Ghost Boy (17 page)

Chapter

35

R
oman Pinski was only fifteen. But he was bigger than most men twice his age, made strong and taut by the swinging of sledges and the labors of a circus lot. He held the baseball bat in three fingers, by the bulge at the end of the handle.

“What's all the giggling about?” he asked. The bat swung in his hand like a bell clapper.

Flip was disheveled. Wet from the river, spotted with mud, she stood breathing hard from her laughing. She brushed a hand through her hair. “Hello, Roman,” she said.

He stood just above the mud, looking down at Harold. “What are you doing here?” he asked. “Huh? What are you doing here, Whitey?”

Harold hung his head so far that the glasses nearly fell from his nose. It seemed to him, right then, that Liberty had come after him, that it always would come after him, like a pack of dogs, no matter where he went.

“I asked you a question.” Roman leered at Harold. “What are you doing here, Whitey?”

Flip laughed. “What do you
think
he's doing here, you goof? He's got a baseball and a bat and a buncha elephants. What does it
look
like he's doing?”

“Making time,” said Roman. “That's what. It looks like Maggot's making time with you.”

“His name's not Maggot, and it's not Whitey. It's Harold.” She stood between them, facing Roman. “And what does it matter to you what he's doing?”

“I don't like freaks,” said Roman.

“Harold's not a freak.”

“He looks like one.” Roman swung the bat against his boot. It made a steady thudding like a drum. “Hey, Maggot. Why are you so white?”

Harold's shoulders tightened; his arms crossed against his stomach. He only had to wait, he knew, and Roman would just go away.

“Are you sick or something?” The bat thumped against Roman's boot. “You look half dead.”

Harold could see him only as a blur in the arc at the top of his glasses. All around him the ground shivered and shook, and Canary Bird was a gray jelly looming over Roman's shoulder.

“Hey, Flip,” said Roman. “Don't you think Maggot looks half dead?”

She stood close beside Harold, the river up to their ankles. “Just go and do your stupid rigging. Just leave us alone, okay?”

“Who's going to make me?” Roman grinned. “You going to make me, Whitey?”

Harold felt himself shriveling, tightening, like a spider poked by a stick. His legs wanted to run, but the rest of him couldn't.
He'll stop,
he thought.
He'll go away.

“Look at him. Those dumb little glasses. Take them off, Whitey. I want to see your eyes. I bet they're pink, huh? Little pink eyes like a rat.”

“They're blue,” said Flip. “Now leave him alone.” There was an angry tremble in her voice. “Give him the bat and leave him alone.”

“This bat?” Roman held it up. He took a step closer, from the grass to the mud. “Is this your bat, Whitey?”

Harold's fingers stiffened into fists. The nails pressed into his palm. It was David's bat, not his, and he was frightened that Roman would break it in two just for the pleasure of that, or suddenly hurl the thing into the river, laughing.

“You want your bat?” Roman held it out as he took another step, and another, crossing the mud to stand at the edge of the water. The river crept in behind him, filling the hollows his boots had made. “Go on; take it. I got better things to do than stand around and look at the freak show.”

Harold stretched out his hand. He knew what would happen, and it did. Roman pulled the bat away.

“Take it, Whitey.”

He'd played the game a thousand times—ten thousand times, perhaps—with his schoolbooks and his winter hats, his mittens and his fishing poles. He'd played it with the tears rolling down his face. And he decided now, with Liberty five hundred miles behind him, that he just wouldn't play it anymore. The bat dangled before him.

“Take it, Maggot.”

He didn't move—not a muscle. The bat was just inches from his chest.

“You dumb white freak.”

Conrad's ears flapped behind Harold, throwing shadows over Roman and the river. From his throat came the low rumble that could set Harold's hair tingling if he heard it from a distance.

Roman glanced up. He took a step back, then—grinning—came forward again. “Don't you want your bat, Whitey?”

Roman's fingers, curved around the top, nudged against Harold's chest. “Take it,” he said, and pushed again.

It wasn't hard enough to topple him, but Harold stepped back.

“I could bust you in two,” said Roman. “I could punch right through you if I wanted.” He prodded Harold's breast with his fingers, each time a little harder.

Conrad's rumbling sounds deepened. His trunk thrashed at the river.

“You'd better stop,” said Harold.

Roman sneered. He mimicked the Ghost's soft voice: “You'd better stop.” Then he poked again, harder than before. “Come and make me, Whitey.”

