Water for Elephants (39 page)

I scan the tent for Marlena. She’s standing in front of her horses, chatting with a family of five. Her eyes flit over to me and then, when she sees my expression, dart back at regular intervals.

I hand Diamond Joe the silver-tipped cane that passes for a bull hook these days and step over the rope. I see August’s top hat approaching on my left and move instead to my right, past the line of zebras. I stop beside Marlena.

“Did you know you’re supposed to perform with Rosie tonight?” I say.

“Excuse me,” she says, smiling at the family in front of her. She turns around and leans in close. “Yes. Uncle Al called me in. He says the show is on the verge of collapse.”

“But can you? I mean, in your . . . um . . .”

“I’m fine. I don’t have to do anything strenuous.”

“What if you fall off?”

“I won’t. Besides, I don’t have a choice. Uncle Al also said—oh hell, here’s August. You’d better get out of here.”

“I don’t want to.”

“I’ll be fine. He won’t do anything with rubes around. You’ve got to go.
Please!”

I look over my shoulder. August is approaching, looking up from a downturned face like a charging bull.

“Please,”
Marlena says desperately.

I head through the big top, following the hippodrome track to the back entrance. I pause, and then slip beneath the seats.

I watch the Spec from between a man’s work boots. About halfway through, I realize I’m not alone. An ancient roustabout is also looking through the stands but facing the other direction. He’s looking up a woman’s skirt.

“Hey!” I shout. “Hey, knock it off!”

The crowd roars in delight as a great gray mass passes the edge of the risers. It’s Rosie. I turn back to the roustabout. He stands on tiptoe, holding the edge of a floorboard with his fingertips and peering upward. He licks his lips.

I can’t stand it. I’m guilty of terrible, terrible things—things that will damn my soul to hell—but the idea of some random woman being violated in this manner is more than I can bear, and so even as Marlena and Rosie are stepping into the center ring, I grab the roustabout by the jacket and drag him from beneath the seats.

“Lemme go!” he squeals. “What’s the matter with you?”

I keep him in my grasp, but my attention is on the center ring.

Marlena balances gamely on her ball, but Rosie stands utterly still, all four feet planted squarely on the ground. August’s arms wave up and down. He swings the cane. He shakes his fist. His mouth opens and closes. Rosie’s ears flatten against her head, and I lean forward, looking more closely. Her expression is unmistakably belligerent.

Oh God, Rosie. Not now. Don’t do this now.

“Aw, come on!” screeches the filthy gnome in my hands. “This ain’t no Sunday School show. It’s just a harmless bit of fun. Come on! Lemme go!”

I look down at him. He is panting, his breath rank, his lower jaw punctuated by long brown teeth. Disgusted, I shove him away from me.

He looks quickly from side to side, and when he realizes that no one in the crowd has noticed anything, he straightens his lapels in righteous indignation and swaggers toward the back entrance. Just before he steps outside, he throws me a dirty look. But his narrowed eyes bounce off me, glomming on to something beyond. He dives through the air, his face frozen in a mask of terror.

I spin and find Rosie hurtling toward me, her trunk raised and mouth open. I throw myself against the risers and she passes, trumpeting and pounding the sawdust with such force that a three-foot cloud of particles trails her. August follows, waving his cane.

The crowd explodes, laughing and cheering—they think it’s part of the act. Uncle Al stands in the center of the hippodrome, stupefied. He watches the back entrance of the tent for a moment with his mouth open. Then he snaps into action and cues Lottie.

I climb to my feet and look for Marlena. She passes me, a pink blur.

“Marlena!”

In the distance, August is already hammering Rosie. She bellows and screams, throwing her head and backing away, but he’s like a machine. He raises that damned cane and brings it down hook first, again and again and again. When Marlena reaches them, he turns to face her. The cane falls to the ground. He stares at her with burning intensity, completely oblivious to Rosie.

I know that look.

