From Atlanta to Chicago, 1910
Putrid pig and rotten fish, factory spew, and overfull outhouses—the city smell of Atlanta woke Aidan from a sharp nightmare. The stink clung to his tongue as the bad dream dissolved. He cussed, certain there was something he should remember—or somebody—but he couldn’t. The dusty brown road had turned to black asphalt, and the buggy wheels were grateful. Buttercup and Boo neighed, and Clarence clucked at them. The bright afternoon had gone to smoky gray. A light mist chilled the evening air. Iris was nestled in his arm, a warm ember against his chilly chest. Doc studied them both and scribbled on an artist’s pad. Aidan looked beyond Doc’s sandy-haired crooked countenance to the city of Atlanta in twilight.
Awkward, square-boned buildings hunched together. They cluttered up the skyway, blocking Venus and an early moonrise. Lights glimmered in town house windows like ghosts seeking refuge. Motorcars, wagons, and electric trolleys materialized in the twilight and surrounded Doc’s modest buggy. Aidan gasped at the sudden crush of noisy vehicles. A horn blared, and Iris woke with a start. She clutched his arm. The winking kerosene lights played over her frightened face. Doc chuckled at his country companions. Bicyclists and pedestrians filled every available space on the broken pavement. Clarence reined the horses in.
“The speed limit is supposedly eight miles per hour,” Doc said.
They were trapped in more traffic than Aidan had seen his whole life and going too fast.
“Watch yourself, fool,” Clarence shouted.
The comet caught the last of the sunlight as an automobile heading south lurched into the north lane right toward Doc’s buggy. Hell broke loose. Iris squealed with more excitement than fear as they swerved from one danger into another. Pedestrians scrambled into storefronts. A bicyclist soared through the air and into a shop display, busting a basket of apples and pears. A picture window fractured along a thousand fault lines, but did not shatter. Chickens ran into the street, trying to fly away. These flightless birds got trampled as Boo and Buttercup charged toward a clanging red streetcar. At the last second, Clarence got them to swerve. The door of Doc’s buggy was scraped raw by the trolley. Electric sparks showered down on them. Aidan patted out a fire in Doc’s beard. Doc took another sip of his medicine and laughed at the curlicues of ash swirling ’round his face.
Boo and Buttercup reared several times, but finally settled down under Clarence’s firm hand and soothing voice. The air smelled burnt and shitty too, as horses all down the road voided their bowels. The reckless driver who’d started the accident staggered from his vehicle, a bottle still in hand, unscathed. Drunk as a fish, he stumbled through disaster, raving at his stunned victims.
He grabbed Aidan. “It’s Comet Halley. The end of the world is nigh! Tomorrow never comes. Don’t wait, don’t regret. Do you hear me? Live now!”
Aidan was dumbstruck. Clarence shoved the man away. Crumpled automobiles spouted hot foam, and a horse limped toward the sidewalk dragging a broken buggy. The passengers had tumbled out somewhere. A sooty woman moaned in the gutter, holding a bloody leg and calling to Lord Jesus.
“The heavens are angry and cannot hear you, ma’am,” the reckless driver declared and collapsed on the curb beside her. A busted kerosene lamp blazed at their feet. Aidan wondered if he would’ve driven a mechanical beast, falling down drunk like this fool. It took all his restraint not to leap from the buggy and pummel the man.
“He could have cost us our lives,” Clarence said.
“Julius Caesar banned wheeled traffic in Rome. I’m inclined to agree with his wisdom,” Doc said.
“Miz Subie’s sign brought us luck,” Iris said.
Somewhere, a wounded animal cried out. “Do you hear that?” Aidan said.
Clarence lifted his head, listening far into the distance, and shrugged.
Iris opened her eyes wide. She heard what Aidan heard for sure. “Too far away to do us any harm,” she said.
Saeed and Redwood, dressed as savage Africans with grass skirts, animal skins, and gator-teeth necklaces, paced the brightly lit studio of Chicago’s newest motion picture factory. Large bones from a nearby slaughterhouse—turkey most likely—were stuck through their hair. They squatted in front of a round hut with a thatched roof. Other natives, similarly dressed, huddled near them at the edge of a jungle, fake palm trees that had been added to local crabapple, dogwood, and sassafras trees. Redwood blew a purple prairie smoke blossom that trailed silvery filaments as it went to seed.
“What part of Africa is this?” Saeed asked.
“Chicago, Abyssinia.” Redwood laughed.
Saeed laughed too. “And who are we again?”
“Nobody.” Redwood suddenly turned glum and clutched Saeed.
“What is it?”
A lion grumbled. “What’re they doing to that old cat?” She looked toward the sound.
“They tease him to look ferocious.” Saeed squinted. “He doesn’t want to come out of the cage.”
“Ahh.” She hugged herself. “Well, I got an idea, for a motion picture. A colored romance on a Sea Island.”
“No one will make that. White folk are scared of colored romance.” Saeed shrugged. “Who’d come to see it?”
“For a nickel, colored folk will. Don’t they come to the club after hours to hear us, or head on over to the Pekin Theatre to see all-colored adventures in Darkville? White folk come too. Everybody does.”
“I hear rumors, the Pekin’s going broke and about to close down. You can’t get rich entertaining nig—”
“Don’t be quoting Eddie to me.”
Histrionic yelling was followed by fevered drums. Saeed pulled her up.
