The Thicket (7 page)

“Then one day there came an accident, and the main tent caught on fire. I am uncertain as to what started the fire. Some moron with a cigar or a cigarette flipped it against the outside tent wall, perhaps—I have no real idea. But you see, the tents were coated with oil and resin and wax to resist the rain, and they did do that most faithfully, but they were also death traps in a fire. When the fire spread to the top of the tent and jumped to the other tents, that hot burning residue that was created by the mixture of oil and wax dripped down and scalded animals and men and women and children alike. The tent collapsed in a hellish inferno. Being small, we clowns made our nimble exit easily beneath the bleachers, though I do bear a scar from the hot mess on my left shoulder. Anyway, to shorten it all—which, if you think about it, is what could be called a pun—both Walter and I made our exit through a rent in the tent and were gone. We were out in the world. I think the other midget clowns stayed with the circus or were perhaps consumed by fire. I never knew. Walter and I had had our fill, however, and made our path from town to town. We found that by performing some of the acts we had learned in the circus, mostly comedies that relied on our size for a laugh, we could pick up enough money to eat. The very thing that had made us miserable now made us able to fend for ourselves, though we often stayed in stables or outside, even in the rain.

“I believe it was cold weather and rain that led to Walter’s coughing demise. The repeated exposure to bad weather gave him a terrible cold that turned into something worse. He died in a cemetery, of all places, under a tree. I had no idea what to do with him, so I left him there, went into a livery that night, and stole a shovel. I went back and buried him in a grave that already existed, on top of some soldier who had died in the Civil War. I felt Walter had fought a war of his own and deserved something of that nature, and, to be even more honest, the ground was softer there and not infested with roots. So to the best of my knowledge, there still lies Walter, with a soldier’s corpse beneath him, and I moved on.”

“You know,” I said, “I think I will go down and get some sleep.”

“You listen to me. I am leading up to a moment. So I went on then, and I came across none other than Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show. It was on its last legs, and would soon become part of another show. Bill was mostly a sad old drunk by then, using bird shot in his pistols instead of bullets so he had better ability to shoot his tossed-in-the-air targets. But I was there when Annie Oakley was there, and let me tell you, she was a vision. Delicate and sweet, and to the best of my experience the finest rifle and pistol shot alive. When she dies I do not expect anyone to surpass her, though there was a great shot by Billy Dixon with a Sharps rifle just under a mile that knocked a Comanche warrior off his horse and killed him.”

“No one can shoot someone from a mile away,” I said.

“Dixon did. That shot saved a whole passel of buffalo hunters out West Texas direction, at a place called Adobe Walls. He went on to win the Medal of Honor. One of the few civilians ever to receive it. But I was saying about Annie Oakley—and I will say, too, that this was before I knew true love was a crock. For when I saw her, I was instantly in love. It came on me like a fire, hotter than that circus tent had been. I felt this way even though she was married, and it was my view then, in my ignorance, that my true love would be her true love, that it would be requited. But it was not. She took to me, all right, though not in that way, and in time my ardor faded from lack of having the flames fanned, and I became her friend. Though between you and me, I still wanted to bend her over a stool and fuck her like a savage, but that was not to be.

“She taught me to shoot the rifle and the pistol, and, as I said, she is the finest shot ever. Perhaps Billy Dixon is second. However, I am no slouch. I can do what needs to be done when it comes to a gun, and old Sitting Bull, who was there briefly at the Wild West show, taught me how to use a knife. There is not much to it, actually. You just have to move fast, poke and slash where a fellow bleeds the most, and hope the other guy is unarmed. Sitting Bull said the best way is just to sneak up on someone and get them when they are not looking, and that is a fighting philosophy I have held to ever since. In a number of narrow situations, it has served me well. It served me when I helped track down the last of the Apaches, being the youngest and shortest scout the army ever hired. I got the job due to a recommendation from Buffalo Bill and Annie Oakley. Later, I hired on to the Pinkertons and helped them break some strikes, shooting and killing a few folks in the process.”

“What did you have against them?” I said. “Were they desperadoes?”

