Above the chaos rose a hideous ululation. Tauseret launched herself from the tree and onto the back of Eddie’s loose camel. She snatched the reins but didn’t know what to do with them. Her tugs drove the beast wild. It ran into the knot of villains around the children and Mr. Northstar, spitting and nipping viciously, and scattered them, then it crashed through the hedges and into the field. Frank whipped his camel after her.
I wanted to chase her too. What if she fell? What if she broke her neck? But I had children to protect. Or did I?
Moses and Bertha each now clutched an end of the length of barbwire, padded with handholds torn from someone’s clothes. They ran at the legs of Billy Sweet and wrapped him like a maypole. He fell to the ground and bloodied his hands as he pulled at his bonds. The children pelted the men with rocks. Mr. Northstar laid out those who came through the barrage with his fists, and Archie crunched kneecaps and punched stomachs. All around tramps ducked, covered their heads, protected their groins, and hopped on one foot.
We were winning! Against all odds we were winning.
“Don’t move, or I’ll blast your head off,” said Mink from behind me. Cold metal pressed into my cheek. My blood froze. When had he left his perch?
“Tell them to give up the fight,” the skeleton man demanded.
They wouldn’t abandon me to my fate like he had Ceecee. They would do as I said and be defeated. I refused to speak.
Mink jabbed me with the gun barrel. “Do it, boy. They value your hide, and you do too.”
He was right. I valued my hide, and how could I help them if I was dead?
“Stop, everyone,” I cried. “Mr. Northstar, Archie, everyone, hold your blows. Stop, or he’ll shoot me.”
Moses noticed and yelled to Apollo, who pointed my way and caused the others to look. Action ceased.
An eerie stillness fell over us, and for a moment we posed like a circus tableau—a battle from history, frozen in the silver light that precedes the sun.
Some of Mink’s men were long gone—this task had presented too much work for the lazy vagrants. A few lay on the ground, out cold or broken in some way. The drunk still hung helpless from a tree. Bonfiglio hadn’t moved since he’d fallen; maybe he’d broken his neck. The remains of Ceecee lay heels over rump like a dropped puppet. The tramps still standing peered around with shifty, anxious eyes. Billy Sweet moaned on the ground. “Fer Christ’s sake, someone untie me.”
“You children,” Mink shrilled. “Get yourselves to my wagon, or I’ll kill this bedchamber sneak.”
Moses put his arm around Bertha. Mr. Northstar reached for his son.
“You lot”—Mink pointed at his men with his free hand— “back my wagon up to the road. Unhitch the horses and push if you have to. Get moving!” The barrel of the gun shook with his rage. I prayed the trigger wasn’t sensitive.
A scream sounded closer and closer, across the fields. Was this my death? Tauseret, atop the camel, leaped the bushes. Her hair flew, her eyes blazed, and she kept her seat like a desert chief as the camel hurtled over Earle. She was magnificent. “Release him,” she cried. She thundered toward us, using a stick to whip the beast she had mastered. Friend and enemy alike dived out of her path.
My Lord. She wouldn’t recognize a pistol. He’d kill her.
I had but a second while Mink was distracted. I slid out a knife and plunged it under my arm. A squeak and a whoosh of air came from Mink before he fell into me and slid to the ground. His pistol thudded at my feet.
Tauseret reached me and flung herself off the camel and into my arms. “You are safe,” she proclaimed. “He faints at my rage. This time I saved you.”
I held her tight. “Three times,” I said. “Once from Ceecee, once from Mink, and once from loneliness. You have more than balanced the past.”
Cries rang through the morning as camel and horse galloped back down the lane. A crowd of farmers bearing pitchforks and scythes followed behind.
All tramps and rogues who could run did so.
The mound on the path stirred. “What? Huh? Darn if my head don’t hurt,” groaned Earle.
The sun rose.
30
MOST OF THE BRIGANDS ESCAPED, except for those felled by injuries. When he arrived, the sheriff said the scene reminded him of the Spanish War. He ordered us all to the milk stop down the track, where he would sort out what had happened. The milk stop was a new little train station, Archie Crum told me. The farmers had been waiting there to load the morning’s shipment when the colonel galloped up and enlisted their aid.
