The Blue Moon Circus

by Michael Raleigh

  That afternoon in Harvey’s Corners, he had reached the point in the act where it became clear that he was overmatched by the cobra. Shrieks of fear became audible from both genders in the packed house. From somewhere in the heart of the crowd, a man’s voice could be heard exhorting someone to “get that damn thing in a box before somebody gets hurt.” Then the cobra struck, Mr. Patel went weak-kneed and dull-eyed, flung the flute high into the air with a practiced movement, and sank to the sawdust.

  Doc Morin trudged out to the ring with his normal air of aggrieved inconvenience, and Lewis trotted out trying to look concerned. While Doc Morin fumbled with his stethoscope and Lewis motioned for calm, three individuals dashed from the stands. The first was a small dapper man with a perfect goatee, a black bag, and a self-important manner. He sent Doc Morin to the ground with a shove and began to minister to Mr. Patel.

  The other two people who descended from their seats were the Kendall sisters, identical twins in fact, a pair of local girls in their twenties known for their good works in the community and their attentiveness to social causes. They were yet spinsters, their audacious beauty balanced in the eyes of the local men by their early work for women’s suffrage and adherence to the tenets of feminism. That is to say, the boys were terrified of them.

  Now as the little doctor worked on Mr. Patel, one of the sisters—local legend would later assert that it was Mary, the less politically active and therefore considered the nicer of the two—stood behind him, staring wild-eyed, her prodigious bosom heaving with emotion. The other sister—local historians would later hold that this was Marjorie, the less popular sister for her outspoken views on the inferiority of men and the fact that she had recently taken up boxing and the smoking of cigarettes—confronted the snake. The two buxom plainswomen stood poised for action, eyes riveted on the task at hand.

  Then the little doctor galvanized the scene into life. He got to his feet, shook his head dramatically, and pronounced in an opera singer’s voice, “This man is dead. He has been murdered by the serpent.”

  Here he would have pointed at the guilty snake and gone on to speechify had he not been shouldered aside by Mary. She put her weight behind it and the doctor went flying, coming to earth just as Doc Morin was getting to his feet.

  The girl stared hopelessly at Mr. Patel, raised her enormous blue eyes to the heavens beyond Lewis Tully’s tent, and then fell upon Mr. Patel, sucking at the ugly wound in his neck and spitting.

  Her sister slowly circled the snake. The reptile was visibly cowed, moving ever backward and giving no hint of fight. The doughty young woman cut off its retreat, threw a fine right cross that missed, then spied Mr. Patel’s flute. She seized this weapon and began chasing the snake around the ring, clubbing it occasionally and raising a great cloud of dirt and sawdust.

  Lewis stood dazed in the midst of it all, unsure where his duty lay until he saw the young woman attempting to murder the cobra.

  “Here now, ma’am, don’t kill the snake, he’s part of the act. Ma’am? That snake’s worth money and the little man is partial to him.” With that he began pursuing her around the ring. A pair of uniformed police officers entered Lewis Tully’s tent and the doctor struggled to his feet, pointed to Lewis Tully, and said with a demonic look in his eye, “Arrest that man, there has been murder here!”

  One of the deputies went after Lewis and the other moved over where Mary Kendall still worked at saving Mr. Patel’s life, unaware that it had been saved, after a fashion, at birth. Fascinated by the process, the deputy watched her and forgot entirely about the rest of the commotion. His partner, a heavy-set florid man, took a few trotting steps in Lewis’s direction and then seemed to lose heart. He stopped, panting and sweating, hands on knees, and appeared to be near collapse.

  The Kendall girl had size and moral righteousness on her side but the snake was battle-hardened, having lived her entire life with people trying to kill her, and in the end she weathered the hail of blows from the flute and maneuvered herself in a circle until she was once again at her basket. She waited as Marjorie clubbed at her once more and then slipped into the lovely coolness at the bottom of her basket.

  Here Lewis caught up with the girl.

  “All right, ma’am, you’ve made your feelings known. Why don’t you just give me that flute?”

