“I used to,” he said a little sadly. “I had a gentle mare named Bonbon. She was the color of caramel, you see. I was still a boy when Sasha and Piotr told me that she ran away, but now I’m fairly certain that she was slaughtered for food.” He kicked some dried bird-droppings off of the roof. “That winter was a very difficult, hungry time.”
Amandine tried to nod sympathetically, but she had to protect her skirt from the breeze as the procession picked up speed. “Have you always wanted to work for a traveling show?” she asked, clamping the extra fabric between her knees.
“Not exactly. I just fell into it, and it suited me.”
“What do you really want to do then?”
René made a face. He didn’t know whether or not to tell her the truth. Shaking his head, he said, “No. It’s nothing. Silly, in fact.”
“Don’t say that. I really want to know.”
“You’ll laugh at me.”
“I won’t!” She nudged his shoulder with hers. “Not if it’s important to you.”
“Alright.” He pulled an orange from his pocket and began peeling it, tossing the rind over the side of the truck. “What I really want… what I’ve dreamed of since I was a child is... to be a cowboy.”
“You don’t say.” Amandine glanced at his tell-tale hat and bandana.
“It’s the reason why I joined Marmi in the first place. I heard that she was headed to America, so I had to find a way to make myself useful so that she'd take me along.”
“We’re driving north-east,” she noted. “If you want to be a cowboy, you had better turn around and go west.”
“I know, but Nieuwestad is our destination.” He split the orange in half for them to share. “If I ever leave the traveling life, there is nothing I would rather do than chase cattle and break horses out on my own ranch.”
While she didn’t know anything about ranching, Amandine did remember a little about cotton farms from shadowing her father. The day they visited the gins, she saw a laborer get heat stroke and fall into the machinery. The whole experience left a very poor impression of agriculture on her.
“It sounds like very difficult and miserable work.”
“I don’t care if the work knocks me dead,” he said, dreaming. “It would be all mine. I can defend my land from bandits and wild animals. I can ride back to camp after a long day, wash up in the creek, and eat a dutch-oven dinner around the fire with other cowboys.”
Amandine suspected that his perception of cowboy life came primarily from adventure serials. “I think I hear a ‘but’ coming.”
“But,” he smiled and chewed on an orange wedge. “Marmi has lost a huge number of performers. After all she’s done for me, I don’t have the heart to leave her with so few people left.”
“Did that Johnstone fellow take them all?” she asked, playing with a leafy twig that had fallen on the roof.
“Yes. The poor fools. He bribed them with fantastical amounts of money. He promised them things beyond his means, like high wages and their own private trailers. To a group of outsiders, starved and deprived by the war, it was impossible for them to pass such a chance.”
“I take it that’s not what happened.”
“No,” he scowled. “Juan, one of our freak-acts, came back almost immediately. He said that the living conditions weren’t even fit for animals. Everyone was responsible for their own food and shopping, which can be a real problem for the freak-acts that can’t go into town on their own. He also said that the ticket sales went straight into Johnstone’s pocket, not to the care and keeping of the group.” René shook his head and sighed loudly, driving away the troublesome thoughts. “What none of us can understand is how he still manages to be so widely successful.”
Amandine perked up. “I asked the Whites about that. They saw his show and said it was his music.”
“Is it?” René’s smile returned. He was impressed that that she was already trying to be so helpful.
“Yes! So all you have to do is find the guy doing his music, offer him a million bucks and a castle on the moon, and you’ve got Johnstone beat.”
René laughed, and once again the sound filled Amandine with joy. “Whatever the case may be, Marmi won’t be content until she can take care of our family and keep it together forever.”
We have that in common, she thought, pressing her locket in her hand.
Nathaniel White had to prop the door open with his shoe in order to carry the wash bucket and broom back inside the bakery. Normally Moses was quick enough to help, but Nathaniel could see his assistant’s head bobbing on the other side of the small crowd of housewives that clustered at the counter.
