Bad Grrlz' Guide to Reality: The Complete Novels Wild Angel and Adventures in Time and Space with Max Merriwell (37 page)

Max stared at the young man, then studied his smiling daughter. “Helen, would you like to marry this young man?” he asked, his voice faltering.

She smiled at him, and that was his answer. “I’ve been a poor father to you up ’til now,” he said. “And I am honored that you would consult me in this decision.” He looked at Cassidy. “Do you love my daughter?”

“I do.”

“Do you promise you will never lie to her? You’ll always tell her the truth?”

Cassidy nodded. “I will.”

Max nodded gravely, doing his best to appear paternal and feeling like a fraud. “You have my blessing.”

Helen leapt from the sofa and flew to Cassidy’s side.

“Now, that’s settled,” Max said. “Perhaps you will excuse us for a moment. I need to have a word with Audrey and…”

“Excuse me?” A bushy-haired man knocked on the door and barged into the parlor. The room was very crowded. “Mrs. Selby said I might find Mrs. North here.”

“Yes,” said Audrey. “I’m Mrs. North.”

“My name is Clemens, Samuel Clemens.” He smiled at Cassidy and Helen. “I wanted to ask you a few questions about Sarah McKensie. I hope this is a convenient time…”

“No,” Max interrupted in a tone that brooked no disagreement. “No. This is not a convenient time.”

Mr. Clemens stared at Max, taken aback. “And who are you, sir?”

Max straightened up, summoning his dignity and glaring at Mr. Clemens. “I am a counterfeiter from Chicago, and I am an artist,” he said. “I am a friend of the Wild Angel, and I am the father of this budding young actress. I am the man who intends to ask the lovely Mrs. North for her hand in marriage, and I am heartily sick of being interrupted.” He turned to Audrey and looked her in the eye. “I must tell you the truth: I have not always been an upstanding citizen. I have been a fool. I have been a liar. But I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?”

Of course, she said yes. In fact, she exchanged a look with Helen that made Max suspect that she had already known of his intentions—and his career in counterfeiting. Cassidy braved the bar to fetch more glasses, and they drank toast after toast until the sherry was gone. The Clampers, having heard the news from Mrs. Selby (in whom Cassidy had confided when he fetched the glasses) stormed the parlor and insisted that the engaged couples ride Ruby in a triumphant procession down the main street of Selby Flat.

In all the excitement, it was not until the Professor was handing the ladies down from the elephant, that Audrey realized that someone was missing. She turned to Helen and asked, “Where is Sarah? I thought she was with you.”

Helen, wide-eyed, shook her head. “I thought she was with you.”

“Not to worry, ladies,” the Professor said. “Miss Paxon spoke with Sarah right after the show.”

“That’s correct.” Miss Paxon stood by the entrance to Selby’s Hotel, smiling. “She indicated that she would be going off to spend some time with her family.”

Audrey frowned. “I am her family.”

“Of course,” Miss Paxon said. “Quite right. I meant her other family. Her pack, so to speak.”

“She’s returned to the wolves?”

“For a time.”

Max put his hand on Audrey’s shoulder. “She’ll be fine,” he said.

From high in the hills, Sarah looked down on the town of Selby Flat. In the distance, she could hear Ruby trumpeting. She smiled. It was good to know that she could visit the town, good to know that she had friends there. But she knew that she did not belong there. She was not civilized, and she did not see any advantage to becoming civilized. Better to return to the wilderness, where she belonged.

She wore the shirt that Max had given her, with the cut-off trousers that left her legs free. The dress that Audrey had insisted she wear had been entirely too confining. She had left that at the hotel. She had Arno’s knife at her side. She could make a new lariat, a new bow, a supply of arrows.

Smiling, she tipped her head back and howled, a thin call that carried through the night air. In the distance, she heard an answering howl—a chorus of wolves. Her pack was waiting for her. Without hesitation, she turned her back on civilization.

“Most writers regard the truth as their most valuable possession, and therefore are most economical in its use.”

—Mark Twain

The working title of this novel was
Sarah of the Wolves
. My editor, Beth Meacham, astutely suggested the change to
Wild Angel
, a much more lyrical and compelling title. But for me the book will always retain its original title, a direct allusion to the novel that inspired it.

