Both Janice and Peter turned to stare at him. He chortled at their disbelief.
"Everyone knows the circus is in town. As I said before, it is time you joined the circus. Forgive me if I have guessed wrongly, but this Stephen will not except Peter Mulloney to arrive as, say, a circus clown?"
Peter blinked. Janice gasped. They turned to each other, and their lips twitched. "A clown?" they both managed to say at the same time. The clash of words erupted into laughter.
The suggestion had been made easily, but the actuality took a great deal more work. Janice refused to allow Peter to go unless she went with him. The real clowns were called in for their expertise and stayed to create the perfect disguise. More of the performers circulated in and out of the room with ideas and suggestions until Janice felt as if she really were a part of a three-ring circus.
Jugglers practiced while critiquing the makeup as it was applied. Acrobats did handstands to work off kinks from sitting still while sewing together the new costumes. The animal trainers came in stinking of their charges to lend their opinions to the choice of animals to be used for this next performance. And Theodophilus choreographed the entire scene with manic gestures and booming voice until half the town expected the tent to be erected in the hotel lobby.
By the time all the roles had been assigned and two new characters added to the circus, the town never thought of Peter and Janice as anything else but part of the group. They had arrived on the same train and been seen with the proprietor from the first day. None could say any different.
Janice wasn't certain that gave her any more confidence when they finally set out along the dusty road to the Crooked R. Posters announcing the arrival of Hammond's Traveling Circus and Magic Show appeared overnight all over town. The mangy tiger, aging horses, and half-blind elephant kept in the circus car were paraded through the center of town as a prelude to the performers. Without half the cast, the parade was rather short and uninspired, but out here where the only entertainment was a barroom brawl, no one knew the difference.
While a bedraggled tent was erected on the outskirts of town, the elephant led a smaller parade into the countryside. Atop the elephant rode a female in the silk finery of a harem dancer. Close inspection might reveal the heavy makeup that darkened light eyebrows and reddened pale lips, but the black shoulder-length wig was indiscernible. From a distance, the image was quite exotic.
Beside the elephant walked a clown in orange wig and white makeup. A bulbous red nose and painted down-turned lips effectively disguised the square jaw and striking profile of the man beneath. A baggy suit and ruffled collar distracted the eye from the clown's height and broad shoulders. The presence of the rambling, wrinkled, and malodorous elephant effectively distracted from any particular notice of anyone anywhere near it.
From her uncertain seat on the rickety platform atop the elephant, Janice scanned the horizon for their destination. Barbed wire to one side of the road indicated the ranch's boundaries. A weathered fence post bearing a tottering plank with the insignia of the Crooked R was the only sign that they were near. The cow path past the sign didn't seem to lead anywhere.
But at Peter's signal, the animal trainer maneuvered the elephant up the meandering trail. Janice would have felt better if the clowns and acrobats ambling alongside were armed lawmen, but they did the best they could with what they had. They didn't know of a certainty that Betsy was even here.
She knew Theodophilus had a derringer. Peter had his revolvers under his clown suit, accessible through the baggy pockets but certainly not with any great speed. The animal trainer carried a whip and a small pistol. She had a rifle attached to her seat, but she barely knew how to use a shotgun. She was as likely to shoot the good folks as the bad.
She prayed they could do this without violence. Surely Stephen wouldn't harm his own child. He might be desperate, but she couldn't believe he was that desperate. Of course, all this relied on the possibility that he might be here. He could already be in San Antonio for all she knew.
An assortment of weathered shacks and crumbling adobe appeared on the horizon. A corral containing a few mares gave proof that someone lived there. As the strange parade gradually wended its way through the sagebrush, a few figures appeared near the corral fence.
Janice scanned each and every one for the small form of her daughter, but she saw no sign of her. Frantically she searched the main house and the outbuildings They were still too distant to inspect.
A scruffy cowboy in leather chaps and unshaven jaw mounted one of the horses and rode out to meet them. Peter signaled for the trainer to keep the elephant moving even when Theodophilus was forced to stop and talk with the man. The cowboy sent them a dirty look, but stopping an elephant wasn't as easy as shooting a coyote. Since the animal sensed water, even the trainer would have been hard-pressed to halt those heavy strides.
Janice could hear Theodophilus expounding on the greatness of his shabby little circus, calling it the opportunity of a lifetime. The cowboy seemed less than impressed, but he wasn't making any dangerous motions. Although Peter had objected, Janice knew her part. She waved a bare arm adorned with tinkling bells and watched in amusement as the man's jaw dropped open.
She had never thought of herself as an object for a man's attentions, but she had learned a little more confidence since Peter had entered her life. He made her feel feminine and beautiful, and she could almost believe that she might distract the rough men in this place while the others searched for Betsy. She certainly seemed to have distracted that one.
Smiling at this first success, she put particular effort into swaying with the elephant's stride. The men still standing around the corral followed her movement with rapt attention. She could hear Peter mutter a pithy curse under his breath, but she was on top of an elephant. There wasn't any way those men could come near her.
The clown persona Peter had donned was a mute one. He scuffed his over large shoes in the dust, creating a cloud that caused the real clown to go into the routine they had worked out. In his bright yellow wig and polka-dot suit, this much smaller clown began a high-pitched jabbering, dancing around Peter with his arms upraised in boxing stance. As expected, the men watching roared at the incongruity of the match. Ignoring his attacker, Peter ambled like a village idiot toward the cluster of buildings ahead.
The elephant plodded straight toward the water trough.
The juggler found branding irons on the porch of one house and began tossing them up in the air and catching them with yells of triumph and much self-congratulation. Gradually the little party spread throughout the courtyard, and amused at this unexpected entertainment, no one objected.
