From a High Tower (11 page)

She feasted her eyes on them as they went past, their own gazes unwavering and straight ahead, as if they rode their own plains unobserved, not a dusty arena ogled by an avid audience.

Behind them came four bison, carefully led by halters manned by walking handlers. They split into two groups, so both sides of the arena could get a good look at them. Giselle gazed her fill at the odd creatures, which played so huge a part in Karl May's tales. She could scarcely imagine how they kept their huge heads up, and they didn't look dangerous at all. . . .

Well, a bull doesn't look dangerous either,
she reminded herself.
Nor does a dancing bear. But either of them could tear you apart if they were minded to.

Then came more cowboys and frontiersmen, including some fellows in embroidered shirts and enormous hats, and lastly, when all of the performers were arrayed around the edge of the arena, in galloped Captain Cody again on his beautiful white steed, which he stopped in the middle of the area. He made it rear on its hind legs again then bow in four directions to the four quarters of the arena before galloping back out again, and the rest of the company rode back through the red curtains, leaving the arena empty once again.

And then the real show began.

Certainly everyone who (unlike Giselle) had
bought
their tickets must have felt they got their money's worth, because by the time it was over, she realized that at least four hours had passed. There were trick-riders, of which Captain Cody was the chief. The antics he performed on what must have been the most patient horse in the world left the audience gasping. There was a cattle stampede, an Indian raid on the settlers, bandits ambushing the stagecoach, and Captain Cody did an exhibition of sharpshooting that won her unalloyed admiration, because
he
did his tricks without benefit of helpful sylphs. Texas Tom did things with a rope she half-thought were magic tricks. There was a “grand quadrille,” which was a dance done on horseback, with four couples in bright satin gowns and suits. Captain Cody's “Wonder Horse, Lightning,” showed off a battery of tricks. And there was even more than that. By the time it was over even Giselle felt sated with all the sights and sounds.

At the end of the show, the announcer told the crowd that those with the same sort of ticket that she held were invited to leave through the entrance on the side of the tent where she was sitting—a much, much smaller entrance. There, he proclaimed, they would be allowed to see the stagecoach, the covered wagon, the bison, and the longhorn cattle all up close, and speak with the performers and tour the Cowboy Camp, the Army Camp, the Settler Camp and the Indian Village.

Well, how could she possibly resist that?

She left her seat and joined the other audience members who had the special tickets and were passing through the designated entrance. Only as she filed out with the rest did a second ticket-taker examine and take her ticket.

“He dropped one and didn't notice. That was the one I stole!”
said a silvery, laughing voice. Giselle looked up—trying not to look as if she was looking up—and saw the white-winged sylph hovering overhead.

Thank you,
she thought, hard, knowing the sylph would hear and understand her, then she followed the crowd down a passage left for them to walk through.

By this time, the white-winged one had been joined by two more, all three of them chattering among themselves and looking back from time to time to make sure she was following.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” called the man who had been doing all the announcing. “I am conducting a tour of the camp! If you will please gather around me, yes, like that, the first object here for your pleasure and examination is the Wells Fargo Stagecoach!”

Well, the stagecoach did not hold a great deal of interest for Giselle, and anyway, the white-winged sylph was beckoning her onward, with her two companions fluttering on ahead. So she edged past the crowd and followed, and soon found herself wandering past wagons and tents that looked quite ordinary, like the farm-cart that Mother had used, except bigger, and people—mostly men—who were going to and fro and evidently had specific things they needed to do in a hurry. They ignored her quite as if they didn't see her—which was a good thing, as she was trying very hard not to be seen. There was a smell of cooking food: stew, she thought, but some other things she didn't quite recognize. And the bruised smell of trampled grass, a distant hint of a large animal that was not horse. The bison?

She came around a corner of a tent and found herself, suddenly, at the edge of the Indian Camp. You could tell it was the Indian Camp, since it was a circle of cone-shaped tents of painted canvas that
must
be teepees, arranged around a central fire. And standing not twenty feet away, just behind one of these tents, were Captain Cody himself, one of the Indians, and a fellow in a suit. They seemed to be discussing things, not urgently, but she could tell from their manner that whatever they were talking about was certainly important. She wished she could understand them. But at least she could try and remain unnoticed and get a much closer look at two of the show's stars.

This close, Captain Cody actually looked a little bit handsomer, and he was shorter than she had thought. The Indian, by contrast, was quite tall. He didn't speak much, only a word or two now and again, but whatever he said was listened to with great attention. Something about the way he held himself made her think he might be quite important—perhaps he was the chief? And there was something more about him that she couldn't quite put her finger on—

Just as she thought that, he happened to glance in her direction. And suddenly, his gaze sharpened and he stared hard at her. She shrank back a little—and then, as she watched his eyes flicker from her to what
should
have been empty air for him—she realized that
he could see her sylphs!

Before she could move, or say anything, all three sylphs zoomed over to him, and as he turned, she could see that there was a bird, a small owl, perched on his shoulder. . . .

Except that it wasn't a bird. Or rather, it wasn't an
ordinary
bird. It shimmered with the same inherent power that her sylphs did, and she realized with a sense of shock that it was some sort of Air Elemental.

Her sylphs were talking to it—and it had its eyes fixed on the Indian's. He interrupted the conversation that was still going on between Captain Cody and the other man, and said a few sharp, excited words. And pointed.

At her.

Before she could back away and run, all three of them were striding toward her with purpose in every step. They literally surrounded her so she couldn't move, with Captain Cody and the man in the suit talking excitedly and gesturing at her.

Their German was . . . terrible.

