Paint the Wind Page 5

  Atticus kept a map that tracked each place they'd been through; Fancy lettered the names in carefully and sometimes added a little drawing of a cabin or a tepee to remind them of what they'd encountered on the way. Fancy had signed her name at the bottom and Atticus had proudly lettered his in beside it.

  The Missouri air was cool and dry. Fancy didn't like the look of the wagon-train master as he shouted orders to the men who were loading the huge Conestoga wagons. He was called Major, as were all such wagon masters, and he seemed to pack enough swagger to make the title believable.

  Atticus offered his services to the man for the westward journey, in return for passage for himself and his "gran'child." But the major told him that passage alone was not enough. A wagon would be needed, and supplies, food, bedding, pots, pans . . . the list sounded endless to Fancy, listening from beyond the mountains of boxes, barrels, crates, and livestock that made up the supplies being loaded onto the many wagons of the train.

  They'd already heard the prices of such goods from other wagoneers: ninety dollars for a light flatbed wagon, fifty dollars for a yoke of oxen, forty to sixty dollars for a horse. Why, even a fifteen-hand mule cost sixty-five dollars, which might as well have been a king's ransom, it was so far beyond their means. And then there was the incredible list of provisions that each family needed to survive the two-hundred-fifty-day journey west. It had been printed on a St. Joe flyer that she'd read aloud to Atticus, their spirits sinking lower with each item: flour and sugar and coffee and tea. Rice, bacon, hams, lard, vinegar, crackers, raisins, pickles, dried fruit; Fancy had nearly committed them to memory. To say nothing of spices and medicines and so many sundries, it had made her head spin. Even Atticus' optimism had flagged at the hopelessness of such a list. But then he'd hit on the idea of offering services in return for passage, and they had hoped once more.

  "I kin cook and hunt," she heard Atticus tell the wagon master with pride in his old voice. "I knows doctorin' an' I'se a powerful good blacksmith. I kin play de banjo, too."

  "Wes Jarvis," he said enigmatically. "That's who you want to see."

  "He on dis wagon train?"

  "No. Not the train. You don't belong on the train, I told you that. You got no provisions. Wes Jarvis got a traveling circus and patent-medicine show. Calls itself some kind of highfalutin theatrical ensemble or some such, but a circus is what it amounts to. If you can do all them things you say you can, Wes might take you on. You and the pickaninny there." The shifting eyes darted past Atticus to Fancy.

  "Where we gonna find this Wes Jarvis?"

  "He was loading up on grub, same as us this morning," said the major. "Might still be at the general store, might be at the saloon.

  Might be parked outside of town by the railroad yard," he said, already walking away.

  Atticus called a thank-you after him and moved in Fancy's direction, the lightness restored to his step. He leaned down to hug the child in his excitement at the possible reprieve the circus offered. It might not have the substance of a wagon train, but it would have steady meals and maybe even a wagon roof overhead. And there'd be womenfolk too—it wouldn't hurt Fancy any to be around womenfolk at this age.

  Atticus took her by the hand and set out to talk his way into Wes Jarvis' theatrical ensemble.

  The circus caravan stood restlessly at the edge of town. The canvas tent was half collapsed like a multicolor cake that had fallen in the middle. The wagons, festive from a distance, close up revealed their peeling paint, their rusted wheels and cage bars.

  Fancy watched wide-eyed as a huge gray beast, the like of which she'd never seen, stood happily scooping up huge trunk-loads of hay and stuffing them into its triangular mouth.

  "Oh, Atticus!" she breathed excitedly, pulling at his sleeve and pointing. "What's that?"

  "Dat's a elephant, Fancy. Back where I come from we got lots a' elephants, but I never did see one here. . . . Dat's a mighty fine elephant you got yourself, son," Atticus shouted up to a young man on a ladder, who seemed to be scrubbing the elephant's back with a long-handled mop.

  The elephant boy grinned back and waved.

  "Kin you tell me where I find Wes Jarvis?"

  "Lead wagon," the boy shouted from his perch. "He's the one who looks like the boss." He emphasized the last word and laughed.

  Atticus took Fancy's hand in his own and pulled her away from the elephant. She would happily have stayed.

