by Gini Koch
His hair was long, shaggy. What might have once been blonde was grey and looked as though it’d been cut with the dull edge of a knife rather than proper shearing. His beard wasn’t much fairer. Patches of silver grew through the thick mass of hair. When Hilton faced me, I saw the leathery texture of his cheeks, the reddish tinge to his nose. He’d been outdoors more than in, it seemed. A glimpse of his watery blue eyes made the breath catch in my chest. This was a man weary to his bones. Haunted.
“Mr. Hilton,” said I, “I won’t keep you long.”
When all I got from him was a grunt, I reached into my pocket and offered him the pages of scribbling. He took them and laid the barest of glances over them before tossing them to the floor at my feet.
“What of ’em?” he snarled.
I sighed and picked up the papers. “Do you know what they mean?”
“Look like a kid drew ’em with ’is own drool. Why should I know?”
“Remind me of something I saw on the road once. Not too different from the cat I saw drawn outside this very house.”
“Ask plain, spook, or stop wasting my time.”
I bristled at the slur. “Are these road signs, and if so can you tell me what they mean?”
“What’s it to you if they are?”
“They were carved into the flank of a horse and a man’s home. Whoever did it put a young girl in danger. I’d like to make sure she stays safe.”
“She dark as you?”
“I don’t see that it matters one way or the other, Mr. Hilton,” I said, keeping my voice calm. “She and her guardian have asked me to look in on the matter as a personal favor. I’d take it as a kindness if you could answer my questions.”
Flapjack’s eyes narrowed and a sneer oozed over his face. His right hand made a move for his waistband, and a familiar hot, pricking sensation flooded my body, just beneath the skin. The acid taste of adrenaline tingled at the back of my throat.
I raised my cane just quick enough to knock the thrown knife to the floor. Its tip sank into the boards with an ominous thunk. The sinewy hobo lunged for me, arms raised and fingers curled as if to take out my throat. He spat out slurs, invoking the ugliest of words for a man of my complexion as if he’d invented the damn things.
I stepped to the side and tripped up Hilton with a well-placed blow of my metal leg. As his shin went out from under him, I shifted my weight just so and whacked him one on the back of the neck with my cane. Like a choreographed dance I’d learned long ago, it came bubbling up in my memory. In a few movements and a dash of seconds, I had Hilton on his back, the cane in my left hand pressed to his throat and his own knife kissing his lowest rib. Though he put up some struggle, Flapjack soon found that it was growing difficult to breathe, let alone speak or call out for help. Or use any more of those epithets of which he was rather fond.
I brought my mouth down to his ear. “This is the quickest way to a man’s heart,” I hissed. “Up under the ribs. A single poke and I’d have your blood all over Miss Patrick’s lovely floor. I’d rather not do that, you understand? Nod and tell me you understand.”
Hilton nodded feverishly, his thrashing calming down.
“Good. Now, you’re going to help me and this little girl out, friend. You’re going to be quite the hero. So tell me. Are those pictures I showed you hobo signs?”
He nodded.
“Was that so hard? No. Now, tell me kindly, what do they mean?”
I eased up the pressure with the cane so that he could take a breath. Through gritted teeth, he growled, “First two are road speak.”
“Go on.”
“One of ’em’s ‘orphan.’ The other’s ‘murder.’”
“What about the third?” He shook his head. I pressed the cane to his chin, forcing his head back against the floorboards. “What about the third?” I repeated.
“I don’t know!” he spat. “Never seen it before.”
“Mr. Hilton?” Miss Patrick called through the door. “Is everything alright?”
I shifted my weight off him and Flapjack didn’t need an invitation to roll away from me. I palmed his knife and—with a move I’d learned from Crash—slid it into the waistband of my trousers. As Miss Patrick opened the door, all she saw was her new friend lifting himself off the floor, papers in hand, with the aid of his trusty cane.
“Mr. Walker, are you alright?”
“Just dandy, ma’am,” I sang cheerfully. “Mr. Hilton here was quite helpful. I was just on my way out when I took a bit of a tumble. Happens from time to time with this old thing.” I tapped my cane on the metal leg.
