The midgets looked at one another, and then Havana leaped from his stool and, running to Solum, punched his arm. He made quick motions, pointing outside, turning an imaginary steering wheel, beckoning toward the door.
Moving with astonishing speed, the big man slipped to the door and was gone, the others following. Solum was at the truck almost before the midgets and Horty were outside. He bounded catlike past the cab, throwing a quick glance into it, and in two more jumps was at the tail gate and inside. There were a couple of thumps and Solum emerged, the tattered figure of a man dangling from his parti-colored hands. The tramp was struggling, but when the brilliant golden light fell on Solum’s face, he uttered a scratchy ululation which must have been clearly audible a quarter of a mile away. Solum dropped him on to the cinders; he landed heavily on his back and lay there writhing and terrified, fighting to get wind back into his shocked lungs.
Havana threw away his cigar stub and pounced on the prone figure, roughly going through the pockets. He said something unprintable and then, “Look here—our new soupspoons and four compacts and a lipstick and—why, you little sneak,” he snarled at the man, who was not large but was nearly three times his size. The man twitched as if he would throw Havana off him; Solum immediately leaned down and raked a large hand across his face. The man screamed again, and this time did surge up and send Havana flying; not, however, to attack, but to run sobbing and slobbering with fear from the gaunt Solum. He disappeared into the darkness across the highway with Solum at his heels.
Horty went to the tailgate. He said, timidly, to Havana, “Would you look for my package?”
“That ol’ paper bag? Sure.” Havana swung up on the tailgate, reappeared a moment later with the bag, and handed it to Horty.
Armand had broken Junky very thoroughly, breaking the jack-in-the-box’s head away from the rest of the toy, flattening it until all that Horty could salvage was the face. But now the ruin was complete.
“Gee,” said Horty. “Junky. He’s all busted.” He drew out the two pieces of the hideous face. The nose was crushed to a coarse powder of papier-mâché, and the face was cracked in two, a large piece and a small piece. There was an eye in each, glittering. “Gee,” Horty said again, trying to fit them together with one hand.
Havana, busy gathering up the loot, said over his shoulder, “’Sa damn shame, kid. The guy must’ve put his knee on it while he was goin’ through our stuff.” He tossed the odd collection of purchases into the cab of the truck while Horty wrapped Junky up again. “Let’s go back inside. Our order’ll be up.”
“What about Solum?” asked Horty.
“He’ll be along.”
Horty was conscious, abruptly, that Zena’s deep eyes were fixed on him. He almost spoke to her, didn’t know what to say, flushed in embarrassment, and led the way into the restaurant. Zena sat beside him this time. She leaned across him for the salt, and whispered, “How did you know someone was in the truck?”
Horty settled his paper bag in his lap, and saw her eyes on it as he did so. “Oh,” she said; and then in quite a different tone, slowly, “Oh-h.” He had no answer to her question, but he knew, suddenly, that he would not need one. Not now.
“How’d you know there was someone out there?” demanded Havana, busy with a catsup bottle.
Horty began to speak, but Zena interrupted. “I’ve changed my mind,” she said suddenly. “I think carny can do the kid more good than harm. It’s better than making his way on the outside.”
“Well now.” Havana put down the bottle and beamed. Bunny clapped her hands. “Good, Zee! I knew you’d see it.”
Havana added, “So did I. I… see somp’n else, too.” He pointed.
“Coffee urn?” said Bunny stupidly. “Toaster?”
“The mirror, stoopid. Will you look?” He leaned close to Horty and put an arm around his head, drawing his and Zena’s faces together. The reflections looked back at them—small faces, both brown, both deep-eyed, oval, dark-haired. If Horty were wearing lipstick and braids, his face would have been different from hers—but very little.
“Your long-lost brother!” breathed Bunny.
“My cousin—and I mean a girl cousin,” said Zena. “Look—there are two bunks in my end of the wagon… stop that cackling, Bunny; I’m old enough to be his mother and besides—oh, shut up. No; this is the perfect way to do it. The Maneater never has to know who he is. It’s up to you two.”
