Tauseret gazed at me expectantly. With a jolt I noticed that they were all looking at me that way. When had I become a leader? I couldn’t let them down. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s find that path.”
We scrambled into the wagon and set off, Earle in the lead. Tauseret sat up front with me and sang a low song. Perhaps it was a prayer. I didn’t hear a sound from the children inside.
The train whistled again, closer now, warning us it approached the crossing. The tracks were ahead. Earle’s shadowy arm waved to the left, and he turned his cart off the road.
The rumble of huge metal wheels shook the earth.
I heard a shout. Up the road, on the other side of the tracks, a stick figure gestured toward us. Like phantoms, men emerged from the bushes. They pushed a covered wagon out of the weeds, then a paneled wagon, and clambered aboard.
“That’s Mink!” I cried. Maybe it had been Earle’s size or the outline of our stolen wagon, but he had recognized us.
The train grew louder. It neared the crossing and slowed to mind the road. I prayed it didn’t slow enough to let Mink cross the tracks to our side.
I turned our wagon to follow Earle onto the dark path.
The train screamed. Tauseret grabbed my arm, and her nails dug into me. The Eater of Souls, I remembered, and knew her gods haunted her.
I heard curses and screams of dismay from behind me. “They made it,” yelled Mr. Bopp. “The bastards beat the train.”
“Mink is on our tail,” I screamed to Earle.
Earle whipped his horses up and took off.
How could we outpace those men? I could only hope they were as overloaded as we were. I slapped my reins, and the horses picked up their feet a tiny bit faster.
The narrow path was rutted and rocky, and the wagon near shook to pieces; my bones clanged with the jolts. Moans and muffled shrieks came from inside. Ahead, Earle’s cart joggled and bounced. A few times it even left the ground, though how it could with Earle aboard, I could not tell.
The train let out a series of staccato shrieks, to warn us away from the tracks.
Earle stuck out his arm, and the giant square of his tablecloth handkerchief flapped in the breeze. He was signaling the train to make it stop. Perhaps he thought they’d save us from Mink and his minions.
The train huffed and puffed level with us.
My wagon couldn’t take much more.
Earle charged ahead, waving his banner furiously.
The engine passed me, snorting and growling.
Had Mink and his men caught up? “Dump what you can on the road!” I cried. “Make them crash.”
The train closed in on Earle. It didn’t slow down.
My wagon bucked and bounced as who knows what went flying out the back.
Earle swerved in to wave his banner in the dragon’s face.
The engineer set off a short then a long blast—“Look out.”
Earle’s cart burst apart like a matchstick toy. Fat man and mattress went in opposite directions, and the panicked horses, their traces broken and flying, fled up the track, dragging a few spars of wood behind.
Had an axle caught? Had the wind from the engine wheels set his balance astray? Maybe his cart had merely given up the ghost. But oh, my God! He had to be the fattest hero that ever lived, for the train screeched to a halt, wheezing like a consumptive dinosaur.
I wrestled my team still and leapt to the ground. “That’s a damn stupid way to get into the Police Gazette,” I yelled, and felt unwelcome tears on my face as I ran to Earle’s prostrate mound of a body.
Tauseret caught up with me while I patted Earle’s cheeks and tried to find some sign of life. “The enemy approaches,” she cried.
29
EARLE LAY ACROSS THE PATH, HIS eyes closed, an impassable hillock. No wagon could get around him and down the lane. Shards of his cart lay across the track in front of the train; his horses had disappeared from sight.
“We must stand and fight,” said Tauseret.
We had no choice. I quaked inside. Where was Toms Junction? Had Tauseret’s calls for help all just been fantasy?
My passengers abandoned our wagon and ran to us. Apollo led the way. Mr. Ginger held Miss Lightfoot’s arm tight, and he almost dragged her. His steps were fast and firm, for his slouched hat covered the face of his twin and his vision was sure. Moses and Willie carried Mr. Bopp in a blanket sling between them, huffing and puffing with the load. The other children followed. Moses lost his grip, and they dropped Mr. Bopp near my feet, eliciting a curse from the limbless man. Moses stuck his hands in his armpits and made faces.
“Abel, Mink’s coming!” cried Apollo needlessly.
An engineer leaned out of the locomotive. “Is that fat feller crazy? Who’s going to move this trash?”
