attention to the totally limp form in myarms; and a few minutes later, amid an insane crowd, a pitifullyembarrassed and nerve-shaken dirigible navigator was helping me liftmy heavily-wrapped, shivering brother from the gondola, while themechanics turned their attention to the overdriven engines and wrackedframing. Did I say "helping me lift?" Such is the force of habit--butverily, a new nomenclature would have to come into being to dealadequately with such a life as my poor brother's!
Tristan seized my hand.
"Jim!" he said through chattering teeth, "I'm cured--cured of theawful fear! That second time he missed, I just gave up entirely; Ididn't care any longer. And then somehow I felt such a sense of peaceand freedom--there weren't any upside-down things around to tortureme, no sense of insecurity. I just was, in a great blue quiet; itwasn't like falling at all; no awful shock to meet, no sickness orpain--just quietly floating along from Here to There, with noparticular dividing line between, anywhere. The cold hurt, of course,but somehow it didn't seem to matter, and was getting better when theycaught me. But now--I can do things you never even imagined!"
* * * * *
Thus began my brother's real public career--he had arrived. After thathe was able to name his own compensation, and shortly during histours, began to sport a private dirigible of his own, which he oftenused for jumps between stands. He told me jokingly that it was veryfitting transportation for him, as his hundred and sixty pound liftsaved quite a bit of expense for helium!
He developed an astonishing set of tricks. After the jump, he wouldarrive on the field suspended above the dirigible doing trapezetricks. After that, in the show tent, he would go through some more ofthem, with a few hair raisers of his own invention, one of whichconsisted of apparently letting go the rope by accident and shootingskyward with a wild shriek, only to be caught at the end of a fine,especially woven piano wire cable attached to a spring safety belt,the cable being in turn fastened into the end of the rope.
Needless to say, Alice was unable to wax enthusiastic about any ofthese feats, though she loyally accompanied him in his travels. Shewould sit in the tent gazing at him with a horrible fascination, andmonth by month grew thinner and more strained. Tristan felt her stressdeeply; but was making money so fast that we all felt that in a shorttime, if not able to finance the discovery of a cure, at least hecould retire and live a safer life. And he found his ideal haven ofrest--in a Pennsylvania coal mine! Thus, the project grew in his mind,of buying an abandoned mine and fitting it with comfortable andspacious inverted quarters, environed with fungus gardens, air fernsand the like, plants which could be trained to grow upside down; heemerging only for necessary sun baths.
As time went on, I really grew accustomed to the situation, thoughseeing less and less of Tristan and Alice; during summers they were ontour, and in winter were quartered in Tristan's coal mine, which hadbecome a reality.
So one summer day when the circus stopped at a small town where I wastaking vacation, I was overjoyed at the opportunity to see them. Itimed myself to get there as the afternoon performance was over, butarrived a little early, and went on into the untopped tent.
Tristan waved an inverted greeting at me from his poise on histrapeze, and I watched for a few minutes. There was an odd mood aboutthe crowd that day, largely due to a group of loud-mouthedhill-billies from the back country--the sort which is so ignorant asto live in perpetual fear of getting "something slipped over," and sodisbelieves everything it is told, looking for something ulteriorbehind every exterior. Having duly exposed to their own satisfactionthe strong man's "wooden dumbbells," the snake charmer's rubberserpents, the fat woman's pillows, and the bearded lady's falsewhiskers (I don't know what they did about the living skeleton), thesefellows were now gaping before Tristan's platform, and growing hostileas their rather inadequate brains failed to cook up any damagingexplanation.
"Yah!" yelled a long-necked, flap-eared youth, suddenly. "He's got aniron bar in that rope!" They had come too late to see the parachutedrop. Tristan grinned and pulled himself down the rope, which ofcourse fell limp behind him. At this, the crowd jeered and booed thetoo-hasty youth, who became so resentfully abusive of Tristan that oneof the attendants pushed him out of the tent. As he passed me, Icaught fragments of wrathy words:
"Wisht I had a ... Show'm whether it's a fake...."
* * * * *
Tristan closed his act by dropping full-length to the end of hisinvisible wire, then pulled himself down, got into his stilts, and wasunfastening the belt, when the manager rushed in with a request thathe repeat, for the benefit of a special party just arrived on adelayed train.
"Go on and look at the animals, old man." Tristan called to me. "I'llbe with you in about half an hour!"
I strolled out idly, meeting on the way the flap-eared youth, whoseemed bent on making his way back into the tent, wearing a mingledair of furtiveness, of triumph, and anticipation. Wondering casuallyjust what kind of fool the lad was planning to make of himself next, Iwandered on toward the main entrance--only to be stopped by anappalling uproar behind me. There was a raucous, gurgling shriek ofmortal terror; the loud composite "O-o-o!" of a shocked or astonishedcrowd; a set of fervent curses directed at some one; loud confusedbabbling, and then a woman's voice raised in a seemingly endlesssuccession of hysterical shrieks. Thinking that an animal had gottenloose, or something of that kind, I wheeled. Unmistakably the racketcame from Tristan's own tent.
Cold dread clutching at my heart, and with lead on my boot soles, Irushed frantically back. At the entrance I was held by a mad onrush ofhumanity for some moments. When I reached the platform, Tristan wasnot in sight. Then I noticed the long-necked boy sitting on theplatform with his face in his hands, shrieking:
"I didn't mean to! I didn't mean to! Damn it, don't touch me! Ithought sure it was a fake!"
I saw a new, glittering jack-knife lying on the platform beside thelimp, foot-long stub of Tristan's rope. Slowly, frozenly, I raised myeyes. The blue abyss was traceless of any object....
* * * * *
Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net Share this book with friends