Tiger's Chance

by H. V. Elkin

  “Yes,” Bean said. “You could do that. But I don’t know why you’d want to bother. I was you, I’d go saddle up right this minute.” Bean was also watching the rider approach.

  “Not tryin’ to get rid of me, are you, Judge?”

  “Why’d I want to do that?”

  “Wouldn’t know, but you’re not makin’ me feel real welcome, just the same.”

  “Man’s got to do what he feels is right,” Bean said. “You don’t feel welcome, then you ought to go where you do.”

  The rider turned out to be Sam coming back. Before he pulled up, Bean gave Cutler a hard look, but Cutler did not move. Then Sam sat on his horse in front of the porch, the dust he had kicked up settling apathetically around him. Sam looked from Bean to Cutler, then back to Bean again.

  Bean sighed. “Go ahead. What is it?”

  “Well sir, Pa,” Sam said, “we lost some sheep last night.”

  “How?”

  “Hard to say. Looked like something bit ’em at the back of the neck. Got half a dozen dead that way in just the one herd. Haven’t checked the others yet.”

  Bean asked, “Does that way of killin’ ring a bell for you, Sam?”

  “You bet.”

  “So did you have time to check up on that?”

  “Sure did. Went right over to the circus. Nobody’s up there yet. But I went on into the animal tent, and guess what?”

  “You found an empty tiger cage,” Bean said.

  “That’s right, Pa. The one they called Anna. She was gone.”

  Bean turned to Cutler. “Well what do you make of that, Cutler? Figure it’s just a coincidence my sheep are dead and the tiger cage’s empty, do you?”

  “I don’t know,” Cutler said. “Don’t know if I believe in coincidences anymore.” And he started off to get his horse.

  Chapter Five

  Bean’s killed sheep were not Cutler’s concern. Nor was the escaped tiger. He figured the circus people would know how to deal with a situation like that. Cutler’s concern was the circus people themselves. He rode off toward the circus lot that morning to see if anyone was hurt. And to see if he could help the troupe during what might be a very difficult time. So he thought.

  In reality, two other things best explained why he was riding toward the circus. And he was not thinking about them.

  One was that it was just about time for something important to happen, and he was ready for it. For weeks now he had been stuck in a kind of vague search, traveling many miles toward something that might not and—as it turned out—did not exist. But Iris had planted the seed in his mind that, whether or not he found his bear, he was sure to find something. She was able to plant that seed because the soil of his mind was fertile and ready to receive it. Every time before when he did not get his bear there had been something else to take its place, He learned something about other men or about himself, or he had been around when somebody else needed to learn something from him. So after the weeks in limbo leading to nothing, the news of the escaped tiger made something click in Cutler’s mind. He had a strong, unshakeable sense that this was what he was there for. But now it materialized in a conscious concern about the welfare and safety of the circus people.

  The other thing Cutler was ignoring was that when he heard of the escaped Tiger, the first image that flashed in his mind was the face of a nimble bareback rider who became strangely doe-eyed and without coordination on the ground. Cutler liked strong, independent women like Iris, but there was something about Molly Barrie that struck a chord in him, one that had not been played for a long time. That became unconscious the instant it appeared in his mind, and it was translated into a general concern for all the circus people.

  Men of action need to simplify their motives. They are able to hurry somewhere to do something. Cutler raced Apache across the distance between Langtry and the circus lot. No Airedale this time. No mules and wagon. Just fast transportation.

  He soon outdistanced Roy Bean, now back there somewhere behind Apache’s dust, riding at a slow gallop on his dun horse Bayo.

  Sam had been sent off in another direction to check on other sheep herds.

  Cutler could see people rushing about the tent when he pulled up. But each person slowed down, imitating normal movement, when he saw Cutler. As soon as Cutler was out of the saddle, Molly came running up to him, a frightened look in her eyes, and she seemed headed for a comforting embrace. But she stopped short, looking beyond Cutler to Bean riding toward them from a distance. Before Bean got there, Maroney appeared.

