Weird Tales, Volume 352 Read online

  And at the Capitalia, the players are the most beautiful of all, the most skillful in their acting, they can make anything seem real, as if it is really happening right there in front of you. This is why the men come night after night, past the soldiers, through the snow, this is why they stamp their feet and whistle and throw jewelry, and silver cigarette cases, and their calling-cards, and the tokens Master Konstantin sells. Because they watch Alma, and Suzette, and Geraldina, they watch the things that they do and think, Oh, that could be me up there, holding that beautiful lady, that could be me doing all the things that they do. . . . So the men get hot, watching. And no one made them hotter than Annelise.

  It is not only that she is beautiful, senhor, although she is very beautiful, there is no one more beautiful at the Capitalia, or in the whole City. It is the way she holds herself, the way she walks, the way she looks over her shoulder that makes you think you are the only man in the world, the only man for her. . . . The men throw so many tokens, I have seen her wince up her eyes: “Like a hailstorm,” she said, it was the first time she really spoke to me, stepping off the stage, fanning herself with the feathers of her bird-mask; some of her curls were stuck to her forehead, little half-circles of gold. “Look—they hit me,” turning her bare pink shoulder to show me the red marks there. “Idiots.”

  I did not answer her; I did not know what to say. That Annelise would speak to me! All I could do was smile, and help her gather up the tokens, dozens of tokens; we made sure to get them all. The players cash the tokens with Master Konstantin, to pay for their food and their lodging in the theatre, buy scents and silks, corn plasters for their blisters, all those things that ladies need. At first they slapped me off the tokens, but when they saw that I did not steal, they trusted me, the ladies. Annelise trusted me.

  Master Konstantin trusted me, too, more and more as the weeks went on. He put me on the door, to help Ambrose with the men; some nights he let me watch him count the money. He gave me a frock coat like his own to wear, with silver thread on the arms, and pomade to put on my hair; he showed me how to use powder to wash my teeth “-- to ease the carrion whiff. We will civilize you yet, Sonny Boy,” he said, and I smiled; Ambrose frowned. Later, on the door, Ambrose said to me, “Don't mind him, that old vulture. You are civil enough already, for this place, Sonny. . . . What was your name in your village?” but I only shrugged. I did not want to lie to Ambrose, but I did not want to talk about the village, ever, about the fields and the mud, the shit on my bare feet—I was nearly grown before I had boots to wear, the ragged boots I wore into the City, tied to my ankles with rags. I was Marko, there, and here I am Sonny. Would Annelise let Marko run her errands, or lace up her little shoes for her, sweet little pink leather shoes, like a child's? Would she smile at him, the way she does at me? I never want to be Marko again.

  “I am done with that,” I told Ambrose, “the farm and the beasts. I am in the City now.”

  “Plenty beasts in the City, young man,” Ambrose said.

  At first I thought he was just a drummer, one of those who go from place to place selling sundries, candies and horse tobacco, poultices for the tooth-ache and such. Except he carried a rusty flute, and he was so dirty, he looked as if he had never been in a city before, never slept inside. His cart was dirty too, its paint worn away, one side missing a wheel, and he pulled it himself, crookedly, like a beast. He looked like a beast, the players laughed to one another about it: “See those woolly arms,” Geraldina said. “Like a ram's. All he needs are the curly horns.”

  “Do you speak?” Alma asked, tugging at his coat-sleeve, ragged like the rest of him. “Or can you only bray, hmm?” and she made a donkey-sound, a goat-sound, and then laughed, and Geraldina laughed, and Suzette, and he laughed with them; Annelise did not laugh, only sat watching and smoking, letting the smoke drift out from between her pink lips.

  They all bought things from the old man, Ambrose too; even Master Konstantin bought tobacco from “Pyotr,” he said his name was, rumbling it out past his beard, the red mouth deep inside like a smelly cave and “Don't you ever wash your teeth?” I asked him. My voice was louder than I wanted. “For the, the carrion whiff?”

  “What's biting Sonny?” Geraldina asked, head to one side, smirking, Suzette giggled and I stomped away, angry; Master Konstantin asked me as well: “What ails you?” after the night's shows were over, counting out the money in his office. On his desk was the bottle of gin, he always drank while he counted. That night he offered me some. It tasted sour.

