“So you became Oberon—King of the Fairies in A Midsummer Night’s Dream?”
“Yes. But long before Shakespeare got hold of him, the name appeared in an early-thirteenth-century epic poem by Huon de Bordeaux. He referred to Oberon as ‘an elven man of the forest,’ and I liked that. Plus, I just like his part in the play . . . that very clever bit with Bottom, for example. The fact that I am fond of donkeys might enter in.”
“And is that your Puck?” Mary gestured to a striped imp, a golden-mantled ground squirrel that had been sniffing and jigging about the interlopers ever since they’d arrived on its stone. Observed, the rodent vanished as if embarrassed, then reappeared a few rocks off. They both laughed. A chipmunk chipped, scratched its cinnamon side, and flicked its russet tail as it held ground on an orange-sherbet rock. A ladybird beetle flew by like a saffron chip on the air. A handful of pink pellets Mary had collected from around her feet rattled down the boulder face as she let them go and spoke again. “But tell me: Might I have heard of your experiment here?”
“Sure. We’ve placed notices in the pagan press and in several ecological and peace journals: ‘Magdalena Mountain, a new Grove of the Pan-Pacific League, seeks residents who place peace and nature above all,’ et cetera, et cetera. Since then, a small but steady stream of applicants and inquiries have come in. Few are accepted. Druggies, nature voyeurs, and the ambitious we ferret out right away, as well as the would-be messiahs, narcissists, and metaphysical gamers—you know, those New Agers we were talking about who are all over the board and confuse oatmeal with ideas.”
“So what kinds of people have you admitted?”
“Naturalists, field biologists, burned-out conservation radicals, a few abos . . .”
“Abos?”
“Not real aboriginals. Native Americans have shown no interest in us, possibly because we seem redundant or latecomers to their view of life. These are folks interested in a hunter-gatherer, nontechnological lifestyle. They call themselves abos—but most are too antisocial even for us. We get the odd intellectual interested in the human-nature nexus. We come from every walk of life, as they say. I, since you ask, have done many kinds of work in many different places. I was attracted by the chance to do something worthwhile, situated in one place for a change. So we’re quite diverse, really. Though so far, no women have been admitted.”
The mountain sky had clouded, and so did Mary’s face. “For God’s sake, why?” she nearly shouted, putting Puck in his place beneath the rocks for minutes to come.
“It bugs me as much as it does you, I promise,” Oberon said. “We all deplore the fact—all except Attalus, whom you haven’t yet met, in a wakeful state at least. For now, as the church’s representative, he has veto power over major decisions.”
“So what is his problem?”
“He’s a classic misogynist, of the bad old school. He thinks women have a place, all right, and it’s nowhere near him. He was furious that I insisted on bringing you here when we found you. He’s after you, and he’ll get rid of you if he can.”
Mary bristled, and shuddered. “He’ll have to put his back into it to dislodge me now, if the rest of you want me here.”
“You know we do.”
“But you haven’t examined my application,” Mary protested with a hint of a smile. “How do you know I’m not a narcissistic whatever?”
Oberon smiled. “You came to us by a kind of grace, and you’re welcome to stay as long as you want. Attalus will have his way over several of our dead bodies.” As they spoke, the sun swooped down onto the crown of Magdalena Mountain, then dropped below the edge. A beam shot through a gap on the western arête, falling onto the chapel. “Godbeams,” he said, laughing.
“But no laughing matter, this Attalus character. Should I be afraid of him?”
“At least vigilant. He hates you, though he doesn’t even know you, and he fears you more. He would have you put out, or down, without compunction. He actually wanted me to leave you in the road to die that night, and he cursed the fact that you were still alive!”
Mary shivered, whether from the rising cool, the enmity, or both.
“He imagines that you are a harlot and a sorceress, come to ruin us. Really believes it!”
“I’ve been there before,” she murmured.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Well, it’s nothing new, is it? But what should I do?”
“Just stay away from him for now, and be alone as little as possible. I’ll be sleeping in the next cell, with an ear cocked. And I’ve asked a friend of mine, a woman named Annie, to share your room for a night or two, if you’re willing.”