  He smiled reassuringly and held out his hand, unaware that the patronizing look on his face, the universal expression which informs a woman that a man has arrived to put matters right, was the very look that had sent her off on her lifelong pilgrimage for women’s rights.

  Lewis froze with his hand outstretched. He saw the odd light come into the girl’s pale eyes, and realized that she was thinking about braining him.

  “Now, ma’am, it’s plain that you’re agitated.”

  The young woman lifted one corner of her lip and moved slowly toward Lewis, and he was experiencing a vision of himself beaten into a pulp by this overwrought young woman when suddenly her sister cried out, “He’s alive!” and all eyes were on the center of the ring.

  Mr. Patel rolled over onto one side, blinked and shook his head as though to clear it, then grinned up at the blond vision hovering over him. A gasp went through the crowd, the usual gasp at this point in the little Indian’s act, and the deputy was shaking his head and motioning for his companion to come have a look at things. The doctor put his hands on his hips and assumed a pose of irritated confusion.

  Marjorie Kendall muttered, “It’s a miracle,” and dropped the flute at her feet, moving off to join her sister. Lewis grabbed the instrument and walked over to the little doctor. Up close, he thought the man resembled John Wilkes Booth, and the maniacal look he now focused on Lewis underscored the resemblance.

  “What’s this nonsense? I checked and there was no pulse in this man. What’s going on here?”

  Lewis smiled. “Appears you went off half-cocked and said rash things. Next time maybe you’ll wait a bit till you know what you’re talking about.”

  “I don’t know what kind of charlatan you are, sir, but…”

  “Mister, it’s a circus, and nobody died, although you had folks roused enough to get somebody hurt.” Lewis waited until the little doctor opened his mouth and then added, “I just hope you’ve learned something from this experience,” and he walked away.

  The fat deputy caught up with him. “Mr. Tully? Don’t mind that fella. He’s running for the legislature in the fall. Hasn’t done a thing for his personality, and nobody liked him much in the first place.”

  “Thanks, deputy.”

  In the center of the ring, Mr. Patel struggled to his feet with the help of his lovely rescuer. Doc Morin made a show of taking a pulse, listening to his heart and lungs, then pretending to be dazzled by the dramatic recovery. The audience looked on, reflected on the supplementary performances by the snake and the second Kendall woman, the pursuit by the deputy and the young woman’s near-assault on Lewis, and got to their feet. Their applause and cheers carried out into the night.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Cowboys and Other Travails

  In Fort Fess, just a few miles north of the bigger town of Limon and at approximately the place where farm country played itself out into ranch land, they drew their first cowboys.

  The shots rang out during the Antoninis’ act, and Lewis felt his stomach tighten. He thought for a moment: Sam Jeanette had his pistol but this was no time or place for guns. He grabbed Tony Aiello’s bullhook and looked around quickly until his eyes met Shelby’s. Then they strode out to the grandstand.

  “Got our first ‘pistolero,’ I see.”

  “I’ve tried never to play a cowtown on a Saturday, but you just can’t arrange these things.”

  They saw him, a long-faced youngster, absurd in a baggy shirt and a hat meant for someone twice his size. He was sighting at something in front of him, squinting down the length of the gun barrel. His
companions were a quartet of skinny men in big hats. The eldest appeared to be around Lewis’s age, and looked away in open disgust. The others were young, red-faced, giggly, glassy-eyed.

  “Drunk, all of ’em,” Shelby said.

  The crowd around the young cowhands was rigid with fear, and a number were scooting rapidly on the seat of their pants along the benches and away from the trouble. One of the cowboys said something, and the young gunslinger turned slightly and was looking down the gunbarrel at Lewis. Lewis stopped a few feet away and held out his arm to catch Shelby.

  “Just hold on there, J.M.”

  Lewis looked up at his tent and saw a pair of holes in one of the upper panels.

  He pointed at them and looked at the kid. “You damaged my tent.”

  “Guess I did.” The boy smirked and flashed a quick grin at his friends. “You want to make something of it?”

