Elephant Song

TWENTY

By The Season the thirty-first, the only remaining bulls upon Momus were the six retired pachyderms in the Miira kraal. Few went out of their way to attend Tarzak's celebration. However, more than a few traveled to Miira to see the six old bulls that still lived. For most Momans, it was a trip of privation and hardship. The children and the young adults complained. But the old ones—those who had come down when the Baraboo was exed—would listen to no complaints. They went to Miira to see the bulls; that, and to remember a time that had long passed into memory along with many of their friends and loved ones.

The young ones had never seen the show. The sparkle, the joy, the need of the big top, was something foreign to them. The bulls were curiosities—freaks from a storyteller's past.

Those who came would find a young girl seated in the grass of the kraal making drawings while a handsome young boy sat upon one of the bulls, or stood by its side. When the girl would leave, the young boy would carry her to the house of Little Will, Master of the Miira Bullhands. Then he would head for The Tusk, Miira's tavern. There at the tavern, the one called Johnjay would amuse his friends, and whoever happened to be within earshot, with loud, drunken lies about telepathic eggs, pachyderms, and a ghost called Bullhook Willy.

If urged, and if plied with sufficient movills and sapwine, the boy would demonstrate his abilities at cards and dice. And he would lament that no one would gamble with him because people believed wrongly that he had inherited his parent's mental gifts. Then a card in the center of the table would flip over by itself. The boy would place his hand upon the card and look as though he were embarrassed. And then he would laugh.

"Bah! But my head is boiled!" Mortify weaved, looked at the closed door of The Tusk, then looked down at his companion sitting in the dust of the Miira Square. He dropped down next to him and looked up at the stars. "When, oh, when shall our rescue from this mudball come?" Mortify laughed. "Look at them. Look at the stars, Johnjay! My mother, Cookie Jo, says we used to live there. Imagine that."

Johnjay looked up, his head swimming. He giggled. "There seems to be an uncommon number of stars out tonight."

Mortify waved a hand at Johnjay. "Your eyes are crossed."

Johnjay picked at his bullhand's robe, belched, and turned toward Mortify. "Does it look as though Cups was in the right, then, to throw us from his door?"

"Foo!" Mortify scratched his head and pointed toward the tavern door. "I am the one studying medicine with old Mange! Not Cups! Who then should know better than I what potions we need?"

"To ward off the evening chill."

"To remove tungberry stains."

Johnjay laughed. "And to remove warts—"

"Shhh!" Mortify looked about the darkened square. "The priests are everywhere." They both laughed. Mortify reached inside his robe and withdrew a jug. "Observe. Medicine!"

Johnjay sat upright. "By Momus, there is dip in your blood. How did you steal that?"

"Steal?" Mortify looked mortified. "Would you have me put out on the lot? This is my price for carrying Cups's footprint upon my soft end!" He uncapped the jug, drank deeply from it, then handed it to Johnjay. "Here. Time to soften those hard edges of reality."

Johnjay drank from the jug, spilling a small amount upon his robe. He lowered the jug and bobbed his bleary gaze at his companion's shadowed form. "Tell me, Mortify."

"Tell you what?"

"What is your price for this potion?"

Mortify's expression grew somber, and he looked up at the stars. "Tell me how I can get to those other worlds, Johnjay. Where the houses and streets are bright with many lights; where there are wonderful machines and entertainments, rich foods..." He reached for the jug, took it, and drank.

Johnjay shook his head. "Maybe there are no other worlds." He retrieved the jug as Mortify lowered it.

"No other worlds?"

Johnjay drank from the jug, then handed it back to his companion. He waved a hand toward the sky. "What if they are myths? Stories invented in one of old Movill's drunken stupors? He is not Master of the Tarzak Storytellers because of his strict application of truth. What if we have always been here?"

Mortify placed the jug upon the ground between them. "Nonsense. Why would the old people lie?"

"To give us hope? Do they entice us with tales of these other worlds—worlds that have many bulls—to keep the bullhands with no bulls at their craft?"

Mortify shook his head. "There are too many things. We can see pieces from the cars. And there are the drawings—"

"My sister, May, paints the bulls. But she also paints pictures of things she's never seen."

"There is something else, Johnjay. Old Mange, he can't use three quarters of his knowledge. To use it requires machines and instruments that don't exist to administer powders and potions that no one can make." He leaned forward. "That's why I want to go to those other worlds, Johnjay. To learn."