“We won’t say anything,” said Havana.
Solum kept on eating.
Horty asked, “Who’s the Maneater?”
“The boss,” said Bunny. “He used to be a doctor. He’ll fix up your hand.”
Zena’s eyes looked at something that was not in the room. “He hates people,” she said. “All people.”
Horty was startled. This was the first indication among these odd folk that there might be something to be afraid of. Zena, understanding, touched his arm. “Don’t be afraid. His hating won’t hurt you.”
4
THEY REACHED THE CARNIVAL in the dark part of the morning, when the distant hills had just begun to separate themselves from the paling sky.
To Horty it was all thrilling and mysterious. Not only had he met these people, but there was also the excitement and mystery ahead, and the way of starting it, the game he must play, the lines he must never forget. And now, at dawn, the carnival itself. The wide dim street, paved with wood shavings, seemed faintly luminous between the rows of stands and bally-platforms. Here a dark neon tube made ghosts of random light rays from the growing dawn; there one of the rides stretched hungry arms upward in bony silhouette. There were sounds, sleepy, restless, alien sounds; and the place smelled of damp earth, popcorn, perspiration, and sweet exotic manures.
The truck threaded its way behind the western row of midway stands and came to a stop by a long house-trailer with doors at each end.
“Home,” yawned Bunny. Horty was riding in front with the girls now, and Havana had curled up in the back. “Out you get. Scoot, now; right into that doorway. The Maneater’ll be asleep, and no one will see you. When you come out you’ll be somebody different, and then we’ll go fix your hand up.”
Horty stood on the truck step, glanced around, and then arrowed to the door of the trailer and skinned inside. It was dark there. He stood clear of the door and waited for Zena to come in, close it, and draw the curtains on the small windows before turning on the lights.
The light seemed very bright. Horty found himself in a small square room. There was a tiny bunk on each side, a compact kitchenette in one corner, and what appeared to be a closet in the other.
“All right,” said Zena, “take off your clothes.”
“All of ’em?”
“Of course, all of them.” She saw his startled face, and laughed. “Listen, Kiddo. I’ll tell you something about us little people. Uh—how old did you say you were?”
“I’m almost nine.”
“Well, I’ll try. Ordinary grown-up people are very careful about seeing each other without clothes. Whether or not it makes any sense, they are that way because there’s a big difference between men and women when they’re grown up. More than between boys and girls. Well, a midget stays like a child, in most ways, all his life except for maybe a couple of years. So a lot of us don’t let such things bother us. As for us, you and me, we might as well make up our minds right now that it’s not going to make any difference. In the first place, no one but Bunny and Havana and me know you’re a boy. In the second place, this little room is just too small for two people to live in if they’re going to be stooping and cringing and hiding from each other because of something that doesn’t matter. See?”
“I—I guess so.”
She helped him out of his clothes, and he began his careful education on how to be a woman from the skin outward.
“Tell me something, Horty,” she said, as she turned out a neat drawer, looking for clothes for him. “What’s in the paper bag?”
“That
’s Junky. It’s a jack-in-the-box. It was, I mean. Armand busted it—I told you. Then the man in the truck busted it more.”
“Could I see?”
Worrying into a pair of her socks, he nodded toward one of the bunks. “Go ahead.”
She lifted out the tattered bits of papier-mâché. “Two of them!” she exploded. She turned and looked at Horty as if he had turned bright purple, or sprouted rabbit’s ears.
“Two!” she said again. “I thought I saw only one, there at the diner. Are they really yours? Both of them?”
“They’re Junky’s eyes,” he explained.
“Where did Junky come from?”
“I had him before I was adopted. A policeman found me when I was a baby. I was put in a Home. I got Junky there. I guess I never had any folks.”
“And Junky stayed with you—here, let me help you into that—Junky stayed with you from then on?”
“Yes. He had to.”
“Why had to?”
“How do you hook this?”
Zena checked what seemed to be an impulse to push him into a corner and hold him still until she extracted the information from him. “About Junky,” she said patiently.
