Elephant Song

TWENTY-THREE

They walked in silence until the sunlight left the Snake Mountain Gap. As the road darkened and the sky paled to gray, the fortune teller touched No One's arm. He stopped and looked at her as though a trance had been broken. "What is it?"

Tarzaka pointed at a smoke-blackened circle of flat rocks by the roadside. "It is time to stop for the night."

No One looked back at the stretch of road they had just traveled.

The fortune teller laughed. "Be brave, No One. The news of your shame is far behind us. Goofy Joe will not travel at night." She walked to the circle of rocks, lowered her pack, and lowered herself to the ground. "Gather some wood."

He frowned at her. "I don't want to stop here."

She opened her pack and withdrew her leaf-wrapped package of cobit dough. "But here is where we shall stop, No one. Gather some wood."

He paused for a moment, then tossed his bundle next to the rocks and began picking up the dead wood that the storm had shaken from the trees above the gap. When his arms were full, he carried the wood to the ring of stones and dropped it. Squatting next to the stones, he felt the bed of the last fire. "It is cold. We must start our own fire."

"Do you have flint and steel?"

"No." He stood and walked to the rock wall of the cut and tore off a piece of crisp drymoss.

She turned to her pack and began feeling the objects within it with her hand. "Only fools travel without flint and steel." While she rummaged within her pack, No One returned and placed the drymoss in the center of the ring of stones. He sat back and looked at the ever darkening walls of the gap. The air was still. Something jabbed his arm. He looked and saw Tarzaka's extended arm, her hand holding a small, cloth-wrapped bundle. He took the bundle, opened it, and withdrew the flint and steel.

He held up the steel wedge. "From what car did this come?"

"How should I know? I purchased it in Tarzak." She waved her hand toward the drymoss. "Make the fire; I am getting chilly."

He struck several times, causing heavy, hot sparks to fall in and around the highly flammable moss. The moss began to smoke, a patch glowed, then blue-yellow flames sprang from its surface. No One placed small sticks upon the burning moss, and then larger sticks on top of the smaller. In moments a yellow oasis of light held the darkness at bay. He sat cross-legged, staring into the flames. "It will take some time to heat the rocks."

Tarzaka placed her wrap of cobit dough upon her pack and turned back to the fire. "It is time for you to meet your part of the bargain, No One."

He frowned. "What bargain?"

"In exchange for the robe and the sapwine."

He looked at her and then shrugged. "I remember making no bargain. What did I say?"

"That you would teach me the things I must know to read minds and to tell fortunes. And what is the fortune you saw for me?"

Johnjay shook his head. "I saw no fortune for you. I cannot tell fortunes."

"When I returned, No One, you knew who I was without turning to look."

"You had left your things behind. The chance was fair that you would be the only one returning for them. Anyone else would have had sense enough to stay out of the rain." He looked into the growing darkness down the road to Miira, then turned back to the fire. "Tarzaka, sometimes I see what is to happen before it happens." He motioned toward the fire with his hand. "But it is nothing more than you looking at the fire and seeing that wood will be added to it and that cobit shall be cooked there."

The fortune teller studied No One's face for a long moment. "I have heard the song of Little Will, and the stories. It is more."

No One shrugged. "Not in kind; only by degree." He looked at her. "I saw the bulls kill my sister before it happened. But I knew the bulls, knew my sister, and knew the Miira kraal." He returned his gaze to the flames. "I saw no future. I saw what would probably happen. As has happened before, something about which I knew nothing could have interfered, making my entire vision false."

"But nothing did."

He shook his head. "No. Not this time."

"What, then, did you see for me?"

"I saw nothing for you."

Tarzaka held her hands to her breast. "Nothing?"

No One laughed. "I meant only that your future is hidden to me. I do not know enough about you, your illness, or anything. I must... see enough, know enough, before these things can come together in my head and give me visions."

"But you knew things that you could not have known."

He shook his head, added another stick to the fire, then looked at the fortune teller. "I only took the images that you gave off. All I can know is what you know. Before I could see the probable outcome of an illness, I would need to know much more. How the body works; how this disease works—things such as that."

"It is said that your mother can move things with her mind. Do you have this power?"

"A little." He shrugged. "There are endless training exercises one must do to develop these powers." He picked up a small twig, broke it, and tossed the pieces into the flames. "Other things interested me."

"You knew you possessed these gifts, yet did nothing to develop them?" Tarzaka shook her head, "You are a fool, No One."

"What does a bullhand need with such skills, fortune teller?"

Her eyes narrowed and she opened her mouth to speak, but stopped. No One looked at her. "What were you about to say?"

She snickered. "Read my mind."

His eyes closed slowly, then reopened with a start. "Yes." He looked back at the fire, the flames blurring as his eyes filled with tears. "Yes, I could have saved May's life had I trained my power to move things." He wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his robe. "Thank you, Tarzarka."

