The woman planted a fist on her ample hip. “Could have fooled me, señor.” And the rest of the bar patrons, including the carnies, laughed.
“You had your turn, Uly.” Another carnie got up and grabbed the woman by the arm. They were walking toward the back when Uly pushed him from behind. The carnie fell into a table of other men, one of whom cracked him over the head with a bottle.
The table of carnies cursed and surged forward like a band of agitated honeybees. They fell onto the other men with stings of fists and feet. A lone gunshot rang out in the air. A plume of dust fell from the ceiling, and the bartender looked up with a concerned frown, likely concerned more for his establishment than the men inside.
“That’ll be enough,” a tall man with abnormally pale skin and wire-framed glasses perched on the tip of his nose said. He looked more a librarian than a sheriff, but the shiny five-pointed-star badge labeled “McLennan County Sheriff” marked him otherwise. He lowered the shotgun at the carnies. “If you boys will follow me.” He pointed out the door with the gun. “Send word,” he said to the bartender on his way out.
“God dang it.” Clay paced back and forth. “Shoulda listened to my first mind. Bad idea to stay on here.” He kicked at a crate, a strand of slick, fiery-red hair whipping across his forehead. “Shake a leg, people. Soon as I get back, we’re blowing this town. Jamey, get the truck.”
“What’s going on?” Liza and Hope asked Jamey before he could hurry off.
“Some of the boys done got themselves into some trouble,” Jamey said, not stopping. “Sheriff sent word.”
Liza turned to Hope. “In for a show?”
Hope was already moving. “We shouldn’t.”
“We should.”
They watched as Clay hopped into the truck and he and Jamey sped off. A group of other carnie workers followed on foot. Idly, Liza wondered why they even took the truck, they were so close to town. The women brought up the rear, the carnival’s stray dogs trailing them. The stray Liza had picked up earlier had become leader of the pack. Liza sensed their eagerness; they wanted to please her. She allowed the connection to open. Mirthful . . . no, jubilant. Of all the words she’d learned under Mrs. Margaret’s tutelage, those best described how she felt about this kind of progress. She had control of the pack.
The stragglers were a few minutes behind and caught only snatches of the conversation as they watched from a corner of a building.
“I already paid you your fee,” Clay was saying under the dim glow of the streetlamps. “What you’re asking now is plain robbery. I haven’t even made a dime off this city. And you promised me the folks in this town would come out for the show. Why, I’m the one ought to be asking for a refund.”
The bookish-looking sheriff was no longer alone. Clustered around him, a hodgepodge of deputies all sported shiny, official-looking stars on matching vests. Guns must have been in short order, because they were armed only with sticks and cudgels. Others stood glaring, as if their ugly looks alone could beat back the growing throng of carnies.
Liza and Hope looked on in anxious silence and sank back deeper into the shadows. Their presence would not be welcomed by either side.
“You will pay the fine,” the sheriff said calmly. “Or your men will remain guests of our town until such time that you can acquire the fee. Of course, there will be additional charges, as meals are not included.”
Clay looked as if his red hair might blow off his head. “All right, then,” he said through clenched teeth, waving the carnies back. “Let me see what I can do about coming up with your fee.”
The group rounded the corner from where Liza and Hope had watched everything. Clay spared them only a censuring look before he ordered everybody back to the carnival so they could prepare to leave, save himself, Bombardier, and Jamey. He asked one of the carnies to go and get Zinsa and Efe.
Liza and Hope slunk back farther across the street, where they had a good view, but they didn’t want to leave when things were getting interesting. Although neither were fans of the women soldiers, a quiet thrill filled Liza’s belly at the thought that even though a crowd of men was filling the streets, Clay had chosen two women as the ultimate threat.
In short order, Zinsa and Efe came, eyes flashing with the anticipation of a chance to beat up the locals. They stood with Clay just outside the lighted street, three heads bent together, two dark, one red. Liza could see how tightly coiled they were and marveled at their control. She determined she would emulate it.
