Ghost Boy (16 page)

They stood in a group, staring at him with their nearly human eyes. Conrad swept his trunk along the ground, then curled it up and blew a cloud of dust across his back. He looked as sad as sadness.

“What's the matter?” Harold asked.

The elephant swayed toward him. The trunk stretched out and suctioned at Harold's arm, at his shoulder. The tip squeezed him as a hand would, and the elephant made a sound that Harold had never heard before. He rubbed the trunk and leaned against it. He looked up and saw that Conrad was crying; tears as big as his thumbnail trickled down the enormous, dusty cheeks.

“How do you know?” asked Harold. “How do you know how I feel?”

Chapter

33

F
lip never came to see him. The dinner bell rang, and rang again, but Harold didn't leave the diamond. He was too ashamed to go the first time, too frightened the second. He practiced halfheartedly, or simply sat, for hours, until the sun was going down and he knew she wasn't coming.

He led Conrad toward the straw-filled tent, and the other roses followed, in a chain from tails to trunks. They plodded along, as though in Harold's sadness. Their ears and trunks drooped. He watched them settle in the straw, their front legs bending and then their back ones, and the whole tent quivered as Max Graf rolled up against the canvas. Then Harold patted their heads, each in turn, and wandered out by himself.

The night was warm and calm. From hilltop to hilltop, stars stretched across the valley, and a little quarter moon gave a silver glow to the huddled town of circus tents.

Harold carried his pillowcase through them, past the Airstream trailer, down to the banks of the river. It was slow and flat, a ribbon of melted stars flowing south between shrinking banks of muddied grass. And he sat there all alone, with nowhere else to go. He fell asleep in darkness and woke beside a fire.

It was a small and smoky fire, and the old Indian squatted over it, on a blanket of white and red wool. He was roasting strips of meat on the point of a gleaming knife blade.

“Are you hungry?” asked Thunder Wakes Him.

Harold sat upright on the grass. His back was stiff; his clothes were wet from dew.

“Where did you come from?” Harold asked.

“From here.” The old Indian patted the ground through his blanket. “Right here where you sleep I was born.”

Harold rubbed his eyes. He could hardly believe he wasn't dreaming. But he could smell the meat and the burning grass; he could just make out the chestnut horse nibbling grass by the riverbank.

“At that time there were a hundred lodges here,” said the old Indian. “A hundred lodges, and the snow was fresh and as high as a horse's belly.” He turned the knife. Fat sizzled down into the fire. “The soldiers came from there. Behind you. Out of the morning sun they came like ghosts, riding on the snow on horses that had no legs. Their bugle notes were beautiful to hear. Terrible, but beautiful. The soldiers came over the snow, their horses snorting white breaths, running in snow up to their bellies—I thought they slithered on the top like snakes. It was powder snow, rising in a mist, and the soldiers came and drove us to the river.”

The old Indian drew his knife from the fire. He touched the bits of meat, squeezing with his fingers.

“They set the lodges burning,” he said. “The flames were tall and narrow. A hundred lodges burning, and the smoke went out across the snow and turned the sun to a little brown shadow.” He put the knife back in the flames, turning it over and over. “All around, my people lay twisted up like bugs. They froze like that, their legs and arms all stiff and pointing up. Only five of us were left.”

“How old were you?” asked Harold.

“Three weeks old. It is the first thing I remember, the sound of the bugles that morning.” The old Indian tossed grass on the fire. It smoked and smoldered, then burned with yellow flames. “My mother hid me in the snow. She tunneled deep in the snow by the river. And when the soldiers were gone, when the smell of the fires was gone, she came out. And others came out. And we started walking; our horses were gone. For days and days they carried me, until only three of us were left, and we came to the village of Crazy Horse.”

The old Indian toasted the meat on the fire. Yellow flames shone along the knife blade. Harold looked at the chestnut horse and tried to imagine the snow up to its belly, imagine walking for days through that. He thought of the Gypsy Magda and how she, too, had walked through the snow with soldiers behind her.

Harold watched the flames shimmer on the knife. He couldn't understand how Thunder Wakes Him had done all the things in his stories.

“They hated us for living under stars and not under roofs,” said the old Indian. “Even today you are thought strange if you carry your home wherever you go. You must have found that, my friend, for you have traveled far.”

“Well, sort of,” said Harold. “But they thought I was strange before I left.”

The old Indian smiled. He pulled a strip of meat from the knife, then held the blade across the fire.

