Suddenly he tensed, cocked his head, and listened. Faint but unmistakeable, there came a cry of mingled pain and fear. Malcolm tested the air, determined the direction from which the cry came, and climbed swiftly up the grassy slope.
The cries ceased as he drew near. Malcolm knew that the creature in pain sensed his approach and feared him. He moved on cautiously, guided by his sense of smell.
Behind a patch of scrub oak he found it — a young coyote, hardly more than a pup. Its forepaw was caught in a trap.
Memories flooded back to Malcolm of his own anguish on that night more than a year ago when his ankle had been crushed by the trap. He knelt beside the coyote pup, his eyes filling with tears. He reached his hand out tentatively, palm up, to show the creature he meant no harm.
The trapped coyote sniffed at his fingers. Its lip drew back in an instinctive snarl, but it made no attempt to bite him. Very gently Malcolm touched its muzzle. His fingers stroked the grey-brown fur of the head between the velvety pointed ears. The young coyote shivered under his touch.
"Easy, little guy," the boy said. "I'm not going to hurt you."
The pup whined softly.
"I know how you feel. Believe me, I do."
The coyote looked up at him with cautious eyes. Its shivering quieted.
"That's the boy," Malcolm said, speaking in a slow, soothing tone. "Now let's see how bad you're hurt."
He moved the pup gently to get a better look at the damage done by the trap. With relief he saw it was not the bone-crushing kind that had caught him in the woods outside Pinyon. This was the legal, non-maiming trap designed to catch and hold, but not to do serious injury.
"You're a lucky fella," Malcolm said. "I know you probably don't think so, and it's no fun to be caught in any kind of a trap, but believe me, you could have it a lot worse."
He slipped his fingers between the smooth jaws of the trap and pulled against the spring. Was there no place, he wondered, where a wild creature could be left alone? Down in the valley he had seen a flock of sheep. He supposed the rancher had set out the traps to protect his flock. Malcolm could not fault the man for that. At least the man had used this less-destructive trap, and he had not resorted to poison. Still, a lamb was natural prey for the coyote. Where was the right or wrong of it all?
Slowly Malcolm forced the jaws open. The young coyote drew back the injured paw, but did not try to get away. Malcolm ran gentle fingers along the leg that had been caught.
"Nothing's broken. Your foot will be sore for a while, but like I told you, it could be a lot worse."
The coyote tested its weight on the paw, raised it quickly, then tried again.
"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.