Chapter Twenty-one
The next morning I headed over to the Pike Brothers Carnival to see the boss. I was tired of p-ssyfooting around, and this time Heliotrope Pike would give me some answers or face the music. My music.
I wondered what carny people do in mornings, and soon found out. They had plenty to do. Horses to feed and water and doctor, clothing to mend, games of chance to polish up, and food to cook. On a nice summer’s day, it was easy, but I could see how some tough weather could make things real bad. But this was a sunny, lazy June day.
The Ukrainian twins were sitting in a specially made wide chair, sunning themselves. If Rusty had brains, he’d do something about it instead of whining about being robbed of his wife, or wives, or whatever. I never could get it straight whether he was marrying one or two.
The show wouldn’t get going until noon or so; then people could buy a lunch, play the games of chance, see the hootchy-kootchy girls, and disapprove of everything while shelling out their dimes. If nothing else, the show offered something new to people off the ranches of Puma County.
Sure enough, Pike was breakfasting with his raven-haired sweetie Little Egypt when I got there. He had his own wagon with a roll-out canvas shade, which made an outdoor arbor. They were sipping some sort of black coffee made in a brass pot when I barged in. She was in a silky red kimono, with nothing else, and he was in his underdrawers and that was all.
“Well, if it isn’t the sheriff,” he said. “Want some java?”
“No, but I want some answers,” I said. I wasn’t going to drown myself in a social call.
“At your service, sheriff.”
Pike’s tone had changed to coolness. Little Egypt decided to vamoose, and rose, revealing a lot of creped flesh. She wasn’t as young as she looked in the lantern light at night. I chose to remain standing.
“We got a problem, and it’s not solved, and it’s gonna be,” I said. “You got these Ukrainian twins in your show, the same as got taken off a stagecoach in my county, at gunpoint, stuffed into a red-and-gold chariot, and hauled away. There were a few laws got broke, and we’re going to find out right now what happened, and why.”
“What a bizarre story,” Pike said, blandly.
“Yeah, well, there’s a mess of witnesses, including passengers and the jehu, and if we don’t get some answers, this show’s not going anywhere until we do.”
That sure perked him up some. “You have no right to stop the show from going anywhere.”
“Just try me,” I said. “We got abducted women in your outfit, and that’s all I need.”
“Who says they were abducted?”
“The people that saw them removed at gunpoint and stuffed into the chariot, which was the only way to move Siamese twins away fast.”
“Fantasy,” Pike said. “People have vivid imaginations.”
“Yeah, and so do I. You go ahead and think about the twenty carny people, stuck in Doubtful, Wyoming, because no one’s talking about how those ladies got took off the stage, and why, and who done it.”
“You wouldn’t hold innocent people, would you?”
“All you got to do is tell the story.”
Pike eyed me levelly. “I haven’t the faintest idea who abducted the women.”
“You bought the act, you say. You got the women. So, talk. Where’d you get them?”
“On the road somewhere.”
“Who sold them to you?”
“Sold the act, sir; we’re not talking about slavery.”
“Well, maybe I’m talking about slavery. Men with guns took them off the stage.”
Pike looked annoyed. “So Pike Brothers is to blame for this?”
“You got brothers?”
“No, I own the carnival alone. The name suggests a larger show. Pike Brothers sounds like a big outfit.”
“So someone in a circus chariot, seems like, made off with the Ukrainian women. And tried to cover the tracks. My deputy and me, we had to hunt hard to pick them up.”
“Look, sheriff, that has nothing to do with us.”
“I’m thinking maybe you got wind of the Siamese twins and wanted them in your outfit and kidnapped them. Somehow or other, they went from the stagecoach into your outfit, and until we get some answers, you ain’t going anywhere.”
Pike eyed me, carefully. “We’ll post bail. This is rather commonplace. Pick on the carny show. How much? Twenty-five dollars? Forfeit the bail?”
He wasn’t fooling me none. “If there’s bail, it’s set by Hanging Judge Earwig,” I said.
Pike paused, looking perplexed.
“I’ll check through my records and see if I can find the names of the people who offered me the act,” he said. “You don’t seem to grasp the business. Everything is a handshake deal.”
“You better come squeaky clean,” I said. “Or you’ll be hanging around Doubtful for a long time.”
Well, he didn’t like that none. His next step was to try to sneak out, no doubt at night, and hope I’d forget about going after them. But he would be a little surprised. I had a few plans of my own, including tying up his livestock.
“And don’t try sneaking out,” I said. “Not by night, not by day. Not on a Sunday, and not on your mother’s birthday. Your outfit’s no match for a posse of Puma County cowboys.”
He plainly agreed, even if he didn’t say a word.
