The Fiery Ring (37 page)

****

Two days after this conversation Joy met Travis after the performance with an excited look in her eyes. “A man from Hollywood was here this morning. He’s thinking about using Chase and me in a feature film.”

“Would that make you happy, Joy?”

“Well, of course it would. It would give us a lot of money too. Chase doesn’t want to do it, though, and I don’t think they’ll do it with just me.”

“Joy, I wish you wouldn’t think so much about money. I wish you’d think more about the Lord.”

The words stung, and she said, “You need money to get through school, don’t you?”

“I do, but I’ll get through school one way or another.
They’ll help me at the institute. It’s just another sign that the world’s getting its hooks into you. You’re getting hard, Joy. You’re not the nice girl who used to be my sister. I hate to see it.”

This conversation with Travis disturbed Joy more than anything had in years. She respected him and loved him, and as much as she didn’t want to admit it, she knew he was right. She took her frustration out on Chase that very evening. With her mind on other things, she performed badly in the cage, leaving herself vulnerable to danger. Later, back at the menagerie, when Chase tried to gently remind her that her full concentration was required in the cage, she said, “I don’t have to listen to you. Here you are a big Christian and sleeping with your boss!” The words popped out before she could call them back, and she saw that they hit Chase like a physical blow.

“No, I’m not,” he said quietly, then turned and walked away. She wanted to call after him, but it was too late, and the opportunity was gone.

What’s happening to me?
she cried silently.
I’m getting mean, just like Travis says, and I’m losing Chase. I thought all this success would make me happy, but it’s not.

****

“Your name’s what?”

“Tom Winslow. I’m a relative of yours, Mrs. Tatum.”

“A relative? Why, how in the world is that?”

“Well, only in a roundabout way. Your sister Elaine was married to my brother Bill. I guess that makes us kinfolk in a way.”

The Tatums stared at the man with the graying red hair. “What are you here for, Mr. Winslow?”

“I’m afraid I have a rather serious matter to bring to your attention, Mr. Tatum.”

“What kind of a matter?” Tatum stood very straight, but there was a frightened look in his eyes, and he had turned pale.

“I’m an attorney, and I’ve been here for two days now, going through the records at the courthouse and doing a little investigating. I hate to tell you this, but I have evidence that you have committed a felony.”

“What are you talking about?” Opal cried out. “You can’t say that about Albert!”

“I’m afraid I have to. I have evidence that my brother’s farm sold for fifty-two thousand dollars. The mortgage on it was only for thirty-two. That meant a profit of twenty thousand dollars. According to the law,” Tom said carefully, “and my brother’s will, the three children were to share the proceeds equally. Since Dawn was killed with her parents, that means the survivors, Joy and Travis, should have received ten thousand dollars each, and the personal property belonged to them as well, including this furniture.” He saw that his words had struck Tatum so that he could not speak. “Where’s the money, Mr. Tatum?”

Tatum glanced wildly at his wife, and she could see that his hands were trembling. “You get out of my house!”

“I’ll do that, of course, but I must warn you it would be much easier if you would pay up.”

“I’m paying nothing!”

“I’m going to try hard,” Tom Winslow said, “to convince my niece not to put you in jail, and I can tell you as an attorney, you don’t have a chance of escaping it. You falsified records and embezzled twenty thousand dollars from my nephew and niece. I’m going to see justice done. If you’ll pay the money and give up the furniture and the personal effects, I’ll try to convince them not to prosecute you on a criminal charge.”

Albert shook his head. “Get out of my house!”

“Very well. If you want it that way, I’m sorry.”

As soon as Tom Winslow left and the door slammed, Opal said, “You never told me about this, Albert. We’ve got to give them their money back.”

“I did it for their own good. I invested the money. I intended to pay it back.”

Opal Tatum knew her husband. “I don’t think you’re telling the truth, Albert,” she said sadly, tears in her eyes. “And now you’re going to jail if you don’t pay the money back.”

“I . . . I don’t have it, Opal! I’ve invested it in stocks, and they’re rising every day.”

“You’ll have to sell them, and you’ll have to go to Travis and Joy and beg for mercy.”

