Barry B. Longyear - Circus World 02 - City of Baraboo.pdf - Barry B. Longyear - widez2

City OfBaraboo– Circus World 01

Barry B. Longyear

Portions of this work have appeared in Issac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine and Asimov's SF

Adventure Magazine

This Berkley book contains the complete

text of the original hardcover edition.

It has been completely reset in a type face

designed for easy reading, and was printed

from new film.

CITY OFBARABOO

A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with . the author

PRINTING HISTORY

Berkley-Putnam edition published July 1980Berkley edition / August 1981

Cover Illustration by John Rush.

This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part,

by mimeograph or any other means, without permission.

For information address: Berkley Publishing Corporation,

Page 1

200 Madison Avenue,New York ,New York10016.

ISBN: 0-425-04940-X A BERKLEY BOOK(r) TM 757,375

PRINTED IN THEUNITED STATES OF AMERICA

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

After subtracting the many debts I owe in the researching and writing of City ofBaraboo , I find little

remaining save the responsibility for whatever inaccuracies that managed to escape detection before they

saw print. First, for suggesting the development of the star-circus idea used in one of my short stories,

and for many suggestions that should earn him a generously declined byline, my thanks to George

Scithers, editor of Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine.

Special thanks go to Robert L. Parkinson, Chief Librarian and Historian of theCircusWorldMuseum

inBaraboo,Wisconsin , for taking a highly unreasonable request for information and supplying it. Sincere

thanks go, as well, to Betty Austin, Colleen Condon, and Barbara Watt of the Cutler Memorial Library

inFarmington,Maine , for their long hours of searching that produced several invaluable circus histories

the absence of which would have made this book, at least in its present form, impossible. Many thanks

also go to Glenys Gifford of the Mantor Library at theUniversityofMaine atFarmington both for the

books she found for me, and for the length of time I was allowed to keep them.

My remaining thanks go to my chief critic, first reader, researcher, copy clerk, and wife, Jean.

To George H. Scithers

and My Wife, Jean

CONTENTS

I The Last Show on Earth 1

II Follow the Red Wagons 49

IE Working the Route Book 77

IV The Slick Gentlemen 107

V Sweet Revenge 135

VI In the Cart 177

Aftershow 208

The Company 212

The Last Show On Earth

EDITION 2142

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ONE

Two and a half centuries after August Riingeling's famous sons-the Ringling Brothers-took their first

circus on the road in 1884, the "Greatest Show on Earth" was, as well, the last show on Earth. It was a

poor three-poled affair stalled under patched canvas on the outskirts ofOttawa . Ans the mud road had

given way to rails, and the railroad to concrete and asphalt, the hard road had ended under a blizzard of

paper.

The old problems had never left. Fire, windstorms, ice, mud, accidents, rain, shakedowns, breakdowns,

and crackups were as common to the trouper as his name. But in an age when the resolution of human

problems was taken for granted, no room had been left for John J. O'Hara's circus. Room, the kind

needed by a canvas show, was too valuable. The road cost the show seven-hundred credits per

kilometer in tolls, while hard, grassy lots near population centers-such as remained-cost the show

upwards of thirty-thousand credits for the twenty-four hours the site would be occupied to put on five

hours' worth of entertainment. All this, and more, the show had endured. Its road ended at theOttawa

stand when it was faced with that thing feared above all else by

an institution of exception-laws for the general good enforced by incorruptible officials.

"They won't budge an inch, Mr. John." Arthur Burnside Wellington, the show's fixer, had stood before

the Governor's desk shaking his aging head. The tall, frail man in black seemed stumped for the first time

in his sixty-odd years. He held up his hands, then dropped them at his sides. "I just can't move them."

O'Hara rubbed his eyes, then looked atWellington . "Patch, have you tried a little sugar?"

Wellingtonnodded. "Those gillies aren't hungry, Mr. John. Not a bite."

"What about dirt?"

Wellingtonshook his head. "Never saw a cleaner bunch of politicos. Not so much as a parking ticket.

No outside incomes, no affairs, no relatives on the payroll-nothing." Again he shook his head. "Of all the

times to run into honesty in govern..."Wellington stopped short, rubbed his chin, then stared at the

Governor without seeing him.

"Patch, what is it?"

Wellingtonfrowned, then shook his head. "Probably nothing. Maybe a straw; maybe not."Wellington

turned and left the office wagon, deep in thought.

Hours later, midway through the evening show, O'Hara sat in the dark of the office wagon half-listening

to the windjammers slamming out notes from the main top. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back

against the chair. Nothing sounds like a circus band. Skilled orchestras sawing and blowing away make

good tries but to the ear that had been reared with the windjammers, the difference was considerable.

No musician strapped into rigid notes, bars, and rests can imitate the sound and beat of windjammers

trained to play to the kootch of a dancing horse or elephant, making it look as though the animal was

dancing to the music rather than the other way around.

O'Hara opened his eyes and watched the colored reflections of the main entrance lights dancing on the

wall opposite the wagon's pay window. That fellow inBangor -that writer-had asked why. He had really

been puzzled. Circus work was back-breaking, dangerous, and not particularly profitable. Why a circus?

The Governor had made an effort at finding the words, but in the end had resorted to the stock trouper's

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reply: "It's a disease."

The Governor leaned forward, placed his elbows on his desk, and lowered his face into his hands. The

disease. It's worse than a disease-an addiction. It's a clawing need that no rube with a

typewriter could ever understand. And so, the ladies and gents of the media get told the same thing that

circus people have been telling civilians for uncounted years: "It's a disease."