“I am. Then what?”
“This is Sunday. Tuesday is our Forest Meeting, where we discuss whatever’s on our minds and plates and attempt to reach consensus on any issues. After that, one of you will likely leave—and it won’t be you, if I can help it.”
Mary asked, “Is there a Queen of the Fairies?”
“Titania”—Oberon paused and cleared his throat—“has proven elusive.”
Now it was cool dusk. A muskrat parted the surface of the beaver pond below with wavy-tailed ripples. Growing chilly yet reluctant to leave their stone aerie, Mary and Oberon watched its progress. A damp, musky-sweet breeze rose off the willow bog, bending the wispy stalks of grass over the edge of the rock against the dark conifers. Let this mad monk do his worst, Mary thought; I’ve known still worse. For blessed moments, dangers retreated before a rising mountain moon.
22
“Oberon!” The shout came from across the highway. “Come!”
“Who’s that?” Mary whispered.
“It’s Xerxes. We’d better do as he says—something must be wrong. Hurry down, but watch your step—that gravel is slippery.” They retraced the path and hastened across the road to the chapel, where they encountered the panting monk.
“What is it, Xerxes?” Oberon demanded.
The big man struggled for his breath and his voice. His normally placid face was contorted and flushed in the last light, whether more from exertion or agitation it was hard to tell. “It’s Attalus, Oberon. He telephoned the mental health authorities in Denver about Mary and summoned them.”
Mary gasped.
“Now they’ve come for her, claiming she’s a runaway from an institution of some kind, in need of care. They mean to take her away.” Xerxes had a quaver in his voice, and he avoided Mary’s eye.
“No!” Mary cried. “They can’t take me back there. I’ll die first! Oberon, Xerxes, help me. Don’t let them!” She felt an old sick feeling climbing her stomach walls with crampons on.
“Come into the chapel.” Oberon drew her inside, then guided her up a narrow staircase into the tiny choir loft. “Now, here—you see, among the panels? This is a door. Behind it, a hidden compartment. It’s a mock monk’s hole, like the ones where the clergy used to hide from the various persecutions in Europe. Built just for fun, I’ll bet, when this folly was erected. I found it while looking for someplace to stow the paraphernalia of the old order and other things. I doubt Attalus knows anything about it.”
Looking into the black hidey-hole, Mary asked, “You want me to hide there?”
“Not now. Just wait up here until I come for you. But if you hear anyone else, duck inside. It’s not bad; I cleaned it out and stashed some extra robes in there. You can wrap up in them. There’s even some reading material—though I doubt it would interest you, and besides, it’ll be pitch-black inside. Now, Xerxes, let’s see about this invasion.”
When they entered the monastery, they found two strangers seated in the hallway. They looked up. Attalus was nowhere to be seen.
“Can I help you, gentlemen?” Oberon offered, expressionless.
“Are you in charge around here?” one of them asked.
“As much as anyone. May I offer you something after your drive?”
“Never mind that,” the same one shot back. “We unde
rstand you have a woman named Mary Glanville here.”
“She has been,” parried Oberon, “and may be again. What do you want with her?”
The second man spoke. “The young woman walked away from a care facility in Denver. We’d like to return her so that she may continue her treatment in safety.”
Oberon shot back, “Apparently your ‘treatment’ amounted to drugging her silly. Since she has been with us, Ms. Glanville, if that’s her name, has fully recovered her faculties.” He paused, calmed himself, and continued. “Who are you, and who gives you the right to show up and take someone against her will?”
The paunchier of the two, dressed in a polyester suit beneath a zip-lined raincoat, replied, “I’m Sam Tonkin, State Department of Social Service.” He nodded at his taller companion, who actually wore a white coat.
“And I’m Dr. Mitchell Ziegler, of the Denver Mental Health Corporation. We contract with the state of Colorado. I’m the state-appointed psychiatrist for the Mid-Continent Care Center, where the patient belongs. We’ve come to take her back there.”