“Time to welcome the great white hunter.” He put on his savage face.
Throwing up her hands in exaggerated fright, Redwood ran with Saeed and a crowd of screaming savages toward a row of cameramen cranking away.
Traffic was jammed up from the automobile accident for quite a ways. The trolley had jumped the track, and setting that to right took forever. Clarence maneuvered ’round one marooned or busted vehicle after another. A lame horse lay in the grass making a pitiful noise. A shot rang out as they passed and the horse shuddered quiet. Doc peered over the side of the buggy and traced his fingers along the door.
“We have suffered only a scratch,” he remarked.
“Miz Subie’s sign kept us safe,” Iris said.
Clarence whistled. “Remind me to bring my aunt that peach brandy she like.”
Sober all of a sudden, Doc dug out his medicine bag and jumped into the street.
“We ain’t never goin’ get out of here now,” Clarence mumbled good-naturedly.
A hefty man was threatening damage to his wife. She was only checking how bad he was hurt. Doc walked right up to him, laughing. “Women! What did Cherokee Will used to say—when the white man discovered this country, Indians were running it.”
The man cradled a limp arm and scowled at Doc. His woman stepped back.
“No taxes, no debt, and women did all the work,” Aidan continued the old Cherokee joke.
“The white man thought he could improve on a system like this.” As the man chuckled, Doc yanked his arm back in the shoulder socket. The fellow hollered something fierce, but was soon laughing at the miracle of it.
Doc ministered to every wounded person he found. ’Stead of worrying ’bout missing the train, Aidan, and Iris too, marveled at him.
A young mother with a deep gash in her head was bleeding all over her baby and wouldn’t let nobody near. “Myrna,” someone pleaded with her. “Be reasonable—”
“Helen and me don’t need your help,” Myrna yelled. It wasn’t a reasonable night.
“Cousin Myrna.” Doc smiled. “Helen’s getting so big and the spitting image of grandma!” Telling tall tales on grandma, he had Myrna stitched up before she knew it.
A woman was weeping and wailing, fixing to bury a dead husband. Doc brought him back to the living with a foul smell. The man had fainted when the trolley swiped his motor car. His wife’s weeping turned to cussing. Doc slipped away.
“You will be fine!” he said over and over, and everyone believed him.
Mostly cuts and scrapes and hearts pounding too fast with fear, but it wasn’t long before Doc’s bag was empty and his clothes filthy. He looked lost and ready to fall over. Clarence hauled him back in the buggy then. “We don’t want to get stuck here.”
“Sorry,” Doc said. “I know you two got a train to catch—”
“We shouldn’t just ride by folks in need.” Iris turned to Aidan. “Should we?”
“Of course not,” he said quickly. “I first met Doc helping out the Jessups, riding on the poor side of the creek, s’posedly heading out for a hunting trip. Never got there.”
Doc nodded. “You told me hunting for sport, for what you didn’t need to eat, wasn’t good for the soul!”
“Did you now?” Iris poked Aidan.
“No. Actually, he said it would crack my good spirit.”
“Aunt Caitlin told me to hush.” Aidan grinned at the memory.
“I’d say we’ve been friends ever since.” Doc was grinning too.
There were no more wounded folk, but the traffic was impossible. To sweeten the long wait, Doc read them the title story from The Goodness of St. Rocque by Alice Dunbar-Nelson. Iris was all ears for this hoodoo romance.
“Her former husband was that colored poet,” Doc said. “Whosy?”
“I won’t need a charm like the lady in the story to get my man,” Iris said.
Doc squinted, examining her. “No, I don’t think you will.”
“Paul Laurence Dunbar,” Aidan said, pleased he’d remembered the name.
“That’s the man!” Clarence nodded. “You read colored books too, Mr. Cooper?”
“Ha, he reads anything. A reading fiend.” Doc sounded proud.
“Miz Elisa loaned me his book once. She and Miz Garnett were never done teaching school.” Aidan sighed, missing them both. “I guess, I’ve read plenty colored books.” He was carrying Of One Blood: Or, The Hidden Self by Pauline Hopkins, which Redwood had loaned to him before. He wanted to return it to her and have that discussion, if she still wanted to, after so many years. “I like a good story.”
“In that case—” Doc read a second tale. Aidan was now too worried they’d miss their train to listen. He didn’t want to spend a night at Doc’s and feel more beholden. He didn’t want to worry what sort of men Doc and Clarence were. He just wanted to hurry on out of Atlanta and be on their way north. Clarence guided Boo and Buttercup through mayhem and congestion with a steady hand. Doc’s mellow baritone, Miz Dunbar-Nelson’s words, and the twilight streets blurred. Finally they were back up to eight miles per hour.
Atlanta’s Terminal Train Station looked to be a castle for dragons and wizards. Comet Halley cut ’cross the sky between the station’s golden towers, a magic beacon heralding an auspicious journey. Reaching into the alligator pouch, Aidan cut his finger on the broken seashell. He sprinkled goober dust mixed with his blood where the tracks crisscrossed in the train yard. The dirt exploded like fireworks under the metal wheels.
Aidan didn’t want to lose heart. “How am I goin’ do a thousand dry miles?” he asked the train spirits.
