He swallowed and seemed to peer through his dark glasses at that question. "What do you mean, boy?"
It was time to play some cards of my own. "You live on the dodge. I watch you when you think I'm not looking and I listen a lot. You are hiding and on the run. And it has something to do with the truck, I think."
"Clever boy." He sounded more proud than upset that I had guessed his secrets. I didn't know too many of them, but I knew he was running from something.. "I'll make you a deal. Stay with us this winter and next summer. You'll be older and have more money then. I'll bring Mama around. You'll need us to help you search in the winter. You'll need me to get Gordon out of any predicament. You can't just charge in with teeth and claws, son, and get your mate back."
I swallowed hard. "You know?"
"Old Matt had the tightest lips on the fairground, but even he forgot that the blind man is still listening when he's mumbling in a drunken sleep about marrying construct kids. You still love him, after this time apart. That makes him worth finding."
I hugged Daddy Frank then, careful of his thin, fragile body. We would find Gordon. I knew it. But I wanted to go now.
"Couldn't we hunt him this winter? I'm worried. We haven't heard anything all summer. A lion construct should stand out, you know."
"We can make inquiries. But the actual travel will need to wait until we have more money. I know you're worried."
"Damn right I'm worried. Do you know what Nathan used to do to him?"
Daddy Frank nodded, not saying a word.
"I worry that someone else is doing the exact same thing. Someone is paying money just to hurt him. I can't tell Mama this. She's..."
"She's seen worse. She's endured worse." Those simple words made me wonder exactly how much I was missing of my own history. "But no, she doesn't need to have that thrown up at her. Let me work on her, Arthur. We will find something out."
I hugged him again. He was right, I lived a very sheltered life and was well taken care of. Most constructs lived hard, brutal lives until they were killed in an experiment or a hunt. I asked because I had to know. "Mama said I had two brothers. Is there any chance--"
Daddy Frank shook his head sadly. "None. They died before your mama escaped."
I choked up at that thought. I'd wanted to find them too and bring them back to Mama. "Thank you, for telling me and for helping."
"Thank me when we find your boy. I'll find a way to keep him safe, too. We could use a dancer with our act. Now, time for your drumming practice."
I went eagerly. The drums were the only instrument I could manage with my big paws, and I loved them. I never tapped the drumhead without imagining Gordon, in his linen skirt and make-up, dancing to it. Tonight, I closed my eyes as I practiced, and he moved there behind my eyelids, all gold and green flame, keeping perfect time and smiling just for me.
The lesson went by in a trance. Daddy Frank touched me lightly to bring me awake. My whole body felt weightless and glowing, like I could fly if I wanted to. It happened that way with the drums sometimes. Daddy Frank told me that in some churches, men would play drums until they dropped and had visions of Heaven. I could believe it. The drum was the first instrument ever made, he told me, made by Adam's grandson, and so it should always be played well, as if for God himself.
"Good practice session. You did it well, son."
"Thanks."
"I want you to perform with us this winter and next summer. Let's make it a real family band. I always wanted one." He kissed my forehead. "You and your mama gave me a terrific family. I love you both." He went in to the bedroom, and I rolled up in my blanket beside the fire. Southern winters never got too cold, so I slept on the front room floor most of the year. It let Mama and Frank have their privacy in the one bedroom cabin and me have my own.
The winter crawled by. We played in honky-tonks and dives all around the area. Most of the owners knew Daddy Frank and Mama, but they looked at me like I had two heads.
"My boy." Daddy Frank always told them. "Plays the drum. We're a combo now." And the owners always let us in. I didn't know how well we did playing these shows until Daddy Frank insisted on splitting the pay with me. "If you're still set on finding your mate, you'll need money."
Most nights it was only a dollar or so, but I tucked it away and watched my little hoard grow. I would find Gordon. I had to. It was him I played for on all those nights. I watched for him in every crowd, even knowing that constructs usually weren't allowed in human establishments.
