Perilous Pleasures (28 page)

Joanna fingered the map to Stefan's house. "You'd really do that? Follow him anywhere?" She knew she was goading Sally for the encouragement she needed to rush back to Stefan. She'd been contemplating the idea for days. But until now, her stronger will had been in control.

"Look, I have to go," Sally said. "The man with the hackney should be waiting. But I'll write when we get settled so you can plan to visit. You will come visit, won't you?"

Sally's enthusiasm made Joanna smile for the first time in weeks. "Yes, I'll come. It will get me out of Matthew and Libby's hair for a while." She walked with Sally to the door.

As the hackney pulled away, Joanna mulled over what she'd just learned. Tony's death happened just as Stefan's grandmother had predicted. Death during the jinx performance. Although she tried to convince herself otherwise, she could not dismiss Tekla Janacek's prediction, and Tony Bernardo's death, as coincidence.

And Stefan's future? If she could, would Tekla Janacek predict for Stefan a long life, or a short one? Joanna knew she'd never ask, that she'd rather live in doubt than know. But she also knew she wanted Stefan, desperately.

***

Memphis, Tennessee – two weeks later

Joanna unfolded the map and studied it. The hastily-scrawled directions were almost illegible, but the crude map gave some clues, though the landmarks were written in small ragged letters and she could only speculate as to what they were. Still, she knew that by asking questions, she could locate Stefan's house once she arrived at Germantown. There would only be one lion tamer living there.

Without further deliberation, she inquired about boats going downriver and learned that several small steamers took day passengers. Purchasing a ticket, she had her trunks loaded, then boarded a sidewheeler not much bigger than a keelboat. The stage once raised, the engines of the little sidewheeler made a grinding noise, then hissed and clanked, and the paddlewheels started turning, one forward, the other backwards. Instead of backing, the little steamer turned sharply, headed into the channel and chugged down river, passing along loading docks piled high with cotton, and immense warehouses bustling with activity.

Although she had not looked forward to spending more time on the river, as the small vessel snaked its way down the Mississippi, zigzagging along its crooked course, Joanna found herself enjoying the trip. Standing on the foredeck near the gangplank, away from the clanking and sloshing of the paddlewheels, she watched the passing scenery.

Beyond the riverbank stretched fields of cotton intermingled with manor homes and small, shabby-looking worker's cabins. About twenty miles downriver, the whistle shrieked, sending several cranes flapping noisily and squawking overhead as the little sidewheeler came snorting around the bend. Then the boat cut across the current toward shore and docked.

Germantown consisted of a landing, a general store, and a cluster of cabins that Joanna assumed housed the laborers working in the cotton fields. On the landing, a sturdily-built Negro waited by a mule hitched to a big two-wheeled cart piled high with cordwood to be loaded onto the steamer. And on the road behind the landing, Joanna saw rattletrap phaetons and buckboards with four in a seat meant for two. Her trunks unloaded, the steamer chugged on downriver, and Joanna questioned several people standing on the landing, trying to piece together directions that could lead her to Stefan's house.

"A lion tamer?" an old
Negress
said, looking at her with skepticism. "No one ah knows of 'round
heah
do dat. But maybe George
heah
knows."

Joanna waited for the boy standing beside her to reply.

"
Ya
...
na
... what?" the boy asked.

Joanna repeated Stefan's name several times until the boy could pronounce it.

"Check.
Ya
...
na
... check." The boy looked downriver and scratched his head. "
Ain't
nobody
heah
by
dat
name...."

A young woman standing beside the boy volunteered, "Try
askin
' at de
sto
' over yonder. If
dat
fella's
'round
heah
,
Mistah
Dautrieve'll
know. He know where all de folks in
dese
parts lives."

Joanna thanked the women and dashed to the general store, arriving just before closing. The shopkeeper gazed out the front window for a moment, then pointed. "That's the
fella
who lives downriver a mile or so. But you can get there by taking River Road. Tell you what. For two dollars I'll take you there myself."

