by Merl Fluin
2.
TJ awoke on a truckle bed inside a building. Her right arm was in a splint. Hazy lilac light drifted around the edges of a white folding screen along one length of the bed; the other length was pushed up against a white-painted partition wall. From behind the screen came the sound of a man orgasming, followed by a few half-articulated words and then silence. Scents of sweat and semen prickled through heavy incense. TJ lay still, feeling her own sweat pool between her collarbones.
Creaks, rustles, the slap of bare feet on a floor, a long exhalation. The light fluttered as something or someone moved back and forth behind the screen. TJ wriggled her shoulders and grimaced. A door opened and closed, then the screen was pulled part way back. Mei-Lin looked down at her, a halo of wasps around her head.
Mei-Lin touched the hand of TJ’s splinted arm with hot fingertips. TJ took hold of the fingers with her good hand, kissed them and smiled at her. Mei-Lin frowned. TJ started to weep.
Mei-Lin stepped away behind the screen, then came back with a white cotton handkerchief and a bowl of jasmine tea. TJ dabbed at her eyes with the handkerchief and put it down beside her thigh on the bare mattress. She pushed herself up to sitting and accepted the tea, holding the hot bowl away from her body. Mei-Lin went away again, and there were sounds of water pouring from a jug. From somewhere far beyond the door came a blast of noise, piano-playing and laughter, and then it was gone. TJ finished her tea and rested the empty bowl on her belly.
She awoke when Mei-Lin extricated the bowl from her hand. Catching her wrist, TJ caught her eye and mouthed the word “Punter?” with a twitch of her eyebrows. Mei-Lin nodded and patted the mattress below the pillows. TJ shook her head and sat up, swinging her feet onto the floor. She winced as she rose to follow Mei-Lin around the other side of the screen.
Daylight through the stained-glass window bathed the white-furnished room in violet. A laundered sheet lay on an otherwise bare double bed, a white jug and washing bowl stood on a white nightstand beside the huge window, and a set of white drinking bowls lay beside a silver samovar on a table by the door. Mei-Lin took a white shawl from a hook and helped TJ to wrap it around herself, then lifted a white silk dressing gown from the same hook and put it on. Together they left the room, Mei-Lin closing the door quietly behind her.
Their bare feet made soft noises as they walked along the corridor. Another huge stained-glass window behind them dappled the white walls and floor with sliding colours. Out here the incense mingled with some acrid remembrance – tobacco smoke, and something more biting. The heat was furnace-like.
At the end of the corridor Mei-Lin opened a white door and led the way into an enormous white room. Everything was bathed in a milky light that filtered through muslin curtains. Along one side of the room stood three women. Two were in dressing gowns like Mei-Lin’s, the third naked apart from her jewellery. All three wore their hair loose, hanging down to their thighs or standing proud of their heads in flickering clouds. On the other side of the room a row of showers dropped water onto the heads of men and women who rubbed their bodies with cakes of soap. One of the men had hair almost as long, straight and black as Mei-Lin’s. His long black beard slicked down his chest in the water, and his legs and back were fine and clean-lined. The other men were older and stouter, with sunburned necks and solid bellies; one had a scar across one shoulder.
Hand on hip, the bejewelled woman stepped away from the wall and strolled up and down along the row of bathers, inspecting their bodies. She picked out the long-haired young man, grasped his elbows and turned him this way and that for a better look. He returned the scrutiny, then glanced beyond her shoulder and raised his eyebrows at Mei-Lin, who watched them gravely. The woman took his hand and pulled him out of the shower, handing him a bath sheet from a large pile. He wrapped himself in the towel, shrugged at the expressionless Mei-Lin, and followed the woman out through the door. Mei-Lin chose a woman for herself and took her away, leaving TJ behind in the bathroom.
One of the remaining bathers tipped her head towards TJ’s splinted arm. TJ smiled, shook her head and left by another door.