Winter settled in, with cooler nights and a bit of frost. Mama insisted I sleep in the bedroom with them when it got below forty. "We'll have to see about a sleeping loft for you for next winter," both of them said to me after I kicked the dresser and the bed while curling up on the floor to sleep.
I couldn't tell them that I didn't plan to be with them next winter. Or if I was, Gordon and I would need our own vehicle and our own room. I pestered Mama to teach me to drive that winter, and she did.
The old truck ran well, most of the time. But now and then, I could tell there had been some work done on it. It seemed to have a mind of its own and would balk sometimes if I made a turn too sharply or wanted to go a direction it didn't think I should.
Mama told me to humor it, that Daddy Frank had been with it so long, it had picked up his quirks. I wasn't sure what to believe. I watched the roustabouts work on other engines and I knew this one had some odd parts that others didn't. I had her teach me the parts of the engine as well as how to drive it. She explained the carburetor and pistons and fan and radiator. But of the large black metal box, mounted next to the firewall of the cab, she said only, "That's one of Frank's modifications. Don't meddle with it or the truck quits running."
But I did well enough driving, and Daddy Frank backed me up to the examiner and the tester and half the state machinery, and I got myself a driver's license. It said we were a hardship case and that the construct was the servant of one blind Frank Donnell, his driver and caretaker.
I didn't care. I could drive. That would make finding Gordon a lot easier.
Winter melted away into spring, as it always does. We signed on for the season with Happee Time again and went over the vardo for the summer occupancy. This year, I wasn't in the freakshow, but working with Mama and Daddy Frank. Pay was good, tips were fair. And I watched for Gordon everywhere we played.
He didn't come at hiring time. He didn't come over the summer, or when we parted for the winter. I ached for him, trying to remember his smell, his taste. All that ever came in the memories was him curled into my side on the Ferris Wheel, kissing me as we took our ride.
My mate. I whispered it as I curled up for the night by the fire and listened to Mama and Daddy Frank whisper. I usually didn't, since it was mostly mushy stuff, but I caught my name tonight.
"Can we find Arthur's boy?" Mama asked. She sounded worried. I wished I knew what she was thinking.
"I'll find him," Daddy Frank told her. "I think he needs that boy."
"Frank, I wonder, would it have been better if I hadn't had him--"
"Ursula, no. Never think that. Arthur is a fine boy. He's going to be an amazing man." I heard him kiss her.
"But he's not a man. He never will be. All his life he's going to be someone's legal property. And that lion... Gordon was all right when he danced, but you know what they'll do to him." She sounded scared. I could smell her fear, and it made me want to roar and rage and attack what scared her. But all that frightened her was an idea, and I couldn't do anything about that.
"I know." Daddy Frank sounded more hopeless than I'd ever heard. "Gordon will need a lot of love and a lot of help, when we find him. We'll get it. I've had ears in many places all summer. We'll start running down leads next week."
When. He said when. That made me feel better. And he had leads. That was best of all. "Hang on, Gordon," I whispered. "I'm coming."
The day we left, I got the stove going about dawn. Mama c
ame out and stretched. I tried to hustle them through breakfast, but they weren't having any of it. So I cleaned up, packed up and waited at the truck.
"Are you going to be all right, Ursula?" Daddy Frank held Mama close for a long time. "We'll be fine, but I have to know you will be too. I worry about you all alone in the cottage."
"I'm staying with Sarah." The bearded lady was one of her oldest friends. "I'll be fine until you get back. All three of you." He kissed her then.
I came over and hugged Mama tight for a few minutes. "I love you, Mama. We'll find him."
She waved as we got into the truck and drove off, but when I glanced in the rearview mirror, I saw her throw her apron over her face.
Our search ran into October and November, down dusty backroads to places where sideshow performers wintered. Daddy Frank knew everyone, it seemed sometimes. The giant's wife made us biscuits and sawmill gravy the night we stayed with them in Gibsonton. Daddy and the Giant talked a long time by the fire when they thought I'd gone to sleep.
Oh, I knew what was happening to Gordon. Every day we took finding him made things even worse for him.
