In Tents Read online

  I had to be a model employee. My job was on proverbial thin ice, and the ice was cracking and a fat penguin had just started jumping around me. So I’d bow to the tourists, and I’d make sure Weeko could see how much I really wanted to keep my job.

  I liked Weeko, usually. He was a guy I’d known for years, and I began working for him when money was tight. I didn’t have any family, so he would have to do. I would’ve included Dottie in the “family,” but these days I didn’t know exactly what she was to me.

  Tonight, Dottie was off with some guy she was dating.

  Me, after changing into clothes that wouldn’t cause people to laugh or point, I’d gone to the circus.

  I’d lived in Lago Springs all my life. In that time, all circuses I’d seen were always on TV, never here. The small tourist town didn’t have enough people or money to attract any real entertainment. No self-respecting, money-generating, suitably sized circus could survive in Lago Springs with its population of fewer than five hundred locals.

  And yet, in the dusty rocky scrubland just outside of town, Mad Moon’s Shining Circus had appeared and set up overnight. Someone had fashioned a gigantic circle of tall plywood walls, and then they’d put a circus inside.

  I stepped through the entranceway and the temperature dropped as the shadow of the sign pressed upon my shoulders. The dust drifting down through the air seemed to slow and pause.

  I smelled popcorn and heard a slowly increasing whine of heavy machinery. Off in the distance, a man’s voice pierced my ears with a nasally sounding PA system.

  “Your mind won’t believe . . . what your eyes tell you they’ve seen!”

  I moved out from under the shadow and past the elaborate iron sign. The weight on my shoulders seemed to lift, and the frozen dust in the air around me resumed its swirling dance to the ground. The sun felt good. It was still hot enough to melt tourists, but for me it was just right for this late in the day. I had maybe half an hour before sundown—plenty of time to see what was going on.

  “The men will watch and know . . . what the women don’t want to show!”

  The voice blasting from ahead came from speakers mounted high in front of a red-and-white-striped circular tent. The tent wasn’t that big—maybe twenty feet wide—and it was dirty, old, and cracking at the seams. Dirty canvas doors were drawn closed, so I couldn’t see inside. A large block-lettered sign reading Kinker Lace was mounted above the tent door flaps. Off to the side was a smaller sign that said Shocking surprise! Fantastic freaks! You won’t want to blink!

  Preaching down to several dozen people, a barrel-shaped, red-headed, red-nosed man stood on a platform in front of the tent. Most of the crowd looked like tourists—sunburned, wrinkled clothes, most carrying backpacks, some pushing strollers. One couple was so out of place I couldn’t even guess where they were from. The woman was incredibly sexy, with layers of wavy blonde hair, and she dressed in a top that was struggling to hang on. On the bottom were small athletic shorts that teased the perfect number of curves. Oddly, she was also holding a swaddled baby against her chest. The baby was poorly hidden by a nursing cloth she’d placed demurely over her top-heavy body. A guy, a husband or boyfriend, stood close to her. He was young, a small guy, much smaller than his wife, with dirty blond hair and a deeply tanned face.

  “That’s right, my friends!” the barrel-shaped barker cried into a microphone he held close to his mouth. Bad electronics caused his high, nasally voice to sound tinny and distorted, and the crowd was rapt. “Give me an ear to bend! Men, find out what ladies don’t want you to know! Women, learn how to give him a proper show!”

  The sexy mom grimaced, seemingly offended by the barker’s words. Her short husband muttered something to her and nodded. They turned and began to walk away. The barker noticed and pointed two stubby fingers directly at them. “You lovely couple, wait!”

  They froze. The mom looked uncomfortable, and the husband looked down at his feet and seemed to shrink even more under the barker’s next words. The crowd turned and watched.

  “Don’t be worried. Truly, we’re as wholesome as two-percent milk! This is a friendly place for kids of all ages. And every kid loves the strange, the perverse, the odd, and the twisted! Inside this tent is the Kinker Lace show, and there I promise you’ll see the Alligator Woman, a beastly mockery of life. I promise you’ll meet Ariel, certified as the most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen. And that’s nothing compared to her even more amazing secret! These promises are as real as this land is dry, as true as your willingness to spend only a dollar each, a small paper bill like the one I’m holding up right here. Just one of these will get you into that tent! Now is the time, and later you’ll miss your chance. The sooner you pay, the sooner you’ll prove my words are the truth. Learn beautiful Ariel’s secret and marvel at the grotesque Alligator Woman!”

