Satinka rose slowly from her dark ball of fur. The polishers turned their attention away from the main entrance, away from the strange sounds that grew louder and louder on the other side of those double doors. The polishers again looked towards Satinka. Satisfied she held their attention, Satinka threw back her head and stepped out of the buffalo hides to expose her full figure to those polishers who, night after night, had come to her stage to offer their shiners as tokens of their adoration. Satinka still refused to accept any of those coins. She ignored any of the shiners the polishers tossed upon her stage. She was a dancer unlike anything the Crystal Palace had ever seen, and she would demand a very different kind of trophy. Satinka leaned back her spine and screamed a warbling cry that summoned a third, great bellow from beyond the Palace’s walls.
A new magic gripped the polishers, who tossed their shiners to the floor before rushing out of the Palace’s entrance, warbling and screaming as the chamber emptied in a wink.
Lady Finch’s steps jangled upon abandoned shiners as she walked through her Palace’s purple curtain. She had never seen so much treasure gathered by any of her girls. Confused, she turned towards Satinka, who grinned when another great bellow shook the walls.
“What’s going on, Satinka?”
“Look for yourself.”
Satinka pointed towards the Palace’s entrance to indicate Lady Finch’s answer waited beyond that threshold. Indigo Satin, Merry Fortune and Vivian Vixen timidly peeked their heads through that purple curtain, waiting for Lady Finch to walk across all the shiners between Satinka’s stage and the door. Satinka refused to say anything else until Lady Finch reached the entrance, where she found that even Tarence had rushed away from his post at the sound of one those massive bellows. The ground rumbled as Lady Finch opened the door. A roar filled her ears. Dust choked the night, though there was no wind blowing from the wild lands in the east. She heard the shouts of men, and the roars of beasts. The dust cloaked her view, and Lady Finch knew she would have to take a step beyond her threshold to see where all the polishers had flown.
She took that step, and the dust parted to show Lady Finch the bedlam responsible for such din. A giant herd of buffalo, a river of browns, tans and blacks, rumbled all along the river’s eastern shore, tossing great plumes of dust into the sky to dim the full moon’s light. Lady Finch’s eyes widened in awe as she watched the beasts thunder onto the bridges spanning the river’s waters to take that thundering heard onto the narrow thoroughfares snaking between the city’s tall, glass spires. Lady Finch’s mind stammered. What space did that thundering herd hope to find amid the narrow alleyways between those towers?
That mob of polishers, who a moment before had been stomping in front of Satinka’s stage, gave chase to the herd. The men sprinted for as fast, and for as long, as they could alongside of the herd, throwing whatever rocks and pieces of glass they could find at the creatures’ thick hides. Some of the polishers jumped into automobiles and roared their engines upon the heels of the buffalo. Polishers climbed buildings, and from the rooftops they shouted upon the herd that thundered such dust into the sky.
Lady Finch heard the jangle of shiners from within the Palace, and Satinka appeared at her side.
“What have you done, Satinka?”
Satinka stood wearing only her horned headdress, and she grinned to see a screaming polisher chasing the buffalo.
“I’ve given them life,” Satinka’s words barely lifted above the herd’s thunder, “and all those men will worship me for it. For as long as they chase the herd, they will be hunters instead of polishers, and they’ll love me for it.”
Lady Finch raised an eyebrow. “So you’ve achieved your first wish, but do you truly think you possess the magic to live forever?”
Satinka turned to reenter the Palace. “You’ll witness me achieve that wish as well. Just give the earth a little more time to rumble. Give the dust a little more time to fly. There’s no need to hurry the delivery of my immortality.”
Lady Finch doubted anything was impossible as she looked upon that stampeding buffalo herd. She closed her eyes, but all those buffalos remained when she reopened them at the sound of another hunter’s screams. It was too incredible. What would happen to that shore of glass towers? How could they stand when the ground teemed with such powerful and thundering creatures? Satinka had danced, and the polishers had stared, and Lady Finch doubted anything would ever return to what it had been.
* * * * *
Chapter 6 – Like Nothing Imagined
Doug Stewart removed his handkerchief from his blazer and padded at the perspiration beading on his forehead as he rode the elevator down the throat of his father’s glass tower, down the spine of that spire Doug’s great-grandfather Vernon had erected so many distant and strange generations ago. Doug scolded himself for the way his hand trembled as he wiped his handkerchief across his forehead. He had promised himself he would be brave in the face of the task that had been granted to him. He wondered if his great-grandfather Vernon had been a brave man. Wouldn’t any man responsible for the construction of one of the glass spires have to be brave? Doug wondered if Vernon shared in his father’s hatred of the dust. Most of all, Doug wondered if that select breed of men who sat so high upon the perch of their towers might’ve been better served in choosing someone else to visit the Crystal Palace as their emissary.
