Abner moved through thecrowd, pushing and shoving at anything in his hurried path. He turned his pasty, sunken face around and scanned the room.
She had seen him, and he had to get away. He clawed his escape, his mind flashing, one moment with the picture of Dagny’s beaten face, and another with the look of horror on the older sister. As he neared the rear exit he spotted that friend of Howland’s, the whaling captain named Prescott. He was pointing right at Abner and shouting. Abner’s anxious eyes darted to the other doorway. Howland looked straight at him, fighting his way toward him. The man’s look was rabid.
Abner stooped to the floor, hiding his escape path from the two men, and crawled toward the stage. When he neared the front, he stood, looking for his pursuers. He heard a commotion a few feet away. Sheriff Hayes was there and had spotted him, too. Abner looked around and ran through the drapes near the wing of the stage, not stopping until he was hidden behind a huge wooden crate.
His heart throbbed in his ears, and his breathing was ragged and shallow. He could hear them following, tracking, ordering his hunt. The sounds of the play began again, but still Abner could feel the men closing in. Along the open framing of one wall stood a row of trunks with costumes scattered around them.
Abner peered around the crate and then ran for the nearest open trunk. He shoved the musty clothing aside and crouched inside, pulling the trunk closed. He hid in the dark interior, panting and feeling like a hunted animal. He, Abner Brown, who should have been viewing the play from a private box, cowered in a trunk. He rocked with contempt.
Nothing was left. He had nothing; his heritage was long ago sold, and his name no longer meant anything. His business and home were destroyed, and he was a fugitive, forced to hide in the depths of a floating opium den, where his gold had bought the sweet oblivion his body craved.
Abner closed his burning eyes, and his mind—in a rare, lucid moment—savored an old dream. The same one he had tried to live tonight. Dreams of play openings, of gaiety, of respect, of position—the dream of the successful man he thought he had been.
Kit closed the doorand slid the bolt. On the small table near the staircase, a pale oil lamp still burned. He removed his cloak and hung it on the hall tree, hanging Hallie’s cloak alongside. He walked over to the table and turned up the lamp wick. It was after four, and he was exhausted. They’d searched the theater and the surrounding area, but somehow Abner had slipped away. It ate at Kit, knowing that lunatic was still lurking around.
Using the lamp to light his way, he went upstairs. He entered the dark bedroom and set the lamp on the nearest table. His blanket sat on the chair—the one he’d been sleeping in.
The sound of Hallie’s even breathing drew his tired gaze. She slept soundly on one side of the bed, huddled in a lump underneath a mound of covers. Over half the bed was empty. He eyed the chair. Not tonight, he thought. He sat down and pulled off his dress boots, wondering just how mad Hallie would be when she found him in bed with her.
He sank back into the chair, releasing the studs from his shirt before reaching over to drop them on the table. He missed. The studs bounced and rolled, scattering on the wooden floor and reminding him of the last time they had done that, on the night he made love to Hallie. That sweet night when he’d learned that his passion hadn’t died, and the moment he admitted to himself that he wanted her, craved her, and needed to bury himself deep within her. And he had. But it had also been the same day he’d hurt her, both emotionally and physically.
Though their marriage arrangement was improving, she was still frightened of him, and that was not something he was proud of. He needed to erase the hurt and her sensual timidity. It was there, her fear, hovering around them whenever their passion flared. He’d felt it tonight, when he had kissed her hiccups away. The memory of that roaring case of hiccups made him smile.
On the way to the theater she’d sat quietly, as if intimidated, but later, when he’d teased her about the champagne, she’d plucked up and done exactly as she pleased, and he had a hunch that she’d done it just to defy him. Of course, as he well knew, liquor could make one do stupid things, whether out of false courage or, as in his case, crawling into the wrong bed. And crawling into bed was exactly what he was going to do right now.
Kit unbuttoned his trousers and pulled them off, adding them to the pile made by his discarded shirt and his thin boot socks. He started to remove his flannel small clothes but stopped. Maybe Hallie wouldn’t be as angry if he weren’t in bed buck naked. It was worth a try.
