The Blue Moon Circus

by Michael Raleigh

  A wave of warmth rushed through her like electricity. She wanted to leap up and be at him but forced herself to remain motionless. She did not even blink as he came toward her and peered into the darkness. Even when he paused and stared at her as though he might have recognized her, Sheba did not betray herself with any sudden movement. Then, when he turned to leave, she was on her feet and moving.

  The burly man trotted calmly to the gate and became aware not so much of noise but of movement in the pen behind him. He half-turned and looked over his shoulder to see a nightmare bearing down on him.

  The camel had covered half the pen in just a few strides and she was picking up speed even as he became conscious of his heavy and now very useless boots. He made it to the fence and relief nearly burst his chest. He reached the gate and swung it in on her, slipping the latch down moments before her hooves scored it. The burly man jumped back and glared at the beast and for a heartbeat they stared at one another and renewed old acquaintances, each savoring the memory of the moment he’d almost killed the other.

  The man saw the wild manic look in the camel’s eye and grinned.

  “It’s you! You’re still alive, you old devil.”

  The camel snorted and moved closer, and the man held up his maimed hand.

  “Yeah, you old shaggy bastard, you still can’t kill me, not ever,” he said in a harsh whisper, and he had just picked up a rock when Sheba enveloped his entire head in a thick gout of saliva.

  Then she backed up several paces, ran to the fence, and leapt across like a great woolly antelope. She was on him in seconds, kicking carefully at his head, exulting in the moment, and she did not notice the ropes until there were several of them on her, pulling her back toward her pen and choking her when she struggled. Raging, she kicked out at the ropes and the men, saw that they were too far away for her to reach, and began to spit at them, and by the time they’d gotten her back into her enclosure she’d hit all of them. They slammed the gate on her and Sheba backed into the center of the pen, took a running start, and leapt once more at the fence, but her aging legs failed her. She tried twice more, each time falling short by a greater margin, and in the end she just stood at the rail, head reaching as far across as possible to stare at the bearded man.

  He cowered, arms covering his head, mewling and whimpering and dripping camel spit and calling for help. Lewis Tully stood over him, wiping his face on a bandanna. He looked from the man to Sheba and said nothing. He walked a few paces closer to the camel and stood directly in her line of vision: Sheba snorted irritably and snaked her big head around to see past Lewis, unwilling to take her eyes off the intruder.

  Lewis watched his crew help the man to his feet and frowned at the long leather object hanging from the man’s belt. The man got to his feet, cursing and angrily pulling his arms away, and glared at the camel with something that could only be hatred. Then Lewis noticed that the man’s left hand was missing two fingers.

  Shelby took hold of the man from behind and held on as he snarled and struggled.

  “Get your hands off me or I’ll open you up…”

  Lewis moved into the man’s line of sight. “Mister, I think we all know who sent you and,” he looked over at the camel, “I’ve got this real strange idea who you are.”

  “You’re talking crazy, you never seen me.”

  “Shelby, this fella wanted to visit with our Sheba and we interrupted him. Toss him in there with her.”

  Several of the canvasmen helped Shelby drag the man toward the little corral. He struggled, kicked, twisted, his eyes bulging in fear and riveted on Sheba. For her part, the camel turned her head to the side and ambled over to the gate as though about to receive an apple.

  “No, she’s a killer, she’ll kill me!”

  “Now how would you know that?” Lewis asked quietly.

  “I just know. I know her kind, I used to work with ’em.”

  “For the Army. That’s how you lost your fingers.”

  “No.”

  “Throw him in, I don’t have all day to jaw with him,” Lewis said, and wheeled around to leave.

  “I wasn’t trying to cause no harm,” the man pleaded. “I was just supposed to let a few of your animals loose, that’s all.”

  Lewis faced him and nodded to Shelby, and the burly man was released. From the outer corral, Sam Jeanette appeared with a small, groggy-looking man.

  “Got another one here, Lewis. Tried to turn my herd loose so I had to thump him one.”

  “How many more?” Lewis asked, looking from one to the other of the strangers.

  “Just us two,” the big one answered.