Black engines, sweaty with steam, roared at him and charged off in every direction. He marveled at these magical fire-breathing beasts busting through the night. Railroad music played up Aidan’s spine as he headed inside the terminal. The great hall was so crowded, he could barely snatch a breath, but a new song ached in his throat and on his fingers. Music was coming back to him.
Iris, Doc, and Clarence waited near a train fixing to head out. Passengers climbed aboard behind them. Aidan approached, hat in hand, and looked from Doc to Clarence.
“Tell me,” Aidan wheezed, “how I can repay your generosity.”
“Me too, kind sirs,” Iris said.
“Breaking Garnett’s curse. What more?” Doc whispered. Aidan’s face burned. He wanted to ask how the hell was he supposed to do that, but Doc turned from him to Iris. “Can you read, little darling?”
“Since I was five, sir.” Iris strutted her long-legged stuff. “Education give you the keys to the kingdom.”
“I know you like these hoodoo romances.” Doc handed her Miz Dunbar-Nelson’s book of short stories and a copy of The Wizard of Oz.
“You be writing your own stories someday,” Clarence said, proud already.
“They do a musical show of Oz in New York,” Doc said. “But it’s also fun to read.”
“Thank you, sir.” She clutched the volumes to her heart, sliding and kicking her feet in a dance. “I’ll read these here twice.”
“Man throw his money away, buying all them books, then be giving the books away.” Clarence laughed.
Aidan felt the devil for a moment. “I’d like to see your collection.”
Doc and Clarence exchanged quick glances. Doc shrugged.
“I got use of the whole library!” Clarence laughed and slapped his thigh.
“Yes, you do.” Doc allowed hisself a smile. Aidan wondered how hard their lives in public must be. Men got strung up for doing what they did. What was their story? How did people like them find each other? Who dared the first touch, the first kiss? How did they hold on to each other and trust when the going got rough? Doc and Clarence had to be very brave, even in hiding.
“The whole library! That’s—that’s grand.” Aidan wished for something better to say. Maybe they wanted him to know. Maybe they trusted him. He didn’t know what to think of that. “Love is the best thing,” he finally said, staring in the eyes of his friends.
“Yessir!” Iris tap-danced a rhythm to love is the best thing. The three men shifted awkwardly as she strutted ’round them.
“It has been my pleasure to get to know you better, Aidan.” Doc turned to him with that odd, intense look, the way he’d done for years. Aidan thought he understood this now. They shook hands and Doc thrust several drawings at Aidan. “You’re quite a handsome man. Intriguing physiognomy. Do visit me in Atlanta on your way back to Peach Grove.”
“I will do.” Aidan gaped at a beautiful drawing of Iris in his arms. His hair was blowing free in the wind. Another picture caught him tweaking her nose as she giggled.
Clarence beamed at Doc’s artwork. “Man’s got a good hand, don’t he?”
Iris and Aidan both nodded.
“Good luck to you, sir,” Clarence said. After an awkward second, he shook Aidan’s outstretched hand vigorously. “And you too, Miz Iris.” He patted her head. Then he and Doc worked their way through the crazy quilt of humanity, coming and going or standing a moment utterly lost and breathless, like Aidan.
“ALL ABOARD!” Iris chimed in with the conductor. “Let’s go!” She spun ’round, more alive than Aidan had seen her in weeks. “Doc give me a five-dollar gold piece.” She displayed it. “He say, at the end of the trip, we’ll be stepping out in another world.”
“You didn’t tell him where we was going, did you?”
She blew her lips at him, a fresh colt showing off. “I can story too, good as you.”
“Is that so?”
“I think he might know where we’re going anyhow.” She had her hands on recently curved hips. Button breasts were thrust up toward him. Half child, half woman—and the spitting image of Redwood as a young gal. “I ain’t my sister,” she said. “Can’t help it if I look like her.”
Aidan almost fell over.
“You think half-naked colored folk be running wild in Chicago too?” she said, brash and free despite nightmares and throwing grave dirt on the faces of loved ones. “Well, do you?”
“No need to repeat Doc’s storytelling. He made all that up to feel good ’bout hisself. We’re starting on our own adventure. You can tell that story.”
“I’ll put it in a book like Miz Dunbar-Nelson.”
“Now you’re talking.” They gathered their things and headed for the railcar door. Aidan staggered under all their baggage. “What we pack, boulders?”
Shotgun and banjo strapped over his back banged against each other and into his ribs. Climbing onto the cramped and musky colored coach, he almost fell down. Iris steadied him and then went ahead scouting seats.
“You in the wrong car, sir.” A colored porter grinned at him without meaning it.
Iris dashed back to him. “I found two together.”
Standing up straight, Aidan gripped her hand. “I know where I belong,” he said to the porter. That was the biggest lie he ever told.
He pushed past the grinning fellow and headed for the empty seats. Evil grunts and cutting eyes greeted him, or maybe people were just tired and sleepy. Liquor smell on a passenger’s breath had him sweating. For a moment, he would’ve given anything, handed over the rest of his life even, for a drink. Luckily, nobody was offering. How would he manage a thousand temperate miles on a promise and a song? He was no damn good at promises.
“Can I sit by the window?” Iris asked, as if Aidan cared where he dropped his body down. “Don’t be hangdog. We goin’ see my sister and get us to the other side of sad.”
“You get the view,” Aidan said.
“Is Chicago big as Atlanta, with buildings up into the sky?” Iris squeezed his hand.
