by Tom Lin
“Three years now,” the ringmaster said. “I came out west on doctor’s orders. Mountain air and wide land, he told me.” The ringmaster gestured to the vast basin that stretched before them, bleaching incrementally before the rising sun. “Lot of good that did me, eh?” He chuckled to himself. “For a while I even thought I was cured. But it’s coming back, little by little.” He drew a ragged breath and coughed in short staccato hacks that resonated deep in his chest. He leaned over the side of his bedroll and spat. “It’s getting worse.”
Ming thought for a moment. “We’ll split up, then,” he said. “At Lovelock. You folks take the train down to Reno. Ain’t but a day’s ride. See a doctor there. Me and the old man, we’ll be just fine on our lonesome.”
The ringmaster shook his head. He sat up fully and thumped his chest with his fist, spat again. “We aren’t parting ways, Mr. Tsu, till you take us to Reno.”
“You know I can’t ride them rails,” Ming said.
“I know.” The ringmaster drank some more from his canteen, drained it. He tossed it down onto his bedroll, the wet-tipped cork rolling in tight circles. “We’ll go the route you said. To Pyramid Lake, then south to Reno.”
“If you say so.”
The ringmaster waved him off. “It ain’t me who says so.” He tilted his head toward where the prophet lay asleep some yards distant. “It’s him. While you were convalescing, in Winnemucca, I asked him when I would die.”
“And?”
“At first the old sonofabitch refused to tell me. Had to drag it out of him. He said it’s not wise for mortals to know their time till it’s upon them. Drives them mad, he told me.” He laughed a little. “In words more philosophical, of course.”
“He said that to me too.”
The ringmaster pointed a crooked finger at Ming’s chest. “Man out of bounds,” he said, imitating the prophet’s ancient voice. He lowered his hand. “Well, finally the old man gave up the truth.” The ringmaster turned his face to the sky and gazed upward with unfocused eyes. After some time he faced Ming once more. “I’ll die by the shores of Pyramid Lake,” he said, “in eight days’ time. Laid low by this chronic consumption.” He picked up the errant cork and replaced it in the mouth of his canteen. There were a few drops of water glittering on his bedroll and these he smeared flat with the blade of his hand and returned the canteen to his pack. “And so it will end.”
“It ain’t set in stone,” Ming said. “You could be a man out of bounds too.”
“We aren’t the same, you and I,” the ringmaster said. “This is what the prophet told me.” He placed a hand on Ming’s shoulder. “You refused your time because you weren’t ready to go.” He withdrew his hand and placed it on his own chest. “Me—well.” He sighed. “I reckon I’m ready to go, Mr. Tsu.”
“Ain’t your aim to get to Reno?” Ming asked.
The ringmaster shook his head. “Maybe I did,” he said. “A long time ago.” He coughed again, though it abated before becoming the kind of shaking fit that had first drawn Ming’s attention. The ringmaster spat on the ground. “I taste blood in my mouth everywhere I go,” he said, “blood and salt. I’m ready.”
“And what of the show?”
“These folks can take care of themselves. They’ll be fine. And as for Ms. Lockewood”—the ringmaster winked at Ming—“I’m under the impression she’ll be in capable hands.”
“I ain’t takin her with me to Californie,” Ming said.
The ringmaster raised his eyebrows and considered this. “No matter,” he said. “I reckon you’ll find her again when you’re ready.” He paused. “Won’t you do me the favor of keeping this between us?” he asked. “Man to man?”
“Certainly.”
“Excellent.” The ringmaster got to his feet and began stowing his bedroll. “One more thing, Mr. Tsu,” he said, and offered his hand to Ming to help him up. Ming took it and stood. “You’ll get your pay. I’ve more than enough in my purse to fulfill our agreement. Collect it when I’ve no further need for it.”
“You mean when you’ve died,” Ming said.
The ringmaster chuckled. “Right as rain, Mr. Tsu.” Ming began leaving to pack his own bedroll and the ringmaster called out after him. “Let’s not wait too long to wake the others. There’s not enough moonlight to continue traveling by night. And I’ve an appointment at Pyramid Lake to keep.”
