Chapter Seven:

 

They had walked for another two hours or so, and the early afternoon sunlight had begun to dwindle as it moved toward sunset to come, when Dorothy noticed that the yellow brick road had become far less well marked and maintained than it had been in the earlier stages of the journey.

The huge dark trees of the forest they were passing through pressed close to the sides of the road and their dense foliage overhead strangled off many of the golden rays of afternoon sun before they could reach the yellow bricks below. The cheerful yellow color of the road looked sad and muted in the dimness. Sounds of small animals and distant birds and ominous unidentified crashings and thrashings in the thick brush beneath the trees added to the overall less than enjoyable atmosphere of the forest.

"Is this the haunted forest?" Dorothy finally asked the Scarecrow, making certain she kept the unease she felt strictly out of her voice.

"No, but there's a path through here that leads to it. We're actually very close just here, not more than three leagues, I'd say. Still, this forest is certainly not as bad as the haunted forest. No spooks, even if there are wild animals."

"Wild animals?" Dorothy asked, wondering if she ought to have her gun drawn at this point.

"Like wolves, do you mean?" asked Margot, staring into the impenetrable darkness of the close growing trees. "Or wild boars? Or maybe . . . GOATS?"

Margot was terrified of goats, given their predilection for eating anything, including tin. 

"Well, I was thinking more on the order of lions and tigers and bears," explained the Scarecrow. "Of course, one doesn't often see bears, lions AND tigers in the same habitat, and lions are primarily savanna and veldt adapted cats, but many of the animals that have been exiled from the Emerald City Zoo wind up in this forest. There's a sort of a halfway house for zoo refugees not far from here."

"Lions?" asked Margot.

"And tigers?" asked Dorothy.

"And bears," repeated the Scarecrow, who, alone among them, did not look particularly concerned.

"Halfway house?" Dorothy asked, curiosity winning out over trepidation.

"Mm-hm," the Scarecrow said. "To help the zoo animals adapt to life in the wild. They run it themselves, take turns handling the administration chores. It's a big help for some of them, so I've heard."

"Why would they be thrown out of the zoo?" Margot asked.

"Oh, different reasons. Some won't play to the crowds; you know, won't growl and look fierce. Others can't get along with the keepers, try to eat them . . . things like that. It's really very sad."

"How come you know so much about it?" Margot asked him.

"Well, I was there for a year before the cornfield.  Hadn't you heard about that, Margot? Oz thought it would be amusing to put me in the zoo, not to mention the revenue he thought it would generate for the public treasury, charging people a bit extra to gawk at me. I had a cell right next to the lion enclosure," the Scarecrow related this particular passage in his history with a smile so cold it would have kept ice cream from melting in a blast furnace.

 "I got to know a few of the animals quite well. But the joke was on Oz in the end. I claimed to have straw mold one day and they sent me to the infirmary. It was a perfect opportunity . . .  they brought in a vet tech to look at me, can you imagine that? A vet tech? Hmmph. Of course, I broke her jaw, put out her eye, and ate her tongue."

"Excuse me?" said Dorothy, staring at him, aghast. "Did you say you . . . ATE her tongue?"

"Well, of course, Dorothy.  A vet tech? It was an insult. Besides, I was bored. After all, it could have been worse. I was actually trying to kill her," he related this unspeakable exploit with utter complacency, and even a minute amount of righteous indignation.

“Told you . . .” Margot whispered to Dorothy, nodding at the Scarecrow.

"There was a huge union flap over it, unsafe working conditions and all that, and the Wizard had to have me moved," the Scarecrow went on, oblivious to Dorothy's newly troubled scrutiny.  "I was happy enough to get out of the zoo, but I have occasionally missed the lions. For some reason, I find I really like lions. Couldn't say why."

He shrugged elegantly, leaving the mystery of his unaccountable affinity with lions to the curiosity of others.

No one seemed able to think of anything further to say, so they all walked on in a constrained silence for a time.

Dorothy was reexamining her decision to let the Scarecrow out of the cornfield for the umpteenth time when she heard a sort of low pitched growling sound coming from the thick brush to the right of the side of the road.

"Rowwwrrr," growled a voice that was low pitched and threatening, yet had a curiously diffident tone for what was clearly meant to be an aggressive vocalization.

"RRRRowr. Arruhph. Rowwrr?"

Not one of the four travelers felt particularly threatened by this halfhearted growling. They all peered into the gloomy depths of the forest, trying to locate the source, more out of curiosity than any sense of danger. Not even Toto was especially alarmed.

Finally a large, tawny lion with a truly magnificent mane and a truly impressive leonine physique stepped shamefacedly out from cover.

"Aren't any of you scared?" he asked, disappointed. "I AM a lion. That ought to count for something. What if I decide to eat you?"