Jeers and catcalls rang from the enemy wagons, and then the trap of debris we’d dumped behind us must have claimed the villains, for their calls turned to oaths and cries of distress, and horses screamed. I felt a surge of triumph as I heard a crash.
“You gotta help us,” called Moses to the engineer. His eyes popped without calculation this time.
The engineer glanced back down the line nervously. “Hey, you,” he called to me. “Move some of that crap off the tracks. I’ve got a schedule to keep.”
Mink’s shrill voice split the night as he angrily rallied his scattered troops.
Tauseret grabbed a spar of wood from Earle’s smashed cart and brandished it like a club. “There’s one less for your metal road,” she cried. Mr. Ginger and Apollo followed her lead.
Moses hauled Willie onto his shoulders, and Willie beat at a carriage window. “Let us in! Let us in!” he called. Bertha and Minnie screamed up at the passengers too, and pale faces peered out in confusion, curiosity, and annoyance. No one opened a door, and my hopes of victory dissolved.
The engineer and his mate jumped down from the locomotive to clear the tracks, cursing loudly. They wouldn’t help us. I had to stall Mink while my friends got away.
“Take the children across the field,” I called to Miss Lightfoot. “You too, Tauseret. Get out of here, everyone!”
“Never!” proclaimed Tauseret.
“I’m not leavin’,” said Mr. Bopp.
“What about you, Abel?” Miss Lightfoot cried.
The sky brightened in the east, but the predawn light was still murky. Mink’s angry curses told me I had a few minutes yet while he reorganized his thugs. “I have a plan,” I answered.
“I’m helping,” said Apollo, to my dismay.
“No!” I said.
Miss Lightfoot and Mr. Ginger dashed around to gather up the children, and then they all thrust through the hedge to the field beyond.
Tauseret shouldered her spar of wood and stood her ground. I cursed and took off back toward our wagon, with Apollo sprinting beside me. I waved him off frantically, but he wouldn’t heed.
“What are you going to do?” asked the dog boy, grabbing my arm as soon as I came to a halt. There were dark tear tracks in the fur of his face, and I knew he was very frightened. But damn him, couldn’t he do what he was told?
Approaching yells told me Mink’s men were on the move again.
“Don’t follow me. Get out of here,” I ordered, but I knew that stubborn look.
Mr. Ginger ran up behind the dog boy. He hadn’t gone with Miss Lightfoot after all. He clutched a buggy whip in his hand. Tauseret arrived close behind him. I almost choked on my fear for her.
I dived under our wagon. There wasn’t time to argue. At least I could try to give the children and Miss Lightfoot time to hide.
“Hey, you said you had a plan,” called Apollo.
“I do,” I cried, and pulled a knife from my bandolier. Heaven knew if it would work. I freed the remains of Ceecee and hauled him erect with an arm around his chest. I leaned the slight man against me as if he stood slumped and defeated, yet alive. His jacket was stiff with blood, and my skin crawled, but I dragged him away from our wagon, and the
others backed up with me.
A dozen ruffians, rogues, and tramps charged around the side of our wagon, Mink protected in their middle. Among the men were Billy Sweet and Bonfiglio, a dirty bandage around his head.
I raised the knife to the throat of the corpse. “Hold your horses if you want your cat’s-paw alive,” I called. I hoped to God it remained dark enough that they wouldn’t see he was dead already.
“Whoa, boys,” squeaked Mink, raising his skull-topped cane. “We got some negotiating to do.” The rabble halted and glanced at one another out of the corners of slit eyes like weasels straining on frayed tethers. Mink glared at me. “What do you want, Dandy?”
“Send those men back to town,” I said, “or it’s the worse for Ceecee.” Surely someone from the train would intervene now and we’d be saved. I’d worry about explaining Ceecee later.
An evil smile slid across the skeleton showman’s face. “Well, do your worst, knife boy. Slit his throat in front of God and everybody. Yiss, do.”
My mouth fell open before I could help myself, and he cackled.
Bonfiglio sneered, but some of the riffraff seemed as disturbed as I. Mink would sacrifice his pawns without blinking. What made me think I could bargain? At least I may have bought some time for the children and Miss Lightfoot, but what of us?
