by Anna Schmidt
“Not at all,” Gunther replied. “We are in your world now. I am honored that you have shown such concern for my grandson’s well-being. If you are more comfortable calling us by our given names, then that’s the least we can do.” He drank a long swallow of his milk. “I have noticed that Mr. Winters is distinctly uncomfortable with such formality,” he added.
“You are very observant, sir. And very kind.”
He saw that Gunther took the compliment in stride without acknowledging it. Instead, he evidently decided that a fresh round of introductions was in order. “And so we are the Goodloe family. I am Gunther and my daughter is Pleasant and as you have observed, Caleb’s mother is Hannah.”
“And I am Levi.” He shook hands with Gunther then smiled at Pleasant whose lips were pursed into a worried pucker as if unsure of what to make of all this. Finally, he looked at Hannah who met his gaze directly.
“And my son is Caleb,” she said softly. “And today, God willing, we shall find him and not trouble you further, Levi.”
As promised, they arrived in the small town of Jonesville an hour later. On the way into town the train slowed and then paused as Levi’s private car was moved to a siding next to a large field. From her position on the observation deck at the back of the car, Hannah could see dozens of workers, some hammering in the long stakes that would hold the huge circus tent in place. Other workers performed the same task as a dozen smaller tents went up on the property.
“That one is the cooking tent and next to it the dining tent,” Levi told them as Gunther, Pleasant and Hannah leaned out over the scrolled and turned-brass railing of the deck for a better view. “Wardrobe,” he continued, “dressing rooms, makeup, props.”
“It’s like a city in itself,” Hannah observed and she was beginning to understand how such activity might have captivated Caleb. “It’s so colorful and…”
“Exciting,” Pleasant whispered. Then she glanced at her father and added, “If you enjoy that sort of thing.”
“So many people,” Hannah said as she scanned the throng of workers for any sign of her son.
“We’ll find him,” Levi said quietly. Then in a more normal tone he added, “Care to watch the unloading of the wagons, Gunther? I promise you it’s worth every minute of your time.”
“I wouldn’t mind getting off this train and stretching my legs on firm ground a bit,” Gunther replied.
Levi opened the small gate that led to three steps and disembarked. From the ground he held out a hand to Pleasant. “Ladies,” he invited as he escorted them safely to the ground. Then he waited for Gunther to navigate the short flight of steps before beginning the tour.
“There are forty flatcars for transporting the wagons,” he said as he headed toward a siding where the line of cars with their cargo of painted and gilded circus wagons waited. “A wagon can weigh as much as six tons,” he added, and Hannah saw that her father-in-law was intrigued in spite of his reservations about coming too close to this outside world.
“You use Belgians to do the heavy work,” Gunther noted, nodding toward a matched pair of large black horses dragging a ramp into place at the end of one flatcar.
“Belgians, Percherons, Clydesdales,” Levi replied. “They serve double duty as both work horses and performance animals. But the men will handle the actual work of taking the wagons off the flatcars.”
The four of them watched in silence as the work crew set a ramp in place at one end of the flatcar. Then a crew member took hold of the wagon’s tongue and carefully steered the wagon toward the ramp.
“This is where things get tricky,” Levi said. “If he loses control and the wagon starts to roll too quickly then we risk injuring a worker. So that man there—a ‘snubber’—will control the speed using that network of ropes and capstans.”
Hannah held her breath as the unwieldy wagon gained speed and threatened to topple over on its way down the ramp. Safely on the ground another member of the crew hitched it to the team of horses, climbed aboard and drove it across the lot. Then the process began all over again.
“It’s a lot of work,” Gunther observed.
“Especially when you realize that after tonight’s performance we’ll simply reverse the process and move on to the next town.”
“Are those the tents for housing the animals?” Hannah asked, recalling the notice for a stable boy that she and Caleb had seen on the grounds in Sarasota.
“Yes. Gunther, why don’t you and Pleasant go over there to the dining and cook tents and see if there’s any sign of the boy while Hannah and I check out the animal tents?”
Before Gunther could object, Levi had started off toward a large tent where Hannah could see horses and elephants stabled. Without a backward look she followed him.
While Levi spoke with the men working the area, she searched for Caleb. Methodically, she checked every stall and gently prodded every pile of hay that looked bulky enough for a boy to be hiding under with the toe of her shoe. Nothing.
She had searched the large open-aired tent from one end to the other and found no sign of her son. Now she stood at the entrance to the tent looking out across the circus grounds, wondering where he might be and praying that she had not made a mistake in guessing that he had left with the circus.
“Mrs. Goodloe?”
She turned at the sound of Levi’s call. He was walking toward her with another man. The sun was behind them, streaming in from the far end of the tent and both men were in silhouette, and yet there was something about Levi’s confident stride that made her know him at once. The other man was a stranger. She focused on Levi, willing him to break free of the shadows and give her the news she’d prayed to hear—that Caleb had been found.
Chapter Five
“Mrs. Hannah Goodloe, this is my accountant and business manager, Jake Jenkins.”
“Very pleased to make your acquaintance, ma’am,” the small wiry man gushed. He was dressed in a business suit and held a bowler hat that he kept tapping against his thigh in a nervous cadence. “I understand your son is missing?”