39
By that afternoon they were traveling parallel to the railroad, several hundred yards distant, gleaming in the full sun. From time to time a locomotive went past laden with coal and rails and ties and spikes, the smokestack blurring the air above it into a rippling haze. They stopped for lunch in the shade of the stagecoach. No fire was lit. It was simply too hot.
“I reckon when they’re done,” said Gomez, gesturing toward a locomotive off in the distance, “we won’t need this old thing no more,” he said. He reached up and slapped the cabin of the coach. “Hell, we’ll ride the rails wherever we want. I saw the proclamations in the papers. Californie to Chicago in a week. Ain’t that right, boss?”
The ringmaster, occupied with his pipe, merely nodded.
The locomotive grew so small that it disappeared. They would finish it soon, Ming reckoned.
“What hath man wrought,” the prophet said. He sat beyond the reach of the stagecoach’s shadow, eyes closed, face upturned to the sun. At length he opened his eyes and lowered his opaque gaze.
“Numbers 23:23,” the ringmaster said with mild surprise. “Not an exact quote, old man, but well done. I see you’re familiar with the good book.” He laughed. “And here I thought you weren’t a Christian.”
“I am not,” the prophet said.
“Well then,” the ringmaster said, “I’ll teach you the correct verse you’re quoting.” He held out a single thin finger. “It shall be said of Jacob, and of Israel, What hath God wrought!”
“Yes,” the prophet said. “But it shall be said of the rails, and of its labor, What hath man wrought.”
“If you were a Christian,” the ringmaster said, “I’d call you a blasphemer.”
“Perhaps,” the prophet said, with an unreadable smile.
“God is not a man,” Hazel said. “Numbers 23, verse 19.”
“Well done, Ms. Lockewood,” the ringmaster said, chuckling. He looked around him at the party with amusement. “Didn’t know I was in a damn seminary.”
“It ain’t God what built that railroad, was it now?” Hazel said. “It was men what graded them slopes and blasted a way through the mountains.” She tilted her head, indicating the prophet. “Old man’s right. What hath man wrought indeed.”
“Who told you that?” Proteus interjected. “The Chinaman? Can’t never trust a Chinaman as far as you can throw him.”
With a flick of his wrist the ringmaster struck Proteus across the chin with the handle of his cane. Proteus blinked in surprise and anger flashed across his face, subsiding to petulant indignation.
“The hell you done that for?” he said, rubbing his chin.
“Mr. Tsu’s an acquaintance of ours,” the ringmaster chided. “He’s no Chinaman.” He shot Ming a quick glance and winked. “Now,” he said, turning to Proteus, “ask Ms. Lockewood again.”
The pagan glared at Ming and looked at Hazel again. “Did Mr. Tsu tell you that?” he said.
“It was the prophet,” she replied, her voice cold.
“I reckon the old man’s right,” the ringmaster said. “I suppose it wasn’t God who built those rails.” His pipe had gone out and he struck a match to relight it. “What hath man wrought,” he murmured.
He stood and dusted himself off and then doubled over coughing. Proteus looked at him in alarm, stood and came by his side. The ringmaster waved him off.
“Just this damn pipe,” he said in between coughs. He drew several deep breaths and then spat on the ground, a little pinkish blot of saliva and blood that he swiftly ground into the dirt with the toe of his boot. He uncorked his canteen and took
a few sips. “Let’s get moving again, shall we?” he said.
They arrived in Lovelock the following night, their progress slowed by sun and wind. The stagehands wasted no time putting up the tent and soon they were beckoning to passersby. A show of miracles, they said, a show of miracles. Come and see.
The ringmaster stood with a strange look upon his face, watching the seats fill little by little, his pipe burned out and forgotten in his hand. “Eleven years I’ve been running this show in one shape or another,” he said to Ming, who stood beside him. “Eleven years.” He took a deep breath and sighed. “And this is my last show.”
Ming asked if it troubled him but the ringmaster did not answer. He seemed to notice the cold pipe in his hand and patted his pockets for a match. He found one and struck it on the heel of his boot, lit his pipe. Thick sweet smoke poured from the corners of his mouth. He took the pipe from his mouth, studied the tobacco burning in the bowl. Embers chasing embers, an ouroboros of fire and ash.
