shouldered her way up to the wagon and reached out and ran her hand up Birdcall's bare leg as if appraising a cut of meat at the market. Fast as a bull mastiff, Birdcall grabbed the matron's wrist and sank her sharp little white incisors deep into her thumb.
Mother screamed and danced a jig and held up her bleeding thumb, roaring out that she'd take the bitch back for nothing.
"Mr. Auctioneer," Morgan called out. "I'll pay you two dollars for her."
"What? What are you, boy, a millionaire-man?" With a well-aimed kick, the auctioneer booted Birdcall off the wagon. "Take her then and be damned," he said cheerily, snatching Morgan's money out of his hand.
"You and the hellcat are both tripe, boy," Mother Hubbard snarled at Morgan. "You are both dead as tripe. See if you ain't."
Morgan motioned for the elephant to kneel and told Birdcall to climb up on the animal's back. Then he led the Caliph, with the girl atop it hurling scurrilous epithets at the harridan and the laughing throng, back toward the town.
As they headed along the berm Morgan once again considered his situation. He needed to swing south toward Elmira to see his uncle John, who had been in the great battle at Gettysburg, in order to learn more of Pilgrim's disappearance. His uncle might also be able to tell him more about the killers who had escaped from the Union prison, particularly the clubfooted doctor. His cousin Dolton needed, above all, not to go south. Then there was the wilding, young Birdcall, who had attached herself to him like a canal leech, and the matter of what to do with the Caliph. Barring an unforeseen encounter with the doctor, his plan was nearly ready.
A S DUSK SETTLED IN, the Spring Rout was in full swing between the wharf where His Whaleship was tethered and Mother Hubbard's whore-cribs and tavern at the far end of Canal Street. There were beer tents and open-air eateries serving ribs braised with maple syrup, Hudson River oysters on the half shell, and hot cross buns. There were ring-toss and coin-toss booths, guess-your-weight-and-age charlatans, tinkers, and pack peddlers hawking yard goods and scissors and genuine silver spoons with the brass showing through. There were dancers on stilts. And in the quagmire in front of Mother Hubbard's, near a swing-bridge over the canal, a party of maskers accoutered in feather boas, cloaks of many colors,and sashes glowing vividly in the flaring gas street lamps. Some of Mother's whores pranced in the mud attired in top hats, eye masks like highwaymen, and not one stitch else. Their gentleman escorts wore gossamer gowns in pastel hues. A gigantic butler in snow-white livery made a stately promenade along the street pouring a viscous, bright emerald liqueur from a retort with a long pipe neck into crystal goblets held high by the masked bacchanals. Some of the celebrants wore crowns of gilded paper, and all were miming the most clownish extravagancies that men and women deep in drink and debauchery are capable of. No one seemed to think Morgan's elephant extraordinary in the least. In fine, the spectacle reminded Morgan of nothing so much as a scene from a collection of passing strange tales by a writer named E. A. Poe that Pilgrim had sent him for his birthday two years ago.
Dolt was sitting on a bench outside a beer tent with a supremely foolish grin on his face, toward which he was ever so carefully advancing, with both hands, a flagon of amber ale a good two feet high. "Morgie," he shouted. "Have you seen the Spanish Mute? The knife thrower? You won't believe what the fella can do. Why, he can pick a bluebottle fly off a fat man's arse blindfolded from thirty foot away."
Morgan couldn't help laughing as, with the painstaking deliberation of a very drunken man, the Dolter tilted his tankard--in the process sloshing half of the beer over his jacket--toward a motley knot of equally intoxicated fairgoers just up the street. They were gathered around a man in a flowing black cape and a
Mother screamed and danced a jig and held up her bleeding thumb, roaring out that she'd take the bitch back for nothing.
"Mr. Auctioneer," Morgan called out. "I'll pay you two dollars for her."
"What? What are you, boy, a millionaire-man?" With a well-aimed kick, the auctioneer booted Birdcall off the wagon. "Take her then and be damned," he said cheerily, snatching Morgan's money out of his hand.
"You and the hellcat are both tripe, boy," Mother Hubbard snarled at Morgan. "You are both dead as tripe. See if you ain't."
Morgan motioned for the elephant to kneel and told Birdcall to climb up on the animal's back. Then he led the Caliph, with the girl atop it hurling scurrilous epithets at the harridan and the laughing throng, back toward the town.
As they headed along the berm Morgan once again considered his situation. He needed to swing south toward Elmira to see his uncle John, who had been in the great battle at Gettysburg, in order to learn more of Pilgrim's disappearance. His uncle might also be able to tell him more about the killers who had escaped from the Union prison, particularly the clubfooted doctor. His cousin Dolton needed, above all, not to go south. Then there was the wilding, young Birdcall, who had attached herself to him like a canal leech, and the matter of what to do with the Caliph. Barring an unforeseen encounter with the doctor, his plan was nearly ready.
A S DUSK SETTLED IN, the Spring Rout was in full swing between the wharf where His Whaleship was tethered and Mother Hubbard's whore-cribs and tavern at the far end of Canal Street. There were beer tents and open-air eateries serving ribs braised with maple syrup, Hudson River oysters on the half shell, and hot cross buns. There were ring-toss and coin-toss booths, guess-your-weight-and-age charlatans, tinkers, and pack peddlers hawking yard goods and scissors and genuine silver spoons with the brass showing through. There were dancers on stilts. And in the quagmire in front of Mother Hubbard's, near a swing-bridge over the canal, a party of maskers accoutered in feather boas, cloaks of many colors,and sashes glowing vividly in the flaring gas street lamps. Some of Mother's whores pranced in the mud attired in top hats, eye masks like highwaymen, and not one stitch else. Their gentleman escorts wore gossamer gowns in pastel hues. A gigantic butler in snow-white livery made a stately promenade along the street pouring a viscous, bright emerald liqueur from a retort with a long pipe neck into crystal goblets held high by the masked bacchanals. Some of the celebrants wore crowns of gilded paper, and all were miming the most clownish extravagancies that men and women deep in drink and debauchery are capable of. No one seemed to think Morgan's elephant extraordinary in the least. In fine, the spectacle reminded Morgan of nothing so much as a scene from a collection of passing strange tales by a writer named E. A. Poe that Pilgrim had sent him for his birthday two years ago.
Dolt was sitting on a bench outside a beer tent with a supremely foolish grin on his face, toward which he was ever so carefully advancing, with both hands, a flagon of amber ale a good two feet high. "Morgie," he shouted. "Have you seen the Spanish Mute? The knife thrower? You won't believe what the fella can do. Why, he can pick a bluebottle fly off a fat man's arse blindfolded from thirty foot away."
Morgan couldn't help laughing as, with the painstaking deliberation of a very drunken man, the Dolter tilted his tankard--in the process sloshing half of the beer over his jacket--toward a motley knot of equally intoxicated fairgoers just up the street. They were gathered around a man in a flowing black cape and a
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