  “You don't like old Drummer Pyotr and his flute, do you? That song he plays, ‘Far and Wee,' it's an old song, isn't it? Ancient airs and graces. . . . He's staying only for the night; tomorrow he'll be on his way. So what ails you?”

  I shrugged. I did not know how to answer. No I did not like him, the way he dragged his ugly cart behind him, the devilish way he smelled. The way he looked at the ladies, at Annelise; the way she looked at him but “He can stay or go,” I said. “Either way, I don't care.”

  “That's the first time you've lied to me, Sonny Boy.” He was smiling, counting through the coins, something was funny to him; was it me? “It's our Christian duty, is it not, to offer shelter to the vagabond and the orphan? Go on, have another drink,” and I did; in the end I drank quite a lot, enough to make me dizzy, to send me into the jakes, I thought I was going to vomit so I closed my eyes as the walls spun around me, listening to the sound of water dripping, the sound of heels click-clacking on the floor, clip-clopping like hooves—

  —and I opened my eyes, senhor, I swear I opened my eyes and I swear I saw what I saw: that man, that Drummer Pyotr with his hairy legs ending not in shoes or boots or even feet but hooves, I swear that man had hooves like a goat's. And I looked up, straight up into his face, his laughing face beneath the shadow of the horns, and “Shall I play you a song?” he said, and his laugh was the sound the goats make when they breed. I jumped up to grab him, but I fell, face-down and filthy, and by the time I scrambled up again he was gone.

  First thing dawn, my head hurting, I went to Ambrose in his little room by the door, Ambrose who sat on his cot and listened, scratching his chest and “You were drunk, young man, that's all. Drink does that to a person, helps them see what is not. Like Geraldina and her belladonna—”

  “No. I mean, yes, I drank gin with Master Konstantin, but I know what I saw.” Ambrose did not say more, but I knew he did not credit me. Who would? Master Konstantin? He would laugh: Oh, the drunken farmboy saw a goat, no surprises there. No use to tell Geraldina or the others, to tell Annelise—

  —who I saw that very evening, before the show, in the courtyard beside the goat-man, as he filled his little bucket at the pump. They spoke, or at least she spoke to him, what did she say? with her hand on his arm and her head to one side, like a cunning bird, a bird flirting for crumbs so when she had gone I went out to where he sat, cross-legged before his cart; he wore boots, stout workingman's boots, but that did not fool me.

  “I saw you,” I said. “I know what you are. You should go away, quickly, before I tell Master Konstantin.” He did not answer me. “You don't belong here, in the City.”

  “Nor do you.” His voice was serious but his eyes were laughing, laughing at me. “You are not from the City either. You are a creature of the fields, just like the beasts.”

  “I, I am civilized! I work here!”

  “I work everywhere,” and he laughed as I walked away, back into the theatre, what could I do? when no one would believe me? and all the players liked him, Suzette and Geraldina, silly Alma sitting on his lap, giggling as he pretended to feed her like a baby, chocolate smeared on her face but everyone thought it was funny, even Master Konstantin laughed. Even Annelise laughed, then smiled at me when “That drummer,” I said to her, quiet in her ear. “That man is not good.”

  “What man is?” but she was smiling still, teasing me. She wore her spangled costume, the ribbons trailing black down her back, her pink skin flushed with swe
at; I could smell her, a sweet clean secret smell. “He is a traveler,” she said softly, as if to herself. “He has been everywhere, St. Petersburg, everywhere, every city in the world.”

  “Did he tell you that? Out by the pump?”

  Her smile changed. “How do you know I spoke to him? Do you watch me, Sonny? Are you like those men in the theatre, do you like to watch?” and she left me there in the hallway, her smell still in the air, like something I could almost touch.

  And I went out to the courtyard, to watch some more: for what? his empty cart? that was all I saw, there in the moonlight, the three-wheeled cart like a broken promise, Ambrose found me there asleep in the morning when “Get up,” he said to me, not unkindly. “Move that cart into the shed, Pyotr will stay with us awhile.”

  “Stay? Why?”

