same order. The names scratched into
the posts no longer match the occupants, but I can extrapolate who's who. The fourth
horse in is Blackie. I wonder if his personality is anything like his human namesake's.
I can't see Silver Star, which means he must be lying down. That's
both good and bad: good, because it keeps the weight ofFhis feet, and bad because it
means he's in enough pain he doesn't want to stand. Because of the way the stalls are
constructed, I can't check on him until we stop and unload the other horses.
I sit across from the open door and watch the landscape pass until it gets dark. Eventually
I slide down and fall asleep.
It seems like only minutes later when the brakes begin screeching. Almost immediately,
the door to the goat room opens and Kinko and Queenie come out into the rough foyer.
Kinko leans one shoulder against the wall, hands pushed deep in his pockets and ignoring
me studiously. When we finally come to a stop, he jumps to the ground, turns, and claps
twice. Queenie leaps into his arms and they disappear.
I climb to my feet and peer out the open door.
We're on a siding in the middle of nowhere. The other two sections
of train are also stopped, stretched out before us on the track, a half mile between each.
People climb down from the train in the early morning light. The performers stretch
grumpily and gather in groups to talk and smoke as the
workmen drop ramps and unload stock. S a r a G r u en
August and his men arrive within minutes.
"Joe, you deal with the monkeys," says August. "Pete, Otis, unload the hay burners and
get them watered, will you? Use the stream instead of troughs. We're conserving water."
"But don't unload Silver Star," I say.
There's a long silence. The men look first at me and then at August, whose gaze is steely.
"Yes," August finally says. "That's right. Don't unload Silver Star." He turns and walks
away. The other men regard me with wide eyes. I jog a little to catch up with August.
"I'm sorry," I say, falling into stride beside him. "I didn't mean to give orders."
He stops in front of the camel car and slides the door open. We're
greeted by the grunts and complaints of distressed dromedaries. "That's all right, my
boy," August says cheerily, slinging a bucket of
meat at me. "You can help me feed the cats." I catch the bucket's thin metal handle. A
cloud of angry flies rises from it.
"Oh my God," I say. I set the bucket down and turn away, retching. I wipe tears from my
eyes, still gagging. "August, we can't feed them this." "Why not?"
"It's gone off."
There's no answer. I turn and find that August has set a second bucket beside me and left.
He's marching up the tracks carting another two buckets. I grab mine and catch up.
"It's putrid. Surely the cats won't eat this," I continue.
"Let's hope they do. Otherwise, we'll have to make some hard decisions."
"Huh?"
"We're still a long way from Joliet, and, alas, we're out of goats." I am too stunned to
answer.
When we reach the second section of the train, August hops up onto a flat car and props
open the sides of two cat dens. He opens the padlocks, leaves them hanging on the doors,
and jumps down to the gravel.
"Go on then," he says, thumping me on the back. "What?"
Water for E l e p h a n ts
"They get a bucket each. Go on," he urges.
I climb reluctantly onto the bed of the flat car. The odor of cat urine is overwhelming.
August hands me the buckets of meat, one at a time. I set them on the weathered wooden
boards, trying not to breathe.
The cat dens have two compartments each: to my left is a pair of lions. To my right, a
tiger and a panther. All four are massive. They lift their heads, sniffing, their whiskers
twitching.
"Well, go on then," says August.
"What do I do, just open the door and toss it in?" "Unless you can think of a better way."
The tiger rises, six hundred glorious pounds of black, orange, and white. His head is
huge, his whiskers long. He comes to the door, swings around, and walks away. When he
returns, he growls and swipes at the latch. The padlock rattles against the bars.
"You can start with Rex," says August, pointing at the lions, which are also pacing.
"That's him on the left."
Rex is considerably smaller than the tiger, with mats in his mane and ribs showing under
his dull coat. I steel myself and reach for a bucket. "Wait," says August, pointing at a
different bucket. "Not that one. This one."
I can't see the difference, but since I've already ascertained that it's a bad idea to argue
with August, I oblige.
