The magician leaned on the desk and made theater of his attempts to control his breathing, then shook his head. “Came after me with a broom once but that’s about the size of it.”
“Lady, I’ve seen better accommodations in jail.”
“Figures you’d know about jail.”
“And someday so will you.” Lewis produced a fifty dollar bill. “Here. Buy yourself a personality.”
She curled her lip. “Think you’re a big shot, don’t you? Boys!” Her screeching ate a hole in the air. “Chester! Alvin! Come on out here.”
“Oh, now you tore it, Lewis,” Harley said.
The hall behind her desk was suddenly filled with two of the biggest men Lewis had ever seen. They were tall and fat, the larger of the two probably close to three hundred pounds. Lewis found himself studying their girth and wondering how a town as barren as this one supported two men this size. They had the woman’s close-set eyes and tiny mouth but none of the malevolent intelligence that animated ma’s face. In fact, Lewis thought these were also two of the stupidest-looking men he’d ever come across.
“Boys, this tramp here is some kinda big shot from the city, and I say he owes me one hundred and twenty dollars, and he wants to give me fifty. Make him give me my money, boys.”
Mama’s twin giants moved heavily toward Lewis, and Shelby took his place to back him up.
“Which one you want, Lewis?”
“Neither, but if it comes to that, I’ll take the taller one.”
“Only fair.”
“Fellas,” Lewis said, “let’s talk about this.” He raised both hands in a peace-making gesture.
“You heard Ma. Come across with the money.” The bigger of the two grabbed Lewis by his upper arm. Lewis yanked half-heartedly but knew he wouldn’t be able to shake the younger man’s grip.
“All right, son,” he sighed, and stomped his heel onto the other man’s foot, then drove a shoe into his shin. The big man howled and bent over. Lewis sidestepped and drove his right fist into the vast soft midsection, burying his arm almost to the elbow. The other man dropped to the floor gasping.
His brother took his eyes off Shelby to see what was happening, and Shelby bounced a left hook off the underside of his chin. The man’s left knee wobbled slightly and then he keeled over onto his side with a crash that shook the room.
Lewis nodded at Shelby. “Fine punch, J.M.”
Shelby smiled, then yelled, “Look out, Lewis!” and Lewis turned to see the landlady bearing down on him with a table leg.
He stood in her path till she swung the club, then dodged to one side, feeling the wood rush past his face. Her momentum carried her on spindly legs across the room, her journey eventually checked by a large stuffed chair which flipped over backward when she hit it.
“Let’s get out of here, fellas,” Lewis said
From the far side of the upturned chair, the landlady screamed imprecations at them.
As they left the hotel, Lewis turned to Harley. “You can sure pick a hotel, old man.”
“And now we must leave posthaste. The sheriff is sweet on my landlady.”
“There’s a sheriff in this town?” Shelby piped.
“And he’s sweet on her?” Lewis said.
“She’s a woman of property.”
“Ain’t the world a wonder?” Lewis asked.
When they were in the truck, he turned to the magician. “I just want to know one thing. How in the world did you pick this town, of all the towns to settle down in? What’s the attraction, Harley?”
The magician peered around as they drove out of town. He blinked and shrugged. “I was born here, or so they always told me. My ma was never certain on that score. But we lived here once when I was just a little boy. And then when I got here, I found out what I should’ve known already: anybody who would have known me or my people was dead and buried and I was just another old man. I guess I outlived that whole town. If not that whole time. And now I’m running off to join the circus.” Then he seemed to notice the boy on the little backseat.
“Not choosy who you throw in with, are you, son?”
They camped that night in a clearing, and the men sat around their fire passing a whiskey bottle and listening to Harley tell stories. The boy sat a few feet from him and tried to follow, though many of the stories seemed to blur, as did Harley Fitzroy’s life—actually he seemed to have had several. He’d known circus owners and famous performers, seemed to have hobnobbed with Indians when they still roamed on horseback, seen at least one war, and known dozens of colorful people, not the least of whom were Buffalo Bill Cody, someone called Pawnee Bill, a number of Indian chiefs, and Wyatt Earp, whom he pronounced “the wrong end of a horse.” Several of his most outlandish tales involved the magician named Roundtree, a black frontier sheriff named Joseph Pearce, and a young giant named Zachary Weed.
