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3

Joe hurried to keep up with Holt, Medici, and Milly, who strode toward the animal boxcars. From up ahead, they heard a loud bellow of protest. Medici sped up.

Rufus Sorghum stood at the bottom of a metal ramp, a pole in his hand. Inside the boxcar, one of his lackeys tried to corral an elephant onto the ramp, while another tugged on a rope looped around its neck. The elephant's trunk shot up and it bellowed again. Joe recognized it as Goliath.

“Let's go. Move yer ugly stinking wrinkles!” Rufus shouted, poking the elephant's rump from the safety of the ground.

A burst of anger f lared in Joe's chest.

Medici scurried over, but his voice was placating. “Handle with care, Rufus. Respecto, respecto .”

The taller man scowled at him. “Needs to earn my respect. And don't gimme that Italian royalty act, Gustavo. You grew up shining shoes.”

“Why's he calling Max ‘Gustavo’?” Joe whispered to Milly as the men coaxed the elephant down the ramp to join its brother, Zeppelin, in line.

“I don't know,” she answered, shrugging. “Maybe he got kicked in the head.”

Rufus's eyes landed on Holt and he smirked unpleasantly.

“Well, look who's back. Or most of him,” he drawled.

Joe started forward, but Milly's hand stopped him. Their dad didn't even f linch. Joe admired his conf idence.

“Still glad you served your country instead of helping us sell tickets?” Rufus asked.

With a f lick of its tail, the elephant splattered Rufus with mud — at least it looked like mud — as it lumbered past him. Rufus cursed. Nope, not mud , Joe realized happily.

Grinning, Joe followed Medici, his dad, and his sister, glancing over his shoulder brief ly at Rufus, whose cheeks and forehead were turning pink from rage. As Rufus wiped his face, he caught Joe watching and glared at him. Joe didn't care. Rufus could glare all he wanted — Joe's dad was home now, and soon the elephants would be safe from the roustabout. Still, Joe hurried to catch up.

*　　*　　*

“As you see,” Medici said quietly as he led Holt to the next boxcar, “I've been making do. But you, Holt, you know animals. And they love you!”

Holt scratched his head. He'd never handled an elephant before. He knew they were smart, and they certainly tended to pick up tricks fast... but would they respond to him?

Medici rolled back the boxcar door and headed inside. Hay covered the f loorboards, and a large gray elephant lay on the ground. Her eyes followed them, but she didn't even bother to lift her head more than a foot off the hay.

“Voilà!” Medici exclaimed. “Meet Mrs. Jumbo. Our brand-new Asian female I bought from Brugelbecker in Biloxi. Talked him way down on the price.”

Holt didn't know much about the beasts, but this one looked ill. Her abdomen was swollen, perhaps with a tumor.

She let out a tired wheeze.

“I saw something special in her eyes,” Medici continued.

Maybe your eyes were clouded by dollar signs , Holt thought. Medici was a good leader for the most part, but he sometimes let his ambition get the best of him. Aloud, he said, “This is your investment? An old, sick elephant?”

Medici shook his head. “Oh, no. She isn't sick. Any day now, she's having a baby .” His voice was reverent. Milly and Joe seemed to share his excitement. Their faces shone as they gazed at the mother-to-be.

“A baby?” Holt asked. “How exactly is that going to keep the circus af loat?”

“Let me show you.” Medici grinned, gesturing them out of the car. Mrs. Jumbo slumped back into the hay as they left with a relieved snuff le.

Medici strode toward a nearby tent. “What's the one thing that unites all the people of the world? What brings a smile to their faces, a tear to their eyes, a hippity-hop to their hopeful hearts?”

Holt raised an eyebrow. When Medici went into performance mode — which was most of the time — he was a bit over-the-top.

“Ice cream?” Joe offered hopefully. He'd been pestering Medici to f ind a way to sell the delicacy for years.

Medici shook his head. “Babies!”

He f lung open the tent f lap to reveal a giant hay-lined bassinet, complete with a barbell-sized rattle, a massive pacif ier, and a teddy bear. A banner draped overhead read WELCOME TO OUR DEAR BABY JUMBO!

“People love babies,” Medici continued, striding over to the bassinet. He tweaked the lace-covered hood. “I don't, myself, but I'm the exception to the rule. People love cute things; that's why they have children. And children love small things; that's why they like babies. So... babies mean children mean parents mean tickets!”

