The Life She Was Given

by Ellen Marie Wiseman

  After a long, tense minute, lightning flashed again, this time not as brightly, and the following thunder sounded farther away. The band picked up the tempo and a collective feeling of relief seemed to fill the tent. The clowns waved to the kiddies, the acrobats tumbled and pranced in the parade, and the candy butchers sold peanuts and cotton candy up and down the bleachers. Lilly took a deep breath and relaxed a little. It seemed like the storm was moving away.

  Then a great gust of wind hit the big top and the entire tent leaned to one side like a ship rolling on rough seas. Lilly grabbed Pepper’s headpiece with both hands and Cole’s face went dark. Women shrieked and gaped up at the ceiling with open mouths. Children started to cry and several of the horses reared, their nostrils flaring, their eyes spinning with terror. The wagon drivers yanked back on the horses’ reins, and the performers and clowns slowed and stopped. Section by section the parade came to a lurching halt. Two zebras pulled away from their handlers and ran across the center ring toward the exit, with several clowns giving chase. The Bally girls ducked for cover beneath the animal wagons, ignoring the drivers’ warnings that it wasn’t safe.

  Every instinct screamed at Lilly to get out of there, but there was nowhere to run. She and Cole and the elephants were stopped in the middle of the tent, sandwiched between the big cat wagons and the camels, halfway between any possible exits. The only possible escape would involve plowing through the center rings and yelling at everyone to get out of the way. In what seemed like slow motion, the big top shifted and fell back into place, and for a second, she loosened her grip on Pepper’s headpiece. They were going to be all right. Then a sidewall suddenly lifted from the ground and the ceiling began folding in on itself, the canvas tugging and creasing and ripping. The trapeze artists’ ladders shuddered and twisted. Poles pulled out of the dirt, and ropes vibrated and snapped.

  “Tornado!” a man yelled.

  The crowd jumped to their feet and fought to get down from the bleachers in one giant swell, dropping popcorn boxes and cotton candy, yelling and pushing and shoving one another out of the way. Parents grabbed children’s hands and glanced up at the ceiling with panic-filled eyes, trying to watch their step at the same time. An old woman fell halfway down and her husband helped her up, struggling to keep his balance while being crowded from behind. Two boys jumped from the sides of the bleachers and dropped to the ground below. Several others followed suit. One woman tumbled and fell off the side, lay there for a moment, then got up and limped as fast as she could toward the exit.

  Mr. Barlow ran into the center ring, red-faced and yelling, arms flapping as he ordered everyone to get the animals and wagons out of the tent. Hank and the other handlers rushed in with hooks and lead lines, and the wagon drivers turned the horses toward the back exit. The roustabouts scurried around gathering all movable equipment and gear, trying to lash everything together with ropes and chains.

  “Get out of here!” Cole shouted at Lilly. “I’ll be right behind you!”

  He didn’t need to tell her twice. She steered Pepper around a wagon toward the back exit, the coppery tang of fear in her throat. The rest of the performers headed that way too, and the escape route became an obstacle course full of camels and horses and giraffes and workers and clowns and acrobats and women in tutus.

  Lilly and Pepper started and stopped what seemed like a hundred times, trying not to step on anyone. Then the back wall of the tent collapsed, and poles and ropes and great swathes of canvas fell sideways, covering the musicians and part of the bleachers still filled with panicked circusgoers. The band screeched to a halt with a clang of a cymbal and a squawk of a clarinet. The center poles of the big top leaned left and right, and the attached ropes stretched and pulled and snapped. Loud, vibrating pings and ripping sounds filled the air as the ceiling creaked and shifted above their heads, and several of the bale rings tore from the canvas. Terror flooded the tent like a living, breathing thing.

  With the back access damaged and the ceiling falling in, the only way out was through the main entrance. Everyone stampeded toward it. The tent exploded with screams and shouts, the sounds of bodies shoving past bodies, and people running off bleachers and stands. Broken ropes whipped in the air like frenzied snakes, and wooden poles and ladders splintered and crashed. Lilly turned Pepper around and urged her toward the entrance, then glanced over her shoulder to make sure Cole and the other elephants were following. They were farther back, trying to make their way through the chaotic throng of animals and people. When Lilly faced forward again, Mr. Barlow was blocking her way, a bull hook in his hands. Pepper stopped in her tracks and trumpeted loudly.

