Authors: Colleen Quinn
Rosemary took her place at the front of the line and grinned at Griggs, who was watching her with an odd understanding in his eyes. Taking up a handful of bright red balls, Rosemary juggled them expertly, warming up for the townspeople. Someday she would have time to be just Rosemary, to discover the woman buried beneath the canvas and sawdust.
But today she would lead the parade.
Damned beast! Michael limped down the tree-canopied road toward the circus grounds, aware of the ever-blackening sky and the unrelenting strains of the calliope as the parade passed. He could see the gaudy costumes as the performers lured townspeople like the Pied Piper toward the tents. He ignored the crowd and stalked determinedly toward the circus grounds. The parade simply wasn’t enough; he wanted to see Carney’s in full action, not just the warming up.
He stood on his injured foot and instantly yelped as a blistering pain shot through him. Grimacing, he recalled that the groom and the farming people seemed oddly unsurprised when he’d returned shortly after being thrown from that horse, that animal from the depths of hell. No sooner had Buttercup gotten the bit between his teeth than he had charged toward the muddy river and disposed of his rider on the firm mossy banks.
At first he could hardly believe it. He, Michael Wharton, who’d been riding since he was in shoe leather, was dumped by a farm horse who decided drinking was more to his liking than obeying the expert commands of his rider. And when he tried to get back up on the beast, Buttercup waited patiently with a cunning he didn’t think any horse possessed, and then had bucked, tossing him onto the banks again.
Michael returned the animal, refusing the groom’s offer of a gentler mount, and ignored the snide snickers of the farmers, who no doubt thought him a worthless citified dandy. Now there was nothing to do but walk, and walk he would. Thankfully, the fairgrounds were not as far away as he’d thought. Armed with a bottle of the Gilded Cage’s best brandy, a pitiful apple-flavored brew that was long on potency and short on subtlety, he hobbled toward the bawdy circus music, ignoring the sharp red pain in his ankle.
The fury that had been building inside of him was close to exploding. He cursed his father, cursed Percy Atwater and his damned wager, cursed his own existence and that of this third-rate circus. Drinking down a generous portion of the burning brandy, he felt the pain lessen in his leg and was grateful for that. He couldn’t wait to get this thing over with and return to civilization. He missed Philadelphia, his expensive carriage, his good horses, fine whiskeys, and feather beds. Yes, he couldn’t wait to get back, and the sooner business was accomplished here, the better.
Nothing could have made this trip any worse. Yet even as he completed the thought, thunder clapped overhead, and a flash of lightning split the sky. Michael glanced up and saw the swirling clouds beginning to take shape. No, it couldn’t, he thought. No God would be this cruel…
But today he wasn’t so sure.
Michael arrived at the circus grounds, drenched through to the skin. His shirt was plastered to his chest, his coat having long since given up repelling rain, and his shoes squished with every step he took. He stood in line behind a farmer who smelled of sheep-dip and whiskey. Michael cursed his fate again. None of the townsfolk seemed to mind the rain, nor the wait to buy a ticket. They sent him curious and amused smirks, finding the sight of the elegant city gentleman looking like a drenched puppy almost as entertaining as the show they were about to see.
Michael ignored them, paid his dollar, then ventured inside. He took a seat on a crude wooden bench as he fortified himself with another sip of brandy. The townspeople sent him strange glances and muttered among themselves, but Michael no longer cared. He took out his notebook and began to record his observations as the nattily garbed ringmaster stepped into the center of the tent.
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Tonight’s breathtaking performance will be starting momentarily. You will see acrobats and tumblers, trapeze artists and mermaids, the human cannonball and the finest assortment of specimens from the animal kingdom that this fair state has ever seen! I give you…the circus!”
The farmers applauded, and the children squealed. The brass band began to play, and the raucous notes of the calliope drifted over the crowd. Elephants sauntered out into the ring, followed by horses with beautiful women balanced on their backs. Then the clowns spilled forth like an open bag of marbles. They tumbled into the ring, ran through the crowd, watered flowers that were obviously paper, and blasted horns at the children.
