The Collective

by The Collective [lit]

  "He told me he was a police-man," I said. "What do you suppose

  he looks for around here? You don't suppose Mr. Indrasil--?"

  Chips and Sally looked at each other strangely, and both just about

  broke their backs getting up. "Got to see those weights and counter

  weights get stored right," Sally said, and Chips muttered something

  not too convincing about checking on the rear axle of his U-Haul.

  And that's about the way any conversation concerning Mt. Indrasil

  or Mr. Legere usually broke up--- hurriedly, with many hard-

  forced excuses.

  We said farewell to Illinois and comfort at the same time. A killing

  hot spell came on, seemingly at the very instant we crossed the

  border, and it stayed with us for the next month and a half, as we

  moved slowly across Missouri and into Kansas. Everyone grew

  short of temper, including the animals. And that, of course,

  included the cats, which were Mr. Indrasil's responsibility. He rode

  the roustabouts unmercifully, and myself in particular. I grinned

  and tried to bear it, even though I had my own case of prickly heat.

  You just don't argue with a crazy man, and I'd pretty well decided

  that was what Mr. Indrasil was.

  No one was getting any sleep, and that is the curse of all circus

  performers. Loss of sleep slows up reflexes, and slow reflexes

  make for danger. In Independence Sally O'Hara fell seventy-five

  feet into the nylon netting and fractured her shoulder. Andrea

  Solienni, our bareback rider, fell off one of her horses during

  rehearsal and was knocked unconscious by a flying hoof. Chips

  Baily suffered silently with the fever that was always with him, his

  face a waxen mask, with cold perspiration clustered at each temple.

  And in many ways, Mr. Indrasil had the roughest row to hoe of all.

  The cats were nervous and short-tempered, and every time he

  stepped into the Demon Cat Cage, as it was billed, he took his life

  in his hands. He was feeding the lions ordinate amounts of raw

  meat right before he went on, something that lion tamers rarely do,

  contrary to popular belief. His face grew drawn and haggard, and

  his eyes were wild.

  Mr. Legere was almost always there, by Green Terror's cage,

  watching him. And that, of course, added to Mr. Indrasil's load.

  The circus began eyeing the silk-shirted figure nervously as he

  passed, and I knew they were all thinking the same thing I was:

  He's going to crack wide open, and when he does ---

  When he did, God alone knew what would happen.

  The hot spell went on, and temperatures were climbing well into

  the nineties every day. It seemed as if the rain gods were mocking

  us. Every town we left would receive the showers of blessing.

  Every town we entered was hot, parched, sizzling.

  And one night, on the road between Kansas City and Green Bluff, I

  saw something that upset me more than anything else.

  It was hot -- abominably hot. It was no good even trying to sleep. I

  rolled about on my cot like a man in a fever-delirium, chasing the

  sandman but never quite catching him. Finally I got up, pulled on

  my pants, and went outside.

  We had pulled off into a small field and drawn into a circle. Myself

  and two other roustabouts had unloaded the cats so they could

  catch whatever breeze there might be. The cages were there now,

  painted dull silver by the swollen Kansas moon, and a tall figure in

  white whipcord breeches was standing by the biggest of them. Mr.

  Indrasil.

  He was baiting Green Terror with a long, pointed pike. The big cat

  was padding silently around the cage, trying to avoid the sharp tip.

  And the frightening thing was, when the staff did punch into the

  tiger's flesh, it did not roar in pain and anger as it should have. It

  maintained an ominous silence, more terrifying to the person who

  knows cats than the loudest of roars.

  It had gotten to Mr. Indrasil, too. "Quiet bastard, aren't you?" He

  grunted. Powerful arms flexed, and the iron shaft slid forward.

  Green Terror flinched, and his eyes rolled horribly. But he did not

  make a sound. "Yowl!" Mr. Indrasil hissed. "Go ahead and yowl,

  you monster Yowl!" And he drove his spear deep into the tiger's

  flank.

  Then I saw something odd. It seemed that a shadow moved in the

  darkness under one of the far wagons, and the moonlight seemed to

  glint on staring eyes -- green eyes.

  A cool wind passed silently through the clearing, lifting dust and

  rumpling my hair.

  Mr. Indrasil looked up, and there was a queer listening expression

  on his face. Suddenly he dropped the bar, turned, and strode back

  to his trailer.

  I stared again at the far wagon, but the shadow was gone. Green

  Tiger stood motionlessly at the bars of his cage, staring at Mr.

  Indrasil's trailer. And the thought came to me that it hated Mr.

  Indrasil not because he was cruel or vicious, for the tiger respects

  these qualities in its own animalistic way, but rather because he

  was a deviate from even the tiger's savage norm. He was a rogue.

  That's the only way I can put it. Mr. Indrasil was not only a human

  tiger, but a rogue tiger as well.

  The thought jelled inside me, disquieting and a little scary. I went

  back inside, but still I could not sleep.

  The heat went on.

  Every day we fried, every night we tossed and turned, sweating

  and sleepless. Everyone was painted red with sunburn, and there

  were fistfights over trifling affairs. Everyone was reaching the

  point of explosion.