“I had about a dollar day against them,” he said. “I am trying to make a point here, and I am going about it carefully so that you understand what kind of man I am. So again, let us return to our matter at hand. I am up for the job. Eustace and I are the men for the job, even if we stumble a bit now and then, as men will do. But I want that to be clear. I do not know you yet. I may never care to really know you, as there is a short list of people I care about. Fact is, it includes only Eustace, and though he is not a people, I care about Hog, though with less affection, not because of him being an animal but because of his unpredictable nature. Considering Eustace has made some unexpected moves, that is saying something. For me, if not for others, Eustace is predictable enough if whiskey is kept from him. But I have veered from my point, which perhaps I have belabored too long. I tell you all this to say simply that I do not know you. If you lie to me about that land, your ownership, just so you can rescue your kidnapped sister, I will not make an exception to a rule I have for myself about being cheated or led into something that will not pay me money when money has been promised. I will kill you deader than a rabid dog and leave you lying in a ditch beside the road. Do we understand one another?”

I was taken aback and tongue-tied.

He repeated himself. “Do we understand one another?”

I gathered up the words in my head and put them in my mouth. “We do,” I said.

“Good. Now, I suggest you go to bed. First light is always nearer than you think, and we will actually rise before that, leave the moment the sky breaks bright.”

I stood up, a little shaky from the threat. I said, “I don’t intend to cheat anyone, you angry little asshole.”

The dwarf smiled. “Good for you. See that you do not. And when you go into the house, be careful not to wake Eustace, as he does not like that kind of surprise, and it might be best not to startle Hog, either. The two of them are similar in personality, though Hog is a little less friendly at times, and, as I said, even more unpredictable.”

I went down the hill and started to go in the house but didn’t. I went on down a ways and thought seriously about walking away, trying to find a path to a road and march back into Sylvester. I felt if I left then, I might be in Sylvester by midmorning, and perhaps I could make new arrangements for Lula’s rescue, something that didn’t involve Eustace, the dwarf, and a belligerent pig. But I only walked awhile before I came to a clearing. I heard the running water of a creek and then saw it in the moonlight. I went toward the water. I was at the mouth of its source, a little spring. I sat down by it, cupped some water in my hand, and drank it, and then I burst out crying. I mean I let go. I told you how we Parkers are, and how we’re just fine in grim circumstances, or seem to be, but when it comes upon us, when we can figure on something bad long enough, we get crying fits. And that’s what I got. I let loose and had to put a hand over my mouth to keep from howling. I hoped I was far enough away that that goddamn dwarf wouldn’t have the satisfaction of hearing me cry. Right then I wished that he had been killed in that circus fire, burnt up and trampled by an angry elephant, or beaten to death by monkeys with sticks. Then I tried to get those thoughts out of my head, realizing how unchristian they were.

As for Eustace, I had no particular feelings of goodwill for him, either. Not for a man who would dig up a burnt-up woman and her child and lay them on a doorstep for money. I probably felt the best feelings for Hog because we had shared a bed without incident, though the night was not yet over.

When I quit crying, and it took a while, I washed my face in the spring, then went back up the hill and into the house. I got back under the table, careful not to startle Hog. I found him a willing bed partner, albeit one of a strong aroma. He lifted his head slightly, scooted his back against me, and made a snorting noise before dropping his head back down on the floor. In a moment, I could hear the beast snoring, sound asleep.

Me, I couldn’t get what the dwarf had told me out of my mind, and wanted to be sure that there would be no misunderstandings on his part or mine that might lead to me lying in a ditch like a rabid dog, and no one left to rescue Lula. I lay there and thought about all that had happened. I remembered how Grandpa had fought Cut Throat Bill and would have whipped him solid had he not gone for a gun. I remembered that mule flying over me, and somehow, the way I saw it in my troubled head, I was on that mule’s back, and it had wings, and my sister was sitting behind me, her arms around my waist, and we were flying rapidly up and away, into a sky blue as a Swede’s eye.

Eustace toed me awake with his work boot, and when I got up it startled Hog, who nearly knocked the table over getting to his feet. Hog was pressed up against me, his mouth open, his teeth showing nasty and yellow, his breath strong enough to tie knots in my eyebrows. He was making a wheezing sound that made me nervous.