“It’s Atlanta times ten.”
“How you know, if you ain’t been there, ’cept in dreams?”
“I … I heard tell.” He showed her the picture-postcard Redwood sent from Chicago, a playbill for one of her minstrel shows actually. Redwood was dressed as a dragonfly with gossamer wings and big eyes on her head like a hat.
Iris flapped her arms and buzzed at the picture. “We got minstrel shows in Peach Grove too, remember?” She turned the card over and read aloud, proud of all the hard words she knew. “I’d tell you about this Chicago metropolis, but anything I say now won’t be true tomorrow. A colossal city of the future, springing up from yesterday’s dreams like magic. Everything’s possible, me, my little sister, you too.” Iris wiped his damp face with a rough kerchief. “See? Sister agree with me.”
Different message than what he’d read or what Hiram couldn’t read, but he didn’t get spooked. Magic words on a card was nothing. He’d seen Redwood call down a twister to the palm of her hand. She calmed the storm till it wasn’t but a dance of dust and a gentle spray of mist. No telling what kind of future they’d be making up there on Lake Michigan. Nothing Redwood did would surprise him, ’cept if she forgave him.
“I know you ’fraid of my sister, but it’ll be all right.” Iris patted his hand.
“Not really ’fraid of your sister.” Aidan spooked hisself. “When you get older, a big adventure can take your breath away.”
“I’ll watch over you,” Iris declared and just ’bout broke Aidan’s heart.
As they pulled out of the station, Aidan’s hands were twitching fast as a rattlesnake’s tail. He swallowed a mouthful of Subie’s nasty powder. He didn’t know if her conjure would help or not. One teetotal minute at a time though.
“I don’t work with divas anymore!” Mr. Payne looked like the dead president for true this afternoon as he yelled at the idle cast and crew on the back lot of his motion picture factory. The light was better outside, but—“Three days wasted!” Payne resented every red cent spent to keep a village of screaming savages on hand for the rampage and the big hunt.
Redwood sucked her teeth. She slouched against a flimsy African hut and scratched the itchy grass skirt going to seed ’round her waist.
“Payne’s not yelling about you,” Saeed teased, scratching too.
The lion was still refusing to act. Redwood wanted to yell at the lazy creature herself.
“They’re happy.” Saeed pointed at African Savages rolling dice.
Of course the Pullman Porter extras weren’t complaining. In between grueling trips through wild country with cheapskate passengers, acting African put good money in their pockets. But Redwood and Saeed were headliners, real show folk itching to perform. Shooting a moving picture wasn’t strutting ’cross the stage to get lost in applause and laughter, in the audience sucking one breath together. It was endless waiting for the sun to escape clouds, for crew to pamper finicky lenses or catch huts blown about by the wind machine.
A turkey bone slid from Saeed’s slippery hair. He shouldn’t have tossed the kinky fright wig. Redwood sighed. “With this beetle-headed scenario, who can blame that lion for pouting in his dressing room?”
“Get that lazy cat moving!” Payne coughed into his handkerchief and marched off.
A cage door opened to the lion snarling and spitting. Several white cameramen looked anxious as they cranked images of this beast, old and broken-toothed, but still a ferocious sight. A muscular handler with a pockmarked, ruddy complexion and streaks of gray in his black hair smacked the lion in the belly with a big stick and cracked a whip. The lion snarled and swiped, mane bristling with rage. The handler cracked the whip again and caught the lion in the face. The animal drew back as the handler jabbed harder at skinny ribs.
“That ain’t a good idea!” Redwood shouted at the handler and then whispered to Saeed. “That must hurt.”
Saeed groaned. “Too many people. This animal is frightened and very angry.”
With another whip crack from the sunburnt handler and more painful prodding, the lion retreated farther into the cage ’stead of coming forward. The handler shouted, and the lion crouched up against the bars, looking weary and pathetic.
“Damn fool, you want to get us fired?” The handler was cussing the lazy beast, talking ’bout an ole bag of bones, when the lion leapt. Redwood was stunned by the sudden power and grace of the rippling muscles, but something was wrong. With jaws gaping and claws slashing the air, the lion aimed itself at the foul-mouthed handler whose whip now hung limp in his hand. The lion’s golden eyes flashed murderous rage. The handler shook his head and turned his back as if he couldn’t believe the lion would dare attack him. He moved in slow motion while the lion was a streak of light.
“Where are you going?” Saeed yelled as Redwood ran toward the lion.
A sharp wind from an electric fan tore the mane from the lion’s neck to reveal a she-cat in disguise. Cast, crew, and cameramen gasped. The lioness was momentarily distracted by her costume problem. She shook violently till she was free of someone else’s ratty old mane. The handler had gotten up to speed and was charging away. Too late. The lioness recovered her momentum and cut the distance between them in two easy bounds. She tore into his behind, ripping through the pants and sinking teeth into soft flesh. The handler howled.
Redwood slowed to a walk, praying for a good spell to come to her. Two cameramen froze above their lenses. One thin, pale man continued to film, while the African Savages and the White Hunter screeched and knocked each other over, scurrying away. Redwood recognized the curly red beard and scraggly eyebrows—Nicolai Minsky. A determined fellow, he shook off his comrades urging him to run and continued to roll. They gripped their cameras and dashed away.
