The Howling III

Chapter Eighteen

The weeks passed.

And the months.

Malcolm wandered up and down the long, diverse state of California. He had been in and out of cities, towns, villages; crossed mountains and desert. Several times he had ventured near the state line. He had looked across into Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona, but he had not crossed the line. Although he was a young man without roots, he still felt that it was in California that he would find what was waiting for him. It had all begun for him in this state, and he sensed that this was where it would end.

Once, during the winter when he was seeking warmth wherever he could find it, Malcolm did travel a short distance into Mexico. He had looked hard at the verdant hills below Tijuana and felt the presence there of others like himself. Yet, they were not his own people, the survivors of Drago. He had no doubt now that there were survivors. Many times he had heard the howling in the night — calling him. Though his body yearned to answer their call, he fought against it. He was not ready.

Despite the vagabond life, Malcolm's body filled out over the year. He grew stronger. His shoulders broadened out and his chest expanded. Such work as he was able to find helped harden him. His muscles were supple, his hands rough and calloused. Although he took a boyish pride in his more manly appearance, there were new problems.

In the dim outlaw world he was forced to live in, physical conflict was common. Malcolm had seen men fight to the death over half a bottle of wine. In the early days he had often been challenged by the boys and men he met in his travels. Every time, although his body ached to respond, he had backed away from a fight. He would suffer any humiliation to avoid combat.

They laughed at him and called him Coward. The taunts did not bother him, nor the name. He sensed how swiftly and terribly he might destroy these people if he yielded to violent emotions. Their name for him then would be far worse than Coward.

More frequently as the weeks passed Malcolm felt his body strain to change its shape when some passion gripped him. The urge to let go was powerful, but Malcolm continued to fight it. By intense effort of will he had so far resisted the full change, but he knew the day would come when he could resist no longer. He could only hope that by then he would know what to do.

While his body grew strong, the unsettled life took its toll on the young man's emotions. On a cloudless afternoon in late spring he felt he had hit bottom. He rested that day in the Inyo hills and thought about bringing his painful life to an end. But he did not even know how to do that. With his education cut off by the fire at Drago, he understood very little of his kind. There were ways, it was said, that they could be destroyed — silver, fire, and a third, which was never mentioned. Had one of his people ever killed himself? Was such an act possible? Malcolm had no way of knowing.

Suddenly he tensed, cocked his head, and listened. Faint but unmistakeable, there came a cry of mingled pain and fear. Malcolm tested the air, determined the direction from which the cry came, and climbed swiftly up the grassy slope.

The cries ceased as he drew near. Malcolm knew that the creature in pain sensed his approach and feared him. He moved on cautiously, guided by his sense of smell.

Behind a patch of scrub oak he found it — a young coyote, hardly more than a pup. Its forepaw was caught in a trap.

Memories flooded back to Malcolm of his own anguish on that night more than a year ago when his ankle had been crushed by the trap. He knelt beside the coyote pup, his eyes filling with tears. He reached his hand out tentatively, palm up, to show the creature he meant no harm.

The trapped coyote sniffed at his fingers. Its lip drew back in an instinctive snarl, but it made no attempt to bite him. Very gently Malcolm touched its muzzle. His fingers stroked the grey-brown fur of the head between the velvety pointed ears. The young coyote shivered under his touch.

"Easy, little guy," the boy said. "I'm not going to hurt you."

The pup whined softly.

"I know how you feel. Believe me, I do."

The coyote looked up at him with cautious eyes. Its shivering quieted.

"That's the boy," Malcolm said, speaking in a slow, soothing tone. "Now let's see how bad you're hurt."

He moved the pup gently to get a better look at the damage done by the trap. With relief he saw it was not the bone-crushing kind that had caught him in the woods outside Pinyon. This was the legal, non-maiming trap designed to catch and hold, but not to do serious injury.