“Have you seen him?” Hannah was well aware that she had dispensed with the niceties of meeting someone new and gotten directly to the point. But all through the night and especially in the bright light of day, she had felt that time was of the essence. Either she would find Caleb today or…
“I may have.”
Hannah’s heart beat in quick time. “Where is he?”
“Now, ma’am, I said I might have seen the boy. There was a kid on the grounds in Sarasota yesterday morning as we were loading the last of the wagons. Most everyone was already on board but I saw him hanging around the livestock car.”
“Did he board the train, Mr. Jenkins?” Hannah thought that she might scream if the man insisted on stretching out his story any further.
“I’m not sure.”
“But back there you said…” Levi’s voice was tight, as if each word were an effort.
“I said I might have seen the kid, Levi. You know how it is. We get kids hanging around all the time—granted, usually not at that hour of the morning, but still…”
“Where did you last see him?” Hannah asked, suddenly unable to swallow around the lump of fear in her throat.
“I hollered at him to get going and he ran off toward the front of the train—up where the sleeping cars are. He could have just kept going or he could have boarded one of those cars.”
“Let’s go,” Levi said, taking Hannah’s elbow and ushering her past the dapper little man. “Maybe he’s still there—maybe he fell asleep and…”
“He could never sleep through all of this,” Hannah replied as she practically ran to keep up with his long strides. “Besides, he’s an early riser and…”
“Let’s just be sure.”
But after a thorough search of the sleeping, dining and stock cars there was no sign of Caleb. Levi even spoke to the local authorities to see if they might have spotted a boy obviously on his own in town.
“I’ve alerted the authorities in Sarasota,” Levi told the family when they had all returned to his private car where Hans had prepared lunch for them. “And Hans can arrange for your trip home. However, I’m afraid the earliest train is tomorrow.”
“It’s God’s will,” Pleasant murmured, and Hannah shivered at the very idea that God would be so cruel as to allow a boy to wander alone over yet a second night while his mother was miles away.
“Or man’s failure,” Levi added quietly. “I’ll question my business manager again, Hannah. Perhaps there’s some detail he forgot, something that might offer more information.”
“Thank you,” Hannah replied and stood up. “Please excuse me,” she murmured and did not wait for their permission.
Outside she wandered the circus lot, oblivious to the growing throng surrounding her as people gathered for the matinee performance. But as she found her way around the enormous tent away from the main entrance and the smaller side-show tents and ticket wagon, she began to consider her surroundings through the eyes of her son.
The dining tent was mostly empty now. Only a few of the waiters were left, lounging at one of the tables, cigarettes dangling from their lips as they took a well-deserved break. She followed the sounds of chatter and found herself in what Caleb had described to her as the “backyard” of the circus.
“See, Ma,” he’d explained excitedly, “it’s not so different from home if they have a backyard.”
Hannah watched as a parade of elaborately out fitted animals and performers lined up for their grand entrance into the tent. “The big top, Ma,” Caleb had corrected her when she referred to it as a tent on their tour. “Because it’s the biggest.”
“The big top,” she murmured as she trudged on. She had no idea where she was headed. She only knew that she had to find a quiet place where she could think. She had noticed a little creek near the tracks on their way in. Perhaps…
“Watch it, honey.” Hannah glanced up to find that she’d nearly run straight into a highly made-up woman wearing a skin-tight leotard, tights and a sheer flowing skirt covered in sequins.
Immediately, she averted her eyes. “So sorry,” she murmured. “Forgive me, please,” she added as she and the woman engaged in a kind of dance as one moved one way and the other moved in unison so that they were still blocking each other.
“Hey,” the woman said, “you’re the mother of that missing kid, aren’t you?”
The mention of Caleb took precedence over anything that might have proved embarrassing about being so close to a woman like this. She met the woman’s gaze and saw that beneath the layers of mascara and eye shadow, the woman had eyes that were kind and concerned.
“Yes,” she admitted.
“Thought so. Look, honey, you didn’t hear it from me but some of us were talking and we’re pretty sure we saw the kid. Blond hair, right? Looks like it’s been cut by using a bowl as a cap?”
Hannah nodded, unable to breathe for the rush of hope she didn’t want to allow herself to feel.
“Skinny kid but taller than most. White shirt, suspenders holding up high-water black pants?”
“What are high-water…”
“Too short for him,” the woman explained.
“Yes,” Hannah said, her excitement building. “Where…when…”
“All I can tell you is that kid was on the train last night—like a shadow he was.” She chuckled. “Now you saw him and now you didn’t.”
“And now?”
The woman’s laughing eyes sobered. “Haven’t seen him since we got here, honey,” she admitted. “And from the chatter in the dining tent earlier, neither has anyone else. We figured he must have moved on but then I saw you searching this morning and…well, I’m a mother myself and when I ran into you just now, it seemed like I was supposed to tell you what I knew even if…”
“May I know your name?” Hannah asked.
The woman’s eyes narrowed, then she shrugged. “Sure. That’s me there.” She pointed to the painted side of a large float where the words Lily Palmer, The Girl in the Gilded Cage were emblazoned in gold script.