The ghosts of the last tale hung suspended in the air over the fire, and the men had fallen silent. Finally Lewis Tully roused himself.
“Time to hit the hay.” He walked over to the pile of blankets. “Everybody grab one. Here, let me fix you one, son.”
Lewis grabbed the thickest of the blankets. He straightened and fluffed it, then nodded to Charlie. “That’ll be yours.” He saw the boy staring around him at the growing dark.
“It’s just for tonight, son. I sleep in a bed under a roof like everybody else, and so will you. For tonight, we’re camping out. It’s an adventure.”
The men spread a dark tarpaulin on the ground and then set their blankets on it. Charlie crawled into his blanket and watched the three men snuggle in for the night. In the distance a screech owl called out, and he was now aware of the sound of the wind fighting through the tops of the trees. He lay on the corner of the tarpaulin and pulled his heavy blanket over his head. In spite of the blanket, he shivered, and he couldn’t seem to find a spot on the tarp that didn’t have a large pointed rock directly under it. He tried to imagine the place where these strange men lived and couldn’t picture them in a house, but he thought he’d die if they made him ride around in a truck with them all the time. If asked, he would have allowed that he liked the old magician, but he pointed out to himself that he still hadn’t seen any animals.
Above him in the black sky, the night birds seemed to be getting louder, coming closer, and he imagined that they were calling to one another about him, that they could see him beneath the blanket. He pictured himself being carried off by an enormous bird to be eaten in the woods, and almost immediately began to wonder if these were bats he was hearing.
A thickness came into his throat and he wanted his mother, then immediately he remembered that she was gone. He wondered how far Chicago was and thought of Alma, then felt a rush of betrayal that she’d gotten his hopes up and then sent him off to sleep on the ground in the middle of nowhere with strangers. He told himself he was angry with Alma, but he wished he were back with her now, he admitted that he missed her and her old mended sweaters in her old rickety coffee-and-cigarette-smelling house where at least he’d had a bed, and wasn’t out here sleeping on rocks with her crazy brother.
“They’re all crazy, all of ’em,” he muttered.
“You need something, son?” Lewis asked.
“No, sir.” Charlie took hold of the ends of his blanket and pulled it tight around him. The birds were talking about him, he knew they were—he’d heard once that crows could talk to each other—and he swore that he wouldn’t sleep until first light. In two minutes he was snoring.
Across the clearing Lewis Tully sat up on his elbows. Shelby and the old man were already sawing logs and something in the boy’s position told Lewis that he was asleep as well. Lewis stared at the small dark outline of the child and had to admit that if he were on his own in the world, the company of Lewis Tully and friends in the middle of the woods would be an inauspicious start.
&nb
sp; That night Lewis Tully slept fitfully, beset by dreams. In all of them he was a small boy in an oversize shirt that hung on him like a dress, and he was terrified. To the north he could see a line of mountains that rose up in jagged, forbidding walls. Behind him, in the direction he had come from, he could see train tracks that ended abruptly a few yards away. His dreams were harsh, crowded scenes, the people all adults with exaggerated features, big noses, and hairy faces, gap-toothed and horrible-eyed, and as these repellent creatures noticed him, they would approach menacingly, then bend down to peer at him. In his dreams he shrank back, ashamed of his baggy shirt, of his uncut hair, his dirty face, his size. Alma was somewhere at the fringe of these dreams, always there but powerless to shield him from these ugly staring adults.
