Paint the Wind Page 9

  "You are sick. Your lungs are filled with phlegm. You are thin as a wisp. Your strength is deteriorating."

  "I can't leave the circus."

  "The circus is a failure! There is no money anymore. Not since the railroads and Barnum. There is nothing ahead for the circus but disaster..."

  "No!" he shouted at her, his great voice fierce, angry. "You are wrong. Without the circus there is nothing for me."

  "Fool! What is there for you dead? Disband the circus when we reach Denver. The mountain air is healing for lungs like yours! You must stop working for a while. Take what you can get from selling out and give yourself time to get well."

  Wes brought his own face close to hers so that she had to stare into his eyes.

  "Look at me, Magda!" he demanded. "What do you see? A man who could sell out his friends and leave them at the edge of nowhere without hope? What have they all without the circus? The life of freaks and failures. Where will Harp and Flute go if I disband? To an asylum? And Gitalis with his great brain and tiny body... who will see that he is not to be laughed at, but envied? And me, Magda... what am I without the illusions and the roles I play? Just another mountebank in a world that cannot afford to believe in magic."

  "You have barely the strength to make love to me," she cried in desperation.

  Wes stepped back as if struck. "Ah, my Magda, will you not leave me anything?"

  Then he left the wagon and she realized she was shaking with the frustration of what was to come. Why would he not listen to her pleas? He would be a dead man in six months if he persisted in this madness. Magda watched the retreating figure from the wagon's doorway; the moonlight reflected on Wes's white hair and suit, making him seem angelic. The thought pierced her heart and made her angrier still. She slammed the door and locked it vengefully behind her.

  Magda flung a pillow violently against the wall. She picked up another to do the same, but in the confined space there was too much risk of breaking something irreplaceable. Another frustration!

  "Men!" She spat the word into the unfeeling night. "He thinks he knows so much, he knows nothing! Less than nothing! He is a fool to risk his life. A fool not to listen to me..."

  Defeated and helpless, Magda threw herself onto the bed and struggled not to cry. She loved him far more than she had ever intended, loved his brilliance and his generous heart, his uncommon insights and his lust that matched her own. She even loved his stubborn pride, despite the fact that it would likely kill him.

  Her body felt electric with the fury within, the fight had made her want him desperately. Absentmindedly she moved her hand across her breast and felt the crackle of her own emotion. She realized she was grasping her own breast tightly, as if it could hold the fury at bay.

  Tentatively she touched the other breast, taking comfort in its substance, its humanity. They were not Jarvis' hands caressing her, but they were hands, and she needed to be touched tonight. She squeezed the flesh and felt the nipples harden; an almost violent need for release swept through her.

  Damn her own body for this betrayal... damn it for needing him now, of all nights.

  She touched her own belly and felt it tauten. Long tingles of desire pulsed from loin upward; she felt herself swell outward from within. Nerve endings, suddenly exquisitely knowledgeable and needy, flesh welcoming her hand's caress. God! but she was lonely without him... how could he risk himself so carelessly? Did he not know what his loss would mean to her?

  Samarkand, the great male panther who was her pet, rattled the bars of his bedside cage. He sensed her restlessness, her agitation. She rose from the bed and unlatched the gate. The sensuous black-cat stretched himself languidly and emerged from his prison as Magda dropped back upon the bed. Deftly, effortlessly, he sprang up and landed his agile body in beside her. He had been there before.

  She stroked the gleaming fur, sensing the iron muscles beneath, feeling his strength, reveling in the danger. Purring softly, the great cat nuzzled her body, pushing her sideways with his careless might. He ran his sandpaper tongue once over her skin and she shuddered at the touch; the animal smell of his breath enveloped her as he narrowed his glittering eyes in communion with her, as if he understood her loneliness and need.

  With a stifled cry, Magda wrapped herself around the beast, reckless of the peril. She was a wild thing, caged as he... she sobbed her frustration into his hard, muscular body, courting the menace of his caress, wondering if she really cared if she lived until morning.

  Chapter 11

  "Atticus! Come quickly!" Magda's request was a demand, her face in the lamplight of the darkened wagon was strained with fear. "Jarvis is very ill."