By the time they turned into Stefan's driveway, long shadows stretched across the road. They followed a gravel lane that cut through the woods, the drive lined on both sides with high concrete walls topped with several strands of barbed wire. At the end of the road they came to a clearing. The man pulled the wagon to a halt in front of a white cottage with a wrap-around screened porch. Some distance from the cottage, and parked by what appeared to be the entrance to a maze of high concrete fences, were a line-up of wagons, the same wagons that had held the cages on the barge. Beyond the wagons she saw a large, well-kept stable.

As she studied the cottage, Joanna chewed her lip and frowned. Once inside, and in Stefan's arms, there would be no turning back. If she made a commitment to him she'd have to come to terms with show life and Stefan's cats, and accept both as a part of Stefan.

...is living alone with no worries better than living in fear with the man you love...?

Perhaps. Perhaps not. All Joanna knew was, life without Stefan seemed empty and pointless. Climbing down from the wagon, she paid the man, waited while he unloaded her trunks, and watched as the wagon rattled off. Hitching up her skirt, she climbed the stairs to the cottage, opened the screen door and stepped onto the porch. Hearing nothing and seeing no one, she knocked on the front door. No sound came from inside. She knocked again, this time louder. Still, no answer. She peered through the window and saw several dishes and some papers resting on the kitchen table, but Stefan appeared to be gone.

She looked toward the levee where hazy shadows scudded across the grassy rise beneath fast-running cumulus clouds. Following a crude roadway, she climbed the slope of the levee and descended to a landing where a small paddle-wheeler stood docked. She assumed it was the one Stefan used to transport his animals. Standing on the landing, she searched the riverbank, hoping to see Stefan. But she found the narrow shoreline vacant. Unsure which way to go, she headed north, her back to the wind. In the shallows at the river's edge where the low sun reflected a silvery rose-colored sheen, three spotted sandpipers hurried along the bank. She watched the little birds dart into the shallow water near the shore and peck among the litter. Through the dusky haze settling on the riverbank, she saw a large, stocky puppy bound into the water. After a few moments, the animal rushed back onto the shore and shook.

Joanna whistled, then called out, "Here boy." Hearing her voice, the dog bounded toward her. When it came closer, Joanna's lips parted. "
Simba
?" she whispered.

The tiger cub skidded to a halt a short distant away, then cautiously sidled up to sit at her feet. Joanna scratched the cub's head and looked up to find Stefan running toward her. She rushed to meet him and was swept into his arms. He pressed his lips to hers, rekindling a passion quick to ignite. Twining her fingers in his hair, she moaned, absorbing the hard pressure of his mouth as the kiss grew long and deep. He kissed her cheek and her neck and returned to her lips. Then he wrapped his arms around her and said against the top of her head, "I thought I'd lost you. Why did you come?"

Joanna tipped her head back so she could look at him, and said, "To tell you I love you."

"I love you too," Stefan said. "All I've thought about these past few weeks was you and our child. I was getting ready to travel to Vicksburg next week to look for you. You never gave me your brother's address, but I knew I could find you. I kept thinking about our child, and there was no way on God's earth I was going to let you raise it alone. Honey, I'll do whatever you want to keep our family together. Nothing is as important to me as having you and our child with me." He placed his hand over her belly. "You are carrying my child, aren’t you?"

Joanna nodded. "The doctor confirmed it. It was the saddest and the happiest day of my life when he told me. I had a special gift from you, but I didn't have you."

Stefan took her in his arms and held her again. "Well, you have me now, and I don't intend to let you go. But I want a real marriage so you'll never walk out on me and take my child. I could not bear to lose the two of you again."

"But you don't have to make any changes in your life," Joanna said. "I'm prepared to go wherever you go, as long as you're in my bed every night to take away the tension."

One corner of Stefan's mouth tipped upward, as he said, "I'd like to be in your bed for other reasons as well."

Joanna gave him a sultry smile. "I assure you, they are one and the same."

"Well, you should not have any more stress over my performing with Porter Brothers. I didn't renew my contract."

"I know. Sally told me. But it wouldn't matter if you had. I want to be where you are. And if it means traveling with a band of wandering gypsies, or juggling, or being a mime while following you and your cats around the country, then that's what I'll do."