  The crowd watched as the beautiful nursing mom and her embarrassed husband looked at each other, and they lifted their eyebrows in shared bemusement. The mom shifted her nursing baby. She shrugged and gave a hesitant smile.

  The husband laughed and rolled his eyes. “Okay. You got us. We have to see this place now.”

  “Of course, sir! And thank you, lovely lady with your lovely baby! You’ve both made the right choice, and I’m sure your child will follow in your wise footsteps! Now, you people over there! You look like you’re as smart as this perceptive young couple . . .”

  I was interested now, too. Whoever was hiding inside that tent—probably covered in makeup and bad lighting—was probably running the lamest trick ever and was a rip-off, but damn if I didn’t want to see inside anyway. The nursing mom and husband led the way in, along with most of the crowd that had gathered in front of the barker. The crowd in front of me was pressing close and full of tourists. Given my afternoon at Weeko’s Cave, I’d had enough of tourists for the day. I’d come back later in the night to see inside this tent.

  “Hey, excuse me,” I said to the barker.

  He switched something on the microphone he’d been holding. Tinny speakers hissed and fell silent.

  “Yes, sir. How can I help you?” His unamplified voice was even higher-pitched and had a smoker’s scratch that seemed to burn his throat now that he wasn’t shouting. His face was red from exertion and Arizona’s evening heat. Sideburns of sweat streamed down his face.

  “Why are you here? The circus, I mean.”

  “I’m sorry, sir?”

  I shrugged in the dusty hot air. “Lago Springs is a tiny town in the middle of nowhere. What made you want to come here?”

  The man laughed at me like he was getting paid for it.

  “Oh, our wonderful circus!” He barked a laugh. “I don’t pick anything, sir. Mad Moon’s Shining Circus picks where it wants to go. It wanted to come here.”

  “Yeah, but why?”

  “Because sometimes you need a circus!” He clicked on the microphone and I winced at the amplified squeal. He gave a big friendly wave to a new group of people heading our way. “Step over this way, ladies! I guarantee I can guess your weight without going a pound over! Or I’ll guess the weight of your boyfriends, your husbands, and I will go over! It’s all free, of course, so let me at least guess! Anyone I miss by more than two pounds will get free entry to Kinker Lace this tent behind me!”

  He turned away from me as he began to fully engage the crowd.

  I moved on and began to explore the rest of the circus.

  The smell of popcorn permeated the place, and so did the dust. The day was dry and hot and the circus had been set up on rock and dirt, so the dust was worse than usual. I could feel it gritty in my mouth. I spat it out, and my spit sucked into the ground and evaporated as I watched.

  Mechanical squeals mixed with children’s joyful screams as I walked by ride after ride, enjoying the late afternoon sun. Most of the rides seemed to focus on spinning kids in circles, whipping them around or somehow giving one in fifty a reason to puke in nearby trash cans. Clowns moved here and there, lookin
g like a bunch of sweaty guys in weird outfits and squeaky shoes. They had exaggerated clowny smiles and arching eyebrows, but these had a surreal sagging look because their makeup was melting off their faces in the heat. They were game, though, and offered an endless supply of instantly made balloon animals to hordes of grabby kids.

  Buzzing and beeping assaulted my ears as I passed the rides, all low-budget, greasy-looking, and bad-smelling, and these were operated by people of the same description. As I walked past, ride operators met me with cold stares incongruous with the shrieks and yells of excited children. I didn’t know what I’d done to earn the angry looks.