  Fancy sat upright like a puppet whose string has been jerked too tight; Atticus scrambled from his blankets; even Wu was silent in the face of Magda's fear.

  "Git my medicine bag, honey," Atticus called softly to Fancy as he pulled up the suspenders that anchored his overalls in place. "I meet you dere." Then he was gone down the wagon's back steps and scurrying into the darkness with Magda's arm through his own.

  Fancy glanced at Wu in the semigloom—when the circus had to tighten its belt months before, they had moved back in with Wu. She half expected an outburst from the Chinese, instead she saw a look of genuine compassion on his face.

  "Go now!" Wu urged her, shooing her out of the wagon. Fancy lifted the curtain to set her foot on the top step and was surprised to find Gitalis reaching up to help her.

  "What's happened, Gitalis?" she whispered as his strong hand eased the carpetbag from her grip.

  "He coughs up blood. His head is hot as Hades. He has been keeping the illness from everyone but the witch. Now it has gone beyond her skills."

  Fancy started to ask more, thought better of it, and hurried on.

  Wes lay on the cushioned bed in Magda's wagon; even in the dim candlelight Fancy could see the fever-stretched face and telltale sweat stains on the bed coverings. His fine white hair plastered to his head made him look like a lost little boy. "Delirium." Fancy heard the word but wasn't sure who had said it.

  "Boil dis, child, twicet over. Strain it wif cheesecloth real good, like I showed you. Don't let none boil away. He be needin' ever' drop afore morning.

  "We don' break dis heah fever we gwine to lose him," she heard Atticus whisper softly to Magda, as she took the packet and moved away.

  "He was a fool!" the woman replied hotly, near to tears. "I have told him a hundred times he gambles with what he cannot afford to lose. He would not listen to Magda."

  "He gambled to protect us all, witch!" Gitalis hissed. "Without him where would we be, eh? Stranded on a trail to nowhere. Do not speak ill of him before me or I will cut out your liver and feed it to your cats for breakfast."

  "Ain't no time now fo' temper fits!" Atticus said sharply from the sick man's side. "What you been dosin' him wif, Miz Magda? I be needin' to know."

  "Asafetida, licorice when I could get it. He was not honest with me about the blood. But I saw in the cards the way it must go, so I gave him cinchona last night... and sassafras."

  Atticus nodded at each new revelation, then shook his head when the ritual ended.

  "Good doctorin', Miz Magda, and plenty bad news. Ain't much else left we kin git our hands on dis time a' year." He frowned in thought for a moment.

  "Could be we got to treat de symptoms 'stead a de whole disease fo' a while. Could be we got to git dis fever down first... git dis blood coughin' stopped. Den we has time to worry 'bout curin' him."

  Magda smiled at his common sense. It wouldn't help to find the perfect remedy for Jarvis' consumption if the patient died of the effects of fever in the meantime; or, worse than that, lived with a damaged brain, as she had seen happen in the wake of intense fevers.

  "You are magnificent and I am a fool," she said. Her waist-length hair, unloosed for sleeping, was a rich dark fall that shimmered as she tossed her head. "Cold water, this is what we need. Gitalis, will you help me to help him?"

  The dwa
rf pursed his lips in mock amusement. " 'Her voice was ever soft, gentle, and low, an excellent thing in woman.' " He addressed no one in particular. "For him, anything," he answered, and Magda nodded understanding.

  "Tepid water, then, and cloths to bathe him. A tub to put him in." The small man nodded and scurried off—he saw Fancy hunched above a cookpot hung over the campfire as he hurried by.

  Fancy watched the worried faces gathered outside Magda's wagon. Jarvis had taken Atticus' medicine and been bathed in cooling water; the fever hadn't risen, Atticus said, but it hadn't broken either. Magda and Atticus had moved from the wagon to stretch their cramped limbs and to confer.

  " 'Things that love night love not such nights as these,' " Gitalis murmured, and Fancy turned from watching the strained faces.

  "Atticus knows what he's doing, Gitalis. He saved my life when I was snakebit. He knows more about healing than you can imagine." She wanted to say, "It will be all right... don't worry," but she knew too much of Fate's capriciousness to tempt it by such excessive confidence.

