Barnum’s stellar prophesy of an extravagant future for his big-top circus came true. By 1887, P.T. Barnum and James Bailey had become equal partners in the new Barnum and Bailey Circus, and together they formed a fiery circus comet that streaked across America, leaving behind the dust of insignificant promoters like Frank Uffner. Their vision was to expand the “Greatest Show on Earth” under a big top that would hypnotize audiences looking up at the man-made skies bursting with sparkling trapeze stars and glowing high-wire acts.
Barnum and Bailey showcased more and more ferocious animals, beasts whose roars would bring audiences to the brink of hysteria at the prospect of a life-or-death experience. While their agents searched the globe for the colossal entertainment Barnum envisioned, he continued to display the massive skeleton of Jumbo, the elephant, who had met his demise when he was struck by a train in Canada in 1885.
Unfortunately for P.T. Barnum, the sure-fire hand of fate trumped his prophecy. Before long the curse of train wrecks and train accidents that seemed to follow American circuses throughout the United States caught up to his own circus. Folks had barely recovered from the \ Barnum and London accident that injured a dozen people, followed by the Frank A. Robbins Circus train accident in 1886 that killed one man and seventeen circus horses, when on November 4 and 5, 1888, the John Robinson Circus was involved in two serious wrecks on successive days. The circus community nationwide could not believe its grave malediction, but their motto of the “show must go on” prevailed, and the circus trains crisscrossed America despite the fear that the trains’ flaming engines and whip-like tails would turn them all into dust just around the next bend.
On January 06, 1890 a miniscule Lucía sat squished between her father and mother as they left Salt Lake City on a train bound for San Francisco. They were cold and uncomfortable, but they were also looking forward to the conclusion of the San Francisco shows, when they would finally return to Mexico. Lucía’s presence on the train didn’t cause any commotion. Long gone was Lucía’s heyday of adoring fans, not to mention her spark and vigor, and her puppy-love infatuation with General Mite. Instead, she’d resigned herself to travel to and fro, wherever Mr. Holmes, her new manager, sent her.
Lucía accepted her fate as the only breadwinner in her family and she resolved to persevere, to smile at her meager audiences, to lace up her shredded boots and put on a show. She saw no other alternative. She loved and accepted her mother and father for who they were. Zoila had taught her that she was tiny but mighty, and a mighty person did what was best for her family, whatever their personal shortcomings, self-interests, and acts of sabotage. Lucía even forgave her father for settling for a total of four thousand dollars and allowing Frank Uffner to keep the remaining twenty thousand dollars of her earnings. In the land of signed and unsigned contracts and the almighty power of the dollar, Lucía realized she didn’t stand a chance of recuperating her money. She would focus on doing what was best for her family, and she would keep going while the going was still somewhat good.
After her abrupt dismissal by P.T. Barnum, Lucía had stayed in New York holding levées at Holmes’s Museum in Brooklyn, where she became the darling of elderly ladies who came in day in and day out to chat with her and commiserate about their sad lives. One afternoon, in late December of 1889, Lucía wasn’t sure she understood what a couple of elderly ladies were saying.
“Dear lady,” she asked, “do repeat what you just said?”
The elderly fan cupped her gloved hand to her ear. “What did you say?”
“Please tell me why you are so sad?”
“Oh, yes. I was saying that I read the Evening World last week.” The elderly lady pulled the news clipping from her pocket and read:
Miss Zárate, whose weight is but four and three-quarter pounds, and who unblushingly admits that she is twenty-six years of age is an intelligent little woman who converses fluently in three languages. She is Mexican by birth and much attached to her Southern home. Her visitors have been for the most part ladies with whom she is a universal favorite. Manager Holmes has decided to keep her for just another week. At that time, he will present a new melodrama, “Monte.”
Lucía groaned at the news, reluctant to face life on the road yet again. Her mother, now her chaperone, did not have Zoila’s stamina for the burdens of long-distance train travel, and Lucía worried for her health.
Lucía’s elderly fan started to cry. “Why does Mr. Holmes want to send you away, honey? Seeing your sweet face is the only joy I have these days.”
“I suppose that audiences prefer melodramas on stage,” Lucía said, trying not to cry herself. “Although my life has certainly had its unbelievable ups and downs.”
“Oh, don’t we know. Why, weren’t you kidnapped three times? And didn’t you survive a run-away horse carriage in London?”
“Yes, I did.”
“And weren’t you left at the altar … twice?”
“More or less.” Lucía didn’t want to get into all the details of that now. It all seemed so long ago.
“But how did you survive?” The elderly lady was sobbing. “Your heart must be in pieces!”
Lucía chuckled. “Yes, but they are very small pieces and they’ve managed to put themselves together again.”
“Darling, how can you laugh at your misfortune?”
“I don’t see it as misfortune, Madam. On the contrary, I’ve lived a full life thus far. My godmother Zoila took care of me and taught me so much. I traveled the world, shook hands with royalty and presidents—and I fell in love. And look at me!” Lucía stood to her full miniature height. “I’m still the one and only, the smallest woman in the world.”
