Elephant Song

SIX

Packy Dern sat upon a rock outside the door of the sick shack. He was looking across the dusty way at one of the crude hootches that had been built. The particular hootch he had built had done worlds to convince him that his calling was pushing bull. Years before, his career as husband and father had convinced him of the same thing as wife and son hit the lot and jumped the gate to look for what they hoped would be saner surroundings. Packy kicked a small stone and clasped his hands. "Can't say I much blame 'em."

"Blame who?"

Packy looked around and saw Mange Ranger standing in the sick shack's doorway. "Nothin'." He looked back at his hootch. "How's it goin' in there, Mange?"

The veterinarian sat upon a stump and grinned. "I think we're going to do just fine. Everybody in there is on the mend and I just had my first good night's sleep since I don't know when."

Packy nodded once then bent over, picked up a stick, and began breaking it into tiny pieces. "Maybe we can go a couple days at a time now without burying someone."

"What was in your feed this morning, Packy?"

The boss elephant man tossed the remains of the stick on the ground. "Little Will. She just sits there in the hootch. Now that she can talk like everybody else, she don't talk at all. Even that think-talk. It's like livin' with a ghost, her sittin' around starin' at that damned bullhook."

Mange bent over, placed his elbows on his knees, and clasped his hands together. "She's lost, Packy. Her parents are dead. A lot of her friends are dead. The show is gone. Her whole world is different."

"For a man that sticks his arm up a bull's hind end for a living, Mange, you sure are talking up a shrink storm."

Mange looked toward Packy's hootch. "I make a better shrink that you do an architect."

Packy snorted. "That's no damned lie." He looked at the show's veterinarian. "Mange, what am I going to do with her?"

Mange thought upon it for a long time. He looked up at the boss elephant man. "Tell her about what she does for a living."

"You mean the show? The show's dead."

The veterinarian shook his head. "No. I don't mean the show. Tell her about the bulls and the bullhands." Mange pushed himself to his feet. "I'd better get back." He grinned. "I'm going to deliver a baby."

"A baby what?"

"A baby human, plopbrain. Our Saint Travers is about to increase our numbers by one."

Mange went back into the sick shack and Packy went back to staring at his hootch. He thought for a moment about Jewel Travers, Wild West equestrian, known to the show as "Saint." Her husband, Shorty was dead. "Yet life goes on." Packy stood and headed toward his hootch. "And on, and on, and on."

Gangs in the Emerald Valley and in Tarzak would connect their own cars with roads the best they could without bulls or horses, and would then begin cutting their ways toward the gangs working north and south from Miira. Pony Red Miira bossed the road gang working south toward Tarzak, while Packy Dern bossed the gang that worked its way through the shorter, but more treacherous, Snake Mountain Gap.

At night Packy Dern's gang would huddle around fires and talk about nothing—old show stories, idle speculations about the next day's work, anything but the fix they were in. Little Will would remain silent, watching. Ming was with the Snake Mountain gang, and it seemed that at any time Bullhook Willy might appear, swinging his gold-tipped bullhook, bellowing out his orders to the rest of the bullhands. Then she would see Madman Mulligan pushing Ming. Then she would look at the bullhook in her hands and softly cry.

The sun would rise, the gang would begin the next day's work, and Little Will would remain at the camp either staring at her bullhook or into the depths of the gorge. Thirty days into the cut, and Packy began bringing Little Will with him to work.

Little Will sat quietly in the back of the wagon watching the bullhands and hostlers work their animals. With harness, carefully planned avalanches, but more often with shovels and backs, the crew cut their way up the steep incline to get above the walls of the Gap. The boiling river at the bottom of the gorge made a constant background roar causing both bullhands and hostlers to shout their instructions to their animals. The noise the river made sounded like the crowd in the blues on a good night. The river was named The Push.

Packy Dern brought Robber to a stop next to the wagon. "Little Will?"

She remained motionless. "Yes?"