  Wu circled the worried group near the campfire and returned to his wagon; it was apparent their medicines were failing. And why should they not, primitive as they were? Not so, his own medicines, the result of three thousand years of medical investigation.

  The Three Pure Ones had seen to it that the Flowery Kingdom was blessed with the ancient knowledge of how to cure the ailing body, or the spirit, a subtle differentiation that these fools of white men did not even know existed.

  Wu had carefully guarded his healing knowledge and the precious store of Chinese herbal medicines he had hoarded since New York's Chinatown. The bark of dogwood to pacify the ague, the fiery powder applied with a piece of silver to a sprain, which withdrew the soreness and made the swelling subside, and the more complex cures, like the dried herb that, once boiled, could calm the frenzy of the opium addict.

  Tiny phials and packets husbanded with the same fierce protectiveness with which he guarded his gold, for he would need the healing preparations to protect his own body and spirit from the ills that plagued the goldfields and, ultimately, to cement his power over lesser men. When a man is dying, he will sell his soul, never mind his gold", for a cure.

  Wu Chin had never intended to let anyone on this foolish caravan know of his healing prowess. And yet...

  Atticus bent his ear to Jarvis' chest and listened to the rattle within; there was seepage in the lungs. A froth of bloody spittle had forced its way to the surface of his lips, the worst sign of all.

  The old man raised sorrowful eyes to Magda's and shook his head. Two great tears welled and ran down her high-boned cheeks. She knelt beside the comatose man and wrapped her arms around him protectively.

  Atticus straightened his back with difficulty and silently cursed the futility of his efforts. Wes was a good man and many depended on him. Shouts from the campfire startled him. Wu and Gitalis were nearly at blows. You never could tell what shape anxiety would take, he thought. Fear made some people silent and withdrawn; it turned others into animals.

  "Son of a motherless maggot! You would turn away the means to cure him! Son of a thousand motherfucking fools..."

  "Hey, hey! Stop dat, now!" Atticus shouted fiercely as he reached the struggling men. "Y'all should be 'shamed a yo'selfs. A good man dyin' inside dat wagon and you two jackasses scrappin' out heah like chil'run! Shame on you! Ain't you got no respect? I'se too tired an' too busy to worry 'bout jackasses!"

  Gitalis shouted at the huge black man. "He slipped some poisonous potion to the child to give to Jarvis. Who knows what venomous swill is in it?"

  Atticus' patience had been pushed beyond endurance by the night's events.

  "Ought to knock yo' two thick heads together!" he began, but Wu broke in.

  "Ayeyah! This ignorant worm dung pisses on the wisdom of a thousand years! I bring good medicine. Fix Jarvis chop chop!"

  "What you talkin' 'bout?"

  "China medicine! Fixee bleeding lung. Fixee fever!"

  "You sure 'bout dat?" Atticus demanded, staring at the phial still clutched in the man's hand.

  "Nothing to lose!" Wu hissed, and thrust the phial at Atticus. The old man looked hard at the slanted eyes and read only confidence there.

  "Come wif me," he said, turning back toward the wagon. Gitalis made a move to follow, but Fancy grabbed his hand and held him back.

  "Nothing to lose," she reiterated softly.

  Two hours after Jarvis took Wu's medicine, the fever broke and his lungs stopped bleeding. Atticus pulled the covers up over his patient and tucked them in under his arms.

  "Mighty good China medicine," he said to Wu, who nodded acknowledgment.

  "Destiny," Wu replied.

  "Why would you never listen to your Magda?" the woman chided gently. She moved the soup spoon to the man's lips, noting the yellowish skin drawn tight over bone. He had improved greatly in the week since his brush with death.

  "I was afraid to lose you," he said, his voice a hollow echo. "I thought you would go if I closed the circus."

  "I told you I would stay."

  "You are not the only one who can read a heart, my Magda. You cannot tell me you didn't think of leaving."

  Magda closed her eyes. How expressive they are, thought the man on the bed who loved her—how intensely animate.

  "This is true. I might have gone. Magda, too, has demons." She made a small, rueful shape with her mouth. "I would have returned."