Johnjay shrugged. "For what purpose?"

"It interests me."

"If it interests you." Johnjay nodded, then drank from the jug, replacing it between them.

"Johnjay, don't you want to know why you can see images from other's heads, or how you can move things and see what will happen with your mind?"

"Not particularly. I find little use for such things in working harness for my father." He shrugged. "Maybe I would like to see a real circus; a circus like we've been told the show was. Someplace that has more than six bulls." He shook his head. "Perhaps not—"

"You two!" A boom came down from above them. "Stop that noise and go home!" The shutters above the tavern door slammed shut.

Johnjay stood. "It is a public square!"

The shutters opened again. "Yes, and you may howl in it the night through if you want to travel to Porse to wet your whistles from now on!"

Mortify pushed himself to his feet and pulled upon Johnjay's arm. "Come! Hush and come! Cups threatens doom!" He pulled harder.

Johnjay staggered against Mortify, then began weaving toward the corner of the square. "Doom, doom, doom."

Mortify laughed. "Doom, da doom, doom."

"Doom diddy boom boom, doom doom!"

They snickered and giggled their way to the corner of the square, then Mortify pushed Johnjay down the road toward the kraal and turned to stagger toward his own home. Johnjay turned twice around and stopped to scratch his head. "Gone. Everyone is gone, gone, gone."

He shrugged and began the climb between the dark houses toward the kraal. "Ba bum, de dum." He held his robe out and whirled in the center of the street. "Ba bum, ditty bum, de dum." He stumbled, came to a halt, and looked up at the stars.

"Momus, you great fat laughing fool! With all that I drink, you do not even give me pink elephants. Here is a bullhand without a bull, in a circus world that has no show. Am I not funny?" He hung his head, sighed, then headed toward his parents' house. It was a simple affair, four rooms and a porch, situated on the edge of the kraal. Johnjay supported himself by one of the porch supports and looked into the darkness for the bulls. He could see nothing, for the night was too dark. Shaking his head, he went through the door curtain, through the eating room, into his tiny sleeping quarters. He dropped upon his sleeping cushions and stretched out. For a moment, he stared at the fuzzy images of stars hanging outside the room's sole window.

"What must it have been like to travel among the stars? What were those other worlds like to walk upon?"

"Johnjay?"

He turned as he heard Little Will's voice. "Yes, Mother?"

She entered the room carrying a small fat-oil lamp. "Johnjay, don't you know how late it is?"

He closed his eyes and placed his hands beneath his head.

"No. But it must be very late. Very, very late." He opened his eyes, then closed them against the brightness of the flame. "Was there something you wanted, Mother?"

Little Will looked down at him and bit her lip. "I wanted to give you something."

He squinted an eye open and saw his mother's arm extending beyond the flame, holding an object. He reached out a hand and took it; then he examined it in the light from the lamp. It was a bullhook. An uncontrollable laughing fit came over him as he dropped the bullhook to the floor. "And now, Mother... and now all I need is a bull!" He continued to laugh.

"It's made from angelhair wood."

"Then... then I must have an angelhair bull, too!" He laughed and laughed until he slept.

Little Will left the room bringing the light with her.

Days later, Little Will sat in the shade of the porch, watching her daughter, May, in the kraal. May sat on a blanket, her thin legs folded beneath her. May held her paper board with her left hand; while her right hand moved rapidly across the paper. Johnjay sat astride Reg's neck; both man and bull were motionless.

A shuffle in the dirt walkway, then a cough. Little Will looked to her right to see Mange Ranger hobbling on his cane. "Mange, what are you doing out in the sun?" She met the veterinarian and led him to her chair.

He lowered himself into the chair, nodding his thanks. He coughed again, then leaned back and sighed. "Little Will, it's been thirty years—no, thirty-one—thirty-one years since I've seen a flake of tobacco. And damned if I'm not hacking away like I was still on the weed." He looked up toward the kraal for a moment, then looked down and shook his head. "Time passes."

Little Will placed her hand on Mange's shoulder. "The new extract didn't work."

Mange shook his head sending one of his few remaining wisps of white hair down across his brow. He pushed the hair back with a shaking hand. "Damned stuff didn't do anything." He glanced at Little Will, then looked at the house across the walkway. "I shouldn't have gotten your hopes up." He looked toward the kraal. "May's twenty... twenty-four, now." Mange snorted. "Twenty real years old. But she doesn't look a day older than thirteen or fourteen." He looked up at Little Will. "She's going to be a cripple the rest of her life. I'm sorry."

