Sandy looked down.
Paul picked up her chin with two fingers.
The girl sighed through her nose. She looked away and said, “The wife, Mrs. Johnson, she smiles like a clown.”
Paul snorted. “That’s the reason you don’t want to go with them?”
“You don’t understand,” Sandy said. “She just… she just sits there smiling, like a stupid clown, with her hat and her gloved hands, while Mr. Johnson talks and decides everything. They’re rich.”
“Seems like a pretty good deal, you ask me.”
“She’s got no mind,” Sandy said, stomping her foot.
Paul sat back on his haunches. “So what then? You don’t want to end up like Mrs. Johnson?”
“Never.”
Paul smirked. “You’d rather stay clever?”
Sandy rolled her eyes as she took a moment to think, and then she said, “That is my endeavor.”
“Come on,” Paul said. He stood.
“You’re following Roy?”
“I am.”
“I’m coming with you, then.”
As far as Colfax, Paul thought.
They tread down the road for several minutes in silence. Eventually, Paul said, “How’d you know something was bothering me?”
“What do you mean?”
“Back there in Bracken, in that store, I said I’d lost track of Roy, and you said ‘That’s not why you’re sad.’”
Sandy shrugged.
“Now hold on,” Paul said. “You can’t just shrug that off. Why’d you say it?”
“People don’t follow what makes them sad,” Sandy said. “They follow what makes them happy, and run away from what makes them sad.”
They walked for another silent stretch before Paul said, “Some people prefer to be sad.”
Sandy said, “Then some people are goddamn fools.”
19
Roy reached Colfax in the late afternoon. The rain had stopped, but his clothes remained wet. He didn’t mind; it kept his skin cool.
Colfax was larger than Bracken. A tourist trap. The main street was all shops, no blacksmith, no tannery, no whorehouse. The boardwalks teemed with people coming in and out of storefronts, wearing nice clothes and laughing with each other as they walked. Horses lined the boardwalk edges. They were tethered and seemingly oblivious to the comings and goings of their humans, their leathery lips moving for unknown purposes.
Roy wanted to go into town to check for a red placard, but there was no need; he was certain there’d be one. This kind of town was a sideshow’s dream—ripe with loose money. Besides, entering the town would bring trouble. Too many people, and twice the eyes. A farmer or a blacksmith might not take a second glance, but a tourist was on the lookout for something different. Their jaws would fall, their fingers would point.
Roy stayed in the wilderness, circling the city until he came to the train tracks. He followed the tracks to the edge of the rail yard where he set up camp in a clump of trees. He would wait for nightfall, and if it were in the cards, he would hop an outgoing train.
Lunch was jerky, hardtack, and water. With time to kill, he indulged in another application of salve. His skin had taken the first like a desert takes rain, and now it was thirsty again. The second application would last longer.
The trains came and went, trailing steam and smoke, this way and that. People boarded and exited the cars. Boxes and luggage were loaded and unloaded. Workers in worn out overalls and sweat lined hats milled about in the mud, picking up this, pounding on that, directing heavy things on chains.
Roy envied the simplicity of their work. These men showed up each morning, beat their bodies to exhaustion, and then went home to good dinners and families. There was no thinking in it, and no worry. No time for trivialities, only time for the task at hand.
Working for the sideshow was never so simple. To look at it from a distance, most would think just sitting there was an easy job. That’s nothing, they’d say, try breaking your back on these tracks all day. Try looking at a hundred acres of grain, knowing you couldn’t stop reaping until it was all down. They would think he had it made.
But Roy would take their jobs in a beat. He’d break his back to come home to a good meal cooked by a loved one. He’d harvest grain until he collapsed, so long as when he opened his eyes someone was there for him.
Jesse.