  “John,” he said, “are you here as a deputy ... or what?”

  “As a friend,” Cutler said, and noticed that that made Molly look relieved. “As a deputy if you need me that way, but as a friend either way.”

  Maroney was about to say something when he saw Bean approaching. Then he only waited. Bean rode up and looked down at them from his horse.

  “Good morning, Judge,” Maroney said, smiling. “You are early.”

  Bean stared at Maroney a moment, then dismounted. “Let’s take a look at your animals,” he said.

  “They are being fed now,” Maroney said. “Best not to disturb them now.”

  “He knows,” Cutler said.

  Maroney’s face fell. “I am sorry.”

  “It’s true then,” Bean said. “You got yourself an empty cage.”

  Maroney nodded wearily. “During the night sometime.”

  “You know what I got?” Bean asked.

  Maroney shook his head.

  “I got some dead sheep,” Bean said. “You got an empty cage and I got dead sheep.”

  “Are you sure . . . ?”

  “Bit at the back of the neck, Sam tells me.”

  “You will be recompensed,” Maroney said. “I ask your patience, and I am sure this will all be settled soon.”

  “How many more sheep you figure it’ll cost us before it’s settled?”

  “There is a hunt out now,” Maroney said. “Animals have escaped before, though without the loss of property to others. However, we have recaptured them in a matter of hours. Please do not concern yourself, Judge.”

  “Well, as the law around here,” Bean said, “I got to be concerned. I look around here, and I see all these people, and I wonder who in the hell’s out lookin’ for that tiger.”

  “Eric.”

  “One man?”

  Maroney nodded. “At his request. He is responsible for the cats, and he wanted to capture Anna by himself.”

  “That ain’t no cage out there. That’s open space! And there’s a hell of a lot of places in the rocks for a cat to hole up. How’s one man gonna get her?”

  Maroney got angry. “He is not just any man, Judge! He is the trainer! He trained Anna from a wild beast! No one knows her as he does! Am I, a ringmaster, supposed to contradict the opinion of an expert on tigers?!”

  Bean shook his head. “That’s up to you, I guess. All I know’s it ain’t the way we’d handle it around here. We’d have a whole posse out lookin’. But, okay, that’s up to you. Now I’ll tell you what’s up to me. I’m gonna have to warn folks hereabouts that there’s a crazy tiger loose. I’m gonna have to tell them to stay home to guard their stock, and keep their women and children behind doors. That’s what I’m gonna have to do for the voters around here.”

  “Are you saying there will be no show today?” Maroney asked.

  “That’s your business. You do whatever you’ve a mind to. But I’m here to tell you that, if you do put on a show, there won’t be nobody here to see it.”

  “Judge Bean, we are here this extra day at your request. I cannot afford a day without a show.”

  “Well, I’m sorry about that, Maroney. My heart goes out to you. I don’t want to see your circus go bankrupt. But my feelin’s about that ain’t worth a flea’s ass anymore.” He looked at Molly and went red. He lowered his voice. “My apologies, Miss Barrie.” Then, looking a little chagrined, he turned back to Maroney. “Nothin’ changes the fac
t that I got to protect my constituents until you get your tiger back. So gettin’ that tiger back is gonna be best for everybody, you, my people and my sheep. That’s what it all boils down to. The sooner the better.” He got back on his horse. “I hope you’ll have some good news for me by nightfall. You comin’, Cutler?”

  Cutler shook his head. “I’ll stay and see if there’s anything I can do to help.”

  Bean looked unhappy about that. “What can you do?”

  “Don’t know. I catch wild animals myself, once in a while.”

  “This is a foreign one,” Bean reminded him. “These circus folk know best about their animals.”

  “Never know,” Cutler said. “Anyway, I’ll stay on a while . . . unless I’d be in the way.” He looked at Maroney.

  “I would consider it a favor,” Maroney said.

  “Well,” Cutler grinned, “sounds like you can’t afford me, so a favor’s what it would be.”