  “What about this lad?” Emmett McKeon called out. Lewis turned and saw Emmett pushing a tall thin man ahead of him. The man’s hat had been smashed down across his forehead and he staggered as he walked.

  “What’s this?” Lewis said.

  “Caught this fella puttin’ a hole in one of your tires, Lewis.”

  “Which tires?” Lewis said through gritted teeth.

  “The big truck, Lewis.”

  Lewis nodded and looked off into the distance to calm himself. He could hear the blood pulsing in his ears. After a moment, he turned back to the man with the missing fingers.

  “Brierly, that’s who you are.”

  The big man shook his head, but Lewis had caught the cornered look in his eyes.

  “Who you were, anyways. You used to break horses for the Army—and you tried to break the camels. You tried to break Sheba, and she took your fingers.”

  “No. You got it wrong. Davis, my name’s Davis. That’s what I go by.”

  Lewis nodded and said, “Call yourself Kaiser Wilhelm, mister, but I’ll still know you. You show up around my camp again and I’ll tie to you a post in her corral, and they’ll be telling stories about you forever.”

  “Davis” glared at him for a moment but couldn’t keep his gaze from the camel.

  Lewis scanned his men and said, “I think we’ll take these fellas home. Seems the proper thing.” They hustled the men into the back of a stock truck.

  Inside her corral, Sheba trotted in small circles and tossed her shaggy head and looked generally delighted. Lewis squinted at her for a moment and shook his head.

  “I knew you were crazy, and now I can see you’re in the right show.”

  They spent half an hour inspecting the camp and the trucks and equipment, and found nothing more than the single punctured tire.

  “Looks like that’s all they did, Lewis,” Shelby said.

  “Not for lack of trying,” Lewis said through gritted teeth. He looked up at the sky as if measuring the weather. “Figure he can’t be far. We need to pay a call on our neighbor.”

  “’Bout time,” Sam Jeanette said.

  THIRTY-NINE

  The Hector C. Blaney Circus

  They found the Blaney Circus camped in a hollow less than ten miles away. A pair of men stood watch at the entrance to the camp and straightened up when Alexei drove slowly up toward them. He leaned out of the cab and grinned like a hayseed.

  “This is camp of Mr. Hector C. Blaney?”

  “No, it’s the White House, bohunk. Now git on outta here if you know what’s good for you.”

  “I wish to see Mr. Hector C. Blaney. I have most excellent act.”

  “So come back in the morning, after he’s slept it off.”

  “I wish see him now.”

  The two men approached the truck and one grabbed Alexei by the arm. “Come on outta there, you, and we’ll show you somethin.’”

  The guards were wrestling Alexei out of his truck when the back opened and Lewis emerged with Shelby and a half dozen others.

  Alexei kicked the door into one of his opponents and then climbed out and flattened him. The other man pointed a rifle in their general direction and wet his lips.
r />   Lewis stared at him and felt a great dark presence behind him breathing heavily. He put his arm out to restrain Joseph Coates.

  “Easy, there, Joseph.” To the guard, he said, “We need to see your boss.”

  “Hector’s sleeping.”

  “Wake him up,” Lewis said. “A few of your boys lost their way, and we’re just bringing ’em in.”

  The rifle moved slightly.

  “Don’t do that,” Joseph Coates growled.

  “Get Hector for me, friend,” Lewis said, “and we’ll all see another sunrise.”

  The man looked from Lewis to Joseph Coates and then bolted off into the camp. Lewis and his men followed in the truck. It was a big camp, ringed by new trucks and full of spacious tents, and dominated by the boss’s tent, a huge, high-peaked gold-and-white affair with Moorish decorations and more ropes and poles than a three-masted ship. Across the top in sparkling letters a foot high was the legend, HECTOR C. BLANEY. Lewis pulled up in front and they got out of the truck.

  “Ah, he’s a grand one,” Emmett McKeon said.

  Lewis gazed up at the tent. “Hector always did fancy your Eastern themes for his shows. Girls doing the dance of the seven veils, that sort of thing.”

  He leaned out the window and began yelling, “Oh, Hector! Hector? Seems we have an issue or two to settle between us.”

