As they passed it, Mange pointed at the smoking ruin. "I must've told them a thousand times that torching doesn't help. Eliminated that a long time ago." He held out his hands and let them slap against his legs. "Still, every couple of nights, a torch gets tossed into an empty house."
Packy followed the vet into the infirmary. By the light of four candles, he could see the quadruple rows of plank beds extending the length of the large room.
Mange muttered out loud. "Why do a few get the bug then get better while everyone else curls up and dies? Why don't the newly born get the bug at all?" He walked past a few beds until he stood looking down at Shiner Pete and Little Will. Packy joined him.
They were both quiet and resting comfortably. Their color was good and the fever seemed to be past. But they talked about projecting their minds all over the planet, seeing huge green lizards in the swamp, and even finding and talking with Waco Whacko's eggs. "The fever was high; it's always high. We've had a number of cases of brain damage." Mange shook his head. "The limited telepathic ability of some of the show kids is something I discussed with Bone Breaker and that Ssendissian, Nhissia. But even the Ssendissians can't release their thoughts from their bodies, sailing through space and time. The fever is always very high; the skin hot to the touch. Perhaps brain damage."
Packy rubbed his chin and looked at the vet. "Waco's snakes couldn't move things with their thoughts, could they?"
"Telekinesis?" Mange shook his head. "No."
"Little Will can. A bunch of those on the road gang saw her move a helluva huge rock."
Mange raised his eyebrows. "And how many of those had the bug?"
"I don't know, but—"
"Did you see her move the rock?"
Packy shook his head.
Mange shook his head again and walked toward the door. "What I wouldn't give just for a goddamned thermometer."
Although the ice wagons began rolling their sawdust-packed cargos through the town on their way to Tarzak, The Season the fourth saw no one from Miira or the Emerald Valley travel south for the celebration. There were too many new grave markers; too many down with the bug; the recovered too weak to travel. Those who could gathered in Miira's tiny square and observed The Show by watching Packy Dern put Robber through her routine. A week later Packy was in his bed, down with the bug.
It was on the thirteenth of Wind, the fifth year since the crash, that Little Will rose from her bed and hobbled out into the sunshine. As she felt the warmth of the sun reach to her bones, she reached her hand inside her robes and felt the way her ribcage protruded in front of her sunken abdomen. Everyone in Miira looked as though they were starving to death.
Pete was still in bed; still weak.
She moved slowly down the street until she came to Packy's house. Cookie Jo was sitting on the stone bench in front of the house nursing her child, Mort.
"Cookie, how's Packy?"
Cookie Jo nodded toward one end of the bench. "Sit down, Little Will. You look like a strong wind'd blow you away."
Little Will shook her head. "The sun does me good. Besides, if I sit down, I don't know how long it would be before I could get up again." She nodded toward the door. "How's Packy?"
A look came into Cookie Jo's eyes. "I don't know. Mange says the fever's past. But Packy just stays in bed like he was waiting to die. He won't eat anything."
Little Will held her hand to her forehead as dizzyness whirled the ground. "Maybe I will sit down for a bit." She took the three steps necessary and dropped down upon the bench.
"Are you better now?"
"Better. I'm still a little wobbly on my pins."
Cookie Jo rearranged her baby, then looked at Little Will. "Honey, are you sure you should be up? If you had a mirror right now, you'd scare yourself half to death."
"If I was a bikini queen, I'd be in the ballet."
"How's Pete?"
Little Will shook her head. "Weak. I think he's on the mend, though." She looked into the dark doorway of Packy's house, then back at Cookie Jo. "Is it okay if I go in and see him?"
"He won't talk to anyone. Not even me."
Little Will placed her hand against the wall of the house and pushed herself to her feet. Still holding onto the wall, she entered the room and stopped inside the door. "Packy?"
Hearing no answer, she walked to the window to her right and pulled aside the piece of blanket that covered it. Sunlight flooded the room. "Pull back that curtain."
Little Will looked in the direction of the weak voice and saw Packy's emaciated form in bed. "What are you, Packy, a bat?"
"Pull back the curtain and get out of here."
Little Will hobbled to the next window and opened it to the light. "Packy, you have to have light to put your clothes on."
"Clothes?" The boss elephant man stared at her with sunken eyes. "I'm not putting on any clothes, and if you got any sense, you'd get yourself back to bed."
Little Will folded her arms and looked down at Packy. "I can't go to bed. There's bull to be pushed."
Packy turned his face to the wall. "Just go away, Little Will. Please."
"Just going to curl up and die, huh? You know what Bullhook Willy would've said."
Packy turned on his side, facing the wall. "He's dead. Everybody's dead. Every goddamned body's dead."
Little Will felt the tears spring to her eyes. "He'd say, 'Bullhand, get your narrow ass out of that hay and push some bull!' " She fumed at Packy's back for a moment, then lifted her right leg and kicked the boss elephant man in the soft end.
"Ow!"
Packy rolled over and sat up as Little Will staggered to regain her balance, "dammit, Little Will, I don't care if you are married! I'm gonna whip your butt till it glows in the goddamned dark!"
She turned toward the door. "First you have to catch me." Little Will stepped outside and leaned against the doorframe. The street seemed to tip and swim in front of her face. "Cookie? Cookie?"
Little Will felt strong hands grip her upper arms. "Are you all right?"
"Get me back to my bed. I can't walk..."
She seemed to fall through a hole in the planet's crust. And the planet was hollow, dark, and cold.
Bullhook Willy was drunk. She remembered that she was nine years old. It was only later that she figured out that her father had been carrying a few snorts under his belt.
They had been in the main sleeping bay of the Baraboo. Since he wasn't hitched to anything or anyone, Bullhook Willy slept with the rest of the bullhands. He had taken a long pull from a bottle, then pointed the neck of the bottle at her.
"There's not a goddamned bullhand on this ship who's worth a crap without his bull." He tapped the bottleneck against his chest. "Me too. Especially me." He took another pull, lowered the bottle to his lap, then smiled at her. "Lookit me, kid. Lookit me hard. I'm nothing without those bulls. Not a damned thing."
He rubbed his eyes, then looked above her at something only he could see. "A bullhand, his name was Goober Jones, worked the Snow Show out of Seattle when Poison Jim and I were together. Damn Goober. He turned his bull into an outlaw... killed Poison Jim." He shook his head and looked back up at that nothingness. "You ever find a bullhand who thinks he's something without his rubber mule, you kill that sonofabitch or throw 'im out on the lot. Got no business swinging a bullhook."
Then, with his hand, he waved images from his mind and laughed. He told her a story. It was the one about Kraut Stuka. Kraut was filing his bull's toenails when the show's new vet asked Kraut why the bull was making that "pok-a-ta-pok-a-ta" sound with her trunk.
" 'Oh,' says Kraut going back to his bull's pedicure, 'this bull's an outboard.' "
She didn't know what an outboard was. But she laughed, because Bullhook Willy laughed. And Bullhook Willy was boss elephant man for O'Hara's Greater Shows. She laughed because the laughter of giants is infectious. And Bullhook Willy was a giant. He was the man in charge of the care, feeding, performance, training, and procurement of over a hundred of the largest land mammals known anywhere in the universe.