The engineer gave two long blasts on the train whistle to tell the brakeman to release the brakes. The sound startled me and I tottered a few steps back. My movement caused Ceecee’s head to loll, which bared his throat and, with it, the blackened hole that my knife had made.
“He’s already dead,” cried Billy Sweet. “The varmint done murdered him.”
My stomach lurched and I choked back vomit. I was found out.
The band of roughs and tramps surged forward as I futilely waved my knife at them and clutched the corpse to me like a shield.
“Find the children,” ordered Mink.
They had no need to look, for the children and Miss Lightfoot swarmed back through the hedge, wielding sticks and branches, and whooping war cries. My heart sank. They’d given away their chance of escape.
“Go back!” I screamed in frustration. “Please, go back!”
But what a troupe they were—a lumbering bear girl, a piebald boy, a tiny balloon-headed child with barely a twig to save her, and a frog boy who popped his eyes to scare the enemy. They resembled a band of militant elves and fairies in the misty dawn, and I couldn’t help but be proud of them. The thugs hesitated, perhaps at the sight of such odd children, or maybe they thought that someone on board the train would care.
On that count they were wrong. With a whoosh of steam and a squeal of wheels, the train inched forward. We were abandoned on the side of the tracks like refuse.
“Grab them!” Mink commanded. “Get those brats to the wagons.”
Finally the villains moved.
Bonfiglio came at me with a meaty fist raised. I broke into a sweat. My arm ached from holding the cadaver; the hand that held my weapon was cramped. Could I use a knife on another man? I remembered the sick thud of blade into flesh, and I shuddered. I could stand the waxy, cold touch of the corpse no more. I flung Ceecee at Bonfiglio, and the big man yelped, cast the corpse aside, and thrashed his arms in the air. I thought I had scared him, until I heard growls. Mr. Bopp had his teeth sunk into the man’s leg, his iron jaws locked. Bonfiglio staggered away from me, trying to kick Mr. Bopp off.
I caught a glimpse of Mr. Ginger, who looked panicked as he fought off two men with slashes of his buggy whip. Then he snatched off his hat, and the second Mr. Ginger took his assailants by surprise. While they stood there dumbfounded, Miss Lightfoot sneaked up behind them and swung a hefty branch into their heads with a quick one-two. The nearer of them fell, stunned, the other ducked and ran away. As more men took their place, Miss Lightfoot and Mr. Ginger stood back-to-back like warriors of old, jabbing and slashing to keep the enemy at bay.
As I moved to help them, I saw Tauseret follow Miss Lightfoot’s lead and give Bonfiglio a few whacks to the brow with the spar from Earle’s wagon. Mr. Bopp curled himself around the man’s ankles, and Bonfiglio tumbled to the ground like Jack’s giant. Tauseret bared her teeth in a most terrifying grin, which made me thankful she loved me. Bonfiglio clambered to his feet and stumbled away. Perhaps he hoped to dislodge the caterpillar man, but Mr. Bopp bumped behind him, fully attached to his victim’s calf by the strength of his jaws— until Bonfiglio pitched headfirst into a drainage ditch in the hedges. Then Mr. Bopp let go and tumbled free, laughing.
I ran to Tauseret and grabbed her hand. “Jump on one of the couplings between the carriages,” I ordered. “Ride the train out of here.”
“Never!” she proclaimed. “I will never leave you, now I have found you again.”
I felt helpless to protect her. “Please, go.”
“And leave children to fight alone?” she argued.
The children ran figure eights with five or six ruffians behind them. Bertha with her queer gait raced as fast on all fours as any man upright. The children lashed at the men’s knees with sticks when they came close, and the men ran into one another with increasing frequency. Apollo joined the fray with his length of wood, barking and growling like a dog of war as he thrust with his spar; Moses found some barbwire for a whip. The men uttered oaths most unsuitable for children’s ears, and the children hurled back invectives twice as bad.
A big fellow cut Minnie off from the others like a wolf cuts a lamb from the flock. Tauseret cried out and ran to help.
Two men came my way before I could follow, and I pulled out a knife with my left hand to match the one in my right. They dodged my jabbing blades and smirked. The big fellow swooped up Minnie with a whoop of triumph and headed back to the wagons. Apollo used his spar like a battering ram into the big fellow’s back, and the man dropped Minnie. Moses caught her and gave the fellow a kick in the shins for good measure. Tauseret smacked him across his chest with her pole.