“I’ll never do that!”

“Then you’ll go to jail, and we’ll lose this place.” Opal Tatum looked at her husband with pain in her eyes. “I hope the kids and I can find jobs so we can make a living, because that’s what we’re going to have to do—while you’re in prison.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Disaster!

The circus pulled into St. Louis for a five-day run on September twenty-third. In the two months that had passed since the day Chase and Joy had shared a kiss and admitted their attraction to one another, neither one of them had been bold enough to bring up the subject of their relationship. It seemed they were destined to be stuck in this strained awkwardness forever. Joy was grateful that at least when they were working, the cats required their full attention, so casual conversation was not expected, nor even possible.

The crowds in St. Louis were better than ever, and both Chase and Joy were delighted to discover that Tom Winslow came to see the show on their third day in town. He came to the menagerie after the act and greeted the two with a smile. “You’re getting better,” he said. “I wouldn’t get into one of those cages if you gave me the city of Chicago.”

“What a surprise to see you here, Tom!” Chase said.

“I’ve been working on a case here for the last two weeks, but I think we’ve finally got it settled. I need to talk to Joy. Is there someplace we could go? You’re welcome to join us, Chase.”

“We could go to my trailer. Just let us get the cats settled down.”

Tom Winslow watched with interest as the two spoke to every animal and fed them. “I would think you’d feed them
before
the act. Then they wouldn’t be so likely to come after you,” he remarked.

Joy laughed. “What do you feel like after you’ve eaten a big meal?”

“If it’s real big, I’m hardly able to move.”

“That’s the way the cats would be. They’d be sluggish, and we want them to be lively out there to put on a good show.”

“I never thought of that.”

As soon as the cats were filled up with horsemeat, the three went to the trailer. Joy fixed coffee, and the three sat around her little dining table while Tom told them about several members of the Winslow family, for he saw Joy was interested. “My wife keeps up with most of the Winslows, and she’s written letters to everybody telling about our new discovery. Joy Winslow, wild-animal tamer! We’re all proud of you, Joy.”

Joy flushed. “Well, I’m proud to be a part of this family. I’ve been reading Gilbert Winslow’s journal you gave me, and it’s the most exciting thing I’ve ever read in my life. He was some man, wasn’t he?”

“Yes, he was,” Tom said. “I don’t know if there’ll ever be another quite like him.”

The talk went on for some time, and finally Tom said, “By the way, I hope you two haven’t put any money in stocks.”

Chase grinned. “Stocks! We’re lucky to pay the meat bill for the cats. Why? Do you think something’s wrong with the market?”

Tom Winslow’s face grew very serious. “Haven’t you been keeping up with the news?”

“It’s hard to keep up with the news when we’re on the road all the time. But what’s this about the stock market? Isn’t that something for rich men to worry about?”

“Is there something wrong with it, Tom?” Joy wanted to know.

“Nothing you can put your finger on exactly, but it seems this country’s going crazy.” Tom Winslow sipped the coffee that was in front of him and shook his head with disgust. “Everybody’s trying to get rich. They’re buying up stocks like
there’s no tomorrow, and a lot of people are making a killing. But I just think this boom in the stock market can’t last.”

“Why can’t it last?”

“Since Hoover was elected, this bull market, as they call it, has smashed every record. I just wanted to warn you not to sink any money into it. I don’t trust the good times to last. You can go broke real quick, and that’s what’s going to happen, I’m afraid, to a lot of people.”

“That reminds me,” Joy said suddenly. “I’ll bet Albert has sunk money into it—
our
money!”

Tom looked at her with a level gaze. “That’s why I came to talk to you. I went to see them, Joy.”

“You did! What did you tell them?”

“Actually, I went to see them last summer when I had a few days off. Since then I’ve had some other business that has kept me occupied, but now I have some time I can devote to your problem. When I was up there I did a lot of investigation, but it didn’t take long. I found out that your uncle cleared about twenty thousand dollars on the sale of your dad’s place—I’ve got it in black and white.”

“What did you tell him?” Joy demanded.

“I laid it out flat. I told him that he would have to pay the money back and also that he would have to give you your furniture and any other property that belonged to your parents.”

