by Abra SW
Ginger smiled pleasantly. “I just have a taste for molasses. So, are you Sally?”
The bartender chuckled. “There is no Sally. The saloon’s owned by Miss Lindsay Kleinman. She decided folks would think it sounded more welcoming than ‘Lindsay’s Liquors.’ My name’s Cathy Williamson. I’m watching the place for her while she’s otherwise occupied.”
Miss Williamson didn’t specify what the owner was occupied with, Ginger noted but did not comment on. “What do I owe you?” he asked.
“Don’t worry about it!” Miss Williamson said jovially. “Strangers drink free.” She smiled. “This town couldn’t make it without you.”
“Don’t bother,” the storekeeper spoke up, from his table in the corner. “He’s with the circus. They’ll all be leaving town soon enough.”
At that news, Miss Williamson lost some of her cheer and all of her loquaciousness. When Ginger ordered another drink, she said gruffly, “That’ll be twenty-five cents.”
Ginger tried asking general questions about Seppanen Town, but all he could finagle out of her were monosyllabic answers.
He swiveled on the bar stool, looking over the few men in the saloon. “Next round’s on me!” he said.
They all avoided his eye, even the two playing a game of poker. That was truly odd. A man buying drinks should be everybody’s friend, and he’d never known a poker game that didn’t welcome a stranger who was free with his money.
Ginger decided he didn’t want to have his back to the crowd or the bartender, so he smiled pleasantly, took his drink, and sat down at a table near the door. He put his hand in his right pocket. He had slit the pocket’s bottom open long ago, to allow easy access to the hideaway pistol he kept strapped to his thigh. He kept his back to the wall and finished his drink by the simple expedient of spilling most of it on the floor when nobody was watching.
Despite his sense that something was amiss, he finished his drink and left in peace. He returned to the circus caravan a few minutes before the other explorers came back from their meeting with the town greeter. The railer looked unhappy: no buttermilk biscuits had been forthcoming, then.
“We have directions to a camp site,” the equestrienne announced. She led them through town and took the left-hand fork after they passed an apple orchard on the outskirts. They reached an empty field just as the sun set. “This field is fallow and the farmer is dead,” she said, “so we don’t need to worry about trampling any crops.”
Oil lamps were lit, horses unharnessed and tethered to graze, and Cook had started a huge pot of pork and beans cooking, when their settling-in was interrupted.
A young man stepped out of the shadows. His clothes had once been good quality, but his trousers were covered with mud and his shirt was stained. His eyes had a set, fixed look to them that had Ginger slipping a hand into his right pocket.
The young man looked around desperately. “Please, you have to hide me from them!”
Chapter 6
~* * *~
How to Be a Clown
Christopher Knall
Seppanen Town, Connecticut
One week ago.
“Welcome to Seppanen Town,” the wooden sign read.
Customers! Christopher Knall thought. He stopped to beat the travel dust out of his clothes and straighten his hat before he walked on. As he approached a farm on the outskirts, the little boy sitting on the farmhouse steps sprang to his feet and ran ahead. Christopher smiled. He wished he could make a more stylish entry into town, but his horse had died in the giant freak storm that struck the area a week ago. He’d been traveling by foot ever since. The one-horse towns he’d passed through recently were reluctant to lose a valuable animal, and he couldn’t sell enough merchandise to afford their price. This town looked big enough that he might have better luck.
As Christopher entered Main Street, the little boy trotted back out of the general goods store with a peppermint stick in his hand and a burly, balding man in a shopkeeper’s apron following him.
“Welcome to Seppanen Town, stranger!” the shopkeeper greeted Christopher. “I run the general goods store. Just passing through, are you?”
“After a fashion,” Christopher said. “I’m a traveling purveyor of fine ladies’ hair combs and men’s shaving sets. Just the thing your customers would appreciate. I can arrange a discounted rate.” He winked. “But I won’t tell anyone you paid less.”
The storekeeper wrinkled his forehead. After a moment, he said awkwardly, “Come with me to lunch at Margaret Della Rocca’s and we can discuss it. Mrs. Della Rocca runs our boarding house. Her buttermilk biscuits are famous around these parts.”