“Oh. Well, I just had to have him near me. No, not near me. I could go a long way away as long as Junky was all right. As long as he was mine, I mean. I mean, if I didn’t even see him for a year it was all right, but if somebody moved him, I knew it, and if somebody hurt him, I hurt too. See?”
“Indeed I do,” said Zena surprisingly. Again Horty felt that sweet shock of delight; these people seemed to understand everything so well.
Horty said, “I used to think everybody had something like that. Something they’d be sick if they lost it, like. I never thought to ask anyone about it, even. And then Armand, he picked on me about Junky. He used to hide Junky to get me excited. Once he put him on a garbage truck. I got so sick I had to have a doctor. I kept yelling for Junky, until the doctor told Armand to get this Junky back to me or I would die. Said it was a fix something. Ation.”
“A fixation. I know the routine,” Zena smiled.
“Armand, he was mad, but he had to do it. So anyway he got tired of fooling with Junky, and put him in the top of the closet and forgot about him pretty much.”
“You look like a regular dream-girl,” said Zena admiringly. She put her hands on his shoulders and looked gravely into his eyes. “Listen to me, Horty. This is very important. It’s about the Maneater. You’re going to see him in a few minutes, and I’m going to have to tell a story—a whopper of a story. And you’ve got to help me. He just has to believe it, or you won’t be able to stay with us.”
“I can remember real good,” said Horty anxiously. “I can remember anything I want to. Just tell me.”
“All right.” She closed her eyes for a moment, thinking hard. “I was an orphan,” she said presently. “I went to live with my Auntie Jo. After I found out I was going to be a midget I ran away with a carnival. I was with it for a few years before the Maneater met me and I came to work for him. Now…” She wet her lips. “Auntie Jo married again and had two children. The first one died and you were the second. When she found out you were a midget too she began to be very mean to you. So you ran away. You worked a while in summer stock. One of the stagehands—the carpenter—took a shine to you. He caught you last night and took you into the wood shop and did a terrible thing to you—so terrible that you can’t even talk about it. Understand? If he asks you about it, just cry. Have you got all that?”
“Sure,” said Horty casually. “Which one is going to be my bed?”
Zena frowned. “Honey—this is terribly important. You’ve got to remember every single word I say.”
“Oh, I do,” said Horty. And to her obvious astonishment he reeled off everything she had said, word for word.
“My!” she said, and kissed him. He blushed. “You are a quick study! That’s wonderful. All right then. You’re nineteen years old and your name’s—uh—Hortense. (That’s in case you hear someone say ‘Horty’ some day and the Maneater sees you look around.) But everybody calls you Kiddo. All right?”
“Nineteen and Hortense and Kiddo. Uh-huh.”
“Good. Gosh, honey, I’m sorry to give you so many things to think of at once! Now, this is something just between us. First of all, you must never, never let the Maneater know about Junky. We’ll find a place for him here, and I don’t want you to ever talk about him again, except to me. Promise?”
Wide eyed, Horty nodded. “Uh-huh.”
“Good. And one more thing, just as important. The Maneater’s going to fix your hand. Don’t worry; he’s a good doctor. But I want you to push every bit of old bandage, every little scrap of cotton he uses, over toward me if you can, without letting him notice it. I don’t want you to leave a drop of your blood in his trailer, understand? Not a drop. I’m going to offer to clean up for him—he’ll be glad; he hates to do it—and you help me as much as you can. All right?”
Horty promised. Bunny and Havana pounded just then. Horty went out first, holding his bad hand behind him, and they called him Zena, and Zena pirouetted out, laughing, while they goggled at Horty. Havana dropped his cigar and said “Hey.”
“Zee, he’s beautiful!” cried Bunny.
Zena help up a tiny forefinger. “She’s beautiful, and don’t you forget it.”
“I feel awful funny,” said Horty, twitching his skirt.
“Where on earth did you get that hair?”
“A couple of false braids. Like ’em?”
“And the dress?”
“Bought it and never wore it,” said Zena. “It won’t fit my chest expansion… Come on, kids. Let’s go wake the Maneater.”
They made their way among the wagons. “Take smaller steps,” said Zena. “That’s better. You remember everything?”