“I bet he refused, didn’t he.”

“Well, that’s what he did. I told him he’d go to jail because he committed embezzlement. A felony like that could get a fellow twenty years.”

“Good!” Joy exclaimed and struck the table with her fist. “I hope he goes for life.”

“Wait a minute, Joy,” Chase said. “You don’t mean that.”

“Well, of course, I mean it! He’s done wrong, and he ought to pay for it.”

“There’s a verse in the psalms,” Chase said quietly, “that says, ‘If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?’ ”

Joy shook her head, her mouth set in a defiant expression. “I’m sure that makes sense to you, Chase, but all I know is I want that man put in jail. He deserves it.”

Tom was unhappy with her decision—Joy could see that plainly—but she insisted on going after the Tatums. “You can take your fee out of the money when he pays it to us.”

“There won’t be any fee, Joy. This is a family matter,” Tom said gently.

After he left, Chase said, “Travis won’t agree with you. We talked about it the last time I saw him.”

“Travis is too soft.”

“I don’t think it’s soft to be forgiving, Joy.”

“We’re going to get what’s coming to us and so is Albert Tatum, and I don’t want to talk about it anymore!”

****

After the meeting with Tom Winslow, Joy found herself preoccupied with the wrongs done to her by Albert Tatum. She thought about it constantly. A couple of weeks later she received a letter from Travis telling her that Tom had written to him and described the situation. Travis wrote:
Don’t get hard about this, sis. You and I have done things ourselves we wouldn’t want put on the front page of the newspaper. The Bible says to forgive your enemies, and I think that’s what you should do.

Joy had ignored the letter and had gone about her work. When the show moved on to Springfield, Missouri, the quality of her work began to suffer. Chase noticed this and knew the reason, but she did not pay any heed to him.

It was on the second night in Springfield that something happened that all animal trainers dread worse than anything else. The act had gone well, and the crowd had been warm and receptive. Joy and Chase took their bows, but as they were leaving the cage, they heard someone yelling behind the canvas where the tunnel led from the big cage.

“Something’s wrong!” Chase said. He broke into a run,
and Joy followed him. They met Doak, whose eyes were wide with fear. “Somebody left the doors open, and three of the tigers got out!”

Joy went cold with fear. She was afraid of what would happen if other people encountered these large wild animals and did not know what to do.

“Where are they, Doak?”

“Two of them went that way and one went that way.” Doak pointed in different directions.

“I’ll take the two. You take that one, Joy.”

“All right,” Joy said. She raced away, and the thought crossed her mind,
I wonder how he can take care of two? One is enough.

She had no idea what to do. She began to walk around the edge of the big top, searching everywhere. Since it was nighttime, she knew the tiger had the advantage, for cats could see much better than humans in the dark. She moved cautiously, carrying only the training stick in her hand. She had gone halfway around the tent when she caught a flash of movement between two of the trucks.

She moved forward slowly, and when she had cleared the front of the truck, she saw the glowing eyes of a tiger, reflecting in the dim lights overhead. Her heart sank when she realized she had encountered Brutus. She heard people over to her left and knew that if Brutus turned that way, he would encounter people who were moving back and forth between the tent and the refreshment stand. She moved to put herself between the cat and the crowd and heard the rumble of the big cat. She had never really handled Brutus. Chase had said he was too dangerous for her to handle until she had more experience. She had no choice now, however, and she moved forward, talking as Chase had taught her. “There’s a good tiger. Come on now, Brutus. We’re going to go back in the cage. Wouldn’t you like a bit of nice horsemeat? Come on, Brutus, you’re going to be all right.”

Brutus eyed her steadily and switched his tail, but then he
crouched slightly. Joy had enough experience to know that this was a danger sign. She knew that if they were in the familiar cage and one of the cats crouched, she would rap the tiger with the training stick or reprimand it vocally, and the cat would obey.

But here outside the cage everything was different. Brutus drew his lips back, but in the semidarkness it didn’t look anything like a smile. It was frightening to stand there in front of the five-hundred-pound tiger with claws that could rip flesh off the bone in a flash, but Joy was determined not to show any signs of fear.