2 Landscape in Scarlet (4 page)

Still, she liked Rose, liked the idea that she could call her up and go for a drink or antiquing
—
though
she had never done either thing, but
i
t was pleasant to have tea with someone who knew nothing about the world of lies and bureaucracy where Juliet had lived for so many years.
It let her feel normal.

Juliet watched as the
giant
pumpkin
weigh-
in started. It was slow going and involved a small crane
lifting the squash on to a livestock scale
. It was wonderful and horrifying to think that a vegetable could weigh as much as a thousand pounds.

The lesser squashes being unloaded for
punkin chunkin
were uniformly round and either Halloween orange or white
—
Caspers, Luminas
,
and La Estrellas were the white ones
.
She couldn’t remember what the orange kind were
called and didn’t want to call G
arret over to remind her.
They
all
seemed to also be of a pretty consistent
size
. Garret had explained that some competitions allowed the contestants to bring their own squash, but this was a straight
-
up test of slings
, catapults
,
and trebuchets
—
but no air cannons since there was an ordinance against discharging cannons within the town limits and there hadn’t been time for the town council to meet and vote on a waiver.
T
he one who could throw a
n eight
-
to
ten
-
pound
pumpkin the farthest would win.
The
official
distance to beat, according to the Guinness
Book of World Records
,
was
four
thousand
,
three
hundred
twenty-nine feet. It wasn’t likely to happen but the sheriff had been walking around with a gleam in his eye for weeks
muttering four-three-three-oh
and singing what he informed her was the
official
p
unkin
c
hunkin
anthem
.

Juliet shook her head
at the charming form of madness
.

Less
pleasantly, t
he balloon man was there
bright and early
, still clutching his fist of strings with creepy, long fingers
. As Juliet had predicted, bolder children approached him on a dare and the shy ones stayed back, refusing to get close, even when their parents urged them. Between sales
of sweatshirts
, which were brisk in the morning when it was chilly but slower once the sun was out, Juliet followed his
shambling
progress. He seemed to be visiting most of the booths
, leaving balloons like calling cards
. Carrie Simmons predictably flirted with him, but Juliet didn’t think her heart was in it. Though she was dressed like Morticia Addams and he made a good foil, she didn’t seem drawn to Baron
S
amedi.
He left a very traditional-looking vampire balloon tied to the leg of her tent.
Juliet wondered how he chose and if he were leaving some kind of message.

“You’re doing well,” Rose said. She had also been moderately busy.

“Yes.” Juliet’s Halloween trick-or-treat bags sold out almost immediately and half her
autumn-
themed
sweatshirts were gone. Next year, assuming they still held the festival, she would make more.
Also more things for smaller children would be good. She made a mental note
of that
and hoped she didn’t lose the
P
ost-it before
implementation.
It sometimes happened. It was why she usually wrote things down.
“I should have done more
children’s
t-shirts
and trick-or-treat bags
though.
I was playing it safe and underestimated.
”

“Next year. I’m thinking about adding doggie sweaters. Look at how many people brought dogs.”

“There are a lot of them,” Juliet said absently
as she considered and then rejected also making dog clothing
. “I wonder if cats would like fur toys.”

Rose brightened at this idea and began discussing the ways she might be able to get mouse hairs.

“Maybe from a pet shop,” Juliet suggested, secretly thinking it was the worst idea of all time. She wouldn’t give Marley a toy made of
real
rodent hair.

The balloon
man
continued his stroll
as they visited
and discussed merchandise
.
It was almost noon, and the shrinking shadows rested lightly only at the edges of the parking lot. A slight breeze was picking up, carrying
the
scent of redwoods and the caws of the crows that strutted around the edges of the parking lot.
Temperatures were almost warm.
Juliet
noticed some of the character actors in heavy velvet shrouds were beginning to sweat
and it made their face paint blur
.

Lulu Weston, a timid
graying
redhead who was turning from
attractive
strawberry blonde to
an equally attractive
pink frost, saw
the balloon man
coming and fled, leaving the booth to her teenaged assistant. The kid was wearing a gory t-shirt that demonstrated his taste
—
or lack of it
—
in splatter films, but he was not at ease with Comstock either.
His posture was ramrod straight and he refused to have direct eye contact.

The balloon
man
left a
helium balloon
of a half-eaten zombie victim at
Lulu’s
tent. The kid obviously thought it was cool, and the ba
lloons really were works of art
—
perhaps transfers from movie stills
—
but he took it down as soon as Comstock moved on. He obviously knew that Lulu Weston wouldn’t like it
and it clashed with her fairytale glasswork
.

