Unraveled

by Reavis Z. Wortham

  “Well, it’d be fun if we went and you didn’t work. You promise not to talk business?”

  He realized she’d seen through the idea. He wanted to spend some time with the customers he recognized, looking for information, because he still couldn’t get his mind off the accident. “All right. We can go once all this is wrapped up. But we’re here tonight. I promise you a lot of fun, how about that?”

  “Rides?”

  “None that’ll make me sick.”

  “Well then, we’ll probably wind up on the carousel or one of those little kid rides that move plywood boats or cars in a circle.”

  “Any of that’d make me dizzy for sure. We can fool around in the Tunnel of Love, or I’ll grab your butt in the Funhouse.”

  “All right, you can have your way with me in a cheesy little cart, but you have to buy me a hotdog and some cotton candy first.”

  “Deal.”

  Norma Faye gathered her purse and didn’t notice Cody’s frown as he saw Royal and Cecil Clay loafing near the entrance gate, looking like they were waiting for someone.

  His stomach tightened when Royal spat a stream a tobacco juice in the direction of Bryce Mayfield who ignored the challenge and stopped at the first game at the entrance, to lose some of his hard-earned money at the Bottle Toss.

  Chapter Forty-seven

  The Wraith studied the face in the mirror. It wasn’t his and he ached for the times past when he could simply be himself. It wouldn’t be long now.

  ***

  The Skydiver reminded Cody of a small, vicious twirler’s baton with caged passengers pivoting on the ends of the spinning arm. Cody shook his head, knowing he’d lose his supper if he ever let someone lock him into one of the tiny metal chicken coops.

  Norma Faye eyes glittered. “I would have loved that when I was a kid.”

  “Not me. I like having both feet on the ground.”

  The redhead laughed and bumped him with a hip. “I bet Pepper’d like it.”

  “Go home and get her then, if you want to ride that thing. It looks dangerous to me.”

  “I don’t have to.” Norma Faye pointed.

  Cody followed her finger and spotted their urchins in the moving crowd. Knowing Ned had to be close, he scanned the people until he found him near the ticket booth.

  Screams of pretend terror filled the air and Cody turned back to the ride. The cages spun on their axis and he watched for another minute in the middle of a steady stream of people jostling past. Some ignored the badge and sheriff’s patch on Cody’s shirt. Others nodded hello and stopped to visit for a moment.

  A flicker caught Cody’s attention and he looked past the strings of light bulbs outlining the carnival’s perimeter. Heat lightning to the north fractured a distant line of clouds. It was obviously psychological, but Cody thought he immediately smelled damp ground and rain, thinking the old-timers always said if you smelled rain, it wouldn’t fall.

  A local farmer gave Cody’s arm a pat as he passed. He caught sight of a familiar figure and let go of Norma Faye’s hand. He laughed. “Ike Reader! What are you doing here again? I thought you might’ve got enough of this fair last weekend.”

  Obviously embarrassed, Ike stopped. “Listen. Howdy Cody. Norma Faye.”

  She reached out and hugged Ike’s neck. “How are you this evening?”

  He hugged her back, but he looked as if he’d bitten into a green persimmon.

  Cody noticed Ike couldn’t take his eyes off the badge pinned to his shirt. “Something wrong, Ike?”

  “What?” He backed up. “Nothin’. Listen, I’m fine..”

  “You’re acting like a cat in a doghouse.”

  “Well, there ain’t nothing.”

  Ike stiffened and Cody followed his gaze. A clown passed, selling brightly colored helium balloons.

  Cody grinned. “I figured you’d fight shy of this place, what with all the clowns everwhere.”

  Ike drug his eyes off the clown. “Listen, listen. I came to see what I missed the other night. What with the murder and all, I didn’t get back in to get my money’s worth.”

  “Anything special?” Norma Faye’s expression was as mischievous as an imp.

  Ike looked as if he wanted to melt into the ground. “Not that I can think of.”