His night with her had been finer than silk. He recalled the feel of her soft flesh under his hands, the way she moved and made small noises, the likes of which he’d never heard before. The climax of their love was like livewires tapped into his muscles and bones. Finer than silk, indeed. Afterward, she fell asleep quickly from the drink. He fell more slowly, watching the candlelight dance with her illustrations. Her ink seemed to darken and pulsate against the flickering light. He lay there wondering how she could give herself to a man like Samson, but then he bit back the thought. She was with him now. That was what mattered. He had some money. They could go somewhere. They could find a different life.
Sleep took him during visions of a farmhouse.
In the morning he awakened to find Jack McLean sitting in a chair across the room. The man had grown quite old in the years since Roy had joined the sideshow, and time’s passing had been unkind. His once-wooden face was now soft, creased and folded like a well worn duster. His mouth showed colt’s teeth. His skeletal hands gripped a cane. His top hat sat on his knees, exposing liver-spotted skin on a bald crown, ringed by a thin patch of white hair.
“How are you, Roy?” McLean said. His voice was no longer deep and imposing, but frail and desperate.
“I’m fine,” Roy said. He looked for Jesse, but she was gone. McLean must’ve excused her. As much as he loved and respected his mentor, Roy didn’t appreciate that he’d sent her away. He moved to the edge of the bed and plucked a tin of salve from the nightstand.
“She’s my granddaughter,” McLean said, tapping the empty side of the bed with this cane.
Ice formed on Roy’s bones. He had smartly feared Samson’s wrath, but this was unforeseen.
“That orphanage story was hooey,” McLean said. “Her mother and father—my son—couldn’t handle her, so they cut her loose. The girl’s got fire. Never let it be said she’s not her own woman.”
“I didn’t know she… I mean to say, I-,” Roy said.
“Forget about it,” McLean said. “We do what is-”
“-in our nature to do,” Roy said, finishing the sentence he’d heard countless times before. The lesson had been beaten into his brain, not just by McLean’s words, but by traveling the sideshow circuit for so long. Through all the years Roy had been shown the nature of humans. More importantly, he was shown that humans would always remain true to their nature.
“I’m here about something else,” McLean said.
Roy exhaled relief. He opened the tin and started at his left elbow. His mind kept flicking through images of last night. He fought back a smile.
“How long have you been with the show?” McLean said.
Roy blinked. He did quick math. “Twenty-five years.”
“Twenty-five years,” McLean said, nodding his head. His movements were slow and calculated. “A long time.”
“As you say.”
“I reckon you’ve been with me the longest now,” McLean said. He looked off in thought. “It was Delia, Gorgo, the original Samson, and then you. After Samson died, just you.”
The original Samson had been McLean’s first strong man. He was a specimen of size and strength in his youth, but through his adult years and into old age his strength had naturally declined. His last day as a strong man was the day after Winny Constantine had given Roy to the sideshow.
Roy spent his first night sleeping on a straw bed amongst the stagehands. McLean awakened him in the morning to show him around. Young Roy shook hands with dozens of characters, none of which recoiled at the sight of his deformity, nor he at theirs. That same night McLean let Roy watch the show from backsta
ge. It was their final night in the Bayou Rouge.
“We’re hot tonight,” McLean said after introducing the original Samson and returning backstage.
His expression soon took a downturn. The original Samson had taken the stage with vigor, but his old body had clearly begun to fail him. He struggled to bend a nail. He winced when a stagehand dropped a considerable weight on his hardened stomach. He failed to heft an iron ball over his head.
“Get off the stage, old man!” came a lone voice from the booing crowd.
The raucous tent went silent.
Samson opened his mouth to respond, but he was breathless from attempting his feats. His hands went to his knees as he gasped for air.
“What humor,” the voice said.
Backstage, McLean’s eyes thinned. He stepped out in defense of his strong man. “Who speaks?”
At the back of the tent a hand went up. It was the size of a brick, the forearm a tree trunk.
“You feel you can do better?” McLean said.
“Better than that corpse? Yer goddamn right.”
The original Samson came up from his bend. He looked out into the crowd, still breathing hard. When the loudmouth stood, Samson’s head bowed. He was already beaten.
