect you of lying?” Miranda asked.
“They have no idea I know you,” Shakespeare said. “It can’t hurt to try.” Time was wasting, so he pecked Blue Water Woman and headed for the horses. “Wish me luck.” His wife called his name, and he looked back.
“Don’t turn your back on Trent or Culo. I remember them well. They never speak with a straight tongue.”
“So I’ll give them a taste of their own medicine,” Shakespeare said with a chuckle. The truth was, the pair had no scruples, and would as soon slip a blade into him as look at him if they were paid enough. He couldn’t let down his guard for an instant.
Snowcap was dozing and not all that pleased at having her nap interrupted. Shakespeare examined her leg, glad to find it wasn’t swollen. He walked the mare in a circle a few times and she didn’t limp once. “That ointment sure works wonders,” he commented, forking leather. He held Snowcap to a walk all the way out the canyon, and bore eastward.
Half a mile later, the column came into view. Shakespeare slumped in the saddle to give the impression he was tuckered out, cradling the Hawken in his left elbow. At a shout from Trent the duke elevated an arm, bringing the soldiers to a halt. The duke and the young man in blue moved up next to the two scouts to wait for him.
Shakespeare plastered a friendly smile on his face. “Aren’t you boys a little off the beaten path?” he said by way of greeting, and reined up.
“As I live and breathe!” Trent declared. “Shakespeare McNair! I could say the same about you, old coon. What the hell are you doing in this godforsaken spot, anyhow?”
Duke Victor Alonzo cleared his throat. Up close, he had an arrogant aspect to his swarthy features heightened by a zigzag scar on his left cheek. “This is McNair? The one you told me about?”
Trent swiveled. “Yes, sir. He’s the feller whose cabin we visited, your dukeship.”
“You were at my place?” Shakespeare said, disturbed by the thought of the two thieves helping themselves to whatever they liked. As was customary, settlers never locked their doors when they were gone—partly because everyone trusted everyone else, and partly because locks were damned expensive.
“We sure were.” This from sullen Culo. “We’ve been hired to track down a blond gal and a giant.” He brightened considerably. “We’re being paid in gold coins!”
Trent motioned sharply. “Tell the whole world, why don’t you, you lunkhead?” To Shakespeare he said, “You haven’t seen ’em, by any chance? His dukeship, here, might be willin’ to give you a coin or two if you have.”
Duke Viktor Alonzo cleared his throat and introduced himself. “I am in your country on official Wallanchian business sanctioned by your government. My king has commanded me to hunt down a traitor to the crown by the name of Count Stephen Prospero. We have reason to believe he and his daughter, Miranda, are somewhere in this general area.”
“Reason?” Shakespeare said.
Trent tittered and nodded at his partner. “That would be us, hos. We was guidin’ a bunch of greenhorn emigrants to Oregon last year when one night this blond gal and a giant feller showed up. The girl bought a pair of shoes from one of the women, then went ridin’ off as pretty as you please.”
Culo took up the story. “Damdest thing we ever did see. We had no idea anyone was lookin’ for her until one of the duke’s boys looked us up at Bent’s Fort.”
Duke Alonzo interrupted. “A family of emigrants on that same train were from Wallanchia. They recognized the coins and sent word to the Wallanchian embassy, which forwarded the information to our king.”
“And you came running?” Shakespeare said.
The duke’s dark eyes appraised him with a hint of distaste. “Years ago reports filtered to me of a girl buying items from wagon train members with Wallanchian money, but only recently did I receive the corroboration I needed to justify undertaking an arduous ocean voyage and overland trek.” He sniffed loudly. “Enough about us. Explain what you are doing in this area, American.”
Shakespeare made a show of scrutinizing Duke Alonzo as the duke had scrutinized him. “That’s strange. You sure don’t look like my mother.”
Alonzo missed the meaning. “What does your mother have to do with anything?”
Trent chortled softly. “He’s sayin’ his business ain’t any of yours, your dukeship. That you ain’t got the right to pry into his personal affairs. Only his ma does.”
“And his ma is long dead,” Culo said, tittering.
Duke Alonzo bristled like an irascible badger. “A lowly provincial like yourself, McNair, presumes to insult me? For your impudence, I should give an order to have you staked out and flogged.”
Shakespeare shifted the Hawken just enough so the muzzle was fixed on Alonzo’s chest. “You do, and it will be the last order you ever give.”