As a girl, I read
Tarzan of the Apes
and all of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s other Tarzan books. My reading of the Tarzan books followed an exhaustive reading of the
Oz
books by L. Frank Baum. As a child, it seemed to me that books were similar. I (quite rightly, as it turns out) regarded Tarzan’s Africa as no more real than Dorothy’s Oz.

Burroughs knew enough not to let the facts get in the way of a rollicking adventure, and I respect him for that. I admired his willingness to rearrange reality to suit the needs of his story. If he needs a lion, a lion is there. No problem.

With that in mind, I suggest that anyone interested in quibbling with my presentation of reality take their business elsewhere. Yes, Sarah can bring down a grizzly with a bow and arrow and a lariat. After all, if Tarzan can kill a lion with a full nelson, who am I to begrudge Sarah such minor prowess with primitive weapons? This is not an historically and biologically accurate account. For those looking for such a novel, I suggest Pat Murphy’s
Nadya—The Wolf Chronicles
. Pat insists on meticulous historical research. I find it only slows me down.

Back when I was reading the
Tarzan
books, I also admired Burroughs’ ability to cut out extraneous material. In my memory, one of the most important phrases in
Tarzan
is: “Meanwhile, on the other side of the jungle…” And what was happening on the other side of the jungle was never dull.

In the first
Tarzan
book, Burroughs mentions one of Tarzan’s more unlikely friendships: “With Tantor, the elephant, he made friends. How? Ask not.” I like that. He took a firm hand with his readers, telling them simply and clearly the way things were. No apology. No explanation.

In this novel, I have adopted some of the traits that I admired in Burroughs’s work. I did not manage to incorporate the phrase “Meanwhile, on the other side of the jungle,”—but I employed similar strategies where I could. I did not use the phrase “Ask not,” but that was the attitude I chose to adopt. This is the way the world works; do not question it.

Some readers may think that the invention of E Clampus Vitus is one of the ways I have stretched the truth. Think again. The Clampers exist—and they existed at the time of the Gold Rush. They are as I have described them, a secret society dedicated to the protection of widows and orphans, particularly the widows. The Clampers meet in the Hall of Comparative Ovations. Their motto is
Credo Quia Absurdum
, “I believe because it is absurd.” Their ritual question is “What say the Brethren?” and their ritual answer: “Satisfactory!”

I was delighted to discover it was unnecessary to invent anything about the Clampers. They are fabulous—in all senses of the word—exactly as they are.

“It takes much to convince the average man of anything; and perhaps nothing can ever make him realize that he is the average woman’s inferior—yet in several important details the evidence seems to show that that is what he is.”

—Mark Twain

If you read Pat Murphy’s afterword to the novel,
There and Back Again
, you already know that I not only write fiction under my own name—but also under the pseudonym Mary Maxwell. I enjoy the challenge of writing under a woman’s name; it has forced me to attend more closely to differences in the ways that women and men approach the world.

I do not regard myself as an expert on the ways of women—but I do consider myself to be a careful observer. Like Max Phillips, my namesake in
Wild Angel
, I have noticed the glances that women sometimes exchange, looks that comment on the foolishness of men. I have observed the mysterious ways in which women communicate, recognizing signals that men don’t know that they are sending—indeed, don’t intend to send.

I do not share Max’s belief that women have a civilizing influence on men. I also do not agree with Max in his misguided notions that women need to be protected.

I believe that women and wolves have much in common. Both communicate in mysterious ways. Both avoid trouble—but both are fierce when trouble finds them. Both women and wolves are attentive to power relationships. Where men bluster, women and wolves watch, analyzing the situation. When they are ready to act, they act without hesitation.

Far from needing protection, I think young Sarah belongs among the wolves, and I’m happy to have had a hand in putting her there.

“For business reasons, I must preserve the outward sign of sanity.”

—Mark Twain

This book is the second part of a three-part project that combines aspects of a shaggy dog story, a practical joke, and a metafictional opus. Each book stands alone—but they combine to form a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Let me explain: Max Merriwell is a pseudonym of mine. He recently wrote
There and Back Again
, a rollicking space opera published by TOR Books (under my name).