He walked around to the empty side of the bed and drew back his end of the covers. Slowly, he got into the warm, soft bed. It was heaven, and the muscles of his neck and back relaxed on a real mattress. It was almost as if they sighed with the forgotten comfort of a real, honest-to-goodness bed. An instant later he was sound asleep.
Abner opened his eyes.He had fallen asleep, crouched in the costume trunk, and had no idea how long he’d slept. The muscles of his legs were asleep. He listened intently. There was nothing but silence.
Very carefully, he wedged open the trunk and peered out through the crack. As the crack slowly widened, inch by inch, he watched, praying he wouldn’t be caught. The room was almost as dark as the interior of the trunk. No stage lamps were lit and there were no windows backstage to let in light or give him an idea of the time.
The theater appeared empty. He crawled out of the trunk, willing his tingly legs to support him. After a few moments respite, allowing the feeling to return to his legs and making sure he was truly alone, he walked over to the draped doorway, and peered into the black theater. It, too, was empty.
A narrow ell hid a small door. Abner carefully slid the bolt, and opening the door a crack, saw that it led outside, into the alley. He left, making his way to the street, where the pale glow in the east signaled dawn.
Twenty minutes later the pain was back. Abner leaned against a pier post, grabbing his middle in reaction to the stabbing ache that knifed up from deep in his bowels. He stumbled forward as the sharp pain subsided, but within seconds another consumed him.
Stooped, he moved along the barrel pier that bobbed its way to the opium ship. Wave after painful wave ripped through his addicted body, and he grasped the rope rail, pulling himself past the storage ships out to the end of the wobbly pier where, in a dank hold, smoldering, black balls of relief awaited him.
His nose began to run, and he wiped it with the grimy sleeve of his woolen coat. Grasping the rope ladder, he climbed to the deck, and that was when he sneezed, over and over, as the recurring fit took control of his deteriorating body. Sneezing uncontrollably, he stumbled into the hold, heading for the brazier guarded by the old, hollow-eyed woman. Through eyes raining with tears, he grabbed the long needle that held the drug—his drug.
Again the pain came, starting at his rectum and serrating upward until his head throbbed with it. He sucked up the smoke, taking in quick, panting sips of the narcotic vapor that governed his mood and decayed his mind. He moved to a bunk, still drawing on the smoke, and lay down, sticking the needle into a hole whittled into the rough wood of the bunk. Then he stared, unseeing, while his mind painted rich, chimerical images that surpassed anything he could view with his watery eyes.
Automatically, he turned his head and inhaled, the deep needle holder having positioned the gummy ball conveniently near his musty pillow. He dreamed of wealth, parties, and balls; he dreamed of success, social acceptance, respect; he dreamed of his maternal estate, of his mother and the horses she loved, of the hunt.
And he remembered the trunk.
His teeth ground together until his jaw shook with anger, and his long fingers rolled into rock-hard fists. He was the hunted, the fox. Abner Moffatt Brown, forced to hide like a hunted animal. The dream metamorphosed into a nightmare where red-coated hunters surrounded him, screaming, “His father’s son! His father’s son!” Their screams became a chant, “Weakling... coward... failure...” The hunters’ hands held pistols, the butt end of each gun facing him as he cowered, and the hunters egged him to use the gun, as his father had.
Abner opened his mouth and sucked in more smoke, and then the image changed. The small, cowering fox bared his teeth, and the animal’s jaw grew. The fox became a lion, roaring his rage and charging the hunters, who now had faces: Hayes, Prescott, and the man who was being crushed in the lion’s jaw, the man who’d cornered the fox—Kit Howland.
Abner laughed, for the fox had grown into a lion and exacted his revenge.
20
Kit awoke with a start. His muscles didn’t ache. He was in a bed, a soft, warm, heavenly bed. Then he remembered Hallie. He was on his side, facing the edge of the bed, so he couldn’t see if she was awake. He stared at the wall for a minute, trying to decide how he could turn over and not wake her. She was liable to clobber him—or kick him onto the floor, as she had before. Closing his eyes, he groaned and rolled over, flinging his arm up above his head so he could open one eye and peer from under his arm. The bed was empty.
