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Authors: Jean Zimmerman
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hesitated.
Did she not want to go? Was she terrified of Scott? Or was the responsibility of independence too much for her?
Colm Cullen and Jack Pite had the quartet of her former masters backed off down the gallery from the rest of us. The marshal holstered his sidearm in a casual way that I could never have imitated had I worked for years at practicing it.
Savage Girl suddenly slid over the balcony rail, shinnied down one of the support pillars as if it were a sidewalk she were walking along, crossed to the enormous bathtub and reached inside.
The hand mirror. Her arm streaming with water, she retrieved it, reversed her course up the ladder and headed through the door beside my father.
Mewling out the mournful toad cry of his species, R. T. Flenniken emerged from the dark end of the balcony and charged toward Freddy.
“You shan’t have her!” he cried. “She’s mine!”
Marshal Pite put him low with a single fist blow to the temple, and the five of us—Colm, the lawman, myself, my father and Savage Girl—stepped out of the sideshow barn into the alleyway, trusting never to return.
5
We lost her.
My parents had made ready for a fast getaway. At the end of the alley, Anna Maria waited in a closed coach driven by a swarthy
pistolero
with a reckless gleam in his eye.
Savage Girl came willingly. We piled in, Freddy handing off his new protégée to Anna Maria, then climbing inside himself with me behind. Colm Cullen mounted up to sit beside the driver in the cab.
Leaving Marshal Pite to guard the alley’s entrance onto “A” Street and cut off all pursuit, we jolted away in haste.
It was the closest I had ever been to Savage Girl, and it allowed me the opportunity to examine her closely. She sat hunched at our feet, seats and benches and erect posture seemingly foreign to her.
Again I was impressed by her slightness. She looked waiflike, or rather urchinish. I had the uncanny sense that we, as a family, had acquired a new pet. She smelled rather nice, though, not like a dog. Her remarkable hazel eyes, the left one marked by a tiny rectangular fleck of black.
I wanted her to display excitement, pleasure, a wild gratitude, but she embodied none of those emotions. She looked not at us but mainly at the floor of the coach. She reminded me of the shyness displayed by the local Paiute Indians I had met in the Washoe. I always got the sense they were embarrassed for me. As if I were behaving in a mawkish or inappropriate manner.
The female at my feet seemed vital enough. Savage Girl’s diminutive size appeared to come from having all excess somehow burned away, so what remained was a skeletal rigor. I remember thinking thatI would not like to face off with her in a wrestling match. Too much caged energy.
“Dear one,” Anna Maria said, reaching out. Savage Girl did not react to her touch. But at least, I thought, she did not snarl and bite off one of my mother’s fingers.
“How old do you think she is?” Anna Maria said.
Neither my father nor I answered, lost in contemplation of the being we had suddenly invited into our lives. Creature or beast or human or ghost, we didn’t know. Her presence filled the coach with a palpable sense of oddity.
“Say some Comanche to her,” I urged.
“Is she a Comanche child, then?” Anna Maria asked.
My father remained silent, fidgeting with his hands, inscrutable. Anna began to pet Savage Girl’s black, tangled mane.
“Virginia,” she said. “That will be her name.”
Freddy and I both knew what that meant. I had lost my little sister to scarlet fever, when I was seven and she four, our darling, named Virginia, after, in fact, Virginia City, where my father’s mines produced millions a year. We had all doted on her and felt the deep wound of her death. She had been replaced, two years later, by my brother, Nicholas, but it was not the same.
A hole in the human heart,
my mother had said, referring to the gulf that gold was meant to fill. But Anna Maria
Did she not want to go? Was she terrified of Scott? Or was the responsibility of independence too much for her?
Colm Cullen and Jack Pite had the quartet of her former masters backed off down the gallery from the rest of us. The marshal holstered his sidearm in a casual way that I could never have imitated had I worked for years at practicing it.
Savage Girl suddenly slid over the balcony rail, shinnied down one of the support pillars as if it were a sidewalk she were walking along, crossed to the enormous bathtub and reached inside.
The hand mirror. Her arm streaming with water, she retrieved it, reversed her course up the ladder and headed through the door beside my father.
Mewling out the mournful toad cry of his species, R. T. Flenniken emerged from the dark end of the balcony and charged toward Freddy.
“You shan’t have her!” he cried. “She’s mine!”
Marshal Pite put him low with a single fist blow to the temple, and the five of us—Colm, the lawman, myself, my father and Savage Girl—stepped out of the sideshow barn into the alleyway, trusting never to return.
5
We lost her.
My parents had made ready for a fast getaway. At the end of the alley, Anna Maria waited in a closed coach driven by a swarthy
pistolero
with a reckless gleam in his eye.
Savage Girl came willingly. We piled in, Freddy handing off his new protégée to Anna Maria, then climbing inside himself with me behind. Colm Cullen mounted up to sit beside the driver in the cab.
Leaving Marshal Pite to guard the alley’s entrance onto “A” Street and cut off all pursuit, we jolted away in haste.
It was the closest I had ever been to Savage Girl, and it allowed me the opportunity to examine her closely. She sat hunched at our feet, seats and benches and erect posture seemingly foreign to her.
Again I was impressed by her slightness. She looked waiflike, or rather urchinish. I had the uncanny sense that we, as a family, had acquired a new pet. She smelled rather nice, though, not like a dog. Her remarkable hazel eyes, the left one marked by a tiny rectangular fleck of black.
I wanted her to display excitement, pleasure, a wild gratitude, but she embodied none of those emotions. She looked not at us but mainly at the floor of the coach. She reminded me of the shyness displayed by the local Paiute Indians I had met in the Washoe. I always got the sense they were embarrassed for me. As if I were behaving in a mawkish or inappropriate manner.
The female at my feet seemed vital enough. Savage Girl’s diminutive size appeared to come from having all excess somehow burned away, so what remained was a skeletal rigor. I remember thinking thatI would not like to face off with her in a wrestling match. Too much caged energy.
“Dear one,” Anna Maria said, reaching out. Savage Girl did not react to her touch. But at least, I thought, she did not snarl and bite off one of my mother’s fingers.
“How old do you think she is?” Anna Maria said.
Neither my father nor I answered, lost in contemplation of the being we had suddenly invited into our lives. Creature or beast or human or ghost, we didn’t know. Her presence filled the coach with a palpable sense of oddity.
“Say some Comanche to her,” I urged.
“Is she a Comanche child, then?” Anna Maria asked.
My father remained silent, fidgeting with his hands, inscrutable. Anna began to pet Savage Girl’s black, tangled mane.
“Virginia,” she said. “That will be her name.”
Freddy and I both knew what that meant. I had lost my little sister to scarlet fever, when I was seven and she four, our darling, named Virginia, after, in fact, Virginia City, where my father’s mines produced millions a year. We had all doted on her and felt the deep wound of her death. She had been replaced, two years later, by my brother, Nicholas, but it was not the same.
A hole in the human heart,
my mother had said, referring to the gulf that gold was meant to fill. But Anna Maria
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