W.J Burgess, the manager of the Grand Opera House in Salt Lake City, welcomed Lucía to the theatre. Her father and mother were waiting at the entrance, huddled against the strong wind-chill, but Mr. Burgess only invited Lucía inside. He picked her up like one of his toddler daughters, giggling at Lucía’s proportions.
“I can’t believe what I’m seeing. You’re beyond tiny! Do you mind talking to the reporter from the Salt Lake Herald? He’s real eager to meet you and he wants to talk to you before you leave.”
“But I just arrived in the city. Why would I leave?”
“Hmm, that’s what they told me.”
“Who’s they, sir?”
“Dunno,” he said, and he handed her over to the reporter.
Within a couple days, Lucía was boarding a train headed to San Francisco. Her parents were eager to leave the howling winds and falling snow of Salt Lake City behind.
Her mother rubbed her hands together. “Do you think that San Francisco will be warm?”
“Don’t be daft!” replied Señor Zárate, as usual the expert on absolutely nothing. “Of course it’s warm. It’s a steaming-hot port city like Veracruz.”
“I hope there’s a Café de la Parroquia in San Francisco. I want to drink a cup of hot chocolate with vanilla and cinnamon. Do you think we can drink hot chocolate there, Lucía?”
Lucía had grown tired of correcting her parents’ many errors in common sense and in life, and although she knew their train would have to cross California’s treacherous and icy Sierra Nevada mountain range before reaching San Francisco, she didn’t fear the snow outside. After all, she’d survived two transatlantic crossings; she’d been windblown in Chicago, and she’d been pelted by a Northeaster along the Eastern seaboard. Despite everything Nature had thrown at her, she’d survived. Lucía hugged her mother.
“I’ll make sure you drink a cup of hot chocolate in San Francisco, mamá,” she said.
Had Lucía listened beyond the howling winds as the train she was riding breached California’s infamous Donner Pass, she might have heard the brujo’s incessant warning whistle. This was the whistle she’d always heard before a calamity befell her, the whistle she’d misunderstood until this moment, on this train, on this icy pass.
This stretch of the Sierras carried its own frigid curse: it had already massacred hundreds of people, and had even turned the starving survivors of the Donner party into cannibals. The mighty train Lucía was riding appeared unsusceptible to the cursed weather along this stretch of the Sierras, but the passengers had no idea that forceful winds had already snapped Western Union’s telegraph wires and dumped twenty-four feet of snow—snow that had hardened into lethal blocks of ice ready to crush the train.
By the time Lucía heard the brujo’s warning whistle, the train had come to its final screeching stop, miles from the nearest town of Truckee. Señor Zárate and the other passengers rattled around the train in a frenzy, but Lucía and her mother remained calm, accepting fate’s glacial and deadly blow. Days passed and no help arrived, although in the distance they could hear snowplows and echoing shouts, telling them help was on its way. But the ominous snow continued to fall. Soon the weakest of passengers became ill with La Grippe, the first victims of the Great Sierra Snow Blockade of 1890.
Although the heat inside the vanilla curing house was unbearable, Zoila stayed indoors checking the quality of the aroma of the year’s crop. When she’d returned to Veracruz, she’d sold the gold watch and added the money to the proceeds of her accumulated earnings as Lucía’s governess. She’d met with the Totonacs and together they bought a curing house that once belonged to a Frenchman. He’d mysteriously disappeared from Paplanta. Now Zoila was in charge of the Totonac vanilla cooperative, known to buyers here and overseas for its first-grade vanilla.
She wiped her brow and looked at the calendar on her desk: Wednesday, January 29, 1890. It was the day she was scheduled to meet with a group of Yankee investors who’d visited the Mexican pavilion at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition. She couldn’t wait to spar with them, to make them sweat, to show them what an armadillo negotiator can achieve for her people.
Only when Zoila heard the faraway whistle did she step outside and followed the intermittent tune of a reed flute. It was January and not yet time for the Totonac Flying Men to perform their ritual dance. They were still out working in their land, protecting the vanilla beans from poachers. Zoila clutched her chest in consternation. The leather sheath covering her dagger and a locket containing Lucía’s brown hair rested safely in her warm bosom.
Zoila followed the whistle past the sacred ground where she’d buried the vial of Felipe’s blood. Although it wasn’t yet dusk, the sky had darkened with flocks of black crows, Paplanta’s namesake. She looked into the trees and glimpsed a tiny horned owl tumbling uncontrollably to earth. This was the most ill-boding of omens for the Totonac. That’s when Zoila knew what was happening to Lucía.
“You’re tiny but you’re mighty,” she shouted to the sky, hoping to see the owl pick up flight again, signaling a change in Lucía’s fate. “You’ve survived catastrophes!”
The reed flute tune grew louder and Zoila cried out again; fully aware of Lucía’s fate.
“You’re now flying with the bird-men of Paplanta! This is your final dare-devil acrobatic stunt under the biggest top of all.”
The flute sound had ceased, but Zoila didn’t stop. She’d been Lucía’s teacher and friend and she would accompany her to the end of her odyssey.
“Praise the earth, air, fire and water,” Zoila whispered. “Look to the east, for that is where you came from. Look to the west for that is where you are going. Look up to the sun and soar in its luminous rays.”