by Rob DeBorde
“Where did Smith find it?” Joseph asked, still studying the totem.
“He removed it from an island north of Seattle. He claimed that Lewis and Clark found a similar heathen sculpture in December of ’05, which accounted for the exceedingly wet winter they experienced at Fort Clatsop. I think he may have been telling tales, on that count.”
Joseph moved closer to the pole. There was something else tickling his heightened senses. It was faint, not a smell but rather a sound, not unlike breathing.
Joseph held his own breath to confirm what he heard, but Ollie leaned in next to him.
“Find anything interesting?”
The smell of the whiskey blunted Joseph’s senses, which didn’t improve when Ollie dipped a finger into his glass and then rubbed it against the stone.
“Just a smudge,” he said, smiling.
Joseph nodded and then turned to the mayor.
“It’s fascinating, Mr. Mayor, but what exactly is it you want us to do?”
The mayor drained his glass in one gulp. “I want you to make it rain, Mr. Wylde.”
Kate laughed, but caught herself when no one else joined in. “Oh, you’re serious?”
“Absolutely. My people couldn’t make heads or tails of the thing, told me the legend was just that—a story invented by the heathens or, more likely, a savvy explorer with a very large artifact on his hands. But then I remembered my friends, the Wyldes, and all your interesting experiences and resources and … connections.”
Joseph couldn’t remember telling the mayor the details of his family tree, but the man obviously knew Joseph’s maternal grandmother had been Nez Percé. It was not a fact he’d hidden, or advertised, but it had helped him establish a friendly relationship with several of the area’s local tribes.
“We do have an extensive collection of tribal lore at the store,” Joseph said. “Much of it unpublished oral traditions that might have some information about such things.”
“Excellent. I knew you were the right person to ask.”
“I don’t know about that,” Joseph said, turning back to the totem pole. “We don’t have much experience drawing water from a stone.”
“Rainmaker or otherwise, it’s going to make an excellent centerpiece for the festival,” said the mayor. “Although it would be better if it rained.”
“Perhaps,” said Ollie, “you should pit this pole against your weatherman, eh, Jim? Modern science versus Native magic?”
The mayor laughed, but was soon turning the idea over in his head.
Joseph turned to Kate, whom he correctly guessed was smiling. She would enjoy a job that didn’t involve confrontations with criminals. She would not, however, allow the thing inside her house.
“Can you have it delivered to the store?”
“First thing Monday morning. Now, shall we return to the party? I hate to be away for too long.”
Ollie followed the mayor out of the room. Kate turned to leave, but stopped when Joseph didn’t follow.
“Coming?”
Joseph hesitated for a moment longer, then returned to Kate’s side.
“Just listening,” he said as the two walked out of the room.
A moment later, a drop of water fell from the ceiling and hit the ground near where Joseph had been just listening. Second and third drops would follow, but no more. The tiny pool that formed on the floor smelled faintly of whiskey.
16
“Nineteen?”
Andre turned the number over in his head. Nineteen. He’d expected it to be bad, but that many wounded was far worse than he’d imagined. The first accounts they’d heard after coming ashore in Newport described a wild shootout, although who was doing the shooting was not clear. By the time Naira procured horses and provisions for the journey north, the shootout had become a “massacre” and the perpetrators a “gang of outlaws.” The day-and-a-half ride to Tillamook brought more accounts, many describing a single villain killing without remorse. Just outside town, they met a man clutching a small wooden cross to his breast who claimed Death had descended on the traveling circus to pass judgment on the wicked.
Now that they had arrived at the scene, the worst of the stories appeared to be true. The midway was in disarray. Many of the booths and platforms had been knocked over or destroyed, some had burned. A handful of carnival workers pushed at the debris with brooms and shovels, none seeming to grasp whether they were packing up or shutting down for good. A tiny man scrubbed the floorboards of a stage, trying to remove a deep red stain.