  "Perhaps," he said, closing his eyes. She could see that even so small a conversation had drained him.

  "Sleep now, Jarvis," she whispered softly as she rose from the bed and picked up the small tray on which she had carried in his food. Magda straightened the cushion she had sat on and headed for the wagon's door. As she reached it, she paused.

  "Magda will never leave you now," she murmured to the sleeping man and to no one in particular. Then she straightened her shoulders, walked through the doorway and closed it quietly behind her.

  Chapter 12

  Fancy studied the map that Atticus had husbanded so carefully over the years. She smiled at the childish letters that had eventually neatened into an adult hand. What a circuitous path their time alone together, and their nearly four years with the circus— time enough for her to become a woman and for Atticus to grow old.

  Fancy glanced up from the map into the face across the table. It was not only Atticus' hair that was gray now; his skin, too, seemed to have the tinge of ashes beneath the glossy black, and his eyes were rheumy. She reached out her hand to him and clasped his.

  "So, my friend, we finally go to Californy." Atticus nodded, as if unconvinced of the wisdom of such an act.

  "It would be safer if we stayed here at Fort Laramie, honey."

  "Oh, Atticus, I don't want to. I've just got to get to someplace bigger."

  He nodded again, knowing better than she what she meant by that.

  "Which way you fixin' for us to go, child?"

  "Across the North Platte, I think, and down into Colorado. They've got gold in those mountains, Atticus, everybody here's talking about it. The soldiers at the fort say as soon as the word gets back East, the hills will be crawling with prospectors, just like the Comstock and Virginia City.... We can get there first and stake us a claim. And if we don't strike it rich enough there, we'll just keep on heading west 'til we hit Californy, like we always planned." Her eyes were animated with the exhilaration of their dream.

  "Bein' young a mighty powerful tonic," Atticus said with a smile. "Make you think anythin' possible, don't it?" Fancy wasn't sure if he was chiding her or simply making a statement of fact. Atticus reached out a hand and smoothed back the dark hair from her forehead gently, the way he used to when she was small. He'd invented the dream of finding gold, as a talisman to make a little child believe she could once again have what was lost to her. Now he could see he'd worked his magic all too well; the dream was so real to her, she'd have to follow wherever it led.

  "I
don't know how many more miles I got left in dese ol' bones, honey,' Atticus said honestly.

  She squeezed his hand again.

  "Don't you worry, Atticus. We're practically there already. See here on the map." She pointed out the distance on the page. "We can't give up now, can we? Not when we're just around the next turn in the road from everything we want."

  "No, ma'am!" he said with an indulgent smile. "Not when all dat gold jest over de next hill, we cain't quit. Jes' as long as you remembers one thing: Sometimes ever'thin' we want ain't ever'thin' we need."

  "I'll remember, Atticus," she said, not understanding in the least. "I promise." Then she folded up the map and handed it back to him, but he shook his head.

  "No, sugah, you keep that now. You de navigator from here on, I 'spects."

  Fancy looked at him quizzically, then began to tuck the map into her bag.

  "Atticus lesson number three thousand an' sixty-two," he said. "Never let yo' map outta yo' hands. You jest tuck dat li'l of piece a oilcloth into yo' bosom, child, and you keep it close to you, jest like I always done. I'se real proud a' dat map, Fancy. Real proud a' all de places we been together."

  Fancy tucked the map inside the bosom of her dress carefully. It disturbed her that Atticus would relinquish the precious record.

  "Yessir," he continued, half to himself. "Atticus proud a' you, honey—you has growed up real fine. One day soon some young buck gonna come along an' sweep you right off dem li'l feet a' yours, now you is sech a fine young lady."

  "No young buck is going to interest me in the least," Fancy said firmly to push away the uneasiness. "Leastways not until I make my fortune, so I can pick out just the kind of man I want. And even then I may not marry anyone, Atticus. Not if it means I've got to let him be my master. I couldn't stand that kind of life. Not after all that's happened to me."

  "Ain't nothing in dis world as good as a man an' woman what loves each other, Fancy. Don't you remember your mama an' daddy?"