  He was having difficulty focusing, but the gun remained pointed in Lewis’s approximate direction.

  “I don’t recall doing you any harm.”

  “Come on, Floyd, let’s go get a drink.” The older cowboy was on his feet, staring at the young one. The boy turned his head slowly till he faced the older man.

  “You ain’t my boss here, Jess. My own time, my own…man.”

  He smiled at Lewis and a glob of saliva slipped over the corner of his mouth. The boy slurped it back in.

  “God Almighty, J.M.,” Lewis muttered. “We got one that drools.”

  “I thought they all drooled.”

  “Son, we got us a problem.”

  “We’re just having a little hoot here, mister,” one of the other boys said.

  Lewis leaned on the bullhook and measured the gunslinger.

  “Ever hear of a man named Jonas Meacham?”

  “No.” The boy narrowed his eyes, convinced he was being made fun of.

  “He was a circus man, like me. Had his own show, a small show, kinda like this one. One night in a tough town, a bunch of local men come in with guns and started shooting up his top. Meacham went over to talk to them and one of them shot him dead, right in front of his wife. He wasn’t even carrying a weapon. Now I have to ask you, son, was that what you had in mind? Shooting me or one of my performers?”

  “I never shot nobody. I was just having a little fun.”

  “That’s what a circus is for. A little fun.” Lewis scanned the terrified customers sitting rigid throughout his grandstand. “Don’t seem to me that anybody else here is having fun.”

  “That’s not my lookout, I just…” The boy looked around with a lazy grin and Lewis struck with the hook and caught him around the neck. Lewis tugged, and the boy shot forward out of his seat. He did a somersault and landed on his shoulders in the dirt. One of the other boys stood up and took one unsteady step in his friend’s direction, and the old cowboy sat him down with a quick shove. Another kid started to come out, and Shelby met him halfway with an upraised palm and a cocked fist.

  Lewis leaned on the hook again, one foot resting on the boy’s gun. It was, now that he could see it clearly, a Colt Dragoon, an antique, nickel-plated with an antler handle. He bent over and picked up the gun, emptied the cylinder, and held it up as the kid staggered to his feet.

  “Got a genuine piece of history here. For God’s sake, it’s 1926. What are you doing carrying a six-shooter around?”

  A tall, tired-looking man wearing a policeman’s badge and a blue cap entered the big top and frowned when he saw the young cowboy and the gun in Lewis’s hand.

  “I’ll take over here,” he said. He held out his hand for the pistol, looked at it, and shook his head. “You’re a great disappointment to me, Floyd. Who do you think you are, Wild Bill Hickock? Come on down to Dove Street with me, son, and don’t give me any lip.” To Lewis he nodded and said, “Sorry for your trouble. You know what these young ones are.”

  “I guess I was like that once.”

  “We all were,” the constable said in his fatigued voice.

  ***

  The drunk in Ida was blessed with a voice like a belling hound and the wind of an orator. He began making his interests known with the very first female who appeared in the show—Mrs. Antonini, already a grandmother—and continued on, nearly coming apart when he saw Irina in her form-hugging dress. But it was Lucy Brown in her tights and short ruffled skirt who melted what little remained of his reserve. He was loudly professing his lust and starting down the grandstand with the expressed intention of making her acquaintance. Lewis took a couple of steps toward the man and saw Foley twenty paces ahead of him, hatless, head down, and his right hand balled into a fist.

  “Oh, Lord,” Lewis groaned. “This is just what we needed.”

  He started to call out to Foley, knew it wouldn’t do any good at all, and consoled himself with the idea that he would kill Foley afterward. The drunk with the Ciceronian voice had just made it to the lower section of the stands, had in fact somehow contrived to jam his left foot into a lady’s handbag, so that he was not only unpopular but slowed considerably, when a slender, graying woman pushed her way into the tent, gave the audience a flinty once-over, and located the drunk. She bore down on him like a wolf on meat and was waiting at the bottom bench when he reached it.