"Well, you won't have to follow me anywhere except to Memphis on occasion," Stefan said. "Klaus Haufchild is working with an architect to design a hippodrome to be built there, and he's putting up money for a building to be constructed here where we'd operate the only school of animal training and handling on the continent. With the amalgamation of smaller circuses with vaudeville shows, into giant extravaganzas, there's a growing demand for animal acts. Yet, few people are trained in handling animals."

"I don't understand," Joanna said. "I thought Klaus Haufchild was trying to ruin your act with bad publicity, that he blamed you for his accident."

"He came to terms with that years ago."

Joanna looked at him, puzzled. "Why didn't he say something earlier?" she asked.

"He couldn't because he was working for the Humane Association," Stefan replied. "They retain him as a consultant to investigate complaints about mistreatment of animals in the entertainment world, and he was watching us because someone spotted Tony harassing Rafat and notified the association."

"But why did he wait until New Orleans to come forward?" Joanna asked, feeling her temper rise at the thought of what could have happened during that time.

"Klaus thought I might have put Tony up to it to spice up the act, and he wanted to be sure," Stefan replied. "I assume you heard about Tony being killed."

Joanna nodded. "It seems your grandmother was right with her prediction."

"She usually is." Stefan's hand moved leisurely up and down her back. "Anyway, Klaus and I will be training big animals—horses, camels—" he gave Joanna a sly grin "—maybe a few mild-mannered cats. But we'd cull the problem ones. Can you live with that?"

Joanna glanced down at
Simba
crouched on his belly, back legs stretched out behind, front paws holding a piece of wood. The cub looked up, sighed, then continued to chew the wood. "I don't think I could ever take you away from your cats," she said.

Stefan looked at
Simba
. "I hope you never try. Working with cats is like being married. Sometimes the relationship is in harmony, other times it's in diametric opposition. But the challenge is always there. And when it's working, the rewards are great."

"What about your family? What are they going to do now?"

Stefan shrugged. "Walter will be working for us since we'll need a meat broker and cutter. As for the others, they want to join a mud circus and travel in wagons again." He arched a brow. "There's too much gypsy in the bunch of them to change. For me, I have no problem with a solid roof over my head as long as I have you and our child under it."

Joanna looked at him, worried. "But do you really think your mother wants to join a mud circus with them?"

Stefan's eyes moved unhurriedly over Joanna's face. "No, which is why I've convinced her to move into the cottage. Laszlo, Kitta and Ivan will always come see her here, and she can visit Josef and Barbara in Boston whenever she wants. Besides, she told me that she's been a gypsy for thirty-five years and she's ready to be a
gorgio
again."

Joanna felt a great sense of satisfaction in that. Without her beloved Alonzo, Helen would never be happy living in the Rom community that had never accepted her.

The wind quickened, murmuring hoarsely through the trees. And somewhere from the low twisted shrubs on shore a bird warbled. Stefan looked down at her, curved a finger beneath her chin and lifted her face so she looked into his eyes, and said, "Mrs. Janacek, will you do me the honor of becoming my lawfully wedded wife?"

"Yes, Mr. Janacek," she replied, then sealed her promise with a heartfelt kiss.

His hands moving up and down her spine, Stefan said in a pensive voice, "And we'll build a big house facing the river, and raise a brood of noisy children for your mother and mine to spoil, and have a gymnasium where you can swing from trapezes or teach acrobatics, and have a pack of rowdy dogs, and a pride of obedient cats—small trained ones to live in the house."

Joanna tightened her arms around him and said, dreamily, "It sounds wonderful." She rested her head against his chest and gazed at the river where the afterglow scattered patches of lambent silver across the water. An image of their years together settled contentedly in her mind.

With their love solid and rooted like trees, they'd share laughter, and perhaps some pain, happiness and maybe a few tears. And with the gift of time they'd sit in chairs on the terrace, their hair going a little gray, and tell their grandchildren about gypsies and mud shows, and vaudeville extravaganzas and lions and tigers, and flying from a trapeze without nets. And every night of their lives they'd fall asleep in each other's arms. Yes, she thought. It will be like that. She snuggled against him a gave a happy little sigh.