"I'm sorry Frank. I heard about a lion construct a couple years ago, left high and dry when the hoochie palace got busted. How'd you end up with a bad bunch like that? You were always such a straight shooter."
"Long story, Al. Too long for tonight. But my boy, he loves that lion. We gotta find him."
Through my mostly closed eyes, I saw Al look at his wife, the pretty half-girl. "I know better than anyone, Frank. I'll keep my ear to the ground and ask. But he is a construct. They aren't really safe, you know? Not from ordinary folks."
"I know, Al. I really do." They were quiet and I fell asleep before they spoke again.
Miss Jeannie woke me up for breakfast. "Hey, teddy-bear. You ready to hit the road? I made some lunch for you and your daddy. You take care of him, okay?"
"I will, ma'am," I promised. She stroked my fur with her odd fingers. It felt good, like when Mama did it.
"Al told me. You find him." She kissed my ear and walked off on her hands to the kitchen.
We took back to the road, heading into Gibsonton. The circus people wintered there, and we could ask more questions. Coffee was a nickel at the cafe, and the twin waitresses set us right up. We talked to them, and the cook and the owner. A little man and woman came in for their usual, and they hadn't seen anything, but promised to keep an ear out.
We drove, listening to the radio when we could get a signal. I was about to pull over for the night in a roadside park when the president came on.
"I, Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States of America, hereby designate Thursday, the twenty-fifth day of November 1937 as a day of national thanksgiving.
"The custom of observing a day of public thanksgiving began in Colonial times and has been given the sanction of national observance through many years."
I turned it off. November, nearly Thanksgiving. Mama had to be worried sick. "So late in the year. Did you promise Mama we'd be home for Christmas?"
"No, just that we'd be back by spring."
"Daddy, we're getting low on money. We need to perform or something." I knew we'd be even lower if it hadn't been for a great many generous people who fed us or put us up for the night. As we got out, I smelled rain coming.
He nodded. "Or something. I'll find a gig for us tomorrow." I parked under the trees and crawled into the vardo with him.
"Gonna rain tonight. And it's cold out there."
"All right, son. Just don't shake off and we'll be fine.
I lay there in the dark, listening to him snore. "Please keep him safe," I whispered. I didn't know who or what I was praying to, God or the night or the rain. "Kiss him with the drops and tell him I'm coming."
A few days later, I came back from a visit into the woods to find Daddy Frank sitting with his head in his hands. When I got behind the wheel, he stopped me from turning the key. We'd been parked in a roadside park for about three days while he explored. Me, I kept out of sight as I did most times.
"Arthur, son, how much do you trust me?" he asked, his face odd and intense, even with his dark glasses in place.
"Implicitly," I said without hesitation. I was proud of the word and a chance to use it honestly. I did. Daddy Frank had loved Mama, taken care of us both and been good to us since I was a cub.
"I found Gordon last night."
At this news, every innard I had jumped up and down in excitement. But I kept myself calm on the outside. "How bad is he?" I had to know before I asked anything else.
"Bad. He's on a downhill slide and losing value by the night. They're going to kill him soon. They're just waiting until they get a new construct."
I nodded, even though Daddy Frank couldn't see me. "Me," I said. "I'll take his place." It would be all gallant and noble and Gordon could get better and I'd find some way to get away.
"Wrong."
I thought over the plan fast, not sure where I was wrong, and then Daddy Frank filled me in.
"They'll think I'm selling you to them to replace him. So, again, son, how much do you trust me?"
"With my life and Mama's life and Gordon's life. You've always taken care of us."
"Good. We'll have to do some unpleasant things and I'll have to say a lot of awfulness. I trust you won't repeat it to your mother when I brag on your virginity. Or your cocksucking skills."
The word hung there in the evening air, brutal and blunt. I heard myself whimper.
"I don't have any," I whispered, sure I was putting off fear scent. "We only kissed and touched."
