Chapter 1
Kansas
September 1893
He stowed away in the Disappearing Lady trunk during their last show in Topeka, a whisper of a boy, bloodless gray skin and feral eyes. When Mary Margaret opened the trunk to stash her costume, the scrawny boy lurched up, and the magician’s assistant let loose a shriek that rattled the wagon and echoed across the tallgrass prairie.
Bert Beverly was tending to his oxen when he heard the scream. He looked over at Miranda, then bolted toward the magician’s wagon. Mary Margaret ran past him in the opposite direction, still wailing, and Miranda gave chase. Bert climbed into the wagon and saw the boy backed into the corner like he couldn’t decide whether to attack or run or melt through the floorboards. Denis, the old illusionist, crouched a few feet away, calloused hands in front of him, shushing, shushing.
“What’s going on?” Bert bellowed.
“He was in there,” Denis replied in his heavy Russian growl, pointing to the wooden trunk, the words “Disappearing Lady” emblazoned across the front in chipped blue stencil. “He must have climbed in during the show.”
“Are you okay, son?” Bert asked.
The boy didn’t speak, just stayed in his corner, eyes darting between Denis and Bert.
“We ain’t gonna hurt you, young man,” Bert said. “We’re all friends here. Can you tell me your name?”
He stared back and mumbled, “Tommy.”
“Tommy,” Bert said. “That’s good. We’re gettin’ somewhere. Can you tell me what you were doin’ in that box?”
No reply.
“Do you live around here, Tommy?”
He shook his head from side to side.
“Do you have anywhere to go? Anywhere to stay?”
He shook his head.
“Are you hungry?”
The boy widened his eyes and issued a vigorous nod. Bert nodded back.
“Denis and I are gonna go have a chat. You stay right here, okay?”
The showman and the magician backed out of the wagon onto solid ground. Denis closed the canvas flap behind him, and the two of them walked halfway to the campfire, where the rest of the crew waited. Bert tipped his chin toward Gristle, and she shuffled over to meet him.
“Did you make enough to scoop out an extra portion?”
“I suppose,” the stoic camp cook said. “Not much rice left.”
“We’ll restock in Lawrence. Thanks, Gris.” As the woman climbed back in the cook wagon, grunting with exertion over her aching joints, Bert joined the rest of the crew.
“Mary Margaret, are you okay?” he said, pointing his furrowed brow at the girl. She nodded and crossed her arms. Miranda stood near with her hand on the young woman’s shoulder. Bert cast his eyes on the faces of every member of the Beverly Barnyard Talent Revue before addressing them together.
“The boy’s name is Tommy. He ain’t got nowhere to go. Anybody object to lettin’ him camp with us tonight?” No one spoke up. Bert would have listened if anyone had; he ran the show with a steady hand, but he always asked for opinions.
He looked back at the magician’s assistant. “Mary Margaret?”
She shrugged. “That would be all right.”
“Okay then. Give the boy some breathin’ room when he comes out; he’s still a little jumpy. Miranda? Jackson?” Bert tipped his head toward the livestock, and the three of them walked from the campfire together.
Bert patted Hercules on the rump, then scratched his brother Achelous on his forehead next to the healed-over spot where the creature lost a horn years before. Then he turned back to Miranda, his wife and co-owner, and Jackson West, Bert’s best friend and a distinguished sharpshooter. Together, the three of them formed the executive committee of the Beverly Barnyard.
“Where’d he come from?” Jackson asked, rubbing the rough old scar on his cheek.
“I don’t know. Not from around here.”
“But who is he?” Miranda said.
“A runaway, by the looks of it. Can’t be older than 15. Mexican or Indian is my guess, but he’s so pale and sickly it’s hard to tell. Doesn’t really matter, though. He’s here now, and he’s our problem for the night.”
Miranda, her red hair blowing in the breeze, said, “What shall we do with him in the morning?”
Chapter 2
Kansas
September 1893
Tomas Esquivel had been blessed with almost nothing in his life, but one gift he received from his worthless parents or his equally contemptible creator was a keen sense of hearing. After the tall handsome man who called himself Bert, and the old fat magic man, Denis, left the wagon, Tommy pressed his ear to the canvas sidewall and heard every word the others said about him. He considered jumping out to correct Bert on a few things. Tommy wasn’t a boy, he was a 19-year-old man, just smaller than most others his age. And he was Mexican, or half Mexican. But he couldn’t tolerate being confused for an Indian. He let these sleights pass, though. The people who found him seemed to have good intentions.
But if life had taught Tommy anything, it was to never trust a first impression.