  “We can give you a meal,” Maroney said.

  “Right now,” Cutler said, “I’d consider that a favor.”

  “Well,” Bean said, “in that case, you can stay. As my deputy, I’m instructin’ you to see that this circus stays right where it is until they got their tiger back and paid any debts caused by the tiger. Don’t want you leavin’ the lot unless it’s to come report to me. Don’t want you leavin’ to go off on any hunts.” Before Cutler was able to say anything to that, Bean swung Bayo around and trotted off.

  Maroney looked from the retreating figure back to Cutler. “It would seem your office has become more than an honorary one to allow you to carry your gun.”

  Cutler grinned. “He didn’t give me a chance to say no, did he?”

  “It is my understanding that no man says no to Judge Bean about anything.”

  “He rode off so fast,” Cutler said, “like he was afraid I was gonna.”

  “Well,” Maroney said, “perhaps that is one way the judge keeps his reputation. However, I would like to know—and I will not go away before you answer—are you still here as a friend?”

  Cutler looked at Molly and nodded.

  Maroney smiled. “Good. You have no need to worry about whether or not you carry out the judge’s commission. We would not think of stealing away with a tiger loose. Even if it were to mean the end of the Great Maroney Circus, we cannot move on and leave a responsibility behind us. Yes, even if it were to mean the end of us.”

  “There much danger of that?”

  “It is not a pleasant subject before breakfast. Come.”

  They went and helped themselves to coffee from one of the cauldrons over an open campfire. Maroney excused himself and left Cutler with Molly. They watched him as he went to a man chopping meat and throwing it over his head to a cook who stood behind a large stove on the back of a wagon. Maroney said something to them, and they smiled. Then Maroney went on into the mess tent where he was seen patting shoulders, making jokes, raising the spirits of his people.

  “He don’t seem too bothered about all this,” Cutler said.

  Molly looked shyly up at him. “He’d be happy to hear you say that. That’s what he wants everyone to believe.”

  “You mean it’s play-actin’?”

  “Many of these people have been with Fred from the early days when he was only a partner, before the circus was all his. He feels a responsibility to them. You heard what he said about not sneaking away from here and leaving a responsibility behind. You can believe that, John. Fred is a man who takes his responsibilities seriously.”

  “What’ll all these people do if the circus folds?”

  “They’ll put on brave smiles, most of them, and drift on, hoping to find something else they can connect up with. It would be a great loss for them. It’s like a family we have here. It’s different to travel as a group as we do, different from drifting separately. But I’m sure you know all about that.”

  “Yeah, I guess I do.”

  “It’s one thing,” she said, “to know you’re heading for a show some place, and after that there will be another place waiting for you. It’s another thing not to know, to hope you’ll be lucky enough to find something ahead of you and waiting for you. If the circus folds, there will be forty more drifters in this part of the West.”

  “It ain’t an easy life,” Cutler admitted.

  “Especially difficult for people who love the work they do now and who are afraid they may have to end their days doing something else to survive. Are you hungry? Shall we go in?”

  “Just a minute,” he said. “You got any idea how that tiger got out?”

  She looked at the ground a moment, then back up at Cutler. “Yes, I do. For many days now Anna has been nervous about something, each day getting worse. The other night when I went to check on the animals, I heard someone leaving the menagerie tent, and there was a feeding fork left lying on the ground near Anna’s cage. I believe she was being tormented in her cage. When you said something was happening so she no longer felt safe in the cage that had been her home, I think you were right.”

  ‘Then you think somebody got her so mad she had to break out of her cage?”

  “No,” she said. “I think someone let her out of her cage, on purpose.”

  “Then you got yourself a black sheep in this happy little family of yours.”

  “In some ways, that hurts most of all.”

  “Any idea who it would be?”

  “None. The enemy has to be someone who masquerades as a friend.”

  “Anybody stand to gain from the circus foldin’?”

  “No one.”