Tauseret and I helped round up the horses. Two farmers loaded Mink’s wagon with the afflicted, including Mink. They almost left Mink for the undertaker at first, since he looked nearly as much like a corpse as Ceecee, but Mr. Ginger set them straight. I shivered as they carried him by. Amazingly, not one of my friends had sustained a wound except Earle.
We set the villains’ covered wagon to rights, and I rehitched the horses, but we had to remove the canopy to get Earle aboard. He clutched his head and moaned, blessedly alive. I drove our own paneled wagon, Tauseret on the seat beside me, looking proud and fierce.
“And who is this young lady?” the colonel asked.
“Would you like the unbelievable truth or a digestible tale?” I asked.
“The one that makes the best story, of course,” he said.
“Then, you’ll have to wait until we have more time,” I told him.
A doctor had been sent for and arrived at the station in his buggy soon after us. “You’d better hope that wound on the skeleton man ain’t mortal,” said the sheriff to me, “else I’ll have to do my duty.” A shock of fear shot through me. Did he mean arrest me for murder? I had acted in self-defense, surely.
Apollo and the children clustered around the camels at the side of the little redbrick station building where Earle was parked, and pestered the Arabian brothers with questions. The rest of us huddled in small groups on the dusty platform of the train station, exchanging few words and many glances, as the sheriff called us each aside to be interviewed. Tauseret clung to my hand, and I hated to think what she might do if the sheriff tried to take me away.
Only our recent host, Mr. Webster, was in a good mood. He pointed to a newly painted sign above the train station. “They changed his name,” he chortled with delight. “Tompson paid off the railway so’s they’d stop nearest his farm, and they shortened the station name anyway.”
I gulped. The sign read TOMS JUNCTION, just like the one Minnie had seen.
“I sent the truth to your friends, did I not?” said Tauseret. She looked so satisfied that I imagined her licking cream from her lips. I grinned. I wanted to lick those lips too.
At last, a bespectacled head rounded the heavy station door. “He’ll live,” the doctor called.
The crowd of show folk and locals sent up a cheer—not for his sake, but for mine, I realized as Mr. Webster and his fellow farmers pumped my hand in sturdy congratulations. Their support flustered and warmed me. Then Tauseret kissed me most inappropriately, and they cheered again, which flustered me more.
One would think a knife thrust to the chest of such a slight fellow would have caused him mortal harm, but Mink’s prominent ribs had deflected the blow from any vital organ, and he lay sorely hurt but alive, the doctor reassured us before he went off to check on Earle.
Whether Mink would be charged with anything beyond causing a public nuisance, I didn’t know. Mr. Northstar said he would be happy to return for a trial and see if the Iowa kidnapping laws covered little colored boys, and Miss Lightfoot offered the forged papers to the sheriff gladly. Tauseret wanted to accuse him of theft, but I pointed out most folk would find it hard to believe if she presented herself as both the item stolen and the witness.
Before he left with a wagonload of prisoners, the sheriff declared that since no one had seen Ceecee’s demise, he must assume that one of the fled vagrants was the culprit. With elation I realized that the sheriff did not have much int
erest in pursuing the matter. Shame followed. I had killed a man, and no matter how he deserved it, I shouldn’t celebrate, but thank the Lord for his mercy.
“What now?” I asked as Mr. Webster hurried off the remaining locals with promises of a hearty breakfast.
“We go home,” said the colonel.
I wrapped my arm around Tauseret’s waist and looked about me for the others, suddenly afraid to lose them.
Mr. Ginger, hat on head, held Miss Lightfoot’s hands as they talked quietly. The excitement must have agreed with her, for she glowed as much as a scaled woman could. Bertha and Minnie sat at their feet in the dirt of the platform. Not far from them, Moses and Willie leaned over the platform edge and poked at something with a stick.
Farther away, Mr. Bopp leaned against Apollo’s legs like an ugly dog and laughed as Archie Crum told a joke no doubt unsuitable for a boy Apollo’s age.