  Cody let him off the hook. “I’m not here working tonight. You go ahead on and see your show.”

  “Well then.” Ike shuffled his feet a couple of times and left. “I’ll be seein’ y’all.”

  Norma Faye jabbed Cody with her elbow. “You’re mean. You know good and well he’s here to see that girly show.”

  “Yeah, but he needed to pay twice. This was the second time.”

  “It’ll be four, big boy. Twice there at the gate, and once here with you and then they ask for even more money to get in that hot tent.”

  A deep metallic boom sounded as if an artillery shell had exploded nearby. They felt it in their chests and it rolled over the fairgrounds, banging harsh and painful over the music and carnival noise. At first Cody thought someone had set off a stick of dynamite. He hadn’t heard anything like that since he left Vietnam.

  A second slam of steel against steel echoed the first. He whirled to see a car on the Skydiver had come loose just as it passed the loading gate, catching the steel railings and throwing it halfway into the midway. The massive arm spun one last squealing revolution before grinding to a stop with one of the twin cages twisted between the pivot’s forks at the two-o’clock position high above the ground. It appeared to be held into place by only a pin on the side.

  Cody pushed through the retreating crowd. “Get out of the way! Get away!”

  The line waiting for their turn dissolved as people of all ages scattered and ran from the accident. Sure the car was about to fall, Norma Faye raced behind, grabbing gawkers by blouses and sleeves and jerking them away from the accident. She snatched two stunned youngsters away from the damaged loading ramp.

  The Skydiver operator barely out of high school slapped the red kill switch and backed away, neck craned upward. The straining motor grew quiet. In the aftermath, those on other rides continued to spin and shriek in glee while the music blared as if all were normal.

  Instead of screams from happy riders, cries of horror created an entirely different sound that came from Hell itself. Cody looked up to see fingers wiggling through the cage’s mesh, looking for a way out. Cupping both hands around his mouth, he shouted at the frightened passengers. “Stay still!” He turned toward the operator. “Do you have any chain?”

  “Chain? Naw.” The young man shrugged. “What do you need that for?”

  “Give me your belt. Now!”

  The operator responded as if surrendering his belt was an everyday order. Cody snatched it from his hand, pushed the prong through the first hole, and dropped the loop over his head in a bizarre necklace. He pointed at another man’s waist and he too slipped his belt free of the loops and passed it over.

  Cody unbuckled his gun belt and handed it to Norma Faye. “Hang on to this.” He collected two more belts, added his own, and dropped the loops over his head. “Hold on girls!” He grabbed a strut and climbed up onto the bent handrail.

  Ignoring the questions and warnings that followed, he scaled the wheel’s superstructure. Forcing himself not to look down, he kept an eye on the wedged cage high above. “Hang on up there! Be still so you won’t fall.”

  Customers trapped in the other undamaged cage near the ground screamed and beat on the mesh as he climbed. “Y’all quit! Be still! You’re fine, but I need to get up to the top. There’s people hurt up there.”

  He didn’t know for sure, but he wanted to appeal to their sympathies. If no one was hurt, it was okay for a rescuer to move past for the moment.

  It didn’t take long to reach the damaged car. The tear-streaked faces of two pale you
ng women appeared in the darkness and pressed against the interwoven mesh sides. From his position below, the car was angled above his head and the girls were forced against the side of the woven steel. Already battered and bruised, they strained to keep from pressing their bare arms further into the mesh.

  Cody’s hands were oily and he took care in wiping one after the other on his khakis. “Don’t move. Y’all hurt?”

  The tiny voice of a college-age girl barely reached his ears. “I think my arm’s broke.”

  “You’ll be fine then. Now, don’t move at all. I don’t know how tight this thing’s wedged, but it might come loose if y’all don’t listen. Who’s in there?”

  “Belinda’s arm’s broke for sure. I’m Sandy.” Her voice trembled. “What are you gonna do?” She pressed the palms of her hands against the sides as if they were made of glass.