It was a bit of an odd invitation, but Christopher wouldn’t miss the first real opportunity he’d gotten since that hell-storm.
When they knocked, Mrs. Della Rocca opened her door wearing an apron lightly dusted with flour. The aroma of biscuits drifted out to greet them.
“Welcome!” she said. “You must be new to town!” She tossed a questioning glance in the storekeeper’s direction.
“This is Mr. Knall,” the storekeeper told her. “He’s a traveling salesman, selling ladies combs. I told him how good your biscuits were.”
“Marvelous. Come on in! Lunch is still cooking, but I’ll get you some biscuits and tea.”
As soon as they sat at the table, Christopher opened his salesman’s suitcase. “Let me show you—”
“Wait.” The storekeeper put up his hand. “First, let’s enjoy the biscuits.”
Mrs. Della Rocca came out of the kitchen with a plate in each hand, and a biscuit on each plate. She set the biscuits in front of the men and beamed. “Go on then!”
Obediently, Christopher picked up his biscuit and bit in. The biscuit was hot and fluffy on the inside, but he noticed a slight bitter aftertaste he didn’t like. Too much baking soda in the recipe, perhaps.
Not wanting to alienate his host, however, he finished the biscuit, smiled, took a sip of tea—and slid sideways as the world tilted and darkened around him. He barely felt the impact when he hit the floor.
Today.
Christopher Knall straightened from his labor in the chicory field, pressed his hand to the small of his back, and leaned into a stretch. Dried sweat made his shirt crackle under his hand. Mud coated his pants. He was hardly the fine sight he’d been when he walked into town with a suitcase full of ladies’ hair combs and men’s shaving sets to sell.
Something moved along the road in the distance. He squinted. Wagons, traveling their way. Poor bastards don’t know what they’re getting into. Can I warn them somehow?
When the caravan got closer, the thought vanished. He gaped.
It must be a hallucination. He’d finally cracked. The procession was led by a woman standing on top of her saddle as if that was a perfectly ordinary way to ride a horse. A freakishly thin and elongated man rode in one of the wagons behind her. A pair of miniature humans perched atop another. And the giant bone and brass thing that flanked them could only have ridden out of a nightmare.
“Impossible,” Christopher breathed. Beside him, Francis straightened.
Seppanen Town had caught Francis on his way to a promised job in Boston, he’d told Christopher. A stranger in town, he’d gratefully agreed to stay the night in Mrs. Della Rocca’s boarding house. He’d woken up to chains, a strict lecture on how things were going to be during the harvest, and a nourishing breakfast of steak and buttermilk biscuits. Francis wasn’t a stranger to hard labor, as his dark tan and rough hands attested. He’d showed Christopher the ropes.
“It’s not break time yet,” Francis said now, with a quick glance at the heavily pregnant woman sitting with a shotgun across her knees. “We’d best get back to work soon, or Clara will feel she has to do something.”
“We have a few more minutes,” Christopher said. Clara, the woman on guard duty, was not unsympathetic. She let them rest when they needed it, and she saw to it that they had enough water. She seemed almost embarrassed by the s
ituation.
“Although I reckon she’ll understand us stopping to look at that,” Francis continued, staring in the same direction as Christopher.
“You can see it, too?” Christopher asked. “I thought I was hallucinating.”
Francis laughed. “I couldn’t dream up those—those whatever-they-are!” He pointed.
“Ostriches.” Christopher studied them as they passed. An equestrienne, a thin man, midgets, exotic animals … it’s a circus. That’s a lot of strangers. He stared after them with eyes that felt scorched dry, and he began to plan.
Slowly-slowly, he worked his way over, a row at a time, until he was in the row right beside the woods. Francis drifted after him. “What are you up to?”
“I’m going to run away and join the circus.”
“You’re cracked!” Francis hissed. “Do you know what they’ll do to you when they catch you?”
Christopher tensed his shoulders. “Well enough. I won’t get caught. I know where I’m going. Come with me! We can both escape.”
