“Another new recruit.”
Then it slid and scrabbled away and was gone.
Once Grosvenor was sure the wild-eyed Rose had regained control of his instincts, he released the man’s wrist. Rose lowered his arm but refused to holster his weapon.
Lyman, meanwhile, had pushed himself to a sitting position against the wall. He studied Grosvenor with a steely glare.
Rose began to babble questions: What is it? How does it talk? Grosvenor, for some minutes, expounded upon the nature of the thing they’d just now witnessed, including its conjectured origins, its behavior and intelligence, and its facility for speech. Certain specifics and details he left obscured. Lyman, by way of silent expressions that passed across his face, indicated he did not agree with Grosvenor on every point; and Grosvenor, observing these wordless criticisms of his lecture, felt a spike of irritation so severe it surprised even him. He wished Rose would hit Lyman again.
“But it listened to you,” said Rose. “It obeyed you as would a hound.”
“Precisely,” said Grosvenor. “It is a stupid beast, easily controlled by sticks and carrots. I have it under my thumb.”
“You trained it?”
“As a horse is broken, so I broke it.”
“And yet you also say it dwells underground, tunneling like a mole.”
“Yes.”
“Might not it be used to fetch as a dog fetches?”
Grosvenor answered with pretended indifference. “Perhaps.”
“It occurs to me there might be some use for such a beast,” said Rose. “I grew up not far from Dahlonega in northern Georgia. You’ve heard of it?”
“Of course,” said Grosvenor in an uneasy tone. The town had been the nexus of a gold rush less than two decades before; the hills were so fertile with the stuff that the U.S. Mint had opened a branch office in Dahlonega to strike coins.
“Most of the gold around Dahlonega is played out,” Rose said. “As a result, many of the old claims considered exhausted can be bought cheap. If someone were to buy up some deeds and then have a fresh go at them with this trained mole of yours, who knows what wealth it could uncover.”
Grosvenor shook his head. “Unfortunately, the creature you saw is old and too large to transport so far a distance.”
“Are there any more of them?”
“I’m afraid it’s the last of its kind.”
Lyman said, “It’s pregnant.”
Like the shadow of some maleficent sundial, Grosvenor’s head rotated slowly to cast Lyman into the darkness of his stare.
Rose laughed. “Well now boy, is that a fact?”
“It is,” said Lyman. “It’s preparing to lay its eggs soon.” He sat with one hand over his swelling eye, the rest of him loose and ready like a hawk on tree branch, observing events below, waiting.
“It’s easier to train a pup than a toothless hound. Is what he says true, Mr. Grosvenor?”
Grosvenor mumbled something.
“Say again? I didn’t catch that.”
“Yes,” said Grosvenor louder, “I believe Mr. Lyman to be correct.”
“But, Mr. Grosvenor, didn’t you just say it’s the last of its kind?” The easygoing malice, so recently directed toward Lyman, now focused on the other man. “Forgive me, but didn’t it take Adam and Eve to make Cain and Abel?”
Grosvenor took a deep breath. “Yes, but it’s a matter of when. A child gestates in the course of forty weeks. But the gestation of an elephant is nearly two years. A whale is almost as long. For an animal as ancient as this, who can say? Forty years, forty decades, maybe. Regardless, the male is long dead.”
Lyman said, “As far as you know,” but neither of the other men acknowledged him.
“Mr. Rose,” said Grosvenor, “I’m sorry to have given you a fright with an appearance of our local wildlife, but may I remind you of the bargain the two of us struck not more than an hour ago in my office. You are to remove this—” he pointed at Lyman “— this criminal from Bonaventure henceforth and take him to New York for justice, and in return for leading you to him, I am owed a finder’s fee of twenty percent of any monies found in his possession.”
“I take it our arrangement of an extra twenty dollars a month is voided,” said Lyman.
Grosvenor regarded him coolly. “Why settle for an annuity when the principal can be withdrawn as a lump sum?”
“Of course. But I’m curious. Am I the only one with whom you’ve made a special arrangement at Bonaventure?”
“I will put it to you this way, Mr. Lyman,” said Grosvenor. “You may be something special to my daughter, but you’re nothing special to me.”
Rose walked over to the cistern and pulled up the rope with the bag at the end. He dashed away from the edge before opening the bag. His examination produced a low whistle.
“I am a man of my word, Mr. Grosvenor,” said Rose. “I’ll give you your twenty percent. However, I should add that my employer, Mrs. Tallmadge, has stated that, as an incentive, whomever locates Caleb may keep his stolen money as reward, which means I now possess the remaining eighty percent.” Rose held up the bag. “It therefore appears I am in a position to purchase some of the eggs of this strange turkey you’ve been growing here on your farm.”
“That’s quite out of the question.” Grosvenor’s voice trembled.
Rose fingered his pistol and said to him, “I’m not asking any question.”
•••
Grosvenor awoke from his first sleep and lay listening. His wife breathed softly beside him; the house silent save for the typical creaks. Checking his pocket watch on the nightstand was impossible in the inky darkness, but he judged the hour past midnight. He pecked his wife on the forehead, rose, and dressed.
Downstairs, as soon as Grosvenor touched the floorboards, Rose threw off the blanket and sat up on the small couch in the parlor. Something inside Grosvenor sank.
The yard under a new moon was just as impenetrable as indoors, and only the light of the men’s half-hooded lantern illuminated the clouds of frosty breath as they puffed their way to the stone house, with a