She shook her head, trying to convey that she didn't understand. All that accomplished was to make them repeat themselves, only louder this time, as if by volume alone they could
make
her understand. She looked from Cody's face to the other man's and back, only getting more bewildered and starting to feel more than a bit desperate.

Then the Indian interrupted them with an abrupt gesture and a single word. They fell silent, and waited, expectantly.

The Indian pointed at her, then mimed something. After a moment, she understood what it was—he was carefully aiming, and shooting, a rifle!

He pointed at her again. Was he asking if she could shoot? The way he spread his hands afterward seemed to indicate that was just what he was doing, so she nodded, and mimed shooting her rifle.

That got the two men even
more
excited, if that was possible. They started babbling at her until the Indian snorted in disgust, and that seemed to remind them that she couldn't understand a single word they were saying. But Captain Cody seized her by the wrist and pulled gently. The Indian made shooing motions in the direction he was trying to take her.

“Go with them!”
all three sylphs urged.
“Go with them! They want to see what we can do!”

She might have been frightened, and indeed, perhaps she
should
have been frightened, except that it was clear to her, and more importantly, to her sylphs, that these men meant her no harm. If there was one thing that an Elemental Master came to trust, it was the instincts of her Elementals, for they saw deeper than any mere human could.
Maybe if I had been paying more attention to them, I would have left before the Hauptmann found me. . . .

Captain Cody's grip on her wrist was not so tight that she couldn't have pulled away if she wanted to, but with her own Elementals telling her to do what these men wanted—well it would have been foolish not to do what they said. She didn't know
why
the sylphs wanted her to shoot for them, but perhaps . . . perhaps she could get a meal out of it if she impressed them, and maybe a bed in one of the tents for the night. That was certainly worth a few shots at a target, given the shrinking of her finances. So she let Cody lead her to a part of the camp where a target range had been set up, with the other two men following behind. There was a backstop of logs, against which there was a row of paper targets. There were stationary targets, and also a crate of clay targets meant to be tossed in the air. Behind the backstop was the canvas wall; it occurred to her that these people must be very sure of their own aim to know that any misfires would go into the logs and not to either side, through the canvas and then . . . hitting who
knew
what!

She didn't have her own rifle with her, but the Captain motioned for her to wait and went off to a nearby tent. He returned with a rifle, a carbine of some sort. It was somewhat more sophisticated than her own piece, and much newer, but after several moments of looking it over and miming to Cody he should demonstrate its action, she was satisfied she could handle it creditably once she got it sighted in on the stationary targets. She raised it to her shoulder for her first shot and glanced at the Indian.

He gave a slight tilt of his head in the direction of the three sylphs, and the sketchiest of nods. So, he intended that she “cheat?” Very well, then.

You may help me,
she thought hard at them.
The bullet must—

“We know!”
crowed the white-winged one.
“This will be
tremendous
fun!”

This gun was lighter than hers, so she braced herself for a bigger “kick.” Kickback on any gun was dependent on two things: the power of the ammunition and the weight of the frame of the gun itself, as Joachim had carefully explained to her. And the first shot she took did, indeed, kick the butt of the rifle back hard into her shoulder. But since she was prepared for it, the muzzle rose only a fraction, and she was sighting in on the target again.

Within moments, Giselle was completely in love with this rifle. Her first shot would have been in the second ring from the center, if the sylphs hadn't interfered. She had it properly sighted in within five shots, and needed very little assistance on the stationary targets from the sylphs, perhaps a nudge on one shot in six or seven. Soon the center of the target had no more paper in it, and had taken on the dull sheen of lead as bullet after bullet flattened on each other. She lost track of everything except the gun in her hands, the target in front of her, and what the air around her was doing. Even the kick of the rifle into her shoulder no longer registered with her, at least not consciously.

She needed no assistance at all when Captain Cody began tossing clay plates into the air.

Plate after plate went up and shattered as she shot, pausing only long enough to reload. Her hands worked of themselves, she really didn't think about them. She could hardly have been unaware of the men's growing excitement, since the Captain whooped with joy every time she hit her mark, but she kept her concentration on her targets. If the sylphs thought she needed to impress these men, then impress them she would! She swung the muzzle of the carbine, tracking each plate and snapping off a shot as soon as she was
sure
everything was perfect, her brows creased slightly. She was vaguely aware she'd probably have a bit of a bruise on her shoulder when she was done, but that was offset by the fact that this lovely carbine was so much lighter than her own piece.

The Captain paused in throwing up clay targets; perhaps his arm was getting tired. But there was still plenty of ammunition in the bucket they had brought her, and she decided that she was not through trying to impress them.

Although on the whole neither Joachim nor Pieter approved of what they would have called “boasting shots,” they still taught her several when she begged them. She looked at the Captain, fished in her pocket, and pulled out a pfennig. Inwardly, she winced at the waste of even one small coin, but then she reminded herself that if she could get supper out of these people, it would certainly be worth more than a pfennig. She mimed tossing it in the air and handed it to him. His eyes widened, but he nodded, pulled back his fist and flung it as hard as he could.

Of course, she was taking no chances; the sylphs assisted the trajectory of the pfennig as well as that of her bullet.

The Indian had sharper eyes than the rest of them, and strolled over to where it fell. He brought it back and the Captain let out a long, low whistle, when he saw she had punched a hole in it, slightly off of center.

If only I had a mirror,
she thought, just a little smugly.
I'd make their eyes bulge!

And as if the Indian had actually heard her thoughts, he reached into a bag he had slung over one shoulder and handed her a little ladies' mirror.

If she had not read Karl May's books, she would probably have been taken aback that he had such a thing—but she knew that Indians often used mirrors they got in trade for signaling each other at great distances. She took it with a smile and a little nod she hoped he recognized as thanks and turned her back on the target.