The Bullet-Catcher's Daughter

by Rod Duncan

The ham they had given me seemed all salt and the bread was already going stale. But the cold had built a hunger in me and I devoured my meal as would any wild beast. Then I sat with my back to the end boards looking down the length of the wagon. From my confinement, I stared beyond the bars to the narrow space between the cages, then through more bars to the cage where the lions lay together.

  I was to have swept the beast wagons clean the day before. But the visitation of the Patent Office had upturned our routine. The soiled straw stank of ammonia despite the cold.

  A long crack ran between the side panels on the right-hand side of the wagon. Peering through it I could see the field. At first everything seemed painted in shades of grey. But as the light grew I began to make out colours – the reds and blues of the nearest wagon, the green stripes of the big top.

  I must have drifted into another light sleep, because I was suddenly aware of my head falling forwards. I jerked it back upright. From within my dream I had heard a sound. I blinked rapidly, trying to sharpen my focus. Both lions were standing. One paced up and down the pitifully small cage.

  The noise came again. A gentle scratching against the side of the wagon nearest the hedge. Suddenly a wooden panel began to swing down. There was a deep, rumbling growl from one of the lions and light streamed in. Before I could make out clearly what had happened, a figure had sprung into the space between the cages and the side panel was closing once more.

  “Tinker!”

  “Keep hush, miss. I’m not to be here.” He reached into his long coat and pulled out a wrinkled apple, which he passed through the bars and placed in my hand. “Yours,” he whispered.

  Examining it, I realised it was the same apple I had given to him the night we were supposed to be keeping watch on the horses. “You should have eaten it.”

  “No one gave me a present before.”

  I tried to pass it back to him but he shook his head. “Eat.” And such was the intensity of his instruction that I took a bite. The flesh was soft, the juice sweet.

  “What am I to do, Tinker?”

  “You’re to stay locked and hidden. No one’s to talk to you.”

  “But here you are.”

  “They’d whip me if they found me.”

  “Here...” I passed the apple back to him through the bars. “If we’re both in trouble we should both eat.”

  This time he accepted it. After a moment’s hesitation, he took a small bite from the other side of the apple. It wasn’t a mingling of blood exactly, but there was something in this small intimacy of sharing that suggested a binding ritual.

  In the other cage, the lions lay down once more. From somewhere out in the field came the sound of chopping wood.

  “I was born in a travelling show,” I said. “When my mother knew it was time, she told my father and he ordered all the wagons to stop. I came into this world at the side of a lane between a field and a copse of trees. I know it was the middle of the night, but I don’t know where exactly.”

  “I was born in the stable,” said Tinker.

  Each time this boy had confided in me, it had been through his own volition, not my probing. So I held my tongue and let the moment stretch until it pressed against us. I took the apple back through the bars and bit again.

  “They had a big house,” said Tinker. “Big...” He stretched his arms wide to add emphasis. “Hundred rooms. More than that. Servants like an army.”

  “The Duke of Bletchley?”

  He nodded.

  “The Duke sent your mother to the stable? That’s not nice.”

  “Nah, the stable was grand. And he fed us good.”

  “And the Duchess’s brother?”

  Tinkers face lit up into a smile. “Mr Orville. He’s kind, like you. He sees Dada beat me, so he gets me out from the stable and has me run jobs for him in the workshop with all the machines. Fetch tools. Bring food. Gets me to turn the handles and make the wheels spin.”

  “Is that why you’re afraid of going back – because your dada beat you?”

  Tinker pressed his mouth tight closed, the pain of memories written across his face.

  “I know someone who dearly loves Mr Orville,” I said. “She wants to find him again. From the things you say about him, I can understand why he earned that love. He’s kind and clever too. A man who can understand the ways of machines and devices. That’s a marvellous thing. Did he understand them all?”

  “No,” said Tinker, cautiously. “Too many for that. And no saying what goes with what. Not even Zoran knows all of ‘em.”