As the deputies dispersed and the sheriff retreated inside the jail, they made their move. The band of carnies tiptoed to the door and blasted through. The one deputy inside yelped as Bombardier bore down on him. He sidestepped the big man and jetted through the door, where Zinsa and Efe caught him and batted him around like a child’s toy.
Clay shoved the sheriff’s gun aside and knocked the glasses off his perfect nose. The dogs started yapping, but Liza held them back, trying not to laugh when the sheriff righted his glasses back on his face and said, “Perhaps a compromise can be reached?”
The emancipated carnies emerged from the jail, along with Clay and the rest. They hightailed it around the corner, Hope and Liza already in the lead.
They were no sooner among the trailers than the sounds of trouble filtered through the night. The deputies had followed them. Zinsa and Efe snarled and then prowled back into the night. The group followed the female warriors. Liza could feel the bloodlust hanging in the air from the rest of the carnies, and she knew, despite Clay’s hissed orders to stand down, that this would not end well.
An image formed in her mind, clear in its violent purpose. She sent the image to the dogs, pushed it along as if on a slow-moving cloud. At the last second, she wove in images of Zinsa and Efe as part of the pack, not to be messed with.
Howls filled the air along with screams, snapping, biting, tearing at limbs. The deputies were no more than civilian men, and when two female warriors and a pack of demon dogs descended on them, they quickly fell apart. The torches that they had carried bobbed and sputtered as they scattered, dogs nipping at their heels.
Liza panicked. She wanted the pack to stop, but she had lost control.
Ishe stormed up to her. “Stop it!” he boomed. “They’ll kill one of them, and we don’t need the trouble.”
“I can’t, it’ll kill them all if I try like this,” she panted.
“Breathe,” Ishe said. “Clear your mind, slow now.”
Liza inhaled and exhaled a long breath. When the image from Ishe came, she squeaked in surprise but allowed it. The two of them stood together as alpha hyenas on the savanna. A cool breeze ruffled their fur as their pack yipped and played around them. They were in control; the pack would listen to her.
Her heart rate steadied, even as the frenzied sounds from the real world got louder. She sent an image of her leading the dogs away from the attack, mixed with her approval and happy tail-wagging.
Soon the sounds faded, and as the strays came streaming back, Liza and the others made their way down the road in time to see the thugs scrambling to their feet, one man shuffling off dragging a maimed leg behind him. Zinsa and Efe stalked after them to warn off any stragglers.
The crowd of carnies turned as one to look at Ishe and Liza. The looks of horror were replaced by smiles and looks of admiration.
About as comfortable with the attention as whores in the church choir, Liza and Ishe exchanged a heart-fluttering glance flush with mutual admiration and walked off in separate directions.
CHAPTER TWENTY
AT HOME AMONG THE FREAKS
It crept up on her like the first inklings of a cold. A sniffle, a tingle in the back of her throat. From Baton Rouge to Lake Charles, Houston to Waco, and miles of travel in between filled with helping the other acts while practicing for her own, the carnival had become something Liza had never before fully experienced. It had become home.
But like a cold, home had always been a temporary thing. Here for a
week, maybe a day or two more, then gone. Liza let the gentle warmth generated by the idea of a sort of permanence wash over her. Only Twiggy’s absence marred the feeling. She chided herself. She mustn’t get too comfortable; she would stay until she’d saved enough to set out on her own and find her sister. She set aside the book she had been reading, stood, and stretched.
Autumn looked up from her copy of Vogue magazine and watched as Liza paced the narrow path between their bunks. After folding down the corner of a page to mark her place, she slid the magazine aside and announced, “Sit.”
Liza blinked and looked over at her.
“You’re driving me and poor Mico crazy. Something’s eating you, and you may as well spit it out.” Autumn rearranged her silk gown, the one she always wore inside, and crossed her long, lean legs in front of her.
Dropping to her bunk, Liza diverted, her usual response to any inquiry that made her uncomfortable. “There’s nothing wrong; can’t I think on things sometimes?”