"You're a lucky fella," Malcolm said. "I know you probably don't think so, and it's no fun to be caught in any kind of a trap, but believe me, you could have it a lot worse."

He slipped his fingers between the smooth jaws of the trap and pulled against the spring. Was there no place, he wondered, where a wild creature could be left alone? Down in the valley he had seen a flock of sheep. He supposed the rancher had set out the traps to protect his flock. Malcolm could not fault the man for that. At least the man had used this less-destructive trap, and he had not resorted to poison. Still, a lamb was natural prey for the coyote. Where was the right or wrong of it all?

Slowly Malcolm forced the jaws open. The young coyote drew back the injured paw, but did not try to get away. Malcolm ran gentle fingers along the leg that had been caught.

"Nothing's broken. Your foot will be sore for a while, but like I told you, it could be a lot worse."

The coyote tested its weight on the paw, raised it quickly, then tried again.

"See, it works all right," Malcolm said. "You can get along back to your family now."

The pup looked up at the boy, then lowered its head and butted gently against his leg. Malcolm scratched the coyote behind one ear.

"I wish I could keep you with me, little fella," he said. "It would be nice to have somebody to talk to. And we've got something in common, haven't we."

The little coyote licked his hand. Malcolm drew it away.

"But it can't work that way, so don't get all friendly with me. First thing you know I'll be giving you a name."

From behind him, Malcolm heard a soft growl. He turned and saw a female coyote standing with her legs braced, the fur bristling on the back of her neck.

He looked back at the pup. "I think your mama's here." The young coyote's eyes flicked from Malcolm to the female, then back to Malcolm.

"Go on," Malcolm said. "You know where you belong."

The pup hesitated a moment longer, then trotted, limping slightly, to join the female. The two of them were quickly lost from view in the scrub oak.

"I wish," said Malcolm to the empty hillside, "that I knew where / belonged."

He sank down on a mossy spot sheltered by a boulder and began to weep. Malcolm was not much given to crying, but here, alone and isolated, he gave himself up to the feeling of despair.

And as he wept his body began the spasms of the shape change. He could feel his downy beard growing thicker and coarser. He tasted blood as the long teeth pushed out through his gums. Because no one was around to see, this time Malcolm did not try to fight it. He was weary, and it had been a long, very long day.

It had been a long day too for Bateman Styles. It had, for that matter, been a long several years for Bateman Styles. A carnival showman, he was an outdated man scraping out a living in an outdated profession.

Until this year, however, he had managed somehow to find a spot every summer, even though it was with progressively smaller carnivals. In recent years he had fronted for a kootch show, an all-takers wrestler, a shooting gallery, fun house, ring-toss, wheel of fortune, and finally a freak tent. This year he had barely made it with the broken-down Samson Supershow. Or so he thought until early that afternoon when he was summoned to the Airstream Trailer of Samson himself, otherwise known as Jackie Moskowitz, former midget.

Styles had a premonition when the kid who ran the ferris wheel told him the boss wanted to see him. It was the day before they were to open in Silverdale, and Bateman knew his freaks were at best a borderline attraction. But what the hell, he reminded himself, the Samson Supershow was not Barnum & Bailey, and Silverdale, California, was not San Francisco. Or even Yreka.

Even in its boom days Silverdale had never been much more than a last watering hole for travellers coming down through the Inyo pass and heading for some insane reason into Death Valley. Today it did not even show on many maps. When pressed for a location, residents would say it was five miles from Wheeler. If that reference drew a blank look they would admit the town was fifteen miles out of Lone Pine. Anybody who did not know Lone Pine deserved no further explanation.

A far cry from the old days, Bateman Styles reflected as he tramped across the dusty field to Moskowitz's trailer. When he was a boy — Lord, that was fifty years ago — carnivals had played towns throughout the south, the west, and the middlewest without slowing down for nine months of the year. In those days the carnival was a big attraction in the towns, and even in cities of 50,000 or so population. Even with the Depression, people found dimes to spend riding the Octopus or trying to win a kewpie doll.