“Sorry about the door, Mr. White,” the young man said, stamping a food permit and counting out change. “Reckon everybody smelled the rhubarb all at once.”
“Don’t you worry about me, Moses. You just take care of Mrs. DeLaney there.” He crab-walked around his customers, careful not to hit anybody with the broom clamped under his arm. “See if you can convince her to make her famous pudding with some of our apple bread.”
“Your apple bread never lasts long enough to make it into pudding,” tittered the little old woman at the counter.
“Mr. White, do you have a moment to talk about cakes?” said another customer, lightly catching him by the shirt where an arm should have been. The action caught them both by surprise, and she released him so fast, a spider may as well have crawled out from beneath his pinned sleeve. “You did such a swell job on the Bishop’s anniversary cake. I was wondering if you could whip up something like that for my sister’s wedding.”
“I’d be delighted,” Nathaniel said, wishing he had just gone through the back door with his dirty bucket instead. “Give me just a moment to check on my rhubarb pies, and then I’ll be right with you.”
Nathaniel pushed through the swinging half-doors back into the kitchen, leaving the murmur of customers and the chiming door for Moses to deal with. He put his cleaning supplies away in the closet, washed his hand, and dropped his apron over his head. With the edge of the counter’s help, he managed to get it tied behind his back just as a buzzer went off. Inside the oven, red juices burbled through the gaps in the golden, latticed pie crusts, and Nathaniel took a deep breath of their sugary, tart scent.
“Mr. White,” called Moses from the front.
“Just a moment more.” He slid the pies out one by one onto the kneading table to cool.
“Mr. White, sir,” he repeated a little more urgently.
Nathaniel realized that the store had gone strangely quiet. He shook off his oven mitt and pushed back into the shop.
To his astonishment, all of the customers had vanished. Instead, three police officers stood at the counter, and one held Moses at gunpoint. That is, Nathaniel thought that they were all police officers until a fourth in black appeared from behind them, holding a rhubarb turnover.
“I could smell these clear down by the bridge,” the Inquestor said, grinning. “How much?”
“On the house,” Nathaniel replied cautiously.
“Mighty kind of you.” He bowed his head a little. “Inquestor Carver. Nathaniel White, I presume?”
“I am.” Nathaniel stepped up beside Moses, who was staring down the barrel pointed at his nose. “What's the meaning of this, officers? What has Moses done?”
“Good question.” The Inquestor crammed half of the turnover into his mouth and asked the officer, “You know something I don’t, buddy?”
“Wherever there’s trouble, there’s always negroes,” he growled. “And I don’t like the look of this uppity half-breed.”
“Who said anything about trouble? I’m just looking for a wandering fugitive.” Carver dabbed at the corners of his mouth with his knuckles. “You. Moses, was it? Were you here yesterday?”
“Yes, sir,” the young man said bravely. “Came in at 4:30 on the dot to start the dough, clocked out at 12:30, then I swept floors at the Pickwick until closing time.”
Carver squinted at the ceiling and tapped his fingers together while he did some figuring in his head. “That checks out. You’re free to go.”
“What?” the room echoed. The police looked just as bewildered as Nathaniel and Moses.
“Go down, Moses! Way down in Egypt land!” Carver sang dramatically. He swept his arms wide, parting a path straight to the door. “That is, unless you’d prefer to stay and watch the police at work.”
Moses exchanged a glance with his boss, and Nathaniel tipped his head towards the door. “Go on, now.”
“But sir—”
“See if Betsy needs a hand with the shopping,” he said, giving Moses a pointed look.
Moses nodded in understanding. He slipped around the officers as quickly as he could without breaking into a run. The door jangled shut, leaving Nathaniel completely alone with the NAR agents.
“Like I said, we're hunting for a vagrant,” Carver continued. “Seen anybody pass through here, perhaps looking for work?”
The Stewart girl immediately sprang to mind, but after seeing how these men treated Moses for no reason at all, Nathaniel was not about to throw another child to the wolves. His wife had taken a liking to the girl, and technically speaking, he didn’t know precisely why she was in town. She could have been visiting Shoeless Joe Jackson for all he knew.