  Mr. Legere remained with us, a silent watcher, emotionless on the

  surface, but, I sensed, with deep-running currents of - what? Hate?

  Fear? Vengeance? I could not place it. But he was potentially

  dangerous, I was sure of that. Perhaps more so than Mr. Indrasil

  was, if anyone ever lit his particular fuse.

  He was at the circus at every performance, always dressed in his

  nattily creased brown suit, despite the killing temperatures. He

  stood silently by Green Terror's cage, seeming to commune deeply

  with the tiger, who was always quiet when he was around.

  From Kansas to Oklahoma, with no letup in the temperature. A day

  without a heat prostration case was a rare day indeed. Crowds were

  beginning to drop off; who wanted to sit under a stifling canvas

  tent when there was an air-conditioned movie just around the

  block?

  We were all as jumpy as cats, to coin a particularly applicable

  phrase. And as we set down stakes in Wildwood Green, Oklahoma,

  I think we all knew a climax of some sort was close at hand. And

  most of us knew it would involve Mr. Indrasil. A bizarre

  occurrence had taken place just prior to our first Wildwood

  performance. Mr. Indrasil had been in the Demon Cat Cage,

  putting the ill-tempered lions through their paces. One of them

  missed its balance on its pedestal, tottered and almost regained it.

  Then, at that precise moment, Green Terror let out a terrible, ear-

  splitting roar.

  The lion fell, landed heavily, and suddenly launched itself with
/>
  rifle-bullet accuracy at Mr. Indrasil. With a frightened curse, he

  heaved his chair at the cat's feet, tangling up the driving legs. He

  darted out just as the lion smashed against the bars.

  As he shakily collected himself preparatory to re-entering the cage,

  Green Terror let out another roar -- but this one monstrously like a

  huge, disdainful chuckle.

  Mr. Indrasil stared at the beast, white-faced, then turned and

  walked away. He did not come out of his trailer all afternoon.

  That afternoon wore on interminably. But as the temperature

  climbed, we all began looking hopefully toward the west, where

  huge banks of thunderclouds were forming.

  "Rain, maybe," I told Chips, stopping by his barking platform in

  front of the sideshow.

  But he didn't respond to my hopeful grin. "Don't like it," he said.

  "No wind. Too hot. Hail or tornadoes." His face grew grim. "It

  ain't no picnic, ridin' out a tornado with a pack of crazy-wild

  animals all over the place, Eddie. I've thanked God mor'n once

  when we've gone through the tornado belt that we don't have no

  elephants.

  "Yeah" he added gloomily, "you better hope them clouds stay right

  on the horizon."

  But they didn't. They moved slowly toward us, cyclopean pillars in

  the sky, purple at the bases and awesome blue-black through the

  cumulonimbus. All air movement ceased, and the heat lay on us

  like a woolen winding-shroud. Every now and again, thunder

  would clear its throat further west.

  About four, Mr. Farnum himself, ringmaster and half-owner of the

  circus, appeared and told us there would be no evening

  performance; just batten down and find a convenient hole to crawl

  into in case of trouble. There had been corkscrew funnels spotted

  in several places between Wildwood and Oklahoma City, some

  within forty miles of us.

  There was only a small crowd when the announcement came,

  apathetically wandering through the sideshow exhibits or ogling

  the animals. But Mr. Legere had not been present all day; the only

  person at Green Terror's cage was a sweaty high-school boy with

  clutch of books. When Mr. Farnum announced the U.S. Weather

  Bureau tornado warning that had been issued, he hurried quickly

  away.

  I and the other two roustabouts spent the rest of the-afternoon

  working our tails off, securing tents, loading animals back into

  their wagons, and making generally sure that everything was nailed

  down.

  Finally only the cat cages were left, and there was a special

  arrangement for those. Each cage had a special mesh "breezeway"

  accordioned up against it, which, when extended completely,

  connected with the Demon Cat Cage. When the smaller cages had

  to be moved, the felines could be herded into the big cage while

  they were loaded up. The big cage itself rolled on gigantic casters

  and could be muscled around to a position where each cat could be

  let back into its original cage. It sounds complicated, and it was,

  but it was just the only way.

  We did the lions first, then Ebony Velvet, the docile black panther

  that had set the circus back almost one season's receipts. It was a

  tricky business coaxing them up and then back through the

  breezeways, but all of us preferred it to calling Mr. Indrasil to

  help.

  By the time we were ready for Green Terror, twilight had come ---

  a queer, yellow twilight that hung humidly around us. The sky

  above had taken on a flat, shiny aspect that I had never seen and

  which I didn't like in the least.

  "Better hurry," Mr. Farnum said, as we laboriously trundled the

  Demon Cat Cage back to where we could hook it to the back of

  Green Terror's show cage. "Barometer's falling off fast." He shook

  his head worriedly. "Looks bad, boys. Bad.'' He hurried on, still

  shaking his head.

  We got Green Terror's breezeway hooked up and opened the back

  of his cage. "In you go," I said encouragingly.

  Green Terror looked at me menacingly and didn't move.

