| Straight: Serial Stories: Wolf Creek Chapter 11 (4/6) |
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/> "Ah your beauty needs no compliment, my dear,” Kincaid said smoothly. “It exists above description. There, in fact, is no description that could do justice to your beauty.” “So, now you are mocking me,” Ada retorted, her eyes dancing, telling him both that she was in good humor and that he’d struck deeply with his arrow. “It is the spirit of the elk that moves me. Have you not seen that in some of my writing?” “Yes, I have. I’ve seen that you’ve used several beasts of the wild like the elk for your images of perfection.” “Ah, yes, you do understand then. I see them as everything I must possess. That’s why I want to hunt the elk—not for the sport of killing them, really, but for the need to possess them and what they represent. But . . .” and here he sighed, “it seems I won’t be hunting elk here.” “We, of course, could lay on such an outing for you,” Ada said hastily. She didn’t want to see what was likely her golden goose slip the noose. “It’s a pity that Frank is out on the range. He could have taken you on a hunt. But I can get one of the ranch hands he didn’t take with him . . .” “Ah, foisting me off on the hired help,” Kincaid said. He was smiling and gave a dry little laugh, but Ada was fearful that he more than half meant he thought he was being insulted. “Well, we’ll have to . . .” “You could take me up.” Kincaid said. “Me? But I’m no hunter. I . . .” “You are a painter, and you said yourself that you’ve already been to the timberline and captured the elk on your canvas. You know where to go. You could take me.” There was nothing else to do. Kincaid had boxed her in. But there was no way they’d be able to do this within the confines of a day. So, Ada spent the rest of the day preparing to leave the ranch in the hands of others and in gathering what she and Kincaid would need for the overnight outing. She called down to Slater, and Aunt Martha arrived by evening to take over the management responsibilities. The worst of Ada’s preparations turned out to be Estelle, who, at first declared she was going too. But Kincaid scotched this, saying she would distract him too much with her radiance—that he couldn’t have eyes for the elk while she was there. Then Estelle pouted until Ada took her into her bed after the evening’s salon and left her exhausted and at least temporarily satiated when the early morning departure time arrived. When they first started working their horses up into the foothills of Hahn’s Peak, Ada was quiet. She more than a little resented this somewhat petulant demand on her time and resources that the self-possessed novelist had made. She had little idea how to track elk and Kincaid had taken her away from all of her other guests. But J. Harvey Kincaid was a patient man, a very patient man. And he proved to be a fascinating travel companion, as profound, humorous, and lyrical in his observations of what was going on around them in the wild, beautiful Colorado mountain wilderness as he was in an opulent dining room amid gleaming silver and shining china and crystalware. |
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