"Honey, you can't just sit around all the time. It's not good."

"I don't feel like doing anything." She looked down, shook her head, and sniffed. "Don't want to do anything."

She was talking now. But the fact registered on no one, including herself. She talked because the thoughts wouldn't talk for her. That's all she knew. No big deal.

Packy reached out a hand and gave Little Will's back an unacknowledged pat. He studied her for a moment, shook his head, then shouted, "Mile up, girl!" Robber lumbered forward where Packy turned her around to hitch her harness to a wagon recently filled with dirt and rock.

Little Will wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands and turned to see Stub Jacobs bringing Reg's wagonload of fill to the edge of the cliff that formed the gap wall. She saw him call Reg to a halt, then Stub went back to the wagon to watch as two men placed rocks behind the wheels. They waved as Stub and the bullhand called to Reg to back up. As the bull backed toward the cliff's edge, the front of the wagon rose causing the wagon to begin emptying its load.

She saw it before it happened. The rock disappearing in a cloud of dust, the wagon falling over the cliff—

"Wait!" Her tiny scream was drowned by the roar from The Push. She began climbing up the side of the wagon. "Wait! Stop!" As the dirt aad rock began falling down the face of the cliff, the rock behind the wagon's left wheel crumbled slewing the wagon around. Stub called to Reg, but the wagon's other wheel jumped the rock behind it and the wagon went over the cliff.

Reg dug in as the weight of the wagon pulled her toward the gap and Stub rushed behind her and began trying to free the harness from the wagon. One of the men threw Stub a knife, and in seconds the harness parted. The wagon fell and Stub Jacobs fell with it, his screams covered by the roar of the water. Reg stood alone on the edge of the cliff waiting for Stub to hand out the next order.

Work stopped and bullhands and hostlers gathered at the edge of the cliff and looked down. Little Will climbed down from the wagon and walked over to Reg. She stood in front of the bull, reached out a hand, and stroked her trunk. "It's me, Reg. Do you remember me?"

Reg gently wrapped her trunk around Little Will's shoulders. Little Will looked up at Reg's eyes. "I have to go get something first, Reg."

Little Will went back to the wagon and returned carrying a mahogany-handled, gold-tipped bullhook. She stood by Reg's left front leg. "Let's go, Reg. There's work to do."

She led the elephant away from the cliff and backed her up to the next wagon in line. Little Will looked back to see Packy staring at her. "Packy, I need someone to repair Reg's harness."

Packy continued staring at her, then he looked at those standing around at the edge of the cliff. Shiner Pete Adnelli nodded at Packy and moved off to repair the harness. The rest returned to their animals and shovels.

That night around the fire, they talked about Stub Jacobs. Not a spectacular human being; just another elephant tramp, which made him a spectacular human being in some circles.

Packy held Little Will and talked. "Honey, did you ever wonder why the show don't have big legends—super heroes—like Paul Bunyan or Pecos Pete?"

Little Will shook her head. "Who are they?"

"See, now. The loggers in the north end of the union used to storytell about a monster logger name of Paul Bunyan. He was so big that his footprints left lakes, and he could take his ax and fell a thousand trees at a time. Cowboys out in the west end of the union used to talk of Pecos Pete. Pete would wrassel rivers and windstorms and tame 'em. But, honey, loggin' and bein' a cowboy are small things next to bein' a trouper. The show is full of heroes, and it'd take one bungus imagination to come up with something like a Paul Bunyan for the circus."

Waxy Adnelli, boss harnessman, leaned forward and pointed across the fire at Little Will. "At the clem on Masstone I saw Stub Jacobs, along with Mr. John and your papa, wade into a mean bunch of soldiers with nothin' but tent stakes, and they flattened the lot of 'em."

Dot the Pot Drake nodded as she stared into the fire. "Bottle Bottom got killed in that clem." She looked up at Little Will. "He was the route book man before the show picked up that lumpy guy from the planet Pendiia, Warts." Dot tossed a tiny stick into the fire. "And now he's dead as a doornail."