Daddy Frank's hand was warm on my shoulder. "Arthur, my boy, I'm not asking for a demonstration. I just want you to hear me say the words before we're among enemies. I don't want a repeat of that scared sound you just did. When I say you're a tremendous cocksucker but with a virgin ass, I want you to act like it. Lick your lips, the bigger the better. Let them worry you might bite it off, even."
I giggled then and slurped my snout. He heard and smiled.
"It's going to be awful, son, for all of us. And you may have to let them handle you without resistance."
"I can do it. Mama's endured worse. Gordon's enduring worse right now."
Daddy Frank kissed my forehead, like he'd done when I was a cub. "You're brave, son. You always have been. And I'm proud to be your dad."
I hugged him, careful of his fragile human body. I had learned a while back that I was a lot stronger than ordinary humans.
He took me around to the back of the truck and dug a box out from his side of the sleeping pile. "I had an idea of what we'd be getting into. So I asked around, scavenged and contrived. We're going tonight."
The little green tent in the middle of the woods would have been nearly invisible to human eyes. I smelled it a long time before we came in sight, though. Blood and dirt and unwashed bodies, and under it all, Gordon. But not the vibrant golden desert smell I remembered, the one that promised warm sands and sweet oases to quench myself in. This smelled more as if he was mummified, dried out in sand and spices, all dust and memory. The blood filled my nose and made me growl low in my throat.
"Easy, son."
I couldn't do anything as it was. I was naked, out in the November woods. My hands were cuffed behind me and Daddy Frank led me on a leash. Bells jingled from a harness around my chest hips and genitals. The muzzle around my head held my jaw shut I felt very exposed, which was the idea. But I trusted him.
Frank called out softly, imitating a whippoorwill.
The sound of an owl came out of the tent. He led me to the flap and clapped twice.
"Come on in, Frank, you old bastard." A short man, reeking of raw alcohol and weed clapped him on the back. "How'd you luck into that piece of tail?"
Frank yanked me into the tent. He'd warned me he would have to, so I played along. "Been sparking his mama for a while, until he got big enough to steal. I knew you gen
tlemen would give me the right price for him."
I growled for effect and struggled. He hit me. Daddy Frank had never hit me before, and even though I knew it was just for show, something low and mean started down in my chest, something that said I might not stop with just knocking these men cold. I might decide to rend and tear and if he got in my way, God help him because I surely wouldn't.
"Sounds like a vicious cuss. We can't use a vicious one. Ol' Leo calmed right down when we threatened to pull all his teeth and claws." He flipped a necklace with a single fang on it. "Only had to remind him once."
"He'll tame right down. He's just a little scared. He's a virgin."
The other three men in the tent laughed uproariously. "Frank, you old liar, you expect us to believe that happy horseshit? You been fucking him yourself if I know you."
"You don't know me at all, Joe. I don't like boys and I don't like fur. But I know you lot like both and don't hardly get any out here."
"Just a mangy old lion and he's not much fun anymore, just lays there and whimpers a lot."
At those words, I heard a faint whimper from the darkest corner of the tent. I knew that voice. I wanted to tear apart the chain and run to him. I made myself unclench my fists and wait. I knew Daddy Frank would cue me when the time was right. But I hurt all over, from deep down inside clear out to the edge of my very fur. When Gordon was mine, I would never make him whimper or see him hurt, and I would eat anyone who tried.
"He's not a fighter," Joe grumbled, "and he's getting too loose."
"Maybe you boys are using him too hard." Daddy Frank's blandness in the face of this atrocity made me want to eat him along with the others.
"Ain't no 'too hard,' and you know it, Frank. Come on and have a beer. Let's talk price on this bear of yours."
"I want to feel him," one of the men said. He got up and came to look me over. I growled low in my throat as he ran his hands over my chest. "Oh, he's all soft and clean." I snarled aloud as he pinched my nipple. The touch sent odd little shocks all through my body. My cock stirred and the men laughed.
"Oh, he gets het up quick, doesn't he?" Joe said. "He's gonna be fun."
Wild Passions Page 23