"All of us?" Margot asked, trying to stifle a smile.

"Hi," said Dorothy. "Did they kick you out of the zoo?"

"That's a lamb you've got there," the lion said. "I can tell because of my keen feline hunting instincts. What if I decide to eat him? Wouldn't that scare you?"

Toto gamboled up to the lion, sniffed his ankles, and then sat on the lion's left foot, thus answering his question eloquently. After a moment of disappointed hesitation, the lion reached down and petted the little lamb's head.

"Say, he's pretty cute," the lion said, in spite of himself. "How come he's got a muzzle?"

"I've noticed that this group is a bit difficult to scare," the Scarecrow said, smiling happily. "Good afternoon, Barney. Don't you remember me?"

The lion took a pair of specs out from under his mane and held them up to his amber eyes for a closer look at the Scarecrow.

"Scarecrow? Is that you? I haven't seen you since they shipped you off to the cornfield. Who let you out of there?"

Why the hell does everybody have to ask THAT, Dorothy questioned herself privately.

"Is there anybody in Oz you DON'T know?" was what she asked the Scarecrow out loud.

"Well, surely the odd confluence of events hasn't escaped you, Dorothy. In our travels, we've coincidentally encountered the only two individuals in all of Oz who can even begin to tolerate me. Outside of yourself, that is. I'd say the hand of fate is on us, wouldn't you agree?"

Dorothy was afraid he might be right, so she said nothing. The idea that fate could be so deliberately capricious was deeply disturbing to her.

"Oh, everybody knows the Scarecrow," said the lion. "He's famous. Or should that be 'infamous'? I can never remember."

"When were you exiled from the zoo, Barney?" the Scarecrow asked. "Oh, Margot, Dorothy, this is Barney, the Squeamish Lion. He used to be in the enclosure next door to me at the zoo. We used to chat quite a bit. Barney, meet Margot, the Tin Woman, and Special Agent Dorothy Gale, from Effbeeye."

"Meetcha," said Barney. "The zoo? I got kicked out two years ago. Stupidest thing. Just because I wouldn't snarl at the school tours. And they said I ate a gazelle, which was total bullshit. The lionesses were the ones who caught the damn thing. I only nibbled on a flank, you know, to look cool? Truth was, I was just trying to get laid. And now look! I end up here!"

"I'm confused," said Dorothy. "Aren't you a wild animal? Wouldn't you rather be free than locked up in some zoo?"

"That's for squares," the lion argued. "Some lions feel like they have to stand on principle, but not me. In the zoo, I had a warm place to sleep, plenty of friends, hot lioness babes everywhere, and all the Fancy Feast I could eat. Now I'm stuck out here in this godforsaken forest, trying to scare people on the road and living on squirrels! I tell you, being a lion is not all it's cracked up to be!"

"Barney never could quite reconcile himself to the predator's lifestyle," the Scarecrow explained.

"Some lifestyle!" Barney growled. "Nothing but work, work, work. You'd be surprised how fast a little squirrel can be. They put up a hell of a fight, too. And eating them raw - totally gross! I've lost forty pounds since I've been out here."

The Squeamish Lion looked so disconsolate that Dorothy felt tempted to scratch behind his ears to cheer him up. But she decided she didn't know him quite well enough for that yet.

"So," the Lion said to the Scarecrow. "What brings you out here anyway? Aren't you a little close to the haunted forest and the Wicked Witch's castle out here? The Witch really hates you, I hope you know.  He used to give me pictures of you to tear up for kitty litter when I worked for him."

"Did he?" the Scarecrow asked, apparently more gratified than offended. "I'd hate to think he'd forgotten me during my stay in the cornfield. I didn't know you'd worked for him, Barney. When was that?"

 "My first summer out of the zoo. He hired me to guard the castle gate, thought it would be neat to have a lion prowling around out there by the drawbridge. It was good gig, at first, and I was glad enough for the cat chow, ya know? But he was a total bastard to work for. Always stiffing me on my overtime. And all the flying pigs got on my nerves. I quit after a couple of months. You can't believe how pissed he was about that. Refused to pay me my severance package, the cheap sonofabitch!"

Dorothy seized on the one element of his statement that bothered her most.

"Flying . . . pigs?" she asked.

"He had this special breeding program.  Damn sick idea, really, breeding these huge oinkers to fly, but it was also pretty amazing, when you think about it. You know, Scarecrow, I gotta tell you, I'd stay away from the castle, if I were you. He's trained every last one of those disgusting things to eat straw like it was ambrosia."

The Scarecrow just laughed.  "Did he, now? Flying scarecrow-eating pigs, is it? My! Isn't that typical! I'm so glad he's spared a thought or two for me over the years. You know, I'm beginning to think I ought to pay him a visit sometime soon. It seems a bit rude to disappoint him, after he's gone to so much trouble."