“My mama told me that all that thinking don’t do a lady much good.” Autumn looked down at her pale toes and must have noticed a chip in the red nail polish, because she rummaged through her box and found a bottle of nail lacquer and set to work on the offending toe.
Liza’s mother didn’t talk much, but when she did have something to say, it was profound. “And my mama told me anytime somebody asks you not to think, run the other way.”
Autumn couldn’t help but chuckle. “Well, what is it that’s got you wearing the floorboards thin?”
For some reason, Liza looked down, expecting to see the wood wearing thin beneath her feet. She caught herself, scooted back against the wall, and stared at her own unpainted, misshapen toes. She’d never bothered with such adornments before but wondered if Jamey would like that. Or Ishe. Quickly, she shoved the thought aside. She lowered her eyes and exhaled. “I’m wondering how long I can stay on here.”
“You got somewhere else you need to be?” Autumn leaned over and blew at her toes.
“Well . . . ,” Liza began, then decided she didn’t need to tell Autumn about Twiggy. “I mean, what if something goes wrong? What if Clay decides he don’t like the act I put together?”
“Some say Bacchanal been around, under some name or another, for a hundred years. Winding back and forth across the country till the Tulsa blowout and returning again the following year.”
Liza didn’t know if she believed that, but it flew off Autumn’s tongue as easily as a sunflower seed shell with all the salt sucked off, so maybe it was true.
“You think that red trailer has been there the whole time too?”
Autumn’s hand froze, brush hovering over the bottle. “The carnival is a part of America. Won’t never go no place. And as long as you do your job and quit worrying about things that don’t concern you, no reason you can’t stay on as long as you like.”
Another door slammed. Nobody wanted to talk about the mysterious red trailer. It was as if they all were keeping the secret and were determined not to let her in on it. She hated that feeling, had known it growing up, held on the fringe of belonging. It was like looking at everything through glass ten inches thick. It was the same feeling she’d had with her mother, before she’d been shoved aside and abandoned. That red trailer represented something that could end the comfort she’d found at the carnival. Liza was certain of that. “Where are your people from?”
“Sounds like it’s time for both of us to get back to our reading.” Autumn reached for her treasured copy of Vogue.
A hard woman to know. Autumn didn’t need to say the same about her; it was true. Some secrets were better left in the past, where the damage wasn’t so fresh. Liza propped up her pillow, picked up her book, and leaned back, but her eyes couldn’t focus on the words. Memories she carried around like layers of slack, useless skin resurfaced. Things she wouldn’t want to share with Autumn either.
For long stretches her family would spend time in towns that weren’t all too welcoming of strangers. Even when they were with these people, they were separate. Some hated the fact that her father never joined in their drinking or carousing. That her mother didn’t hold any sway for gossip. They traded, and the family largely made their own way.
Invariably, in one of these towns, a question for which she had no answer arose time and again: Where do you live? Live? Why, they lived everywhere and no place at all. Only, the more her younger self thought about it, the more she saw definite advantages to settling. A real home. Friends. Waking up early every morning and walking a country mile to a little schoolhouse, where she’d elbow herself to the front row if she had to. Her parents simply hadn’t grasped what this could mean for her.
One night, sitting around a fire outside (again) a town whose name she couldn’t recall, Liza suggested that their family settle there. That they buy a house like other families did and that she promptly be enrolled in school.
Her mother was not a demonstrative woman, not given to outward signs of emotion. She was incapable. But if the expression that came over her mother’s face was terrifying, it was nothing compared to the tongue-lashing she unleashed. Liza shrank, backed away under the onslaught. She could remember cowering behind her father’s leg. As swiftly as he doled out punishment when she did something wrong, he would not fail to protect her when the tables were turned. This was not one of those times.
He’d only laid a hand on her shoulder and said, “The soul would have no rainbow if the eye had no tears.” Unexplained anger spent, her mother’s gaze did soften, but later their family packed up to leave. She never asked the other question that had been crowding her thoughts. Why were there no aunts and uncles? No grandparents or cousins? No other family.