“I'm afraid not, Inquestor,” Nathaniel replied.
“You sure?” Carver’s eyebrow sprang up. “This one had a pretty distinct look. About five-foot-six, brown hair worn down to the chin?”
Nathaniel's face didn't move.
“Blue silk dress? Seventeen year-old girl?” The Inquestor crossed the room with a ghost-like fluidity and before Nathaniel knew it, Carver’s face was only inches from his. “Have you hired anybody who looks like that?”
“The only person I've hired to help is Moses,” the baker said stiffly. “Six-foot-two, curly hair, baker's apron, eighteen year-old boy.”
Carver leaned on the counter and evaluated Nathaniel through narrowed eyes, slowly chewing the last of his turnover. He licked pink rhubarb juice from his glove and smiled.
“Moses. You know, that reminds me of a little rhyme.” Carver swirled his finger in the air and suddenly the police spread out and ransacked the bakery. They threw bread from the shelves and dumped all of the supplies behind the counter out onto the floor. The Inquestor sidestepped a flying box of truffles and recited over the noise, “‘Moses supposes his toeses are roses, but Moses supposes erroneously. Moses, he knowses his toeses aren’t roses as Moses supposes his toeses to be.’”
The police moved into the kitchen, and he heard the cymbalic crash of baking sheets hitting the floor.
Carver went on, “They use tongue-twisters like that in elocution classes. I never took elocution myself, but I hear they’re necessary if you want a career in politics, film or…”
The police returned with something from the kitchen, and they slammed it down onto the counter.
“Radio!” Carver concluded gleefully. He let the police officer stretch the cord across the wall before he flicked it on.
“Write a little note on your toes,
Don’t forget to dot the ‘i,’
Look at what you wrote, goodness knows,
It’s easy as pie!”
The jumping notes felt as damning as a funeral dirge. Suddenly, an officer appeared behind Nathaniel and cracked the back of his knees with his nightstick, bringing him down to the floor hard.
“You a jazz hound, Nathaniel White?” Carver cocked his head as the officer cuffed his wrist to his ankle. “Or did somebody else tune this radio to the rebels’ station?”
“I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about,” Nathaniel growled. “I’m an American citizen, dammit. I served. I don’t have to answer to these Gestapo scare-tactics.”
“Hey, you won’t find any fans of Fritz among us.” Carver pointed to his empty sleeve. “Are they the ones who took your arm?”
“I lost it in France to a British Bren,” Nathaniel growled. “Back when the Krauts were still our best customers.”
The police’s eyes kept moving from Nathaniel to the Inquestor, waiting for another sign to move on him, but the Inquestor didn’t drop his smile. Just then, there was a rustle in the kitchen, and Carver’s curious gaze lifted towards it.
“Nathaniel, honey?” Betsy White’s voice called from the back door.
Nathaniel blanched. Moses didn’t find her in time.
“I got those strawberries and something else. Please don’t be angry, but I stopped by the second-hand shop and found this beautiful Master Elegance dress and I just had to—” The rustling of her shopping bags stopped when she found the terrible mess in the kitchen.
“Nathaniel?” Her heels clicked hurriedly across the linoleum. “Moses? What in the name of—”
She burst through the kitchen door. She only had an instant to take in the sight of her shackled husband, four officers, and her shop in shambles before a blue officer knocked her back into the kitchen.
“Get your hands off of her!” Nathaniel cried. He tried to stand, but the cuffs made him pitch face-first into the floor. “Betsy!” He pushed his body towards the kitchen with all his might, but a forceful hand caught him by the collar and shoved him back up against the counter.
“No, no! No, stop!” Mrs. White cried from behind the swinging doors and Nathaniel could do nothing but stare in horror as the other two police officers followed. “What do you want?” she demanded desperately. “What do you want?”
Carver did a Charleston-step across the bakery and helped himself to the last rhubarb turnover on the shelf. He took another bite and turned up the volume on the radio.