Andre and Naira stood before the smoldering remains of a larger tent at the end of the midway. A sign trampled underfoot was too scorched to read save for a caricature of a man hanging from a tree. The burned-out husk of a coffin sat in the center of the wreckage.
Andre pulled the hat from his head, squinting into the sun, and asked a question he had no desire to hear answered.
“How many dead, Sheriff?”
Sheriff Matt Taylor, who throughout his tour of the carnage with Andre had been otherwise subdued, finally perked up.
“Just the one.”
Andre glanced at Naira. This was not the answer either of them had expected.
“And he died of a knife wound,” the sheriff continued. “Rest is still kicking, far as I know. Some of ’em are an awful bloody mess, but they’re alive.”
Could Andre’s theory be wrong? Might it not be him?
“Show me.”
* * *
Andre walked among the wounded, letting the emotions collected inside the big top flow into him. Fear filled the space, only it wasn’t the fear of death or sickness but something more primal, more intense. Andre had an idea what to name it, but held out hope his fears would not be realized.
The sheriff stopped alongside the bed of a young man with an oblong face. There were scars along his neck and chest, but only his shoulder was bandaged.
“Kid’s one of the lucky ones,” said the sheriff. “Caught it in the shoulder. Them other marks is, ah, well, he was like that ’fore he got shot.” The sheriff glanced about the tent and then leaned closer to Andre. “Lot of ’em was shot ain’t exactly normal folk, you catch my meanin’.”
Andre did. “Carnivals tend to employ a rather colorful cast of characters.”
The sheriff grunted. “Maybe that’s why so many of ’em survived. What’s another scar when you already look like that, huh?”
Andre gave the sheriff a look that most men would rightly have interpreted as an invitation to shut up. The sheriff missed this completely.
“Hell, some of ’em might even end up better-lookin’ minus a little meat.”
Naira touched the sheriff’s arm.
“These people deserve your care and comfort, wouldn’t you agree?”
The sheriff stared at Naira, seemingly unaware he’d been asked a question. Finally, he nodded. He did care. Of course he did.
Andre put a large hand on the sheriff’s shoulder. “Who did this?”
“Ah … robbers,” he managed. “Five or six, maybe as many as ten. Don’t know for sure. We caught three of them, but they ain’t said much.” The sheriff paused before adding, “Well, they ain’t said much useful.”
“What does that mean?”
“They’re trying to blame somebody else for what they done. Said they was set up by some fella out of Astoria. Something to do with a dead man and a fancy pistol. I don’t know, maybe they was tricked, but they did the robbin’ even if the other fella did most of the damage.”
Andre raised an eyebrow. “I thought you said there might be as many as ten.”
“Oh, well, that’s just an estimate, based on the amount of shootin’ and such. Most of the, um, employees seem to think there was just one man doing most of it.”
“One man?”
“Yup,” said the sheriff, not bothering to mask his skepticism. “Shot up the place all by hisself, started a couple fires, even won a few lead souvenirs on the midway.”
“They shot him?
”
“Half-dozen times, or so say the eyewitnesses. Didn’t slow him down, though. No, sir. They tell me he just kept right on shootin’.” The sheriff gestured for Andre to come closer. “What it tells me is that carnival folk can’t shoot worth a lick.”
Andre straightened up. He could make the sheriff understand, make him see the people around him, feel their suffering. Naira had such an easy time leading the man in the direction they wanted to go that it was obvious his was a simple mind. But what good would come from it?
Andre looked at the young man in the bed before him. He opened his eyes, smiled weakly, and then closed them again.
“Take me to the carnival boss,” Andre said.
The sheriff led them to a cot near the back of the tent. A handful of people were already standing around it, including a tiny one-armed woman sitting on a stool, an average-looking man with two small bumps on either side of his forehead, and twin Asian men who shared a single pair of legs. Seated upright in the bed with a wide bandage triple wrapped around his bare chest was John Garibaldi. Several spots of blood dotted the dressing, but otherwise he appeared in good condition for someone with a bullet in his chest.