I charge forward. Before I’ve gone a dozen strides, my feet are swept out from under me and I’m facedown on the ground with a knee on my cheek and one of my arms twisted behind my back.

“Get the hell off me!” I scream, twisting to get free. “What the hell’s the matter with you? Let me go!”

“Just shut up,” says Blackie’s voice from above me. “You ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

August leans over and straightens up with Marlena over his shoulder. She pounds his back with her fists, kicking her legs and screaming. She almost manages to slide off his shoulder, but he just hitches her back up and marches off.

“Marlena!
Marlena!”
I bellow, renewing my struggle.

I twist out from under Blackie’s knee and am halfway to my feet before something crashes into the back of my head. My brain and eyes jolt in their cavities. My vision fills with black and white sparkles and I think I might also be deaf. After a moment my vision starts to return, from the
outside in. Faces appear and mouths move, but all I hear is an earsplitting buzz. I weave on my knees trying to figure out who and what and where but now the ground comes screaming toward me. I’m powerless to stop it so I brace myself, but in the end it isn’t necessary because the blackness swallows me before it hits.

COLLECTION OF THE RINGLING CIRCUS MUSEUM, SARASOTA, FLORIDA

Twenty-two

S
hh
, don’t move.”

I’m not, although my head jiggles and jerks with the motion of the train. The engine’s whistle blows mournfully, a distant sound that somehow cuts through the insistent buzzing in my ears. My whole body feels like lead.

Something cold and wet hits my forehead. I open my eyes and see a panoply of shifting color and forms. Four blurred arms cross my face and then merge into a single foreshortened limb. I gag, my lips involuntarily forming a tunnel. I turn my head, but nothing comes out.

“Keep your eyes closed,” says Walter. “Just lie still.”

“Hrrmph,”
I mumble. I let my head fall to the side, and the cloth falls from it. A moment later it’s replaced.

“You took a good hit. Glad to see you back.”

“Is he coming around?” says Camel. “Hey, Jacob, you still with us?”

I feel like I’m rising from a deep mine, am having trouble placing myself. I appear to be on the bedroll. The train is already moving. But how did I get here and why was I asleep?

Marlena!

My eyes snap open. I struggle to rise.

“Didn’t I tell you to lie still?” Walter scolds.

“Marlena! Where’s Marlena?” I gasp, falling back on the pillow. My brain rolls in my head. I think it’s been shaken loose. It’s worse when my eyes are open and so I close them again. With all visual stimulus removed,
the blackness feels larger than my head, as though my cranial cavity has turned inside out.

Walter is kneeling beside me. He removes the rag from my forehead, dips it in water, and then squeezes out the excess. The water trickles back into the bowl, a clean, clear sound, a familiar tinkling. The buzzing starts to subside, replaced by a pounding ache that sweeps from ear to ear around the back of my skull.

Walter brings the rag back to my face. He wipes my forehead, cheeks, and chin, leaving my skin damp. The cooling tingle is grounding, helps me concentrate on the outside of my head.

“Where is she? Did he hurt her?”

“I don’t know.”

I open my eyes again, and the world tilts violently. I struggle up on my elbows and this time Walter doesn’t push me down. Instead, he leans over and peers into my eyes. “Shit. Your pupils are different sizes. You feel up to drinking something?” he says.

“Uh . . . yeah,” I gasp. Finding words is hard. I know what I want to express, but the pathway between my mouth and brain might as well be stuffed with cotton.

Walter crosses the room, and a bottle cap clinks to the floor. He comes back and holds a bottle to my lips. It’s sarsaparilla. “It’s the best I’ve got, I’m afraid,” he says ruefully.

“Damned cops,” Camel grumbles. “You okay, Jacob?”

I’d like to answer, but staying upright is taking all my concentration.

“Walter, is he okay?” Camel sounds significantly more worried this time.

“I think so,” says Walter. He puts the bottle on the floor. “You want to try sitting up? Or you want to wait a few minutes?”

“I’ve got to get Marlena.”

