Please God let them leave by the back end. Please God don’t let them try to come through here.
Beyond the roiling sea of animals, I catch sight of two men. They’re swinging ropes, stirring the animals into an ever-higher frenzy. One of them is Bill. He catches my gaze and holds it for a moment. Then he slips into the big top with the other man. The band screeches to a halt again and this time stays silent.
My eyes sweep the tent, desperate to the point of panic. Where are you? Where are you? Where the hell are you?
I catch sight of pink sequins and my head jerks around. When I see Marlena standing beside Rosie, I cry out in relief.
August is in front of them—of course he is, where else would he be? Marlena’s hands cover her mouth. She hasn’t seen me yet, but Rosie has. She stares at me long and hard, and something about her expression stops me cold. August is oblivious—red-faced and bellowing, flapping his arms and swinging his cane. His top hat lies in the straw beside him, punctured, as though he’d put a foot through it.
Rosie stretches out her trunk, reaching for something. A giraffe passes between us, its long neck bobbing gracefully even in panic, and when it’s gone I see that Rosie has pulled her stake from the ground. She holds it loosely, resting its end on the hard dirt. The chain is still attached to her foot. She looks at me with bemused eyes. Then her gaze shifts to the back of August’s bare head.
“Oh Jesus,” I say, suddenly understanding. I stumble forward and bounce off a horse’s passing haunch. “Don’t do it! Don’t do it!”
She lifts the stake as though it weighs nothing and splits his head in a single clean movement—ponk—like cracking a hardboiled egg. She continues to hold the stake until he topples forward, and then she slides it almost lazily back into the earth. She takes a step backward, revealing Marlena, who may or may not have seen what just happened.
Almost immediately a herd of zebras passes in front of them. Flailing human limbs flash between pounding black and white legs. Up and down, a hand, a foot, twisting and bouncing bonelessly. When the herd passes, the thing that was August is a tangled mass of flesh, innards, and straw.
Marlena stares at it, wide-eyed. Then she crumples to the ground. Rosie fans her ears, opens her mouth, and steps sideways so she’s standing directly over the top of Marlena.
Although the stampede continues unabated, at least I know Marlena won’t be trampled before I can navigate the perimeter of the tent.
INEVITABLY, PEOPLE TRY to exit the big top the way they entered it—through the menagerie. I’m kneeling beside Marlena, cradling her head in my hands when people spew forth from the connection. They are a few feet in before they realize what’s going on.
The ones at the front come to a dead stop and are flung to the ground by the people behind them. They would be trampled except that the people behind them have now also seen the stampede.
The mass of animals suddenly changes direction, an interspecies flock—lions, llamas, and zebras running side by side with orangutans and chimps; a hyena shoulder to shoulder with a tiger. Twelve horses and a giraffe with a spider monkey hanging from its neck. The polar bear, lumbering on all fours. And all of them headed for the knot of people.
The crowd turns, shrieking, and trying to recede into the big top. The people at the very back, shoved so recently to the ground, dance in desperation, pounding the backs and shoulders of the people in front of them. The clog bursts free, and people and animals flee together in a great squealing mass. It’s hard to say who is more terrified—certainly the only thing any of the animals have in mind is saving their own hides. A Bengal tiger forces itself between a woman’s legs, sweeping her from the ground. She looks down and faints. Her husband grabs her by the armpits, lifting her off the tiger and dragging her into the big top.
In a matter of seconds, there are only three living creatures in the menagerie besides me: Rosie, Marlena, and Rex. The mangy old lion has crept back into his den and is huddled in the corner, quivering.
Marlena moans. She lifts a hand and drops it. I glance quickly at the thing that was August and decide I cannot let her see it again. I scoop her up and carry her out through the ticket gate.
The lot is nearly empty, the outer perimeter defined by people and animals, all running as far and as fast as they can, expanding and dispersing like a ring on the surface of a pond.
COLLECTION OF THE RINGLING CIRCUS, MUSEUM, SARASOTA, FLORIDA
Twenty-three
Post-stampede, day one.
We’re still finding and retrieving animals. We’ve caught a great many, but the ones that lend themselves to catching are not the ones the townsfolk are concerned about. Most of the cats are still missing, as is the bear.