“She left for a reason,” Oberon flicked back in his face. “Your ‘home’ was no kind of home for her. Why should we allow you to take her, even if she were still here?” Voices were rising, robed men assembling. The outer door opened, and a woman entered. She stood wide-eyed, exchanged brief looks with Oberon, and remained beside the door.
“Is that her?” Tonkin asked.
Ziegler said no, it was not; Mary was brunette.
“Look, mister,” said Tonkin. “This woman is a charge of the state. She had a bad wreck and got brain damage. She has delusions, and she may represent a danger to herself or others. Now, you’d best cooperate with us.”
“Mary got herself here,” said Oberon. “She’s capable, in control, and harmless. Since when does an accident make her subject to incarceration or suspension of her civil rights?”
“Mr. Oberon.” The doctor stepped between Tonkin and Oberon. “In my professional opinion, this unfortunate woman—Mary—needs further care and confinement. It is our responsibility—”
“Further sedation, you mean. Did you ever examine her undrugged?”
“Well, I attempted to interview her upon admission,” said Ziegler. “She couldn’t, or wouldn’t, speak. Later she managed a few words for the nurse and the center director, but her speech became hysterical and then degenerated into delusional nonsense.”
“Now, Dr. Ziegler, she is articulate and cogent,” said Xerxes.
“I’d be very happy to see that. Will you please bring her here?”
“Have you got a warrant? Or anything that empowers you to remove a person from a religious sanctuary?” asked Oberon. “Because if you haven’t, you’re wasting your time, and ours. Intimidation may work with your patients, but not here.” Mutters of approval rose around them. “Or do you intend to abduct her by force?”
“We’ve got no warrant, mister,” said Tonkin. “But it’s our job, and we intend to finish it. We’ve had a complaint from one of your people, who says he is in charge and claims that the escapee is unwanted and disruptive and in need of medical attention.”
“Attalus!” snorted Sylvanus and several others at once.
Now Xerxes spoke again. “Gentlemen, what you’ve heard is mistaken. One of our number, it is true, is dissatisfied in the matter. But he is at odds with the rest of us on several issues, essentially a malcontent. He has an ax to grind that has nothing to do directly with Ms. Glanville. Nor is he here to speak for himself.” Silence for a moment, and then he continued. “Mary is welcome here. She has behaved rationally and has caused no trouble. She has been examined by a qualified physician and is pronounced healthy. Your informant is a minority of one, with no authority in this matter.” Xerxes kept his cool better than Oberon would have.
“Just the same,” retorted Tonkin, “we’ve come for her, and we intend to take her back.”
“Well, you sure as hell won’t have her,” blurted Oberon. “I hate to deny our hospitality to anyone, but I hereby expel you from this monastery in the name of . . . hell, just get the fuck out!”
They hesitated. The woman by the door asked, “Oberon, shall I call the sheriff?”
Oberon looked the visitors in the eyes. “Gentlemen?”
Tonkin and Ziegler bought the bluff and turned. Annie held the door open and Xerxes ushered them out.
No one said goodbye, but as he stalked away, Tonkin growled, “They’ll be sorry for this.”
“Threats won’t help,” said Ziegler, and their voices trailed off as car doors slammed shut and the state motor pool Plymouth rolled down the drive. Once on the highway, Tonkin punched the accelerator and continued to fulminate. “Bunch of goddamned kooks, dressed in bathrobes and harboring mental deficients.”
“Sam! She isn’t deficient, she’s injured—you’ve got to learn a new language if you’re going to make it in this job. And you know we have no real authority here. Besides, if, as they say, Mary has improved, maybe she really is better off here.”
“Stuff it, Doc! I knew this kind of crap would happen when I agreed to transfer from Corrections. There, you know where you stand. God, I miss my badge! I know where she’d be better off. And Ames will have my ass for breakfast for coming back empty-handed after the escape got in the Post. With the quarterly review coming up for the agency, for Christ’s sake!”
“The timing is unfortunate,” Ziegler agreed.
“Well, why the hell didn’t you give me more backup in there? Anybody’d think you were on their side!”