Max is a pseudonym, but he is also a character of sorts. In some alternate universe, he is happily writing many novels—under his own name and under pseudonyms of his own. Each year, Max writes three novels—a science fiction novel under his own name, a fantasy novel under the pseudonym Mary Maxwell, and a mystery under the pseudonym Weldon Merrimax.

Wild Angel
is a novel that I wrote as Max Merriwell, writing as Mary Maxwell. (Or you could think of it as a novel that Max Merriwell wrote as Mary Maxwell, in some other universe.) Some characters who appeared in
There and Back Again
reappear here. (If you want to know more about Gyro and his pataphysical friends, read that book.)

Whatever the reality of Max and Mary, I am confident that I, acting alone and in my proper mind, would never have chosen to model a novel on Burroughs’s
Tarzan of the Apes
. But it’s exactly the sort of thing that Max and Mary would do.

When I began this project, I was delighted to read Gore Vidal’s introduction to the Signet Classic edition of
Tarzan of the Apes
. In that introduction, Vidal confesses to reading all twenty-three
Tarzan
books when he was growing up, a confession I find reassuring since I did the same.

As Vidal charitably notes, “Stylistically, Burroughs is—how shall I put it?—uneven. Burroughs’s characters speak in unnatural rhythms. In his plotting, Burroughs makes shameless use of coincidence; one can see the long arm of the author reaching in to arrange the characters to his liking.”

But back when I was reading
Tarzan
, I wasn’t looking for the long arm of the author. When I was reading
Tarzan
as a youngster (and even today, when I can manage to lock the Pat Murphy who writes away from the Pat Murphy who reads), I didn’t notice and didn’t care. Vidal compares Burroughs’s work to a vivid daydream, and I think he’s right. When I read
Tarzan
as a girl, the daydream carried me along and I would accept any coincidence that let me go swinging off through the jungle.

Max Merriwell is a pseudonym of mine who knows how to daydream. Mary Maxwell is a pseudonym of Max’s who shares his willingness to suspend disbelief and happily swing through the trees, dodging clunky dialogue and ignoring outrageous coincidence and chilling bits of prejudice, accepting the parts of the daydream that worked and disregarding the rest.

As a writer known for my feminist leanings, the doubly layered pseudonym added an interesting aspect to the writing of this novel. Throughout the writing of
Wild Angel
, I was aware that I was a woman, writing as a man, who was writing as a woman. Twisted and confusing, I know, but necessary in a strange way. Max has the confidence to believe that anything he writes is wonderful. Mary shares that confidence—but modifies the subject matter to match a woman’s experience.

In his introduction to
Tarzan
, Vidal wrote: “In its naive way, the Tarzan legend returns us to that Eden where, free of clothes and the inhibitions of an oppressive society, a man is able, as William Faulkner put it in his high Confederate style, to prevail as well as endure.” Mary felt it necessary to return a woman to that same Eden, and I was glad to share in the dream.

I said at the start that this three-book project is a practical joke. The joke, it seems, is on me. I have created pseudonyms who have become characters who have been writing books that I enjoy—but wouldn’t have written without them. It has been a strange and interesting experience.

I will be writing the final book in this project myself, without the assistance of my pseudonyms. That book,
Adventures in Time and Space with Max Merriwell
, deals with Max’s adventures when he is writing
There and Back Again
,
Wild Angel
, and a mystery novel (by Weldon Merrimax). The events of the novels that he is writing begin to bleed through into his reality—and his pseudonyms show up and start making trouble.

Ah—that part will be easy to write. They say that you should write what you know. And I’ve had firsthand experience with that.

Writers Karen Fowler, Angus MacDonald, Daniel Marcus, Carter Scholz, Michael Berry, Richard Russo, and Michael Blumlein took the time to read and thoughtfully comment on this manuscript. Folks at the Exploratorium understood my need to take a year’s leave to work on this three-book project—and helped make that leave possible. Gary Crounse and his colleagues Rupert Peene and Kamishiwa offered advice regarding Pataphysics. My editor Beth Meacham provided ongoing support, wise counsel, and careful editing. And my loving husband, Officer Dave Wright, kept me cheerful in times of confusion, having more faith in me than I sometimes have in myself.