Chicago. In the time between I tried to avoid Mr. Indrasil as much
as possible and kept the cat cages spotlessly clean. On the day
before we pulled out for St. Louis, I asked Chips Baily and Sally
O'Hara, the red-headed wire walker, if Mr. Legere and Mr. Indrasil
knew each other. I was pretty sure they did, because Mr. Legere
was hardly following the circus to eat our fabulous lime ice.
Sally and Chips looked at each other over their coffee cups. 'No
one knows much about what's between those, two,' she said. 'But
it's been going on for a long time maybe twenty years. Ever since
Mr. Indrasil came over from Ringling Brothers, and maybe before
that.'
Chips nodded. 'This Legere guy picks up the circus almost every
year when we swing through the Midwest and stays with us until
we catch the train for Florida in Little Rock. Makes old Leopard
Man touchy as one of his cats.'
'He told me he was a police-man,' I said. 'What do you suppose
he looks for around here? You don't suppose Mr. Indrasil--?'
Chips and Sally looked at each other strangely, and both just about
broke their backs getting up. 'Got to see those weights and counter
weights get stored right,' Sally said, and Chips muttered something
not too convincing about checking on the rear axle of his U-Haul.
And that's about the way any conversation concerning Mt. Indrasil
or Mr. Legere usually broke up--- hurriedly, with many hard-
forced excuses.
We said farewell to Illinois and comfort at the same time. A killing
hot spell came on, seemingly at the very instant we crossed the
border, and it stayed with us for the next month and a half, as we
moved slowly across Missouri and into Kansas. Everyone grew
short of temper, including the animals. And that, of course,
included the cats, which were Mr. Indrasil's responsibility. He rode
the roustabouts unmercifully, and myself in particular. I grinned
and tried to bear it, even though I had my own case of prickly heat.
You just don't argue with a crazy man, and I'd pretty well decided
that was what Mr. Indrasil was.
No one was getting any sleep, and that is the curse of all circus
performers. Loss of sleep slows up reflexes, and slow reflexes
make for danger. In Independence Sally O'Hara fell seventy-five
feet into the nylon netting and fractured her shoulder. Andrea
Solienni, our bareback rider, fell off one of her horses during
rehearsal and was knocked unconscious by a flying hoof. Chips
Baily suffered silently with the fever that was always with him, his
face a waxen mask, with cold perspiration clustered at each temple.
And in many ways, Mr. Indrasil had the roughest row to hoe of all.
The cats were nervous and short-tempered, and every time he
stepped into the Demon Cat Cage, as it was billed, he took his life
in his hands. He was feeding the lions ordinate amounts of raw
meat right before he went on, something that lion tamers rarely do,
contrary to popular belief. His face grew drawn and haggard, and
his eyes were wild.
Mr. Legere was almost always there, by Green Terror's cage,