The train crawled by. The passenger cars had passed, and the freight cars followed.
My attackers rushed me. I slashed with my knives. They weren’t designed for fighting, but the tips were sharp, and I scored a hit on the smaller man and drew blood. He squealed. They both leaped back and eyed me.
“Finish them off, you lily-livered cowards,” Mink called from the roof of his wagon. “A bonus to the first to throw a brat in my coach.”
Tauseret tripped, and a fleshy man flung himself on her while two cronies cheered him on. She wrestled like a she-cat. Oh, my God, he meant to defile her! I had to stop him. I flung my knives at the men I faced but missed with both, and I cursed my stupid haste. The men ran at me. I felt a fist to my jaw, and then I gazed up from the ground and the world spun. I thought I dreamed what I saw next.
A camel and rider jumped over me.
I fought for consciousness and sat up woozily in time to see another camel and rider leap from an open freight-car door as the train chugged by. I shook my head and blinked in disbelief. My attackers fled. The fleshy man let go of Tauseret and crossed himself. The two thugs with him ran. The camel pursued. Tauseret scurried away on her hands and feet.
A horse landed clumsily just beyond me, hooves scattering pebbles and sod. An older man was in the saddle, whirling a cavalry saber in circles so fast it sang. Behind him sat a dwarf.
“Colonel! Archie!” I cried as I struggled to my feet.
They set off toward the tramps that beset the children.
A filthy man, too full of gin and false courage to run, assailed me. I landed several blows with newfound strength, my hopes elated, but he seemed immune and I lost steam. Then a pungent stench of manure and hay enveloped me, and I was knocked askew by a long, hairy leg with a knobby knee. I gasped as someone yanked the drunk from above. “Tallyho!” the man on the camel cried, and hung the drunk from a tree by his suspenders. He gave me a smart salute. “I don’t know who those fellows on the horse are, but I don’t mind the help.” It was Frank, th
e younger Arabian brother from Marvel Brothers Circus. I was too amazed to answer. Beyond him the taillights of the train retreated up the track.
Tauseret confronted me and wrapped her arms around my neck. “They have come,” she cried, and threw her head back in a wild, glad laugh that made my heart sing.
Mink still screamed invectives from the roof of his wagon, but he was losing control of his men once more. Most were running off. Archie had slid from the colonel’s horse and joined the cheering children. He wasn’t much taller than they. The colonel chased a fellow along the path in the direction the train had gone. The fellow scrambled through the bushes to get around Earle just as a cart arrived. My heart lurched. Was it friend or foe?
A dark-skinned man jumped from the cart and came at the fleeing villain, swinging his fists like a gentleman.
“Poppa!” Willie called. “I knew you’d come.” Mr. Northstar knocked the villain unconscious and ran to embrace his son.
A red-haired girl stood in the cart waving a broom in triumph. “Lillie!” I yelled with joy. Bless her wanton heart. She had heard Tauseret’s call all the way off at Mrs. Delaney’s house of ill repute and brought Mr. Northstar with her. He must have come back like he said.
The thug scrambled to his feet and ran around the cart, while Lillie whacked at him with her broom. The colonel jumped his horse over the fat man and followed the fleeing varmint up the lane. He could have run the man down, but he ran him off instead.
Two remaining thugs fled in the other direction. Eddie, the older Arabian brother, pursued them on camelback past their wagon, topsy-turvy on the path. The wagon horses plunged and snorted at the sight of the camel but couldn’t escape their tangled harness. The men swarmed up the side of Mink’s paneled wagon to join Mink on the roof. Mink screamed something at them, and they flung themselves from the roof at Eddie, carrying him off his leggy beast. I ran to Eddie’s rescue and jerked one of the thugs away by the scruff. Eddie limped and had a gash in his cheek but swung gamely at the other.
With the horse rider gone and one camel rider unseated, some of the ruffians must have found their nerve. Half a dozen, led by Billy Sweet, poured back onto the path. I took one on, and as I pummeled my foe, I saw Tauseret climbing a tree. The bastard I fought kicked me in the shin. I kneed him in the groin and watched him fall, shrieking.