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.
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, 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.”
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.
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.
