Lilly tried to smile. “That’s right, baby girl. That’s Pepper.”
“Why don’t you take Phoebe back to our car,” Cole said. “I can load Pepper.”
Glory held out her arms. “Here,” she said to Lilly. “I’ll take her. You go with Pepper. She needs you.”
“Are you sure?” Lilly said.
“Of course,” Glory said. “Take as long as you need. Our little princess will be fine.”
Lilly kissed Phoebe again and handed her to Glory. “Thank you.”
“No problem,” Glory said. She hugged Lilly again, then took Phoebe back to her car.
The rest of the Barlow Brothers’ performers and workers gathered along the tracks to watch Pepper return. Dolly the World’s Most Beautiful Fat Woman wept uncontrollably while Ruby and Rosy patted her wide shoulders, tears running down their rouged faces. The Flying Zoppe Brothers stood with the Bally girls and Mrs. Benini, all with somber faces. With a quivering chin, Natasha the trapeze artist held tight to Chloe the tightrope walker’s hand. Aldo the Alligator Man wiped Dina the Living Half Girl’s cheeks, and the midgets, Penelope and Pierre, had their arms around each other. There wasn’t a dry eye in the lineup.
When Lilly and Cole loaded Pepper onto the train, Flossie and Petunia reached out to her with their trunks, swaying and making low, moaning noises. Pepper stopped briefly in front of JoJo’s empty spot, her ears and trunk drooping, then made her way into her own. She went down on her knees in the straw and lay on her side, her eyes wet, her face streaked with tears. Cole fastened her leg chain to the wall and Lilly sat beside her, caressing her wrinkled cheek. Hank came into the stock car and knelt down to examine Pepper.
“Is she going to be all right?” Lilly said.
“I think so,” Hank said. “If the bullets had hit anything vital, she’d be down by now.”
Lilly got to her feet and kissed Pepper’s forehead. “I’ll be right back,” she whispered. “Just hold on, girl.”
She went with Cole over to the open stock car door. Everyone looked up at them expectantly.
“She’s restrained,” Cole said to Mr. Barlow and the sheriff.
“Good,” the sheriff said. “Now you’d best pack up and leave. We don’t need no murderin’ elephant around these parts.”
“Now hold on,” Mr. Barlow said. “This is an important stop for us and we’re scheduled for three shows. We’re just picking up after nearly losing everything in a tornado, and on top of that, I lost my long-time business partner and the owner of the sideshow.” He lowered his head and pinched the bridge of his nose as if struggling to hold himself together. After a long moment, he took a deep breath, sighed long and loud, and looked up. “If we don’t do tomorrow’s show, it could mean ruin. You’re not going to kick a hardworking man when he’s down, are you?” He clapped the sheriff on the shoulder. “These are hard times, my friend.”
“You’re right, these are hard times,” the sheriff said. “And I was hired to keep the people in this county safe. I’m not going to lose my job over a damn elephant.”
Mr. Barlow nodded as if he understood, then reached into his pocket, pulled out a money clip, and started counting out a stack of bills. “That bull won’t appear in any of my shows,” he said. “You have my word.”
The sheriff scowled. “Are you trying to bribe me, Mr. Barlow?”
“Just want to say thank you for your service here today,” Mr. Barlow said. “Your quick action saved a lot of lives and we’re grateful for it.” He held out the money.
The sheriff looked at the ground a moment, hiked up the belt of his pants, then took the bills and shoved them in his pocket. “I was planning on bringing the twins to the show tomorrow,” he said. “They been looking forward to it for a week and the last thing I want to do is disappoint my girls.”
“Perfectly understandable,” Mr. Barlow said. “And to show you how much I appreciate your support, there’ll be free tickets for you and your family waiting at the ticket booth.”
The sheriff wrinkled his brow. “Free tickets or not, I’m not going to be happy if I see an elephant with patched bullet holes in the ring.”
“Of course not,” Mr. Barlow said. “That elephant is a workhorse from now on, nothing more.”
“You better be telling the truth, or I’ll shut you down and run you out of town for good.”
“I can assure you,” Mr. Barlow said. “Taking that risk wouldn’t be a good business move. And if there’s one thing I pride myself on, it’s being a smart businessman. I meant it when I said I’ll kill that bull myself if necessary.” He extended his hand.
The sheriff shook Mr. Barlow’s hand, then left. Mr. Barlow moved closer to the stock car and fixed hard eyes on Lilly and Cole, eyes that said, This is your fault.
*
That night, Glory took care of Phoebe while Lilly and Cole slept in the stock car with Pepper. Hank had pulled the bullets out of Pepper’s hide and, to ward off infection, applied a thick coating of zinc ointment to the wounds. Lilly lay next to Cole in the straw, awake and silently weeping, trying to grasp the nightmarish reality that JoJo was gone, Pepper had killed Merrick, and now, somehow, Pepper was going to pay for following her natural-born instincts. Just thinking about someone taking Phoebe made Lilly’s heart cramp with panic and her stomach churn with fear. No wonder Pepper went wild. Lilly would have too. The difference between her and Pepper was that no one would shoot her for trying to save her baby.
She could only imagine the terror and grief Pepper must have felt when the Rowe & Company handlers took her son, and the pain she must be in now, not only from the her physical wounds, but from her shattered heart. How was she even breathing? At least Mr. Barlow didn’t let the sheriff kill her. But what was going to happen to Pepper now? Was Mr. Barlow going to make her a workhorse like he said, or would he try to sell her? Or even worse, would he shoot her and feed her to the cats?
Then Lilly pictured JoJo, alone and afraid in the boxcar on the other train, and her tears started all over again. She knew that horrible, heavy ache of homesickness in his chest, that helplessness of being ripped from everything familiar, that all-consuming terror of imagining what was going to happen next. Was JoJo wondering why she and Cole and Pepper let strangers take him? Did he think they had gotten rid of him on purpose? The thought of JoJo feeling unloved and discarded was almost more than she could bear. She closed her flooding eyes and prayed for exhaustion to overtake her, to release her into sleep. Hours later, when it finally did, she slept in fit and starts, alternating between dreams of being locked in her old attic bedroom and riding Pepper in the grand parade.
The next morning, the stock car door slid open and sunshine cut like a knife through the gloomy interior, hay chafe and dust floating in the yellow light. Someone entered and Lilly looked toward the door, rubbing her swollen eyes and expecting to see Hank. When she saw Glory standing over her, she bolted upright, fear gripping her throat.