West With Giraffes(45)
“Sure glad you saw our sign with this fog, considering those fellers,” Yeller said, nodding at the giraffes. “We’re the only place for miles this side of Muscle Shoals.”
We followed him through the fog as he lit lanterns along the way. Thirty yards past the sleeping trailer we’d rented, he motioned me to park the rig at the camp’s edge under a row of leafy trees, their yellow-washed trunks surrounding us in the deepening fog as if framing the whole world. Hanging his lantern on one of the trees, Yeller waved and headed back toward the neon office light.
Dusk falls queerly in a fog. As we cared for the giraffes, the light around us turned from white-gray to gray to gray-black until the only light left was the glow from the lanterns spread around the deserted camp. The Old Man announced he’d take the first sleeping shift as usual and headed back to our trailer.
But I didn’t do the usual. I didn’t crawl up and stretch out on the plank between the two giraffes to gaze at the stars. I wouldn’t be seeing any stars that night, but it wasn’t the fault of the fog. In fact, as soon as the giraffes were chewing their cud, I closed their windows and top for the night before they had time to move toward me, closing my heart for the night as well. As I sat down on the running board, tetchy and worn out, my mind still full of murdered tramps and rubber cows and runaway wives, I wasn’t sure what to fret over first. I had to remind myself we’d be hitting Memphis tomorrow. Only one more day and none of it will matter anymore. I’ll be on my California way, I kept repeating, and soon I was lost in puffed-up thoughts of riding in a fancy train Pullman headed to the land of milk and honey, where I’d live like a king plucking fruit from the trees and grapes from the vine and sipping from the cool, clear rivers.
All I had to do was get to tomorrow.
Bracing for a longer night than usual, I looked around for Red to show up before I remembered I didn’t much want her to. But that didn’t keep me from expecting her. In fact, I expected it so much that when I saw something move, I got up to face Mrs. Augusta Red.
Instead, from the shadows came a tall figure, strolling like he was taking a walk in the woods. He was almost to me before I saw his face, and what seemed to come out of the fog first was his handlebar mustache. It was the potbellied man from the train—wearing a yellow cutaway suit with a red bowtie and knee boots—like he’d jumped off the train’s poster, the ringmaster come to life. He even had on the top hat. Then I noticed he had something in his hand. It was an ivory-handled cane, and I was wishing for the Old Man’s shotgun, having heard of firearms hidden in such sticks.
“Percival T. Bowles at your service,” he said, tipping his top hat. “And who might you be?”
“Not sure that’s any of your business,” I said, eyes on the cane.
He placed both hands atop the cane. “You look like a fine young man. Maybe you saw our circus train, Bowles & Waters Traveling Circus Extravaganza,” he went on, showing his coyote teeth in what I took to be a smile.
“I saw.”
He drummed the top of his cane with his fat fingers. “Don’t talk much, do you? Mark of a wise man. You like the circus, son?”
“Don’t call me son.”
“Ah. A particular man as well as a wise man. I respect that,” he said, then went right on. “We’re right down the road. Two performances tonight. On my way back there now, as you can see,” he added, nodding at his clothes. He pulled some tickets from his breast pocket. “Here’s some free passes, if you’d care to join us. Ringmaster’s deluxe.”
“Don’t want ’em.”
He flashed that coyote smile again. “Don’t blame you a bit. You got a circus right here, don’t you?”
As he put the tickets back in his breast pocket, his cutaway coat opened enough for me to spy a holstered gun on his hip.
He saw that I saw.
“Ah.” He fingered it. “Did I forget to mention I’m also the lion tamer? A lion tamer never knows when he’ll have to take down an animal, you know.” Resting his hand back on top of the other, he gazed past me at the rig. “This is some fine job you got here.”
“Not a job,” I said. “Just driving them.”
“Well, now, I’d give you a job. I’m about to be doing some hiring. Expecting to have giraffes very soon myself.”
The hackles on the back of my neck were standing straight up. It was the feeling I used to get while hunting in the Panhandle brush, like a wild pair of eyes was watching me. I squinted into the fog all around us as the ringmaster parked his cane over an arm and pulled something new out of his breast pocket. He palmed it, then opened his fist and held it toward me. It was a twenty-dollar double-eagle gold piece, the first I’d seen in my life, and the tree lantern’s glow made it look all the more golden.
“Heads up!” he said, then tossed it to me.
I caught it and it was all I could do not to close my fist around the piece of gold. “Feels nice, doesn’t it?” he said, reaching over and scooping it out of my palm. “You a betting man? I’m sure you’d agree fifty-fifty odds are pretty good, correct? How’d you like this double eagle? All you got to do is call heads or tails and it could be yours.” He flipped the coin and slapped it onto the back of his hand. “Call it.”
When I didn’t do so, he cocked his head. “Come now, young man. Which is it? Heads? Or tails? If you win, you don’t have to take it. It’s all in good fun.”