Harold moved backward. His heel caught on the river bottom, and he staggered and fell, sitting down in the water. He heard Conrad roar a terrible roar, a wail like a siren, that started low and ended with a shriek. He felt the trunk thrash at the water, and he saw Roman's eyes swell huge with fright.

Conrad came surging past Harold, right
over
Harold, with the water coursing around his legs. The elephant's belly covered him like a thick gray cloud. Flip screamed, and Roman dropped the bat; he turned and ran. He slipped on the bank and clawed with his fingers; he pulled himself up to the top. The mud on his hands grew as thick as boxing gloves. Then he stood on the grass and shouted back, “You keep that thing away from me. You stinking freak.”

Conrad trumpeted. His trunk curled high above him. Roman was shaking his hands, spraying mud across the grass. And all the time he kept retreating, until only his head showed over the bank. “I'll get you, Whitey,” he shouted. “I'll smash your stupid white face.”

Harold didn't move. Roman's shouts faded away, and then he saw Flip wading toward him, her legs splashing through the water, her body hidden by the elephant. She stooped and looked under Conrad's belly. “Are you all right?” she asked.

He nodded. He crawled out, and the trunk snaked down to help him. Then he stood by Conrad's shoulder, and he didn't think he'd ever move from there.

“Take him up to the tent,” she said. “Get his harness ready, and I'll meet you there in a minute. And whatever you do, don't leave the roses alone.”

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“I gotta talk to Roman.” She wiped a clot of mud from Harold's cheek. “I gotta set things straight.”

Harold watched her cross the mud and climb the bank. He waved to her, but she didn't look back. Then he put his hand on Conrad's trunk. “Come on,” he said, and started walking.

He stayed in the elephant's shadow. With Conrad beside him, and the other two roses plodding behind, he felt safer than he ever had. For the first time in his life he crossed an empty field without a twinge of fear. He walked into the elephants' tent, took a harness from its peg and dragged it back to the sunlight.

On the grass he stretched it out. But no matter how he pulled at the pieces, he could see no sense in all its chains and buckles. The breakfast bells rang, but he kept at work, frowning to see the tangles he was making, each one bigger than the last. And he was down on his haunches, still puzzling it out, when Flip walked up behind him. She had changed her wet and dirty clothes for clean ones, and she carried a tray in her hands.

“I brought you some breakfast,” she said.

He took the plate of eggs and blackened toast, and he sat on the grass to eat it. Conrad stood above him, leaning left, then right, his ears flapping slowly.

“I guess Roman's pretty mad at me,” Harold said.

“Good guess.” She dragged a chain through a loop of leather, and it clattered into a heap. “He wanted Mr. Hunter to get his gun and go shoot Conrad.”

“What?” said Harold. “Why?”

“'Cause he turned so mean.”

Harold squinted at her. “Conrad didn't turn mean.”

“No.” She laughed. “Roman did.”

“So nothing's going to happen, right?” Harold held a bit of toast above his head. Conrad took it in his trunk. “Mr. Hunter isn't going to shoot him, is he?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “You've got to help me now.”

Harold held the plate up and let Conrad take the last of his toast and eggs. Then he stood and helped Flip put the harness on the elephant.

It went quickly once he saw how it was done. With Conrad kneeling, they stretched the leather in place. Then Flip made him stand and tightened the buckles under his belly. “Down trunk!” she said.

Again Conrad knelt before her, with the clumsy grace Harold thought he would never get tired of seeing. The knees bent; the great bulk of the elephant's head came down to rest on the ground; the trunk spread across the grass.

Flip stepped up it, over the forehead, onto the ridge of the elephant's spine. She sat facing Harold. “Okay. Climb on.”

“Me?” asked Harold.

“Sure,” she said. “Someone has to drive him.”

He grinned and followed Flip, sprawling up across the hardness of the skull, crawling to the spine. It seemed much higher than he'd thought, and he clung to the harness as he turned himself around.

“Shove your feet under the strap,” said Flip. “You're going to steer him with your feet, like a bobsled.”

She pressed against his back, reaching past to show him what to do. Then her arms circled his stomach. “Tell him, ‘Up trunk.'”

“Up trunk,” said Harold, and felt himself soaring higher, backward, floating up above the ground. And he laughed from the feeling of it, the giddy sense of flying.

She showed him how to start the elephant going, how to turn him and how to stop him, how to step him backward. Clinging to the harness, Harold circled the tent, then turned and circled the other way, with Flip holding so fiercely to him that he felt every part of her pressing at his back. But she
had
to hold him; he teetered on Conrad's bony spine like a drunken man.

