“She’s afraid,” said Peg. “Look at her eyes.”
Puddles’ eyes were yellow with black hatred in their centers, and they were getting bigger and bigger. I put the chair between me and Puddles.
“I’ll try not to frighten her,” I said with what I hoped was bitter sarcasm. It probably came out more like hysterical fear.
Puddles swiped at the chair with a paw and let out a growl. I held onto the chair.
“That’s part of her act,” Peg whispered.
“What’s the next part?”
“You put the chair down and stick your head in her mouth,” Peg explained behind me while Shelly switched to, “Oh no … oh no … oh no.”
“I think I’ll improvise instead,” I said, bringing the chair in front of me. Puddles cocked her head and looked puzzled. This was not the act, and I was not the trainer. She had latched onto something familiar in unfamiliar territory, but I wasn’t playing the game.
“I am not putting this chair down and sticking my head in her mouth,” I said through my teeth.
“Toby, do it, for God’s sake,” whimpered Shelly.
For a wild fraction of a second, I lost all fear. Once a woman in Pomona, or it may have been Palm Springs, told me she had jumped from a roof without planning to do it, just because she found herself looking down and suddenly lost touch of what it would mean. One thing that saved me from the jaws of Puddles was Puddles’ mouth. It was open and full of saliva and teeth.
“I’m not putting my head in that mouth,” I cried.
“I put my hands in worse mouths than that every day,” Shelly pleaded.
“Forget it, Shel, or do it yourself.”
Puddles took a tentative swipe again, but it didn’t have the showmanship of the first swing. It didn’t even have a roar.
“She’s making up her mind, I think,” said Peg.
“I’m going to hit the sonofabitch in the head with the chair. When I do it, run like hell,” I said, trying to smile reassuringly at the lion who looked into my face. I was probably uglier than the lion, but she seemed curious.
“That’s a stinking plan,” shrieked Shelly.
“I have none better,” I said, raising the chair slowly. “Get ready, Peg.”
“Toby,” she said, clutching my arm. “You could hurt her.”
“I hope so,” I said. “I really hope so.”
Puddles seemed to understand something of what was going on. She opened her mouth, bared her teeth, roared and eliminated the last of the space between us. The chair should have come down in her face, but I knew it was still up in the air, maybe floating up there with my hands and arms attached. A marvel of the universe.
“Stop that,” came a voice from behind me as Puddles was about to eat my cheek. When the voice hit, Puddles took one step backward, hesitated, and looked as if she were going to spring.
“I said stop,” shouted the blond lion tamer Sandoval, stepping to my side. The lion backed up two steps and growled.
“Chair,” he said in a confident voice. “Hand me the chair quickly.”
I pleaded with my arms to respond, and they did. I thanked them and watched the trainer step forward, driving Puddles back.
“Now,” he said commandingly, “we go back to your cage. Right now. I will like you very much if you go back to your cage, but I will not like you very much if you do not.”
I don’t know if the lion understood the words spoken with a European accent I couldn’t pinpoint, but she knew she was in the presence of the boss.
“Now lie down,” the man commanded softly. “Down.” And the lion went down.
“Thanks,” I said, without looking back at Peg, who clutched my arm, or Shelly, who was breathing loudly enough to rouse the Japanese at sea.
“Very slowly,” he said. “Very slowly go back to the tent where the cage is, and bring Henry and some help. Bring the roll cage in the corner. Quick, but slow.”
I moved with what I thought was a quick but slow pace back through the tent flap, pulling Peg with me. Shelly sat petrified in the dirt, his eyes fixed on Puddles.
“Let’s go, Shel,” I said, reaching down for him, but he didn’t move and I didn’t have time to wait. Outside the tent, Peg let go of my arm and I ran for the tent a few dozen yards away. Gargantua was dozing. So was Henry.
“Hurry,” I shouted. “The pull cage. Lion’s in the tent over there.” I pointed meaninglessly.
Henry moved faster than I thought a Henry could move behind the lion cage and pulled a smaller cage on wheels that didn’t look big enough to hold Puddles.
“Gimme a hand,” grunted Henry. “I ain’t endowed enough.”
With my endowment and his we got the small cage rolling and out into the night. I glanced in the direction of the big top and could see a few people leaving. The music was going furiously, but whatever the stall, it wasn’t working for some of the people.
“I seen the guy who done it,” Henry said. “Skunking around. Little fat guy, sweaty guy with no hair and glasses.”
“Not him,” I panted. Shelly had managed to get spotted by Henry within five minutes of following him. We went through the flap of the storage tent. Nothing had changed. Neither man nor animal had moved.
The sudden arrival of Henry and me startled Puddles, who stood up.
“Shhh,” said Sandoval, putting his finger to his lips. “You back there, be quiet. Be quiet.”
“That’s him,” shouted Henry, pointing at Shelly.
“Forget him,” I said to Henry. “Open the cage.”
Unsure of whether to watch Shelly or Puddles, Henry opened the door of the cage and said, “Open.”
The tamer coaxed the lion toward him with his hand. “Come, yes, come with me,” he said, showing teeth which gleamed even in this dim light. The music of “The Washington and Lee March” filtered in from the big top and seemed to give Puddles the feeling that this was something a bit more familiar.
“Yes,” said the tamer, crouching and backing up next to the cage. “You didn’t want to run away, did you? No. You just ran to the closest dark place. Now, into the cage. Go, Go.”
And into the cage went Puddles with only one brief pause to swipe a paw at the tamer and try to rip his right arm to the bone from elbow to wrist.
“Ahhh,” gargled Shelly, as the tamer pushed the door closed on the big cat.
“Wheel her back,” he said to Henry, hardly noticing that he might be bleeding to death.
“Can’t do it by myself,” bleated Henry, showing no great interest in the maimed man before him.
“Shelly, get off your behind and help,” I shouted, walking over to Sandoval, who showed nothing, didn’t even touch his arm.
Shelly managed to get up and over to Henry, who eyed him with great suspicion.
“Get the doctor,” I said.
“No,” said the tamer in the same commanding tone he had used with Puddles. “First get that cat out of here.”
Shelly and Henry obeyed as quickly as they could and made a not very fast exit, pulling the rattling caged lion outside.
“The cat could not see me reacting,” explained the tamer when the animal was gone. “If she saw me showing fear, I’d never be able to use her again.”
“You may never use that arm again,” I said, looking for something to slow down the bleeding. I took off my jacket and wrapped it around his arm. He sagged back, and I put out both arms to catch him. He felt cold.
The blood soaked my jacket red almost instantly. I let one hand reach for the chair, set it right, and guided the tamer into it. He nodded thanks as people rushed into the tent around us.
“Doc’s on the way,” said someone.
Sandoval didn’t even nod. Elder was there, propping him up, and so were two or three others I hadn’t met. Then Doc Ogle came in with his plaid bag. He squinted, trying to find his patient.
“Here, Doc,” said Elder.
The doctor came over to us and looked down at me with obvious disdain.
“Not me,” I said. “Him. His arm.”
Then the doctor spotted what everyone in the tent had seen the second they came in.
“If you hide the man,” he said irritably, “how the hell am I supposed to treat him? What happened to him?”