The assembled carnival folk regarded the sheriff with obvious disdain, but when their eyes fell to Andre they found their spirits raised for the first time that day.
“Mr. Garibaldi, this is, um, this is…” The sheriff knew the man’s name, tried to spit it out, but found he couldn’t get his tongue around the word. He stared at Andre for help.
Andre nodded. “Thank you, Sheriff, I can handle it from here.”
Sheriff Taylor looked from Andre to Naira and then realized he was needed elsewhere. He must be. He left without another word.
Andre turned back to the injured man to find him grinning. Garibaldi nodded to his own people, who left without protest. Only the one-armed woman, who Andre saw was legless as well, remained at her boss’s side. She smiled broadly at Andre, a gesture he gladly returned.
“Careful, Mary,” said Garibaldi. “There might be a hoodoo curse behind that smile. He’ll have you clucking like a chicken in no time.”
Andre shook his head, but kept the smile. “Hello, John.”
“Andre, my friend, nice of you to come all this way just to catch the show. I’m afraid we’re between performances at the moment.”
Andre nodded. “You seem in good spirits for a man so recently shot.”
Garibaldi rolled up the wrapping on his chest, revealing a small, circular wound with what appeared to be a bullet still lodged at its center.
“Half shot,” he said. “Bullet never got through the heart bone. Damn thing’s stuck there, if you believe that. They tried pulling it out, but it’s worked its way in good. I think the doctor’s just afraid to give a good yank, figures I’ll spring a leak.”
“I might be able to do something,” Andre offered.
Garibaldi shook his head. “Thanks, but I’ll be fine.”
Andre wasn’t so sure. John had brushed away the offer a little too easily. He knew what Andre could do, had seen his hands in action during a smallpox outbreak in Eureka five years earlier. Something had him spooked, something unnatural.
“Besides,” Garibaldi said, “I finally get to fit in with my freaks.”
The small woman gasped. “John!”
“I’m one of you now. Don’t pretend you don’t call yourselves freaks when I’m not around. I hear things, Mary. I’m the boss, remember?”
“We don’t use that word. Not in polite company.”
Garibaldi rolled his eyes. “My apologies if I have offended your finer sensibilities, Andre,” he said and carefully slipped the bandage back into place.
“That is an unusual wound,” Andre said. “Remarkable that the bullet penetrated no further.”
“Not really. Gun was only loaded with half powder, probably less.”
“How do you know?” Naira asked.
“I loaded it,” Garibaldi said. He paused, as if just realizing what he’d said was true, and then chuckled to himself. “Don’t know why, actually. It was a prop. As it turns out, I was lucky to be one of the first ones shot, ’fore he picked up another pistol.”
The carnival master’s grin faltered.
Andre waited for his friend to take another breath before asking his question. “Who shot you, John?”
Garibaldi looked away from Andre. His eyes flitted from bed to bed, each time hurting a little more by what he saw.
“There were four of ’em,” he said. “Three idiots and some kid who didn’t know what he was doing. And they had a body for sale.”
Andre felt the truth hit him before he understood it, but both came quickly. The fear would come next.
“John…”
“Yeah, I bought the damn thing. Thought I was doing ’em a favor.”
“You put him on display.”
“I put it on display,” said Garibaldi. “There was no him, it was just a body.”
“It was evil, John, how could you not see that?”
“We don’t all see as clearly as you, Andre. Sometimes we have to walk in the shadows to get where we’re going.”
“Is that true? And did you make back your dime before your god reached down and slapped you in the face?”
Garibaldi stared at Andre. For a moment, neither man gave an inch. Finally, the carnival man lowered his gaze. Mary reached out with her tiny hand to find her boss’s. She gripped it tightly.
Andre bent his tall frame to kneel at the edge of the carnival man’s bed.
“This was not your doing, John, I know that. And I trust you will take care of these souls.”
