Enigmatic Pilot by Kris Saknussemm Page A

the boy. “Most distressing. Now, if you’ll excuse me!”
    “Did you shoot the cave lion?” Lloyd inquired.
    “Go home, young lad!” The professor waved. “I must prepare. Magic doesn’t just happen!”
    “I thought that was exactly what it did,” Lloyd replied. “That’s why it’s magic.”
    “Touché,” the showman retorted, appearing to bow, butreally examining the boy’s sorry excuse for footwear, which confirmed his initial impression. “But if I were truly a master of the art,” he continued, “then I would wave the wand of this cigar and
you
would disappear—back to wherever it was you came from.”
    “Zanesville,” Lloyd supplied. “Ohio. I saw you there.”
    “Aha,” the professor returned, his eyes following a blooming lass with a rose-hips complexion, who giggled behind a handkerchief as she passed. “Where on earth did you say your parents were?”
    “I have neglected to fulfill your request for further intelligence regarding that,” Lloyd answered.
    “Touché again, my effervescent little friend. But circumstances beyond my control, otherwise known as life, require that I spin gold from straw, separate wheat from chaff—in a word, earn my daily bread. Now
please
, leave me to my fate as I bid you goodbye and good luck with your own.” He gave the boy a hearty pat on the head, the universal sign of condescension in adults toward children—and one that he felt certain this particular child could not fail to comprehend.
    “And what about the pretty lady?” the boy asked. “Did a cave lion get her, too?”
    “Boy! I am going to perform some magic on you yet if you don’t move on!” This time the showman took a decisive step away, prepared to fend off the lad with an elbow if necessary.
    “Do you still sell the powder made from tiger penis?” Lloyd asked.
    This inquiry caught the professor by surprise, and was made at too loud a volume for his liking. He glanced around, thinking,
Damn this boy
. What he said aloud was “Shush, please! Here, my friend. Come now. Take this delightful toy as a token of my exasperation and carry on.”
    The medicine man produced from inside his coat a sheet of heavy paper neatly folded into the shape of a bird, which he un-creased, and adjusted, and then lofted into the air. The flatwings carried the construction several feet toward a scowling lady who was hawking carrots.
    “Now, go and collect that novelty and it is yours to have, without payment or condition, save that you leave me to the tasks at hand!”
    Lloyd scoffed at this offer but went and retrieved the paper bird—and then whistled at the showman, who, in spite of himself, spun around.
    Lloyd then tilted both wings upward and sent it soaring over the head of the carrot woman, where it caught an updraft and sailed well out of the market.
    “Inclined wings produce more lift and also more stability,” he called out to the showman, whose eyebrows had arched in surprise. “Now, what about the tiger powder?”
    “Please, my young friend!” the showman entreated with nervous gesticulations, buffaloed at last. “Just come in here and let me give you something to take your mind off all these questions.”
    Lloyd’s eyes adjusted to the change in light. The tent was much larger than it had looked from outside, and set out like a room in a house, except that over in one corner was another tentlike structure, like the sort of cloth-screened cubicle one might find in a doctor’s surgery. Worn Turkish carpets had been laid down, with satiny pillows strewn about, creating an ambience that was both cozy and exotic, although a distinct mix of odors permeated the enclosure: a chamber pot, perspiration, lice soap. Lloyd felt at home.
    This impression was strengthened by the presence of two women. The first Lloyd recognized as the beautiful Anastasia he had been wondering about (who in truth was as worn as the carpets, but still richly patterned). She was seated on a camp meeting chair mending