'See, it works all right,' Malcolm said. 'You can get along back to your family now.'
The pup looked up at the boy, then lowered its head and butted gently against his leg. Malcolm scratched the coyote behind one ear.
'I wish I could keep you with me, little fella,' he said. 'It would be nice to have somebody to talk to. And we've got something in common, haven't we.'
The little coyote licked his hand. Malcolm drew it away.
'But it can't work that way, so don't get all friendly with me. First thing you know I'll be giving you a name.'
From behind him, Malcolm heard a soft growl. He turned and saw a female coyote standing with her legs braced, the fur bristling on the back of her neck.
He looked back at the pup. 'I think your mama's here.' The young coyote's eyes flicked from Malcolm to the female, then back to Malcolm.
'Go on,' Malcolm said. 'You know where you belong.'
The pup hesitated a moment longer, then trotted, limping slightly, to join the female. The two of them were quickly lost from view in the scrub oak.
'I wish,' said Malcolm to the empty hillside, 'that I knew where / belonged.'
He sank down on a mossy spot sheltered by a boulder and began to weep. Malcolm was not much given to crying, but here, alone and isolated, he gave himself up to the feeling of despair.
And as he wept his body began the spasms of the shape change. He could feel his downy beard growing thicker and coarser. He tasted blood as the long teeth pushed out through his gums. Because no one was around to see, this time Malcolm did not try to fight it. He was weary, and it had been a long, very long day.
It had been a long day too for Bateman Styles. It had, for that matter, been a long several years for Bateman Styles. A carnival showman, he was an outdated man scraping out a living in an outdated profession.
Until this year, however, he had managed somehow to find a spot every summer, even though it was with progressively smaller carnivals. In recent years he had fronted for a kootch show, an all-takers wrestler, a shooting gallery, fun house, ring-toss, wheel of fortune, and finally a freak tent. This year he had barely made it with the broken-down Samson Supershow. Or so he thought until early that afternoon when he was summoned to the Airstream Trailer of Samson himself, otherwise known as Jackie Moskowitz, former midget.
Styles had a premonition when the kid who ran the ferris wheel told him the boss wanted to see him. It was the day before they were to open in Silverdale, and Bateman knew his freaks were at best a borderline attraction. But what the hell, he reminded himself, the Samson Supershow was not Barnum & Bailey, and Silverdale, California, was not San Francisco. Or even Yreka.
Even in its boom days Silverdale had never been much more than a last watering hole for travellers coming down through the Inyo pass and heading for some insane reason into Death Valley. Today it did not even show on many maps. When pressed for a location, residents would say it was five miles from Wheeler. If that reference drew a blank look they would admit the town was fifteen miles out of Lone Pine. Anybody who did not know Lone Pine deserved no further explanation.
A far cry from the old days, Bateman Styles reflected as he tramped across the dusty field to Moskowitz's trailer. When he was a boy — Lord, that was fifty years ago — carnivals had played towns throughout the south, the west, and the middlewest without slowing down for nine months of the year. In those days the carnival was a big attraction in the towns, and even in cities of 50,000 or so population. Even with the Depression, people found dimes to spend riding the Octopus or trying to win a kewpie doll.
It was a lot different now. But hell, what wasn't? Bateman himself had been slowing down steadily for several years. He didn't have a lot of time left, but he always said he wanted to go out running a pitch somewhere. Only suckers die broke in bed.
He reached Jackie's trailer and banged on the aluminium door.
'It's open,' piped a squeaky voice from inside.
Bateman entered. Jackie Moskowitz sat on a bench at a fold-down table playing solitare. He brought himself up to table level by sitting on two copies of the Los Angeles Yellow Pages. He did not look up immediately.
Bateman remembered Jackie from the days when he was Major Tiny, an ill-tempered midget with Gallagher's Greater Shows. That was in the fifties. It was a phase-out time for carnivals, and just as well for Major Tiny, whose faulty pituitary gland unexpectedly betrayed him. In a period of less than a year he grew to four-eleven. Not a big man in the outside world, but laughably tall for a midget.
Luckily for him Jackie had saved his money, and he was able to buy a piece of the Gallagher's show when he got too big to work. It had since declined steadily until the ragtag collection of grifters, kids, and burnouts that made up Samson was all he had left.
'What's up, Jackie?' Bateman said, squeezing his paunch into the narrow space behind the table across from Jackie.
'I gotta cut back,' said the little man.
'Oh?' Styles braced himself for the bad news.
'Your show's gotta go.'
'Why mine?'
'Because it's the weakest in the whole shebang. I carried you last year for old time's sake. I was ready to do it again, but I got lookin' at the bills, and I can't hack it.'
'My tent's better than the kootch show,' Bateman protested. 'Those bimbos couldn't give a hard-on to a Mexican sailor. Or what about the Wheel of Fortune? Umbach's got his foot on the pedal so heavy it raises smoke when he stops the thing. Even the yokels aren't going for that.'
'Forget it, Bateman,' squeaked the little owner. 'You're gone.'
'Why me? Just give me a reason.'
'Okay. That bunch of so-called freaks you carry around wouldn't get a second look at a Kiwanis convention. Your giant, what is he, six-seven?'
'Six-eight-and-a-half,' Styles protested.
'Some giant. The yokels can see kids bigger than that at any high-school basketball game. And your bearded lady — you call that a beard?'
'You would if you kissed her.'
'God forbid. That five-o'clock shadow don't impress anybody, not even when she darkens it up with pencil shavings.'
'She's got three kids.'
'That don't make her no freak.'
'I mean how's she going to take care of them?'
'That ain't my problem. Let her do shave-cream commercials. And your sorry fire eater — what's he call himself, Flamo?'
'Torcho.'
'It's always one or the other. Do you know how old his schtick is? I mean, blowing lighter fluid out of your mouth went out with handlebar moustaches.'
'Handlebars are back.'
'Don't confuse the issue.'
'So my people aren't exactly New Wave. What of it? Most of the carnival is things that's been around for years. Nostalgia, that's what brings the folks in.'
'Well, in your case it ain't bringing enough of 'em in. You and your freaks are out, Bateman. Sorry, but that's the way it is. In another year I'll most likely be out too. You and me, we're the tail end of this business.'
Styles seemed to crumble where he was wedged into the small seating space. He stared blankly down at the worn cards laid out before Moskowitz.
'Can't you give me a week?'
'No way. Everything's too tight. Hell, Bateman, you can probably collect more on social security than you make travelling with a tincan outfit like this. You're sure as hell old enough for it.'
'They tell me that to collect any of that you have to show you put some in over the years.'
'No bull? How chickenshit.'