  “I haven’t decided yet, but it won’t be right this minute.” He inspected the forked superstructure and noticed one side of the pivot pin was completely free from the bushing. It meant the entire cage was held into place by friction and a single bolt. He swallowed a lump in his throat. “I intend to use these belts to strap this thing tight until the fire department gets here with a ladder, but y’all lay still.” He gave them a grin. “It’s a good thing neither one of you’s no bigger’n a minute. You’re gonna be fine.”

  Belinda shivered as if she were cold, rattling a loose piece of metal. “You promise?”

  Cody winked at the girl, wondering if she was already going into shock. “Sure ’nough.”

  It wasn’t easy. Standing on one foot, Cody wrapped his other leg around an exterior spoke and held on. He looped an arm around the same spoke and hugged it as tight as possible. Slipping one belt at a time over his head, he uncoupled them and wrapped them around the outside rim of the wheel and the cage’s brace. The first one took longer than he expected and his leg supporting most of the weight started to quiver.

  Cody almost fell off when a voice spoke beside him. “Hold on honey.”

  His head snapped around. “Norma Faye! Get the hell off here. You’re gonna fall.”

  “Nope.” She picked her way up behind him. “And you aren’t either.” In the next instant, she reached both arms around him and grabbed onto the nearest supports. Pulling tight, she pressed against his back, securing her husband against the strut. “I’ll hold you against here until you get those belts tight.”

  He felt surprisingly safe. “Let me know when you get tired.”

  “I will.”

  “You know what?”

  “What?”

  “It’s a good thing you didn’t wear a dress tonight.”

  He felt her stomach muscles contract in laughter at the thought of the show she might have provided to those watching from below.

  Cody chuckled and went back to the job at hand. “This won’t take a minute. Girls, stay still.” Both hands free, he quickly wrapped the belts around the brackets and tightened them down.

  The third one was in place when still another body appeared on the opposite side. “Be still girls.” The carnival’s owner, Delmar Hopkins, scrambled higher as if he’d spent his whole life crawling high above the ground. Chains rattled in his hands and he threw one loose end over a second strut farther up. “Hold onto that end, Sheriff.”

  Using one hand, Cody held the chain in place as Delmar slung the other end around the cage’s main support and through a brace. He slipped a padlock through the links and snapped it shut. “That should do it for now.” Delmar gave the cage a pat, feeling the girl’s fingertips extended beyond the mesh. “Fire department’s on the way.”

  Sandy shook her head. “Don’t go.”

  Cody felt Norma Faye work her way out from behind him and glanced down to see her moving slowly toward the ground. “You gals hang tight. You’re not gonna fall now. This whole thing is steady and my legs are getting tired. We’re climbing down, but the fire trucks are on the way to get you down with a ladder and believe it or not, they’re just gonna open this door and you’ll be able to leave the way you came in.”

  Belinda was silent as he started down. He winked up at the girls. “Y’all done good.”

  Norma Faye was already on the ground by the time Cody joined her. Smeared in dirt and grease, they trembled against each other on weak legs.

  Sirens wailed in the distance. Cody pressed his forehead against hers. “Girl, you’re something else.”

  “Great date, buster. You should be glad we’re married, because this kind of thing could make a girl reconsider.”

  Ned appeared in the dusk and squinted up at the ride. “It don’t look like you can go to the fair without getting in trouble, neither.”

  Norma Faye threw her head back and laughed. “We came here looking for some excitement.”

  “Well, you dern sure found it.”

  Chapter Forty-eight

  We hardly made it halfway down the midway when we heard the Skydiver’d gone haywire. Pepper grabbed Mark’s hand and they cleared a path back through the crowd. I limped along behind, trying not to get my cotton candy on everyone who was jostling along in the same direction.