  Thunder rumbled again, louder, closer, sharper. The sky had gone

  jaundice, the ugliest color I have ever seen. Wind-devils began to

  pick jerkily at our clothes and whirl away the flattened candy

  wrappers and cotton-candy cones that littered the area.

  "Come on, come on," I urged and poked him easily with the blunt-

  tipped rods we were given to herd them with.

  Green Terror roared ear-splittingly, and one paw lashed out with

  blinding speed. The hardwood pole was jerked from my hands and

  splintered as if it had been a greenwood twig. The tiger was on his

  feet now, and there was murder in his eyes.

  "Look," I said shakily. "One of you will have to go get Mr.

  Indrasil, that's all. We can't wait around."

  As if to punctuate my words, thunder cracked louder, the clapping

  of mammoth hands.

  Kelly Nixon and Mike McGregor flipped for it; I was excluded

  because of my previous run-in with Mr. Indrasil. Kelly drew the

  task, threw us a wordless glance that said he would prefer facing

  the storm and then started off.

  He was gone almost ten minutes. The wind was picking up

  velocity now, and twilight was darkening into a weird six o'clock

  night. I was scared, and am not afraid to admit it. That rushing,

  featureless sky, the deserted circus grounds, the sharp, tugging

  wind-vortices all that makes a memory that will stay with me

  always, undimmed.

  And Green Terror would not budge into his breezeway.

  Kelly Nixon came rushing back, his eyes wide. "I pounded on his

  door for 'most five minutes!" He gasped. "Couldn't raise him!"

  We looked at each other, at a loss. Green Terror was a big

  investment for the circus. He couldn't just be left in the open. I

  turned bewilderedly, looking for Chips, Mr. Farnum, or anybody

  who could tell me what to do. But everyone was gone. The tiger

  was our responsibility. I considered trying to load the cage bodily

  into the trailer, but I wasn't going to get my fingers in that cage.

  "Well, we've just got to go and get him," I said. "The three of us.

  Come on." And we ran toward Mr. Indrasil's trailer through the

  gloom of coming night.

  We pounded on his door until he must have thought all the demons

  of hell were after him. Thankfully, it finally jerked open. Mr.

  Indrasil swayed and stared down at us, his mad eyes rimmed and

  oversheened with drink. He smelled like a distillery.

  "Damn you, leave me alone," he snarled.

  "Mr. Indrasil --" I had to shout over the rising whine of the wind. It

  was like no storm I had ever heard of or read about, out there. It

  was like the end of the world .

  "You," he gritted softly. He reached down and gathered my shirt

  up in a knot. "I'm going to teach you a lesson you'll never forget."

  He glared at Kelly and Mike, cowering back in the moving storm

  shadows. "Get out!"

  They ran. I didn't blame them; I've told you -- Mr. Indrasil was

  crazy. And not just ordinary crazy -- he was like a crazy animal,

  like one of his
own cats gone bad.

  "All right," he muttered, staring down at me, his eyes like

  hurricane lamps. "No juju to protect you now. No grisgris." His

  lips twitched in a wild, horrible smile. "He isn't here now, is he?

  We're two of a kind, him and me. Maybe the only two left. My

  nemesis -- and I'm his." He was rambling, and I didn't try to stop

  him. At least his mind was off me.

  "Turned that cat against me, back in '58. Always had the power

  more'n me. Fool could make a million -- the two of us could make

  a million if he wasn't so damned high and mighty...what's that?"

  It was Green Terror, and he had begun to roar ear-splittingly.

  "Haven't you got that damned tiger in?" He screamed, almost

  falsetto. He shook me like a rag doll.

  "He won't go!" I found myself yelling back. "You've got to --"

  But he flung me away. I stumbled over the fold-up steps in front of

  his trailer and crashed into a bone-shaking heap at the bottom.

  With something between a sob and a curse, Mr. Indrasil strode past

  me, face mottled with anger and fear.

  I got up, drawn after him as if hypnotized. Some intuitive part of

  me realized I was about to see the last act played out.

  Once clear of the shelter of Mr. Indrasil's trailer, the power of the

  wind was appalling. It screamed like a runaway freight train. I was

  an ant, a speck, an unprotected molecule before that thundering,

  cosmic force.

  And Mr. Legere was standing by Green Terror's cage.

  It was like a tableau from Dante. The near-empty cage-clearing

  inside the circle of trailers; the two men, facing each other silently,

  their clothes and hair rippled by the shrieking gale; the boiling sky

  above; the twisting wheatfields in the background, like damned

  souls bending to the whip of Lucifer.

  "It's time, Jason," Mr. Legere said, his words flayed across the

  clearing by the wind.

  Mr. Indrasil's wildly whipping hair lifted around the livid scar

  across the back of his neck. His fists clenched, but he said nothing.

  I could almost feel him gathering his will, his life force, his id. It

  gathered around him like an unholy nimbus.

  And, then, I saw with sudden horror that Mr. Legere was

  unhooking Green Terror's breezeway -- and the back of the cage

  was open!

  I cried out, but the wind ripped my words away.

  The great tiger leaped out and almost flowed past Mr. Legere. Mr.

  Indrasil swayed, but did not run. He bent his head and stared down