The silence around the fire grew oppressive, and one by one they left the flames to find a private place to sleep. Little Will, still looking into the fire, leaned against Packy. "How come they don't talk like they used to? Back before the crash?"

Packy put his left arm around Little Will's shoulders. "Don't know if I can put it right, Little Will. Back before they were troupers. Now they're a road gang. It'd be all right if they could see the end of this season; but they can't. We're stuck, there's nothin' anybody can do about it, and it sticks in their throats. If they'd start cussin' Arnheim, makin' jokes, things'd be back to normal. But they don't want to talk about it. And as long as they don't talk about it, Arnheim has us whipped."

"Packy, isn't Karl Arnheim dead?"

The boss elephant man nodded his head. "And that's what's got 'em, Little Will. A trouper can fight anything. Anything but a damned ghost." He looked into her eyes, seeing the confusion there. "When you get a little older and begin collectin' your own stable of ghosts, you'll see what I'm talkin' about."

Little Will looked back at the flames. In them she could see shapes form—puzzle pieces. What they were pieces to, she couldn't see; she could see that not enough pieces were there. When Packy moved off to his bedroll, Little Will continued staring at the fire.

"I wish it could be like it was," she thought.

"Me too."

Little Will looked up across the fire, startled, to see another startled face looking back at her. It was Shiner Pete Adnelli, Waxy's son.

She tried her thoughts again. "Shiner, was that you?"

He nodded, his mouth gaping.

"Did you work with Waco and the Ssendissians?"

"A... a little." He held his hands to his head for a moment, then stood and walked away from the fire.

Little Will studied the flames for a long time, then stood and made her way to Packy's bedroll. She snuggled against the boss elephant man, and as she was dozing she let the thought escape. "Goodnight Shiner."

A troubled thought returned. "Yeah. Goodnight."

Little Will closed her eyes and let her dreams carry her back to the ship and her good friends the Ssendissians.

They were laying up on the planet Ahngar at the main spaceport near the Royal City of Almandiia. Hassih the Ssendissian was looped several times over Bullhook Willy's right shoulder and across his chest. Bullhook held Little Will's hand as the three of them watched the technicians and welders working on the main animal carrousel in shuttle Number Three. The Ssendissian turned from the work and looked at Bullhook. "How many were killed when the meteor struck?"

Bullhook shook his head. "Nineteen troupers and forty-nine animals—sixteen of them bulls. Four bullhands, nine from the shuttle crew, a pony punk, three hostlers, and two camel hands." Again he shook his head. "God, what a nightmare. The damage jammed the main carrousel and we couldn't rotate it to get the bulls out of the shuttle and into the ship. We had to cut them out. Those that weren't injured from the meteorite got it in the stampede."

Hassih looked back at the workers. "It is such a pity. Can the bulls be replaced?"

The big man turned and went down the gangway to the ground port, Little Will walking beside him. "We can get more bulls. We just can't replace the one's we lost. Big Mo got it, Go Go, Princess..."

Little Will pulled on the tip of the Sssendissian's tail. "Hassih, please tell my daddy I'm sorry."

They stepped down to the surface of the parking ramp and headed for their van. Hassih spoke to Bullhook. "Little Will expresses her condolences."

The big man looked down at the little girl and smiled. "I'm glad you're with me right now, baby. Very glad." He squeezed her hand and she squeezed back.

"Hassih, tell my daddy I love him."

The Ssendissian bobbed its head around. "Your daughter expresses her affection."

Bullhook Willy raised an eyebrow and looked at Hassih. "You know, Hassih old shoelace, I can't help but believe her words lost something in the translation." He opened the van door, Hassih slithered inside, and Little Will climbed in after. After closing the passenger door, Bullhook Willy walked around the front of the van and climbed into the driver's seat, closing his door behind him. He reached to energize the van's motor, then hesitated. He faced the Ssendissian. "Hassih, I don't understand this telepathy stuff. If Little Will can talk to you, and if you can talk to me, why can't she talk to me?"

