by Lamont A. Turner
Frank and Chris stared up at the tall man in the top hat on the stage, hoping they’d made the right choice to spend three tickets on Doctor Lucifer’s Oddities and Wonders instead of trying to win another plastic slingshot at the shooting gallery. The billboard outside the tent had depicted a man swallowing a flaming sword, but the only thing on the rickety stage beside the man was something on a table, covered with a stained blanket.
“Where’s the fire eater?” Frank shouted.
“Hold on to your horses, young man,” said the man in the top hat, shaking his skull-headed cane at the boys. “You’ll get ta see Vulcan The Amazing at the end. That’s if ya make it that far.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Frank said, puffing out his chest. “You calling us chicken?”
“You ain’t seen Denny yet,” the man said, tapping his cane against the bulge in the blanket. “You ever heard of Denny Drake?” The boys looked at each other and shrugged. “Well let me tell ya about him. Drake was the meanest, most low-down gunslinger west of the Rio Grande. They say he killed about a hundred men before they got ‘em, and maimed about a hundred more.”
“He must have been pretty small to fit under that blanket,” shouted a man in overalls from the back of the tent. The woman standing next to Frank grabbed her stomach and cackled boozy breath into Frank’s face, her laughter dying in a belch as the man in the top hat thumped his cane against the stage, demanding silence.
“Denny Drake was near seven foot tall,” the man continued, “though he’s about a foot shorter these days. See, Denny had a thing for collecting scalps for bounties. A man could make good money in those days for bringing in the scalp of a wanted man, and it was easier than haul’n a whole corpse across the desert. It didn’t matter if they came off of white men or Indians, if there was a price on a man’s head, Denny would take a break from steal’n horses and robbing trains ta go collect his handful of hair. A couple times, Denny almost lost his own scalp, but he was always faster on the draw than the fellas he was track’n.
“One day, Denny lost a particularly valuable scalp to a coyote he’d been too drunk to see sneaking up on his camp. Deciding one scalp was as good as another, he took one off the daughter of a Cherokee medicine man he ran into by the river on the way into town, also helping himself to the blankets she’d been washing. This medicine man was understandably disturbed by this transgression, and when he saw Denny riding out of town again with his bag of silver and a familiar blanket draped over his horse’s flank, he cursed Denny to eternal life.”
“What kind of curse is that?” Frank said. “Sign me up for it the next time they’re handing them out.”
“Not so fast. This medicine man was also a prophet,” said the man, leaning over the edge of the stage to leer at Frank. “He knew Denny was going to be bushwhacked before he had a chance ta deliver the scalp, and he knew what the bushwhackers was fix’n ta do ta Denny once they caught ‘em.”
“What’d they do?” Chris asked, suddenly feeling uneasy about the cyndrical shape under the blanket.
“They took a trophy!” the man said, ripping the blanket away with a flourish to reveal a large amber-colored jar. Something like a mass of black worms bobbed in the brackish liquid. “I give you Denny Drake, outlaw!” The man spun the jar, revealing to the audience the pallid features of a black bearded face. There was a collective gasp.
“That ain’t real!” a woman in bib overalls shouted, dismissing the head with a wave of her meaty hand before wandering off. Several others groaned and shuffled off after her, but the boys stood transfixed.
“It’s real enough,” said the man. I bought it for a pretty penny from the son of the man who chopped it off. It sat on a shelf of their family store for years before the old man died and the son, tired of look’n at the thing, agreed to sell it. This here is all that’s left of Denny Drake, the rest of him being left for the vultures. That ain’t all though. Remember that curse I told you about?”
“You saying that things alive?” Frank asked. “There ain’t no way.”
In response, the man tapped the jar with his cane and Denny Drake opened his eyes to stare at them. The boys didn’t get to see the fire eater. Abandoning any pretense of youthful bravado, they bolted from the tent and kept running until they reached the ticket booth at the entrance of the midway.
“Did you see that?” Chris asked, bent over with his hands on his knees, panting.
“Had to be some kind of trick,” Frank said. “I’ll bet that thing was just a bunch of rubber and rags. He probably had it rigged up with wires or magnets, or something.”
“It looked pretty real to me.”
“No way. We just got bamboozled. I bet there isn’t even a fire eater at all. If we would have stayed, he probably would have said Vulcan got sick, or it would have been some guy with a red light pointed at a retractable blade. The whole thing was a scam.”
“I guess that’s what we get for being stupid,” Chris said fishing in his pockets for any neglected change and coming up empty.
“Speak for yourself,” Frank said, glaring at the red and white striped tent halfway down the midway.
Frank couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t stop thinking of the man in the top hat and the three tickets he’d conned out of him. He had to find a way to get back at him. The carnival would only be in town for another day, so he didn’t have much time to debate with himself. If he was going to get his three tickets worth of revenge it would have to be that night. Carrying his shoes, he crept past his parents’ room and rummaged through the hall pantry where his father kept a spare flashlight. Cupping his hand over the lens, he clicked it on, testing the batteries. Seeing it worked, he slipped his shoes on and slowly opened the squeaking front door just enough to squeeze outside.
