Jingo Django (10 page)

“Any
of you chicken thieves talk English?”

Tornapo got to his feet, and he was as big as any of them. “We are not chicken thieves, sir gentlemen.”

“You're gypsy-people ain't you?”

“Yes.”

“Then you're chicken thieves.” He spit again. “Clear out.”

I thought certain we were in for a fight. Didn't Tornapo say that he could straighten a horseshoe with his bare hands? But he only smiled as if they were making polite conversation. “Now, sir gentlemen, you can see that we are not bothering anyone.”

“You're a-botherin' us.”

“But even birds of passage must stop to rest.”

“Not in our neck of the woods, you ain't,” the man said. “Ain't none of you foreigners goin' to neighbor up to us. Now git!”

I was surprised to see that the gypsies had already begun to hitch up their wagons. It appeared nothing uncommon for them to be ordered to move on. But it was uncommon to me, and my blood began to simmer. Even Sacki was gone from my side, busy in the shadows of his wagon.

“As you wish,” Tornapo said, unruffled. “As you wish, sir gentlemen.”

It didn't take five minutes before the wagons and the goats and the horses were moving out. I felt riled, but powerless. Then Tornapo came by, driving his
vardo,
and yanked me up by the arm to the seat beside him.

“Keep silent,
chavo,”
he whispered.

“But they had no right!” I protested.

He shrugged.

I looked at his bare, blacksmith's arms and felt sorely disappointed in him. “You could have knocked their heads together, couldn't you?”

“Avali.
Yes. And sent them running with their muskets wrapped around their necks. But why bother? We don't fight over a patch of ground. We leave that to the
gorgies.
The world is wide, eh, Django? There is always another patch of ground.”

I could hear the three men laughing at us. Finally I said, “I'll never trust a
gorgio
again.”

Tornapo
looked at me and didn't seem pleased by my remark. “Listen to me,
chavo.
Some
gorgies
are worse than others. Some are better. Don't put them into the same pot.”

We reached the road and I fell silent. It appeared to me that gypsies were not much different from orphans. No one really wanted them about, and they had to make their way as best they could.

For the first time I began to feel like a gypsy through and through. I didn't want a ring in my ear, but I did admire the bright silken cloths Sacki and Tornapo and the other men wore about their necks.

“Ah, you mean a
diklo,”
Tornapo said. “Look inside the wagon. Behind the door. Choose any color you want. It doesn't matter. I have only green ones.”

I returned with a green
diklo
knotted around my neck, and Tornapo nodded. “Don't you look like a real
romany-chal
now, eh, Django?” I nodded and he laughed. “You would like to travel the roads with us? You have other plans?”

“No,” I muttered.

“Mishto!”
he said. “Then it is settled.”

I had already noticed that we had turned north up the road, back toward Natchez. Well, it didn't matter to me. One direction was as good as another.

But we hadn't gone more than a mile when Tornapo halted the caravan. He ordered it about and we retraced our steps.

We were soon camped again. Under the same willow trees we had left an hour before. “Will those sir gentlemen think to find us here?” Tornapo laughed quietly.
“Kek! No!”

I looked about and smiled. Tornapo had his pride and meant to camp where he pleased. And those sir gentlemen be hanged!

17

THE HORSE TRADE

Dawn was hardly aglow through the trees when we took to the road again and headed south. I sat on the wagon beside Tornapo and practiced whipping out the
kidda-kosh.
I aimed at everything loose beside the road, and once succeeded in fetching a broken gourd.

“Bravo!” Tornapo roared.

“I reckon I'm getting the hang of it,” I said.

Then my eye caught a freshly broken willow stick poked in the ground. I was about to try for it when I stopped short. I recognized it for what it was — one of Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones's markers.

I'm sure Tornapo saw it, too, but you'd never guess from his face.

He said nothing and we passed on.

Finally I asked, “Don't you leave signs behind you like — like the Grasshopper?”

“Signs? Ah, you mean a
patrin.
Yes. Artaros, following with the goats, he is leaving our
patrin.”

“But why?”

“It is a way gypsies have of finding each other, eh? Yes, I must teach you to read our
patrin.
Then you will always be able to find us.”

I looked at him. “Do you mean you can tell exactly whose
patrin
it is?”

“As if his name was nailed to the road!” Tornapo laughed.

“Then you knew it was the Grasshopper's
patrin
you found outside Natchez?”

“Of course,
chavo.
And that he was not traveling alone, as he is now.”

“But how?”

He seemed pleased to be initiating me into gypsy secrets. “He cut his sticks with the short stub of a branch left on, eh? That was you, that stub!” And the morning sun glinted off his gold teeth as he laughed again.

“But
he's a
gorgio,”
I said with rising anger, as if he had no right to a gypsy
patrin.

“True. But Chawhoktamengro has traveled the roads with gypsies. He has learned our ways.”

I looked hard at Tornapo. “Did you know my pa, sir?”

He didn't face me. “Doesn't one gypsy know another?” he shrugged.

“Was there bad blood between him and the Grasshopper?”

“It is possible. Look there! Isn't that a fine city up ahead, eh? Maybe we will trade a horse or two.”

It wasn't a city at all. It was only a dusty village with a rickety steamboat landing and a sawmill and a smelly tanning yard that made you want to pinch your nose. I'm not certain Tornapo really planned to stop there at all, but as we passed along the shady street I was quick to notice the cut stick poking out of some weeds. It was Mr. Peacock-Hem lock-Jones's
patrin,
all right, and I saw that there was no branch stub left on.

Well, he had shed himself of me — I could read that for myself. But I also noticed fresh tufts of grass thrown between the ruts of the street. I calculated Tornapo read more into
that
than I could, for he began to nod to himself. Then he said, “Yes. A fine place to trade horses.”

We camped on the outskirts of the village. No one seemed in a great hurry. Bibi Mizella began milking the goats. Sacki's little sister, Matchka, had her black hair freshly braided and set off with her mother in their brightest skirts to read fortunes. The men discussed which horses to trade. Sacki wanted to go along, but Bibi Mizella rattled off some
puro jib
in his direction and he gave out a deep sigh.

“Aunty says you and me's got to peddle the milk,” he grumbled. “We'll never learn horse tradin' that way.”

“I wish I knew how to read fortunes,” I said.

“Aw, that's women's work,” he glowered. “Horses are men's work. No one knows more about horses than us gypsies.”

Finally we set out with pails of goats' milk. Tornapo stayed behind to shoe one of the wagon horses.

We
knocked at back doors. But I noticed that Sacki was careful to avoid certain houses.

“What's wrong with that one?” I asked, pointing to a white frame home behind a swaybacked picket fence.

“It has the mark on it.”

“What mark?”

He pointed out a scratch in the gatepost:

“Gypsies have been here before us,” he said. “That means to avoid this place. They'll set their dogs on us.”

We moved on to another house and Sacki's eyes picked out a circle and a dot carved in an old shade tree.

“Good,” he nodded. “Here they are friendly to us.”

It was true. The lady bought a pitcher of goats' milk and offered us some freshly baked cookies.

It was astonishing the things Sacki could tell me about the people in the village as we wandered about.

“An old woman died in that house not long ago,” he said, pointing to the
patrin
.

And
here they are stingy people, wouldn't give you a drink of water.”

“Ah, there is a good house,” he continued. “The fine mistress likes to have her fortune told. See?”

“And she wants a baby. See, again?”