Dorothy, although her acquaintance with the Scarecrow was relatively short, had nevertheless learned enough about him to regard this last remark as potential trouble. She'd learned, at the very least, that he was not in the habit of making idle threats.

Not that she didn't feel the Witch had a great deal to answer for, and not that she didn't feel a great deal of sympathy with the Scarecrow, Margot, and now Barney the Squeamish Lion. But she didn't see any good reason for the group to go out of their way to borrow trouble. Further confrontation with the Witch wouldn't get her home any faster.

 "But we're going to the Emerald City first, right?" she quickly said to the Scarecrow. "To see the Wizard? We're going to get a normal brain for you, isn't that right?"

"Hmm. I don't know.  The Witch will have to be dealt with eventually, Dorothy. He won't just let this drop. There's that Ruby Brain to consider. Sometimes it's best to be preemptive. We could be at the castle by nightfall."

"But -” Dorothy began.

"Wow!" said the Lion. "You guys are going to the Emerald City? You're gonna see the Wizard?"

"Yes, we are," Margot added firmly. "Listen, Scarecrow, I hate the Witch as much as anyone, but I want to get to the Emerald City first. I need to hook up with Judy. We can decide what to do about the Witch later, okay?"

The Scarecrow gave the issue some thought. Finally, he brightened, as though some new nefarious idea had occurred to him, and nodded agreeably.

"Well, all right, if that's what you and Dorothy want," he purred, a small smile on his lips. "We'll see Oz the Great and Powerful first. Satisfied?"

Actually, they weren't. Both Margot and Dorothy felt that he'd caved far too soon, for him, neither of them felt that this was a good thing, and they didn't like the looks of that smile at all.

"Cool!" said Barney, the Squeamish Lion, breaking the moment. "So, that's settled, then, right? Can I go with you guys? I’ve been wanting to ask Oz for something, but I was too chicken to go by myself."

"Oh?" asked the Scarecrow, blithely ignoring Dorothy and Margot's searching stares. "What did you want to ask him for, Barney?"

Barney would have blushed, had his face not been covered with glossy golden fur.

"I've been doing some nursing down at the halfway house," he mumbled. "I really like it. I want an LPN's license." He raised his beautiful cat's eyes to them defiantly, as though half daring them to ridicule his dream, and half expecting them to.

But he was underestimating his audience. No other three individuals in all of Oz could have been inclined to regard unorthodox hopes and goals with more understanding. There wasn't one of them who couldn't empathize with his unlikely desires.

"You've hooked up with the right crowd, Barney," Margot said, laughing. "I'm a tin eccentric, the Scarecrow here is as crazy as a shithouse rat, Toto can't stop screaming without a muzzle to hold his little jaw shut, and Dorothy's an alien being from another dimension. What's a little LPN's license? You've got the best chance of any of us!"

"Do you really think so?" asked Barney, who, though quite bright, was remarkably literal minded, and so tended not to immediately recognize sarcasm when he heard it. "Even though I'm a lion?"

"Hell, yeah!" Margot said, still laughing, and slapped him lightly on the back. "Right you are! It's okay with the two of you, isn't it? If he comes along?"

"Well, sure," said Dorothy, who had always been fond of cats.

"Of course it's all right," said the Scarecrow, with a friendly smile. "It will be a pleasure to have him. Barney, have you been keeping up with your reading since we last talked? Finish Marcus Aurelius yet?"

The newly enlarged party of travelers set forth again, Barney the Squeamish Lion and the Scarecrow deep in literary discussion as they walked.

Toto scampered up ahead, frolicking about the yellow brick road and stopping to nibble at some grass occasionally. Margot and Dorothy increased their pace a bit to catch him up, and Margot soon had Dorothy giggling helplessly with a little song she'd just made up as they walked.

"We're off to see the wizard," Margot sang.

"The wonderful wizard of Oz,
We hear he is a wiz of a wiz,
If ever a wiz there was,

We're off to ask the wizard,
To help us with some tasks,
But he might be short his gizzard,
If he fails in what we ask,

Because, because, because, because, BECAUSE -

Of the unspeakable things the Scarecrow does!"

Margot, laughing madly, interrupted herself here to execute a clunky but amusing two step, and Dorothy, with a slightly guilty glance backwards at the Scarecrow to make certain he was still busy talking Socrates with the Lion, finished the verse:

"We're off to see the wizard,
We hope it won't come to biting,
Don't tell him that we're coming,
We're afraid he'll go into hiding!

We're off to see the wizard,
The wonderful wizard of Oz."

And in this way, the small party of travelers passed through the deep forest, moving ever closer to the Emerald City, and their intended meeting with Oz, on which so much had come to depend.