He was silent for a long while. “Eleven years ago I found myself in Omaha,” he said at last, “with only a valise of clothes and one thousand in banknotes. And a fair bit of gold, to be sure.” He winked at Ming and drew on his pipe. Curls of smoke ringed his face. The sun had disappeared beyond the great desert and the sky was a deep blue and gold. Lamplight moved over his features like the fingers of a blind man feeling for recognition.
Ming did not speak. He watched the ringmaster smoking.
“I’ve seen things not meant for mortals,” the ringmaster said. “Things meant only for the eyes of gods, gazing down on some antediluvian age.” He drew on his pipe again and spoke as he exhaled, and it was as if his words themselves were molded of smoke. “I’ve seen plains afire far as the eye can see, burning through the days and nights for a week, blacking out the sun. Fire like you’d never imagine.”
He looked out over the gathering audience and retreated into the darkened wings, where he beckoned Ming to join him. The ringmaster’s eyes tracked the men milling about before the stage, his mind elsewhere.
“On the plains I saw a buffalo reduced to bones in two days,” he said. His voice was quiet and lonesome. “Picked clean by vultures and coyotes and beetles. And the storms, by God, the storms. Lightning through the sky thick as bedclothes, rain driving at you from above and below. And then west, past the plains and the Rockies, the endless desert, the rising dust. Men dried up and spat out by the earth, even the slavers and murderers running from the east. I saw whores richer than kings, kings poorer than the lowest man alive or dead. All swallowed up in the great churn of this endless continent. This land is beyond man’s reckoning.”
Ming waited awhile, unsure if the ringmaster’s soliloquy was spent. “It is,” he said at last.
“And when those rails are done,” the ringmaster said, “the trains will run right through this land riding on steam and iron.”
“Aye.”
“God is not a man,” he said, and then, as if remembering Ming’s presence, the ringmaster asked him what he had seen. “What do you make of this land?” he said, gesturing with his pipe out beyond the audience, beyond the wide marshes of the Humboldt, out to the east and west.
Ming was quiet for a moment. “I seen things meant only for mortals,” he said. “I ain’t seen nothin reserved for the eyes of gods.”
“How do you mean, Mr. Tsu?”
“I seen men die,” Ming said, “shiverin and scared. I seen men tore damn near in half by rockfalls and splashed out across the mountains. I seen grown men cryin out for their mothers, bleedin rivers onto the ground.” He stared at the ringmaster. “I don’t spose any god seen all that.”
“I reckon you’re right,” the ringmaster said.
“When the time comes,” Ming said, “ain’t nobody ready to die.”
The ringmaster chuckled. “Well,” he said, “I ain’t nobody.”
There came a soft rustle of footsteps on dry ground. It was Gomez, his eyes bright in the darkness. “Sir,” he said, “they’re ready.”
The ringmaster lifted his boot and knocked his pipe against it until the contents spilled forth, then ground out the errant sparks. He thanked Gomez, who nodded and disappeared again. The ringmaster fixed his hat and picked up his cane from where it leaned against the tentpole and tapped it smartly on the dirt. A newfound energy infused his movements. He grinned at Ming. “A body is ready when a body is ready,” he whispered with ferocity, and with that he strode out onto the stage.
40
After the show they sat ringing a dull fire, passing a bottle of whiskey round. When the bottle came by a third time the ringmaster uncorked his flask and refilled it from the bottle, the thin stream sparkling in the firelight. The only sound aside from the rising pitch of the filling flask was the popping of the fire. When whiskey came spilling out over the ringmaster’s fingers he set down the bottle and drank a little from the flask. He passed the bottle to Hazel on his left.
She tipped back her head and took a few mouthfuls of whiskey before lowering the bottle and wiping her mouth clean with the back of her hand. She grimaced and began coughing. “Rotgut,” she choked out in between coughs. She spat into the fire and passed the bottle to Notah, who tipped a small dram into his mouth and swallowed, wincing.
“Not the worst I’ve ever had,” the ringmaster said. He took another sip from his flask and suddenly turned his head and coughed violently into his shoulder, his body shaking with each deep, rattling cough. When at last he drew his face away from his shoulder and cleared his throat, his eyes were watering. He offered a weak smile and waved his flask before him as if by way of explanation. He made to speak but set off another bout of coughing. “Rotgut,” he managed, nodding in Hazel’s direction.