She stepped out onto a landing at the top of a long flight of carpeted stairs. She was hit by a crash of noise from the barroom below – piano, talking, shouting and singing, the crack of glass on wood and hands on ribs. Tobacco smoke mushroomed towards her, laced with the smell of whisky and unwashed bodies.
TJ paused to pull the shawl more closely around herself, felt at the splint on her arm, and descended the stairs. She crossed the lobby to the outer door without stopping to look through the barroom entrance. A skinny young woman behind the bar turned to watch her go by.
A couple of dusty-hided horses were tethered to a rail outside the bar, standing under a painted sign that bore the words The Two Slits Saloon. A dung beetle made its way over the horse shit on the ground behind them. TJ stroked the muzzle of one of the horses with her good hand, then walked away along the town’s main street.
To her left were a general store, a hairdresser, a gunsmith, a telegraph office and the sheriff’s jail; to her right a doctor’s office, a funeral parlour, a bank, and a livery stable with a corral. In the distance ahead of her, at the limit of the town, was the big top, the smaller tops and wagons around it visible in the haze.
No one much was around. A few men loitered at the stable. A small group of kids made their way towards the Two Slits from the direction of the railroad station on the other side of town. Catching sight of TJ, one of the boys made a comment to his friends. They hushed him.
TJ turned and went around the back of the Two Slits, keeping the big top behind her. When she reached the edge of town she stopped in the shade of a cactus and gazed out towards the desert that rolled itself open before her. The sky glinted like glass; the sun weighed down the sky like a breast.
It was a while before she saw Mei-Lin coming to join her. Mei-Lin was fully clothed now, in a plain cotton blouse and striped skirt, her hair pinned into a bun. TJ stayed in the shade until Mei-Lin reached her, then threw her good arm around Mei-Lin’s shoulders.
“Oh Mei-Lin, it’s awful, what in the world am I –”
Mei-Lin stepped back and slapped TJ across the face, hard. TJ put her hand to her face and stared at Mei-Lin, her eyes brimming.
“You stupid bitch. I trusted you to keep my girl safe,” said Mei-Lin.
TJ sank to her knees. “I don’t know what happened.”
“What happened is that you paraded her around the big top like Cowhead the Wonder Horse until every rustler for miles around reckoned on her for a payday. You’re no better than a rustler yourself. I gave her to you to hide her and care for her, not to use her for a meal ticket. You were so busy thinking of all the big-shot circus folk you were going to impress, and all the money you were going to make out of her, preening yourself in the ring night after night, that you forgot why you even had her in the first place. And now some bastard’s taken her Christ knows where to do Christ knows what, turn her into a freak show and treat her like a dumb animal, my beautiful daughter...” She choked on dry sobs.
“I’m so sorry, I swear, honey, I’ll find her, I’ll bring her back, I’m sorry, forgive me, I swear...”
Mei-Lin spat on the ground where TJ kneeled. “You couldn’t find your arse with both hands unless it had a dollar bill pinned to one cheek and a mirror pinned to the other.”
They both stared at the ground with red eyes.
“You know what,” said TJ at last, “fuck you. I’ve loved and cared for that girl of yours these two years past, and if I turned her into part of my act, at least it made her feel like there was one person in the world who wanted her. I’m not the one whose vocation was too sacred to look after their own child, and we don’t all live your cushy life. It’s dangerous out here, and bad shit happens.”
“My vocation is sacred.”
“And my money is clean, and I shared every penny of it with Cowhead. So don’t throw it back in my face now that things have gone
wrong. I did my best to look after her.”
“And you’re going to have to do your best to find her.”
Mei-Lin sank to the ground beside TJ.
***
The doctor Mei-Lin consulted reckoned the arm was not broken after all. The splint could come off whenever TJ felt ready, although she might want to wear a sling for a few days. TJ said she felt all right and wanted the splint gone so that she could put some proper clothes on.
