Wild Country

Chapter Fifty-Three

"I don't know any more about it than you do, Ted," said Jess Marrow as they walked, trying not to seem hurried, toward the central hunt lodge. "Seems the Brit came in late last night without the van or the mare. And five minutes ago, my office terminal asks me if Wardrop has any outstanding stable fees. And you know what that means."

Quantrill nodded, mounting the steps to the lodge verandah, giving Marrow time to navigate them with his gimpy leg. They found Alec Wardrop settling his bill, scheduling a ride to the city by the earliest available means. At first, he was not disposed to talk.

Marrow found a cultural crowbar to pry an explanation from the man. "Got some stuff at my office for a toast, on the off chance that you made it back," he said, as if begrudging it. "Harvey's Bristol Cream Sherry. Awful stuff. Thought you'd like it."

Wardrop failed to keep his face straight, hung his head as he smiled. "Wonders never cease. Very well, and with pleasure. I have a few minutes to spare." Leaving his luggage untended, Wardrop accompanied his hosts back to Marrow's office.

Quantrill's only burning question was the fate of Ba'al, but all the signs pointed to a satisfactory answer; perhaps Wardrop had just taken enough of that hard-rock country, and abruptly said the hell with it. Lots of people behaved that way. Besides, Marrow's intuition made entirely too many accurate connections every time Quantrill mentioned the boar. Quantrill listened in silence as Marrow, ushering the tall Brit into the office, said, "I'm afraid to ask about Rose."

Wardrop lowered himself into an oak armchair with the care of a man who was nursing a lot of bruises. "The commonest kind of tragedy, I'm afraid. She broke a leg and — had to be destroyed. I wasn't mounted at the time," he added in self-defense.

Quantrill pulled three polypaper cups from the dispenser; flicked them to Marrow, who caught them in what was obviously a ritual game. "I hear the van's still out there. Wrecked?"

Wardrop watched Marrow pour elegant sherry into lumpen proletarian cups and shook his head. "I suppose one's palate need not know the difference," he commented to Marrow, accepting a cupful, sniffing it with eyes closed. "No, the van is intact. I've marked it on a map for you. In any case, I'm all paid up; not to worry."

"I wasn't thinking about that. How'd you get back to WCS land?" Quantrill said.

"That," said Wardrop, pausing to sip the sherry, "is none of your God — damned — affair."

Quantrill made a face that was half dismay, half amusement.

Marrow: "You sure as hell didn't hoof it."

"Not by half. I got a… lift. I'd rather not talk about it. Marrow. Let us say, for the record, that Wild Country has too many surprises for a decent pigsticker to ply his trade. As far as I'm concerned, that boar can have the whole bloody region and welcome."

Marrow and Quantrill had swigged the sherry as though it were strawberry sodapop from the stable dispensers. Now Marrow refilled the cups, recorked the bottle. "To Wardrop and all his pigs, then," Marrow said, and hoisted the cup before drinking.

Wardrop made the proper gesture, saw the others toss off their sherry, shrugged with good humor, and followed suit. "Fitting eulogy for a dead occupation," he said, and stood up. He knew that no one would touch his things but, "I really should see to my baggage," he said. He thrust out his hand, and Marrow took it but did not stand. Unerring as usual, Jess Marrow's intuition told him the younger men had things to say in private.

With all his aches and pains, the lank Wardrop walked slowly enough for Quantrill to keep pace with ease. They had walked half the distance to the lodge before the Brit broke his silence with, "Here, take my card, Quantrill. You did your best to protect a foreigner you thought was half-mad. If you ever need help, consider yourself a fellow officer in my regiment. I'm not certain that I could explain exactly what that implies."

"It's an honor, and that's enough." Quantrill shoved the card into his denims without breaking stride. "What's your next move?"

"Oh — to Cornwall, I imagine. A week or so tramping on Bodmin Moor in my knockabouts. Then back to the regiment a wiser man." Wardrop seemed to be laughing at himself, and then turned a frank gaze on Quantrill. "I've bagged my last boar, you know."