“Are you all right, sir?” Hunter asked in everyone’s head.
The ringmaster waved him off. “Bad whiskey,” he said, and signed it to the boy.
There was a dark smear of phlegm and blood on the ringmaster’s shirt. Ming caught his gaze and dusted off his own shoulder.
The ringmaster glanced at the spots of blood on his shirt and nodded slightly. He rubbed them clean. “We leave tomorrow,” he said, his voice ragged. He cleared his throat again and spat into the fire. “West, to Pyramid Lake, and from there south to Reno.” He produced a map of the area and spread it on the ground. The others gathered to peer at the map. “Why don’t you show us the route, Mr. Tsu?” the ringmaster said.
Ming examined the map. “This is a rail survey,” he said. “Where’d you get this?”
“A friend,” the ringmaster answered cryptically. “Isn’t it wonderfully detailed?”
“Aye,” Ming breathed. Thin contour lines ran crazed over the entirety of the map, lifting phantom mountains and basins from the paper. Ming pored over the map, his face screwed up in concentration. A route was forming in his mind. He traced a line through the ranges and the basins, reading out names in the dim firelight as his finger passed over them. They would cut west and swing south of Lone Mountain, then northwest through the foothills. Ming tapped a small symbol, a well. They would camp there the following night. He circled a clump of low mountains—the Trinity Range—and said the second day they would cut west through a pass in the range, then descend to another well by day’s end. He tapped an identical symbol where they might find water. It would be flat all through the third and fourth days and they could cover more ground, keeping the Trinity Range to their east, camping by a spring, and then heading southwest on the fourth day to where the Sahwaves splintered into small and isolated peaks. The fifth day of travel would be their most grueling, a single mad dash starting at sunrise from the southern reach of the Sahwaves across what muddy plains remained of Winnemucca Lake to the eastern flank of the Truckee Range and then to Pyramid Lake by sunrise on the sixth day—and now he slid his finger over the map, straight through to the end of their route.
The ringmaster asked how far and Ming pressed his thumb to the page by the scale and moved it in increments a
long the route, counting under his breath. Sixty or seventy miles, he reckoned. With the heat and the grades, the ringmaster said, they would end up working the damn horses to death. Ming didn’t disagree.
Among the faces assembled round an uncertain fire only Proteus objected. He sat hunched and cross-legged in his replica of the ringmaster’s body and jabbed a crooked finger at Ming. “I ain’t going any further into the desert than I’m obliged to. And I ain’t obliged to.” He hooked his thumb over his shoulder toward the rail depot. “Can’t we just take the train? We’d be in Reno in two days.”
“Nonsense,” the ringmaster chided. “Surely you recall that Mr. Tsu is unable to take the train.”
“On account of his crimes,” Proteus muttered. “I recall!”
“We require his protection,” the ringmaster said. “Your proposition is rejected.”
“Ain’t no reason for us to follow him to the ends of the damn earth, though. I reckon you got a soft spot for him, and damned if I know why, but I ain’t need to know why, and there ain’t no need for his protection if we take the train.” He stood and gestured to the stagecoach looming behind him. “Two days!” he said. “We can be in Reno in two days. And be rid of the damn”—he caught himself—“and be rid of Mr. Tsu to boot.” He glanced at the others ringing the fire. “Won’t you folks agree?”
“No,” Hazel said flatly.
“Of course you won’t,” Proteus snapped. He turned to the ringmaster. “Come on, man,” he said, “ain’t no need for us to go through Pyramid Lake to get to Reno.” He pointed at Ming with a sneer. “And ain’t no need for us to travel with him neither.”
“Enough,” the ringmaster said, his voice hard-edged and cold. He rose and stared at Proteus, his eyes level with his double. “We leave tomorrow for Pyramid Lake.”
“But why?” Proteus demanded.
“Because the prophet has ordained it!” the ringmaster thundered. His face was fearsome.
The old man remained silent, though Ming thought he saw a knowing smile briefly cross his ancient countenance.