  “What are you doing?” Lilly yelled. “Get out of the way!”

  “You can’t take her out there!” Mr. Barlow shouted.

  “Are you out of your mind? We’ve got to get out of here!” Lilly urged Pepper forward, but Mr. Barlow refused let her pass, barring her way at every turn. Pepper trumpeted and reared, but not enough to make Lilly fall off.

  Mr. Barlow raised the bull hook, his face threatening. “She’s not leaving this tent!”

  Terror and confusion twisted in Lilly’s chest. Why was Mr. Barlow trying to stop Pepper from getting to safety? It didn’t make sense. Pepper was his biggest draw and worth a lot of money. All around them, handlers and animals and rubes and performers stampeded out of the tent, a blur of human limbs, furry heads, tails, and hoofed feet. Llamas and horses and poodles and people zigzagged and bolted and jumped over one another, screaming and galloping and trying to escape. Women fell and shrieked. Children stumbled and vanished and parents yanked them up to carry them, flailing and crying, out of the big top.

  If Lilly had to force Pepper to trample Mr. Barlow into the ground to escape, she was getting them out of there alive. She urged Pepper forward, but Pepper refused to run him over. Mr. Barlow raised the bull hook and struck Pepper in the chest, grunting with the effort. Pepper cried out in pain and Lilly shrieked in anger. She swung her leg over Pepper’s head and put her feet together, ready to slide down Pepper’s side and wrestle the bull hook away from Mr. Barlow. But before she could, Cole stopped JoJo beside them and told her to stay put. He jumped down from JoJo and grabbed the bull hook with both hands, his face contorted with fury. Mr. Barlow held on and they grappled with it above their heads, grimacing and pushing each other back and forth.

  “Go on!” Cole shouted at Lilly “Take JoJo and get out of here!”

  Lilly urged Pepper toward the exit, trying not to trample anyone, and yelled for JoJo to come too. When she glanced over her shoulder, she saw Cole yank the bull hook from Mr. Barlow’s grip and throw it over the bleachers. But JoJo refused to leave Cole, no matter how many terrified animals and panicked rubes bumped into him, or how many times Lilly called his name. When she neared the exit, she looked back one more time. A draft horse knocked Mr. Barlow off his feet and Cole climbed back on JoJo. She watched for as long as she could, then leaned forward and flattened her body close to Pepper’s head so the low doorframe wouldn’t knock her off. At last, they were out of the big top.

  Praying Phoebe was safe in the train and Cole and the rest of the elephants were behind her, she steered Pepper toward the other side of the midway. Wind and rain shrieked all around, beating against her skin like bullets, and the sounds of ripping canvas, snapping wood, and screaming people filled the air. She squinted against the rain and looked back at the big top just as the colossal tent lifted off the ground, the canvas twisting and turning like rags inside a washer. The last of the rubes scurried out of the rising entrance and ran left and right, their hands on their heads, their faces knotted with terror. Ropes and stakes pulled out of the dirt and the wind tore the roof apart seam by seam, leaving the poles and rigging suspended in the air like a giant black web. The sidewalls were torn to shreds; then the entire tent rose in the air and suddenly vanished, as if plucked from the earth by a giant hand.

  Several hundred yards away, a black, rotating funnel roared toward them
—wood and trees and dirt swirling around it like twigs and grass being sucked into a whirlpool. Horror filled Lilly’s mind, but she couldn’t pull her eyes away. She felt the rumbling growl of the approaching twister in her stomach, and the wet, green musky smell of dirt and vegetation filled her nostrils. This is it, she thought. I knew happiness was too good to last. I’m sorry, Phoebe. I hope you never forget how much I love you. Then, as suddenly as it appeared, the funnel lifted off the earth and got smaller and smaller and higher and higher, hanging from the sky like an elephant’s trunk before disappearing into a churning black cloud. When it was over, Lilly let out her breath and fell forward on Pepper, limp with relief.

  Cole and JoJo stopped beside her. “Are you all right?”

