“Makes what more difficult?” Chick asked.
“Normally,” putting his hands on the small of his back and stretching, “a procedure like this, I’d like to keep the patient under my care and supervision for several days, perhaps a week.”
“Normally,” Chick repeated.
“But it’s my understanding that this man is indigent.”
Chick stared, unsure of what to say.
“Is that correct?” the surgeon asked. “He has no papers? No money? No insurance?”
“It looks that way,” Chick said.
“Well, if that’s the case—” the surgeon began but Chick interrupted immediately.
“I understand what you’re saying. As soon as he’s ready to travel, I’ll take him with me.”
IT WAS CLOSE to dawn when Bruno came awake. Chick was in the chair next to the strongman’s bed, just coming out of a mild seizure. He wiped the bile from his beak and opened his eyes to see the patriarch staring at him, a slack anesthesia-cast to his huge face.
“You knew it would happen,” Bruno said in a dry voice. “You knew they’d take my arm.”
Chick shook his head, got up, and sat on the edge of the bed.
“You’re going to be fine,” he said. “You lost a lot of blood. But the doctor says you’ll be okay.”
“I’m going to be fine?” Bruno said.
Chick put a hand on the giant’s chest.
“Let me ask you,” Bruno said. “Have you ever known a strongman with only one arm?”
“I can’t think of any,” said Chick. “Which is why you’ll be all the more unique.”
Bruno bit down on his bottom lip and squinted. He drew a hitching breath, focused on the water-stained ceiling and said, “Don’t patronize me, boy.”
“Look at me,” Chick said and waited.
After a few seconds, Bruno met his eyes.
“Would I patronize anyone?” Chick asked evenly.
“My life has been ruined,” Bruno said, “since I took up with you and your tribe.”
“I’m sorry,” Chick said. “I’m honestly sorry for everything that’s gone wrong. But understand something, Bruno. Every choice you’ve made has been your own. I know that’s not what you want to hear right now. And trust me when I tell you that it’s not what I want to say to you. But it’s the truth. You chose to come warn us back in Odradek. You chose to deliver us from McGee. You chose to come to Gehenna with us and you chose to save us from drowning.”
“So I’m a fool,” Bruno said, his voice thick with drugs and exhaustion and despair. “And now, I’m a one-armed fool.”
“Now,” Chick said, “you’re one of us.”
Bruno tried to lift his head from his pillow.
“I don’t want to be a freak,” he said.
“You’ll find,” Chick said, “that it has its advantages.”
“I’ll try to remember that,” Bruno said, “when I’m working as a gazonie for the bottom-feeders.”
“There’s nothing wrong with being a gazonie,” Chick said. “But you’re not made for a shovel and a broom. Not anymore, anyway. You’re one of us now, Bruno. You’re a freak. And one thing that every freak knows — better than the average person — is that life will throw catastrophe into your path. Not conflicts. Not challenges. Out and out catastrophes. And it’s during those catastrophic moments, when we’re at our most terrified and grief-stricken and enraged, that anyone can turn into a real monster. We all trip over catastrophe, Bruno. But some people turn into monsters and some don’t. And maybe that has more to do with luck than anything else. But I doubt it. I think it has to do with the people around us. I think if anything keeps us from turning into monsters, it’s the people we travel with. So you have to take real care when you choose your friends. And it seems to me, in this one area, you’ve chosen well. Most of us are good people.”
Bruno was brought up short and a little confused.
“Most of us?”
Chick shrugged and said, “We still have a ways to go. There could be more catastrophes further down the road.”
“Is this what your father told you?”
“My father said it’s time for all of us to push on. He said we’re due on the western coast. He said there’s a town called Quaboag that sits at the edge of the ocean. He said he has a mansion on a cliff above the ocean. And that he’ll be waiting for us. And he says that time is running out.”
Bruno brought his hand up to his face and covered his eyes.
“I’m so tired,” he said. “I only want to sleep right now.”
“I understand,” Chick said. “But they’re going to throw us out of here very soon. And I’m not sure what will be waiting for us back at the Jubilee.”
DR. TABER, the medical examiner, was waiting for them outside the clinic. This time he was driving a hearse. Bruno stretched out in the rear and Chick rode shotgun back to the fairgrounds. The freaks were waiting at their trailer, along with Renaldo St. Clare. No one said a word when Chick and the doctor helped Bruno through the door.
Milena and Fatos took charge of the strongman, pushing two cots together, helping him down to the mattresses and covering him with a quilt.
The ringmaster stood at the foot of the makeshift bed and bowed his head.
“I’m terribly sorry this happened,” he said to Bruno. “Believe me when I tell you that the Chief feels just awful. He’s never done anything like this before.”
“You caught him?” Chick said, taking a cup of coffee from Kitty.
“Oh, he’s in his trailer right this minute,” said the ringmaster, “thinking long and hard about this whole matter. He says he’s off the bottle for good this time and, truly, I believe him.”
“He’s in his trailer?” Chick repeated, approaching St. Clare. “What do you mean, he’s in his trailer? Why isn’t he in the town jail?”
St. Clare smiled at Chick and nodded, turned back to Bruno and bent down to pat the strongman’s leg, saying, “If there’s anything at all that you require, Mr. Seboldt, you need only ask and the Bedlam Brothers will be happy to oblige.”
Then he turned to Chick, lowered his voice, and said, “Perhaps you and I should talk outside.”
They exited the trailer and St. Clare immediately began to walk toward the midway. Chick hurried to keep up with him. The ringmaster looked at the rising sun as he began to speak.
“I think you’ll agree that we’ve got a delicate situation here.”
“I think,” Chick said, “that it’s pretty simple. Your strongman lopped off the arm of my strongman.”
“Granted,” said St. Clare. “But the brothers and I are not entirely sure that the best course of action would be to incarcerate the Chief.”
“The Chief,” Chick said, “is an alcoholic psychopath. One of these days he’ll kill a mark.”
“He felt threatened by Bruno,” the ringmaster said. “He thought he was being replaced. This is really management’s fault.”
“Then management,” Chick said, “should do the right thing and bring the Chief to the authorities.”
St. Clare stopped walking next to the elephant track and decided it was time to level with the chicken boy.
“Look,” he said, “we’re out of here in a week. This town is a little goldmine for us. And we’ve got a full circuit booked on its heels. Chief Micmac is one of our headliners. All in all, it would be a financial disaster for us to deal with this situation in an official manner.”
“Your Chief,” Chick said, “attacked my friend and cut off his arm. He needs to pay.”
“And pay,” St. Clare said, seizing on the word, “is exactly what I’ve been instructed by the brothers to propose to you.”
An elephant blew a trunk of water into the air. Chick said, “Go on.”