“Tighten your legs,” said Flip, laughing. “Let go of the harness.”

“I'll fall off.”

“You won't,” she said. “Put your hands on your hips.”

He sat straighter then, rocked to and fro by the elephant's odd, lopsided gait. He settled into it as the ground blurred past below him. But still Flip hugged him from behind, leaning on his back with her chin resting on his shoulder.

“Are you ready to work him alone?” she asked.

“Alone? Gosh, I don't know,” he said. “I—”

“Don't worry so much!” She squeezed him. “It's easy. Go where people tell you and leave the work to Conrad. He's done it so often you'll just be along for the ride.”

“Okay,” he said.

“Now let me off.”

He made the elephant kneel, and Flip slid down to the grass.

“Up trunk!” said Harold, and felt himself soaring, giddy again. He looked down at her from an incredible height, feeling enormous himself, as though the strength and the size of the elephant were now his own.

He went off to his job feeling that nothing could hurt him.

Chapter

36

S
idewalls were stripped from the tents, rigging wires and quarter poles removed, and the great buildings of canvas came tumbling down. Center poles were taken out, the canvas sections separated. Then men lined up along their edges and ran the canvas across, folding it into squares and strips, into bulky rolls that weighed two thousand pounds or more.

The elephant was the machinery of the circus. Now a tractor, now a skidder, now a donkey engine, Conrad dragged the canvas and the bundled poles across to waiting trucks. Chains were connected and disconnected, derricks and pulleys rigged. And the elephant—with Harold on his back—strained at his harness, kicking gouges in the field, to load the circus a ton at a time onto the backs of Fords and Chevrolets, until the trucks sagged on groaning springs.

And the last thing loaded was the elephant. Harold drove him up a ramp at the back of the Diamond T, into a stall with long, slatted windows cut in the side. He chained him there, then clambered out, and saw that the convoy was already moving.

The trucks started one by one, lurching over the field, joining in a column streaming to the west. The Airstream trailer passed in a flash of sun, and the Gypsy Magda drove behind it. A quarter mile of trucks and trailers and huge black cars stretched along the road in a growing cloud of dust.

Then the yellow jeep came bouncing across the field, its wheels spraying dirt as it turned in a tight circle. It stopped behind the Diamond T, and Mr. Hunter leaned across the gearshift. He was wearing a pair of big goggles. “Harold,” he said. “Jump in.”

Harold clambered up through the low open door. He dropped into a seat that surprised him with its hardness, then clung to the windshield frame as the jeep leapt forward. It hurtled across the field, climbed to the road and sped along through the dust from the convoy. It passed the trucks one by one, with little toots of the horn as each cab went by. Gravel banged from the fender, and the dust went by in clouds, and Harold looked up at the drivers.

He saw the Gypsy Magda standing as she drove, but she didn't look down. Then he passed the Airstream, and Samuel's truck was swaying beside him. Harold pulled himself up by the windshield; he raised his head above it, and gritty air blasted hard against his face. Dust spewed from the truck's front wheel, boiling like smoke beside him. Then he waved to Samuel, the wind snatching his hand and pulling it back.

Samuel glanced down. His lips moved behind the bush of beard, and Tina suddenly appeared in the window, grinning and waving back. But Samuel neither waved nor smiled, and his hands stayed tight on the steering wheel. Then he fell away behind the jeep, and the other trucks passed in dust and gravel, until the jeep shivered on the road and zoomed ahead, through air that was clear and warm.

Harold dropped into his seat. He wiped the dust from his glasses and watched the road twist and open ahead. It seemed to leap toward him, to throw itself under the wheels, and the fence posts skidded past beside him; the dust filled in behind.

Mr. Hunter pulled off his goggles. The lenses were gray with dust. He tossed them into the little backseat as the air whistled past the windshield. “So,” he said. “You had a run-in with Roman.”

“Yes, sir,” said Harold. They had to shout above the sounds of wind and engine.

“Don't let him intimidate you,” said Mr. Hunter. “He's a bully; that's his job.”

“I thought he was a rigger,” Harold shouted.

“Yes. But that's a mindless means of making money.” Mr. Hunter smiled. “When the show starts, he prowls around the big top. He chases off the boys who endeavor to crawl beneath the tent. I pay Roman to run them off. Rapidly,” he added.

Harold nodded. He imagined it was the sort of job Roman would love.

“Any more trouble, you tell me,” said Mr. Hunter.