  She pushed herself up and nodded, too shaken to speak.

  Within minutes, the wind died down and a yellow shaft of sunlight peeked over the horizon, as if God had flicked on a giant switch. Everyone stopped running and looked around with dazed, exhausted expressions, surveying the damage or searching for loved ones in the crowd. Some stood rooted to one spot, mumbling and staring, rivulets of blood running in their hair or down their arms and legs, their clothes ripped and torn. Shoeless children wandered aimlessly, crying and calling for their parents.

  Debris littered the lot—popcorn boxes and ripped flags, soaked streamers and torn posters, soggy stuffed animals and overturned ticket booths, wet straw, boards, and rope. The freak-show banners had been torn from their moorings and now hung from their corners, sagging like giant tablecloths across puddles of mud. Dolly the World’s Most Beautiful Fat Woman, Mabel the Four-Legged Woman, and Penelope the Singing Midget came out of the freak-show tent, eyes wide, mouths gaping. Behind the big-top area, the back lot had been stripped clean. The menagerie tent was gone, along with several animal cages and wagons. The ground was strewn with straw and shovels and rope and wood and bent metal.

  The rubes and performers and handlers and roustabouts viewed the wreckage in shocked silence, amazed and stunned and relieved to be alive. Mr. Barlow stormed through the middle of it all and made his way toward Lilly and Pepper, limping and wet, one sleeve torn from his red jacket. He gestured furiously, waving her away and yelling at her to get Pepper out of there. Lilly didn’t understand why he was so angry. She had saved Pepper’s life. Then, for the first time since escaping the big top, she looked down at the bull. At first, she couldn’t comprehend what she was seeing. Then she realized why Mr. Barlow didn’t want Pepper to leave the big top, and renewed dread filled her chest.

  Wet paint ran off Pepper’s head and back, trickling down her sides in white streams, her gray skin showing through in mottled blotches.

  “Let’s go,” Lilly said to Pepper and Cole. “We have to get out of here.”

  But before they could turn and leave, a boy pointed at Pepper and shouted, “The Albino Elephant is fake!”

  Several other rubes noticed and stared, slack-jawed.

  “The damn thing is covered in paint!” another voice called out.

  Mr. Barlow turned to face the rubes and held up his hands. “Hold on now,” he said. “I can assure you The Albino Elephant is real. The white paint only enhanced the natural paleness of her skin.”

  Several men marched toward him, their hands in fists, their faces contorted in anger.

  Lilly turned Pepper away and steered her toward the train, trying to remind herself that she and Cole had just missed being killed by a tornado, and how lucky they were to be able to go home to their daughter. Right now that was all that mattered. But another storm was brewing in the distance and, this time, she didn’t know if she’d be safe.

  * * *

  It took a full day to clean up after the tornado ripped the Barlow Brothers’ big top from the earth, during which time the local police had to keep the rubes off the lot. Word had spread like wildfire that The Albino Elephant was fake and the locals wanted their money back. And after so many had nearly lost their lives during the tornado, they weren’t above using their fists to get it. It took another half day for Mr. Barlow and Merrick to convince the sheriff that The Barlow Brothers’ Circus wouldn’t be back.

  In the meantime, rumors spread among the performers, freaks, trainers, and roustabouts that The Barlow Brothers’ Circus was finished. Between the exposure of the fake albino elephant and the loss of the big top and menagerie tent, there was no way Mr. Barlow could recoup and reopen. Not this season anyway. They were all out, all over. The blowdown had done them in.

  When the circus train finally pulled out of town the next day, it traveled all night and half the day without stopping. No one knew where it was headed, and no one dared ask. If The Barlow Brothers’ Circus showed up at the previously scheduled stops without The Albino Princess and The Albino Elephant featured on the advance posters put up by the twenty-four-hour man, it would be a disaster.

  When the train finally stopped, word spread throughout the cars that they were at a new spot on a rail lot outside of Nashville, Tennessee. Supposedly, Mr. Barlow had arranged for a new big top to be set up, and when the performers and workers looked out the train windows, they were relieved and surprised to see the flying squadron there. The cookhouse was up, the canvas man was laying out the lot, and hundreds of men were lugging rigging and pounding in stakes. The sideshow and dressing tents had been erected too, but patches of long grass and two rusty barrels occupied the center of the lot, where the big top should have been spread out, waiting to be raised.