It was a lot different now. But hell, what wasn't? Bateman himself had been slowing down steadily for several years. He didn't have a lot of time left, but he always said he wanted to go out running a pitch somewhere. Only suckers die broke in bed.

He reached Jackie's trailer and banged on the aluminium door.

"It's open," piped a squeaky voice from inside.

Bateman entered. Jackie Moskowitz sat on a bench at a fold-down table playing solitare. He brought himself up to table level by sitting on two copies of the Los Angeles Yellow Pages. He did not look up immediately.

Bateman remembered Jackie from the days when he was Major Tiny, an ill-tempered midget with Gallagher's Greater Shows. That was in the fifties. It was a phase-out time for carnivals, and just as well for Major Tiny, whose faulty pituitary gland unexpectedly betrayed him. In a period of less than a year he grew to four-eleven. Not a big man in the outside world, but laughably tall for a midget.

Luckily for him Jackie had saved his money, and he was able to buy a piece of the Gallagher's show when he got too big to work. It had since declined steadily until the ragtag collection of grifters, kids, and burnouts that made up Samson was all he had left.

"What's up, Jackie?" Bateman said, squeezing his paunch into the narrow space behind the table across from Jackie.

"I gotta cut back," said the little man.

"Oh?" Styles braced himself for the bad news.

"Your show's gotta go."

"Why mine?"

"Because it's the weakest in the whole shebang. I carried you last year for old time's sake. I was ready to do it again, but I got lookin" at the bills, and I can't hack it."

"My tent's better than the kootch show," Bateman protested. "Those bimbos couldn't give a hard-on to a Mexican sailor. Or what about the Wheel of Fortune? Umbach's got his foot on the pedal so heavy it raises smoke when he stops the thing. Even the yokels aren't going for that."

"Forget it, Bateman," squeaked the little owner. "You're gone."

"Why me? Just give me a reason."

"Okay. That bunch of so-called freaks you carry around wouldn't get a second look at a Kiwanis convention. Your giant, what is he, six-seven?"

"Six-eight-and-a-half," Styles protested.

"Some giant. The yokels can see kids bigger than that at any high-school basketball game. And your bearded lady — you call that a beard?"

"You would if you kissed her."

"God forbid. That five-o'clock shadow don't impress anybody, not even when she darkens it up with pencil shavings."

"She's got three kids."

"That don't make her no freak."

"I mean how's she going to take care of them?"

"That ain't my problem. Let her do shave-cream commercials. And your sorry fire eater — what's he call himself, Flamo?"

"Torcho."

"It's always one or the other. Do you know how old his schtick is? I mean, blowing lighter fluid out of your mouth went out with handlebar moustaches."

"Handlebars are back."

"Don't confuse the issue."

"So my people aren't exactly New Wave. What of it? Most of the carnival is things that's been around for years. Nostalgia, that's what brings the folks in."

"Well, in your case it ain't bringing enough of "em in. You and your freaks are out, Bateman. Sorry, but that's the way it is. In another year I'll most likely be out too. You and me, we're the tail end of this business."

Styles seemed to crumble where he was wedged into the small seating space. He stared blankly down at the worn cards laid out before Moskowitz.

"Can't you give me a week?"

"No way. Everything's too tight. Hell, Bateman, you can probably collect more on social security than you make travelling with a tincan outfit like this. You're sure as hell old enough for it."

"They tell me that to collect any of that you have to show you put some in over the years."

"No bull? How chickenshit."

"What if I come up with another gimmick?"

"I don't want your freaks, period."

"Okay, if they got to go, that's it. Maybe I can come up with something else."

"Come up with what? We open tomorrow."

"Lemme think about it, okay?"

"Sure, you think about it, Bateman, but I don't want to see those freaks in the morning."

"I'll give them the word."

"Good."

Moskowitz returned his full attention to the solitaire game. Styles levered himself out from the confining seat and left the trailer.