Little Will shook Mange's shoulder. "May knows that. It doesn't bother her, Mange. She was given a different gift."

"Does drawing and painting make up for not being able to walk?"

Little Will looked toward the kraal. "To her it does." She looked back at the old man. "Mange, one day those bulls are going to be all gone." She felt her eyes moisten. "All gone, Mange, but we'll have May's pictures. It's important to the bullhands; it's important to her."

Mange shook his head and sighed. "Bone Breaker and I must have talked it over a hundred times back with the old show. Damned shame he had to die when Number Two went down." He nodded. "And the records." He looked at Little Will. "If we'd been able to save the records I could've kept track of all those kids with the bent genes. Maybe I could've been prepared..."

"Did you find another one?"

Mange nodded as he rubbed his eyes. "I think so. Wanna and Jimbo from Tarzak. Know them?"

"No."

"She's a wardrober and he's a cashier. They have a son, Mungo. He's twelve years old and he weighs almost three hundred pounds." Mange shook his head. "And not a scrap of fat on him; he's one big muscle." He tapped the side of his head. "Feeble-minded. He can hardly remember anything from one minute to the next. They brought him for glasses. He can't see very well either. Oh." Mange reached into the pocket of his threadbare white coat. "Speaking of glasses; here's Pete's." He held out a small cloth-wrapped bundle. "Now you tell Pete if these aren't exactly right to send them back. Boxcar Bo over in Kuumic has a complete set of diagnostic lenses made up now, and he's made up the eye charts, too. If these aren't right, Butterfingers can make him an accurate prescription next time."

"I'll tell him." Little Will took the bundle and placed it into the pocket of her robe. She withdrew a small pouch, shook a number of copper beads into her hand, counted them, then dropped them into Mange's hand.

Mange looked at the coppers, chuckled, then dropped them into his coat pocket. He nodded toward the kraal. "What about Johnjay? Anything besides telepathy?"

Little Will folded her arms and shook her head. "He can see futures. And he can read minds. He can also move things." She sighed.

"What is it?"

"Mange, he just doesn't do anything with his gifts. Or anything else. When he isn't carrying May around, he's down at the tavern drinking with his friends. He doesn't care about anything else." She held out her arms, then let them drop to her sides. "He can handle the bulls, but he doesn't care. No future, he says." Little Will looked toward the kraal. "The only reason he's up on one now is because May needs a model."

Mange pushed himself to his feet. "Johnjay's generation was born on Momus, Little Will. They're not from our universe." He coughed and shook his head. When his lungs calmed down, Mange looked up at the sky. "I wonder what it will be like a hundred years from now." He looked at Little Will and laughed. "I guess that's not going to be my problem."

Little Will motioned toward her door. "Will you be sharing the evening meal with us? Pete'll be back soon."

Mange shook his head. "My appetite's been off lately. I have to be getting back. If I don't sit on top of him, Waxy won't take his medicine. It's a good thing he has Turtlehead to help him, otherwise I'd never get him to stay in bed." He walked out from under the porch roof, waved a hand then began his slow shamble down the walkway.

"Good-bye." Little Will turned and went through the doorway. "Johnjay."

"Yes, Mother?"

"Bring May in. She's had enough sun, and it's time for dinner." She smiled as she felt Johnjay search her mind trying to discover what was for dinner. "I haven't made up my mind yet, Johnjay. Stop playing and bring May in."

"Yes, Mother."

Little Will moved toward the window and watched as Johnjay slid from Reg's back, patted the bull's cheek, then went over to his sister. May looked up at her brother, quickly drew a few more lines, then tucked away her charcoal and held out her arms. Johnjay wrapped the blanket around May's legs, then placed his arms behind her back and beneath her legs and lifted her.

Little Will's gaze moved from her twins to Reg and the five other remaining bulls. Too old to work the roads or to travel the road to Tarzak for The Season, but without them the bullhands were nothing.

She looked above the window at the gold and mahogany bullhook hanging there, and the angelhair-wood hook hanging next to it. Perhaps Johnjay had been right when he had said that the bullhands already were nothing. Little Will did not sweep the thought from her mind. She placed the thought aside. It was an old companion.