When the cat sees me coming, he lunges at the door. I freeze.
"What's the matter, Jacob?"
I turn around. August's face is glowing.
"You're not afraid of Rex, are you?" he continues. "He's just a widdle kitty cat"
Rex pauses to rub his mangy coat against the bars at the front of the cage. With fumbling
fingers, I remove the padlock and lay it by my feet.
Then I lift the bucket and wait. The next time Rex turns away from the door, I swing it
open.
Before I can tip the meat out, his huge jaws chomp down on my arm. I
scream. The bucket crashes to the floor, splattering chopped entrails everywhere. The cat
drops off my arm and pounces on the meat.
S a r a G r u en
I slam the door and hold it shut with my knee while I check whether I still have an arm. I
do. It is slick with saliva and as red as if I had dunked it in boiling water, but the skin isn't
broken. A moment later, I realize August is laughing uproariously behind me.
I turn to him. "What the hell is wrong with you? You think that's funny?" "I do, yes,"
says August, making no effort to contain his mirth.
"You're seriously fucked, you know that?" I jump down from the flat car, check my intact
arm once more, and stalk off.
"Jacob, wait," laughs August, coming up behind me. "Don't be sore. I was just having a
little fun with you."
"What fun? I could have lost my arm!" "He hasn't got any teeth."
I halt, staring at the gravel beneath my feet as this fact sinks in. Then I continue walking.
This time, August doesn't follow.
Furious, I head for the stream and kneel beside a couple of men watering zebras. One of
the zebras spooks, barking and throwing his striped muzzle high in the air. The man
holding the lead rope shoots a succession of glances at me as he struggles to maintain
control. "Goddammit!" he shouts. "What is that? Is that blood?"
I look down. I am spattered with blood from the entrails. "Yes," I say. "I was feeding the
cats."
"What the hell is wrong with you? You trying to get me killed?"
I walk downstream, looking back until the zebra calms down. Then I crouch by the water
to rinse the blood and cat saliva from my arms. Eventually I head back to the second
section of the train. Diamond Joe
is up on a flat, next to a chimp den. The sleeves of his gray shirt are rolled up, exposing
hairy, muscled arms. The chimp sits on his haunches, eating fistfuls of cereal mixed with
fruit and watching us with shiny black eyes. "Need help?" I ask.
"Naw. About done, I think. I hear August got you with old Rex." I look up, prepared to
be angry. But Joe's not smiling.
"Watch yourself," he says. "Rex might not take your arm, but Leo will. You can bet on
that. Don't know why August asked you to do it anyway. Clive is the cat man. Unless he
wanted to make a point." He pauses,
W a t e r for E l e p h a n ts
reaches into the den, and touches fingers with the chimp before shutting the door. Then
he jumps down from the flat. "Look, I'm only going to say this once. August's a funny
one, and I don't mean funny ha-ha. You be careful. He don't like no one questioning his
authority. And he has his moments, if you know what I mean."
"I believe I do."
"No, I don't think you do. But you will. Say, you eaten yet?" "No."
He points up the track to the Flying Squadron. There are tables set up alongside the track.
"Cookhouse crew got up a breakfast of sorts. Also put up some dukey boxes. Make sure
you grab one, cuz that probably means we're not stopping again until tonight. Get it while
the getting's good, I always say."
"Thanks, Joe." "Don't mention it."
I RETURN TO THE stock car with my dukey box, which contains a ham sandwich,
apple, and two bottles of sarsaparilla. When I see Marlena sitting in the straw beside
Silver Star, I set my dukey box down and walk slowly toward her.
Silver Star lies on his side, his flanks heaving, his respiration shallow and fast. Marlena
sits at his head with her legs curled beneath her. "He's not any better, is he?" she says,
looking up at me.
I shake my head.
"I don't understand how this could happen so fast." Her voice is tiny and hollow, and it
occurs to me that she's probably going to cry.
