The unicorn is not a monstrous beast; it doesn’t kill for sport or spite, it lives to heal, not harm. It bears upon its brow a horn whose touch has the power to purge all poisons and make what is polluted sweet and wholesome once more. The unicorn hadn’t been trying to kill Wellcome, merely to cure him. It had touched his heart with its magical horn, intending to remove only the taint of malice and envy, leaving behind all that was good and selfless and decent in the man. No one was more surprised than the unicorn by what actually happened.
Let’s just put it this way: It was going to be one hell of an autopsy, one of the starring organs gone without an external clue to explain its vanishment. Oh well, the medical examiner would probably call it a coronary anyway, heart or no heart. Old Doc Barnett hates to make waves.
It took a goodly while to sort things out on the green. By the time Chief Dowd and the rest of the local authorities finished taking statements (“Dunno. He just sorta keeled over. Not a mark on him, see?”) and viewing the body, it was getting dark. I looked around for Greta Marie. I figured she shouldn’t try to drive herself home after all she’d been through today.
I’d been anticipated. When I found her, she told me that Bobo Riley had already offered to drive her home and she’d accepted. Despite the fact that several other Natives were within earshot, Bobo went on to say that he’d pick her up at her place come morning and take her back to town so she could recover her car next day. Then he asked her if she’d like to help him down at the hardware store by dressing up as Mrs. Claus and giving the kids candy. This was the Bowman’s Ridge equivalent of him clasping her to his manly chest, raining kisses upon her upturned face, and telling her that he desired her above all women with a raw, unbridled passion that knew no bounds. I don’t know if Greta Marie felt all the earth-heaving thrills and collywobbles I put into my books, but her eyes were shining with that special To Be Continued light.
I went home. Rachel was waiting for me by the front gate. Something was clearly wrong. Instead of her usual air of carefully cultivated angst and ennui, she was bouncing like a Labrador puppy.
“Mom! Mom! This is so cool, you’ve got to see this! I don’t think he belongs to anyone, and he is soooo gorgeous. I’ll take care of him myself, I promise, and if there’s some kind of problem with the zoning geeks I’ll pay for his board out of my own allowance, honest. Can I keep him? Can I? Can I? Pleeeeease?”
“Keep—?”
The unicorn stepped out of the lengthening shadows, rested his heavy head on my daughter’s shoulder, and—one Transient to another—grinned.
This story is respectfully dedicated to the memory of Clifton Webb.
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