West With Giraffes(57)

The Old Man was talking. “You’ve never been to a zoo, have you? Don’t tell fancy four-eyes, but while the animals seem healthy enough, this zoo’s a sideshow compared to the San Diego Zoo.” He waved toward the front. “Stroll around if you want, but don’t let the darlings out of your sight. I’m going to get a real meal with this sawed-off pal of the Boss Lady’s, and I’ll bring you some back in an hour. Best I relieve you early as well, to make sure you sleep good. Here on out, who knows what kind of sleep we’ll be getting.”

Then he was gone.

I stood there feeling buckshot, gazing up at the giraffes in a way I hadn’t allowed myself since Yeller’s because of guilt. Girl’s and Boy’s mighty snouts were peeking out the top, their tongues reaching for the sycamore branches, and the sight gave me a stab of such pure feeling that my knees buckled. I had to put a hand on the rig’s fender to steady myself, overwhelmed by the full weight of the last two days as I drank in the sight of the two gentle, forever-forgiving giraffes . . .

. . . who deserve better than me.

Something had gone and changed without me looking. I was barely recognizing myself. Keeping Percival Bowles’s double eagle and pocket fortune? That didn’t surprise me a lick. I did both without a thought. The shot I fired to protect Girl from the lackeys? I did that without thought, too, like I was protecting my own. But they weren’t my own. I had as little claim on them as I did on Red. And now I was about to hazard going back through the Panhandle for a couple of animals that weren’t even mine? I rocked back on my bootheels, skittish as a calf, knowing this time I had to cut and run . . . yet each glance at the giraffes was like a knife to the heart. I didn’t want to go back to the life of a stray-dog boy, but wasn’t it better than what might be waiting for me if I drove back into my Panhandle past?

At that moment, like a sign, I heard a freight train. It was coming this way.

Forcing my eyes from the giraffes, I moved toward the front of the little zoo. The chattering people still inside were all heading for the exit. Muscling up my runaway courage, I stared at the exit, my fist clutching the gold coin in my pocket. I can find my own way to Californy, I told myself. I still got the twenty-dollar gold piece . . . I’ll be fine. The giraffes don’t need me. They’ll be fine, too . . . They won’t even notice I’m gone. And the Old Man? He’ll stomp on that crummy fedora, then the bowler-hat guy will find him a real driver to get the giraffes to Mrs. Benchley just fine . . . more than fine . . .

People were trickling by me, vanishing through the exit. I took several big breaths and joined them. As I stepped into the crowd, though, someone grabbed my arm. I whirled around, ready as always for a scrap.

It was Red, holding her camera with one hand and putting her arm through mine with the other.

“Stretch, there you are!” she was saying. “Are the giraffes OK? Who were those awful men yesterday? I almost lost you in the fog, and found the rig like that and—”

“Where did you go?” I said, cutting her off.

Her eyes took on the look of a doe in headlights. “Nowhere. I was a bit delayed.”

“I keep thinking I’m saying goodbye to you.”

She squeezed my arm. “Everything holds a goodbye someday, Woody. But not us, not yet. Now tell me what happened! Those men were trying to steal the giraffes, weren’t they? And you shot one—I saw you! You could’ve killed him!”

“I winged him,” I grumbled, wondering why everybody was questioning my shooting skills. “If I’d wanted to kill him, he’d be dead.”

Red gave me the same funny look the Old Man did. “What did the police say?”

“They didn’t say anything. He didn’t call ’em.”

“Mr. Jones didn’t call the police? Why not! Tell me everything!”

But I didn’t feel much like doing that, thinking more about police bulletins and runaway wives than fat cats and circus lackeys. Instead I said, “Why didn’t you stay to see for yourself?”

She paused. “I was certain Mr. Jones would call the authorities, and I thought it best if I didn’t get involved.”

“Why not?” I pushed.

Letting go of my arm, she changed the subject. “Isn’t that the saddest thing outside?” She nodded toward the park’s Hooverville beyond the exit. “Look what the man by the entrance handed me after I took his picture.” She pulled a card from her shirt pocket.



She flipped it over. “Look at all this on the back, too.”



“It’s only a hobo card,” I muttered.

“Bums have cards?” she said.

“A hobo’s not a bum. A hobo’s proud of being a hobo.”

“Really! Well, it worked. I gave him a penny. It’ll be a great shot,” she said, replacing the card in the breast pocket of her white silky shirt, and despite myself, I couldn’t help but stare. It was like something movie stars wore, that shirt, just like her trousers.

As I watched Red pop a new flashbulb in her camera, happy as a hog in rain, I felt my fury flare high and hot and straight her way. I wanted her to feel as bad as I did for her own piece of traveling treachery—and worse, I needed her to. I couldn’t take it a second more. “Why was that Chattanooga deputy after you?”