  Calliope music sounded, stopped, sounded, stopped, as if someone were testing the mechanism that produced it. Men shouted to one another and noisily tossed things into wagons. A tall, striking woman walked by, speaking quietly to a pair of tigers on gilded leashes. She seemed occasionally to stop and wait for a responsive growl before continuing the dialogue.

  "I love this place!" Fancy breathed aloud as she ran to keep up with Atticus' hurrying strides. "Oh, Atticus, I hope they let us stay."

  "So do I, Fancy honey. So do I." The circus was their last hope of going west this year. Everyone knew that if you left Missouri after April, there was no way through the terrible snows of the Sierra Nevada. After the tragedy of the Donner party twenty years before, when the desperate members of a stranded wagon train had resorted to cannibalism to survive, no one at all left St. Joe after April.

  Following the sound of the calliope, Atticus and Fancy rounded the corner of the deflated tent and saw a fanciful wagon with curlicue scrollwork on top. It was painted with wide red and white stripes and along the side a gilt-trimmed sign proclaimed:

  W.E.S. JARVIS'S INTERNATIONALLY RENOWNED CIRCUS, THEATRICAL ENSEMBLE, AND WILD BESTIARY INCORPORATING THE MUSEUM OF HUMAN CURIOSITIES AND MADAME MAGDA FORTUNE TELLER TO THE CROWNED HEADS OF EUROPE

  Striding back and forth in front of the wagon was a man obviously in command, shouting orders to the tiniest full-grown person Fancy had ever seen. The dwarf stood shy of three feet; his hair was black and was parted in the middle and slicked carefully into identical waves on either side of his head. A child-size monocle dangled from a ribbon attached to a button on his vest, and it bounced as he scurried to stay in front of the pacing Wes Jarvis. For that, without a doubt, thought Atticus, was who the flamboyant white-haired gentleman with the theatrical voice must be.

  "We shall do Lear for the Philistines," the voice announced. Suddenly striking the pose of an avenging angel, arms raised menacingly above his head as if to threaten the dwarf, Jarvis boomed unexpectedly, " 'Dost thou call me fool, boy?' "

  Falling to one knee, the little man replied undaunted, " 'AH thy other titles thou hast given away; that thou wast born with.'"

  Jarvis clapped his hands with glee; both men laughed uproariously at their own antics.

  " 'Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend!' " Jarvis managed to snap at the dwarf through his laughter. The little man, unpeturbed by the rebuke, gestured to Atticus and Fancy to come closer.

  "Yes, yes?" Jarvis called to them. "And to what whim of fortune do we owe this unexpected visit?"

  Fancy saw Atticus straighten visibly. "We's here lookin' for work, suh," he said in his most dignified tone.

  "And a place in your circus!" added Fancy enthusiastically, but a look from Atticus silenced her.

  "Indeed?" said Jarvis with a small snort of amusement, and Fancy saw his every gesture was exaggerated. He tossed his head to push back a falling lock of hair, when a simple stroke of the hand would have served the same purpose. "We have no need of more personnel at the moment, Gitalis, have we?"

  "No need. And no money to pay, if we had need."

  "Alas, a bitter truth," Jarvis agreed. "What do you do, by the way?"

  "Anythin' needs doin'. I'se a powerful good blacksmith. Shoe dat elephant a' yours if you want me to. I kin fix anythin' broke. I know doctorin' wif nature's medicines—"

  "And he plays the banjo and fiddle and sings like an angel," interrupted Fancy, not about to let this opportunity slip away.

  "And you," Jarvis asked Fancy. "Are you similarly gifted?"

  "I c
an work as hard as anybody. ... At anything you want done. I can sing and I'm learning to play stringed instruments, and—" She broke off, trying to think of some other wonderful accomplishment she could offer.

  "You don't speak like a person of the dark races, my dear," Jarvis observed, examining her more closely. In her effort to impress, Fancy had forgotten the "darkie talk" she'd learned so laboriously.

  "Her daddy was a white man," Atticus broke in hastily. "Dey let her play wif de li'l white childrun on the plantation an' she git above herself."

  "I see," said Jarvis, exchanging a look with Gitalis.

  "And what exactly did they call you on this plantation, might I inquire?"

  "They called me Fancy."

  "Fancy what?"

  "Just Fancy."