She ushered me out the door and I saw no more of Flapjack Hilton.
“Julius!” Miss Patrick called. “Julius, boy!”
The large lad met us at the bottom of the stairs, a potato in one hand and a small knife in the other. “Yes, Auntie Elise?”
“Put down that potato and see to Mr. Walker here. He’s got no business walking back to his homestead on a leg like that.”
Julius nodded and returned to the kitchen, but only briefly. As Miss Patrick guided me to the foyer once more, her arm looped through mine, she chided me about not taking care of myself. “Don’t you be making trips like that on your lonesome, boy. What if you’d fallen out in the snow by the tracks? No, I’ll just not have that on my conscience. Julius is going to take the Packard and see that you get safe home.”
I smiled with relief. “Ma’am, you are too kind.”
seven
WHEN I GOT out of Miss Patrick’s Packard, it was nearly dark. The camp, however, breathed with the warm glow of our huge communal fire. It seemed that the residents of the Wonder Show had decided to throw a beastly houley to chase away the night. I heard Slaney and Hoss playing their drums. Mars and Cubitt were singing off-key to the sounds of Cassie Clay’s squeeze box. And there at the center of it, Crash fiddled a gypsy reel.
The cacophony of voices and laughter and instruments gave voice to the wagging tongues of the flames. The shadows flickered across the tents, wagons and, I soon found, in the wide gaze of young Julius’s eyes. He gaped at the campground, mouth hanging open.
“Boy, you’ll catch flies that way,” I warned.
He closed his gob and dared to blink. When the camp didn’t disappear, he looked to me. “You live here?”
I gazed again at my home. ’Twasn’t hard to see why the boy was so enthralled. The revelers danced sinuously, limbs jutting out of the scrum to take a new partner and pull them close. The thick blanket of snow caught the firelight and glittered like a dragon’s heap of gold. The music, the savory smells of Mrs. Hudson’s cooking... in many ways the camp was a more intoxicating sight than the carnival itself, with all its banners, lights and carousel song. It could beckon to the most stalwart of souls.
“For the time being,” I said, unable to keep the smile from my face.
I dipped into my pocket and pulled out the money Miss Patrick had refused to take for my meal. “Julius, I thank you kindly for the lift and your auntie’s hospitality.”
“I can’t be acceptin’ that, sir.”
“Please,” I said. “As a favor. I don’t like charity, boy, and I hate the idea of getting something for nothing. Slip it into her coffers or buy yourself a sweet roll from the bakery in town. I don’t care what’s done with it, but I’d be offended if you didn’t take it.”
He stared at the bills, then back at the camp longingly. After pondering something that weighed heavily on his mind, Julius took the money and stashed it in the glovebox. “Sure thing, Mr. Walker.”
“That’s a good lad.”
I slid out of the car with about as much ease as an elephant. Before I could shut the door, Julius called out, “Mr. Walker!”
“Yes?”
“Could I... come and visit y’all sometime? When I’m not working, town gets a little...” His voice trailed off and his chin fell. He didn’t want to insult his aunt and her establishment, but for a young man, sometimes the small town just ain’t e
nough to keep his attention.
I nodded. “Sure thing, Julius. Come on out and if you don’t see me, tell ’em you’re a friend of Dandy’s.”
His face screwed up in confusion, and I didn’t bother explaining. I shut the door, turned my back on the Packard and hoofed toward the fire in my ungainly fashion.
“Dandy!” voices sang, welcoming me to the party.
The music kept on, but a few dancers stopped their spinning to clap me on the shoulder or wrap their arms around my neck in greeting. The Professor had even come out of his den to join in the festivities. He seemed to be doing delightfully well with one of the koochie girls. A flask flashed from his hip and I could smell the rotgut from five foot away. Next to him, ever his shadow, Maeve sat staring at the blazing bonfire. If not for the reflection of the flames, her eyes would’ve been dull as stone. Her young face fell in an expression far too sullen for one so young.