Breaking the news to his people — like most old-time carnies, Styles would never call them freaks — did not go too badly, all things considered. Collosus shook his hand, thanked him for a year of work, and said he'd have no problem getting a dishwasher job in some joint. They liked to have a big guy who could come out from the back if the bouncer got into it with somebody tougher than he could handle. Collosus was no fighter, but he was big and looked mean, and that was enough to discourage a lot of mouthy punks.

Torcho said little when Bateman gave him the bad news. He merely belched and chewed his Maalox tablets. He guessed maybe he could go back to his wife in Bakersfield if she had kicked out the 12-string guitar player she'd been shacking with.

With Rosa it had been tougher. Tears had welled in her great brown eyes and rolled down into her inadequate moustache. Bateman took her aside and slipped her enough for her bus fare back to Flagstaff, where she had parked the kids with a sister. It was the best he could do.

Now, walking in the late afternoon on the hill above Silverdale, Styles missed all of them. In his years as a showman he had seen a couple of thousand people come and go. He could never get used to it. They were his family. And in his heart he knew, once somebody left the carnival, you never saw them again. It was like they died.

Speaking of which, unless he could come up with some fast spiel for Moskowitz by tomorrow morning, Bateman Styles would himself be leaving the carnival. When he'd made the pitch in Moskowitz's trailer he had some half-ass idea about selling the midget on a flashy new idea. The trouble was, he didn't have one. All the ideas were used up.

Bateman stopped frequently to rest as he walked. The hills were steeper than they used to be. And it was hard for a man to catch his breath at this altitude.

He sat on a rock and looked at the view. Silverdale might not be much shakes as a town, but you couldn't buy the view for a million dollars. To the east, flat and parched, stretched Death Valley. It shaded delicately from gold to chocolate brown. To the west, just beyond the Inyo foothills, stood big-shouldered Mount Whitney.

His contemplation of the scenery was interrupted by a sound very close to him. Not quite a sob, and not quite a growl, but a little of each. Bateman stood up and looked behind the rock he had been sitting on.

There on the ground lay a boy, or young man, his body twisted into an unnatural position. He was huddled there, his face away from Styles, his limbs twisting and jerking as though yanked by invisible wires. It was the boy who was making the sob-growl sounds.

Styles's first thought was that the kid was having an epileptic seizure. He had once worked with a high-diver who was an epileptic. They all figured some day Carlo would throw a fit while he was up on the tower looking down at the tub. Sure enough, one day he did. Carlo's last dive was by far his most spectacular.

Bateman knew you were supposed to keep an epileptic from swallowing his tongue. He leaned down and tried to roll the young man over on to his back. Then he saw the face, and forgot all about epileptic seizures.

Ten minutes later the young man was looking reasonably normal. All muddy and soaked with sweat, but not a bad-looking kid. Styles leaned against the rock smoking an unfiltered Camel.

"Hi" said the showman.

The boy said nothing.

"You got a name?"

"M-Malcolm."

"Mind telling me how you do that, Malcolm?"

"Do what?"

"Make yourself go all hairy and fierce looking like you just did."

Malcolm stared at Bateman Styles. He was silent for a minute as he seemed to make up his mind about something. Finally he said, "I don't do it on purpose. It just… happens. Sometimes I can control it."

"Anything special that makes it happen?"

"When something makes me feel really sad. Or really mad. Then… things happen to me."

"No kidding. What makes you mad, Malcolm?"

"I don't know. Lots of things."

"How about being in a cage with people standing around looking at you, pointing, saying things about you."

The moment he said "cage" Styles knew he'd hit it. The boy's eyes deepened to a dangerous shade of green, and his lips pulled away from his teeth like an animal. Then he got hold of himself.

"Yeah," Malcolm said. "That would make me mad." Bateman Styles drew in deeply on his cigarette, coughed, and said, "You want a job?"