  “Zoran?” The name seemed familiar to me, though I could not place it.

  Tinker nodded, enthusiasm beginning to animate him once more. It seemed that so long as we stayed on happy memories, he would continue to talk.

  “Was Mr Zoran also kind?”

  “He said not to call ‘im mister. Just Zoran. He’s old. Skin wrinkled like that apple. Hands didn’t work proper. Like the bones went all the wrong places. And he’s got fingers missing.” Tinker illustrated by holding up his own right hand with the two middle fingers bent down. “Couldn’t hold tools no more. But Mr Orville does that for him. One talks the other does. They opens it up and looks inside. And they talks and pokes at it and talks more. Can’t figure ‘em all though. Never. Coz there’s hundreds. And the papers don’t say all the secrets. Never write your secrets down, that’s what Zoran says.”

  I passed the apple back through the bars and placed it in his hand. He raised it reverently and took another bite, keeping clear of the side from which I had been eating.

  My being locked behind bars seemed to be making it easier for him to tell his story. Perhaps he perceived it to have levelled my status with his. Or perhaps in my misfortune he saw something of his own history. Even now, I knew he would not elaborate the story of his father’s brutality. And I guessed that would make the circumstances of their departure from Buckinghamshire a forbidden subject also.

  “Can you tell me of the machine, Tinker? How did it draw light in the air?”

  He resolutely shook his head, but the anxiety did not return to his face.

  “Did Mr Orville instruct you to keep it secret?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I’ll ask nothing more about it. Indeed, I don’t wish to know, unless by knowing I can better help Mr Orville find the one who loves him. Did Zoran understand the machine?”

  “No.” The boy took another bite of the apple, content it seemed for me to pursue this line of questions.

  “Yet, they made it draw light in the air?”

  “Yup.”

  “Was that not its function – to draw?”

  “Mr Orville didn’t know for sure. Nor Zoran.”

  “Zoran...?” I sounded the name slowly, letting it roll over my tongue. It felt so familiar. “Zoran. Not Mr Zoran.” The memory came back to me all in a rush. My father telling me stories of other magic shows he had seen in his childhood, other illusionists. There had been a bullet catching act. The Great Zoran.

  What better helper could Mr Orville have employed to understand the arcane machines in the Duke’s workshop? Cryptic devices and hidden mechanisms are the very crux of the bullet catcher’s art. Suddenly the pieces of the puzzle had started to interlock.

  “Did they need help in understanding the machine?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did Zoran send a message to someone, telling of the machine and asking for that help?”

  Tinker nodded.

  “Harry Timpson pitched the big top near the Duke’s estate. But it was no surprise to Mr Orville. They’d invited him.”

  I did not need to wait for Tinker’s confirmation. With each new thought the truth became more obvious. What could have persuaded Timpson to take the Laboratory of Arcane Wonders south across the border into the Kingdom for the first and final time? Only his life’s goal.

  “Tinker? Does the machine make gold?”

  Tinker placed his finger across his lips, signalling that I should speak
no more. It was the only indication he gave of the truth of my words. But it was enough.

  With the Patent Office hard on his heels, Mr Orville had fled, taking the machine with him. First to the Laboratory of Arcane Wonders. What a sanctuary that must have seemed. And how eagerly must Harry Timpson have welcomed him. Then quickly they crossed back across the border, moving on every few days, hard to follow even should the Patent Office realise where he had run to.

  And the loyal boy, Tinker, had come with them.

  Did Mr Orville willingly share his knowledge of the machine? What other choice could he have? Until he learned to harness its power, it was just a box that drew light in the air. How would they work? I pictured Orville and Timpson experimenting together in the dark confines of the windowless wagon. It seemed impossible that light could change lead into gold. But whatever they had discovered together had convinced Timpson he was close to his heart’s desire. His name would be immortal.