Crash, fiddle to his chin, fixed me with a sly grin. He bobbed in time with his tune, sketching a light bow in my direction before turning back around to continue the reel with his fellow musicians. A hand too small for a regular-sized adult took my wrist and jerked me to a bench near the fire. A tankard shoved its way into one hand while a plate landed in my lap. Before I could catch a breath, the shindig had engulfed me and accepted me as one of its own.
Much like Crash and the circus itself had done, a few months ago.
I’d not felt such a sense of community since my days fighting in the cold of France. Nor had I drawn on that soldier’s anger, or his unflinching ability to hurt another human with the same skill as he could fix one up. Not in nigh unto twenty years. However, that very day in Flapjack’s room, the past rushed back to me and Lance Corporal Walker reported for duty like the spry greenhorn I’d been when I first enlisted.
My hands began to shake something fierce and my drink dribbled down my coat. The firelight—which before had been so welcoming, warm and peaceful—flashed and pulsed like artillery fire. The drums boomed in my ears, the voices screamed... all of the noise pressing in on me, dredging up specters and goblins from the past life of a soldier. A Hellfighter.
I pressed my hands to my eyes, trying to blot out the night, but that only intensified the ghostly visions of battlefields and men bleeding their last drops on foreign soil.
Peru, Indiana, fell away from me—or rather I fell away from it, tumbling into a void. Gone was the cold winter night, replaced with the hot, damp skirmish outside Château-Thierry. Smells of black powder, sweat, coppery blood and the miasma of death shoved me, buffeted me on the gale of memory.
The boys were shouting. Some of them cryin’ out for their mamas, others screaming for medics who wouldn’t make it in time. Laying in mud stained crimson until someone could box them up in pine and send them back to weeping sweethearts.
“Hellfire’s behind me,” I murmured to myself. “Hellfire is behind me.”
“Jim.” A soft voice cut through, reaching into the mire of my memories and gently pulling me closer to home. “Jim, open your eyes.”
I jerked back into the present and Mrs. Hudson was waiting for me, her stare a pair of guiding stars. Her tiny hands burned on either side of my face. Though the party kept on—Crash’s violin climbing higher up his scale at a blistering pace—Mrs. Hudson and I seemed to rest in a pocket of peace just big enough to hold the two of us.
“Jim?”
Words bubbled up in my throat but choked me. There were too many. And how does a man explain the things he’s done for his country that would put him out of the esteem of his Lord and a lady? I sagged there on the bench and felt the old anguish sweeping over me.
My head fell, heavy and weary, and it was Mrs. Hudson’s shoulder that caught it.
“Come on,” she said soothingly.
I let her guide me to my feet, set my course and lead me to the warmth of my vardo. The party droned in another world outside the door of 221b; inside, a man would’ve wept himself to a thousand pieces if not for the woman holding his shoulders.
eight
AFTER MY... EPISODE, I swam in blackness—the sleep of those that don’t have the energy to dream. I don’t know when Mrs. Hudson left, only that she did. Hell, I didn’t so much as stir when Crash returned.
When I opened my eyes on the morning, they were raw, the lashes crusty and brittle. Wind howled outside, whistled over the stovepipe and rattled some of the less sturdy parts of the wagon. Every so often a powerful gust gave the vardo a shake, the springs creaking beneath me. Even my hammock got to swaying.
I couldn’t make out if it was daytime or night, nor if I’d slept for a night or a whole year. Crash had pulled the blackout curtains over every cranny. I wouldn’t have been able to see my hand in front of my face if I’d been lily white. I heard Crash snoring, though. Great draughts and snuffles rolled in a slow rhythm beneath me.
I might’ve dozed that way, just listening to both kinds of wind and drifting along in the gloaming, but it’s hard to say. Sooner or later, though, someone pounded on our door to wake Ol’ Scratch ’imself.
Crash jumped, a bony appendage striking me in the spine. I went rocking, and when he flailed out with both arms the momentum got the better of me. I fell gracelessly atop my roommate, causing both of us to grumble and growl.
“Jim!” Mrs. Hudson called from outside. “We need you!”
Crash and I untangled ourselves and he crawled to the door while I used my prosthetic to lever myself up. He opened the door just about the time I achieved the status of a biped.