"For what?"

"For turning my pain into Hell."

She leaned forward, placed the cobit upon one of the rocks, then sat back. "Will you teach me, No One?"

He stared at the flames for a moment, then pushed himself to his feet, and walked toward the chasm. He halted at the edge and stared into the blackness below. The waters at the bottom roared from the earlier rainfall. No One looked back at the fortune teller. "I will teach you." He lifted an arm and pointed across the chasm. "But we must travel. Across the gap, up into the Snake Mountains, and from there across the Great Muck Swamp." He looked in the direction in which he pointed. "There we will search for the children of my mother's teachers. My mother told me that they have the knowledge of their parents." He lowered his arm and looked back at the fortune teller. "And by using your mind, they can kill you, drive you insane, and would do so for the humor to be found in watching you squirm. Do you still want to learn, Tarzaka?"

The fortune teller tested the cobit with her fingers, then sat back and looked at No One. "Yes." She frowned. "But why take this route through the mountains. Why do we not turn back and go through Miira?"

He returned to the fire and stood next to it. "Was Goofy Joe's news so poor? I am not to come within sight of the town of Miira until the last bull dies."

"I will still come."

No One looked down at her. "Why?"

"I am a fortune teller. I would be a better fortune teller. It is important to the show."

"The show! The show! The show is dead! Dead!" He looked at the flames. "Dead." No One shook his head and looked up at the sky. The brightest of the stars were coming out. "All my life I have had the show spieled at me. Preserve the show." He barked out a bitter laugh. "Miira has almost two hundred bullhands, and only one bull. The horses are all at timbering and road building; there is no audience!" He looked back at the flames. "The show is dead."

She tested the cobit once more. "In your heart it is." She took the bread from the rock, broke it, and handed half to No One. "Why will you make the trip, No One? I don't think you feel all that much obligation for the use of my robe and wine."

No One glanced at the cobit in his hand, turned his head, and looked across the chasm. "I may not return home until the last bull, Reg, is dead. I am going to learn how to kill a bull."

Tarzaka's mouth opened in shock. "Before you were horrified at the death of your sister. That is some excuse, No One. But what you plan now is murder!"

He nodded, still looking into the darkness. "Yes."

"I will stop you."

He turned, looked down at her, and smiled. The fortune teller held her hands to her chest and gasped. "My powers are not developed, Tarzaka; but there are things I can move. Small things, true. But a blood vessel is not very large." He turned away and the fortune teller collapsed to the ground, gulping at the air. "Mind your tongue unless you wish me to pinch you again."

He squatted next to the fire and gnawed at his bread.

The western side of the Snake Mountain Gap could be reached by crossing the Table Lake River before it flows through the Snake Mountains, just north of the Town of Miira. The next crossing was on the north end of the gap in the Town of Dirak. Three nights later, in Dirak's square, the people of the town gathered around a large fire. Hoes, plows, scythes, and saws had been placed aside, and the chores of daily existence forgotten, for the Great Goofy Joe of Tarzak was to play the square. No One and Tarzaka were lost at the back of the crowd, their hoods up.

Tarzaka whispered, her voice trembling. "We have our provisions, No One. We should be going."

Slowly he shook his head. "I must do this."

"Do what?"

"I must hear what Goofy Joe has to say. I want to hear what the people of Momus will hear about me and about what I did."

"What if you are recognized?"

No One looked at the robes surrounding him until he found an orange one. He reached out his hand and tapped the figure's shoulder, "Clown."

The figure turned. "Yes, fortune teller?"

"Have you any clown white in your kit?"

She raised her eyebrows. "Of course."

"Sell it to me."

The clown shrugged her shoulders, and reached into a pack suspended at her side by a strap that crossed her breast. Her hand came out of the pack holding a cloth-wrapped stick. She looked at No One. "I have half a stick."

"Five movills for it, then."

The clown laughed. "It cost me twenty for the stick."

"Ten then."

"There would be no profit in that, fortune teller."

No One studied the clown's face. "Fifteen."

The clown slapped the stick into No One's hand. "Done!" No One counted out the coppers then handed them to the clown. "Tell me, fortune teller, for what does a seer of fortunes need face paint?"

No One replaced his purse, then faced the clown. "What value do you place on my answer? I warn you that it is expensive."

The clown pocketed her coppers and turned back to face the square.

Tarzaka shook No One's arm. "What are you doing?"

He unwrapped the stick, then began to smear the white paint on his face. "I am hiding." In moments, No One's face was a stark white image broken only by his dark eyes.

"Laydeeeez and gentlemen!" All eyes turned toward the center of the square. A master of the ring was conducting the performance. "Tonight the Great Goofy Joe brings us important news from the town of Miira. Great Tackhammer, the master of the Dirak priests, and the singers of Dirak will assist."