  The nervous guard came stumbling out of the tent and then hurried off, as though avoiding imminent danger. His boss could be heard within, filling the night air with a geyser of profanity.

  Lewis listened, awed by the richness of Hector’s vocabulary, the vigor of his style. He turned to Shelby and McKeon.

  “He’s still the master, there’s no one like him.”

  Shelby shook his head as if to clear it. “I don’t even know what some of those words mean.”

  “Almost a shame to interrupt him. Hey, Hector! Come on out and visit a spell.”

  The cursing dropped an octave but went on unabated until the curtain parted and Hector Blaney strode out in the red-and-blue suit. Hector now noticed he had come out without the top hat, and he kept touching his hand to the top of his head, as if he hoped the hat would materialize of its own accord.

  “Hello, Lewis,” he said in a guarded voice. Hector managed a smile but his small, close-set eyes scanned Lewis’s men rapidly.

  Counting, Lewis thought.

  “Ten of us, Hector. Along with three of yours. All dead.”

  Hector blinked and lost color, and a gasp came out of the crowd of men forming around them. Lewis added, “Just having a little fun with you, Hector. They’re still alive.”

  “What do you want here, Lewis?”

  “To talk about these boys of yours, and how we come to find two of ’em in the very midst of my stock in the middle of the night, and one at my trucks, and how they were visited by misfortune, as you yourself might be in just a matter of moments.”

  Hector looked around and saw his men assembling, and Joe Miles the tattooed strongman bulled a path through them until he stood a couple of feet behind Hector. Hector stiffened dramatically.

  “Is that a threat, Lewis? I don’t take…”

  “Sure it is, and your men won’t get to me before I get hands on you, Hector, so shut up. I was explaining about the troubles that seem to dog your men when they go wandering in the night. Oh, that reminds me—we were very sad to hear of your difficulties of the weeks past, that time you were all down with the quick-step.”

  Lewis paused to give Blaney’s men a quick look of sympathy. “Nothing sadder than a whole campful of grown men shitting their pants all day long.”

  A murmur went through the Blaney crew, and Lewis glanced at a few of them.

  “Anyhow, I brought you these fellas we found setting our herd loose and bothering our zebras and what-not. You hard up for animals, Hector?” Lewis squinted in mock puzzlement.

  “Hell, no. I got animals people never even seen.”

  “Name one.”

  “I got albino zebras.”

  “Painting stripes on white mules again, Hector? Kinda like Adam Forepaugh’s ‘White Elephant’?”

  “No, sir, these are the McCoy. I got a dozen elephants, Lewis.”

  “Let’s have a look at ’em.”

  “Well—it’s awful early to be rousing the pachyderms, you know how they—”

  “Don’t shit me, Hector, you’ve got a dozen bulls like I’ve got two heads. Now what were your men doing with my beasts?”

  “I don’t know but I’ll fire any man that thinks I need that kind of help with a competitor. I’m a hard man but fair, Lewis, and I’d never harm your little show. Didn’t think you’d last this long,” he muttered.

  “I’ll have your head hanging from my center pole, you send your boys to my show again, Hector.” He looked at Shelby. “Bring out Mr. Blaney’s wayward children.”

  Shelby disappeared into the truck with Mr. Coates and there was a brief scuffling sound, then they appeared with the three captives. Joseph Coates gave two of the men a short push and they landed face down in the dust. Behind them, the guard said something about “freaks and bohunks.”

  Alexei frowned and looked at Lewis. “‘Bohunks’ again. He says me ‘bohunks.’ I don’t know this ‘bohunks,’ but I think I don’t like it.” He smiled at the guard. “Explain me this word. Come into trees and teach Alexei your English.”

  “Leave him alone, Alexei,” Lewis said, then turned to Hector. “We can’t have this, Hector. I still remember the old days when circus men would cheat, rob, and stomp each other if they got the chance, when for every honest man like John Robinson or Al Barnes or M.L. Clark there was a fellow like you.”

  “You saying I’m a thief, Lewis?”

  “I’m saying you’re lower than a snake’s belly in a wagonrut—meaning no disrespect, Hector.”