“Forget it, Jacob. There’s nothing you can do right now.”

“I’ve got to. What if he . . .?” My voice cracks. I can’t even finish the sentence. Walter helps me into a sitting position.

“There’s nothing you can do right now.”

“I don’t accept that.”

Walter turns in fury. “For Christ’s sake, would you just listen to me for once?”

His anger startles me into silence. I rearrange my knees and lean forward so my head is resting on my arms. It feels heavy, huge—at least as large as my body.

“Never mind that we’re on a moving train and you’ve got a concussion. We’re in a mess. A big mess. And the only thing you can do right now is make it worse. Hell, if you hadn’t been knocked flat and if we didn’t still have Camel here, I’d have never gotten back on this train tonight.”

I stare between my knees at the bedroll, trying to concentrate on the largest fold of material. Things are steadier now, not shifting so much. With each passing minute, additional parts of my brain are kicking in.

“Look,” Walter continues, his voice softer, “we’ve got three days left before we off-load Camel. And we’re just going to have to cope the best we can in the meantime. That means watching our backs and not doing anything stupid.”

“Off-load Camel?” says Camel. “Is that how you think of me?”

“At the moment, yes!” barks Walter. “And you should be grateful we do, because what the hell do you think would happen to you if we took off right now?
Hmmm?
”

There is no answer from the cot.

Walter pauses and sighs. “Look, what’s happening with Marlena is terrible, but for God’s sake! If we leave before Providence, Camel’s done for. She’s going to have to look after herself for the next three days. Hell, she’s done it for four years. I think she can last another three days.”

“She’s pregnant, Walter.”

“What?”

There is a long silence. I look up.

Walter’s forehead is creased. “Are you sure?”

“So she says.”

He stares into my eyes for a long time. I try to meet his gaze, but my eyes jerk rhythmically to the side.

“All the more reason to play this carefully. Jacob, look at me!”

“I’m trying!” I say.

“We’re going to get out of here. But if we’re all going to make it, we’ve got to play it right. We can’t do anything—anything!—until Camel’s gone. The sooner you get used to that, the better.”

There’s a sob from the cot. Walter turns his head. “Shut it, Camel! They wouldn’t be taking you back if they hadn’t forgiven you. Or would you rather be redlighted?”

“I don’t rightly know,” he cries.

Walter turns back to me. “Look at me, Jacob. Look at me.” When I do, he continues. “She’ll handle him. I tell you, she’ll handle him. She’s the only one who can. She knows what’s at stake. It’s only for three days.”

“And then what? Like you’ve said all along, we have nowhere to go.”

He turns his face away in anger. Then he spins back. “Do you truly comprehend the situation here, Jacob? Because sometimes I wonder.”

“Of course I do! It’s just I’m not liking any of the options.”

“Me neither. But like I said, we’ll have to sort that out later. Right now let’s just concentrate on getting out of here alive.”

C
AMEL SOBS AND SNIFFS
his way to sleep, despite Walter’s repeated assurances that his family will welcome him with open arms.

Eventually he drifts off. Walter checks him one more time and then turns off the lamp. He and Queenie retire to the horse blanket in the corner. A few minutes later he begins to snore.

I rise carefully, testing my balance at every point. When I’ve got myself successfully upright, I step tentatively forward. I’m dizzy but seem able to compensate. I take a few steps in a row, and when that works out all right I cross the floor to the trunk.

Six minutes later, I’m creeping across the top of the stock car on my hands and knees with Walter’s knife in my teeth.

What sounds like gentle clacking from inside the train is a violent banging up here. The cars shift and jerk as we round a corner, and I stop, clinging to the top rail until we’re once again on a straightaway.

At the end of the car I pause to consider my options. In theory, I could climb down the ladder, leap over to the platform, and walk through the various cars until I reach the one in question. But I can’t risk being seen.

So. And so.

I stand, still holding the knife in my teeth. My legs are spread, my knees bent, my arms moving jerkily to the side, like the tightrope walker’s.