  Rides gave way to games. I saw a ring toss booth, another for cork gun shooting, a strongman’s mallet game, a kid-friendly roulette wheel, all ways to spend money and win cheap plastic prizes. There was even a dunk tank, where an angry man hurled not-so-polite insults at people trying to throw a baseball at a target. In the circus’s hot campus, he was the one to at least get cooled off when a dunking happened. Then I looked at the dirty reddish-brown water of the dunk tank. Bugs and dirt had combined over the day to form a disgusting floating skin on the surface of the water, and even with nighttime approaching, the water itself was probably way too hot to be enjoyable. The guy was mad, and I understood exactly why. It’s easy to be pissed when you had a future with no options.

  Looking down the midway in front of me, through the carefully designed funnel of rides and games and crowds, I saw the final tourist destination for all circuses: the big top. It was a wide, expansive tent that took up most of the space on the far side of the circus. I had just decided to head toward it when a nearby voice startled at me.

  “You there!” I turned and looked.

  Off to my side was a covered booth. Three of the four sides were closed and the rest of the inside was too dark to see. From the center of the darkness, a skull-like face grinned out at me. The man’s eyes were sunken and yellowing, his smile all long rotting teeth that looked like a rodent’s ribcage. The comically painted sign above the booth read Apache Action.

  His emaciated body leaned into view. A pale bony arm materialized from darkness, and white knotted fingers gestured for me to come closer.

  “You’re a discriminating, intelligent man,” the skull-man slurred, his voice heavy with alcohol. “Let’s play. I want you to win some real prizes. Take something home to the wife and kids.”

  “I’m not married.”

  He stepped back into the darkness of the Apache Action booth, and his body faded a little darker and the interior of the booth somehow became more visible, allowing me to see vague shapes inside, but not with any detail. I moved closer and tried to see.

  “You don’t have to be married. I’m sure there’s something here you’d enjoy.”

  “I don’t have much money.”

  I’d seen how the last barker had worked the crowds, how he’d convinced the shy sexy mom and husband into the Kinker Lace tent, and how the surrounding crowd had followed. That wasn’t going to be me. I’d be paying off my cellphone forever. It had been worth it, but what remained in my pocket was literally food money.

  “This game costs almost nothing. Just a pittance is all you need to win. Most people—those with even a small amount of skill or even just luck—win quickly and go home with just wonderful prizes.” He threw out an arm behind him and part of the booth illuminated to display a tiered display of Native American artifacts. The bottom of the shelves held hand-painted pottery and handfuls of arrowheads. Higher shelves showed more elaborate prizes—I saw beaded jewelry, carved wooden masks, and colorful woven moccasins. All of it looked handmade, and while I was sure it was all fake, whoever made these did a great job. They looked more authentic than anything in Weeko’s Cave.

  “Whoa,” I said. My mouth dropped open as I saw what was sitting on the top shelf. “That’s perfect.”

  “Ah yes,” the skull said. His white shaking hands reached up to reverently to touch an elaborately carved, long-stemmed wooden pipe. About two feet long, dark wood gleamed with expertly applied wood stain and a shiny polish. Looking both delicate and solid, it was practically museum quality. As he lifted it away from the shelf, feathers and beads attached to the bottom edge of the pipe opened and expanded, giving the impression of a colorful feathered fan hanging from below the pipe itself. “A ceremonial pipe. Nothing I have is more sacred. This pipe is your prayers in physical form.”

  “My prayers are already answered,” I said. I couldn’t stop staring at the pipe.

  “I’m sorry?” Whatever he saw in my eyes caused him to pull the pipe protectively into to his sunken chest.

  “This pipe is the perfect gift for my boss. I screwed up at work and he’d fire me if he could. I have to show him I take my job seriously. What better way to apologize than to get him a peace pipe? He’d love it! It would fit perfectly in the cave. We could use it in our reenactments or put it on display! It looks real enough.”

  I didn’t know why I was telling a stranger all of this, but he didn’t seem to mind. He was following along, in fact, and was nodding as I finished talking.

  “Then of course you need to win this ceremonial—ah, this ‘peace pipe.’ You must win it.”

  I didn’t know how much something like this would cost, but if the stuff in this booth came from the same supplier as all the other booths, it had to be cheap.