The three of them sat in the front-parlour consulting room at the doctor’s house. The window looked out onto the main street, where a small crowd watched a game of cup and balls outside the jailhouse. Mei-Lin agreed to go down to the circus and collect some clothes while the doc tended to TJ’s arm.
Once they were alone, the doctor unwrapped the shawl from TJ’s torso and inspected the splint. The forearm was bound to a piece of wood, wrapped with a grey silk cloth and pulled tight into her body. The flesh on either side of the elbow was bruised black, and the whole arm was swollen down to the wrist, but she could waggle her fingers.
“I can still use the scarf for the sling, right?” said TJ. “Will you tie it for me?”
“Let me bathe the arm for you first. Looks like a few cuts and grazes, is all. You were lucky.”
The doctor busied himself with the water jug. TJ inspected the damage, seeing her injured arm for the first time. She peered at what looked like a wound or scar on the back of the thumb, between the knuckles: a flap of skin curved in a half-moon arc, fringed with dark hairs.
The half-moon folded itself open. Looking up at her was a dark brown eye.
“Let’s clean you up now.” The doc placed a bowl of water on the table beside her and took out a wet cloth.
The eye closed. TJ watched the game of cup and balls out on the street while the doctor worked.
3.
Damsol Arcadio had gone ahead and opened the show as usual. As dusk fell the audience drifted into the midway like wisps of cotton candy. The little gang of kids was among them, as was at least one of the punters from the brothel showers. But none of them seemed to recognise TJ now that she was dressed. She wore a bright check blouse and riding skirt, with her hair in pigtails beneath a tall hat, and her right arm in the grey silk sling.
Children darted in and out of the thickening crowd. Some of them were in organised troops that carried standards, figures of foxes and eagles and other animals on poles. TJ walked down the midway, pausing here and there at the concession stands to exchange greetings with the pitchwomen. A man in a sailor suit was charging people money to look at a wild animal inside a large box. TJ did not see inside the box. A little further on stood a white metal cabinet, big enough for a puppeteer to stand upright inside, although there were no puppets. The top half of the box where the puppet stage should have been was filled with earth, moss, tree roots and fibres. Small fleshy openings appeared among the tree roots along the back wall of the cabinet. TJ fingered the back of her thumb as she watched bugs, insects and a green-bodied, white-legged spider crawl in the foreground of the scene. At her feet a small dog jumped up and down, barking furiously at the display. Suddenly it jumped high enough to reach the little stage and disappeared into one of the fleshy openings. TJ rubbed her thumb again.
Damsol grabbed her from behind and twirled her around. TJ made a face. “Ow. Cut it out, Damsol. Your monkeyshines is the last thing I need.”
Damsol gripped her shoulders. “You back in your wagon tonight, or are you staying at the Slits?”
“Back in my wagon.” TJ shrugged Damsol’s hands away. “The Slits is a bit too hot for me right now.”
“Trouble in paradise?”
“I mean it’s too hot. I’d pack this elbow in ice if I could get any. What’s been going on here?”
“The show must go on. Turns out some of us can actually live without you for a night. Come and find me for a proper talk later. Good to see you on your feet, kiddo.”
After the show, TJ and Damsol sat side by side on the steps to TJ’s wagon. TJ rolled a joint and smoked it, staring up at the fixed stars. “Has anyone found Cowhead?” she asked.
“No one’s been looking,” said Damsol. “What was all that about last night?”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember anything after the lights went out. Did you see who took Cowhead?”
“Couldn’t see a thing in all that chaos. All I know is that Cowhead’s gone, plain and simple.”
TJ shook her head. “Don’t say shit like that.”
“I know it’s tough,” said Damsol. “And Cowhead was an amazing horse. But come on. You trained her, you can train another. I’ll loan you the money to buy a new horse and keep yourself fed while you break it in. I’ll take the money back out of your wages once you’ve got a new act up and running. Why don’t you go over to the livery stable tomorrow and see if they’ve got anything that would fit the bill?”
“I can’t do the act without Cowhead. She’s special.”