I crouch beside her. "Sometimes it just does. It's not because of anything you did,
though."
She strokes his face, running her fingers around his dished cheek and down under his
chin. His eyes flicker.
"Is there anything else we can do for him?" she asks.
"Short of getting him off the train, no. Even under the best of circumstances, there's not a
lot you can do but take them off their feed and
pray."
Sara Gruen
She glances at me and does a double take when she sees my arm. "Oh my God. What
happened to you?"
I look down. "Oh, that. It's nothing."
"No it's not," she says, climbing to her knees. She takes my forearm in
her hands and moves it to catch the sunlight coming in through the slats. "It looks new.
It's going to be a heck of a bruise. Does this hurt?" She takes the back of my arm in one
hand and runs the other over the blue patch that's spreading beneath my skin. Her palm is
cool and smooth, and leaves my hair standing on end.
I close my eyes and swallow hard. "No, really, I'm—"
A whistle blows, and she looks toward the door. I take the opportunity
to extricate my arm and rise.
"Twen-n-n-n-n-n-n-nty minutes!" bellows a deep voice from somewhere near the front of
the train. "Twen-n-n-n-n-n-n-nty minutes to push-off!" Joe pokes his head through the
open doorway. "Come on! We gotta
load these animals! Oh, sorry ma'am," he says, tipping his hat to Marlena. "I didn't see
you there."
"That's okay, Joe."
Joe stands awkwardly in the doorway, waiting. "It's just that we've got to do it now," he
says in desperation.
"Go ahead," says Marlena. "I'm going to ride this leg with Silver Star." "You can't do
that," I say quickly.
She looks up at me, her throat elongated and pale. "Why ever not?" "Because once we get
the other horses loaded you'll be trapped back here."
"That's all right."
"What if something happens?"
"Nothing's going to happen. And if it does, I'll climb over them." She settles into the
straw, curling her legs back under her.
"I don't know," I say doubtfully. But Marlena is gazing at Silver Star with an expression
that makes it perfectly clear she's not budging.
I look back at Joe, who raises his hands in a gesture of exasperation and surrender.
W a t e r for E l e p h a n ts
After a final glance at Marlena, I swing the stall divider into place and help load the rest
of the horses.
DIAMOND JOE IS RIGHT about the long haul. It's early evening before we stop again.
Kinko and I haven't exchanged a word since we left Saratoga Springs. He clearly hates
me. Not that I blame him—August set it up that way, although I don't suppose there's any
point in trying to explain that to him.
I stay up front with the horses to let him have some privacy. That, and I'm still nervous at
the thought of Marlena trapped at the end of a row of thousand-pound animals.
When the train stops she climbs nimbly over their backs and drops to the floor. When
Kinko emerges from the goat room, his eyes crinkle in momentary alarm. Then they shift
from Marlena to the open door with studied indifference.
Pete, Otis, and I unload and water the ring stock, camels, and llamas. Diamond Joe,
Clive, and a handful of cage hands head up to the second section of the train to deal with
the animals in dens. August is nowhere to be seen.
After we get the animals back on board, I climb into the stock car and poke my head into
the room.
Kinko sits cross-legged on the bed. Queenie sniffs a bedroll that has replaced the infested
horse blanket. Sitting on top is a neatly folded red
plaid blanket and a pillow in a smooth white case. A square sheet of cardboard lies in the
center of the pillow. When I lean over to pick it up,
Queenie leaps as though I've kicked her.
Mr. andMrs. August Rosenbluth request the pleasure ofyour immediate presence in
stateroom 3, car 48, for cocktails, followed by a late dinner.
I look up in surprise. Kinko is staring daggers at me.
"You wasted no time ingratiating yourself, did you?" he says.
S even
The cars are not sequentially numbered, and it takes me a while to find car 48. It is
painted a deep burgundy and trimmed
with foot-tall gold lettering trumpeting BENZINI BROS
MOST SPECTACULAR SHOW ON EARTH. Just beneath that, visible only in relief