Everything glittered. Everything was loud. Everyone cheered. Michael scrawled his notes, a small smile curving on his austere face. Balloons drifted upward, and tiny dogs jumped through hoops. The elephants performed, their large padded feet balancing carefully on drums decorated with red and gold braid. Up in the air the trapeze artists warmed up, and a beautiful woman with blond hair and a spangled crimson dress bowed to her partner, a man resplendent in gold brocade. It was a spectacle, brilliant with light and gaiety.
The music quickened, and the horses cantered about the ring. One small redheaded clown appeared to be drunk and kept falling off his horse. The crowd roared as the little clown sprawled in the dirt and then fortified himself with a tin flask. Determined, the clown charged the white horse once more, only to fall again.
Lions roared, and the crowd turned expectantly toward a man in red tights as he approached the cage. The ringmaster announced Leonardo the Great, and the man took his bows before he faced the lion. The crowd hushed, and Michael heard the indrawn breaths of the children as the man cracked his whip and the lioness obediently stood up and opened her great jaws. The tension grew as the man put his hand inside the large cat’s jaws, then withdrew it to thunderous applause.
Overhead, the trapeze performers swung on their bars like twin birds. Michael saw the crowd’s awe as they watched the glittering couple. The woman let go of the bar and swung toward the man. The audience held its breath until she was caught, then safely returned to the bar once more amid a collective sigh of relief. The couple took a bow, then the ringmaster directed the audience toward the strongman who hefted weights.
It was man defying nature, and to these rustics, it was exhilarating and reassuring, Michael mused. The show was cleverly done, hiding any flaws by a change in performance. Everything was perfectly timed and perfectly executed. This wasn’t a two-bit traveling troupe, as he’d feared, but rather, a well-thought-out exhibition. Even as the sharpshooters and Indians entered the ring, the crowd was totally caught up in the show, unable to look at everything at once. It was a Carney Circus, through and through.
At the end all the performers entered the ring, and the dazzle of sight, sound, and color was almost unbearable. The horses reared; the elephants paraded; the acrobats performed; the Indians did a war dance; the clowns tumbled, their faces bright with greasepaint; the lions roared. The little clown finally got on the horse, then rode around and around the ring, balancing on the animal’s bare back, then executed a perfect backflip and landed on his feet.
Michael found himself standing and clapping with the rest of the audience, a cold smile on his face. Yes, Carney’s Circus was a gold mine, all right.
And he would be just the man to see it pay.
Rosemary dashed back to her tent through the pouring rain. Inside, the canvas enclosure had the characteristic musty smell that she always associated with home. Water beaded on the roof, but the tent had been treated with wax and withstood the onslaught well. The floor was clean and dry, sprinkled with sawdust, and as fragrant as the inside of any cedar closet.
Flopping down onto a crate, she shook out her clown pants to shed some of the water. The show had gone amazingly well. The revenues were fifty percent greater than the same period last year, and several of the local farmers had stopped by the main tent to thank Carney for the performance. It was wonderful to know that she’d brought some light and laughter to the grim lives of the frontier people, men and women whose daily routine involved the arduous tasks of farming, fear of Indians, lack of water, and disease. But Carney’s made them forget, even if for just one night.
A whiskey waited beside her bed, and Rosemary smiled. Biddle. The ringmaster often left her some small comfort when he and the clowns ventured into town to sample the local ale. Sometimes it was a cup of tea, a stolen delicacy from the cook’s tent, and sometimes a drop from his precious flask. Tonight it was apparently the latter, and she sipped the amber liquid, feeling the warmth penetrate her chilled bones.
This was her favorite time of day. When the show was done and the canvasmen were busy rerolling the big top, she could sit with her floppy shoes perched indelicately on a crate and bask in the afterglow of the performance. Tonight they’d been good, damned good. She could feel it when she’d had an audience, and this evening they’d all been hers.
“Make them laugh, Rose, and make them wait. Give them so much to look at that they have to come back, just to see it all. Orchestrate the show so that one act rolls neatly after another.”