“Let’s to the Breakaway!
Get hot and shake away!
It’s got that snappiest syncopation!
Three times up on your heels!
Oh boy, how good it feels!
You'll get the happiest new sensation!”
“Stop! Please, don’t do this,” Betsy wailed. “Please… please…”
Suddenly, she screamed and Nathaniel launched himself towards the door again. He made it far enough this time to see his pies get swept off of the counter and boiling hot rhubarb exploded across the floor and splashed into his face. He cried out in agony, not from the burning syrup in his eyes, but from the hands that gripped his ankle and dragged him, powerless, back into the shop.
“Hey, what gives, buddy?” Carver growled. “We were in the middle of talking.”
Nathaniel was not an emotional man. The night he crawled through the ruined French village, he didn’t shed a tear for his comrades that littered the road or the tattered limb that dragged along uselessly beside him. He only thought of his Betsy, his sunny Southern Belle, and how badly he wanted to see her smiling face again. Throughout his recovery and long journey home, he worried that she wouldn’t want a broken, crippled man, but to his great relief, she was the first to appear at the edge of the train platform, and his injury made it no less marvelous to hold her again.
Hot tears rolled down his blistering cheeks. Betsy had stopped screaming. Now there was nothing but her pained moans and “Let’s Do The Breakaway” on the radio. He had endured so much in his thirty-five years, but never in his life had Nathaniel White ever felt so helpless.
“Now then—” The Inquestor squatted beside him and poked Nathaniel’s sloping shoulder. “I’m looking for a vagrant. Seen anybody pass through here?” His wild grin was tinged pink with rhubarb. “Perhaps somebody looking for work?”
The caravan continued on throughout the morning, and they stopped in a small town at noon to refuel the trucks. This process normally took about an hour, so Amandine and René climbed down from their lofty perch to see about lunch.
Sasha was slicing bread, ham and cheese to feed the small crowd that had gathered around him already. Piotr showed up shortly after everybody had a sandwich, carrying a bucket of cold, clean water he'd drawn from a pump. While she waited in
line for a drink, Amandine was introduced to the other members of the group she hadn’t met yet.
There was Christopher Halton, the thin man. Born with an intestinal condition that turned him skeletally thin, Christopher was a positive, humorous fellow who took every opportunity in the conversation to express his dislike for the NAR. She met Juan Flores, the dog-man. He was covered from head to foot in wiry, black hair which made him terribly shy. She was also introduced to Gregory Thomas, or Tiny Greg, who looked like a two-year-old child when he was in fact a thirty-three-year-old man. He shared a trailer with Juan and Christopher, and he slept in a fruit crate tucked under their bunks.
Finally, Amandine met Jean-Claude Dembélé from the Ivory Coast and Ambroise Kuohmoukouri from Cameroon. They were both tall, muscular men and Amandine was dismayed to see that they had to split their shirt sleeves in order to fit their bulging arms through.
“S’il vous plait,” Ambroise said. “Do you suppose you can make me something nice?”
Amandine paused to process his unfamiliar accent. His French was brusque, but the vowels in his English rolled beautifully like an unfurling bolt of velvet.
“Something colorful, if it’s not too much trouble,” he went on. “I want to take Margie to the pictures, but she says we shouldn’t. She is such a modest girl, you see. She cares so much about appearances.”
Amandine looked from Ambroise to Margaret, who was leaning against Ambroise’s truck with a lit cigarette in one hand and a pair of colas she had bought from the service station dangling in the other.
“Of course,” Amandine beamed. “I’d be delighted.”
Marmi had just put away her road map when she spotted a police cruiser come up the road, and a black car materialized like a shadow right behind it. Marmi cursed. Her group was frequently stopped by the authorities, and it was always a humiliating ordeal. Just as she expected, the cars stopped just behind the caravan with their lights flashing and four men climbed out. Three wore blue and stalked towards her with their hands on their pistols, while one in black lingered behind.
Threadbare- The Traveling Show Page 8