by H. V. Elkin
“Of course,” Maroney said. “But again I ask, what can we do to help you?”
“Keep him here.”
“Oh, I don’t know if we can do that, even if we try.”
“He says you’re the boss.”
“Yes . . .”
“Look, Fred, I can break the man’s leg for him and tie him to a tent pole and set my dog to guard him. That’ll keep him here.”
“No,” Maroney said, “not that way. We cannot do such a thing to a man of whom we are only suspicious.”
“Okay. I don’t want to do that either. Just as soon he don’t know just how sure I am about him. Maybe there’s a chance this way he’ll still tip his hand and we’ll get more to go on than suspicions. But I will tie him up if you don’t think you can keep him here.”
Maroney nodded sadly. “We’ll keep him here. We’ll do our best.”
“Tell him the judge ordered it.”
“Did he?”
“You just repeat what I said. That way you won’t have to worry about lyin’. Figure you wouldn’t be very good at that.”
“Very well. But if that doesn’t work, what then?”
“Then shoot him.”
Late that night, Cutler and Molly were in the menagerie tent holding a lantern in front of the other tiger’s cage. The animal scowled at the light, then went back to sleep.
“This one thinks she’s safe in her cage,” Cutler said.
“Yes, all animals are different. But this one is more normal. A trained cat gets used to things. She almost likes the routine of the act. She likes things to be familiar.”
“So long as she knows what’s familiar won’t hurt her.”
“Yes.” She went over to the horses. “It’s true for this horse, too. This is the one Anna rode on in the show. It isn’t easy to get a horse to accept a tiger on its back. You have to conquer the fear, and then it’s possible.” She looked shyly at Cutler. “Then anything is possible.”
There was a moment before he asked, “You afraid of me?”
Another moment before she answered, “I don’t know. It’s like the first time I did a somersault on a horse. In my mind, I could see my Self doing it. I wanted desperately to do it. I knew I would do it. But still there was a feeling before I did it. It might be fear, I don’t know.”
“Suppose you’d fallen off when you tried?”
“I’d try again. That’s important. To get right up and try again.”
He nodded. “But animals ain’t like that.”
“Anna isn’t. I don’t think she is. Once she felt unsafe about her cage, she didn’t want to go in it anymore. She wouldn’t make herself do it the way I’d make myself get up and try a trick again.”
“So the trap we set for her today wouldn’t be likely to work a second time.”
“No, I don’t think it would. It will have to be something else.”
“Something she still isn’t afraid of.”
“Yes.”
He looked back at the horse. “How’d you get a tiger to ride a horse? How’d you get a horse to allow it?”
“Well, if a horse runs and a tiger’s above it on a pedestal, it’s a natural instinct for the tiger to pounce.”
“To kill.”
“Yes. I had to use that instinct. The horse was blindfolded at first. They tend to be placid when they’re blindfolded.”
“That’s right.”
“And the horse was protected by the leather armor you saw in the act, with the spikes sticking out of it. As the horse would run by, the tiger would jump on its back and try to attack the same way you saw Anna attack the lion. But the armor protected the horse and the spikes discouraged the tiger. It was like erasing a part of the tiger’s instinct, the desire to kill. But without erasing the desire to pounce.”
“How long did that take?”
“The fifth time, Anna jumped and only rode. But it was too days before I knew both animals were trained enough.”
“You think now Anna would still feel natural about jumpin’ the horse?”
“You mean safe?” She looked up at him, he eyes wide.
“Yeah.”
“It may be the only thing left in her life that has not been spoiled for her, John.”
“And now she’s out there in a strange country where nothin’s familiar to her.”
Molly threw herself impulsively against Cutler and hugged him around the waist. “Yes! She’ll be drawn to anything that is familiar and hasn’t threatened her! Yes, it could work!” Then she realized what she had done and, embarrassed, she unwound her arms and stepped back.
Cutler had finally had all he could take. He set the lantern down, then grabbed her and held her.
“John?”‘ Her voice came out with an effort, and he realized he was holding her too tightly. He relaxed his embrace but did not let go.
“I got two rules when I’m workin’,” he said. “One of ‘em’s no liquor. And I’m about to break the other one.”
He felt her trembling against him. Her voice was a whisper. “You remember Fred saying we’re all on edge lately?”
“Yeah.”
“Everyone isn’t on edge for the same reason.” She put her arms around his neck and hugged him back. “I was never such a clumsy fool before you came.”
Somewhere outside a coyote howled, and farther in the distance there was an answer. And Molly made a sound against Cutler’s chest that sounded like a giggle.
“Have you heard the story of the lady and the tiger?” she asked.
“No.”
“There are two doors, and a man must open one of them. Behind one door is a woman, behind the other a tiger. He doesn’t know which door hides which choice. He must take a chance.”
“How’s it end?”
“Just like that. We never find out which door he opens. We have to make up our own ending to it.”
“Sounds like a foolish story.”
“Yes. It doesn’t consider that the lady and the tiger must also take chances the man will discover them. A lady’s chance. And a tiger’s chance.”
“Didn’t mean that.”
She looked up at him. “But do you know why I think it’s a foolish story, John?”