I said, “Eustace, can you call him off?”

“Ah,” Eustace said. “He ain’t mad. He just didn’t like I had to wake you two. He likes to think he’s on the job all the time, and mostly is, but he was dozing good there. Actually, I think he likes you. Little later, you two sleep together enough, he might want some of your ass.”

We went outside. It was still dark, and there remained a few stars and the half-moon. I looked up the hill, but the telescope and the dwarf were gone. A moment later Shorty came around the side of the house leading three horses. Eustace already had the borrowed horse out in the yard, holding him by the reins. I could see the automatic in his belt, winking in the moonlight. He also had on a vest with a thick pad on the right shoulder. I had no idea what that was about.

Saddles were lying across the three horses’ backs over saddle blankets, but weren’t fastened down. On the backs of the saddles were bedrolls, and the saddlebags bulged with possibles. The borrowed horse, whose reins Eustace held, still didn’t have a saddle, as he was to be sold when a buyer turned up. The reins, in fact, were now a long rope, which acted as a lead.

Shorty handed me the reins to one of the riding horses, said, “You ride this one. But you have to fasten on the saddle. You know how to do it right? Watch that he does not blow up on you, making his belly bigger, then when you get on, he will let out his air and dump you.”

“I do know what I’m doing,” I said. “I was born on a farm and have ridden horses same as you and everyone else.”

“That does not mean anything,” he said. “Lots of people born on farms do not do it right. They do it to get by.”

“You don’t worry about me,” I said, still angry from the night before. “You just do your part.”

“Then go at it,” he said, and walked inside the house. I went about the business of putting the saddle on right and tightening the belt and such. The horse tried to blow his belly up on me, as Shorty said he would, but I knew how to work around that. When Shorty came out he had a big-barreled two-shoot gun with him and a couple of crunched-up wide-brimmed hats and a good-sized bag. He gave the shotgun to Eustace, then gave him the bag and said, “There are your loads.”

“You are a fine little white man and a gentleman,” said Eustace.

“No insults are required,” said Shorty. Then he turned to me, handed me one of the hats, plastered the other on his head. “We will need hats for the weather. The heat. You can have one of mine. It is not much account anyway.”

I took the hat and put it on. It rested large on my head. It was my ears that kept it from falling over my eyes. I was glad to have it, though, because the back of my neck still ached with sunburn, and I didn’t want to burn it further.

I glanced at the horse Shorty was planning to ride, saw that a rifle butt was sticking out of a sheath on the side, and there was a kind of rope ladder that hung down from the saddle horn.

I said, “I’m going to need a gun.”

“Well, I got that Sharps and a pistol, and I intend to carry them both,” Shorty said. “And I have a derringer in my boot. If we don’t find you a gun before we need one, I’ll give you that one.”

“A derringer?” I said. “Grandpa already shot Cut Throat Bill twice with one, and it didn’t kill him.”

Shorty laughed. “He shot him? Priceless. You said he whipped him, but he shot him? That is something. I will say this, your grandpa had sand in him, and plenty of it. A derringer is mostly for real close work, and you have to pick your targets. It can kill you dead as a stick of dynamite, but you have to hit someone right for it to do it.”

“That’s what I mean,” I said. “I’m not that good a shot. I can hit something if it’s nailed down and I’m standing on top of it, but I’m no sharpshooter. I should use Eustace’s shotgun.”

They both laughed. “This here four-gauge,” Eustace said, “would do you more harm than it would them.”

“Four-gauge?”

“There aren’t many of them, and I had this one special made,” Eustace said. “I can cut down a field of hay with this thing, and maybe stack it.”

“I need something to fight with,” I said.

“Then perhaps you should cut yourself a sturdy stick,” Shorty said. He went to his front door and closed it, then pulled a padlock the size of my elbow out of his coat pocket, for now he was wearing a light jacket, which, considering the heat even at early morning, he didn’t really need. He clicked the padlock into place, said, “That should keep honest people out.”