Troupers have no ready answers for why they troup. Question-asking is a head game, and the

answers-if they exist-are under the paint, the sweat, the scars, the pain, deep within that thing called a

soul. A trouper troups. It's a given.

"Perhaps we should ask why." O'Hara lowered his hands, dried his cheeks on his sleeves, then surveyed

the empty interior of the wagon. He pushed himself to his feet, walked around his desk, then to the door

of the wagon. O'Hara was feeling his years, andWellington had been the Patch for O'Hara's Greater

Shows when the Governor's father had been Governor. O'Hara rubbed his close-cropped white beard

and nodded. "Maybe we're all past our prime."

He pushed open the door and inhaled the smell of the lot. It was a curious mixture of grass, straw,

candy, and wild animal. The afternoon's dust was out of the air, giving a sharpness to the colored lights

still strung around the sideshow and animal top. The windjammers swung into the waltz that cued the

flyers, markr ing the forty-sixth minute of life left to the circus. It gave O'Hara a strange feeling to hear

that waltz and still see the animal and kid show tops standing. On normal nights, they would have been

torn down, loaded, and off to the next stand by the waltz. The canvas gang would be preparing to clear

out and tear down the main top hot on the heels of the last customer.

O'Hara thrust his hands into his coat pockets, stepped down from the office wagon, and headed toward

a small group of roughnecks standing next to a moving den in front of the animal top. As he approached,

one of the husky men parted from the others. "Evening, Governor."

O'Hara stopped and nodded at the heavy-set man in plaid shirt and work-alls. The man's face was

hidden by the shadow cast by the brim of his sweat-stained hat. "Goofy Joe."

"Any word, Mr. John?"

O'Hara looked down and slowly shook his head. "Looks like we're in the cart. Those environmental

officers say they'll confiscate the animals and run us in if we cross the district line."

Goofy Joe pulled his hat from his head, threw it on the lot, and jammed his hands into the pockets of his

work-alls. "Damn!" He frowned at the Governor. "Can't the Patch fix it?"

O'Hara shrugged. "I wouldn't count on it. Not this time. Seen the Boss Canvasman?"

Goofy Joe stooped over, picked up his hat, then held out a hand toward the menagerie entrance as he

stood. "You know Duckfoot. He'll be in there with the bulls." The roughneck threw his hat on the lot

again. "Why'd we ever have to come here?"

O'Hara placed a hand on the man's shoulder. "We're in the right place, Joe; it's just that we're about a

hundred years too late." He withdrew his hand, turned, and walked through the dark to the animal top

entrance. In the dim light of service lamps at the ends of the tent, he could see the eight elephants calmly

pulling truckfuls of hay from bales, and munching. As she recognized him, Lolita stuck out her ears, lifted

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her massive head, then lowered it again as she pretended not to see him. He entered the tent, nodded at

the Boss Canvasman and Boss Animal Man seated in the center of the tent on overturned buckets, then

he stopped with his back facing Lolita. In seconds O'Hara felt Lolita's trunk slip into his coat pocket,

grab the bag of peanuts he kept there, and sneak it out.

He turned and looked at the elephant. "What was that?" Lolita shifted her weight from one foot to the

other and shook her head. O'Hara reached into his coat pocket and frowned. "I could swear that I had

peanuts in here." He glowered at the elephant. Lolita shook her head again, and as O'Hara turned his

back and left, she swept the straw in front of her with her trunk, picked up the bag of peanuts, and

stuffed the entire thing in her mouth.

Duckfoot chuckled as he stood. "Lolita's getting to be a real dip, Governor. Careful she doesn't go after

your leather." The Boss Canvasman was built along the general proportions of Gorgo "The Killer Ape"

who now reclined in his cage scratching at imaginary fleas. Duckfoot's hair was thinner than Gorgo's, but

the arms more powerful.

O'Hara grimaced and shook his head. "For all the money that's in it, she's better off with the peanuts."

He nodded at the Boss Animal Man, who, although he was every bit as big as O'Hara, looked frail next

to Duckfoot. "Is everything quiet, Pony?"

Pony Red Miira nodded. "They were a little excited that they weren't being loaded on time, Mr. John,

but they're settled down now."

O'Hara nodded, kicked over a bucket with his foot, then sat on it. Duckfoot and Pony Red resumed

their seats. "Duckfoot, the city wants us off the lot by tomorrow, so don't let the canvas gang go until

after. One way or the other we'll need them to tear down the show."

Duckfoot shook his head. "Where're those roughnecks going

to go, Mr. John? It's not like they can hook up with another show. We're it. The last show on Earth.

What's going to happen to them?"

O'Hara shook his head, pursed his lips, then shook his head again. "I just don't know."

Pony Red held out a hand indicating the elephants and the line of cage wagons filled with tigers, lions,

apes, and other animals. "What about them?"

O'Hara looked into Pony Red's eyes, then averted his glance. "None of the zoos or preserves will take

them. All the time I get the same reason: they're not wild anymore so putting them in a preserve would

violate the environmental integrity or something." He shook his head. "Of course, we can't take them over

the district line because we aren't providing environmental settings appropriate to them in their wild

states."

Pony Red spat on the wood shavings that covered the ground. "So, does that mean we'll have to destroy

them?"

Duckfoot scratched the back of his neck. "Guess they're about to get the hell protected out of them." He

looked at O'Hara. "I never thought the Patch would let us down."

Pony Red held out his hands. "What about that command performance? You know, on that other

planet? We could at least keep the show together. Earth is no place for a circus anyway."

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Barry B. Longyear - Circus World 02 - City of Baraboo.pdf

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