Liza swept the memory from her mind, but like the dust that accumulated around the window frame above her bed, it would eventually return. She put the book down; smiled at Autumn, whom she was beginning to understand in her own way; scooped up Mico and placed him on her shoulder; and left the trailer in search of mind-clearing air.
“Hey, Eliza!” a carnie Liza barely recognized called out. She waved, muttered her own greetings, and meandered through the maze of trailers and vehicles. They were camped out somewhere northeast of Waco. People either walked about talking and chatting or sat on crates or fold-up chairs outside their trailers. Some worked on the endless list of repairs that were a part of the carnival life.
Zinsa and Efe, ever the soldiers, walked by with measured steps. Zinsa sneered at her, while Efe seemed to take her in and size her up in one blink, somehow finding her lacking. Liza let her gaze fall over the women as they approached and willed herself not to blink. The game of stares ended with neither of the women giving way. But after they moved on, she couldn’t stop herself from turning to look behind her; she’d seen how they sneaked up on Bombardier. The women were also appraising her, but they walked on.
“Miss Meeks.” Malachi waved her over to the trailer he shared with Eloko. The door to the trailer was open, and he sat on the top step. He had been reading a thick book, and another sat beside him. The sound of those pages flipping was beautiful, bringing back memories of her time with Mrs. Margaret. “I hope this day finds you and your friend well.” He gestured to where Mico sat on her right shoulder.
Eloko appeared in the doorway. He yawned, his mouth a forest with trees of sharp, jagged teeth. Liza contained her shudder. Try as she might, she could not come to terms with his creepy ways. She was used to his unusual appearance, but it bothered her the way he looked at her like she was something delicious to eat.
“Did you not hear?” he asked, his eyes wide with mock concern.
Liza narrowed her eyes. “Hear what?”
Eloko brushed at his grass-covered arm, shedding a few blades. “Maybe it was nothing. I may have misunderstood.”
“Misunderstood what?” Liza asked as she and Malachi looked at each other.
“Seems Uly is having trouble with your Australian feline again.” Eloko blinked innocently. �
�I could be wrong, but you might want to check it out.”
Liza didn’t know if she believed the little man, but she wasn’t going to risk it. She was going to visit her animals anyway. “Thanks,” she said. And to Malachi she motioned to the books and said, “Maybe you’ll read some for me, later?”
Malachi’s smile returned. “I would be happy to.”
Of course nothing was wrong with Sabina. But Ikaki sent her an image as soon as she came in. It was the image of themself beneath the sun, floating in the river.
“Uly,” Liza called. “Ikaki wants a little sun today.”
Uly set down the newspaper he had been reading. “I don’t know if I will ever get used to this,” he said.
She stuck her hand through the bars of Sabina’s cage as Uly and Ikaki made their way outside. She rubbed Sabina under the chin the tiger elegantly lifted. She understood her—of that much, Liza was certain. She had become more comfortable with her too. Maybe today . . .
She conjured the same image of them sitting together and then sent it. This time, the response was so quick that Liza nearly fell over.
What Sabina sent startled her. A woman, the same woman from Ikaki’s vision. The terror of being trapped, unable to move. Sabina being transported and landing at the carnival.
Liza supposed that, given the choice, most animals would rather be free than in a circus or carnival, but there was something more going on here. Something to do with that woman.
The next images the tiger sent, powerful, painful, made her heart ache. Sabina with a litter of pups, men taking them away despite her snarls and snaps and protests. Full teats, unused, dried. Images of other members of her species, alive, then dead or taken. Maybe some of them were Sabina’s kin. The profound sadness was balanced by a stark pride. Sabina, with her head lifted—the last of her kind. She would represent the Tasmanian tiger species with pride in the carnival and not have to endure the human hunters.
In another image, Sabina portrayed herself standing over a supplicant dog with its legs up in the air, her forepaws digging into the flesh of the dog’s soft middle. The message was clear. Sabina was no dog and would not do dog tricks. She was above such things.
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