'I do need me some pointers on that, Mister Billy Bob. I get a trifle confused sometimes and it just sets me to shuffling my feet trying to figure on the straight of it.'
Billy Bob stood there for a moment, like he was going to stare Albert down off the wagon seat, but finally he gave up. 'All right,' he said to me. 'You can ride, but its going to cost you them beans and taters, hear?'
I nodded.
This time Billy Bob turned and went inside the wagon, the moon of his butt my last sight of him for a while, the slamming of the wagon door my last sound.
I turned and looked up at Albert. He was leaning down with a big hand extended. Just before I took it, I got me another look at the critter in the cage, and when he looked at me, he peeled back his lips to show his teeth, like maybe he was smiling.
When I was on the seat beside Albert, he said, 'That Mister Billy Bobs gonna need to get them buttons fixed on the seat of his drawers, ain't he?'
We laughed at that.
After we got moving good, Albert said, 'You keep them beans and taters, boy. Taters upsets my stomach, and beans, they make Mister Billy Bob fart something awful. Just ain't no being around him.'
'That's good about them beans and taters,' I said, 'cause I ain't got none. All I got in this bag is some hard bread and jerked meat.'
Albert let out a roar, like that was the funniest thing he'd ever heard. I could tell right then and there he didn't have no real respect for Billy Bob.
'That critter in the cage?' I asked. 'Is that some kind of bear what caught on fire or something?'
Albert laughed again. 'Naw, it ain't no bear. That there is a jungle ape. Comes from the same place as all us colored. Africa. They calls him a chimpanzee. Name's Rot Toe on account of he got him some kind of disease once and one of his toes on his right foot rotted off. Least that's what the fella who sold him to Billy Bob said.'
I remembered the sign I'd read on the side of the wagon. 'Wrestling ape,' I said. 'That thing wrestles?'
'Now you got it,' Albert said.
I found a place for my crutches and the food bag, then I leaned back with my hands in my lap.
'You look a might bushed, little peckerwood. You wants to lay your head against my shoulder to rest, you go right ahead.'
'No thanks,' I said. But we hadn't gone too far down the road when I just couldn't keep my eyes open no more and I realized just how tired I really was. I lolled my head on Albert's big shoulder. I could smell the clean wool of his coat. And wasn't no time at all until I was asleep.
CHAPTER 3
I was thinking on this, feeling sorry for myself when Albert brought me out of it.
'Best get your butt down from here and get to doing.'
I'd been so lost in my thoughts, I hadn't noticed we'd stopped. We were under a big oak that grew out to the edge of the street, and around the oak were curled vines big as well ropes. Out to the right of the tree was a big clearing. It looked to have been made by fire. It was just the place for us to have our show.
Behind the clearing, and to the left of the oak, there was nothing but woods. And I do mean woods. It was thick with all manner of brush and brambles. It was just another thing that got me to thinking on the town and how odd it looked. Even the woods around it seemed different from any I'd seen before, and I found myself not wanting to stare out there for long for fear of seeing something I didn't want to see.
I got down and went around to Rot Toe's cage, limping as I went. That foot that had been broken got stiff when I rode too long or, on the other hand, walked on it too much.
I pulled back the tarp and let some fresh air in on the ape, and he grunted at me. There in the sharp, morning light, as the twilight died and the day came in, he suddenly, and for the first time, looked more than tired and old to me, he looked pathetic.
I said some words to him, got his leash off the top of the cage and used my key to let him out. He took my hand and walked with me around to the other side, and I put his leash on him without any trouble. While I did, he stood staring out at those woods, making soft sounds. He didn't care for them any better than I did.
Albert had come around and I said how I didn't like the woods and neither did Rot Toe.
'There ain't a thing to like about them,' he said, and he didn't look out there when he said it. 'You stay out of 'em, Little Buster, you hear?'
'Yes sir,' I said.
Albert smiled at me. 'You know what Billy Bob says?'
'Yeah.' And we said it together, 'You don't yes-sir a nigger.'
'All right, boy,' Albert said. 'Get up there on the wagon and get them posters, start putting them up. And you're going to need to talk to the sheriff.'
'Me? That's Billy Bob's job.'
'He ain't rightly in the condition to do it. And you might as well get used to it, cause he's going to make it your job anyhow.'
'How do you know he is?'
'I know Billy Bob, and the less work he has to do the happier man he is. He always finds me a new job or two at the end of the month, don't he?'
And he did. Albert and I did all the work. What Billy Bob did was shoot his pistols, talk about Hickok, read dime novels, and chase gals. That seemed like a pretty good career to me.
But there wasn't any use arguing. Billy Bob would just leave me somewhere high and dry. And the truth of the matter was, I didn't want to leave Albert and Rot Toe. Them and that wagon, scary as it could be sometimes, were all the home I knew.
I got the posters, a hammer and some tacks, and started up the street.
When we came to a town, we always went about getting the sheriff's permission for our show, if we could. If we couldn't we pulled the Magic Wagon outside the town sign where his star didn't count and went ahead with it.
Course, some sheriffs didn't care for that, and they'd come out and run us off, a sign or no sign. I hated it when we had to spend a few days in jail. It just made Billy Bob all that harder to get along with. He'd blame me for too much starch in his long Johns, go around frowning and kicking things, yelling at Albert and hitting Rot Toe with sticks until he got all the meanness out of him, or enough of it anyway. He was too full of it to ever get empty.
But most sheriffs were cooperative, and if they hesitated, Billy Bob could turn on the butter when he wanted to, and talk most of them into it. A sheriff is just like any other fella, in spite of what you might think. He likes a bit of a change now and then, and our show was better than spending his afternoons and early evenings with his heels on his desk, or going over to the saloon to pistol-whip a bunch of drunks into a stupor. Our shows had the added advantage of entertainment before the pistol-whipping, as most of the drunks would show up to see our acts and get looped as usual, only on our Cure-All if they didn't remember a pocket flask of their own. This being the case, the sheriff could watch our little act, then beat the drunks over the head with his gun barrel instead of having to make a special trip on over to the saloon.
So it was with only a few misgivings that I made my way over to the sheriff's office.
When I found it, the door was locked and there was a messy written sign tacked to it: I AINT HERE NOW AND AINT GONNA BE TILL SATERDEE. HOLD ALL KILLINS AND SICH TILL I GIT BAK OR LOK YER OWNSEF UP. RILEE OVER TO THE SALOON HAS THE KEE.
I could just imagine that lawman spit-wetting his pencil and snickering over that sign as he wrote it. As Albert told me time and again, 'You can say what you wants about them sheriffs, but them that I've known of has mostly got a sense of humor.'
It also brought to mind a story Albert told me once about this sheriff down San Antone-way that could tell a joke better than you ever heard. Way Albert told it, he could get a fella laughing all the way out of the jail, up the gallows steps, and still cackling till the rope cut him off. Which is understandable at that point.
But Albert said this sheriff was good. He was not only a joker, he was a prankster. When things got slow
