fangs like ivory spikes. His roars usually filled the circus grounds -
fierce, angry, and utterly savage. He seemed to scream defiance
and frustration at the whole world.
Chips Baily, who had been with Farnum &Williams since Lord
knew when, told me that Mr. Indrasil used to use Green Terror in
his act, until one night when the tiger leaped suddenly from its
perch and almost ripped his head from his shoulders before he
could get out of' the cage. I noticed that Mr. Indrasil always wore,
his hair long down the back of his neck.
I can still remember the tableau that day in Steubenville. It was
hot, sweatingly hot, and we had a shirtsleeve crowd. That was why
Mr. Legere and Mr. Indrasil stood out. Mr. Legere, standing
silently by the tiger cage, was fully dressed in a suit and vest, his
face unmarked by perspiration. And Mr. Indrasil, clad in one of his
beautiful silk shirts and white whipcord breeches, was staring at
them both, his face dead-white, his eyes bulging in lunatic anger,
hate, and fear. He was carrying a currycomb and brush, and his
hands were trembling as they clenched on them spasmodically.
Suddenly he saw me, and his anger found vent. "You!" He
shouted. "Johnston!"
"Yes sir?" I felt a crawling in the pit of my stomach. I knew I was
about to have the wrath of Indrasil vented on me, and the thought
turned me weak with fear. I like to think I'm as brave as the next,
and if it had been anyone else, I think I would have been fully
determined to stand up for myself. But it wasn't anyone else. It was
Mr. Indrasil, and his eyes were mad.
"These cages, Johnston. Are they supposed to be clean?" He
pointed a finger, and I followed it. I saw four errant wisps of straw
and an incriminating puddle of hose water in the far corner of one.
"Y-yes, sir," I said, and what was intended to be firmness became
palsied bravado.
Silence, like the electric pause before a downpour. People were
beginning to look, and I was dimly aware that Mr. Legere was
staring at us with his bottomless eyes.
"Yes, sir?" Mr. Indrasil thundered suddenly. "Yes, sir? Yes, sir?
Don't insult my intelligence, boy! Don't you think I can see?
Smell? Did you use the disinfectant?''
"I used disinfectant yes----"
"Don't answer me back!" He screeched, and then the sudden drop
in his voice made my skin crawl. "Don't you dare answer me
back." Everyone was staring now. I wanted to retch, to die. "Now
you get the hell into that tool shed, and you get that disinfectant
and swab out those cages," he whispered, measuring every word.
One hand suddenly shot out, grasping my shoulder. "And don't you
ever, ever, speak back to me again."
I don't know where the words came from, but they were suddenly
there, spilling off my lips. "I didn't speak back to you, Mr. Indrasil,
and I don't like you saying I did. I-- resent it. Now let me go."
His face went suddenly red, then white, then almost saffron with
rage. His eyes were blazing doorways to hell.
Right then I thought I was going to die.
He made an inarticulate gagging sound, and the grip on my
shoulder became excruciating. His right hand went up...up...up,
and then descended with unbelievable speed.
If that hand had connected with my face, it would have knocked
me senseless at best. At worst, it would have broken my neck.
It did not connect.
Another hand materialized magically out of space, right in front of
me. The two straining limbs came together with a flat Smacking
sound. It was Mr. Legere.
"Leave the boy alone," he said emotionlessly.
Mr. Indrasil stared at him for a long second, and I think there was
nothing so unpleasant in the whole business as watching the fear of
Mr. Legere and the mad lust to hurt (or to kill!) mix in those
terrible eyes.
Then he turned and stalked away.
I turned to look at Mr. Legere. "Thank you," I said.
"Don't thank me." And it wasn't a "don't thank me," but a "don't
thank me.'' Not a gesture of modesty but a literal command. In a
sudden flash of intuition empathy if you will I understood
exactly what he meant by that comment. I was a pawn in what
must have been a long combat between the two of them. I had been
captured by Mr. Legere rather than Mr. Indrasil. He had stopped
the lion tamer not because he felt for me, but because it gained him
an advantage, however slight, in their private war.
"What's your name?" I asked, not at all offended by what I had
inferred. He had, after all, been honest with me.
"Legere," he said briefly. He turned to go.
"Are you with a circus?" I asked, not wanting to let him go so
easily. "You seemed to know --- him."
A faint smile touched his thin lips, and warmth kindled in his eyes
for a moment; "No. You might call me a-policeman." And before I
could reply, he had disappeared into the surging throng passing by.
The next day we picked up stakes and moved on.
I saw Mr. Legere again in Danville and, two weeks later, in
Chicago. In the time between I tried to avoid Mr. Indrasil as much
as possible and kept the cat cages spotlessly clean. On the day
before we pulled out for St. Louis, I asked Chips Baily and Sally
O'Hara, the red-headed wire walker, if Mr. Legere and Mr. Indrasil
knew each other. I was pretty sure they did, because Mr. Legere
was hardly following the circus to eat our fabulous lime ice.
Sally and Chips looked at each other over their coffee cups. "No
one knows much about what's between those, two," she said. "But
it's been going on for a long time maybe twenty years. Ever since
Mr. Indrasil came over from Ringling Brothers, and maybe before
that."
Chips nodded. "This Legere guy picks up the circus almost every
year when we swing through the Midwest and stays with us until
we catch the train for Florida in Little Rock. Makes old Leopard
Man touchy as one of his cats."
"He told me he was a police-man," I said. "What do you suppose
he looks for around here? You don't suppose Mr. Indrasil--?"
Chips and Sally looked at each other strangely, and both just about
broke their backs getting up. "Got to see those weights and counter
weights get stored right," Sally said, and Chips muttered something
not too convincing about checking on the rear axle of his U-Haul.
And that's about the way any conversation concerning Mt. Indrasil
or Mr. Legere usually broke up--- hurriedly, with many hard-
forced excuses.
We said farewell to Illinois and comfort at the same time. A killing
hot spell came on, seemingly at the very instant we crossed the
border, and it stayed with us for the next month and a half, as we
moved slowly across Missouri and into Kansas. Everyone grew
short of temper, including the animals. And that, of course,
included the cats, which were Mr. Indrasil's responsibility. He rode
the roustabouts unmercifully, and myself in particular. I grinned
and tried to bear it, even though I had my own case of prickly heat.
You just don't argue with a crazy man, and I'd pretty well decided
that was what Mr. Indrasil was.
No one was getting any sleep, and that is the curse of all circus
performers. Loss of sleep slows up reflexes, and slow reflexes
make for danger. In Independence Sally O'Hara fell seventy-five
feet into the nylon netting and fractured her shoulder. Andrea
Solienni, our bareback rider, fell off one of her horses during
rehearsal and was knocked unconscious by a flying hoof. Chips
Baily suffered silently with the fever that was always with him, his
face a waxen mask, with cold perspiration clustered at each temple.