The handler, with the lioness clamped to his butt, struggled toward Nicolai, begging for help. Nicolai’s eyes darted up from his lens. Without a whip or a gun, what could he do? Running was his only safe option. Possessed, a demon driven to capture this deadly spectacle, Nicolai shifted his camera’s vantage point and continued rolling.
Redwood danced in front of the lioness. The wind got caught in her fierce moves. A train of fog snaked through the dust at her feet. Prairie smoke seeds, a cloud of silvery purple filaments, spun ’round her head. As Redwood swirled like a hurricane brewing, the she-cat let go of butt flesh and raggedy pants and spit her mouth clear. She licked blood from her broken fangs. Stepping over the whimpering handler, the lioness crouched low and moved toward Redwood.
Staring out a filthy train window, watching the flat Indiana landscape skitter by, Aidan’s eyes ached. Thirty years of living, and he’d never been farther north than the Blue Ridge Mountains, never been on a railway, tearing ’cross these United States of America on iron wheels. Engineers say, hardly any friction on this ride. So true, here he was almost a free man, not on the run, not under the shadow of a Peach Grove lynch mob, gliding to his destiny. Chicago was an hour or two away. Thinking ’bout seeing Redwood again, being worthy of her forgiveness, maybe worthy of her love, and he had an inkling of what the Seminole meant when they said istî siminolî.
The urge to pour a bottle of hooch down his throat came over Aidan at least five times every day and ten times at night in his sleep. As a free man now, he ignored the drinking itch, but he couldn’t get it to go away. Iris pretended she didn’t notice his infirmity. He was thankful for this and for the good folks who rode the trains and made him and Iris feel like family.
Colored people from all over the cotton-picking South, tired of breaking their backs to make white landowners rich, were coming north. They hoped to make a better life, a beautiful life. In Pittsburgh, in Cleveland, Philadelphia, Chicago, and New York, colored men had a vote, and women were agitating to get their say too. Cities sprang up overnight. In Indiana, halfway between beds of iron ore and rich coal mines, US Steel wrangled a river ’round and built a spanking new town with all the modern amenities: waterworks, fancy plumbing, electricity, and indoor toilets for the workingman. They called it Gary after a US Steel bigwig. The first furnace blasted out steel two years ago, in ’08. There were decent jobs to be had, rows of fine little houses to raise a family, and education for gals like Iris who wanted to teach school and write books. All along Lake Michigan, colored folk could dare to dream.
Stories of the high life in the bright north sounded like sure enough tall tales to Aidan. But when Iris read reports from the Chicago Defender, a colored newspaper, Aidan hoped some of the tales were halfway true. Miz Ida Bell Wells-Barnett had just started a Negro Fellowship League to help people coming up from the South. There was a colored hospital, the Provident, with colored doctors, and colored theatres, like the Pekin. A vote, a say, and a job—every morning would look bright, and after work there’d be a night on the town. No wonder colored were flying west, flying north.
Aidan was more than happy to leave King Cotton, Lord Tobacco, and the lynchmen behind. If Chicago would open its arms to the children and grandchildren of former slaves, maybe there was a place for an Irish-Seminole swamp man. Maybe he could open his heart and forgive his ownself.
Following Subie’s map, Aidan dropped the goober dust seven times, twice in Georgia, and then in South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana. On hot afternoons, he played banjo halfway decent—railroad songs for a new century. Like Miz Subie promised, his music got better. New songs came to him. Fellow travelers pestered him to start a session up or join in. He played anything: Irish ballads, Buddy Bolden’s jazz, or Ma Rainey’s blues. Not as grand as his playing used to be, but good enough. He led an impromptu jug band, and ladies flirted with him shamelessly. He flirted back. Getting close, touching soft flesh, feeling deep sighs was a delicious, almost forgotten luxury. Aidan had been without a woman’s love too long.
Just outside of Indianapolis, Iris declared her passion.
“When I’m grown, I wanna marry you,” she said, her cheeks hot, her eyes flashing.
Aidan wanted to tweak her nose, but nodded his head solemnly instead.
“Uncle Ladd was sixteen years older than Aunt Elisa,” Iris said. “You ain’t got that much more on me.”
“I’m waiting on you, sweet pea. So you hurry on up,” he said, but winked at a buxom young lady two rows down, who made him feel good to be a man. Her silky hair, courtesy of Madam C. J. Walker’s straightening pomade and hot iron, was piled in the shape of a whirlwind. Coy ringlets came undone in the afternoon humidity. She pursed full lips and batted long-lashed eyes. Aidan had to take his next breath slow. Iris punched him in the gut. She wasn’t having none of that.
“It ain’t a good idea to doubt true love,” she said.
“You can do better than me is all.”
“I don’t want to trick you with a root or spell like in Miz Dunbar-Nelson’s stories.”
“I appreciate that.” What kinda book had Doc given her to read?
“But if I have to, I will.” She waved The Goodness of St. Rocque at him.
“You don’t even know half of who I am, honey bun.” Aidan turned deadly serious. “Best to know what you’re getting involved in.”
“So tell me.” Iris folded her arms over button breasts. “I want to love you, not somebody I made up, like a story.”
“Is that so?” Aidan smiled at her, charmed.
“And I’ll tell you what you don’t know ’bout me, and we’ll be even.”