  “Then it’s just somebody who’s crazy? Ready to cut off his nose to spite his face?”

  “It is the only explanation I can think of.”

  “It can be like that sometimes,” he said. “I’ve seen it happen a lot.”

  She looked up troubled. “What?”

  He put an arm around her shoulders. “Lots of times when there’s a rogue animal, there turns out to be a rogue man, too.”

  Near dusk Bean sent his son to see if the tiger had been caught. Hansen had not returned yet, and Cutler was beginning to wonder if the hunted had captured the hunter. Sam waited around and seemed to take a strange pleasure in the predicament of the circus. At least he was able to tell them that none of the other sheep herds had been disturbed the night before.

  About a half-hour after Sam arrived, they saw Hansen coming back. He was riding one of Molly’s horses, wore his revolver, and had the whip dangling from the saddle horn next to a rope. He had obviously been unsuccessful. But if Cutler had seen him ride out like that, he would have guessed the man was not going to come back with a tiger.

  “Not a trace,” Hansen told them. “Not even a track to follow.”

  Sam shook his head. ‘That’s too bad. That means you folks are gonna have to stay here another day, maybe longer.”

  Those were not the words Cutler expected to come out of Sam’s mouth, so Cutler asked the question Sam might have asked himself. “You get near the sheep that were attacked?”

  “Yes, I did,” Hansen said. “Of course I did.”

  “That was lucky, up to a point.”

  “What do you mean? Where else would I go?”

  “But you couldn’t have known about them sheep when you left here, not unless you had a little talk with Sam this mornin’.”

  “No,” Hansen said. “I just happened to come on the herd and got the story from the shepherd.”

  “See what I mean?” Cutler asked, beginning to feel he was toying with some kind of prey before moving in for the kill. “Lucky, like I said. Was it the tiger that did the killin’?”

  “No question.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because they were killed the way a tiger kills. She jumps on the back and bites the neck, right at the base of the brain. That’s what happened to those sheep.”

  “But you didn’t see any trace of the tiger.”

  “No.”

  “No tra
cks around where she’d been doin’ all that killin’?”

  Hansen got flustered. “Sure there were. Of course there were tracks there, but they’d been all mixed up by the sheep.”

  “No tracks goin’ away from the sheep?”

  “Sure there were. But they went over a lot of rock and got lost.”

  “Yeah,” Cutler acted sympathetic, “tracks have a way of doin’ that all right.”

  “What’s going on here?” Hansen shouted. “Fred, are you putting this man up to something?”

  “No,” Maroney said. “What are you talking about?”

  “Well, I don’t know,” Hansen said. “But this is beginning to feel a little like I was answering questions in a court.” He turned on Cutler. “You been taking lessons from your friend Bean?”

  Sam chuckled to himself and said nothing.

  Maroney said, “Take it easy, Eric. John is just as concerned about getting that tiger as we are.”

  “Why? What’s it to him?”

  “He is a friend.”

  “Well, he’s not acting like one to me.”

  “Easy, Eric,” Cutler said. “What’re you actin’ so guilty about?”

  “Guilty?” Hansen’s hand tightened around the whip handle. He glanced around at the faces of the others, stopping at Sam who had stopped grinning. Then he snapped around to lock his eyes on Cutler’s. “Are you implying something, Cutler?”

  Cutler looked innocent. “Implyin’? No, I’m just tryin’ to put a few things together so they add up right.”

  “What are you having trouble putting together, Cutler?”

  “Well, fact that you just happened to go to the sheep herd without knowin’ there’d been trouble there. Fact that you couldn’t find a trail to follow after that ...”

  “I think those things have been explained already. Was there something else?”

  “Just one other thing. Now, I’m not a tiger trainer, so it might just be a matter of ignorance. But I can’t figure how you expected to catch a tiger on open range with just the gear I see you carryin’. That little gun and your whip might be okay in a cage, but I can’t see how they’d be very good out of a cage.”

  “You see I’ve got a rope, don’t you?”