He heard someone coming and backed away from the canvas just as Bert poked his head inside.
“Come on down from there, Tommy,” he said. “Get yourself a plate.”
Tommy’s fingers shook as he parted the canvas and shaded his eyes from the red setting sun.
The group he’d fallen into was small - he counted ten or eleven men and women, maybe a few more - and even though all of them kept their distance, Tommy could feel their thoughts grabbing for him, invading his own.
Tommy descended from the wagon onto solid ground and angled his face toward the dirt.
A young man not much older or taller than Tommy walked up, carrying a metal plate filled with red beans, white rice, a hunk of fatty bacon, and a square of cornbread, plus a tin mug filled to sloshing with steaming black coffee. Tommy’s mouth watered.
“Hi there,” the boy said, his face carrying a friendly smile. “M-m-my name’s Harold, but everyone calls me Dink. I b-b-brought you some-” Tommy snatched the plate and the mug out of Dink’s hands and slumped to the ground, leaning back against the wagon wheel. He scooped food into his mouth with his fingers and burned his tongue on coffee.
Dink stood there, his empty hands still in position to hold the cup and plate, mouth agape. The wide-brimmed hat he wore flapped against the sides of his smooth face.
“Where did you get that hat?” Tommy said through a mouthful of cornbread, squinting up at Dink and shielding his eyes from the sun.
“Mister Bert g-g-gave it to me,” Dink said, brightening, touching his fingers to the brim of his prized possession. “It was his old hat, and when he got a new one last m-m-month, he-”
“It’s ugly,” Tommy said. “And it don’t suit you.”
Dink took a step back.
“Give you a nickel for it,” Tommy said. “I don’t like starin’ at the sun.”
“It’s not for s-s-sale,” Dink said as he turned to walk away.
Tommy watched the kid go, then promptly forgot about him. The food on his plate was simple, peppery, and exquisite. Before long the dish was scraped clean and only dregs swirled around the bottom of the coffee mug. He set the dishes on the ground next to him and tilted his head back against the wagon wheel, hunger satiated for the first time in weeks.
Tommy closed his eyes against the sun.
An instant later he was being nudged awake by the toe of a boot. He creased his eyes open; it was daylight, but the sun was in the eastern sky instead of the west. Bert stood over him, plus a pretty redheaded woman he figured was Bert’s wife.
“Good morning, Tommy,” she said in a thick accent he couldn’t place. “I trust you slept well.”
“Time to get up, son,” Bert said.
Tommy felt a twinge in his neck from sleeping against a wagon wheel. Slowly he rose from the ground and covered a yawn with his fist. He looked around at the others, already working to break down the camp: a tall Black man was saddling a horse; the boy who brought his plate the night before was hitching a pair of oxen to a wagon; the old magician worked a needle and thread to stitch a torn pair of trousers.
And then he saw her, a woman with blonde hair and fair skin in a pale blue dress. Her hands were busy with a rag wiping out dishes from breakfast, and as she worked, she sang a tune Tommy had never heard. But the words pierced the boy’s infatuated soul:
Sailing, sailing,
Over the bounding main,
For many a stormy wind shall blow
‘Til Jack comes home again
Tommy did not notice when the man next to her made it a duet, or how they stared at each other.
The crackle of frying bacon broke his reverie. His stomach growled and he looked back to Bert and Miranda for a sign that he was allowed to eat.
“After breakfast, you got some thinkin’ to do,” Bert said. “We’re headin’ east, and in a week or so we’ll make Kansas City. You’re welcome to ride along ‘til we get there. But if you do, you’ll have to pull your weight. We start early every mornin’, and we work hard.”
“What do you say to that?” Miranda said. “Would you like to ride along with us for a spell?”
Tommy considered his options and realized there were none. He nodded and said, “Yes, ma’am.”
“All right then. Get some breakfast, then go talk to Jackson,” Bert said, pointing to the black man. “He’ll put you on a chore or two.”
The squat cook named Gristle dished him out a plate of bacon, creamy grits, and more of last night’s cornbread, fried crispy in the hot bacon grease. He devoured the food, washed it down with another steaming mug of coffee, and asked for more.
“No seconds until the chores is finished,” she growled.
Tommy glared at the woman, but she had already turned away to clean up the campfire. He made his way as slowly as possible over to the man named Jackson.
“There you are,” Jackson said, his voice booming. “Grab them crates and load ‘em in that wagon.”
Tommy had never spoken to a Negro before, much less taken an order from one, and he didn’t plan on starting. But Jackson gave him a look, his scarred face glistening with sweat, and Tommy decided to move the crates.
