“I couldn’t wait.” He sat beside her, pleased to see that she made a space for him, though much bigger than he needed. Mr. Hunter nodded, and Harold nodded back.
“What about the roses?” said Flip. She leaned past him, peering out toward the door, as though she thought he’d brought them to the tent.
Harold laughed. “I’m giving them a rest.” Her head leaned very close, and he looked at her hair tumbling down across her cheek. He couldn’t help touching it.
She jerked away. “Don’t do that!”
Harold blinked. Even Mr. Hunter looked up from his eggs.
“And don’t sit so close,” said Flip. She pushed her plate along the table, then moved in front of it. “Don’t even talk to me.”
He sat, bewildered, in his place. He poked at one of his eggs and felt like crying. “I’m sorry,” he said. The egg bounced and rocked. “Whatever I did, I’m sorry.” Then he lifted his head, and she was smiling.
Harold smiled back, but she didn’t seem to see it. She was looking past him, toward the door, and Harold swiveled slowly around.
The sun came in through the door of the tent. It made a silhouette of the person there, a young man—a boy—with broad shoulders and muscles on his arms. He was waving. He was waving straight at Harold, it seemed.
Harold waved back. Then he saw that it wasn’t him the boy was waving at; it was Flip.
“Who’s that?” asked Harold.
Flip didn’t answer.
He said it again, a little louder in case she hadn’t heard. Then Mr. Hunter turned in his seat. He said, “Oh, Roman’s here. That’s splendid. We can be on our way tomorrow.”
The boy took a tray and went down the counter, then brought it across to the table. He stood behind Harold. “Shove over, Whitey,” he said, and squeezed between Harold and Flip.
Suddenly she was laughing again, as happy as she’d ever been. And Harold felt his heart plummet to his stomach. He kept eating, though he didn’t want to. He felt hollow inside. He kept reaching for things—for the salt shaker, for the pepper, for anything he could think of that would let him lean forward and glance across at Flip.
Roman was strong and dark and tanned. He was exactly the person Harold was in his dream—the old dream—before he woke to see his white arms and his white fingers.
Flip laughed at everything Roman said. She touched him the way, just that morning, she had touched Harold.
Soon the table was covered with things and there was nothing else to reach for. And Harold hadn’t eaten half his breakfast before the boy and Flip stood up together and headed for the door. Harold followed them, dismayed to see them walking so close they almost touched. He followed them out of the tent, and only then did Flip turn around.
“Oh, Harold,” she said, as though surprised to see him. “Listen. You go back to the elephants, and I’ll come by in a bit. When I can.”
CONRAD WAS STILL on the ground when Harold came back, feeling sad and puzzled. The elephant had eaten every blade of grass that he could reach but was too lazy—or too tired—to shift himself farther. The huge head lifted as Harold neared, then fell again with only the smallest toot of a bugle.
Harold sat in the curve of Conrad’s neck, leaning against the elephant. “She’ll come in a minute,” he told himself. “She’ll come and say she’s sorry.” The trunk snuffled around, and Harold held it. “I bet she’s on her way right now,” he said.
Huge black flies buzzed near the elephant’s hide. Harold lolled in the shade of Conrad’s head, trying to figure out what he’d done, how things had gone so wrong.
The elephant made a sputtery, sleepy sound that was very much like Honey’s. Harold stroked the trunk, thinking how he’d used to wish he could make himself a tiny thing and nestle in his dog’s thick coat. His hand ran up the trunk, around its curve to the elephant’s chin, where a clump of bristles grew in a sparse and wiry bush. And he took it away, quickly, not liking the feel of the hairs that reminded him of his own. He worked his fingers inside his collar, the backs of them touching his skin. He wondered if that was why Flip had acted strangely—because she knew he was becoming a fossil.
“I bet she’s telling that guy all about me,” he said to Conrad.
His spot of shade shrank away as the day turned into noon. The sun touched his feet and crept up to his knees, burning on his trousers. It seemed to set his chest on fire, then went blazing through his hair. But Harold stayed where he was, watching Canary Bird and Max Graf showering themselves in dust.