“Nothing special about four legs and a tail.”
“She’s not just a horse.”
Damsol sighed. “Listen, TJ. We’ve no idea what happened, who took her – if anybody did take her – or where she went. She could have been loaded onto a train and taken a thousand miles away. Go see what’s on sale in the corral tomorrow. That’s an order.”
Damsol heaved herself up and walked back towards her own wagon. TJ smoked her joint and watched her go.
***
The livery stable had a mare for sale. The woman who ran the place offered to saddle it up so that TJ could ride it around the corral, but TJ said maybe later. TJ kept glancing along main street towards the Two Slits. The saloon spilled noise into the street, and the doors flapped open and closed as people moved in and out. Each visitor fluoresced for a second as they stepped through the entrance, some violet, some green or blue.
Dragging her feet, TJ made her way to the general store. A skinny woman was just coming out, carrying a bag of coins in one hand and a flaming torch in the other.
“Little Dove, hi,” said TJ.
The skinny woman shook her head and laughed. “False Uncle. Little Dove’s serving behind the bar.”
“One day I’ll learn to tell you two apart.”
“One day so will we. I heard about what happened to you. Sounds rough. You been looking at that cockamamie Shire they’re trying to sell at the livery?”
“Yeah. I need a new horse. Damsol says she’ll lend me the money.”
“I’ll bet. I’ll bet she’s figured out how long it’ll take you to pay her back too. With interest. Wouldn’t you rather go fetch your own horse back?”
“Of course I would. But I don’t even know where to start looking. And I need to eat in the meantime.”
“Jeez, TJ, ask for help once in a while. There’s people who know how to find all sorts of lost things, from your grandma’s pipe to your idiot cousin. Hire an agent.”
They set off together towards the saloon. “You know of anyone like that?” TJ asked.
“I can ask around. Sooner or later everyone comes to the Slits.”
“I don’t have much money.”
“You’ll think of something, smart gal like you.”
As False Uncle went into the Slits, Mei-Lin came out, wrapped in her white silk dressing gown, with soft white socks on her feet. TJ stopped and waited while Mei-Lin padded up to her through the dust.
“Still here, I see,” said Mei-Lin. “Got a joint?” TJ rolled one and handed it over. “News?”
“No one knows anything,” said TJ. “False Uncle reckons we should hire an agent.”
“We?”
“Me. I didn’t tell her ‘we’.”
Mei-Lin exhaled, narrowing her eyes to slits against the smoke. “What’s with your hand?”
“Nothing.” TJ rubbed her thumb. “Arm still aches a bit.”
“Huh. If you say so. Thought you might have got something like this.”
Stretching out her left hand, the burning joint
balanced between two fingers, Mei-Lin revealed a fringed, curving line like a flap of skin on the back of the thumb.
TJ grabbed the hand, knocking the joint from Mei-Lin’s fingers. She laced her own hand palm to palm with Mei-Lin’s so that their thumbs touched.
The eyes swept open simultaneously, one on each woman’s hand. Dark pupils gazed at them from irises of golden brown.
4.
Wisps of blue and grey smoke trailed out through the saloon door and wreathed the porch in tobacco, incense and marijuana. Lit oil lamps hung from the roof beams and sat on the tables that filled the room beyond a long bar. Little Dove and False Uncle stood side by side at the bar, plying their trade. The lamps only added to the fierce heat rising off the bodies in the small room, odours of sweat and alcohol mixing with the smoke. Like miners in the depths, everyone here was almost or completely naked. The clothes they had stripped off in the heat lay in piles on the floor and under tables. Gun belts stayed slung around bare hips and bellies. Bare flesh of every hue glowed in reflected light from the lamps and the immense mirror behind the bar. Glasses and bottles glinted. The floor was bare and dirty, planks splintered in places, but the wooden walls and ceiling were covered with strange symbols and messages drawn or carved, geometric shapes, numbers, indecipherable scrawls and signs.