Or at least he tried. Tommy gripped the rope handles of a large box and hoisted, but it did not budge. He tried again, and it lifted a half inch. He straightened up and dug his fists into his sides.
Then a tall woman came over, beautiful but dark skinned, not quite Black but not white either. Her arms were bare. She reached down and picked up the crate as if it were weightless, and tossed it up on her shoulder, a huge round bicep thrusting up under smooth skin.
“I’ll get these, kid,” the woman said. “Those over there are lighter.”
Tommy walked over to the pile of smaller boxes and gripped both sides of one. He heaved as hard as he could and managed to lift it a few inches before it thumped back to earth. An older Chinese man with a ponytail and a sprightly gait appeared next to Tommy and picked up two of the crates, one with each hand, then navigated around Tommy toward the wagons. “Pardon me,” he said, his voice barely a whisper.
*****
The Beverly Barnyard, Tommy discovered, consisted of 13 men and women, their traveling show spread across seven wagons, each pulled by teams of oxen or pairs of sturdy horses. The odd assortment of wagons, Bert told him, had been pieced together over the years through military surplus, equipment auctions, and bits and scraps left alongside the road by other outfits. The livestock, including the riding horses that trailed behind a few of the wagons on lead ropes, had been procured much the same way.
From Topeka, the crew rode east toward the next show in Lecompton, too far to travel in one day without wearing down the stock, Bert said. They would camp along the road that night.
Tommy rode in the lead wagon, on the front seat alongside Bert Beverly. Miranda sat in the back, but spent most of the journey with her head stuck up between the two of them so she could chat. Tommy enjoyed listening to her voice and watching the plains roll by. The accent, he discovered, was Irish.
“My folks brought me over when I was just a baby, after the famine,” Miranda said. Tommy watched her bright red hair cascade carelessly from her head, but even when it was messy it looked purposeful. Freckles speckled her cheeks and the bridge of her nose, and as the sun brightened, the delicate spots turned a deep brown. She was older even than Tommy’s mother would have been, but youthful.
“Of course, in Brooklyn, we were surrounded by Irish,” Miranda continued. “That’s why I never lost this dreadful accent.”
“I won’t let her lose it,” Bert said. “That ‘dreadful accent’ is what made me fall in love with her.”
“Ach,” Miranda scowled, punching Bert playfully in the arm. “I always thought it was my personality.”
“Nope,” Bert said, and his wife giggled. Bert adjusted the reins in his hands and peered around behind him to check on the rest of the wagon train.
“Bert here is a wonderful showman,” she said. “He’s the master of ceremonies for our little production.”
“And Mimi here plays piano and helps me run the show.”
“I heard the piano music when I was… in the box yesterday,” Tommy said. “You play real nice.”
“Thank you, Tommy.”
“Don’t kid yourself,” Bert said. “She’s the best pianist outside New York.”
“Oh hush, Bert!”
“The next wagon back,” he said, “is our magician and his assistant. Of course, you’re already familiar with them.”
“On stage, Denis calls himself The Incomparable Igor,” Miranda said, “and Mary Margaret is The Equally Amazing Squeaky.”
“Squeaky?” Tommy asked.
“Denis gave her the name,” Miranda said. “When he first met her, she was a wee teenager who’d been abandoned by her father. Denis took her in, but she didn’t speak for several days. When she finally did, her voice came out in a squeak, like a little mouse.”
“And Denis borrowed the name Igor from his old mentor back in Russia,” Bert said.
“I saw a magic man in Little Rock one time.”
“Is that where you’re from?” Miranda said. “Little Rock?”
“Not really,” he said. “Anyway, this man could read minds. Can your magician do that?”
“No,” Bert said, “And I’m sorry to spoil it for you, but the fella in Little Rock couldn’t either.”
“I saw it for myself.”
“It’s a ruse, kid,” Bert said. “Just a common stage trick. I’ll teach it to you sometime.”
“You should teach it to your man. He could make a lot of money for you.”
“Afraid that’s not possible.”
“It’s against the rules,” Miranda said.
“Whose rules?”
“Bert’s,” she said, poking her husband in the shoulder. “He’s got a list of show rules as long as Ellie’s snake.”
“Ellie?”
“Ellie Jenkins,” Bert said. “She’s the woman who put you to shame lifting crates this morning.”
“Oh bollocks,” Miranda said. “She’d put you to shame too, Bertie boy.”
“True, true,” Bert laughed. “Our Ellie is quite the specimen. We found her about a year ago working as an acrobat in a circus. She wasn’t too fond of her employer, so it didn’t take much convincing to bring her with us. We helped her build an act as a snake handler and strong woman.”