"Bullhook, you cannot receive the same as she sends. It is much like the radios on the ships. She is sending on one frequency, but you can only receive on another. It is much more complicated than that, but that is why."

"And you can dial up and down both sending and receiving?"

"Roughly. But Little Will cannot. Perhaps she could with training. Perhaps you could be trained." Hassih swung its head around and studied Little Will. Then the Ssendissian looked at Bullhook. "I will ask Nhissia. Nhissia is an expert in communications. My talents lie elsewhere."

Bulhook Willy started up the van. "What did you do back at the old academy, Hassih?"

The Ssendissian looked through the windshield. "My training is in the arts of killing and preparing the kill for consumption. I am told you call this home economics."

The big man moved the van. As it approached the fences surrounding the field, he turned to the Ssendissian. "I would appreciate it if you would ask Nhissia if anything can be done."

Hassih's head bobbed up and down. The Ssendissian looked at Little Will, then turned its head toward Bullhook. "Little Will expresses her discomfort."

Willy sighed and shook his head. "Hassih, just tell me what she said—exactly."

Hassih cocked its head to one side, then looked back through the windshield. "Little Will said: 'Tell my daddy that I have to go to the bathroom.' "

It was a stand somewhere. Only one among many, but important. All stands are important.

The show's children crowded the dressing top donning their costumes for the most spectacular street parade ever put on by O'Hara's Greater Shows. The inhabitants of the planet, as well as their cities and their streets, were on a grand scale. The city of Tiomo was the first stand, and Tiomo's main street would dwarf any kind of human display—except the circus. O'Hara swore to fill the enormous avenue. All seventy-five bulls, the entire compliment of baggage and performing horses, all performers, every show and cage wagon, even the show's canvasmen and razorbacks found themselves costuming for the parade.

As her costuming and makeup were completed, Little Will gathered with the other show children under the watchful eye of Iron Jaw Jill, the show's ballet director. "Now you kids freeze. Mess up those spangles, and I'll see your bony little buns across a trunk!" She turned and disappeared into the crowd of ballet girls donning briefs and feathered headdresses. On a row of trunks off to the side, Clown Alley was touching up its last frizzy head and securing its last fake foot.

Little Will turned as she heard angry shouting. The show kids backed away from a scuffling pair of boys rolling on the wood shavings. They pounded and punched each other without mercy until Iron Jaw Jill pulled them apart. Even held apart, they swung in each other's direction at the empty air. "Hold your hosses! Now!" She shook the two until they stopped swinging. "Look at your costumes!"

Little Will stood on her toes to see who the boys were. The blond-haired one with the bloody nose was Mikey Dirak, the advance manager's son. The brown-haired one with the bloody nose was Pete Adnelli, Waxy the harnessman's son. Both of their costumes were in blood-covered tatters. Iron Jaw shook Mikey. "What's this about?"

He sniffed and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. "Nothin'. Pete just jumped me."

Iron Jaw looked at Pete. "Well?"

Pete tried to take another swing at Mikey, but was pulled out of range by Iron Jaw. "You liar!"

Iron Jaw shook Pete until he quieted. "Now, what do you have to say for yourself?"

Even flushed from fighting, Little Will could see the blush creeping into Pete's cheeks. "Mikey said something."

"What thing? Out with it!"

Pete mumbled.

Iron Jaw shook his shoulder again. "Speak up, young man!"

Pete pointed at Mikey. "He called... he called Little Will a name."

Iron Jaw looked at Mikey. "What name?"

"Nothin'!"

Pete lunged again at Mikey and succeeded in landing another punch on Mikey's nose. "Liar!"

Iron Jaw pulled Pete back. "Calm down, young man, or I'll drop your drawers and tan your hide right this minute!" She glowered at Pete until he stood motionless.