Medici paraded around the larger-than-life nursery, past several plain stacking blocks, then turned to Holt, beaming. “That means big things for you and me! Pending pachyderm gender, of course, we’ll paint.”

Joe wandered toward several cans of paint stacked in a corner.

“You want me to babysit an elephant.” Holt's expression was f lat. He couldn't believe this was happening to him.

“Twenty-f ive cents extra for a peek in the tent.” Medici bounced on his toes, mentally collecting the fares.

Holt's face darkened. “You want me . To babysit. An elephant,” he repeated.

Medici looked ruff led for the f irst time. He leaned toward Milly and Joe. “Why's he saying things twice? Is that ’cause of the war?” he whispered.

That was it. Holt stormed over to Medici, his f ist clenched. “I had eighteen beautiful horses!” He f lung his arm out as though directing imaginary steeds around the ring.

“Yes, you did,” Medici answered calmly. He tilted his head, a f irm but sympathetic look in his eyes. “And a wife. And an arm. A fellow can go broke from all that living in the past.”

Holt glared. Maybe there was no turning back time. That didn't mean he had to accept the present, though.

“Cha-cha-cha-ching!” Medici thrust the giant rattle into Holt's hand with a jangling sound. Having delivered the news, he sauntered away. “You’ll thank me later. Elephants are the way of the future!”

“Come on, Dad.” Joe tugged on his shirt. “Let's get you settled before dinner.”

Holt set down the rattle and followed his kids to the living quarters. People called out greetings and he waved back vaguely, barely registering Arav meditating outside his tent or Ivan and Catherine f iddling with their one-way mirror box. Not even the rowdy group of clowns, a family from Greece, roughhousing in the campf ire ring broke through his daze.

Joe and Milly ducked inside a small beige tent, a quarter the size of their old one. Where are they going? A spike of concern pierced the fog in Holt's mind as he entered the tent.

Three cots were crammed in next to two large trunks, one emblazoned with STALLION STARS in golden letters. A small crate formed a makeshift bookshelf, and a second crate in the corner held an assortment of pots and pans.

“Watch, Dad, I'm getting better,” Joe said, picking up a handful of apples and starting to juggle them. He lunged for them as they plopped to the ground.

“Whoa, hang on, this is our tent?” Holt stared around in dismay. “But we had furniture, beds, rooms...” As the stars of the show, he and Annie had the f inest, largest tent, with curtains partitioning it into two bedrooms and a main space. Holt eyed the cots nervously — he wasn't even sure one could hold his weight.

What didn't Max sell? he wondered. Panicking, he dove for the stallion stars trunk and f lung it open. Glass tubes and colorful cups lay on top.

“Toys? What's with all these?” He lifted out what looked like a funnel.

“They're not toys,” Milly said. “They're for my science experiments.” She frowned — her dad was looking at them like they were from outer space. He's going to call my studying science silly, just like Medici , she thought. Her mother had at least tried to understand, buying her the chemistry sets from stops along the way before she had gotten sick.

With a wan smile, Holt eased onto the cot. Setting the funnel down, he took Milly's hand in his own and drew her closer. “We're a circus, darlin’. A circus. We need to be practical if we want to survive.” He paused. “You couldn't take up one act? Tumbling? Tightrope?”

Milly stiffened. “Maybe I don't need the world staring at me. Maybe I'm just not you and Mama.”

Holt's mouth pursed and he stood up, insulted. “Who makes the rules in this family?”

“Mama,” Joe said automatically.

A silence hung in the air, fraught with tension. Annie f lashed through their minds, bubbly, sweet, f irm, and alive.

“Well, well — I make them now,” Holt f inally sputtered. “Just go to your room.”

“This is my room. This is all our rooms,” Milly said. She jutted her chin in the air.

Plucking his cowboy hat off a coatrack, Holt shoved it onto his head, then stalked back to the trunk. From the bottom, he hauled out a silver saddle. At least Medici hadn't sold that .

“You see this? You know what this is? Your inheritance.” With a huff, he marched out of the tent, clutching the saddle with his arm.

“Dad, wait! Where are you going?” Joe raced to the f lap and peered out.

“Don't worry,” Milly said as she joined him. They watched their dad pace one way and then the other. He f inally stopped next to a log and slung the saddle down atop it before straddling it, his back to them. “He's not going anywhere. He's stuck. Just like you and me.”