  Hector scanned the crowd again. “Seems you woke up all my boys now, Lewis. We got you three-to-one, and I’m not sure I like how you’re talking to me.”

  Lewis looked at Hector’s assembled crew, now just a couple of paces from his own men, and nodded.

  “I only brought ten, Hector, but they’re special. We won’t leave enough of your crew for your next tear-down. And you, Hector, will fare poorly.”

  Hector Blaney made a diffident little shrug, then turned his head slightly, and Lewis caught the wink Hector gave his men.

  Half a dozen of Blaney’s men surged forward, throwing punches, one of them swinging a short club. Shelby dropped him with a short punch. Joe Miles came at Lewis with his fist cocked and was about to throw it when Joseph Coates caught Miles’s arm and yanked him off-balance. Miles threw a wild punch that caught Coates high on the side of his face, and then the Rock Island Giant pulled the other man toward him by his shirt. Joseph lifted him overhead, held him there for a moment, and then threw him to the ground, and the wind left Joe Miles in a groan. In a moment, four of the first six combatants were down. Any of Hector’s other men who had been inclined to join in now thought better of the idea.

  Hector stared owl-eyed at Joe Miles, who was gasping for air. He looked at the rest of his fallen crew and shook his head. “Now you men got exactly what you deserved. You had no call jumping on Lewis’s men here.”

  He turned to Lewis with the air of a disappointed father, and Lewis dropped him on the seat of his pants with a blow to the jaw.

  Hector glared up at him. “So you want big trouble, Lewis? We can do something about that.” He was up on one knee, then saw the look in Lewis Tully’s eye and stayed that way, rubbing his jaw.

  “Fighting never solved nothing, Lewis.”

  Lewis squinted around at the big gaudy camp and his gaze fell on Hector’s tent. “I sure do like that tent, Hector.”

  “That tent cost…” Hector stopped and his eyes widened.

  “That’s a famous
tent, a—what’s the word I want here, J.M.?”

  “‘Fabled,’ Lewis?” Shelby offered.

  “That’s it. A fabled tent. Be a genuine tragedy of the circus if that fine tent were to suffer misfortune. Be like when we lost Lillian Leitzel or Alfred Cordona, or even Mr. Barnum’s Jumbo. But I have a bad feeling about that tent, Hector.”

  “Better not lay a finger on my tent, Lewis.”

  “Well, of course not. I hope it will last for the ages, like your show, Hector.”

  Almost against his will, Hector Blaney turned and gazed at his precious tent, then gave Lewis a sullen look.

  “You stay away from us and we’ll stay away from you, Lewis.”

  “That’s exactly what I had in mind. Well, it was just fine to visit with you and the boys, Hector. See you around.”

  “Oh, you’ll see me around, Lewis. Good luck with your little dog-and-pony show, Tully.”

  Lewis waved to his men and they clambered back into the truck. Shelby looked at Lewis for a moment and then said, “Felt pretty good, did it? Dropping old Hector like that?”

  “Oh, it did. Yes, it did.”

  “You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

  “I am,” Lewis said, and gave out a long, satisfied sigh.

  Shelby started the engine, then backed suddenly into the crowd of Blaney men, sending half a dozen diving into the dirt to avoid being run over.

  “Whoops!” Shelby yelled out the window, and laughed.

  FORTY

  A Little Luck

  The Lewis Tully Blue Moon Circus used up the remainder of August to cover Wyoming, in a dry heat so intense that Lewis feared it would melt the unseen glue that held his show together.

  They stopped more frequently to water at little creeks and streams, and Lewis let the animals linger in the cool water. At night he lay in bed and fought off thoughts of the thousand minor disasters possible in the heat and the high country, and his underlying fear that the terrain would shake his ancient trucks to pieces.

  Toward the end of the month he was buying hay from a rancher when he heard his first good news in weeks: the Blaney Circus had once again run into trouble. The trouble involved Hector himself, and the claims of a Gillette woman that he was the father of her child. The sheriff was said to be involved, and Hector had apparently disappeared, pulling his show off somewhere into the hills and lying low until trouble passed.