  When did Orville see that glint in the great impresario’s opalescent eyes and understand that Harry Timpson would share top billing with no other man? And then the fight. Orville saying some final goodbye to the loyal boy who had followed him, then running in the night, encumbered by his alchemic device.

  Tinker passed the apple back through the bars and placed it in my hand. I took another small bite. Sweet juice flowed around my tongue as I chewed. “Where did he go?”

  “Mustn’t say.”

  “If I’m to help, I need to know.”

  So hard did Tinker press his lips together that they seemed to disappear.

  “Please,” I said.

  Now he placed both hands over his mouth and shook his head.

  Somewhere in the distance a horse’s hooves slowed from a canter to a stop. Sal’s voice called out a greeting. I peered through the crack in the side panels and felt my heart constrict within my chest. The tall grey mare stood near the big top, steam rising from her into the cold morning air. And holding the reins was the Sleepless Man.

  Chapter 25

  To perform the impossible is to show that you have mastered trickery. But to perform the improbable is to leave a suspicion of genius.

  – The Bullet Catcher’s Handbook

  On seeing the Sleepless Man, Tinker’s face flared into an expression of alarm. He dropped the side panel next to the hedge and slipped out, closing it silently behind him. In a second he had disappeared from the narrow crack of my vision.

  The Sleepless Man hurried across the field in the direction of Timpson’s wagon, leaning into his stride as one bent on a single purpose. Silvan met him halfway. The two men put their heads close. Others were watching at a distance, tension written into each frozen posture.

  Silvan called to Sal, pointing in my direction. The giant shook his head in distress, but set out towards me nonetheless. Both lions were on their feet and pacing. The wagon seemed to resonate to their rumbling growls. For a moment, Sal’s frame blocked out my view of the field. Then the side panels were swinging down. He gripped and lifted the iron rod, unlocking the cage. The gate swung open with a metallic clang.

  “Bring your bag,” he said.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  He shook his head. “I trusted you.”

  I could think of no possible reply.

  My first destination was the wagon Timpson had hidden in during the visitation of the Patent Office. Though I had previously paid it no attention, I saw now that thick staves of wood reinforced the door and that its lock was more substantial than any other I had seen in the travelling show. The key appeared large, even in Sal’s huge hand.

  He pushed me inside. “Wait here,” he said, not a trace of irony in his voice as he closed the door. I heard the lock click behind me.

  Unlike Timpson’s wagon, this one allowed in light through a small window high on the right-hand side. Netting hung across the glass. And inside that were two metal bars, each as thick as my thumb. I had assumed that Timpson would keep his valuables close. In a secret compartment of his over-sized wagon. It seemed that I had been wrong.

  There were no chairs or furnishings here. Wood and metal boxes lined the walls, some piled three deep. I stepped along the narrow central aisle, brushing my fingertips over padlocks, metal banding, leather straps, handles and wooden panels worn down in places like the stone steps of an ancient house. Smells of camphor and wood polish pervaded.

  Chinks of light in the floor revealed six small holes, each the size of a penny. I had seen similar things before – anchor points for a belly box suspended between the axles of a wagon. On hands and knees, I placed my eye close to one of the holes and found myself looking at the grass directly below. If a box had once been suspended there, it had since been removed. Feeling through the hole with a finger, I discovered the floor planking had been laid two layers thick.

  Standing again, I turned my attention to the boxes, a few of which were without locks. Opening the largest of these, I found the furnace and bellows from the alchemic display, packed securely with straw. The tongs stood vertically in a corner of the box. Of the crucible there was no sign.

  It was once said of a famous bullet catcher who had been convicted of a capital crime, that in the moments before his execution, he pondered the mechanism of the guillotine, not to find a means of escape, but rather to devise a grand illusion. Could a man be so detached with his head resting on the block?

  Feeling now death’s sharp scythe close behind my own neck, the bullet catcher’s story seemed less fanciful. In the arrangement of props, I found myself taking some small degree of satisfaction. Had the crucible not held the secret of the trick, it would have been packed in the unlocked box with the other things.