Aidan studied Iris’s wise eyes, so like her sister’s, yet somehow hers alone. What dark secrets could she have after her short sweet life? Nothing like the lies he lived, passing for whatever was convenient, hiding from what was difficult, inconvenient. Since Atlanta, most everybody thought he was a light-skinned colored man. A nosy young wrangler from Texas had asked if he was Mexican, running from the revolution. Aidan said he was Georgia born and bred, but didn’t mention Big Thunder or Miss O’Casey.
“A white man passing as colored and stealing that child?” A mountainous man with pink scars on his dark face hunched over smelly beans with his bear-sized mama. They whispered ’bout Aidan and Iris behind their hands. Everybody heard anyhow.
“He has to be crazy, an outlaw, or just up to no good,” bear mama said.
Aidan took out his banjo and made a song on the spot. Didn’t rhyme quite right yet, but it would tomorrow.
Some folk look at the world through their behinds
Get it all backwards and turned ’round in their minds
Give ’em salt and they’ll think it sweet
Give ’em honey, they’ll complain ’bout the meat
“We can’t talk secrets on a train full of people,” he whispered in Iris’s ear as people laughed and clapped. “I’m only telling you my true story, not the whole world.”
Iris stuck out her chest mimicking the buxom woman who’d caught Aidan’s eye. She threw her arms ’round his neck and pulled him close. Her little-girl smell was sweet peaches and magnolia. “Only me.”
Aidan doted on Iris, and she loved him more than he deserved, and that was that.
A stiff wind chased clouds ’cross the sky. Nicolai praised the returning sunlight as he cranked on his camera like a demon. Redwood sprang high in the air, cloaked in a cyclone of fog and prairie smoke. In the middle of a spin, she fixed her eye on the lioness. She felt a great thundering heart, wheezing lungs, and aching joints. Front paws that had bounded through fire were tender. A bruised shoulder ached where the handler had poked too hard. Cheeks and eyes stung from the whiplash. Yet, more than all this, Redwood tasted rage, killing rage, swallowed down too long and coming up strong now—breath become rage, flesh become rage, and fangs and claws the sharp edge of rage. Redwood landed at the lioness’s nose. Prairie smoke seeds settled on her grass skirt, and fog evaporated in a whistling hiss over her head. The lioness came to a halt also, fangs bared.
For a good while, there was nothing but the two of them.
Redwood hadn’t done any wild conjuring since 1903, when she and Aidan had gone off to the Chicago Fair. That trip seemed like a dream, a story she told on her young self. Who could say if it was true or not? She had known killing rage since then, and it had made her a stranger to herself. She remembered that wild young gal, beloved by the spirit in everything, not ’fraid of bears, gators, hurricanes, or crazy men wandering the night. She just couldn’t find her. The lioness snarled. A tall figure in a black hat watched from the shadow of an old oak. If Redwood had lost her hoodoo power too, if this conjure trick called the boneyard baron to her and she died this day, at least Nicolai would get a record of her true spirit on film, and who would be able to deny that?
The lioness circled Redwood, crouching till her belly brushed the ground. She drew her lips back over jagged fangs. The crowd roared and startled them both. Behind the lioness a brave African Savage dragged the blubbering handler toward a distant circle of folks who looked ready to run but eager to see the show come to any gruesome end.
The lioness’s chest rumbled.
“She’s purring.” Nicolai reeled in the images, his eyes ablaze, his thin frame shaking. Saeed stood next to him, waving and speaking beautiful words, yet their meaning escaped Redwood. Perhaps Saeed was so desperate, he spoke Farsi.
Behind Saeed, one of the animal wranglers waved a rifle. Where’d he been all this time? “That’s a growl, fool,” the wrangler said.
The boneyard baron tipped his hat.
“She’s all yours.” Nicolai urged Redwood on. Saeed gaped at him.
“Move out the way, gal,” the wrangler-gunman yelled.
Redwood ignored him and tangoed with the snarling or purring lioness toward the cage.
Chicago had more stink than Atlanta. Aidan smelled it miles before they reached the station. The air was swamp thick and sluggish. Lights jumped and gyrated in the distance; buildings squeezed closer and closer together. The clamor and clang hammered his ears as they joined a rush of trains wheeling into a Chicago railroad depot. Iris couldn’t sit still, pointing out the window to hazy wonders yet to behold.
“We’re here! Can you believe we’re here?” She was jumping up and down.
The heavy brick buildings closed in on Aidan, a mob of giants gathering in the twilight gloom, squatting on his new life. The train finally came to a halt, but so much hullabaloo and racket made his country head spin.
“Chicago is Atlanta times a thousand!” Iris leapt off the train and pulled Aidan behind her. The shotgun wrapped in a Seminole blanket banged into the banjo slung ’cross his back. The strings protested. The coppery smell of fresh blood filled his nostrils. Men, their aprons slick from critter guts, stepped out of a chilly refrigeration car. Farmers with dung and dirt clinging to their breeches jostled the butcher men.
“I never support Zapata, just I—I act like I do,” said a young man with a heavy Mexican accent as he banged into Aidan’s bags. He clutched a once-colorful sombrero to his dusty poncho. An older man in bloodstained pants and shirt, a butcher or meat packer who looked to have just stepped off the killing floor, backhanded him. Iris flinched. “I swear. I am for your side.” The young Mexican wiped blood from his nose. A splotch dripped on Aidan’s boots as he pulled Iris away from them.