Doug Stewart had never crossed any of the bridges leading to the eastern shore. He had never frequented the Crystal Palace. He had never dared to intrude upon those stages where the polishers found their satisfaction.
The elevator’s doors opened and deposited Douglas upon the ground-floor lobby, where a driver with a trim, gray beard greeted him.
“I’m afraid there’s been a short delay with the sedan, Mr. Stewart. We’re expecting the car to roll in front of our tower at any moment.”
Doug nodded. “Is all the traffic crammed in the streets again?”
The driver sighed. “It’s the buffalo again this morning.”
The golden chandeliers swayed from the lobby’s high ceiling. The men seated at the well-varnished bar clutched at their morning cocktails as their stools shook. Doug grabbed the driver’s arm as the furniture rattled. His eyes raced to the glass wall overlooking the street, and he saw the first buffalo of the herd careen down the avenue, smashing against buildings and hurling abandoned bicycles into the air. Hundreds of other buffalos followed in a wink, setting off car alarms as pedestrians frantically jumped into the lobby for shelter. A second later, and the first of the screaming hunters arrived to throw their bricks and stones at the herd. Doug winced as a brick smashed against that glass wall. But his great-grandfather had built his tower strong, and neither the rumbling herd nor the tossed brick failed to deliver either a crack or fracture. Soon, the rattling of the walls subsided as the herd thinned, replaced by plumes of dust and ash. The men at the bar turned their attention back to their cocktails and raised their fingers to order a new round of liquid fortitude. The golden chandeliers settled.
Doug again dabbed at his sweaty forehead. “That’s been going on all morning?”
“All morning, and for every morning this week,” the driver nodded.
The expected sedan rolled to the outer curb just as several women from the tower’s custodial staff ran out of the lobby to wipe away the layer of dust delivered by the thundering herd. Doug felt for those women as he watched them dump their sponges in and out of their soapy buckets. Those ladies had dedicated their time to the maintenance of the tower’s many rooms and offices. It was not their responsibility to polish the tower’s glass shell. Yet the polishers refused to return to their duties upon the city scaffolds. It seemed that every polisher had forgotten his responsibility during the madness of the hunt, and so those women with their small buckets were forced to polish as best they could to maintain the glimmer so valued by the men who sat atop the peek of each glass spire.
Doug peered down the street before ducking into the bac
k of the waiting sedan. Dust tarnished all of the glass towers. Their glass no longer sparkled, and the attraction of those high buildings felt lost. Doug knew that every minute the dust remained so heavy upon that sheen threatened to dispel the mirage of value men like Vernon built those towers to represent. The city’s economy couldn’t survive for long while the violent herd choked that skyline with dust. The winds from the wild lands in the east were bad enough, and now the polishers abandoned their posts, just when the stampeding herd kicked more grime than ever before into the sky. The city couldn’t shine without the polishers.
The sedan’s plush interior and tinted windows encased Doug in comfortable quiet. He caught his breath as the vehicle pulled away from the curb. His forehead cooled as chilled air hissed from the air-conditioning vents. Doug felt a bit of his confidence return, and so he leaned forward to gather whatever insight he might from the driver.
“You ever visit the Palace?”
The driver smiled in the rearview mirror. “Afraid I haven’t. I was a lift man before your father measured me for this chauffer’s uniform. The Palace only glows for the polishers. The sign might not say it, but everyone knows it well enough. The Palace girls only dance for the polishers’ shiners.”
“Why do you think the polishers hand so many of their shiners over to the place?”
The driver shrugged. “Well, I imagine those girls must sure be charming, if you know what I’m talking about, Mr. Stewart. Maybe those polishers just got too tired of staring at their own reflections all day long as they worked on the glass. Maybe they all got to feeling they needed something prettier to look at.”
“Do you think it’s true that the Palace is responsible for all the buffalo?”
“That’s what the polishers say, Mr. Stewart.”
“But it’s absurd.”
Again, the driver shrugged. “Whatever you say, Mr. Stewart, but forgive me for noticing that we’re driving over to the eastern shore all the same.”
Doug sighed. Riding over a bridge to the east hadn’t been his idea. The men from up high, the men dressed in the tight suits and the narrow ties, demanded that Doug travel across the river to meet with the Crystal Palace’s proprietor, sending him to determine what might be done to cleanse the buffalo from the city’s streets, to learn if shiners might be enough to chase away that herd. Doug wasn’t surprised that those men had chosen him as their delegate. It had been his idea to grant the polishers an additional holiday. Doug realized too late that he should’ve known better than to grant the polishers any excuse to abandon their glass spires. The polishers needed to concentrate and labor to keep the towers’ glass clean. Doug’s extra holiday had distracted those polishers, and so calamity, in the strange form of a thundering herd of buffalo and dust, struck that fragile world of spires built on the river’s western shore. His colleagues, dressed in those tight suits and narrow ties, had let Doug know that it was their belief that he bore responsibility for that damaging herd when they named him as their emissary to the Crystal Palace.