FOUR
Ship of the Desert
In the morning they shared a quick breakfast of biscuits and coffee, and Lewis announced it was time “to go procure a camel.” They drove on to a tiny cluster of buildings whose town fathers clearly had a dark sense of humor. It was small, sun-bleached, desolate, and impoverished: it called itself “Pleasantville.”
Lewis pulled the truck over in front of the first of the squat little shacks, identical to the others but for a sign that said Stor.
He emerged a moment later with a small sack of supplies. They found the “camel trainer” working at a narrow lean-to that apparently served as the local smithy. He was short and muscular, and Charlie thought he’d never seen a man so filthy. He stood an inch deep in cinders, and his face was almost invisible through the smoke and steam of his work. The man was hammering a long thin piece of hot metal on an anvil, and he paused when they approached.
“You’re Mr. Burwell?”
“Yep. Need something?”
“Need a camel.”
Burwell blinked, and Lewis saw something that could have been a smile beneath all the grime.
“You’re Tully, then.”
“I guess I am.”
“Well, let’s go see ’er. She’s a real beauty.”
“She” was standing in the absolute center of a large rectangular corral. Lewis narrowed his eyes and studied the beast for a moment. As camels went, this was a large specimen, and an old one: a big one-humped Arabian, a good two feet taller than a Bactrian, long-necked and long-legged. She gazed complacently into space, looking just to the left of Lewis himself, and she appeared to be chewing. The sinewy workings of her jaw were the sole sign of life.
“Does she ever do anything but stand there?”
Burwell frowned. “Why, sure. She’s a real active beast, even for a camel. She likes to, you know, romp and gallop and such things. Playful, too.”
“I’ll bet.”
“She just likes her rest, is all. And with the heat and all the exercise I give ’er, it’s small wonder she takes a little siesta now and then. Just getting a second wind, that’s all.”
Lewis studied the camel. Her hair was matted and her outer coat was shedding itself in great clumps. Bare patches showed where her coat had worn away all the way to the hide, and it didn’t look as though she’d ever been groomed, bathed, or otherwise made fit for decent society. There was about this beast the air of great age and hard times. “Your letter said she was smart.”
“Sharp as a tack. Can’t tell by looking at her, of course.”
“You sure can’t. That is the stupidest-looking creature I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen animals dumber than a fence post.”
“Well, this is a smart beast. All camels is smart.”
Burwell sounded aggrieved, and he went forward and began speaking to his camel the way he might speak to a cherished infant.
The object of his attention turned her head in his direction, chewing what appeared to be a mouthful of hay. She seemed to notice Burwell, and his expressions of affection made her stop in mid-chew. After staring at him for several seconds, she turned back to her business at hand, staring off into Oklahoma as though she found it fascinating, and in general she did nothing to dispel the impression of extreme stupidity, but in truth she was watching them. Among the many tricks and stratagems acquired in nearly forty years’ experience with people, she had learned to use her peripheral vision to study them without looking directly at them. And the utter vacancy of her expression was itself a learned pose. Burwell approached the fencing of her corral and made his strange sounds, and she deigned to turn her head again in a queen’s gesture.
Among her kind she was in fact something of a queen, of a fine lineage, great size, and incredible age, which promised, in the simple view of her fellows (on those rare occasions when she had met up with any), a proportionate degree of wisdom. She took this opportunity to glance at the other men, in part to see what they were and in part to look, as always, for the Man with the Whip. She had not seen this man in almost thirty of her years, but time was unimportant to her and she expected someday to see him again. When she did, he would be very sorry.
Burwell clapped his hands and said, “Hello, girl,” and the camel tilted her head to one side.
“See?” Burwell asked. “See? She understands. She knows English. Fella I bought her from said she understands Spanish, too.”
“Yeah, and she sings and dances and cuts hair,” Shelby said.
“You said you ‘trained’ her.”
“No, sir, I did not say any such thing.”
“You did. Said you were ‘experienced in the ways of camels.’ I remember because I thought it was just a fine turn of phrase.”
A few feet away, Harley cackled and shook his head.