An older Indian man with feathers in a black felt hat spoke to Aidan in words he did not understand. “Sorry, mister,” Aidan said. “I don’t talk your talk.”
“It is Lakota,” a younger Indian man said. No feathers in his hat, and his thick hair was long, like Aidan’s, his face broad and calm. His manner commanded attention. “My father says, his nephew’s in Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show. Has that train come?”
“I really couldn’t tell you.” Aidan remembered Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Pavilion at the Chicago Fair. “That show is still going after all these years?”
Both men nodded and headed on. Behind them, white women in starched white dresses and fancy white boots paraded through the terminal. They carried banners demanding the right to vote. Marching in sync and looking straight ahead, these ladies walked by Aidan and Iris and surrounded a big-shot politician disembarking from a luxury coach. A clump of colored country folk, smelling of sea breezes, tobacco, and dirt, glanced sideways at the suffragettes. They didn’t know what to make of these agitating white ladies neither.
“Danger’s dropping from the sky tonight.” A seedy-looking huckster shoved a foul-smelling tincture under Aidan’s nose. “Two bits buys the protection you need.”
A woman hustled children past the snake-oil man. ’Round her neck was a fox biting its own tail. The talk she made was kin to the buzz of an old banjo string. She gave Aidan a warning look.
“What do you say, sir?” The greasy blond huckster leaned in too close.
Aidan caught the fingersmith’s hands before he got near the alligator pouch and almost snapped the man’s bones. “I say, I don’t part with my money for any ole fast talk.”
“I ain’t a quack.” He bounced his voice off the high ceiling. “A bona fide chemist. My emulsion of amyl nitrite, sodium nitrite, and sodium thiosulfate will protect you from cyanogen poisoning as the comet tail engulfs our planet.” His coat was lined with brown bottles of brackish fluid. “Guaranteed to halt the dizziness, nausea, muscle spasms, and loss of consciousness. Yes, ma’am, cheat death!”
“We ain’t ’fraid of comets, sir. Just a bit of heaven flying by.” Iris pulled Aidan away, before any damage was done. “The ceiling in this train station’s as high as the sky.” She strained her neck. “You see Sis anywhere?”
In Ohio, Aidan telegrammed Redwood at the Magic Lantern Theatre to say they were coming. Who’s to say she got word? He stepped up on a bench, looked every direction, certain he couldn’t miss her. A grown woman, changed and all, she’d still be a bright star in any constellation. He scanned a mob of faces from the world over. More different kinds of folks than he ever imagined looked right through him.
“I don’t see her, sugar.”
His vision blurred for a second. Actually it was the air wavering as from high heat. He gasped. The fire-haint had taken the train north too and now crossed the tangle of tracks. Slipping between sweaty black engines, it blazed through the cavernous hall, right toward Aidan and Iris. The haint’s feet were flames scorching the pavement; its head strands of smoke like a comet’s tail; its heart silver sparks; and its unblinking, merciless eyes were rubies or garnets, peering through lies to truth. Aidan stumbled down from the bench. Iris clutched his hand. Seeing sparks in her eyes, he didn’t need to ask if she saw the haint too. He hadn’t left misery back home. It was tracking him.
As the haint swooped close, a few men in the politician’s party broke into sweat and fanned the air. The bigwig withered in a blast of heat. Drenched suddenly in sweat, he turned pink and tore at his collar and the buttons of his shirt. The huckster fell down coughing and heaving. The cure-bottles that lined his raggedy coat shattered. Volatile vapors soaked him and filled the air. In the wake of the haint, sparks flew like troubling afterthoughts, and the huckster’s alcohol-sodden coat caught fire. In a second he was a roar of flames. As the politicians backed away, the huckster wriggled his arms free of burning sleeves and rolled away, dampening the blaze on his shirt and pants. Rivulets of alcohol carried the fire in every direction. Aidan unwrapped his banjo and threw the heavy blanket on the still blazing coat. Iris and the suffragettes ran ’round stamping out the flames before they spread. Their hems were singed yellow and white boots turned sooty brown.
“What the hell was that?” the huckster clutched Aidan’s blanket to him.
“You’re a fire hazard, man, that’s what!” the bigwig politician shouted.
Aidan had to yank the blanket from him. “Sorry, sir, but I’ll be needing this.”
“You’re the one smoking a cigar,” a suffragette said to the politician.
Distant doors flew open. Hot ashes floated up to the ceiling as the haint vanished in the Chicago twilight.
“What a welcome to Chicago!” Iris looked pleased as Punch.
Aidan tipped his hat to the suffragettes and pulled her away. “I don’t see hide nor hair of Redwood.” He scanned the hall, unsure which direction to go or what to do. Getting here was one thing. Finding Redwood was—
“Don’t give up yet,” Iris said, and then whispered, “The haint, she’s a good spirit. You said so, remember?”
“Yes.” That was the tale Aidan told. The haint’s own story was another matter.
Like a sudden waterfall after a storm, three women in silvery dresses, with veils covering their hair and faces, flowed out of a private railcar. A man, taller and wider than Aidan, wearing red silk pants and a long robe, came down after the women and paused in front of Aidan and Iris. Their robes snapped and swirled as a train, trailing a rush of air, charged out of the station.
“I see you are a musician, sir.” The robed man had a singer’s voice and a foreigner’s tongue.