  Jarvis walked closer; he seemed entranced by the child. "And why do you wish to join the circus, Fancy?"

  "We want to go west and we have no money for the wagon train."

  "Aha!" said Jarvis, as if he'd made a momentous discovery. "Do you see what we have here, Gitalis? The makings of an honest woman. And of quite a little beauty, too, if I'm any judge. Cleopatra must have had skin your color, Fancy. Did you know that?" He smiled at the exquisite child, whose eyes held so many secrets.

  "You may come with us," he announced as if bestowing the crown jewels. "We have little enough, but you may share it, if you are willing to work."

  Fancy threw her arms around Atticus and Jarvis saw tears of joy and relief in both their eyes.

  "It is a great privilege to be a member of the theatre; never forget that!" The voice was too large for its tiny audience. "We entertain. We entrance them with illusion. We transport them from their grubby little lives to Elysian fields. We educate. We amuse. We set them free! It's a godly calling," he said with a wink at Fancy, then turned on his heel and strode away.

  "Teach them, Gitalis," Jarvis tossed over his retreating shoulder. "Teach them!"

  Amusement glittering in his eye, Gitalis fixed his monocle in place, propped his clipboard against his hip, and began to rattle off the rules of theatrical life. Another pair of strays, he thought . . . not the first for Wes Jarvis, and surely not the last.

  The exotic dark-haired woman they had seen earlier walking the leashed cats extended her hand formally to Fancy. The nails were long and well tended, the hand beautiful. Instead of shaking her hand, as Fancy expected, the woman turned up the palm and scrutinized the lines that crisscrossed it in delicate filigree.

  "You belong here, for now," Magda said, apparently satisfied with what she'd seen. She had the kind of sultry middle-European accent that rolled its r's and exchanged its v's and w's. "You are of the race that knows Joseph."

  "I don't know anyone named Joseph," Fancy replied, not wanting to be mistaken for someone else.

  Magda's laugh was throaty and genuine. "You do not understand me, child. It is a saying of the Gypsies ... it speaks of the special ones. . . . You like my pets?" she asked, seeing Fancy eye the tigers that stalked up and down in their wagon cage. Each time the animals passed by Magda in their prowl, they rubbed themselves sensuously against the cage bars and made a grumbling sound.

  "I've never seen anything like them!" Unconsciously, Fancy moved closer and put out her hand toward the cage.

  "You must never touch my babies!" Magda snapped forbiddingly. "They are very dangerous. Except with me." She shrugged and smiled. "Perhaps even with me. Jarvis says one day they will eat me up and nothing will be left of poor Magda.

  "Come!" her voice commanded. "We will clean you up and find you some costumes to wear. Can you ride? You must learn if you cannot."

  "I can ride," Fancy said as she scurried to keep up with Magda's determined stride. The Gypsy was tall and queenlike; her long black hair bounced energetically as she walked. Magda brushed it back from her face absently and Fancy was reminded of the way a high-bred stallion switches its tail to show its superiority and impatience. Fancy was fascinated, for the woman was very beautiful and not in the least like anyone she had ever seen.

  The wagon's paint was badly chipped on the outside, but the interior took the child's breath away. Every inch of space was cluttered with exotic debris. Richly patterned fabrics hung in pleated swags from the ceiling, brilliant velvet cushions, some laced with golden threads, were tossed casually about the floor. An exquisite lacquer table from the Orient dominated the wagon's center; on it, in a cushioned nest, stood a giant crystal ball.

  Candles in curious metal sconces were everywhere. Mirrors in gilt frames faced each other at angles that bounced back a thousand reflections of the mysterious interior.

  "It's so gorgeous here!" Fancy couldn't help the breathless exclamation. Magda smiled approvingly.

  "It is nothing!" she snapped, but the child could see the woman was delighted by her enthusiasm.

  Magda opened a window that had been hidden by the drape of fabric, and sunlight beamed its way into the small wagon, dust motes dancing in its wake. The light betrayed the fraying of the pillows and the dust piled in corners, the tarnish of the candlesticks and the dents in the antique table, but Fancy could see only the magic of the place.

  Magda fished a jangling bunch of keys from her pocket and fitted one into the lock of an old wooden chest. "A gift from a pirate who was my lover," she said as she pulled up the lid and costumes in varied states of disrepair spilled out.