  “Tell you what. Can I just buy it from you? I might need to save up, but if you can just hold it for me until I—”

  “No.” The man’s face closed down. Then his sunken eyes softened and he sighed. “You play by the rules, just like everyone else. You need to win this! I’m confident you can.”

  “I don’t know. What’s the Apache Action game?”

  Just as reverently as before, the man raised his bone-arms back up and placed the pipe on the top shelf. He turned toward me and gestured behind him. The remainder of the booth—previously hidden in hazy twilight—was now lit up from hidden lighting the man somehow turned on. Down at the far end of the booth were several bales of hay stacked up several feet high, with bull’s-eye printouts taped onto the front of them. Leaning against the hay bales were several bows and arrows.

  My eyes ran over the bows. From so far away, I couldn’t tell what they were made from—bone and wood?—but they looked surprisingly authentic and as good or better than what I used for my reenactment at Weeko’s. More importantly, they seemed sturdy and well-made enough to shoot an arrow from any reasonable distance. The arrows I’d have to examine to check for straightness and quality, but even still, at this range, they wouldn’t be a problem. I noticed the top shelf, where the ceremonial peace pipe looked back at me. It was waiting for me. All I had to do was win it.

  The man was looking at me hopefully, his sunken eyes glittering in the twilight.

  “Do you have any experience with shooting a bow and arrow?”

  I met his eyes and grinned back at the skull-face. I pulled out my wallet.

  “How much?”

  Chapter 3

  “One dollar per shot,” the skull-face said to me, carefully emphasizing the words like this was his first time saying them or as if he were very drunk. “You shoot three center bull’s-eyes in a row, you pick your prize. Shoot anything else after three shots, then I pick a consolation prize.”

  His voice slurred, the words pushing out with some effort, and I now realized the slur in his voice was from his horribly diseased teeth.

  “I pick the bow I use,” I said. “The arrows, too. The prize I want is that peace pipe.”

  Gray lips pulled back to show more of the rodent’s-ribcage grin.

  “The ceremonial pipe. Of course.” He collected and placed bows and arrows on the booth’s countertop in front of me. He stepped off to the side and his wide, ingratiating eyes faded to black in the dimness of the booth.

  The equipment looked ancient, but I could tell now that it was really well-made, which was surprising since it came from a cheap circus. The composite
bows were made from wood and wrapped with something else, maybe waxed plant fibers or animal sinew.

  “The arrows,” I said, hefting one and rolling it in the center of my palm. Quality was here too—it was well-balanced for even flight and correctly feathered.

  “Yes?” the skull-man said, taking his time with the word, a smile in his voice.

  “The arrowheads are metal. All the prize arrowheads on your shelf there look like stone.”

  He was paying more attention to the wallet I still held in my other hand. “Sir, how many shots would you like to try?”

  I pulled out three dollars of food money.

  “I’ll take three shots. I can miss a meal. Plenty of beer at home.”

  “Yes. That’s very funny, sir.”

  His hand appeared from the darkness of the booth, and shaking white fingers reached for the bills. Cold skin scraped against mine as he took them, and I felt a sudden chill in the nighttime heat. The skull’s eyes angled downward as he made a show of counting to three. Then the eyes rolled back my way and the rodent’s ribcage showed again.

  “Please take your first shot. Good luck to you, sir. I truly hope you get what you need.”

  I notched the arrow and raised the bow, slowly pulling a partial draw. The bow really was excellently made. I sighted down the arrow at the target. The bull’s-eye was close enough and well-lit—an easy shot. The rest of the Apache Action tent faded away as I focused on the target and drew back the bow.

  The dark, sunken eyes of the booth operator were focused on me, and there was also something else. I felt the back-shiver feeling you get when you know someone is standing right behind you.

  A gust of wind poured through the circus. I heard it before I felt it: a rushing hiss that rolled close to the ground. It fluttered the flaps and sides of nearby tents, bringing with it a smell of dirt and rot. Heated dust blew into my eyes, and I found myself suddenly blinking through tears. My vision wavered and so did the bull’s-eye. I squeezed my eyes closed, opened them wide, and found my target. My eyes stinging, tears on my face, I blew out a slow breath and then held it, committed my aim, and released the arrow.