  This brief respite from fear ended with the sound of hoof-falls, the jangle of a harness and the shifting of the wagon on its springs. I fell backwards as we began to move. Scrambling to my feet, I gripped the window bars to steady myself and pulled the netting aside. Sal and Fabulo stood watching as we bumped our way over the uneven field and onto the lane.

  The facts of my predicament suggested no good outcome. But it was Sal’s expression of sorrow that drove the knifepoint of dread fully into my chest. Always the man for the dirty job, it would be Silvan at the reins. By the time my body was found, the troop would be long gone.

  Thoughts come swiftly when death is close. I could use the tongs to break the window glass. In the quiet of the lane, the sound might attract attention. I could shift the bottom layer of boxes a few inches and hide between them and the wagon side. I could search for a weapon and defend myself. But rushing after each new idea came a dozen fatal flaws. The lane was quiet because no one was there. No one to hear. Hiding behind a box in a securely locked wagon would deceive no one. And even should I find a blade, what chance would I have against Silvan in a knife fight?

  Though it seemed hopeless, I hefted the metal tongs above my shoulder and brought them crashing against the window. The glass shattered outwards. In three more strikes, I had knocked out most of the remaining shards. If Silvan had heard the noise, he had chosen to ignore it. The window would have been wide enough for me to climb through but for the bars. A contortionist might still manage it. Or a child.

  I opened boxes and crates quickly after that, bracing myself against the rocking of the wagon as it trundled along the pot-holed lane. In one I found fake knives, made from wood but coated in some silvery paint. In another, a great quantity of chain and rope. A third contained metalworking tools, pincers and files, too small and delicate to make any impression on the window bars. I tried them on the padlocked boxes, but could do nothing more than scratch the metal.

  The wagon swung left, throwing me to the floor again. The light through the window lessened. Trees crowded close outside.

  Onwards we rolled. Slower now. Every few moments a wheel would drop into another pothole, sending me tumbling. I could not believe he intended to take me much further.

  The crate of chain and rope was somehow nagging at my tho
ughts. Gripping the lid, I opened it once more. Part of an escape act, it seemed. Lifting out an end of chain, I let the links shift over my fingers.

  The idea was not yet fully formed, but my hands were moving anyway, guiding the end of the chain down to the floor, and into one of the six bolt holes, expecting it to stick, surprised when it slid easily through. At first I fed it from the crate, arm-length at a time. It clinked softly as it went, but as the weight that had already passed through the hole increased, it started to drag behind the wagon, and I found the links twitching and jumping treacherously as they passed over my fingers.

  As the strength of the pull increased, so too did the noise. Loud enough, I feared, for Silvan to hear it over the clatter of wheel rims against the stony track. To release the pressure and quieten the rattling, I hauled out great armfuls of chain from the crate and laid them on the floor. Such was the weight already trailing behind us that should it snag, the wagon would surely come to a juddering stop.

  Then, quite suddenly it seemed, the pile of chain was gone, the last links flicking through like the tail of a snake escaping into a crack in the ground. I looked back into the crate, which was half empty. Only rope remained, which I now removed.

  In a second I had dropped my bag into the crate and clambered in after it. Reaching under my blouse, I unhooked my corset. With the restriction released, I crouched low and started folding myself into the smallest possible space, preparing to pull the rope on top of me and close the lid after that.

  But the illusion was too perfect. The escape impossible.

  Out I jumped, pulling myself up to the window, one hand gripping a bar, bringing my other hand down sharply on the jagged fringe of glass. I felt no pain. Only the welling of blood between my fingers. Wetting both hands, I reached through the window and smeared two prints outside, as if I had climbed through and hauled myself onto the roof.

  Then I was back into the box, hidden under the rope, with the lid closed, feeling more calm than I had right to. Feeling also the slow throb growing in my bloody hand.