And when the sun had crawled across the elephant’s back and put him in the shade again, he realized that Flip wasn’t coming. He felt exactly as he had every Saturday morning when the train blew past him at the Liberty station. And now, like then, he sighed a little breath and got to his feet.
“Up trunk,” he said. “Come on, you lazy thing.”
It was just like calling to Honey. The elephant twitched and raised his head. He rolled onto his belly and pried himself up. His great ears flapped like sheets on a clothesline.
Harold got the bat. He gave it to Max Graf and herded the other two elephants down the slope. “You’re fielders now,” he told them. “You chase the balls and throw them to me. Understand?”
He pitched to Max Graf, who batted to Conrad, who bowled the ball to Harold. The Ghost couldn’t stop himself from grinning, though he didn’t feel happy at all. He pitched again, and the ball whistled past his head. Still rising, it soared in a curve above the scattered tents and on across the field.
“Gosh,” said Harold.
He went after the ball, down the slope and around the tents, past the row of trucks and on toward the silver shape of the Airstream.
He heard the voices before he saw the people, Tina’s first: “Say, look who’s coming.”
Harold slowed and glanced around, hoping he would find the ball before he reached the trailer. He heard Samuel grunt. “Yeah. Isn’t that the boy we used to know?”
They sat in wood-and-canvas chairs. Tina, in her doll-sized one, wore a funny hat of artificial flowers. The Gypsy Magda was bundled in a gray blanket, and Samuel—his legs crossed—held a glass of lemonade.
“Yes, I think it’s him,” he said. “He looks familiar, doesn’t he?”
Harold stopped. He could feel a coldness there. He said, “I lost the ball.”
“Underneath the trailer,” Samuel said. “You didn’t quite dent it this time.”
Harold tried to smile but couldn’t. It was hard for him to stand there, so close but far apart.
“Can’t you hear?” said Samuel.
“Samuel, don’t,” said Tina.
“Why not? It’s not like he’s a friend or something.”
“Please,” she said, but Samuel ignored her. “It’s underneath the trailer,” he said again. “You don’t think I’m going to get it for you, do you?”
“No,” said Harold. He felt like crying.
Samuel got up first. He tipped the glass and spilled his lemonade across the ground. Then he turned his back and went inside the trailer, and Tina followed with just a glance at Harold.
The Gypsy Magda’s fingers tightened on her chair. The skin shrank around the bones, and her rings stood up above her fingers, leaving tunnels underneath. “You are like the stray kitten,” she said. “You let others care for you. Wherever you go, someone cares for you.” She pushed herself to her feet, dark shawls swirling around her as the blanket fell away. “The stray kitten, it is much loved and never forgotten.”
Her bracelets jangled. The bells at her ankles tolled her off toward the trailer door.
“Wait,” said Harold.
The Gypsy Magda shrugged her scarves around her shoulders. “But the stray cat,” she said, still walking. “The stray cat, it spends its nights alone, howling at the shadows.”
The door closed behind her, and the sun glinted off a solid surface. Harold squeezed his hands together. He felt as though he didn’t have a friend in the world.
For a whi
le he just stood there, glowering at the trailer. Then he crawled underneath it to fetch his ball. It had rolled impossibly far, as though someone had kicked it under there. He had to squirm on his belly to get out again, then started back across the field, past the orange tent.
His pillowcase lay on the ground, the top open and his clothes spilling out. It looked as though it had been tossed there, thrown from the tent in a fury. Harold collected everything slowly, then carried the bag, slung over his shoulder, up the slope to the elephants.
They stood in a group, staring at him with their nearly human eyes. Conrad swept his trunk along the ground, then curled it up and blew a cloud of dust across his back. He looked as sad as sadness.
“What’s the matter?” Harold asked.