  “Ask Konstantin,” but when I went to him Master Konstantin arched his eyebrows: “We can always use a musician. And the girls like him.”

  “He stinks like the mating barn.”

  “That must be why,” and Master Konstantin smiled, but grew curt when I kept talking, tried how I could to say what I knew but “How is it your affair?” if the old man, old goat, old Pyotr made music for the ladies, tootling his stupid flute, the music made the girls wilder, which made the men throw more tokens, which meant more coins to count at the end of the evening so “What ails you, Sonny Boy?” Master Konstantin said, drinking gin; this time he did not offer me any. “Shall I pull you off the door, send you back to the slops? Or all the way back to your greasy little village? Don't ask me about Pyotr again.”

  What could I do, senhor? As the days turned into weeks, as the spring came on, the time of power for things like him. I kept watch as best I could, trying to find proof of what I knew: as he played his music, the creeping, tootling, dirty noise of his flute; as he ate like the beast he was, that red mouth dripping spit, once I threw down a handful of straw before him to see if he would gobble it up, but he only laughed at me.

  And I watched as one by one the players crossed the courtyard in secret, Alma and Suzette and Geraldina, it was no secret what they did there, all of them. All of them. Even Annelise. Watching her walk back to her room, wobbling like a foal, I cried, senhor, I know it is not manly but I cried. Because I had so much wanted—I had thought that perhaps one day, if I was civilized enough, I might go to her, Annelise, and we, she and I—

  —but him, Pyotr, rutting there in the cobbles and the mud—and he was old, grizzled and dirty and old and so I went to Geraldina instead, Geraldina who laughed but was not surprised, who did not say no to me; Geraldina never said no. Afterwards she asked, “But how will you pay me, Sonny? It can't be free, even for you.”

  “I'll give you something,” I said, something for us all, because something must be done, and quickly. Because now Pyotr was wearing a player's hat, with golden braid, he was sleeping inside, under the stairs, boots on always but I did not need to see again, I knew what he was. And he would end by making beasts of us all, Annelise, everyone. Even me.

  But senhor, truly, I gave him one last chance. As God is my witness, I went to him where he sat beneath the stairs, wrapped in a stable blanket, still wearing the braided hat and “Go away,” I said to him, through my teeth. “Go away from here now, tonight.”

  “From her, don't you mean?” but he did not laugh, only crinkled up his eyes at me and “Your name, your true name, is not Sonny, is it? What did they call you, back on your farm?”

  “Yours is not Pyotr. Is it?”

  “Wise child,” and he did laugh then, showing me his ground-down teeth, nubs in the jaw and “Tonight,” I said. “I won't warn you again,” and I left him there, to collect what I needed, to finish my evening tasks. Geraldina tried to stop me in the hallway but I put up my hand at her, to say Wait, wait until after the show—

  —which that night was very wild, I had to close the curtains early, Ambrose and even Master Konstantin had to help me, yanking them shut on the backs of the gasping, grasping men, tokens spilling out of their pockets, the players fleeing: Alma got her ankle wrenched, Suzette was stripped almost bare as the flute shrieked on, old Pyotr on the side of the stage staring over all our heads as if he saw something amusing out in the darkness, playing on and on as the men were herded out, cursing and pushing, as Master Konstantin came back wiping his brow, stood shouting at Pyotr which was what I needed, all I needed, to go and fetch the gin and the wine and “When it begins to cost instead of pay,” Master Konstantin said, “that is where I draw the line. You see Alma hobbling? She's finished for the week. And Geraldina will have a black eye, the stupid cow. —Ah, that's good,” as he took the drink from me, his bottle of gin, and the little tin bucket, Pyotr's own bucket half-filled with wine that I took from the cask in the cellar, took and mixed and mingled and “None for you,” Master Konstantin scowled at me, “you can't hold your liquor, go on—”

  —back to the doors to sit with Ambrose, and to wait, wait until it was later, very late and they were all asleep, even him. Especially him, snoring like a bull under the stairs.

