Part 40 (2/2)
Grigsby smiled ruefully. ”You can stop callin' me Marshal. That don't apply no more.”
”How do you mean?” said Oscar.
”I'm out of a job. I'm not Marshal no more.”
”Because of this? Because of me?”
Grigsby shook his head. ”Nothin' to do with you.”
Holliday said, ”Greaves and Sheldon?”
Grisgby nodded.
Holliday said, ”So what're your plans, Bob?”
”Don't rightly know yet. Maybe head down to Texas.” He turned to Oscar. ”Do all the others know yet? About what happened?”
”Yes. I've spoken with all of them.”
”How's the Countess makin' out?”
”Distressed, of course. How would you feel if you learned that the man who'd been acting as your escort was an insane killer?”
Grigsby smiled slightly. ”Never had me an escort. But the best thing for her, I reckon, is to put it behind her. Best thing for you, too.”
Yes. But how? So long as he lived Oscar would remember von Hesse's face as it looked in the Ice Palace when the man whirled to confront him.
”Hau ab!” he had snapped. Go away! His lips were twisted back in a fierce rictus and his eyes were narrow vicious slits. His voice was a stranger's: thin and querulous, like that of a very old man, or of a young, furious boy.
”Von Hesse,” Oscar said. In German: ”Let her go.”
”Go away! You'll spoil everything.” The object in his hand, Oscar realized, was a knife.
Elizabeth McCourt Doe watched them, her glance sliding from Oscar to von Hesse. Oscar could see shudders running down along her naked body.
”Let her go,” he said.
”No! She is mine! She is ours!”
”Von Hesse. Wolfgang. I don't want to shoot you. But I will, I promise you. Get away from her.”
”You fool! You silly shallow man! You don't understand anything! She is mine!” He looked over Oscar's shoulder, then suddenly moved with a speed and power Oscar could scarcely believe. His left hand darted forward and grabbed Elizabeth by the hair and he ripped her up from the pile of shattered ice, her mouth wide open in a silent scream, and he swung her before him. He wrapped his left arm around her throat and pointed with the knife to something behind Oscar's back. ”Who is he? Who is he?” And then the tip of the knife was against the woman's skin, just below her breast.
Oscar turned.
Dr. John Holliday stood there, a gun in his hand, looking in the pale spill of moonlight like some black angel of death. How had he gotten here without Oscar's hearing him? How had he gotten here at all?
Oscar turned back to von Hesse. ”Von Hesse. Don't you see? You can't escape. There's nowhere for you to go. We know now. Don't you see that?”
”Don't talk,” Holliday said in his uncanny whisper. ”Shoot.”
Elizabeth McCourt Doe spoke. Her voice was quite calm. ”If anyone's asking for my vote,” she said, ”I'd say shoot the crazy b.a.s.t.a.r.d.”
”No!” Oscar said. ”Don't shoot!” He softened his voice. ”Wolfgang-”
”You're spoiling it!,” von Hesse shrieked. Again, he sounded like an angry, frustrated child, and the note of petulance in his voice, which at some other time might have seemed discordant, even comical, was horribly chilling now. ”You're spoiling everything! This is my moment! This is my destiny You stupid, ignorant people!”
”Wolfgang,” Oscar said, ”do you remember when we spoke, you and I, about the young corporal you knew in Germany? The one who had dug up the women's graves? Do you remember what you told me?”
”No! Go away! Leave us!”
”Wolfgang, you told me you believed that at bottom we are all good. Do you remember? You told me that we're all tiny pieces of the infinite, all of us connected, each to the other, and to everything in creation. Do you remember, Wolfgang?”
Von Hesse shook his head as though clearing it. ”You are trying to trick me.”
”I'm not, Wolfgang, I'm not. I'm trying to help you remember who you are. What you are. Wolfgang, you understand me. I know you do. I know that, at basis, you are good. Do you remember what else you told me? You said that we cannot do violence to another without doing violence to ourselves. The other is ourself. Remember, Wolfgang?”
Von Hesse shook his head again. But slowly this time, almost tentatively.
”Wolfgang, I want you to remember who you are. Think, Wolfgang. Each of us is connected, one to the other. Each of us is a piece of the infinite. You are. I am. That woman is.”
Von Hesse's glance darted round the room.
Very softly, Holliday whispered, ”Keep it up, Poet.”
Oscar said, ”Wolfgang, the young corporal. You told me you believed that a part of him wanted to be caught, wanted to be stopped. Wolfgang, you wanted to be stopped. Otherwise you wouldn't have written that letter to Mrs. Doe. A letter that anyone might have found. A letter that I did find.”
Once again, von Hesse shook his head.
Oscar said, ”We cannot do violence to another without doing violence to ourselves. You know this. You know that the other is ourselves. Wolfgang-”
Von Hesse closed his eyes for a moment. His shoulders sagged. His body moved slightly forward, forcing Elizabeth McCourt Doe's to do the same. Then he threw back his head, his face to the moon, and he screamed.
The scream filled the room, filled the night, a scream of horror and dread and endless, agonizing pain. It seemed as though it had gone on forever, it seemed as though it would go on forever: that all of them, all four, would be trapped within that scream, frozen within it, until the end of time.
Finally, slowly, it dimmed, cracked, diminished, died. In the vast, trembling silence, Oscar heard von Hesse's labored breath.
And then, in a single swift movement, von Hesse released the woman, stepped back, and slashed the knife across his own throat. A bright black gout of blood surged from the wound and reached out like a liquid arm for the shoulder of Elizabeth McCourt Doe. She made a choked, gasping sound and Oscar rushed for her as von Hesse fell to his knees, blood still spurting from his neck and slapping against the snow.
”Elizabeth.”
”I'm all right, I'm all right.” But then she collapsed against him, all her weight in his arms. Oscar embraced her. He realized that he was still holding the gun. He dropped it.
Holliday was kneeling beside von Hesse, the man's wrist between his fingers.
Oscar said, ”He's dead?”
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