Janice was the first to see a small white face appear in the unglazed high windows of one of the deteriorating adobe buildings. In a prearranged signal, she used a whistle and precariously raised herself on the platform to dance. One of the acrobats lifted a flute to his lips, and Janice waved her hands and arms in time to the music as another of the performers had taught her. She didn't feel particularly graceful as the platform rocked unsteadily beneath her feet, but the performance attracted plenty of attention.
Even the cowboy who had come out to greet them joined the circle of men surrounding the elephant. Below her, the yellow-haired clown turned somersaults and whooped. The red-haired clown slipped off in the direction Janice indicated with the arm dangling tinkling bells.
She had never dreamed of being the center of attention. She felt conspicuous and awkward as she swayed her hips and tossed her hair. But she felt a surge of triumph as Peter disappeared behind the house where she had seen that small face. She had accomplished her part of their appointed task.
The hard part was yet to come. That point was effectively brought home when a shout and gunfire erupted somewhere beyond her view. Even the racket made by the flute and her jangling bracelet and the clown's antics couldn't drown the sound of gunfire. Janice felt the grip of panic but continued dancing as if she were stone deaf.
Fascinated, some of the men refused to move. A few of the more cautious ones eased from the crowd to study the outbuildings. At the quiet urging of Theodophilus, the animal trainer had the elephant slurp up more of the water in the trough. Janice began to wiggle in what she hoped was a seductive manner.
To no avail. Furious shouts echoed from the row of buildings, and a comical figure danced and pranced from the crumbling adobe shack. Everyone whirled to watch as the mute clown leapt up and down and pointed an indignant finger at a man racing after him. The second clown raced to his rescue, tooting his horn and making a raucous clamor.
Shivering, Janice recognized Stephen. The gun in his hand swung helplessly from the prancing clown to his equally ridiculous accomplices. The acrobat did handstands and feinted at boxing jabs. The juggler threateningly pitched ropes and branding irons and pitchforks through the air. Amid the confusion, a small figure darted from the shadows of the house to the barn near the water trough.
Elation whipped through Janice as she fell to her knees and tugged the elephant's reins as she had been taught. The elephant raised obediently to his hind feet, let out an earsplitting bellow, and promptly sprayed the entire populace with the contents of the water trough.
Screams of both terror and fury roared through the drenched crowd, but thoroughly distracted, none noted as the small figure darted from the barn to the now quiet elephant. Theodophilus stepped in quickly to lend a hand, the elephant executed an elegant bow on bended knee, and Janice reached down to grab small, familiar fingers. In seconds she had Betsy lying facedown beneath the garish carpet covering the platform.
She wanted to cry and whoop and run for safety, but Peter was still fending off an irate crowd. The performers had managed to stay out of the way of the elephant's spray, so his disguise was intact, but Stephen still protested and raised a ruckus. Janice signaled the trainer and the elephant backed away.
The red-haired clown hopped up and down as if fearful his ride would depart without him. He danced all around Stephen, jabbing his fists, mimicking a fistfight. Their audience, uncertain of what was performance and what was not, watched with grins and chuckles and stayed out of the way while keeping a wide berth between themselves and the elephant. Several still wrung water out of their hats.
The yellow-haired clown raised a clamor and indicated the departing elephant and troop of performers. The red-haired clown swung as if to race after them. In so doing, the object in his fist connected soundly with the back of Stephen's head. Stephen crumpled to the ground.
Leaping up and down and making "Ooo-ooo" noises, the red-haired clown flapped his silly shoes in an awkward escape, running after the rest of the circus. The yellow-haired clown chased him, shouting nonsense curses and shaking his fist. Their audience laughed and poked each other and waited for Stephen to stand up and join them.
By the time Stephen rose with great pain and much fury, the circus was racing down the road. From her lofty perch, Janice could see the figures huddling in the courtyard, but she couldn't help the feeling of triumph welling up inside her. She could hear the sound of Betsy's giggles from where she watched beneath the carpet, and the sound was as welcome as an angelic choir. Sitting beside the slender lump in the rug, she rested her hand possessively on Betsy's back and let joy ring through her.
As they passed around the curve and behind concealing pinon trees, Peter stripped off his red wig and costume and ran to fetch a horse he'd left tied to a tree trunk. When he returned with the horse, the animal trainer made the elephant kneel, and Peter helped Betsy down from the platform. Then he climbed up beside Janice, hugged her, and clambered down again.
He and Betsy were on his horse and galloping out of sight within seconds. By the time the irate party from the ranch rode up in a cloud of dust, the dancing girl was idly scattering bits of yarn from the rug tassels to the ground and the rest of the performers were passing around a bottle of whiskey.
A thorough search of the elephant and the platform revealed nothing. One of the acrobats had donned the clown suit and wig, and he protested wildly at being accused of knocking a man unconscious. He even attempted to punch one of the cowboys and fell over backward when the man shoved him away.
The man in charge of the Crooked R finally gave Stephen's wild ravings a look of disgust and mounted his horse.
"If the brat got away from you, Connor, it's your own damned fault for not tying her up. She's likely hiding in a haystack somewhere. Unless you want us to gun down the clowns or kidnap the dancing girl, there ain't a thing else we can do here."
Several of the men looked expectantly to the half-dressed figure in silks atop the elephant. Lying sprawled across the carpeted platform, Janice propped her chin in the palm of her hand and pouted an over-red lip in Stephen's direction. She winked one heavily kohled eye, and the juggler spouted curses at her as if she were his possession. When her outraged protector reached for the nearest rifle, she shrugged laconically, sat up cross-legged, and stared over the elephant's head, dismissing her audience.
In her head, Janice laughed madly as Stephen cursed heathen foreigners and mounted his horse to ride back to the ranch. He had never known her, as he had not known her now. She was free of him at last.