“Yes, sir.”

“We don't stand for trouble at Hunter and Green's.”

Harold watched the fences pass. Behind them were forests of corn, and now and then a farmhouse. Then a man passed, standing close beside the road, and Mr. Hunter laughed to see Harold's hand come up to wave. Harold blushed. It was just a scarecrow, though he could tell that for sure only when he saw the birds perching on its stiffened arms.

The jeep drove west all afternoon and into twilight. Harold and Mr. Hunter stared ahead, rarely looking at each other. Talking took such an effort that they did it only in bursts, then sat back, panting, for another dozen miles. And then Harold would become uncomfortable, thinking it was his turn to talk, and he'd lean sideways and shout across the jeep.

“When will I meet Mr. Green?” he asked.

Mr. Hunter frowned. Harold thought he hadn't heard him and shouted again, louder.

“Soon enough, soon enough,” said Mr. Hunter. “I don't see any hurry.” Then he tilted across the gearshift. “But you shall meet him, as you say. Don't worry about that.”

It sounded to Harold as though he
should
be worried, but he didn't know why. And he rode along at a slant, knowing it was his turn again.

But Mr. Hunter spoke first. “I feel fortunate for finding you,” he said. “It's been a difficult season; you know that. My best clown deserted me a month ago, a sad and somber separation. Then the lion tamer left with his lions. Took his tiger, too.”

“Gee, that's a shame,” said Harold.

“Problems at every turn. The great Hunter and Green's shrinking away. Slipping slowly, steadily, sorrowfully …” He moved his hand, searching for another word that started with an
S
. “Away,” he finished lamely.

“Gosh,” said Harold, because he couldn't think of anything else.

“But the elephants. Ah, there's our hope. You're our baseball benefactor, boy. You're our saving grace, the foundation for a firmer future.” His head bobbed at the end of his thin neck. “Yes, Harold, I have great trust in you.”

Then he straightened in his seat, and the wind eddied between them. Harold leaned back, watching telephone wires curve up and down from passing poles. He fell asleep, and woke, and fell asleep again. And the next thing he knew, the sun was streaming through the windshield and Mr. Hunter was shaking him by the arm.

“Wake up,” said Mr. Hunter. “We're here.”

“Where?” asked Harold.

“Trickle Creek.”

It was a tiny little town. The main street was only half as wide as Liberty's, but the stores that lined it shone and sparkled. Trees grew from planters on the sidewalk, and every window sported a bright box of flowers. The road was paved, and the jeep hummed along it at seven miles an hour.

Harold looked back. The convoy was bunched behind him, the trucks nearly bumper to bumper. They crawled down the street as people ran out from the stores, from their houses and their cars, lining the curb to watch the circus pass. They waved and cheered, and Mr. Hunter grinned.

“You feel like a soldier, don't you?” he said. “You feel as though you're liberating something. It's just like Holland, Harold.”

“You were there?” asked Harold.

“I saw the newsreels,” said Mr. Hunter, and he waved at the crowd. He shouted, “Evening show at six! Wave, Harold.”

Harold waved. He was frightened at first, and he wished the jeep was moving faster. But no one laughed at him; they hardly seemed to see him. One by one, as Harold drew beside them, they tipped back on their feet, trying to look at every truck at once. It made him think of a row of sunflowers rocking in the wind, of the wheat that had nodded in the convoy's rush of wind. Then he stood up, his hands on the windshield, his head above the glass, and he did feel like a soldier. He felt like a hero.

The people kept cheering. A boy looked down from a treehouse. And then, already, the town was behind them, and Mr. Hunter pressed the gas pedal. The jeep jolted forward, speeding past scattered houses. It turned to the left, at a pole hung with three of the crimson arrows, then left again to a big football field stretching out to vacant lots. And there, parked at its edge, was the home of the Cannibal King.

It was an Airstream trailer, smaller than Samuel's, hitched to a huge black car. Painted all across its surface, covering every inch, was a jungle scene in bright enamel, the grass along the bottom browned by dust and chipped by gravel roads. Coconut trees swept up the sides and met at the top in a tangle of fronds where monkeys played on swinging vines. Gaudy parrots flitted past the trees. In the grass lay heaps of grinning skulls.

“He's here,” said Harold, holding his breath. “The Cannibal King.”

“He's been waiting for us,” said Mr. Hunter. He bent a wiry leg out of the jeep. “Now hurry, son. We've got a circus to build, and not a moment to lose.”