Iris pulled Aidan’s ear to her lips. “Are these the wild people Doc Johnson was talking ’bout?”
“Hush now,” Aidan said.
“Might I ask for your aid?” The foreigner held out a colorful playbill. “You look like a helpful chap.”
The women’s eyes above their veils were dark and welcoming.
“I’m new in town.” Aidan took off his hat. “But I’ll gladly give it a shot.”
“We’re from farther away than you,” the foreigner said.
Iris stepped in front of Aidan, bold as a full moon rising. “We come all the way from Georgia. Where you folks come from, sir?”
“Have you heard of Iran—of Persia—down in Georgia?”
Iris nodded. The women smiled with their eyes.
“We have?” Aidan said. “Now don’t you be telling tales.”
“From the Bible and a book on ancient kingdoms Aunt Elisa gave me,” Iris said.
“Persia is ancient and modern,” the foreigner said. “My younger brother’s an acrobat, performing across your great nation. I must find his theatre.” He handed Aidan a playbill for the Magic Lantern Theatre.
Aidan grinned. “Well, after I sprinkle some dirt, we’re going the same place as you.”
“A mighty coincidence like this means good luck, sir, where we come from.” Iris beamed at him.
“Where we come from as well, little beauty.” The foreigner bowed to her.
Iris blushed and bent down to the ground with Aidan. “Do you think he’s a prince?”
Aidan opened the alligator pouch. “I don’t know, but the way you eyeing him, makes me think you falling in love again.”
“He’s a spectacle all right and good luck too, but that ain’t in the same county with love,” Iris said in her grown-up voice.
“Well, now tell me a thing or two, sweet pea.” Aidan scattered the goober dust on the crisscross of rail tracks. As it sparked under the iron wheels of a train, the three women bowed their heads like this was a holy moment for them too.
The sun dipped low, setting wisps of clouds on fire. Payne was out another day’s wages. No more filming today. Redwood had danced the lioness almost back to the cage. Their motions blurred into one another, and Redwood felt heartache, for a time before this time, for fierce sisters, babies lounging in the heat, and a great bearded fellow rolling in the grass. Redwood peered with lonely lion eyes through bars at a barren landscape of circus tents and train boxcars. She turned her nose up at rotten meat covered in maggots and flies as each second stretched long and unbearable. Fire singed her whiskers, and she gulped a breath of smoke, coughed, and growled.
The lioness batted a sore paw at Redwood, bringing her back to the smelly cage.
“I can’t, damn it! Sequoia’s in the way,” someone shouted. Nobody dared get close enough for a clear shot.
Redwood gently took hold of the swollen foot. The lioness laid her head against Redwood’s hip. Redwood pressed her cheek against a furry ear, drawing the pus and pulling the pain from one paw, then the other. With a rumbling chest, the lioness danced beyond reach to deep inside the cage where bars kept the leering and snarling people out. She sat on her haunches and licked her paws, eyes never leaving Redwood.
A shot rang out. Stunned by the force of an impact, by skin and bone exploding, Redwood’s arms flew open. She stumbled and closed her eyes on a punctured lung and fatal heartache. A second shot whined by in the darkness and slammed through downy fur into soft flesh, and then Redwood could hear no more.
Time was undone, bleeding away.
Redwood opened her eyes. The lioness was twisting in the air. The second bullet had hit her belly and ripped her open. Guts poured out with blood. The White Hunter and African Savages stood behind a gunman, cheering and laughing. With fear standing in his eyes, Saeed ran into the cage.
The dead weight of the big cat fell into Redwood. She hugged the animal to her. Claws dug at her ribs as they tumbled to the ground. Blood spurted onto Redwood: sticky, hot, smelling of copper and bile. The lioness’s tongue flapped against Redwood’s shoulder. Coarse as sandpaper, it scraped away skin. Puffs of bloody, fetid breath fogged the air. Golden eyes turned glassy and gray.
Grimacing, Saeed rolled the lioness off of Redwood’s heaving chest and talked at her, but she couldn’t hear him or anything else. He looked concerned at her injured shoulder and the blood dripping down her side. As he checked her wounds, she pushed him aside with such force, he tumbled several feet and hit the ground hard. The wind was knocked from his chest. Saeed scrambled in the dust to regain his senses and came for her again.
Redwood jumped over the lioness and charged at the gunman, running faster than Saeed, running with gale force rage. As she bounded toward them, the White Hunter and African Savages grew silent, motionless, and then backed away. The gunman lost his grin as he noted their retreat. Panicked, he aimed his weapon at Redwood and shouted something, but she charged on. He fumbled and stumbled and then pulled the trigger, at point-blank range.
His rifle misfired, burning his fingers and dislocating his shoulder.
Redwood smacked the gun from his hands and slammed into him. Terror and pain disfigured his face. She balled her storm hand into a fist. It took great effort not to punch him again. He fell down at her feet and clutched his chest, like an actor miming a broken heart. She turned away from him, walked past a frightened White Hunter and stunned African Savages, past Saeed even, and back into the cage.
Redwood sat with the lioness’s head in her lap, staring through the bars. Saeed shrugged at everyone and sat next to her. Demon Nicolai cranked the last of his film. He nodded at Redwood, pleased it would seem with her bravura performance. Redwood took a choked breath. Sound returned, but she didn’t want to listen to the voices babbling at her and wished for the silence again.
It did not come.