Quantrill tried to hide his alarm. "Are you telling me you killed Ba'al?"

"God knows I tried." The Brit seemed lost in his reflections for a moment. Then, striking from an unfamiliar quarter: "Quantrill, did you ever read something called The Most Dangerous Game'? A classic adventure story by Richard Connell. Butchered badly in holoplays, of course."

Quantrill's glance, flicked at his companion, was two parts suspicion. The tale had been required reading during his advanced army training in T Section, when "T" stood for "terminate." Without giving that context he said, "I think so. About a Brit shipwrecked on an island. Some Russian count hunts him like an animal and the score winds up England one, islanders zero."

"That's the one. I've always had a horror of that story. What if the game I hunted turned out to be human?"

"You have interesting nightmares," Quantrill conceded.

"Nightmares come true. Even if your quarry turns out to be almost human, it's nightmarish enough. I'm not sure this is any great surprise to you, but from the evidence I'd say that monster boar understands fair play better than most men I've known." Wardrop stopped at the lodge steps, hugged his elbows, stared thoughtfully toward the southwest, and straightened. "I am no Russian nobleman on an island keen on human prey. More important still, I know when I'm beaten. It's… not humiliating, but humbling; an experience you probably haven't yet had." A wry smile: "And good luck to you and your boar." He turned, still smiling, and reached for the door.

Quantrill cocked his head. "My boar?"

"Wouldn't be a bit surprised," said the Brit, pausing, and winked. "But we all have our secrets." He turned and went inside.

Quantrill walked alone back to Marrow's office, knowing that he would miss Lieutenant Alec Wardrop. He found Jess Marrow pecking away at his computer terminal and saw curiosity in the older man's gaze. He tried to satisfy it with, "I gather Wardrop has finally found his good strong sign, Jess. Claims he's through with boar hunts."

Marrow flicked off the terminal; leaned back in his chair and sighed. "He had the look, Teddy. There's another name for that sign, you know. It's called 'failure.'"

Quantrill tried the idea on for size. "I don't know, Jess. He didn't act like a broken man."

"Broken, no; but that's because he's still young and full of piss and vinegar. Lemme tell you something, Teddy: a man is lucky if he learns to accept failure when he's young. Failure for a man is like childbirth for a woman: when you have your first one late in life, it can just about destroy you."

Quantrill thought it over. "I'm not sure I follow that," he said at last.

"Course not, fool, you haven't seen your sign. Yet."

"I've failed at a lot of things," Quantrill objected. He saw Marrow eyeing him over the old-fashioned spectacles, smiling and shaking his head. "You mean something big, then."

"Yep. Something so big it limits your self-confidence, tells you that you're just a mortal man, after all. Tells you that on a given day there's somebody, maybe nose to nose with you, who can beat you at ever'thing you do best."

"Aw, hell, Jess. Nine-tenths of the people I meet seem to know that. They don't even need a very strong sign."

"Right." Marrow grinned and shoved the specs into place with a blunt forefinger. "And they don't count, 'cause they never really had that basic self-confidence to start with. And what's more, most of 'em hate you soon as they see you do have it. When I said a good strong man needs a good strong sign, I didn't mean physical strength necessarily. I guess I meant confidence, Teddy. We have it. Wardrop has it." He closed one eye and aimed a finger at Quantrill. "I will bet you anything that damn near all of our close friends have it.

Because those who don't have it, don't want to be our friends. They want to see us fail."

Quantrill threw-up his hands and smiled. "Okay, you're probably right. Give me a break, Jess; great truths should be swallowed in small doses."

"In other words, shut the fuck up, boss," Marrow growled. "By the way, there's a call came for you while you were out with Wardrop. I got the number here; the area code is Corpus Christi or thereabouts."

Quantrill took the scrap of polypaper and studied Marrow's scrawl, then smiled. "Could be good news," he said, and hurried to his room for the Justice Department scrambler module.