The elephant swayed toward him. The trunk stretched out and suctioned at Harold’s arm, at his shoulder. The tip squeezed him as a hand would, and the elephant made a sound that Harold had never heard before. He rubbed the trunk and leaned against it. He looked up and saw that Conrad was crying; tears as big as his thumbnail trickled down the enormous, dusty cheeks.
“How do you know?” asked Harold. “How do you know how I feel?”
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33
Flip never came to see him. The dinner bell rang, and rang again, but Harold didn’t leave the diamond. He was too ashamed to go the first time, too frightened the second. He practiced halfheartedly, or simply sat, for hours, until the sun was going down and he knew she wasn’t coming.
He led Conrad toward the straw-filled tent, and the other roses followed, in a chain from tails to trunks. They plodded along, as though in Harold’s sadness. Their ears and trunks drooped. He watched them settle in the straw, their front legs bending and then their back ones, and the whole tent quivered as Max Graf rolled up against the canvas. Then Harold patted their heads, each in turn, and wandered out by himself.
The night was warm and calm. From hilltop to hilltop, stars stretched across the valley, and a little quarter moon gave a silver glow to the huddled town of circus tents.
Harold carried his pillowcase through them, past the Airstream trailer, down to the banks of the river. It was slow and flat, a ribbon of melted stars flowing south between shrinking banks of muddied grass. And he sat there all alone, with nowhere else to go. He fell asleep in darkness and woke beside a fire.
It was a small and smoky fire, and the old Indian squatted over it, on a blanket of white and red wool. He was roasting strips of meat on the point of a gleaming knife blade.
“Are you hungry?” asked Thunder Wakes Him.
Harold sat upright on the grass. His back was stiff; his clothes were wet from dew.
“Where did you come from?” Harold asked.
“From here.” The old Indian patted the ground through his blanket. “Right here where you sleep I was born.”
Harold rubbed his eyes. He could hardly believe he wasn’t dreaming. But he could smell the meat and the burning grass; he could just make out the chestnut horse nibbling grass by the riverbank.
“At that time there were a hundred lodges here,” said the old Indian. “A hundred lodges, and the snow was fresh and as high as a horse’s belly.” He turned the knife. Fat sizzled down into the fire. “The soldiers came from there. Behind you. Out of the morning sun they came like ghosts, riding on the snow on horses that had no legs. Their bugle notes were beautiful to hear. Terrible, but beautiful. The soldiers came over the snow, their horses snorting white breaths, running in snow up to their bellies—I thought they slithered on the top like snakes. It was powder snow, rising in a mist, and the soldiers came and drove us to the river.”
The old Indian drew his knife from the fire. He touched the bits of meat, squeezing with his fingers.
“They set the lodges burning,” he said. “The flames were tall and narrow. A hundred lodges burning, and the smoke went out across the snow and turned the sun to a little brown shadow.” He put the knife back in the flames, turning it over and over. “All around, my people lay twisted up like bugs. They froze like that, their legs and arms all stiff and pointing up. Only five of us were left.”
“How old were you?” asked Harold.
“Three weeks old. It is the first thing I remember, the sound of the bugles that morning.” The old Indian tossed grass on the fire. It smoked and smoldered, then burned with yellow flames. “My mother hid me in the snow. She tunneled deep in the snow by the river. And when the soldiers were gone, when the smell of the fires was gone, she came out. And others came out. And we started walking; our horses were gone. For days and days they carried me, until only three of us were left, and we came to the village of Crazy Horse.”
The old Indian toasted the meat on the fire. Yellow flames shone along the knife blade. Harold looked at the chestnut horse and tried to imagine the snow up to its belly, imagine walking for days through that. He thought of the Gypsy Magda and how she, too, had walked through the snow with soldiers behind her.
Harold watched the flames shimmer on the knife. He couldn’t understand how Thunder Wakes Him had done all the things in his stories.
“They hated us for living under stars and not under roofs,” said the old Indian. “Even today you are thought strange if you carry your home wherever you go. You must have found that, my friend, for you have traveled far.”
“Well, sort of,” said Harold. “But they thought I was strange before I left.”