“Clara will get in trouble.”
Christopher stared at Francis. “She’ll be fine. She’s one of their own.”
“And if the circus won’t hide you?”
“Come with me!”
Francis shook his head. “No. This isn’t so bad for me, really.” He turned up work-calloused palms. “I’m used to it. And winter’s coming on. Here at least I know I’ll get food and a place to stay. Out there—what if it’s the same everywhere? You think they’ll treat us better?”
Christopher hissed through his teeth in frustration. “I’ll come back for you if it’s safe. Don’t tell them where I went.”
Francis nodded and eased back away through the rows, so that by the time twilight let down her hair to hide the forest in deepening shadow, he was working quite far away from Christopher. Christopher braced to bolt into the woods. Soon, Clara would push herself awkwardly up from her seat on the tree stump and say—
“That’s it for the day,” she called. “Take your baskets and move to the road.”
Christopher sprinted into the woods. He made no attempt at sneaking away. Speed and darkness are my only allies. He blundered through the woods like a wounded boar. And maybe Clara’s soft heart. He paused and listened, his back muscles tensing in anticipation of pain, but she didn’t fire the shotgun after him. Branches snapped underfoot and snagged and tore his clothes. Clara wouldn’t chase after him, not burdened as she was. Since she hadn’t shot him already, he figured he had until she got back to town to get a head start. Then they’d send serious men with dogs and lanterns after him.
Dogs. He veered to run in the direction of the stream that was the town’s water supply. They might expect that, but it could still help hide his scent. Cold air stung his skin. His breath rasped in and out of his lungs.
The townsfolk would expect him to go upstream, away from the town, so he’d go down instead. That was his best shot for finding the circus, too. It was dark. They would need to camp. They’d want to get through town first, to make sure they wouldn’t have an unfriendly welcome. Always check out your surroundings before you camp for the night, that was a basic rule of traveling folk. He guessed he’d failed that one.
He crested a hill. Through the trees, he saw the glimmer of water in the moonlight. He ran in that direction.
Something heavy smacked him across the face so hard that he fell down, stunned. He lay there expecting to be seized, but nothing happened. The only sound was the rustle of leaves in the breeze and the faint gurgle of water. A branch. He’d run into a tree branch. He pushed himself up and ran again. No time to go more carefully.
He plunged into the stream. Water rose over his shoes and soaked his socks. He splashed downstream with no care for the noise. His foot slipped on a slimy river rock. He lurched off-balance for a moment, tottered, then straightened and waded on. He spared a moment to thank God that his captors were too inexperienced to take away his shoes.
When he saw lantern light ahead, he slowed, placing his feet with care and trying not to splash too loudly. Seppanen Town’s lit windows glowed yellow against the gloaming twilight. That glow promised warmth and comfort and safety, and he hated it for the lie.
The cold water numbed his feet and made him clumsy. Exhaustion slowed his reactions. The adrenaline was fading, leaving his thoughts slow as treacle.
But he knew these things, and so he could account for them. He was clumsy? He would test each chancy step. He was slow? It didn’t matter. All he had to do was reach the circus before dawn, and he could guess where they’d camp. His pursuers wouldn’t think to hunt downriver, not for a long time. He had trouble thinking? He didn’t need to think, just follow his plan.
He splashed downstream as quietly as any fugitive could. He was halfway through the town when he heard a shout go up. Dogs barked and men swore. He froze, swaying. He couldn’t make himself take another frigid step until he heard them heading to the chicory field.
He plunged onward.
By the time he made it past the edge of town, his feet and lower legs were insensate, sodden logs that he dragged with him. He followed the stream because that was the plan. His world narrowed to the cold and the dark and the plan.
It came as a shock when he reached the fallow field on the far side of town and saw bobbing oil lamps. He’d been right in his crazy, last-chance guess of where the circus would go. If they’d hide him—no, they must hide him, he had to believe that—then safety was so close, just across the river and up the bank. He had to ford the river. He could have climbed up the bank on his side and crossed the bridge, but to his cold-addled brain, that seemed a huge risk to take when he was so close.