A figure wearing the black and white diamonds of the priests replaced the master of the ring in the center of the square. He began in a quiet voice, and the crowd hushed. "It is written in the books of all of the priesthoods, that to have a circus, there must be bulls. Bulls are the circus's special animal; and bullhands are the keepers of a special trust."

Great Tackhammer removed a document from his robe and unrolled it. "This is copied from the archives of the Tarzak Priesthood. It is a letter written by the Great John J. O'Hara to the officials of World Eco-Watch—" Tackhammer was interrupted by loud hissing from the crowd. "The letter's date is March Fifth, Twenty-One and Twenty-Seven." Great Tackhammer began reading by the light of the fire.

" 'My Dear Mister Chappin, I have pondered it ever since I was notified that your bunch filed for a restraining order to prevent my show from taking possession of the two bulls I ordered. We have done all of the forms, appeared at all the hearings, and have all of the permits and licenses required by the laws of three nations. There's enough paper hanging on each one of those pachyderms to supply my advance with bills for two seasons. And now you want to change the rules. As I said, I've pondered it. I figure there must be something in the water down your way.

" 'The application for the restraining order says that your action is being taken "in the interests of the animals, and the heritage we hold in trust for future generations." If whoever wrote that is ever at liberty, I have a straw hat and cane waiting for him. Thanks to your brilliant management, the bull populations in both African and Indian preserves are crowded to where you hire hunters to go in and kill them. Then you cut them up for cat meat. But you don't even do that very well. Last summer over a hundred African bulls starved to death in the drought.

" 'I don't suppose that any of you simps have figured out yet that those bulls are part of this generation's heritage, and that maybe this generation would like to get a peek at a bull. Now maybe getting shot and cut up for cat meat is better than being in a show. When times are lean, there are plenty of troupers that'd agree with you. But we care for the bulls; because without them, we wouldn't be a show. I've seen a lot of bullhands die to protect their animals; and I wonder just how many puzzle wizards in your paper factory ever died for an elephant? Hmmm?

" 'To hell with it. Thanks to you people, it has taken me close to two years to close this deal, and I'll be damned if you're going ex it now. Either withdraw that application for a restraining order, or I'll dump one of my problems in your lap. You see, our snake charmer has a bunch of cobras and coral snakes, and I'm kind of concerned about their welfare. I just might send him and his poison hose collection over to your house and have you check into it.' "

Great Tackhammer lowered the letter. "This comes from The Great Patch Wellington's collection of letters he never allowed John J. O'Hara to send."

As Tackhammer moved from the square, the cashiers from Dirak collected the coppers from the crowd. A cashier paused in front of No One and held out her hand. "Coppers for the priest?"

No One glanced at her, then reached into his purse and handed her two movills. The cashier continued moving through the spectators as a figure in black newsteller's robes was helped by two apprentice newstellers to the center of the square. It was the Great Goofy Joe Master of the Tarzak Newstellers. He shrugged off the helping hands, and the apprentices retired. The newsteller spoke.

"Five days ago in the town of Miira, Johnjay, Little Will's son, killed five of the last six bulls on Momus." Not even the sounds of breathing broke the stillness. "May, Johnjay's sister, was trampled underfoot by the bulls, then Johnjay went and exed 'em." Goofy Joe looked around at the crowd, then held up his arms. "The town put Johnjay's trunk on the lot until Reg, the last bull, dies." Goofy lowered his arms, looked down, then back up at the crowd. "That's the long and the short of it."

The Great Goofy Joe looked around at the faces surrounding him. "May was a bullhand! Her mother is a bullhand! Her granddad, Bullhook Willy, was a bullhand. He was boss elephant man with the old show. Bullhook learned to handle bulls from Poison Jim Bolger with the Snow Show out of Spokane. Poison Jim died trying to calm an outlaw bull. People Bullhook knew and loved—Buns Bunyoro, Siren Sally Fong, Black Kate, and more—died working their bulls for the old show."

No One turned and began walking from the square. His pace quickened, but Goofy Joe's voice was not to be left so easily behind: "Bullhook Willy died after Number Three went down 'cause he went into the main carrousel when no one else would. He's the one who opened the doors. He died doing that."

Tarzaka caught up to No One, Goofy Joe's words still at his back.

"A lot of you are young. Never seen a show. You don't know what the bulls mean to the show. We only got one bull left, now. When Reg dies, the show dies."

No One began running. The Great Goofy Joe's voice covered the Town of Dirak. "Miira put Johnjay's trunk on the lot. What are you people going to do?"

The words screamed by the crowd moved his feet even faster. "Blackball! Blackball! Blackball!" As he left the edge of Dirak and ran along a timber road into the northern foothills of the Snake Mountains, No One could hear the voices of the people of Dirak raised in song.

Black Diamond, old Black Diamond, you was a killer true; But no thin' can forgive what them Rangers done to you.