Lillie sat with Earle on his roomy new wagon. He sported a lopsided bandage on his head and a sling on his arm. Lillie turned the pink pages of a Police Gazette salvaged from the wreckage of his old cart, while he read aloud, and she made appropriate noises of shock, disgust, and approval.
“Your friends can join us if they wish,” said Colonel Kingston, amusement in his voice. “Eddie and Frank have already said they’ll come.” He gestured to the nearby lot where the Arabian brothers tended to their camels and the assorted horses.
Mr. Northstar rounded the corner of the brick station house, Willie’s small hand in his.
“Mr. Northstar,” called the colonel. “I’d like to offer you a job.”
Mr. Northstar gathered Willie in close as he approached. “He’s not a performer, sir.”
“You, sir, not your son,” replied the colonel. “You are a lawyer, are you not? Do you know contracts?”
“My specialty,” answered Mr. Northstar, looking confused.
“A business has need of contract lawyering,” said the colonel.
My mother would be proud that her lectures about the colonels casual business practices had borne fruit at last.
“You won’t find it easy having a colored lawyer,” said Mr. Northstar.
“Look around you, Mr. Northstar,” said the colonel with a sweep of his arm. “Do you think that any one of us has found life easy?”
Miss Lightfoot and Mr. Ginger came over as if drawn by his gesture.
Mr. Northstar hesitated and then smiled. “I have not found reason of late to trust showmen,” he said, “but you have helped me rescue my son. I do believe I will accept your offer of a job.”
“What about you, ma’am, and you, Mr. Ginger?” asked the Colonel.
Miss Lightfoot looked at Mr. Ginger, and Mr. Ginger cleared his throat. “Dear Ruby, as long as you use the name Mrs. Ginger, I’m sure I shall not mind you performing a song or two.”
Miss Lightfoot nodded, a smile of sublime relief on her face.
“Oh, well done!” I cried, and grasped Mr. Ginger’s hand to congratulate him on his engagement.
“But I’m afraid I do not care to tread the boards again as the two-headed man,” Mr. Ginger announced.
“No one has to exhibit himself in my show, if that is not his wish,” the colonel said. “There are plenty of jobs available. I’m sure you have other skills.”
“He paints lovely pictures,” cried Bertha.
“And he plays a squeaky pipe,” growled Mr. Bopp from somewhere near my knees. He and Apollo had joined us.
“It’s an oboe,” Miss Lightfoot corrected.
“You should have snakes,” said Apollo to Miss Lightfoot. He bent and wiped Mr. Bopp’s nose with a tattered cloth. “The Alligator Lady and Her Reptile Friends.”
“My goodness me, sugar plum pudding,” she said, fanning herself. Nevertheless, I could see her interest.
“I’ve got the timetables, Colonel,” Archie proclaimed as he strode up on short, bandy legs.
Before long, I was sitting on a train to Maryland, surrounded by the companions of my adventure—well, except for Earle, who had to stay in a freight car with the camels, owing to his large size. We made one of the dining cars our clubhouse and squeezed around two tables on either side of the aisle. The children were quiet, among strange grown-ups as they were, but they seemed to enjoy all the tales to be told. Minnie sat on Miss Lightfoot’s lap and sucked her thumb, Willie held on to his father’s hand contentedly, but Bertha and Moses hung over the partition from the table behind, and every time they acted up and kicked the backs of our seats, Archie Crum patted them kindly on their cheeks and fed them penny candy to settle them down. He had been like that with me when I was a child, I realized, and I wondered why I had ever thought him mean before I left my home. I obviously hadn’t been thinking straight.
“I guessed you’d joined that circus,” said Colonel Kingston, “but by the time I caught up with Marvel Brothers Circus, you were nowhere to be found. The brothers Marvel were none too helpful, except to say you jumped from the train to avoid responsibility for harboring an incorrigible fugitive stowaway who subsequently escaped, and no, they didn’t know where. Apollo, you cost me the price of a trick ball, a soiled costume, and several bushels of fruit,” said Colonel Kingston.
“Those varmints,” objected Apollo. “I didn’t eat that much!”