The loudmouth approached the stage. He was not a particularly tall man, but imposing, nonetheless. Stout seemed an inadequate word. Each muscle was like a separate live animal trapped beneath the skin. They flexed and jumped as he walked.
Jack McLean and Samson stepped aside. The man gripped the handle on the iron ball and it went up like a star-shot. The train track Samson had mustered six inches off the ground went up with little effort. The man pressed the weight from his shoulders above his head seven times before he dropped it on the stage with a thunderous crash.
The crowd erupted in ovation. The original Samson left the stage, and a new Samson was born. The switch was made with no hiccup. The new Samson fit into the old Samson’s leopard-skin singlet as well as the old Samson now fit into a stagehand’s overalls. The weights that old Samson once struggled to lift were made into bigger, heavier things. Audiences that once groaned to see the old Samson struggle now gasped at the new Samson’s might.
After the switch there was simply Samson and a new stagehand named Walter.
Walter did his new job well until he fell dead off the back of a cart as the caravan crossed a bridge from Kentucky into Ohio. They’d just performed a free show for a Louisville consumption sanitorium. After taking down the tent, Walter dropped to all fours with the sanitorium’s girls and boys. He let them climb all over him. He was the wild bear and all the kids laughed and reeled away from his growls and swiping paws. He played with them until it was time to go. His heart shut down on the bridge out of town. He was eating an apple when he fell. It bounced and seemed to float on air for a moment before disappearing over the side. Roy always thought he could have caught that apple, had he simply reached out for it.
“I need a favor from you,” McLean said.
“Anything, Mr. McLean.”
“Gene,” McLean said. “My name is Gene.”
Roy’s blank expression must have given him away, because Gene laughed in a way Roy hadn’t seen Jack McLean laugh in years. The way his body shook and creaked, Roy thought the old man might break into dust.
Gene finally settled. “That was priceless.”
“Gene?” Roy said.
“Jack McLean is nothing more than a stage name, Roy,” he said. “Or should I say, Scales.” He offered a wink.
Roy nodded. He continued to apply salve, moving across his chest now. Her hands had been here, too, he thought. They’d been everywhere on him. He thought of her above him. He thought of the way she arched her back and pushed her hips forward. The way her breasts hung freely.
“No one would come to see Gene Rattenburg’s Congress of Curiosities, would they?” McLean said.
Roy shrugged. He thought it had a nice ring to it.
“Bah. What do you know?”
“I know enough.”
“In any case,” McLean said, “I’m getting too old for it now. It’s time to take a cue from old Samson and step out of the light.”
Roy looked into Gene Rattenburg’s failing eyes. He’d known for years the old man was looking for a successor. He figured Cecil Darton was being groomed for the role. Roy never thought it possible the riding crop would be passed his way. “You don’t mean me?”
“No,” McLean said. “You’re a fine man, Roy, but we both know you’re no outside talker.”
Roy agreed. His skin alone disqualified him for the job. The idea was to entice people into parting with their money, not frighten them into keeping it. Darton was custom made for the job. His smile weakened the knees of girls and boys alike.
“What I need from you,” McLean said, “is to help me make the switch. The others respect you. I need you to approve of my successor and make it okay with them.”
“They like Darton well enough,” Roy said.
The old man’s eyes fell to the floor. He rubbed his hands. “It won’t be Cecil.”
“Then who?”
“Samson.”
Roy shook his head. Jack McLean was a good man. He treated his performers with respect and dignity. They thrived under his care. The show did well under his supervision. Darton may not be a kind man, but he was harmless. An animal like Samson would destroy it all. McLean had to know this.
“Why?” Roy said.
“Jesse’s the only family I have that gives a damn,” McLean said, again tapping the empty side of the bed with his cane. “All I have—hell, Roy, all we’ve built over the years—it’s hers.”
“Fair enough. But I don’t see what that has to do wi-”
“They’re not just together, Roy. They’re legal. They’re married.”