Lewis watched Burwell scratch his chin in the time-honored gesture of a man knee-deep in his own droppings. As Burwell pondered his mendacity further, his hand went to his hair and he rooted around as though sorting out the wildlife in his scalp.
“Now I mighta said something about teaching her a thing or two, but training camels? No, sir. I’m no camel-trainer, I’m a smith, and a damn good one.”
“That’s what we hear.”
“And besides, she’s already trained.”
“To do what?”
Clearly Burwell had not counted on being asked for specifics. His finger disappeared into his ear all the way to the first joint, and Lewis feared he might hurt himself.
“Well, sir. She comes when you call her. Sometimes, anyway. And she’ll sit, I’ve seen her do that, she’ll sit if you tell her. Of course sometimes she’ll sit if you don’t tell her, and I seen her sit when you tell her to come. She’s got a stubborn streak.”
“Breed’s known for it.”
“Well, there you are. And I told you she knows English and Spanish. She’s real smart, smarter than some people I know…”
And you’re one of ’em, Lewis wanted to say. Instead, he put a hand on Burwell’s sweaty shoulder. “Now cut out all this horseshit, Mr. Burwell. Anybody can see this is a dandy specimen of a camel, if old-and-shaggy is your taste. But I spent my life among animals and I’ve yet to see a camel gifted in languages. I need a camel and you’ve got one. We have the elements of a business proposition here. So what are you asking for this Ship of the Desert?”
“Five hundred dollars,” Burwell said, enunciating slowly and carefully. He looked off in the general direction his camel was staring in, so that it seemed they were both captivated by the same scenery.
Shelby made a snorting noise and Lewis nodded. “Well, sir, that would be a pretty fair price, if your camel wasn’t damn near death and if you had a lot of potential buyers. But it seems to me you’ve got an old raggedy camel, possibly a senile one, and just one person in the whole length and breadth of Oklahoma that might buy her. And in view of that, my offer is seventy-five dollars.”
“Seventy-five? That’s the most ridiculous—”
“And I’ll thank you for your time, sir. Got to get over to Tulsa and see a man about some llamas.”
“Llamas? But…”
Lewis touched his finger to the sweatstained brim of his hat and wheeled around to leave.
“All right,” Burwell said. “But it’s gotta be cash on the barrelhead.”
Lewis reached into his pocket and came up with a roll of money, peeled off the bills, and handed them to Burwell. A look at the delighted gleam in Burwell’s eyes told Lewis he might have gone even lower for the camel, but what was done was done.
The magician patted Charlie on the shoulder. “You’ve just witnessed what is generally called a ‘business transaction.’”
“Did Lewis win?”
“Hard to say. He’s happy he didn’t pay more for that ill-favored beast, but Mr. Burwell seems to feel he’s done well. And they both enjoyed themselves, that’s the main thing.”
When it was time to load the camel, Charlie watched in the growing dark as Lewis and Shelby tugged at the rope lead and the camel snapped at it.
Eventually she gave up, hitting instead upon the idea of biting them. She made a high-pitched whinny and closed her big jaws on the air with an loud crunching noise, sending Shelby flying.
“Can she hurt them?” the boy asked.
“Of course. Camels are a difficult race, prone to unnecessary displays of temper. They have a vicious bite. I’d say her heart’s not in it, though.”
“Why?”
“If she wanted to, she could kick ’em all senseless. She’s just amusing herself.”
The camel made another snap at Lewis, and this brought Burwell flying from his smithy, waving a bullwhip over his head and sending a stream of profanity in the direction of the camel.
“Now go easy with that, Burwell,” Lewis said, but it was clear that Burwell was glad for the opportunity.
He let the tip of the bullwhip flick at the animal’s rump, and was rearing back to fetch her another when she yanked the ropes from the other men’s hands and turned her attention to Burwell.
Burwell’s face turned pale beneath his layer of filth, and he made a placating gesture in her direction.
The Blue Moon Circus Page 5