“But those elephants you fed did,” returned the colonel.
I expected more arguments from Apollo when I told our side of events at the circus, but he grew unnaturally silent as we neared home. I worried about the boy. I missed his high spirits.
My audience gasped when I told of how I was thrown off the train.
“Sorry we didn’t speak up for you, Abel,” said Eddie, looking sheepish.
“We didn’t want to lose our jobs,” explained Frank. “Then we decided we hated our jobs if keeping them made us act like blighters.”
“Then that clown took to drink and told everyone the dream he’d been having,” said Eddie. “A dark lady kept telling him to rescue Abel at Toms Junction in Iowa.”
Lillie’s hands flew to her cheeks. “That was my dream too.”
The colonel raised his eyebrows. “That was in Miss Dibble’s telegraph to me.”
“We couldn’t find Toms Junction on a map of Iowa,” Frank explained, “but there’s new stations popping up every day. So we took the train east and started asking.”
“Granny read tea leaves,” said Eddie. “She taught us not to ignore dreams.”
“What a sight we made, I’m sure,” said Frank. “Changing trains with our camels loaded with luggage.”
“I telephoned an agent I know who plans routes for his acts,” said the colonel. “He has all the latest information on the railroads.”
“I know men who worked on this railroad,” said Mr. Northstar. “When Lillie told me her dream, I made some inquiries.”
“Thank goodness that fat man blocked the track,” said Frank, “else we might not have had time to saddle up.”
“When I ran for my horse, I didn’t expect to find two men climbing on camels,” said the colonel.
“I didn’t believe the dream, really,” Mr. Northstar said, shaking his head. “But I was desperate.”
“I didn’t believe we’d end up with a whole passel of children,” said Archie.
“Just gots to bite ’em,” growled Mr. Bopp. “That shows ’em.
Bertha laughed. “You don’t bite us.”
“Ought to,” he said, and closed his eyes and pretended to nap.
The wonderful thing about the show folk I grew up with was they took a person’s story at face value, even if the tale was unlikely. If that’s what you wanted to be, fine. It’s how you acted in the now that counted, not what you may have done and been in the past, and there’s a lot to be said for believing in your own tale to make your act come alive. That was why I didn’t hesitate to tell Tauseret’s tale, and my heart swelled with pride and love as I did so.
I tried to skim over the embarrassing parts, however, but Tauseret, unlike A
pollo, did not keep her mouth shut, and her many interruptions made this impossible.
“Oh, I knew he was a ladies’ man at heart,” Archie said, and slapped as many backs and shoulders as he could reach. “He takes after me.” He winked at Lillie, who boldly took inventory of him as if she intended to test his word.
Only Mr. Northstar challenged Tauseret.
“I thought Egyptians were white folk,” he said, inspecting her tawny complexion.
Tauseret cocked her head. “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a white person,” she said, to some amusement. “I have heard that in the far north there is eternal snow. Perhaps these white people you talk of live there to disguise themselves.”
“Your parents will be a little surprised by Tauseret,” said the colonel into the dumbfounded silence.
“I will make them a wonderful daughter,” Tauseret said, and wound her arms around my neck.
Yes, what would my parents feel about this voluptuous and possessive young woman? I wrapped my arms around Tauseret’s waist and kissed her cheek. “My parents are very understanding,” I said.
Apollo exploded to his feet. “My father isn’t!” he cried. His fur rose in a nimbus of static electricity. “I can’t go home, Colonel. He’ll beat me dead.”
I winced and groaned. What a thoughtless fool I’d been, absorbed in my own concerns. That was why he’d been quiet.
Apollo tried to storm off, but he couldn’t squeeze between Mr. Northstar and the table. Colonel Kingston grabbed his arm. “Your father’s gone, Apollo. I made him go.”
Apollo stopped struggling. “Gone?” His hair settled like spider silk. I think I was as relieved as the dog boy to hear this news.
“I will not have women and children mistreated in my establishment,” explained the colonel. “He had been warned several times. When you ran away, that was the final straw.”
“My mother and sister?” Apollo asked hesitantly.