  The crowd was packed tight like boys do when someone gets into a fight on the schoolyard. We didn’t need to get close, though, because I saw Uncle Cody climbing his way up the wheel. The Skydiver wasn’t but half as tall as the Ferris wheel and it was a good thing, because when Uncle Cody reached the cage that was broke, he had to wrap one leg around a support strut.

  It was hard to tell what he was doing up there, but I knew him well enough to know that whatever it was, it needed to be done.

  Pepper gasped a second later when she saw Norma Faye shinnying her way up behind Uncle Cody. “Why, I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  Mark’s blue-black hair shimmered in the lights as he shook his head back and forth. “I can’t believe this family.” Since they were in front of me, I saw their fingers twined together while we watched the rescue. “She’s something else.”

  Pepper gave his hand a jerk while people around me jabbered to one another, carrying on like their own people were up there in trouble. A white-haired feller joined Uncle Cody and Norma Faye, and pretty soon they were finished with what they needed to do. They came scampering down quick as you please.

  I had no doubt Grandpa was in the middle of it too and I suddenly had an idea. The people up there were safe, and nothing would happen until a fire truck out of Chisum showed up. It’d take them a while to get those folks down, and all the while Uncle Cody and Grandpa would be tied up right where they were.

  I’d been thinking about the girly shows Mr. Floyd Cass was talking about up at the store and decided right then and there I wanted to see what was in that tent at the far end of the midway. I didn’t for sure know what was in a girly show, but it sounded like something I needed to see. Pepper and Mark were sure to spend the rest of the night making goo-goo eyes at one another, and I didn’t want to be the third wheel through all of it.

  It was a suddenly delicious feeling that swarmed over me. I was doing something I wanted, without Pepper leading, and it was a bona fide sin to boot. I was darned near grown.

  Maybe I’d see some lady with tattoos shimmying up on a stage, her hair all wild and dancing like that skinny little Goldie Hawn on Laugh In that came on television every Monday night. There were girls in California dancing at a place called the Whiskey a Go-Go I’d read about in The Police Gazette and I figured they’d be something to see. The girls in the canvas tent not far away might even be topless and I wanted to be able to tell Mark I’d seen a pair of yabbos, something I figured he hadn’t even seen yet.

  I knew for sure and for certain I wasn’t gonna get through the front flap, but all I needed was to sneak under the tent and get a peek at what was going on inside. Then I could find them again later.

  I backed up and limped away qui
ck as I could. Neither Pepper or Mark knew I was gone. The Midway was as empty as I’d ever seen one, what with everyone at the gate end watching the excitement. Even the game barkers were standing on their counters, trying to see through the lights and over the crowd.

  I handed a surprised little girl my cotton candy and made good time going opposite the flow. No one was paying me any mind, because a kid on the midway was nothing more than an ant on a red ant bed.

  Since we left early the first night we were there, none of us made it to the far end of the midway. Little kids’ rides and some of the flashiest attractions were behind me. The line of games on both sides petered out and at the Funhouse on my left. I stopped for a minute to watch two girls feeling their way through the glass and mirror maze right there in the middle and up front for everyone to see. One of them bumped her nose and squealed so loud I heard it through the glass. Her friend laughed and used both hands to feel her way inside and out of sight.

  It looked like fun, and I was tempted to go in myself, but I decided to wait for Pepper and Mark. It’d be better with the three of us wartin’ one another. Once past the Funhouse everything was a little darker and seedy. It was louder, too, with the rattle of gas generators overpowering the music.

  Colored tents lined both sides with men in rumpled suits standing on knocked-together stages made of raw lumber. Some of the tents had painted canvas banners with strange-looking people on them. One was a fat lady, another a strongman. To my right was a tired-looking tent behind a sign that said I could see the world’s smallest horse.

  I stopped and turned in a slow circle.

  Freaks!

  Oddities!

  World’s Strangest!

  Two-headed Lamb!

  World’s Most Tattooed People!

  No Bones in Her Body!