A great bellow thundered from outside of the vehicle, and Doug’s face pressed against his backseat window as the sedan’s tires squealed.
“Hold on, Mr. Stewart.”
The driver stomped on the brakes just as the herd of buffalo rounded the intersection in the windshield. Doug felt the car shake as those black, brown and tan hides rumbled down the road, barely missing the sedan’s hood, their hides throwing a fresh layer of dust upon the car’s windows to further dim the daylight. The ground shook, and Doug feared the towers would at any moment crumble to bury them beneath glass and twisted steel. The driver jammed the sedan into reverse, but could only growl as the traffic at their rear refused to relent and provide them with any avenue for retreat.
The rear window’s glass shattered into small pieces that bit at the back of Dog’s neck. His heart raced as he looked out of the broken window to see a pack of motorcyclists pursuing the herd, their bikes swerving each moment their riders took their hands from the handlebars long enough to level a rifle in the direction of that thundering mass of buffalo hide. Doug ducked upon the backseat as cracks of rifle fire echoed above the car. He was afraid those motorcycle hunters cared little for the collateral damage their poor aim inflicted as long as they hoped to claim a buffalo hide.
“Are you alright, Mr. Stewart?”
Doug rose slowly from the cushions of the backseat and inspected himself for blood. He didn’t feel any pain, and he couldn’t find any bullet holes.
“They’re crazy,” Doug stammered. “Where did all of those madmen come from?”
The driver snorted. “Those hunters are what’s become of the polishers. They don’t think of anything but the herd now. The bloodlust has them, and they don’t care about whatever damage their hunt inflicts on the rest of us. You’re fortunate that the bullet that shattered the back window didn’t at least claim one of your ears.”
Doug gathered a breath. Perhaps there was an answer to the problem of the buffalo in what the driver just said. “Maybe we only need to hire more hunters to tip the balance. Maybe everyone would calm down again if we paid for the hunters that are needed to finally wipe those buffalo from the earth.”
The driver shook his head. “I don’t think that would work. The streets are already teeming with hunters; and still, those hunters don’t make so much as a dent in the herd’s numbers. They drop the beasts just as quickly as they can reload their rifles; and still, the buffalo just seem to magically rise out of the ground to replace a dead friend the moment a hide falls.”
“How’s that possible?”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” the driver rolled his eyes. “How does anything make any sense again after a herd of buffalo comes out of nowhere and jams up this entire city?”
The dust settled sufficiently enough to show the intersection again clear of the rampaging herd, and the blare of car horns replaced the great bellows and snorts of the buffalo. Doug’s driver continued towards the bridge that would deliver him to the eastern shore, where he hoped to find the source of all that dust and all those hides that threatened the polish and glitter of his family’s glass tower before the rest of the world lost faith in the reflection offered by all the spires owned by the men in the tight suits and narrow ties.
* * * * *
The Crystal Palace proved to be nothing like Doug had imagined it to be.
He had expected the Palace to somehow be softer. He had assumed all of the building’s walls would be painted pink. He had expected all the inner chambers to be crowded by mirrors, with twirling disco balls hurling spectrums of light across the stages. He had anticipated girls sparkling in glitter and sequins, wearing nothing more than high heels and plastic diamonds. He expected platinum blondes. He expected leather and lace.
But the Crystal Palace Doug found offered none of those things. A sharp collection of weapons gathered upon the walls – rifles with long and varnished barrels; curved sabers with fine, gleaming edges; long spears tipped with ghastly points and colorful feathers; fine bows demanding the pull of powerful arms; brutal, primitive clubs apparently crafted for a titan’s grasp. Buffalo hides, not mirrors, hung on the remaining space offered by the dark walls, absorbing much of the light cast by burning sconces and flames blazing in brick fire pits. Doug sheepishly averted his eyes to avoid meeting the stares of packs of men tending to their wounds evidently suffered in the hunt of the buffalo, or downing tankards of beer and massive legs of roasted meat.
The girls who escorted Doug to a large table set before the Palace’s central stage were friendly and attractive, but Doug was surprised to find them dressed in buffalo hides and stepping in moccasins rather than the leather and lace he had always assumed constituted a Palace dancer’s wardrobe. Neither girl wore a blue or pink wig. Doug saw neither wore any make-up, nor large earrings or glistening pearls. Their only adornment were necklaces and bracelets carved from what Doug guessed was buffalo bone. He knew how the Palace girls always mesmerized t
he polishers, but he had no means of anticipating how his heart pulsed whenever any of those women wearing buffalo skin smiled at him as they escorted him through the Palace.
Polish, Dust and Sparkle Page 5