  And then I did what I know how to do, what Marko knows, from the mud and the shit and the farm: to make a he-goat a wether, a neuter, all you need is a knife. A sharp knife, and some wine mixed with belladonna, and the job is done. If you do it swiftly and well, there is not even very much blood…. I know you say you took his boots from him, and that his feet were not hooves, his head had no horns, but I swear to you, senhor, and the Lieutenant too, I saw what I saw and I did what was right. And civilized, too, senhor, I was civilized. I buried what I took from him, and I made sure to place his flute inside his coat.

  Kathe Koja writes for adults and young adults; her latest book is Headlong (Farrar Straus Giroux), and she is currently at work on a novel project involving puppet theatre: www.underthepoppy.com. She lives in the Detroit area with her husband, artist Rick Lieder.

  * * *

  THE LAST GREAT CLOWN HUNT

  by Chris Furst

  It was clown-hunting weather. The leaves of the box elders were beginning to turn in the draws that cross-stitched the Musselshell River country. Frost fastened on the dry summer grass. I rose early one morning and marked a pair of trumpeter swans forging south under a bank of fast-moving clouds, their calls torn away in the ragged wind that smelled of burnt sugar. It was time to gather the musty costumes, clean the slide whistles, bag up the guns, and spin the lures of cotton candy.

  My name is Jack Wilson. Ever since back in ‘22 I've worked as a guide, leading wealthy hunters who hope to bag the coveted Three Ring Slam: a trophy clown from every major tribe. Along with my tracker, stone-faced Keaton, I've hunted renegades from the Montana reservations every fall and smeared the faces of fat city men with the ritual blood and greasepaint from their kills. But fifteen years is a long time in this game, and the prey dwindles every year.

  It wasn't always that way. My father was the first clown agent for the Emmett Kelly Reservation. I remembered how he would take me and my brother, Billy Boy, along on his visits to the clowns, and how we watched that day when the tribes first arrived. Wave upon wave they came, the Kellys and their subsidiary tribes, the Chuckos with their whirling carousel hats, the yipping Zipps, and a small band of JoJos, spreading through the valley on their wagons and elephants. It seemed there was no end to them. Hundred-year-old flivvers flopped in on limping tires, disgorging scores of clowns. Bedraggled jugglers held dirty ninepins limp by their sides; their faces brightened a little when they saw us rubes. Two weary elephants, Dinky and Snaggletusk, dragged the steam calliope into the shade of a solitary cottonwood.

  Billy Boy gaped at the straggling procession and toddled after the shaman, a gaunt giant sporting a battered top hat.

  Chief Hairy Eyeball jolted up in his square-tired Pierce Arrow to parley with my father. Hairy Eyeball stood proud in his baggy brown pants, greasy shirt and filthy waistcoat, his wig and tie askew, his shabby derby hat set at a careless angle, and three days' stubble shading thro
ugh his makeup. He tripped on his floppy brogans and somersaulted to attention.

  “What the hey,” he said. “Put ‘er there.”

  Father reached out to shake hands and received a jolt from the ceremonial hand buzzer that sent him sprawling in the dirt.

  “Allow me,” said Hairy Eyeball. Bowing to dust off Father's suit, he squirted him with a lapel flower, then spent a long minute pulling a knotted rainbow-print kerchief from his coat pocket. He wiped Father's face, and stuffed the kerchief into his sleeve.

  The chief signaled that the preliminaries were over with a mighty blast on the klaxon.

  “Well met, John Wilson.”

  “Well met, Hairy Eyeball.” Father turned to the throng and welcomed all of the clowns to the reservation.

  The Chief chuckled and, speaking through a megaphone, launched into his patter.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, this here's gonna be our headquarters—for the duration.” A chorus of slide whistles drew out a mournful, minor tune. Hairy Eyeball raised his arms and gestured for silence.

  “I know we've given up a lot,” he said, “but from what I can see, this looks like our last best place. Come on, let's get to work. We have a circus to run! And for Zoot's sake, water those elephants!”

  The calliope hissed to life, and the clowns passed the cigar butt before they erected the big top and the sideshow tents. Even in defeat they were magnificent.

  My wife, Lucy, was caught up in the Portland Massacre. She was working as a mime when a berserker clown cadre grabbed her off the street to use as a human shield. I never knew if it was the police or the clowns who'd shot her, but after Lucy's death, something changed in me and I moved back to Montana.