The Year's Best Horror Stories 7 Read Free Page B

Everyone was staring now. I wanted to retch, to die. "Now you get the hell into that tool shed, and you get that disinfectant and swab out those cages," he whispered, measuring every word. One hand suddenly shot out, grasping my shoulder. "And don't you ever, ever speak back to me again."
    I don't know where the words came from, but they were suddenly there, spilling off my lips. "I didn't speak back to you, Mr. Indrasil, and I don't like you saying I did. I-I resent it. Now let me go."
    His face went suddenly red, then white, then almost saffron with rage. His eyes were blazing doorways to hell.
    Right then I thought I was going to die.
    He made an inarticulate gagging sound, and the grip on my shoulder became excruciating. His right hand went up… up… up, and then descended with unbelievable speed.
    If that hand had connected with my face, it would have knocked me senseless at best At worst, it would have broken my neck.
    It did not connect.
    Another hand materialized magically out of space, right in front of me. The two straining limbs came together with a flat smacking sound. It was Mr. Legere.
    "Leave the boy alone," he said emotionlessly.
    Mr. Indrasil stared at him for a long second, and I think there was nothing so unpleasant in the whole business as watching the fear of Mr. Legere and the mad lust to hurt (or to kill!) mix in those terrible eyes.
    Then he turned and stalked away.
    I turned to look at Mr. Legere. "Thank you," I said.
    "Don't thank me." And it wasn't a "don't thank me," but a "don't thank me." Not a gesture of modesty, but a literal command. In a sudden flash of intuition-empathy, if you will-I understood exactly what he meant by that comment. I was a pawn in what must have been a long combat between the two of them. I had been captured by Mr. Legere rather than Mr. Indrasil. He had stopped the lion tamer not because he felt for me, but because it gained him an advantage, however slight, in their private war.
    "What's your name?" I asked, not at all offended by what I had inferred. He had, after all, been honest with me.
    "Legere," he said briefly. He turned to go.
    "Are you with a circus?" I asked, not wanting to let him go so easily. "You seemed to know-him."
    A faint smile touched his thin lips, and warmth kindled in his eyes for a moment. "No. You might call me a policeman." And before I could reply, he had disappeared into the surging throng passing by.
    The next day we picked up stakes and moved on.
    I saw Mr. Legere again in Danville and, two weeks later, in Chicago. In the time between I tried to avoid Mr. Indrasil as much as possible and kept the cat cages spotlessly clean. On the day before we pulled out for St. Louis, I asked Chips Baily and Sally O'Hara, the red-headed wire walker, if Mr. Legere and Mr. Indrasil knew each other. I was pretty sure they did, because Mr. Legere was hardly following the circus to eat our fabulous lime ice.
    Sally and Chips looked at each other over their coffee cups. "No one knows much about what's between those two," she said. "But it's been going on for a long time-maybe twenty years. Ever since Mr. Indrasil came over from Ringling Brothers, and maybe before that."
    Chips nodded. "This Legere guy picks up the circus almost every year when we swing through the Midwest and stays with us until we catch the train for Florida in Little Rock. Makes old Leopard Man touchy as one of his cats."
    "He told me he was a policeman," I said. "What do you suppose he looks for around here? You don't suppose Mr. Indrasil-?"
    Chips and Sally looked at each other strangely, and both just about broke their backs getting up. "Got to see those weights and counterweights get stored right," Sally said, and Chips muttered something not too convincing about checking on the rear axle of his U-Haul.
    And that's about the way any conversation concerning Mr. Indrasil or Mr. Legere usually broke up-hurriedly, with many hard-forced excuses.
    We said farewell to Illinois and comfort at the