“Oh, sure.”
“That’s a good—a good girl, Kiddo. And if he should ask you a question and you don’t know, just smile. Or cry. I’ll be right beside you.”
A long silver trailer was parked next to a tent bearing a brilliantly colored poster of a man in a top-hat. He had long pointed mustachios and zig-zags of lightning came from his eyes. Below it, in flaming letters, was the legend
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
Mephisto Knows.
“His name isn’t Mephisto,” said Bunny. “It’s Monetre. He used to be a doctor before he was a carny. Everyone calls him Maneater. He don’t mind.”
Havana pounded on the door. “Hey, Maneater! Y’going to sleep all afternoon?”
“You’re fired,” growled the silver trailer.
“Okay,” said Havana casually. “Come on out and see what we got.”
“Not if you want to put it on the payroll,” said the sleepy voice. There were movements inside. Bunny pushed Horty over near the door and waved to Zena to hide. Zena flattened against the trailer wall.
The door opened. The man who stood there was tall, cadaverous, with hollows in his cheeks and a long bluish jaw. His eyes seemed, in the early morning light, to be just inch-deep black sockets in his head. “What is it?”
Bunny pointed at Horty. “Maneater, who’s that?”
“Who’s that?” He peered. “Zena, of course. Good morning, Zena,” he said, his tone suddenly courtly.
“Good morning,” laughed Zena, dancing out from behind the door.
The Maneater stared from Zena to Horty and back. “Oh, my aching bankroll,” he said. “A sister act. And if I don’t hire her you’ll quit. And Bunny and Havana will quit.”
“A mind-reader,” said Havana, nudging Horty.
“What’s your name, kid sister?”
“My pa named me Hortense,” recited Horty, “but everyone calls me Kiddo.”
“I don’t blame them,” said the Maneater in a kindly voice. “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do, Kiddo. I’m going to call your bluff. Get off the lot, and if the rest of you don’t like it, you can go along with her. If I don’t see any of you on the mi
dway at eleven o’clock this morning, I’ll know what you decided.” He closed the door softly and with great firmness.
“Oh—gee!” said Horty.
“It’s all right,” grinned Havana. “He don’t mean it. He fires everybody ’most every day. When he means it he pays ’em. Go get ’im, Zee.”
Zena rippled her knuckles on the aluminum door. “Mister Maneater!” she sang.
“I’m counting your pay,” said the voice from inside.
“Oh-oh,” said Havana.
“Please. Just a minute,” cried Zena.
The door opened up again. The Maneater had one hand full of money. “Well?”
Horty heard Bunny mutter, “Do good, Zee. Do good!”
Zena beckoned to Horty. He stepped forward hesitantly. “Kiddo, show him your hand.”
Horty extended his ruined hand. Zena peeled off the soiled, bloody handkerchiefs one by one. The inner one was stuck fast; Horty whimpered as she disturbed it. Enough could be seen, however, to show the Maneater’s trained eye that three fingers were gone completely and the rest of the hand in a bad way.
“How in creation did you do a thing like this, girl?” he barked. Horty fell back, frightened.
“Kiddo, go over there with Havana, hm?”
Horty retreated, gratefully. Zena began talking rapidly in a low voice. He could only hear part of it. “Terrible shock, Maneater. Don’t remind her of it, ever… carpenter… and took her to his shop… when she… and her hand in the vise.”
“No wonder I hate people,” the Maneater snarled. He asked her a question.
“No,” said Zena. “She got away, but her hand…”
“Come here, Kiddo,” said the Maneater. His face was something to see. His whip of a voice seemed to issue from his nostrils which, suddenly, were not carven slits but distended, circular holes. Horty turned pale.
Havana pushed him gently. “Go on, Kiddo. He’s not mad. He’s sorry for you. Go on!”
Horty inched forward and timidly climbed the step. “Come in here.”
“We’ll see you,” called Havana. He and Bunny turned away. As the door closed behind him and Zena, Horty looked back and saw Bunny and Havana gravely shaking hands.
Dreaming Jewels Page 3