  "It is some time since we could afford a wardrobe mistress," Magda said with a sniff of contempt, putting her finger through a hole in the seam of a silvery dress and wiggling it. "But no matter. I suppose you can sew." Fancy nodded her head, but she had already realized Magda did not expect answers to her questions.

  "What are you waiting for?" the woman called over her shoulder impatiently. "Take off your clothes."

  "I can't," Fancy replied, daunted at thwarting this mysterious creature.

  "And why not?"

  "I just can't," the girl repeated. To take off her clothes would be to reveal her secret.

  "Do not fear, child," Magda said, in a kindlier tone. "I already know that you are not a Negress."

  Fancy's eyes widened in surprise.

  "About you I know many things," Magda continued. "Life has been difficult. Magda will not betray you." With that she held out the shimmering pile of clothes gathered from the chest.

  "In the circus everything is illusion . . . but here, at least, there will be no need for deception."

  "I don't understand."

  "Magda has seen your hand. Nothing in life is by chance, Fancy. The old man was sent to teach you to be human. Magda will teach you to be a woman. Later, there will be others, with other lessons."

  Magda laughed; it was a seductive sound. She reached for Fancy's hand.

  "It is all written here." She tapped the palm. "And here it can be read." She tapped her own head, lightly.

  "Come, my little one. You walk with destiny." With that pronouncement, Magda laughed gaily again and, pointing to the mirrors, said in mock command, "Play! Dress up! Admire yourself in the looking glass. You are very beautiful."

  Then she was gone.

  Fancy picked up the silver dress and moved doubtfully to the mirror. Could it be true that she was beautiful? It was more than two years since Beau Rivage. Who had she become? I'm almost a woman, she thought, peering at her reflection. Twelve was different from ten. The changes she saw in the revealing glass were subtle but profound. Even the honey-colored skin, which she had so disdained, gave her an exotic quality, the dark curls ringing her face made her seem Gypsylike.

  She dropped her homespun dress to the floor and loosed the rough cotton undergarments. Her body shape was new, too; her waist smaller, her hips more curved. The swell of breasts behind small pink nipples had begun. Fancy ran her hand gingerly over her own body. The dark stain ended at throat and thigh and shoulders, the rest of her was white and softly rosy. She smiled at her own reflection and thought she saw her mother's smile echoed in her own.

  Glancing at
the door to make sure she was still alone, Fancy slipped one after the other of the costumes over her head, reveling in the feel of them. Nothing but scratchy muslin had touched her skin since Beau Rivage. These were tattered, but they were silks and velvets and brocades.

  She pirouetted in front of the glass, in conspiracy with her mirrored self in the dazzling garments. She touched everything in Magda's wagon—the golden samovar on the corner shelf, the bewildering deck of cards on the table near the crystal, the books and tea cups and funny beaded curtains that partitioned off the sleeping corner from the rest.

  What had the inscrutable woman meant by destiny? Could it be that Fancy's own fate was already written somewhere? What did it matter? They were headed west. At last. They were safe. At last.

  This day could be the beginning of everything.

  Chapter 7

  Wes Jarvis watched the seductive movement of her body as Magda let the last of her garments slip from her hips to the floor. What a glorious ritual she made of undressing, he thought with appreciation.

  She smiled at him enigmatically, then, taking a small bottle of scented oil from the table by her mirror, she began to anoint her own body with it. With absolute concentration she touched her nipples with the oil—first one, then the other—her breasts full enough to sway with the touch. She cupped each of them, tossing back her head, a look of exquisite pleasure on her face. Her waist-length hair, unbraided, fell in dark ripples behind her as she moved her hands in sensuous strokes down her body to her belly, thighs, buttocks. The lamplight in the darkened wagon caught the gleam of her oiled skin and cast flickering shapes on her tawny body.

  What age can she be? Jarvis thought as he watched the breathtaking performance. What witchcraft does she use to remain so desirable?

  Fancy stood on the top step of Magda's wagon, transfixed by what she glimpsed through the crack in the door. The forbiddenness of the scene unfolding within the candle-lit wagon raced her blood as if she'd been running and stirred something new within her.