He waded into the river. At its deepest point, it rose to his waist. The current tugged at his clothes and tried to pull him away. He was nearly halfway across when he slipped on something his numb feet couldn’t feel, and fell. The river almost won, but he found his footing and kept going. Just a few more steps.
Something heavy smashed into his side and buffeted his back. He grabbed his attacker and felt bark beneath his hand. The current had sent a long, broken-off branch twice as thick as his arm careening into him.
The trees really have it in for me, he thought muzzily. That seemed almost normal. Men were after him, and dogs—why not trees, too?
A thought moved sludgily through his brain. Dogs. Who will smell where I climbed up the bank. The dogs would sniff along the base of the bank to find where somebody had climbed out of the water. Christopher looked at the branch he’d caught and laughed. It hurt, so he stopped quickly, but he dragged the branch through the river with him. It fought like a granddaddy catfish. Half the time, it seemed that one or the other of them would be lost to the river before they reached the other side.
Each step became easier, until he stood in ankle-deep water. He hoisted up that branch and leaned it up against the riverbank, and then he climbed up it. The dogs would only catch his scent on what he touched. When he got to the top of the riverbank, he threw the branch back in the river and watched the current take it.
He stumbled forward across the fallow field. The wind sent icy little spears stabbing through his clothing. When he tripped over an exposed root and measured his length in the dirt, it seemed so inevitable that he merely pushed himself up and staggered on, without even bothering to scrape the dirt-rapidly-becoming-mud from his trousers.
He passed picketed horses. Their soft whickers and ruminations—and the warm, solid windbreak their large bodies made—were so comforting that he might have lingered if the smell of cooking pork and beans hadn’t drawn him on.
He approached the circus wagons, trying to ignore the leaden fear that they would turn him back over to the townsfolk. A man so perfectly ordinary-looking that Christopher worried he wasn’t with the circus stood beside the nearest wagon, talking with a shawl-swathed, bejeweled, heavily veiled woman.
Christopher stepped out of the shadows, his eyes fixed on them. When the
excessively ordinary man saw Christopher, he tensed and slipped his hand into his pocket.
“Please, you have to hide me from them!” Christopher pleaded. “Please, help me!”
He tried to step closer, but his feet were frozen weights. He lurched and would have fallen, except the veiled lady darted forward—with a quickness surprising in one so encumbered—and slipped her shoulder under his arm. She gasped. “You’re soaked through! And so cold!”
As if her words reminded him, he began to shiver convulsively.
“Careful, Mrs. Wershow,” the ordinary man said. His eyes narrowed as he stared at Christopher. “Hide you from who, stranger? And what did you do to get them after you?”
“Ginger, we have to get him warmed up before he’ll even be able to understand questions, much less answer them,” Mrs. Wershow said sharply. She cleared her throat, seeming to remember herself. “Come along, then, young man,” she said to Christopher.
She carried most of his weight all the way to the campfire. The ordinary man—Ginger—followed behind, his hand still in his pocket. Now and then Christopher stumbled, but Mrs. Wershow kept him on his feet until she could sit him down on a log beside the fire. Tutting, she unwound one of her shawls, shrinking in the process. She wrapped it around his shoulders. “I’ll beg a plate of food for you,” she said, and left.
Ginger squatted in front of him. The fire cast Ginger’s face in shadow, but his eyes still gleamed. “I saw you in the field when we rode into town,” he said.
Christopher nodded, or perhaps he just shivered so furiously his head bobbed. He himself wasn’t sure.
“Who are you hiding from?”
“Seppanen Town,” Christopher managed to get out from between chattering teeth.
“Who in Seppanen Town?”
“All of them.”
Ginger rocked back on his heels. “All of them?” There was something almost like admiration in his voice. “That takes talent. What did you do?”
“Ran away.”
Mrs. Wershow returned from her conversation with the cook holding a tin plate filled with steaming pork and beans. At the smell, Christopher’s mouth watered and his stomach cramped painfully.