This Godforsaken Place by Cinda Gault

Author:Cinda Gault
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-927366-42-4
Publisher: Brindle & Glass
Published: 2015-05-27T16:00:00+00:00

Rolling open spaces slowed to New York City’s multi-storied buildings, high and proud, pressed up against wide main streets. These were not main streets scratched out of wagon wheel paths, nor medieval routes twisting around a big city like London, but straight vistas racing boldly north into the distance. Overhead, telephone, telegraph, and power lines crisscrossed, as though some cosmic loom had woven a buzzing, high-powered ceiling. Everywhere crowds squeezed between ubiquitous vendors. Sizzling fish and sausages wafted from the markets of the lower harbour. Everyone hurried here, whether it was to haul something, or sell something, or meet someone. In a glimpse down an alleyway, I could see children playing barefoot beneath horizontal flagpoles of hanging laundry. The city roiled, impatient, rushing toward the future.

I unloaded my horses from the train and then reloaded them onto the ferry bound for Staten Island. Once on the island, I boarded a small train specially constructed to take livestock, performers, and spectators to the new outdoor arena built for Cody’s show. A short ride ushered us into a frenetic environment where hammers rang out from all around, not like in Wabigoon where you could follow the progress of one building at a time. Here buildings rose all around you at once: platoons of men on huge bleacher benches, makeshift barns, fences delineating the inside and outside of the arena. Predictably, people clamoured to pay their money. Who would not want a ticket to share in this gargantuan dream that transformed reality before your eyes?

Once the small train coasted to a stop inside the show’s compound, I followed a line of Indians to the stables, where Abe, Pinkerton, and I gawked at the pandemonium. I expected horses but not elk and bison, donkeys and deer. Even a bear! All were unlikely roommates together in this show because they shared the distinction of being animals of the New World. There must have been dozens of employees. Pinkerton reared up at the thundering of an incoming stagecoach pushed by six men. Abe remained unruffled. I looked at him askance, thinking he might be showing off to Pinkerton, but he ignored my scowl.

January would blend into this crowd, camouflaged, slouching languidly on his horse as he waited for the next paroxysm of activity to pass. Everyone wore cowboy hats. Most would welcome an ex-Jesse James Gang gunslinger walking among them. Dangerous characters boosted the allure of the show. Even his southern drawl would have been welcomed as a contribution to the mystique of sworn enemies mingling in a caravan of misfits. He told me to act like I belonged, that people were not nearly so interested in who I was as I might think—unless I gave them reason to get interested.

A skinny man with big cowboy boots and missing teeth stood beside the barn directing traffic.

—Where do you go to get hired on? I called out.

I squelched my instinctive propensity to add “sir” to my salutation, or pepper my phrasing with “please” and “thank you.” If my accent did not give me away as an imposter, I feared my pallor and uncalloused hands would.

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