Pete looked from Mikey down to the wood shavings. "He said she was a dummy."

Iron Jaw's eyebrows went up. "What?"

Pete pointed at Mikey. "He called Little Will a dummy!"

Mikey grimaced. "I... I didn't mean nothin' by it. Everybody knows she can't talk!"

Little Will noticed some of the other children looking in her direction. Tears welled in her eyes, she hid her face and ran from the dressing top.

Later that evening in the Number Three car moving to the next stand, Little Will went through the port carrousel. Among the massive white Percheron horses, she found Pete Adnelli seated on a bucket, glumly polishing a mountain of harnesses. She walked up to him and stopped. He looked up at her, blushed, then looked back at his work. "Uh, hi." He glanced at the pile of brass-studded leather at his side. "Waxy wasn't too happy to hear about me missin' parade."

She squatted down and placed her hand on his. Pete's blush turned fire-red. He grinned. "It wasn't nothin'. He... just shouldn't of said that."

Little Will smiled, removed her hand, and pulled a halter from the mountain of leather. She dipped her fingertips in the clear, liquid polish and began rubbing it into the halter's leather.

Pete kept looking at his work, but he grinned.

Little Will watched as Waco Whacko, her father and the Ssendissian, Nhissia, sat silently. Bullhook Willy and Waco sat in chairs facing Nhissia, who was hanging from the cabin's light fixture.

"Well, Nhissia, you told Waco you might have figured out something new. Can Little Will talk to me now?"

Nhissia's head bobbed around, looking first at Little Will, then at Waco, then at Bullhook. "Can you all tell what I am saying?"

Waco nodded. "I heard."

Bullhook's eyebrows went up. "Yes." He turned to his daughter. "Did you hear that?"

She nodded, then looked up at Nhissia. "I heard. We all heard at the same time, Nhissia."

The Ssendissian's head bobbed up and down. "It is as I suspected. I hoped that I could train myself to communicate with more than one human at a time. I have been trying out various combinations." Nhissia looked at Bullhook. "Waco and I have been working on this together. We didn't let you know because we didn't want to raise false hope."

The big man looked at Waco. "Thank you." He looked at Nhissia. "Thank you both."

Little Will stood up. "Can I talk to my daddy now?" She looked at Bullhook, but he only frowned. Little Will pouted. "Nhissia, I can't!"

"Have patience. Little Will. I have only learned to do this with humans myself." Nhissia looked at Bullhook. "I found that a number of the young humans on this ship have the same mind ability as Little Will's."

Waco leaned toward Bullhook. "We checked it out with Bone Breaker's records. There are twenty-six kids with the show that have the same genetic peculiarity. Bone Breaker thinks it's the war. Anyway, nine of the kids have the ability to transmit communications, but never developed it because they can talk. The rest of us don't transmit simply because we don't have the ability. But all of us can receive." The snake charmer smiled at Nhissia. "So far Nhissia has trained two of the kids to transmit by mind, and one of the two can speak directly to me."

Little Will sat back down in her chair. "Can you fix my mind to talk to others?"

Nhissia looked from Little Will to the bullhand and the snake charmer. "She asked if she can be trained." The Ssendissian looked back at Little Will. "I think so. It will take much work, but I think it can be done."

Bullhook Willy Kole looked down at his daughter...

Little Will awakened, a hand shaking her shoulder. She turned and saw Packy's outline against the almost light of the new morning. "What is it, Packy?"

"You were havin' some dream. Thought I'd step in just in case the tigers had you cornered." The boss elephant man patted her shoulder. "Okay?"

Little Will nodded and they both snuggled into the bedroll. "Packy?"

"What, honey?"

"Packy, was my daddy a nice man?"

Packy remained motionless for a moment, then shrugged the shoulder he wasn't attempting to sleep upon. "He was an elephant tramp."

High praise from Packy Dern.