  The man was shaking his foot in a vain attempt to dislodge the handbag when he saw her. A smile of utter stupidity crossed his face and he stopped all movement. In the background, Lucy Brown was vaulting from one horse to another and turning backward somersaults, but she could have been playing the harpsichord naked for all the attention she drew.

  The drunk fought for an air of seriousness, thrust his hands into his pockets, and came up with a frown of concentration that he thought would serve to conceal his state.

  “Hello, Honey Bun,” he said, and attempted to invest the lady’s handbag on his foot with some dignity. The slender woman watched him for a moment with the air of someone who has found a garden slug in the tomatoes and then knocked him cold with a single punch. The drunk bounced noisily off the lower benches, and the stands erupted in applause. Several of the women huddled around the thin lady and made solicitous noises while a group of the men carried out the dazed offender.

  Foley turned back to his business and found Lewis blocking his path.

  “Just what the hell were you up to, Foley?”

  “I was gonna throw him out.”

  “No, you had something else in mind. I saw you stalk over there with blood in your eye. Who do you think you are—Jack Dempsey?”

  “He needed somebody to drop him where he stood.”

  A strange look had come into Foley’s eyes, one Lewis hadn’t seen before. The ravaged face was a deep red, mouth tight, quite a different Foley from the genial, smiling grifter who’d brought in the Red Ape.

  “When a circus man hits a towner, all his friends think they’ve got to stand up for him, and then we’ve got a clem on our hands. We don’t need any fights.”

  “I’ve been in a few fights, Mr. Tully,” Foley said calmly. “They don’t scare me much.”

  “Maybe not, but you don’t have a show full of people to worry about. If there’s a problem, I tend to it. And for a loudmouth drunk, I don’t send out a pugilist.”

  A little smile appeared on Foley’s face and he seemed to relax.

  “I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to cause you any trouble. I was trying to stop some.” His gaze moved off, became distant, and Lewis knew without turning that he was watching Lucy.

  Her act was almost finished, much of it unseen tonight as people chose to watch a drunk make a fool of himself, but she hadn’t paused for so much as a hoofbeat. Now, for the last few seconds of her performance, she’d caught the crowd once more, and they seemed to realize they’d missed something special. The stands were quiet, he’d always said you could read a prayer aloud in the stands while Lucy performed and be heard
in the top row. Lewis studied Foley, saw the look in the younger man’s eye, and wondered if history were about to repeat itself. No, he thought, this isn’t an empty-headed eighteen-year-old, Lucy’s fully grown. And she can do better than this drifter.

  “Never figured you for a brawler.”

  “I’m not. I just like to remind people I’m no tramp.” Foley met Lewis’s eyes.

  Lewis, turned away, suddenly embarrassed. “Nobody thinks you’re a tramp, Foley…but this kind of thing, she’s heard it all before. She doesn’t need to be protected from the drunks.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Lewis nodded and turned away, thinking of the look in Foley’s eye when he’d gone out after the drunk.

  THIRTY

  Wise Men

  Charlie fussed for more than a week over his portrait of the Red Ape, struggled first to get the hang of mixing colors and then to put the proper detail into the face. This last obstacle proved difficult: while his early efforts did not make Rex look like a bear, as Emmett McKeon’s picture had, the ape came out looking first like a great brown seal, then a monkey with huge eyes, and finally like a very unhappy man. Shelby came by and opined that it looked surprisingly like Lewis. Lewis came by and thought it resembled Shelby.

  Eventually the boy took to studying the ape through the small window of the cart as Rex sat belching or snoring inside. Once, the ape woke up, narrowed one moist brown eye, and gave the wall of his quarters a sharp slap. The boy jumped and lost his sketching pencil. He stood a few feet back until it was clear Rex would not shake his dwelling apart. Then he moved back and peered inside. Rex’s eyes closed slowly. The right eye opened suddenly, and he fixed the child with a long unblinking stare, then drifted off to sleep, and Charlie was certain there had been a sly smile in that look.