“Is she a negress?”
Bert squirmed in his seat, and nodded. “Her mother was a slave, and her father was the owner of the plantation.”
“She could pass for a gringo.”
“We don’t really care about that here,” Miranda said. “Bert and I look for people with character and talent, regardless of what they look like, or where they come from.”
“I guess that explains the big buck,” Tommy said, pointing to Jackson, riding out in front of the wagon train on his horse. “Don’t he have a wagon?”
“No, Jackson rides ol’ Hazel,” Bert said, indicating the big brown mare. “Jackson was a slave, too, but he’s a fair bit older’n Ellie, so he actually remembers it.”
“We met him years ago,” Miranda said, “when we were all part of Buffalo Bill’s crew.”
Tommy had no idea who or what Buffalo Bill was, but Miranda mentioned him offhandedly, as if to imply it was obvious.
“And Gristle, our camp cook,” Bert said. “She ran a chuckwagon for Buffalo Bill. When we broke away to start our own show, she came with us. Hell of a cook, ain’t she? Ol’ Gristle’s half Polish and half Cheyenne. She’s picked up recipes from all over the country.”
Tommy scowled. “I don’t care for Indians much.”
“You didn’t seem to mind this morning when you were wolfin’ down your breakfast,” Bert said. “Even Claude likes her cookin’, and Claude’s from France.”
“Claude is a pantomime,” Miranda said. “He rides with Ellie.”
Tommy remembered the skinny man with curly black hair climbing into Ellie’s wagon. That morning he accidentally bumped into the man and said, “‘Scuse me,” but Claude only nodded in reply.
“He don’t talk much,” Tommy said.
“He doesn’t talk at all, onstage or off,” Bert said. “I don’t think he knows how.”
“He does too!” Miranda cried, slapping Bert across his broad back. “He just chooses not to. Besides, Claude has other ways to communicate.”
“Well, he must,” Bert said. “He and Miranda are best pals. They spend hours together, not talkin’.”
“Ain’t you…” Tommy stopped himself from asking how Bert could leave his wife alone with another man, but Bert answered like he heard the question anyway.
“Claude ain’t exactly threatenin’ in that way.”
“Hush, Bert,” Miranda said.
“All I know is he’s as talented as anyone I’ve ever met. He can play any instrument you put in front of him. He reads four different languages. And he’s good with a gun. You should get to know him. Maybe he could teach you a thing or two.”
“I don’t know how I could learn anything from a mute.”
“He taught Dink how to juggle,” Miranda said. “Claude helped that wee’un create his entire act.”
“Dink came to us a lot like you,” Bert said, then chuckled. “Course, we didn’t find him inside a magic crate.”
“Bert saved his life,” Miranda beamed.
“Not hardly,” Bert said. “I saved him from a beating is all.”
“You know very well those other boys coulda kilt him. He owes you his life, Bertie.”
“Well.”
Tommy tried to imagine the tiny fellow who brought him his dinner the night before in a fight.
“Dink rides with Dudley,” Miranda said. “Dudley is a ventriloquist.”
That was a new word for Tommy, but he refused to ask for a definition.
The wind changed direction, and the grass on both sides of the road slanted forward. From behind, Tommy heard singing, a strong baritone accompanied by the voice of the yellow-haired woman he saw before. Miranda started to hum along with the tune.
“Purty, ain’t it?” Bert asked. “That’s Delores and Max Hoffmann.”
“Bertie and I discovered ‘em,” Miranda said.
“We ran a little weekly talent revue for the Wild West show,” Bert said. “Anyone could participate, but preference was always given to offstage crew.”
“At the time, Max worked as a supply clerk for Buffalo Bill, and Delores was a ticket taker. Bert and I asked the Hoffmans if they had any talents to share.”
“I’ll never forget what Max said to us.” Then Bert and Miranda continued in unison, “‘We warble a little.’”
“Before long, they were the most popular act in the show,” Miranda said. “It was only natural to invite them to join us in the Barnyard.”
The wagon train traversed a large looping curve in the road. Tommy could look back and see the entire crew behind them, all the way to the last wagon and the man driving it.
“What does that little Chinaman do?”
Bert cleared his throat. “That gentleman’s name is Zhou Ying. You can call him Mister Ying until he tells you otherwise. He’s a sword swallower.”
Tommy knew Bert was lying. He didn’t care for liars, though he himself often stretched the truth to get what he needed. Tommy excused himself and climbed into the back of the wagon, navigating around Miranda, and promptly fell asleep to the churn of the wheels on the rutted road.