Roy heard the salve tin clang the floorboards. Images of last night flipped through his mind in quick stills, but the firelight faded and her body fell into shadow. All except the round scar of the cigar burn he’d seen on her ribs. Last night he’d noticed the scar for the first time, all the time hidden beneath clothing that never came off on stage. He told himself it could have been an accident, something she gained as a child. But a single thought gnawed at him then, and it gnawed at him now—Samson smoked cigars.
“I don’t know what happened here last night,” McLean said, sweeping his cane through the air to indicate the room, “but I believe she loves her husband.”
“Don’t do this,” Roy said.
Gene leaned on his cane and stood—shaky, but not too shaky. He put on his hat. He sucked in a deep breath and released it slowly. “Well,” he said, his frail voice returned to the outside talker’s deep toll, “I may have a few more shows left in me.”
Roy nodded. There would be time to change McLean’s mind, time for him to claim Jesse as his own and leave the sideshow behind.
“After our swing down the east coast”, McLean said, “we’ll see how I feel. Meantime, you start spreading word to change their minds on Samson.”
Outside of Colfax Roy watched the last rays of the sun get lost in the trees. A day’s worth of action at the train station had slowed, but a vein of activity would pulse throughout the night. He rubbed the silver spoon like a charm, circling a thumb in the bowl, around and around, enjoying the smoothness, the perfection.
Dusk brought the forest alive. The wind pushed through the trees as the birds and squirrels made their last attempts for the day. A robin crossed Roy’s camp, pecking the ground at each hop and looking around with sudden head movements. It snapped down and tugged a worm from the earth. There was a short struggle, but the worm stood no chance. It writhed in the robin’s beak as the bird flew off.
A freight train pulled in from the northwest. Each connected boxcar read Chicago Mercantile on the side in big, yellow letters. Some of the boxcars were numbered. When the train eased to a stop, men moved frantically, some unloaded boxes, others loaded boxes on. They opened boxcar doors and clanged t
hem shut and locked them. There was one car with no door. Number seventeen.
This train was set to go back the way it came, Roy thought, and it appears it’s running late.
He collected his things.
20
Colfax’s town constable, Deputy Chief Randall, held tightly to Sandy’s hand. The man was shaped like a barrel and seemed plenty powerful, but the girl at the end of his arm yanked and spun and kicked and howled like an animal.
“I’m sorry,” Paul said to the lawman, raising his voice over Sandy’s screams. The tourist-laden crowd inside the train station murmured around them. Paul heard someone whisper, “That girl’s a menace.”
“It’s no trouble, sir,” the constable said. “We’ll have her back where she belongs straight away.” With his available hand he was attempting to pocket the small notepad he’d used to take down Paul’s report of the bushwhacking on the Colfax road. Sandy was making this simple task difficult. She kicked the constable’s shin. The lawman grunted, gritted his teeth.
Paul came down to Sandy’s level. “Hey now,” he said, holding out his hands, palms up.
Sandy regained some composure. Her breathing was fierce, her cheeks Macintosh red. “You betrayed me.”
“It’s not safe where I’m going,” Paul said.
“You said I could help you find Roy. You lied.”
“I couldn’t leave you out there in those woods. It was best to get you here, get you safe.”
The constable managed his notepad into his breast pocket. With both hands now free, he scooped up Sandy and held her to his large chest. She beat his shoulders with fists, but they were glancing blows; the fight had drained from her.
“Off we go, young one,” the lawman said, turning away from Paul.
Sandy eyed Paul over the lawman’s shoulder as he took her away. Paul smiled in apology, threw up his palms. Her face darkened.
Paul said, “You’ll thank me later.”
Sandy sneered. “Traitor.”
Paul sighed. He watched until Sandy and the constable left the train station, then he moved to a nearby wall and leaned against it. He scanned the crowd, looking for his own good hat and a scaly face beneath it. He didn’t think Roy would be so brazen as to waltz in and buy a ticket, but he took no chances. Besides, he was waiting for return telegrams. The train station had a Western Union. He’d sent two telegrams when he and Sandy had arrived. One to the warden’s office at Redmine prison:
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