“Why?”
“I could never understand why the man couldn’t have both.”
Cutler smiled down at her. “Yeah,” he said. “All the man had to decide was which came first.”
“Have you decided then?”
“Well,” he said, “we can’t go off huntin’ tigers at night.” Then he kissed her.
Chapter Eight
Hansen had spent a sleepless night. Now he sat with the whip across his lap, handling it with a nervous irritability.
Overnight, the circus had become an armed camp, with men stationed in the menagerie tent and guarding the caged animals. Even Maroney wore a gun. Hansen did not know the boss owned one. Why was everyone on guard? That must be the work of John Cutler. Yes, things would probably be quite different this morning if Cutler had not happened along three days ago.
“Good morning, Eric.” Molly came by, flashed him a smile, then went on toward Cutler’s wagon.
Nothing looked good to Hansen that morning. He watched Molly go and saw that this morning, in some way he could not define, she was different. Was it that she seemed happier than usual? That she moved in a different way? Hansen could not be sure. He watched her moving gracefully toward the wagon, her head tilted up toward Cutler who was on the wagon seat next to the dog. Molly stopped to run her hand along the neck of one of the mules and said something to Cutler. Cutler nodded a response. Then Molly danced around by Cutler, and he reached down to help her up onto the seat where she sat next to him with the dog on her right. She reached over and patted the dog, the same dog that growled viciously whenever Hansen was near it.
All of a sudden, everything seemed balanced in Cutler’s favor. Maroney was on his side now, even going so far as to exclude Hansen from hunting the tiger Hansen was most qualified to ca
pture. And everything had been turned around, even to the point of Hansen being restricted to the circus lot as Cutler was supposed to have been only one day earlier. Even Bean seemed to have changed his tune. That was the hardest medicine of all for Hansen to have to swallow. But Maroney had said Bean wanted Hansen to stay on the lot. And Maroney was not the type to lie, not even if it meant saving his circus. So it must be true. But it did not make any sense.
One of the musicians, flute in hand, ran toward the wagon, shouting apologies as he came. A couple of arms reached out the back of the wagon and pulled the flute player under the hooped canvas. Then, even though the reins did not move in Cutler’s hands, the mules started forward, pulling the wagon away from the circus lot, with the two horses behind it, Molly’s horse in its leather armor tied to the back and Cutler’s bay gelding that followed untethered. The horse-drawn and empty tiger cage brought up the rear.
Hansen was just about mad enough to chew on the handle of his whip. He settled for grinding his teeth together, not wanting anyone to know the extent of his anger and certain he was being watched.
Molly ran her hand along Cutler’s leg, then pulled it back quickly into her lap when she remembered the three musicians who were riding behind them. Cutler smiled at her and winked. She smiled back, openly but with the sense of a secret they shared, and without a trace of her former shyness.
“Do you feel like your head’s been shaved?” she asked.
He laughed. “I ain’t no Samson, Molly. Don’t feel weak at all. The opposite maybe.”
“I didn’t mean just last night,” she said. “Something else, too.” He waited to see if she wanted to elaborate. “I mean,” she said, “you’re a man who goes out with traps and guns to catch dangerous beasts and who usually works alone. Whether this way works or not, I’ll bet it’s not a story you’re going to want to tell in saloons later, that you resorted to the help of music and a bareback rider.”
“I don’t usually tell stories in saloons, anyway,” he said. “The real ones ain’t nearly as interestin’ as the ones folks make up.”
“Still, I’ll bet you’d rather go out and bring this tiger in alone and do it the way you’re used to.”
“All that matters is what works. I might even put on your bareback ridin’ costume if it’d fit and get the job done.”
She shook her head and giggled. “I don’t think so.”
“Well, maybe not,” he admitted. “But gettin’ the job done is what counts just the same. And in a minute that’s all I’m gonna be thinkin’ about.” He looked at her. “You, too.”
“In a minute,” she said. “You say when.”
“Besides,” he said, “it ain’t the real rogue we’re goin’ after this mornin’.”
She was surprised. “What?”
“I’ve hardly ever had a job where there wasn’t at least one man who wanted to go out and kill the animal quick. He’d either want to do it with a gun or with poison. Now, here we are in Pecos country, and some sheep’s been killed by a tiger and by now everybody knows where the tiger’s holed up. But there ain’t been talk about sendin’ some guns out after it or about poisonin’ the range. That ain’t human nature in this part of the country. I’ve been waitin’ for it to happen, and it ain’t.”
“Well, I guess nothing happens around here with Judge Bean’s permission.”
“That’s right,” he said.
“And he believes in you now.”
“Only because he was forced into it in front of the man who’s writin’ a book about him. If Bean wanted to get rid of that tiger, he’d’ve had it killed by now.”
“But why would he want it to stay free?”
“What happens if it does?”
“Well, for one thing, the circus goes out of business.”
“That’s right.”
“You mean he’s taking some kind of advantage of Anna being loose, to get the circus or something like that?”
“I mean he started takin’ advantage before the tiger got loose.”
“He wasn’t around when Anna started changing, though.”