The old hound dog on the porch didn’t raise his head as Frank crept past it on his way to the tool shed where he pocketed a chisel and the smallest hammer he could find. Not wanting to risk waking the dog a second time, he climbed out the back window of the shed and snuck off down the hill toward the Ferris wheel, silhouetted against the October moon.
The midway was silent, all the ride operators and performers having retreated to the row of trailers set up on the ridge beyond the tents. All he had to watch out for was old McGinty. Since retiring as sheriff, McGinty had offered his services to the carnivals and other events straggling into the town, wandering the grounds a few times each night to make sure nobody tampered with the rides, or that the carnival workers didn’t get too rowdy. Frank was sure he could out run the old man, but he wanted to make certain any running was done after he got what he came for.
Staying in the shadows of the tents, away from the trailers, he found the one with the red and white stripes and slipped his shoe under the edge. Seeing it was too taunt to squirm under, he found a stake at one of the corners and worked his chisel under the rope, loosening it until it slipped off. It gave him just enough slack in the tent to crawl under it. Inside it was pitch black.
Afraid his flashlight would cast shadows on the tent that could be seen from outside, he held it in his jacket, pointing it down so it made just enough light to illuminate the path to the stage. He still wasn’t sure if the head was there when he reached the steps, but soon the table was before him, the blanket hanging over the edge. Shifting his flashlight to his jacket pocket where it made only a faint glow, he wrapped his arms around the jar and carried it, still wrapped in the blanket, out into the cool autumn night.
He’d almost made it to the ticket booth when he heard the sound of humming, accompanied by the tread of boots on gravel. Fearing it was McGinty; he sprinted for the woods surrounding the carnival, but tripped before he reached the line of trees, dropping his burden. From the ground, he watched the jar roll on ahead of him a few feet and heard someone rushing across the field toward him. He tried to scamper to his feet, but a boot on his back pinned him down.
“Where do you think you’re going?” asked a voice. It wasn’t McGinty’s. The boot left his back and Frank rolled over to stare into the red rimmed eyes of the man in the top hat, still dressed for the show.
“I was just curious,” Frank stammered, putting an arm over his face to block the light that shot from the man’s hand.
“Well maybe you should have stuck around for the whole show,” the man said, reaching down to yank Frank up by the sleeve. “I guess there’s no harm in letting you have a better look, though. After all, you did pay for the full show.” He shoved Frank toward the jar, now free of the blanket, and made it glisten with his flashlight.
As they got closer, Frank could just make out the head, facing downward in the jar. In the beam of the flashlight it looked different, the hair lighter.
“I guess you figured my story was hogwash,” the man said, shoving Frank onto his knees before the jar. “Truth is there never was no Deny Drake. I made all that up. The head was real though. It just didn’t come from any old west outlaw. It was a lot fresher than that. Problem was I ain’t much of an embalmer. The thing was getting a little gamey. Once, a fella I was play’n cards with had the bright idea to unscrew the lid and I thought I’d never get the stink out of my trailer. That was when I knew I needed a replacement.”
Frank tried to get up and make a dash for the woods, but the man caught him by the nape of his neck and spun him around, breathing the ghosts of whiskey and cheap cigars into Frank’s face.
“These days you boys are all alike, poke’n fun at your elders and think’n the world owes you. Ain’t a one of you worth the trouble it takes to spit at ya.”
Frank thought of screaming, making enough noise to attract the attention of McGinty or the people in the trailers, but all he could force out was a whisper: “What are you going to do to me?”
“I’m gonna put you to work. Give you some purpose other than getting on people’s nerves, just like I did for your friend.”
“Chris?” Frank muttered. “What’s he got to do with this?”
“Seems he had the same idea you did. I guess he was curious too.” The man yanked Frank to his feet and got him into a bear hug, squeezing his throat with a bony forearm as he used his boot to roll the jar over. “Take a peek at my new star attraction, the Texas Kid.”
Frank looked down at the jar, and Chris stared back at him. He could scream now, but the man squeezed harder, strangling the sound before it reached his lips.
“I’m not sure how I’ll work ya into the act,” he heard the man say as everything went black, “but you know what they say, two heads are better than one.”
Lamont A. Turner’s work has appeared in numerous magazines, anthologies and podcasts. His first collection of short stories, “Souls In A Blender” is available in paperback from Amazon and in digital version from Godless Horrors. He resides in Louisiana with his wife and four children.
Perry Gasteiger is a Canadian poet and visual artist living in Manchester. Their work focuses on the body and the discomfort of existing in the world. They have had their art published in Warning Lines and Celestite magazines and had their debut poetry chapbook released in December 2021. They have a collaborative book of art and poetry releasing with Fifth Wheel Press in September 2023. Twitter: @/perrygasteiger. Instagram @/sunshinedaisybaby