I had a hunch he’d come around. Carny box office in my little burg wasn’t going to last long. My guess was that he’d come clean, and probably lose the act, if that’s what staring at Siamese twins amounted to.
I headed down the empty midway. For some reason, no one goes to carny shows in the morning. Sin doesn’t start until afternoon, and carny shows were all sin. My ma, she always used to say wedlock’s no good mornings when the breakfast dishes need scrubbing; it only heats up at night, in the dark. Well, that’s true of show business, too.
I headed for the Ukrainian sisters, who were camped behind their show tent, and in their chair enjoying the good Wyoming sunshine. And sure enough, Rusty had gotten smart and had settled in across from them, and had even taken his sweaty Stetson off and was rotating it in his hands while admiring his ladies. They were all sipping something that looked white.
“Slivovitz,” said Rusty.
“What’s that?”
“It’s almost as good as marriage.”
I smelled his glass and pretty near passed out. “You’re on duty,” I said.
“Cotton, you’re a peckerhead sometimes.”
“You could always quit,” I said, “and drink slivovitz the rest of your life.”
“This here’s Anna, and this here’s Natasha,” he said.
“Is real damn nice, good piss water,” Natasha said. Not bad English, I thought.
“I told them I wanted to marry, and they laughed, and then said which? I said, either way, I’d flip a coin. So we flipped a coin. Heads, Natasha, tails, Anna. Natasha won, so I proposed. I said, Natasha, let’s get married, and then Anna got mad. Anna said that’s not right, I’ve got to marry her, or both. I said I can’t marry both, and they said go to hell, skunk head, and I said maybe I’ll marry both. And now they’re both mad at me.”
“I gotta talk to them. Help me,” I said.
I turned to Natasha. “You were coming here on the stagecoach and some men stopped the coach and made you get out, right?”
She dimpled up. “What a wedding invitation,” she said.
But Anna elbowed her. “Every day, crossing the sea, people look at us. On the boat, on the railroad, people look at us. We’re used to it. Some days, men give us cards. One man said he wanted to put us in a show; we’d be happy. But Natasha, she always said no; she’s getting married. Me, no one asks.”
“So you got to Laramie and caught the Laramie and Overland coach here? Then what?”
“They are watching us. We get into the coach, and then we start to come here, yes? And then they stop the coach, out on the grasses, and make us get out. Three men, wearing masks, waving guns. And there is this cart, stand-up room. And there’s a driver, also masked, and we get carried away, and go to some place I don’t know, and we are told we are in a carnival, and that’s better than one getting married and one not. We both get paid, yes?”
“Did the masked men who took you off the coach meet your boss here, Pike?”
Anna shrugged.
“They gave us this wagon,” Natasha said.
“Didn’t you protest?’
Natasha giggled. “We got a house!”
“Did anyone call it an act? Were you an act?”
Anna giggled.
“Did you sign a contract for an act? A show performance?”
They both looked puzzled.
“They like it because they’re taken care of,” Rusty said. “They can’t care for themselves, so they like this carnival. They get fed.”
Both the ladies were smiling at me.
“This sure makes Pike look like the one who planned this little deal. Is there a two-wheel cart around?”
“You mean the gold-and-red chariot?” Rusty asked.
“I mean any cart. A coat of paint, that makes a difference. Witnesses, they see a red chariot. My ma, she always used to say a little war paint on a woman hides the real McCoy. So I want to see if this outfit’s got a two-wheel cart, and maybe, any color.”
“You and your ma,” Rusty said.
The women, they followed little of that.
“You got put here in the carnival? Did you say no to Pike?”
Natasha, she figured out that one. “I wanted to get married; this is my lover boy. Anna, she don’t want that. So she’s stuck. And I’m stuck. She won. She got us here. Me, I’d like to go to bed with Rusty. Wooee! Hot pajamas! Anna, she don’t care.”
This here was getting more and more tangled up, I thought. But one thing was clear: Pike abducted the twins and stuffed them into his show, one way or another. And I was going to get the facts, and figure what laws got busted, and no one was leaving Doubtful until justice got done.
“Make your deputy leave,” Anna said. “He comes in here like he owns us.”
“Make him stay,” Natasha said. “He’s my man.”
“He’s not my man,” Anna said. “Make him go away; we got a good wagon, and a good act.”
“Rusty, you wanna marry me, like in the letters?” Natasha asked.
“Maybe I could marry you both,” Rusty said.
“You get her, not me,” Anna said. “Go to hell.”
“You’re robbing me,” Natasha said. “You’re keeping bride from groom.”
“I ought to kill you,” Anna said. “And maybe someday I will.”
Me, I stared at them two, stuck together for life, and felt real sad. When Rusty got loose, I planned to tell him to forget it. He was torturing them two ladies in ways we couldn’t even imagine.
But Rusty, he just sat there and kept on wooing.