Douglas Preston - White Fire

“Here we are.” He held up an old photocopy. “Doyle’s diary. Properly, of course, the man should be referred to as ‘Conan Doyle,’ but that’s such a mouthful, isn’t it?” In the dim light, he flipped through the pages, then began to read aloud:

…I was in London on literary business. Stoddart, the American, proved to be an excellent fellow, and had two others to dinner. They were Gill, a very entertaining Irish MP, and Oscar Wilde…

He paused, his voice dying into a mumble as he passed over some material, then rising again as he reached a passage he deemed important.

…The highlight of the evening, if I may call it that, was Wilde’s account of his lecture tour in America. Hard to believe, perhaps, but the famed champion of aestheticism attracted huge interest in America, especially in the West, where in one place a group of uncouth miners gave him a standing ovation…

Corrie began to fidget. She had so little time to waste. She cleared her throat. “I’m not sure Oscar Wilde and Sherlock Holmes are quite what I’m looking for,” she said politely. But Bloom continued to read, holding up his finger for attention, his reedy voice riding over her objections.

…Towards the close of the evening, Wilde, who had indulged a great deal in Stoddart’s excellent claret, told me, sotto voce, a story of such singular horror, of such grotesque hideousness, that I had to excuse myself from the table. The story involved the killing and eating of eleven miners some years previous, purportedly by a monstrous “grizzled bear” in a mining camp called Roaring Fork. The actual details are so abhorrent I cannot bring myself to commit them to paper at this time, although the impression left on my mind was indelible and one that will, unfortunately, follow me to the grave.

He paused, taking a breath. “And there you have it. Eleven corpses, eaten by a grizzly bear. In Roaring Fork, no less.”

“Roaring Fork? You mean the glitzy ski resort in Colorado?”

“The very one. It started life as a silver boomtown.”

“When was this?”

“Wilde was there in 1881. So this business with the man-eating bear probably took place in the 1870s.”

She shook her head. “And how am I supposed to turn this into a thesis?”

“Nearly a dozen skeletons, eaten by a bear? Surely they will display exquisite perimortem damage — tooth and claw marks, gnawing, crunching, biting, scraping, worrying.” Bloom spoke these words with a kind of relish.

“I’m studying forensic criminology, not forensic bearology.”

“Ah, but you know from your studies that many, if not most, skeletal remains from murder victims show animal damage. You should see the files we have on that. It can be very difficult to tell the difference between animal marks and those left by the murderer. As far as I can recall, no one has done a comprehensive study of perimortem bone damage of this kind. It would be a most original contribution to forensic science.”

Very true , Corrie thought, surprised at Bloom’s insight. And come to think of it, what a fabulous and original subject for a thesis.

Bloom went on. “I have little doubt at least some of the poor miners were buried in the historic Roaring Fork cemetery.”

“See, that’s a problem. I can’t go digging up some historic cemetery looking for bear victims.”

A yellow smile appeared on Bloom’s face. “My dear Corrie, the only reason I brought this up at all was because of the fascinating little article in the Times this very morning! Didn’t you see it?”

“No.”

“The original ‘boot hill’ of Roaring Fork is now a stack of coffins in a ski equipment warehouse. You see, they’re relocating the cemetery on account of development.” He looked at her and winked, his smile broadening.

Along the Cote d’Azur in the South of France, on a bluff atop Cap Ferrat, a man in a black suit, surrounded by bougainvillea, rested on a stone balcony in the afternoon sun. It was warm for the time of year, and the sunlight gilded the lemon trees that crowded the balcony and descended the steep hill to the Mediterranean, ending in a strip of deserted white beach. Beyond could be seen a field of yachts at anchor, the rocky terminus of the cape topped by an ancient castle, behind which ran the blue horizon.

The man reclined in a chaise longue covered with silk damask, beside a small table on which sat a salver. His silvery eyes were half closed. Four items sat on the tray: a copy of Spenser’s Faerie Queene ; a small glass of pastis; a beaker of water; and a single unopened letter. The salver had been brought out two hours ago by a manservant, who now awaited further orders in the shade of the portico. The man who had rented the villa rarely received mail. A few letters bore the return address of one Miss Constance Greene in New York; the rest came from what appeared to be an exclusive boarding school in Switzerland.

As time passed, the manservant began to wonder whether the sickly gentleman who had hired him at excessively high wages might have suffered a heart attack — so motionless had he been these past few hours. But no — a languid hand now moved, reaching for the beaker of water. It poured a small measure into the glass of pastis, turning the yellow liquid a cloudy yellowish green. The man then raised the glass and took a long, slow drink before replacing it on the tray.

Stillness returned, and the shadows of afternoon grew longer. More time passed. The hand moved again, as if in slow motion, again raising the cut-crystal glass to pale lips, taking another long, lingering sip of the liqueur. He then picked up the book of poetry. More silence as the man appeared to read, turning the pages at long intervals, one after another. The afternoon light blazed its last glory on the façade of the villa. From below, the sounds of life filtered upward: a distant clash of voices raised in argument, the throbbing of a yacht as it moved in the bay, birds chattering among the trees, the faint sound of a piano playing Hanon.

And now the man in the black suit closed the book of poetry, laid it upon the salver, and turned his attention to the letter. Still moving as if underwater, he plucked it up and, with a long, polished nail, slit it open, unfolded it, and began to read.

Nov. 27

Dear Aloysius,

I’m mailing this to you c/o Proctor, in hopes he’ll pass it along. I know you’re still traveling and probably don’t want to be bothered, but you’ve been gone almost a year and I figured maybe you were about ready to come home. Aren’t you itching by now to end your leave of absence from the FBI and start solving murders again? And anyway, I just had to tell you about my thesis project. Believe it or not, I’m off to Roaring Fork, Colorado!

I got the most amazing idea for a thesis. I’ll try to be brief because I know how impatient you are, but to explain I do have to go into a little history. In 1873, silver was discovered in the mountains over the Continental Divide from Leadville, Colorado. A mining camp sprang up in the valley, called Roaring Fork after the river flowing through it, and the surrounding mountains became dotted with claims. In May of 1876, a rogue grizzly bear killed and ate a miner at a remote claim in the mountains — and for the rest of the summer the bear totally terrorized the area. The town sent out a number of hunting teams to track and kill it, to no avail, as the mountains were extremely rugged and remote. By the time the rampage stopped, eleven miners had been mauled and horribly eaten. It was a big deal at the time, with a lot of local newspaper articles (that’s how I learned these details), sheriff’s reports, and such. But Roaring Fork was remote and the story died pretty quickly once the killings stopped.