Harold took a strip. It was hot and black on the outside, pale and cold in the middle. “Gosh, that's good,” he said.

“Gopher.” The old Indian pushed the knife forward again. Harold looked at the dangling bits of meat and shook his head. “A car got him. I found him by the road. By the tracks, I think it was a Studebaker.”

The old Indian looked through the fire, through its flames at Harold. He leaned forward, then rose and walked to his chestnut horse. He rummaged through the bundle on its back.

Harold peered and squinted; he would have loved to see what Thunder Wakes Him carried there. He heard a clinking sound, a rattle.

“I will give this to you,” said Thunder Wakes Him. He dug deeper in the bundle, then threw the hides back into place. When he came back to the fire, there was a silver cross in his hand. “You must be careful with this. Very careful, every time you use it.”

Harold nodded gravely. He put his hand out to take this thing, this amulet. It would give him strength, he thought, and courage.

The old Indian covered Harold's hand with his enormous fist. “You are crossing the great divide that every boy must cross, with manhood on the other side. The slope beyond is so long and so steep that you can never come back. This will take you there.”

Smoke eddied around them. The old Indian's hand slid away, and Harold looked at his palm. He saw what Thunder Wakes Him had left there, and he was disappointed. “It's a razor,” he said.

“But not just any razor. It's a
safety
razor,” said the old Indian. “In the morning you will shave for the first time. And you will start your way across.”

Harold stared at it, then laughed. He wasn't becoming a fossil; he was growing a beard, that was all. He laughed from relief but right away regretted it. The old Indian looked wounded.

On his blanket, in the darkness, Thunder Wakes Him pouted. “I don't know why you laughed,” he said. “It's a good razor. It cost me two dollars.”

“I'm just happy,” said Harold. “That's all.”

“The blade will last you a year. And it's guaranteed not to rust.”

“I like it,” said Harold. “Thank you.”

But the old Indian still sounded sad. “That's all you need to become a man: a good razor. In all other ways, a man is just a boy in bigger clothes.”

Harold nodded. He studied the razor from every angle; he thought it would seem rude if he just put it down.

“You might be a doctor someday,” said Thunder Wakes Him, stretching out on the ground. “You might sell shoes or argue in a courtroom. You might build houses or travel with a circus.” He gathered the blanket around his shoulders. “But whatever you do, you will need a razor.”

Harold moved closer to the fire. He put on another handful of grass and watched the flames run up the stems. “I would like to be like you,” he said.

“You would be surprised. Underneath, we're the same already.” The old Indian tightened his blanket. “Good night,” he said. “When you wake, I'll be gone.”

Chapter

34

I
n the morning, Thunder Wakes Him was gone. There were only marks in the grass to show he had been there at all: a circle burned by the fire; a patch clipped short by his chestnut horse. Harold walked down to the river and washed himself in water as brown as the Rattlesnake. He splashed it across his neck and into his hair. He dipped his razor in the stream and scraped away the two small hairs on his chin. And then he put on his glasses and looked up to see the elephants coming.

They marched in a line abreast, with Conrad in the middle and Flip riding high on his back. With flapping ears and twisting trunks, they swayed across the grass. Then Conrad trumpeted, and the sound was clear as a bugle in the morning air. Harold thought of Thunder Wakes Him, three weeks old, seeing the soldiers riding over the same bit of ground.

Flip shouted and banged her fists on the elephant's back. And they came faster then, pounding over the grass, through the mud, into the water with a great burst of froth and spray.

“Down trunk!” shouted Flip, and Conrad knelt in the river. She slid down from his back. “Hi, Harold,” she said.

The elephants frolicked like children. They waded in and out of the current; they blew fountains from their trunks, squirting themselves, squirting each other. Conrad squirted water at Harold and seemed to laugh at his joke.

But Harold didn't even smile. He glowered at the elephants.

“You're not mad at me, are you?” said Flip.

He shrugged. “You said you'd come by and you didn't.”

“I had things to do,” she said, suddenly angry. “Some people have to
work,
you know, to keep a circus running.”

Harold turned away. He walked up from the water, past the round, deep holes stamped in the mud by the elephants' feet.

“Where are you going?” said Flip.

“Nowhere.”

“You're not quitting, are you?” Flip followed behind him, but he didn't look back. “You're not going home, are you, Harold?”

He heard her running through the mud. She caught his sleeve and stopped him. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I didn't know we had to work. But the canvas came and we had to get it ready because we're moving on today.”