Cutler nodded. “Remember me tellin’ you an animal don’t usually go rogue all by itself? Somewhere there’s usually a man who had something to do with it.”
“That black sheep of ours,” she said.
“Yeah. That’s the real rogue. And Bean’s in on it.”
She looked worried. “Then we don’t have a chance.”
“There’s always a chance.”
“But the judge runs this part of the country. One way or another, he’ll have things his way.”
“You’re forgettin’ we found Bean’s weak spot. Publicity. We may not be able to run him out of the territory, but we know how to take the wind out of his sails. The other one, though, that black sheep of yours. That could be different. Maybe when we get him it won’t be with music and a bareback rider. Might get a good saloon story out of this yet.”
The pit had been filled in, as Hansen said. But the canvas was still stretched toward it, most of it lying flat by now. It had soaked up some of the dusty soil and in places was completely camouflaged. They rolled up one strip and laid it behind some brush. The other strip was stretched out just in front of where the pit had been, making what looked like a thin wall of dust. While Cutler did this the musicians and the man who drove the cage took the tall tiger pedestal from the wagon and rolled it into an upright position. The cage had been left nearby with its door open, and the horses and mules had been tethered some distance away, with Red there to guard them.
Molly indicated a spot partway between the canvas wall and the hill. “Here,” she said. “This is the place for the pedestal,” and she made an X in the sand with the heel of her boot.
Cutler nodded and brought an old wagon wheel from his wagon. It was attached to a five-foot shaft. He set the shaft in the ground between the pedestal and the canvas wall. As he held it there, one of the men hit the wheel hub with a sledgehammer until the shaft sank three feet into the ground, leaving the wheel two feet above. Then Cutler turned the wheel until it spun freely. He tied one end of a rope around one of the wheel spokes, then backed out along the rope to a spot next to the pedestal. Holding the rope at this distance from the wheel, he moved away from the pedestal in an arc, the wheel turning with him as he moved until he got back to the starting point by the pedestal. His tracks formed a perfect circle running from the pedestal on one side of the circle to a spot three feet from the canvas wall on the other side. He nodded, satisfied, and when he looked up, the flute player was grinning.
“Just thinking,” the musician said, “this could be one hell of a show, and we’re the only ones who’ll see it.”
“What’s good about that?” asked the man who had driven the tiger cage.
“Nothing, I guess,” the musician admitted.
“You said you were thinkin’,” the driver said, “and you weren’t thinkin’ at all.”
“Guess not,” the musician said. “Hell of a lot better not to waste this on such a small audience.”
“Well,” Cutler told them, “there ain’t no audience here. Better get that straight. We’re all here to do a job, and each of us has his job to do.” There was a grimness in Cutler’s face now that the men had not noticed earlier in the morning.
“Sorry,” the musician said. “Just circus talk.”
“This ain’t a circus,” Cutler said.
“Sorry,” the man said again, no longer smiling.
Cutler looked into the eyes of each of them, one by one, until he seemed satisfied that each one was sufficiently serious about the job that had to be done.
Molly led her horse up to them. Besides the leather and spiked armor, the horse now wore the platform saddle on its back. “All ready?” she asked.
Cutler nodded and tied the rope to the horse’s bridle. “You all know what to do,” he said.
“Except me,” Molly said.
“Ride my horse around the back of the hill,” Cutler to
ld her, handing her his six-gun, “and up to the top of the ridge. No farther. In case anyone’s tryin’ to ride up on us this time, we want to know about it before he gets here. Fire the gun if you see any riders comin’ this way.”
As Molly went off to get into position, Cutler handed a rope to the cage driver. “You sure you know how to use this?”
“Hell yes,” the driver said. “If there was still enough ranches to work on, I’d still be usin’ a lariat somewheres.” He went behind the canvas wall.
Cutler looked at the three musicians. “You,” he pointed to the flute player. “Take the left side.” He pointed. “Over there where the horseshoe bends this way. And you,” he indicated the drummer, “take your drum about ten feet inside the crook of the hill.”
“And me on the other side, to the right,” said the musician who held a frame of chimes.
“Yeah,” Cutler said. “And everybody start playin’ when I give the signal. All together. Make sure it’s the same song you play for the horse and tiger act.”
In another fifteen minutes, Cutler looked out from behind the canvas wall and could see that everyone was in position. He looked at the cage driver next to him who held a lasso ready. “You ready?” he asked. The man nodded. Cutler fingered the lasso he held himself, getting the feel of it. “Okay then. Here goes.” He took off his hat and waved it in the air.
The music began. The waltz. Although the musicians were separated, the sound blended as it echoed from the hill, making it sound like they were standing together on the band platform of a distant circus. As they played, the armored horse began to run around at the end of its rope, the wheel turning as it did, and the circular tracks become more prominent on the ground with each complete turn of the wheel. Dust was thrown up to further camouflage the canvas wall. Looking over the dust, Cutler saw a flash of orange on the hill, and he motioned for his partner to get down. Then he crouched, too, so he could just see over the wall. And vaguely through the dust he saw the magnificent cat jump to a boulder, prick up its ears and look about, as though it could not locate the source of the music.