  After everyone was done with breakfast and the cookhouse had closed until lunch, the performers went back to the train to wait and see what happened next. A short time later, another train rolled in on a sideline between them and the train depot. When Lilly and Cole saw the other train pulling in next to their car, they got up from playing on the floor with Phoebe and looked out the window. It was the Rowe & Company Circus. They glanced at each other with alarm. Two circuses showing up on the same lot could only mean trouble.

  “What do you think is going on?” Lilly said.

  “I hate to say it,” Cole said. “But they might be here to pick through our pieces.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Either we’re shutting down after this spot and Mr. Barlow is selling off what he can to save himself, or—”

  A knock on the door interrupted Cole mid-sentence. He left the window and went over to answer it. Hank entered, his face grim.

  “Mr. Barlow wants the elephants off the train,” he said.

  “Why?” Cole said.

  “He has a buyer.”

  A hard knot twisted in Lilly’s chest. No. Not the elephants.

  “Come give me a hand,” Hank said. “And keep your mouth shut.”

  Lilly pulled on her shoes and scooped Phoebe off the floor, where she had been playing with her favorite doll and calico elephant. Phoebe started crying and reached for her toys. Lilly grabbed the elephant, gave it to her, and started toward the door, panic rising like a flood in her chest. Phoebe hugged the elephant beneath her chin and grinned, oblivious to her mother’s distress.

  “Stay here,” Cole said to Lilly.

  “I’ll do no such thing,” Lilly said. “I’m taking the baby over to Glory and coming with you.”

  Cole studied her face, then went with his father out the door. There was nothing he could do to stop her, and he knew it. She followed him outside, then hurried along the train in the other direction until she reached the car Glory shared with Ruby, Rosy, and three other sideshow performers. Glory and Ruby sat in folding lawn chairs next to the tracks, smoking and soaking up the sun.

  Sweating and out of breath, Lilly stopped and put Phoebe in Glory’s lap. “Can you watch her for a little while?”

  Glory nodded and held on to Phoebe, confusion wrinkling her brow. “Sure,” she said. “But what’s going on? Everything okay?”

  “No,” Lilly said. “Everything’s not okay. Mr. Barlow has a buyer for the elephants.” The words caught in her throat.

  “Oh
my God,” Glory said. “All of them?”

  “I don’t know,” Lilly said, her chin quivering. “But I need to find out.”

  “Do whatever you need to do. I’ll take care of Phoebe.”

  “Thanks,” Lilly said. She kissed her daughter on the head, whispered she’d be back soon, and hurried away.

  By the time she got to the stock cars, a crowd of performers and roustabouts was already forming. She pushed her way through the gathering to see what was happening. The equestrian director and several handlers had lined the horses up next to the train, and Cole, Hank, and two handlers brought the elephants down the ramps, led them over to the row of horses, then stood holding their leg chains. Two men in suits and shiny shoes walked up and down the line inspecting the stock, one tall and thin, with dark hair and a walrus mustache, the other with a bald head and silver cane. Mr. Barlow and Merrick handed out hearty handshakes and strolled beside them, smiling. The local sheriff and the railroad officials were there too, along with a bunch of townies gawking from the other side of the tracks.

  One of the acrobats asked the head of the Flying Zoppe Brothers if he thought they were shutting down.

  The Flying Zoppe brother shook his head. “Mr. Barlow’s selling off ring stock to pay for a new big top.”

  Shaking and nauseous, Lilly hurried over to the elephants and came to a stop next to Merrick and Mr. Barlow. Cole frowned at her and shook his head, cautioning her to keep quiet.

  “You can’t sell the bulls,” she said to Mr. Barlow. “They’re your biggest draw.”

  Mr. Barlow ignored her and kept smiling and nodding at the men in suits, who were inspecting the elephants up close.

  “Mind your own business,” Merrick said to her under his breath.

  “They are my business,” she said. “If they go to another circus, Cole and I go with them.”

  “He’s only selling one,” Merrick said.