I think he,s going to make it. I mean he,s not going to die. Whatever else will happen I don,t know. I can,t know. If only I could talk to Felix. I,m putting too much hope on talking to Felix."
"He,ll come back," she said.
"I want to remain here tonight. I want to stay indoors. I don,t want the change to come. Or if it does, I want to be alone with it in the forest, the way I was in Muir Woods that night when I met you."
"I understand," she said. "And you,re afraid, afraid that you can,t control it. I mean that you won,t stay here alone with it."
"I never even tried," he said. "That,s shameful. I have to try. And I have to go back down to Santa Rosa in the morning."
It was already getting dark. The last rays of the western sun had vanished from the forest and the deep dark blue shadows were broadening and thickening. The rain came, light, shimmering beyond the panes.
After a while, he went into the library and called the Santa Rosa hospital. The nurse said Stuart was running a high fever, but was otherwise "holding his own."
He had a text from Grace. The final rabies shot had been set up with Dr. Angie Cutler, Stuart,s doctor, for tomorrow morning at ten o,clock.
The night had closed in around the house.
He stared at the large photograph of the gentlemen on the wall - at Felix, at Margon Sperver, at all of them, gathered there against the tropical forest. Were they all beasts like him? Did they all gather to hunt together, to exchange secrets? Or was Felix actually the only one?
I suspect Felix Nideck was betrayed.
What could that have meant? That Abel Nideck had somehow plotted his uncle,s demise, even somehow collected money for it, and kept this knowledge from his devoted daughter Marchent?
Vainly, Reuben searched the Internet for the living Felix Nideck, but could find nothing. But what if, in returning to Paris, Felix had reentered another identity, at which Reuben couldn,t even guess?
The evening news said that Stuart,s stepfather had been released on bail. Taciturn police admitted to reporters that he was "a person of interest," not a suspect in the case. Stuart,s mother was protesting that her husband was innocent.
The Man Wolf had been spotted in Walnut Creek and Sacramento. People reported seeing him in Los Angeles. And a woman in Fresno claimed to have taken his picture. A couple in San Diego claimed to have been rescued by the Man Wolf from an attempted assault, though they did not get a clear look at anyone involved. Police were investigating a number of sightings in the vicinity of Lake Tahoe.
The California attorney general had convened a special task force to deal with the Man Wolf, and a commission of scientists had been formed to study all forensic evidence.
Crime had not slacked off due to the Man Wolf. No, the authorities were not willing to say that at all; but the police said that it had. The streets of Northern California were relatively quiet just now.
"He could be anywhere," said a cop in Mill Valley.
Reuben went to the computer and tapped out his story on Stuart McIntyre for the Observer, again leaning heavily on Stuart,s own rich descriptions of what had happened in the attack. He included Stuart,s theories as to the mysterious illness of the monster; and as in the past he closed with heavy editorial emphasis on the impossible moral problem posed by the Man Wolf - that he was judge, jury, and executioner of those he massacred and that society could not embrace him as a superhero.
We cannot admire his brute intervention, or his savage cruelty. He is the enemy of all we hold sacred, and therefore he is our personal enemy, not our friend. That he has again rescued an innocent victim from almost certain annihilation is, tragically, incidental. He cannot be thanked for this any more than an erupting volcano or an earthquake can be thanked for whatever good may follow in its wake. Speculation as to his personality, his ambitions, or even his motives must remain just that, speculation, and nothing more. We celebrate what we can - that Stuart McIntyre is alive and safe.
It was not an original piece or an inspired piece, but it was solid. And what drove it was the personality of Stuart, the seemingly invincible freckle-faced teen star of Cyrano de Bergerac who had survived a near-fatal gay bashing to