Fascinated
by his progress and people’s reaction to it
, Juliet watched the bag of bones shamble along,
now wearing a slightly subdued but
,
to her, quite
obvious air of triumph, as if
pleased
that he had made the timid woman flee
and bothered a teenage boy
.
That suggested that he possessed an unpleasant nature.
She hoped
he would stop by her booth before she had to leave for the chunkin, though she knew it would probably upset Rose if he did.
His painted smile
of skeletal teeth
was
rather
nasty
and he probably had a bad aura
which only Rose could see
.
Still, Juliet wanted to meet him.

His presence wasn’t met with much enthusiasm at Hans’ booth, though the carver was polite. Darby also managed a smile
as she accepted a balloon
, but Juliet knew it was fake
and that she didn’t care for the witch balloon he left
. What was it about the man that made people so uneasy? Yes, his makeup was good, but there were several zombies and vampires strolling through the fair
that looked equally hideous
and no one seemed upset by them.
There had to be something about him up close and personal that repelled.

“Do you have any vampire baseball caps?”
a
girl of about twelve asked Juliet
, intruding on her speculation
.

“Would a
vampire
bat do?” Juliet asked, forcing her attention away from Comstock and his balloons. She had done a few caps with a bat silhouetted against the moon
which glowed in the dark
.
The
y
were fruit bats, but most people didn’t know or care.
The girl looked uncertain, probably hoping for something that said Twilight, but finally she decided that maybe a bat was okay.

Juliet asked her if she wanted a bag, but the girl chose to wear it.

The crowds were getting heavier,
especially near the food booths,
but Juliet found Comstock almost at once. He was at the ironmonger’s
tent
.
Xander, looking very much like a carnival strong man
in a striped wife-beater shirt
,
was pounding on a stake that he pulled in and out of his forge. Comstock paused outside the
tent
and looked in. Xander Lawson was at the back, the forge set up
just
outside the
booth
where there was no danger of sparks fl
y
ing up and starting a fire. When Comstock paused, Xander turned and raised his hammer in what Juliet could only describe as a very menacing manner.

The balloon man smiled
his rictus grin
, tied a balloon of someone in a blood
y
hockey mask to the tent leg
,
and passed on.

Along the way he sold a few balloons to older kids,
still
strolling casually but always looking around, and Juliet was sure that he was making for Madame Mimm’s garish tent.
She won the bet with herself, though o
nce there, he had to wait for a client to leave
before
he ducked inside. He left a balloon of a woman burning at the stake tied
to the tent flap.
He did not doff his top hat.

Juliet braced herself, half expecting there to be shouting, but nothing happened.
At least nothing she could hear above the Ghost Town Minstrels who were starting their first set of the day.
There was also distant cheering.
She waited for him to come out again, but Rose reminded her that it was noon and she had promised to wa
tch
Sheriff Garret hurl squash.

Juliet reluctantly left
off her study of the balloon man
.

Sheriff Garret was
tall and therefore easy to find. He was also
looking very wholesome and casual, wearing street clothes instead of his uniform
as he prepared for vegetable combat
. He looked and sounded cheerful, the west coast version of a good old boy. Juliet suspected he was being deliberately folksy and
acting
slightly stupid so he wouldn’t bother anyone with poor language comprehension skills.

His trebuchet was not good old boy though. It was a medieval
siege
weapon
that relied solely on gravity and counterweight for its power
—
he had explained hi
s design in excruciating detail over tuna sandwiches
the previous week
before giving Juliet a demonstration
—
and
it
flung pumpkins far enough and hard enough to make Juliet wince.
They had closed off one of the streets for the competition. She just hoped the aim was good enough that none of the old wood buildings were hit. In a contest of authentic siege machines and authentic
decrepit
shacks, her bet was the machines would win.

A horn sounded. The pumpkin gladiators went to war.

*  *  *

Juliet finally escaped the cheering crowds
who roared as loud for failed
“
pie
”
shots as they did for successful ones
that splatted on the street
.
She had done her part by being supportive, and enough was enough.
She needed food and quiet.

There was going to be a two
-
hour break for lunch and cleanup and then round two would begin. She hoped Rose was
n’t
too exasperated at her disappearing for so long.

The balloon man
was still in the lot, but
had developed a stoop and a gait that suggested he was walking on a ship being tossed by storm.

“Drunk,” Lulu Weston murmured, looking up from Rose’s weavings
which she was fingering absently
and glancing at Comstock. “But with him it’s no surprise.”