"For a man that sticks his arm up a bull's hind end for a living, Mange, you sure are talking up a shrink storm."
Mange looked toward Packy's hootch. "I make a better shrink that you do an architect."
Packy snorted. "That's no damned lie." He looked at the show's veterinarian. "Mange, what am I going to do with her?"
Mange thought upon it for a long time. He looked up at the boss elephant man. "Tell her about what she does for a living."
"You mean the show? The show's dead."
The veterinarian shook his head. "No. I don't mean the show. Tell her about the bulls and the bullhands." Mange pushed himself to his feet. "I'd better get back." He grinned. "I'm going to deliver a baby."
"A baby what?"
"A baby human, plopbrain. Our Saint Travers is about to increase our numbers by one."
Mange went back into the sick shack and Packy went back to staring at his hootch. He thought for a moment about Jewel Travers, Wild West equestrian, known to the show as "Saint." Her husband, Shorty was dead. "Yet life goes on." Packy stood and headed toward his hootch. "And on, and on, and on."
Gangs in the Emerald Valley and in Tarzak would connect their own cars with roads the best they could without bulls or horses, and would then begin cutting their ways toward the gangs working north and south from Miira. Pony Red Miira bossed the road gang working south toward Tarzak, while Packy Dern bossed the gang that worked its way through the shorter, but more treacherous, Snake Mountain Gap.
At night Packy Dern's gang would huddle around fires and talk about nothing—old show stories, idle speculations about the next day's work, anything but the fix they were in. Little Will would remain silent, watching. Ming was with the Snake Mountain gang, and it seemed that at any time Bullhook Willy might appear, swinging his gold-tipped bullhook, bellowing out his orders to the rest of the bullhands. Then she would see Madman Mulligan pushing Ming. Then she would look at the bullhook in her hands and softly cry.
The sun would rise, the gang would begin the next day's work, and Little Will would remain at the camp either staring at her bullhook or into the depths of the gorge. Thirty days into the cut, and Packy began bringing Little Will with him to work.
Little Will sat quietly in the back of the wagon watching the bullhands and hostlers work their animals. With harness, carefully planned avalanches, but more often with shovels and backs, the crew cut their way up the steep incline to get above the walls of the Gap. The boiling river at the bottom of the gorge made a constant background roar causing both bullhands and hostlers to shout their instructions to their animals. The noise the river made sounded like the crowd in the blues on a good night. The river was named The Push.
Packy Dern brought Robber to a stop next to the wagon. "Little Will?"
She remained motionless. "Yes?"
"Honey, you can't just sit around all the time. It's not good."
"I don't feel like doing anything." She looked down, shook her head, and sniffed. "Don't want to do anything."
She was talking now. But the fact registered on no one, including herself. She talked because the thoughts wouldn't talk for her. That's all she knew. No big deal.
Packy reached out a hand and gave Little Will's back an unacknowledged pat. He studied her for a moment, shook his head, then shouted, "Mile up, girl!" Robber lumbered forward where Packy turned her around to hitch her harness to a wagon recently filled with dirt and rock.
Little Will wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands and turned to see Stub Jacobs bringing Reg's wagonload of fill to the edge of the cliff that formed the gap wall. She saw him call Reg to a halt, then Stub went back to the wagon to watch as two men placed rocks behind the wheels. They waved as Stub and the bullhand called to Reg to back up. As the bull backed toward the cliff's edge, the front of the wagon rose causing the wagon to begin emptying its load.
She saw it before it happened. The rock disappearing in a cloud of dust, the wagon falling over the cliff—
"Wait!" Her tiny scream was drowned by the roar from The Push. She began climbing up the side of the wagon. "Wait! Stop!" As the dirt aad rock began falling down the face of the cliff, the rock behind the wagon's left wheel crumbled slewing the wagon around. Stub called to Reg, but the wagon's other wheel jumped the rock behind it and the wagon went over the cliff.
Reg dug in as the weight of the wagon pulled her toward the gap and Stub rushed behind her and began trying to free the harness from the wagon. One of the men threw Stub a knife, and in seconds the harness parted. The wagon fell and Stub Jacobs fell with it, his screams covered by the roar of the water. Reg stood alone on the edge of the cliff waiting for Stub to hand out the next order.
Work stopped and bullhands and hostlers gathered at the edge of the cliff and looked down. Little Will climbed down from the wagon and walked over to Reg. She stood in front of the bull, reached out a hand, and stroked her trunk. "It's me, Reg. Do you remember me?"
Reg gently wrapped her trunk around Little Will's shoulders. Little Will looked up at Reg's eyes. "I have to go get something first, Reg."
Little Will went back to the wagon and returned carrying a mahogany-handled, gold-tipped bullhook. She stood by Reg's left front leg. "Let's go, Reg. There's work to do."
She led the elephant away from the cliff and backed her up to the next wagon in line. Little Will looked back to see Packy staring at her. "Packy, I need someone to repair Reg's harness."
Packy continued staring at her, then he looked at those standing around at the edge of the cliff. Shiner Pete Adnelli nodded at Packy and moved off to repair the harness. The rest returned to their animals and shovels.
That night around the fire, they talked about Stub Jacobs. Not a spectacular human being; just another elephant tramp, which made him a spectacular human being in some circles.
Packy held Little Will and talked. "Honey, did you ever wonder why the show don't have big legends—super heroes—like Paul Bunyan or Pecos Pete?"
Little Will shook her head. "Who are they?"
"See, now. The loggers in the north end of the union used to storytell about a monster logger name of Paul Bunyan. He was so big that his footprints left lakes, and he could take his ax and fell a thousand trees at a time. Cowboys out in the west end of the union used to talk of Pecos Pete. Pete would wrassel rivers and windstorms and tame 'em. But, honey, loggin' and bein' a cowboy are small things next to bein' a trouper. The show is full of heroes, and it'd take one bungus imagination to come up with something like a Paul Bunyan for the circus."
Waxy Adnelli, boss harnessman, leaned forward and pointed across the fire at Little Will. "At the clem on Masstone I saw Stub Jacobs, along with Mr. John and your papa, wade into a mean bunch of soldiers with nothin' but tent stakes, and they flattened the lot of 'em."
Dot the Pot Drake nodded as she stared into the fire. "Bottle Bottom got killed in that clem." She looked up at Little Will. "He was the route book man before the show picked up that lumpy guy from the planet Pendiia, Warts." Dot tossed a tiny stick into the fire. "And now he's dead as a doornail."
The silence around the fire grew oppressive, and one by one they left the flames to find a private place to sleep. Little Will, still looking into the fire, leaned against Packy. "How come they don't talk like they used to? Back before the crash?"
Packy put his left arm around Little Will's shoulders. "Don't know if I can put it right, Little Will. Back before they were troupers. Now they're a road gang. It'd be all right if they could see the end of this season; but they can't. We're stuck, there's nothin' anybody can do about it, and it sticks in their throats. If they'd start cussin' Arnheim, makin' jokes, things'd be back to normal. But they don't want to talk about it. And as long as they don't talk about it, Arnheim has us whipped."