The old Indian smiled. He pulled a strip of meat from the knife, then held the blade across the fire.
Harold took a strip. It was hot and black on the outside, pale and cold in the middle. “Gosh, that’s good,” he said.
“Gopher.” The old Indian pushed the knife forward again. Harold looked at the dangling bits of meat and shook his head. “A car got him. I found him by the road. By the tracks, I think it was a Studebaker.”
The old Indian looked through the fire, through its flames at Harold. He leaned forward, then rose and walked to his chestnut horse. He rummaged through the bundle on its back.
Harold peered and squinted; he would have loved to see what Thunder Wakes Him carried there. He heard a clinking sound, a rattle.
“I will give this to you,” said Thunder Wakes Him. He dug deeper in the bundle, then threw the hides back into place. When he came back to the fire, there was a silver cross in his hand. “You must be careful with this. Very careful, every time you use it.”
Harold nodded gravely. He put his hand out to take this thing, this amulet. It would give him strength, he thought, and courage.
The old Indian covered Harold’s hand with his enormous fist. “You are crossing the great divide that every boy must cross, with manhood on the other side. The slope beyond is so long and so steep that you can never come back. This will take you there.”
Smoke eddied around them. The old Indian’s hand slid away, and Harold looked at his palm. He saw what Thunder Wakes Him had left there, and he was disappointed. “It’s a razor,” he said.
“But not just any razor. It’s a safety razor,” said the old Indian. “In the morning you will shave for the first time. And you will start your way across.”
Harold stared at it, then laughed. He wasn’t becoming a fossil; he was growing a beard, that was all. He laughed from relief but right away regretted it. The old Indian looked wounded.
On his blanket, in the darkness, Thunder Wakes Him pouted. “I don’t know why you laughed,” he said. “It’s a good razor. It cost me two dollars.”
“I’m just happy,” said Harold. “That’s all.”
“The blade will last you a year. And it’s guaranteed not to rust.”
“I like it,” said Harold. “Thank you.”
But the old Indian still sounded sad. “That’s all you need to become a man: a good razor. In all other ways, a man is just a boy in bigger clothes.”
Harold nodded. He studied the razor from every angle; he thought it would seem rude if he just put it down.
“You might be a
doctor someday,” said Thunder Wakes Him, stretching out on the ground. “You might sell shoes or argue in a courtroom. You might build houses or travel with a circus.” He gathered the blanket around his shoulders. “But whatever you do, you will need a razor.”
Harold moved closer to the fire. He put on another handful of grass and watched the flames run up the stems. “I would like to be like you,” he said.
“You would be surprised. Underneath, we’re the same already.” The old Indian tightened his blanket. “Good night,” he said. “When you wake, I’ll be gone.”
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34
In the morning, Thunder Wakes Him was gone. There were only marks in the grass to show he had been there at all: a circle burned by the fire; a patch clipped short by his chestnut horse. Harold walked down to the river and washed himself in water as brown as the Rattlesnake. He splashed it across his neck and into his hair. He dipped his razor in the stream and scraped away the two small hairs on his chin. And then he put on his glasses and looked up to see the elephants coming.
They marched in a line abreast, with Conrad in the middle and Flip riding high on his back. With flapping ears and twisting trunks, they swayed across the grass. Then Conrad trumpeted, and the sound was clear as a bugle in the morning air. Harold thought of Thunder Wakes Him, three weeks old, seeing the soldiers riding over the same bit of ground.
Flip shouted and banged her fists on the elephant’s back. And they came faster then, pounding over the grass, through the mud, into the water with a great burst of froth and spray.
“Down trunk!” shouted Flip, and Conrad knelt in the river. She slid down from his back. “Hi, Harold,” she said.
The elephants frolicked like children. They waded in and out of the current; they blew fountains from their trunks, squirting themselves, squirting each other. Conrad squirted water at Harold and seemed to laugh at his joke.
But Harold didn’t even smile. He glowered at the elephants.
“You’re not mad at me, are you?” said Flip.
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