“If what they say is so, maybe I am. It’s the patient’s side I’m supposed to be on, remember? You, too. But you’re so damned concerned about your own hide that you forget entirely about our clients’ well-being. Maybe it’s that way in Corrections . . . maybe that’s why the jails are overflowing. But I’d like to think we still care about the people in our . . . well, our care. There’s no therapy like community, and she sure wasn’t getting much of that at the center. Besides—we’re way out of your jurisdiction here.”
Throughout the encounter, Mary had clung to the railing in the choir, ready to dart into the monk’s hole at the approach of footsteps in the gravel outside. The soft light of votive candles and an iron lamp dimly illuminated the chapel’s interior. For the first time, Mary had a chance to examine the intimate space of the tiny church. She saw that the walls were stone within as well as without, pale granite flecked with black mica, daubed with lichens, banded by gray mortar. The vaulted wood ceiling ran to galleries at both ends, one of which Mary occupied. A polished red-granite altar stone stood upon a rough pink granite base and a maroon floor of Lyons flagstones. Varnished wainscoting echoed the dark shine of the pews.
Narrow niches held effigies of Jesus and his mother on either side of a rough-hewn crucifix, fresh mountain flowers in a brass vase at its base. In the arched windows, stained glass reflected the candles in yellow, green, and blue. Mary, from her own niche, could not see another window below her, nor would mere moonlight have lit up its vivid art nouveau portrait of Mary Magdalene, gowned in red, blue, and green. But she could see the graceful marble of the Holy Mother on a pedestal beside the stairs, jar of unguent in her hand. She seemed to be looking up at the living Mary, as if neither could take her eyes off the other. Mary’s eyes shone with moonlight and fearful tears. She gathered a green cloak about her and prepared to do what thousands of clerics had done during the dissolution of the monasteries in England and other terrors over the centuries of persecution. She quivered in her waiting.
Then the spray of gravel on steel as her own persecutor tore out, punching the car onto Highway 7, pointing south. Soon, footsteps ended her vigil. Mary shrank into a shadow until Oberon called softly, “It’s all right, Mary, it’s me. They’re gone.”
He climbed the stairs, knelt beside Mary, and held her for some time as she trembled. When the shaking subsided, there among the soft green robes in the choir loft o
f the chapel, Mary took him to her.
23
July 10. Idaho Springs. Traditionally, I stop off at Loveland Pass to chase Magdalena alpines about this time. Most years, this is the peak of the flight period for fresh males, and the females have just begun to appear. So it was today. Conditions couldn’t have been better for alpines or alpine hunters. And since I took none on that fine Front Range peak before getting stuck overnight, I worked doubly hard today.
My scruples retreated before the bright sunshine. I crisscrossed the easy-to-reach rockslide, tracking the black beast back and forth and up and down. What a day! I caught twelve good males, three fine females, and observed a courtship, a spider catch, and four nectaring episodes. Constantly, Milbert’s tortoiseshells dashed at Magdalenas in apparent courtship approaches. The Maggies paid little attention. But whenever an alpine sailed near a perching tortoiseshell, the Milberts would blast off at it. The pairing of the fire-rimmed nymphalid and the ebony alpine in flight made a striking motion picture. Detailed observations follow, for George or whoever might find them of use.
July 13. Made my way on foot across Rollins Pass, an old and no doubt heart-stopping narrow-gauge railroad route. It still is, heading down the other side—I hopped a D&RGW freight at Winter Park, jumped off here in Steamboat Springs. A railroad official spotted me, but didn’t look twice. In this recession, it seems there are almost as many people riding the rails as there were in the Depression. The ones I met were Vietnam vets, now home and hurt and disillusioned, wondering what it was all for.
Now I’ll begin my old circuit of the high passes and parklands, working south, hitching and walking. It’ll be fine to be back in familiar country, to breathe nothing but the rarefied air of the Rockies, to find the good butterflies where I expect to find them—once I get past the gas fumes and glitz of all the once-pretty mountain towns gone to ski-burbs.
Magdalena Mountain Page 17