Wiping away a tear, Rosemary put the cup aside and slowly opened the mottled brown trunk at the foot of her cot. An old newspaper clipping caught her eye, and she pulled it out, smiling at the tintype.
Sean Carney. Her father had been a true showman, born for the bright lights and glitter. Like his father and his father before him, Sean had the Irishman’s love of excitement, of music and laughter, and the devil take the sober. He’d taught her everything, from the time she was a ragamuffin barely old enough to sing, until she was a woman grown.
“It’s either in your blood, or it isn’t. Showpeople aren’t made, they’re born.”
Her mother wasn’t one. Rosemary barely remembered her, but the clowns described her as an elegant woman who’d fallen in love with the dashing trapeze performer with an Irish wit and the hint of perpetual laughter in his eyes. But the novelty had worn thin, and the life of a traveling troupe, wandering from town to town in all kinds of weather and facing all sorts of people, was more than she could bear. She’d returned to her fancy home back East, forgetting the Irishman whose smile was never quite so bright after that, and the daughter who resembled him.
Rosemary sighed at the memory. Sean had taken her to see her mother once, but she hadn’t been home and the visit had come to naught. But Sean had changed considerably in the years that followed. He seemed to dread seeing her in a dress or trying to fix her hair, as if any sign of feminine primping was a painful reminder of his glamorous wife. And Rose, in an effort to please him, quelled any desire she might have for pretty gowns or satin slippers. She stole glances at women in the towns they played, observing their hemlines and hoops, flounces and fabrics, but made sure her father was preoccupied so as not to cause him further grief. And when he asked her what she wanted for her sixteenth birthday, she told him a new pony, and he’d hugged her in relief. Later, there had been so much to do after his death, she’d had no time to think of such things.
Downing another swig of whiskey, she relished this moment of privacy when she could be herself. Alone in the tent, the rain unable to penetrate the thick canvas walls, she could relax. Here she was no one’s boss, not Carney, just Rosemary, and it was the only place she’d ever admit that at times she was lonely. She had the troupe, of course, but she was their boss. She couldn’t share all of her fears and concerns with them. Clara was the closest thing she had to a best friend, but there were times when the gypsy woman didn’t appear to notice that she’d grown up. Clara seemed to think of her as little Rose, much the same as Sean had done.
So there was no one she could confide in, no one to explain the restlessness she was beginning to experience, a kind of feeling she saw in the horses as they galloped endlessly in the fields, as if searching for something. She had strange dreams that didn’t make much sense, and when she awoke, she often felt as if she hadn’t slept at all.
Disturbed by her thoughts, she replaced the clipping and began to rummage through the trunk to distract herself. She smiled at the keepsakes, the clippings, and the outfits that were vivid reminders of her father. Here was Sean Carney’s old megaphone, a worn and rain-spattered poster, a beat-up guitar, and a mouth harp. Swiping at a tear, she unfolded the lovely satin dresses and gypsy scarves that had belonged to her grandmother, who’d read tea leaves for the troupe back in the old country.
My God, it was in her blood, too.
There was a tent in the distance. Michael could just make out the gray canvas enclosure looming before him, joined by the big top and several smaller tents. Carney’s, they’d told him, was the smallest enclosure facing the privacy of the woods. He’d had to walk through the whole encampment to reach it, and if it wasn’t for the rain, he was sure someone would have stopped him.
He paused in front of the diminutive tent, surprised that the owner of the troupe would have such a tiny home. Shrugging, he looked around for a way to announce his presence, but he discovered that tents had no knockers and no butlers. Thrusting open the flap, he stepped inside, shaking like a wolf to rid himself of water. It took him several seconds to adjust to the dim lighting, and several more before his mind registered the fact that he was not alone.
A clown was seated in the middle of the floor on a crate, but he was far too young to be any circus owner. By the light of a single taper Michael could see the jester’s upturned nose, the bright smears of paint on his eyes, and the red, perpetual smile. Garbed in a yellow costume that billowed like a lemon puff and enormous red shoes that looked more like miniature boats than foot coverings, the apparition reminded him of the drunken clown he’d watched appreciatively that evening.