“Whatever they need,” Garibaldi said without hesitation. “We’re a family.”
“I know,” said Andre.
“What about the book?” Naira asked.
“What?”
“Was there a book, small and black?” Andre asked. “One of the men might have carried it with him.”
Garibaldi thought for a moment and then nodded. “One of the shooters tried to sell me a notebook, said it was full of spells. Looked like a bunch of scribbles. I offered two bits, but the kid wouldn’t part with it. Got pretty angry about it.”
“What happened to him?”
“I don’t know. He was there when it happened, when whatever it was woke up. I told him to run and he did.”
Andre knew the young man would never be able to run far enough or fast enough, but at least he’d run. That was something.
The carnival boss took a deep breath and slowly let it out. He glanced at the small woman by his side before turning back to Andre.
“You’ll want to talk to them, I expect.”
“Who?”
“The idiots,” Garibaldi said. “Though I don’t know how much help they’ll be.”
Andre suspected they might be more useful than his friend, but never got the chance to say. Something had Naira spooked.
“What is it?”
Naira shook her head. “Trouble.”
Garibaldi sat up a little straighter despite the pain. “Where? I don’t—” he said, and then his words were cut off by the sound of a single gunshot echoing across the camp.
* * *
The body of the brute lay in the dirt, face up to the sun. A small black hole in the dead man’s forehead and the pistol in the sheriff’s still-shaking hand told much of the tale.
“He attacked me,” he said, as Andre and Naira arrived. “I told him to stop, but he just kept comin’.”
Andre slipped through the crowd gathered around the body and knelt beside it. Several recent injuries, including a scalp laceration and numerous stab wounds to the chest, were still caked with dried blood. There was no fluid, dried or otherwise, on the forehead.
Andre looked at the sheriff. “He attacked you?”
“Came barrelin’ outta the tent chasing some girl. Saw me and changed his mind … I told him to stop.”
An older woman wearing a long black dress st
epped forward, her arm around a younger, similarly dressed woman who hid her face at the sight of the body.
“It’s true,” said the older woman. “We were to prepare him.”
“For burial,” Andre said.
The woman nodded. “The medical man tried his best. He was surely dead.”
“Seemed awful lively to me,” said the sheriff.
Andre laid a hand on the dead man’s chest, finding no life to it.
“He is gone now, Sheriff.”
The sheriff said nothing but did finally holster his pistol.
The silence stretched out, broken only by the sobs of a few carnival folk. In time, Andre nodded to Naira, who gently took the hand of the young woman in black, waiting for her to raise her head before she spoke.
“Tell us what happened, dear.”
The woman wiped away a tear but answered right away. “Big Tom weren’t much for cleanliness, but I came to wash him. He deserved that. I only touched his coat and he grabbed me around the wrist and pulled me down. He tried … he tried to bite me.”
Andre felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. She was speaking the truth and it was worse than he’d imagined.
“How was he killed?” he asked, slowly rising to his feet. “The first time.”
“Tom died saving my life,” Garibaldi said, leaning on another man for support. “Stabbed … by the bastard that shot me.”
The crowd parted, allowing their boss room to stand beside the fallen man. Mary, the one-armed girl, pushed in beside him on a small rolling cart. At the sight of her friend she silently began to cry.
Garibaldi looked to Andre. There was hate in his eyes.
“Find him, Andre. And kill him when you do.”
“I will find him, John.”
Garibaldi nodded. “Talk to Mason. He might be able to help.”
“Who is he?” Naira asked.
“One of the idiots.”
* * *
The Tillamook County Jail was small and out of the way, perfect for a population that rarely had a use for it. Two twelve-foot-square cells were more than enough to hold the occasional card cheat or inebriant incapable of stumbling home. Should an actual criminal be in residence, the jail was equipped with two sets of wrist-to-ankle shackles. After the carnival shootout, the jail’s population had soared to three, none of whom was deemed to be in any condition to cause trouble. The shackles remained on the wall.