Holding an arm over his eyes against the grey light of morning, Crash let out a horrified moan. “Goddammit, Mrs. Hudson, what in the names of the seven whores of Hell do you mean by making such a fuss at my door?”
She snorted and rolled her eyes. “Dramatic ponce,” she muttered. “We need the doctor.”
“The Professor is in a different wagon, you daft—”
“Not that idiot, Crash! I’m talking about the doctor!” She punctuated this with a jab of her stubby fingers toward me. A few steps and she was grabbing me by my trouser leg and hauling me toward the door. “We’ve got a problem, Jim.”
“Crash,” I said over my shoulder, “my bag.”
Though I heard him grouse about it, he didn’t refuse. Mrs. Hudson led me through the drizzle at a pace that made her jiggle and shake in an all too pleasing a fashion.
“What’s wrong?”
“Mars. Got himself bloodied up.”
“How?”
“Burglar.”
Shit. “Is Artemesia alright?”
“Shaken. Furious.”
Mrs. Hudson didn’t take me to the tattooed lady’s wagon, though. Instead we veered left of it to the behemoth tent of Mr. Mars. A small crowd had already massed outside, their breath fogging me as I passed. Without bothering to jingle the bell outside, the dwarf tossed back the flap and yanked me in after her.
Mars lay in his over-sized tick with Artemesia sitting at his side. The strongman’s ruddy face glistened with sweat, and his eyes were glassy as a doll’s. His great chest lay bare for all to see, though the rest of him was covered with a blanket. I saw the wound on his left flank, just below the rib cage. Someone had sliced him one, not terribly deep, but enough to bleed and make the Devil’s own mess. Smaller cuts were visible on his upper arm, and a puncture was scabbing over on his palm.
“Why the hell didn’t you come get me sooner?”
Mars looked at me sheepishly. “Thought it was nothing. Until it weren’t.”
Crash stumbled in behind me with my black bag in hand. I took it to Mars’s side and opened it, taking the time to look at each wound individually. Crash, suddenly sobered by the sight of his bleeding strongman, hovered behind me.
“What happened?”
Artemesia’s red-rimmed eyes found mine, then rose to Crash. “Someone broke into my wagon last night, Boss. Jonny heard the ruckus and came over to check on me. Caught the bastard’s knife a few times.”
“Did you see him?”
Mars shook his head. “Too dark. Too fast.”
“Crash,” I barked. “Take out the biggest tankard you can find and bring me some clean snow. Artemesia, I need you to get me some clean rags, towels, scarves, whatever you’ve got. Both of you, make sure it’s all clean!”
Without question, they set to my instructions.
“And someone get some water on the boil!” I shouted. As I dug through my bag for what I would need, I said, “Mr. Mars, next time you have so much as a papercut, I’d like to be privy to that information, do you understand?”
“Aye, Doc.” Mars let his head fall back and his eyes close. All the better that I could do my work.
“Excellent. Mrs. Hudson, darling?”
“Yes?”
“You got any white lightning in that car of yours?”
“As much as you need.”
I eyed Mars’s considerably frame. “We’re going to need it. And some whiskey, I think.”
“There’s a bottle of rye next to your bag, Jim.”
She set off to get the booze and I put the bottle in Mars’s hand. “Take a pull.”
“Already been sipping at it,” he said.
That could account for some of the redness on his cheeks and nose, possibly a measure of the sweat pouring down his face.
Artemesia flew into the tent with an armful of fabric.
“Crash!” I roared. “Get your lanky ass in here.”
A few moments later he appeared with the snow I’d asked for, along with his cigar box of intoxicants. He looked at me knowingly, and I nodded.
“Alright,” said I. “When Mrs. Hudson gets back, Artemesia, I need you to lay out all of those rags, you hear? Then I need you to soak these needles in some of the moonshine.”
Artemesia nodded.
I took one of the handkerchiefs she’d fetched and brought it to Crash’s side. Quietly I asked, “You bring what I asked for?”
He bobbed his head and passed me the cigar box. I flipped the top and sure enough, next to the reefer we shared was a phial of white powder. Glad to know he understood my meaning when I asked for “snow.”