Hannah heard the band sound a fanfare and slowly the parade of people and animals started forward. “Gotta run, honey,” Lily shouted as she dashed off to climb aboard her float. Hannah watched as the woman nimbly climbed up the side of a three-tiered scaffolding and into an oversized gilded birdcage. From her perch up high, Lily waved at Hannah. “Keep the faith, honey,” she shouted and Hannah realized that she was smiling, and that her breathing was coming in gasps of excitement rather than panic. She waved back to Lily and then headed back to Levi’s private car to share the news with the others.
“I thought you said you saw the kid.” Levi fumed later that afternoon as he and Jake went over the orders Jake would need to place at each stop on their way north.
“I told you I saw a kid, Levi. Blond hair, Amish looking duds—seemed to match what you described. Don’t shoot the messenger, okay?”
Jake and Levi had been friends for years. They had both been stowaways and after spending several months riding the circus train and doing odd jobs, Jake had left to find his fortune in Chicago. A couple of months after Levi inherited the Brody circus from his mentor Jasper Brody, Levi contacted his old friend and the two had worked together ever since. He’d quickly realized that Jake’s talents were exactly the right complement to his own. The man had a head for business, plus he was a crowd-pleaser. That meant he was great at negotiating favorable deals for the myriad list of goods and supplies that it took to keep a circus running.
In the process the two of them had become good friends. Jake’s naturally outgoing personality was a perfect complement to Levi’s reticence and as the years had gone by, Levi had been more than happy to let Jake handle the public and promotional parts of running a circus.
“I just hated to disappoint her,” he said by way of apology for snapping at his friend.
Jake shrugged. “You’ve gone above and beyond the way I see it. It’s hardly your concern if the boy decided to take off.”
“He’s younger than most,” Levi said absently.
“Maybe there was trouble at home. Maybe his ma—or maybe his grandpa—were…”
“They’re good people, Jake.”
His friend shrugged. “I’m just saying. A boy doesn’t take off for no good reason.”
“She thinks he fell for the glamour,” Levi said and then both men laughed. For both understood that life on the road with the circus was about as glamorous as shoveling elephant dung at the end of the parade.
“Then there’s nothing to worry about,” Jake said, clapping Levi on the shoulder. “Give the kid a couple of days—a week at most—and I guarantee you he’ll be begging us to send him back—if he’s here at all, that is.”
“You looked everywhere? Spoke to everyone?”
Jake sighed and nodded. “Lily and some of the gals thought they spotted him on board last night but there was no sign of him. More likely they were all falling asleep when I was chasing the kid and they looked outside, spotted him then dreamed he was running through their sleeping car.”
“Why’d you chase him?”
“Because the train was about to move and he was dodging in and out between cars. The last thing we needed was for a kid to get crushed as we were leaving town. Business is bad enough without adding that to the mix.”
Levi couldn’t debate that point. “I don’t get it,” he said, his attention now firmly back on the figures he’d been studying for days now. “Our last performances in Sarasota were sold out and yet…”
“You gave all those tickets to that charity thing, remember?” Jake reminded him. “You’ll see. Things will start to look better now that we’re on the road. Besides, you aren’t exactly hurting, Levi.”
“You know it’s not about my personal fortune,” Levi snapped. “We employ so many people, Jake. I’m responsible for their welfare—not to mention the welfare of their families. With the w
ay the economy took a nosedive in Florida these past couple of years, I don’t want to have to start letting people go.”
“Trust me, my friend. Everyone knows you’re going to do the right thing when it comes to taking care of the company. Whatever happens, everybody knows that when Levi Harmon gives you his word, it beats any official piece of paper you might ever hold in your hand.” Jake gathered up the orders. “I’ll go send these so the supplies are waiting at the next stop. And stop worrying!”
Levi smiled for the first time since he’d sat down with his friend. Somehow Jake had always had a way of putting a new face on things—a more positive face—and Levi was grateful for that.
Supper that evening was a somber affair. Levi was tired from the stresses of the day. Attendance for the matinee had been good but people had not spent the extra money for the sideshows and cotton candy and popcorn that they usually did. Although the wealthy classes were still thriving, these were hard times for ordinary folks and it did not look as if things were going to get much better for some time.
But the real gloom that hung over the gathering was the fact that there had been no sign of the boy. Hannah kept her eyes lowered as she methodically sipped her soup. Levi doubted she was even aware that she was taking in nourishment. Gunther kept glancing at his daughter-in-law and sighing heavily. Only Pleasant seemed to be enjoying the meal.
“Excuse me, sir.” Hans entered the dining area with his usual catlike grace. He was holding a piece of yellow paper.
“A telegram?” Levi asked, reaching for it.
“Yes, sir. It’s from Miss Ida.”
Hannah looked up for the first time, her eyes flickering with some interest.
“Ida Benson,” Levi explained to his guests. “She’s my personal secretary. She headed straight back to Wisconsin once the company arrived here yesterday.”
Levi read the short message. Then read it again. He glanced at Hannah, then handed her the telegram. “It’s good news,” he said softly.