Harold pulled away. He trudged back to the scorched bit of ground where he'd slept. His pillowcase was damp and spotted by the dew, and he shifted it to a higher place already warmed by the sun. He unfolded the top and put his razor inside. “Is he your boyfriend?” he asked.

“Who?”

“Roman,” he said.

“Oh, he'd like to be. He
thinks
he is, I guess.”

“But he's not?”

“Oh, maybe once,” she said, standing right in front of Harold. “But I hardly like him anymore.”

She smiled at him, then reached out and smoothed his collar down. “He's just a rigger, that's all he is. He puts up tents and takes them down. Not like you.” She patted the wrinkles from his shoulders. “You teach elephants how to play baseball. And he's
scared
of them, believe it or not.”

Harold closed his eyes as her hands tingled across his chest.

“Look,” she said. “We've only got an hour—just an hour—before we start packing up the tents. Can't we practice with the roses?”

He swayed on his feet, that same squirly feeling coming back. He'd been foolish, he thought, to get angry when all she'd been doing was working. He opened his eyes, and they were level with hers on the sloping bank.

“Please?”

He thought that if he tried to talk, only a squeak would come out. He nodded instead.

“Gee, thanks,” she said. “You're a sweetheart, Harold. You really are.”

Harold fetched the bat and ball, and they practiced by the river, above the banks where the ground was hard and dry. Harold worked with Conrad, trying to show him how to pitch. Max Graf batted, and Canary Bird fielded, trumpeting up and down the riverbank with his great bulk shaking like jelly.

Flip was the catcher. “Max misses more than he hits,” she said.

“Well, so does Dixie Walker,” said Harold.

“But it's sort of boring.”

They shouted back and forth across the diamond. “I thought you'd be standing there,” said Harold. “Where you are. You could do all sorts of funny things.”

“Like what?”

“Crank his tail,” said Harold. “Like you're trying to start a car.”

He came and showed her. He leapt up to spin the tail, then laughed. “What if the drummer makes a sound like a car backfiring?” He held his nose, pretending he'd smelled something awful.

“Yeah,” said Flip. “Okay.”

He kicked dust at the elephant's foot; he dragged down the corner of an enormous ear to whisper something in it. He cavorted like a clown, and Conrad—with an angry trumpet—stomped down to the river, into the water.

“If he misses a pitch,” said Harold, “you make the batting box bigger.” He sketched it into the ground with his heel, then a bigger one, and a bigger one still. He pretended to sweep it with a tiny brush, then grabbed Max Graf's trunk and used it like a vacuum hose.

Flip laughed until she cried. “That's great,” she said, her cheeks streaming. “Oh, Harold, that's terrific. I'll have the greatest act that ever was. Or we will, I mean. The circus will.”

“But the pitching,” Harold said. “That's the problem. If they can't learn that, it's useless.”

He watched as Conrad stomped through the shallows, spraying water through his trunk. “He's having another fit,” he said.

“Maybe a clown could pitch,” said Flip.

“No. Then you'd just have people playing baseball. It has to be the elephants.”

“There isn't time,” she said.

Conrad raged through the river, squirting water so far that it misted on Harold's glasses. He wiped them dry, then his hand stopped in midair. “I've got it!” he cried. “A bucket. We need a bucket.”

“What?” said Flip. “He's going to throw a bucket?”

“No.” He took her hand and pulled her along. “I'll show you what I mean.”

Harold dragged her to the ball, picked it up and carried on, pulling Flip behind him. They splashed through the mud and into the river, and he whistled for Conrad to come. He grabbed the elephant's trunk and plunged it under water. “Take a drink,” he said.

The trunk pulsed as it filled. Then Harold pulled it up and corked it with the ball. “Blow!” he shouted.

Conrad had no choice, his nose was so full of water. With a blast of spray, with a popping sound, he snorted out the ball. It soared above the river, the red stripe spinning on the yellow, a straight and perfect pitch. It plopped onto the grass beyond the bank, and Harold grinned. “Strike one.”

“That's it,” said Flip. “That's it; you've got it.” She took Harold by the hands and twirled him in a circle. She spun him around and around, until the river and the elephants blurred across his glasses, until Conrad pried them apart with his trunk.

“Hey!” said Flip, but she was laughing. She pushed at Conrad's trunk. “What are you, his bodyguard?” And then her laughter stopped. Someone else was standing there.