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Fiction Short Story

Dave Laird

Dave Laird is a systems administrator/software designer in Spokane, Washington who has spent most of his life wandering, including a short stint with a small family-owned circus in the early 70's. He has cumulatively lived in over twenty states in thirty-five years, and has also worked as a heavy mechanic, musician, professional fisherman, newspaper journalist, investigative journalist and is an illustrious gadabout by trade.

"The Lion's Tale"
"A Tale for Children"

Dave Laird

Don't ask me where or how this tale comes about. It is possible that Dexter Amend, in a moment of mischief, crept into my study and, seizing the opportunity to expound on his considerable prosaic wit, started hammering on the keyboard. It is a tale that perhaps your children or someone else's children might enjoy. Feel free to share it with them...

The circus started arriving in town long before anyone was awake, for it was scarcely three-thirty in the morning when the first huge truck bearing a pair of tigers and one travel-weary lion pulled to a halt inside the county fairgrounds. Within minutes sleepy men and women started emerging, while still others continued to arrive in pickup trucks. The people, despite their obvious fatigue, quickly started laying out the ropes, poles and huge canvas tents that would eventually become the Big Top.

Although, here and there, bits of metal invisibly clanked together, the people all worked quietly as a team, with only an occasional word to one another. One of the first tents to actually reach up toward the sky became the canteen, and within less than half an hour, the smell of fresh coffee wafted gently over the muddy fairgrounds that was to be their home for the next six days.

Meanwhile, the big cats, Allorah, Maachlen and Dunbar, were discussing matters among themselves, as cats often do. Although they were very tired from their long trip, they could not sleep with all the activity going on around them.

"WHERE are we?" Allorah asked, impatiently pacing back and forth across the front of her cage. "This place looks so muddy and...desolate. And it's cold, too." She sighed deeply, peering out through the bars of her cage at the early morning mist just beginning to rise. "I did so like our last stop...where was it?"

"Alabama." Maachlen stated calmly from one corner of the cage where he sat his head cradled on his massive paws. "We were in Alabama."

"It certainly looked much more comfortable than this gray, muddy field," Dunbar commented dryly, rising to his feet and peering out into the darkness. "There is hardly a tree to be seen. If this place gets warm and sunny, we'll have no place to get out of the heat."

"Oh, hush! Both of you!" Maachlen briefly raising his head up and peering at both of his companions. "The other animals will be here soon enough, and it is almost time for the trainers to feed us." He rose to his feet slowly, and stretched, grimacing with the effort, for Maachlen was much older than any of the other circus animals, with the exception of the elephants, who were older than anyone could calculate. "Look! Here come some more of the animal trucks. Allorah, can you make out who is arriving?"

Allorah stood at one corner of their cage and, twitching her whiskers in great concentration, peered off into the darkness a moment.

"Why it's the elephants, Juniper and Cossack in front, followed by Jacob the Eldest and Queen Sacha right behind them. Perhaps they will park the trucks over here, close enough for us to find out what place this is, no?" Allorah murmured to herself.

This was true, for as much as his advanced age gave Maachlen great wisdom and insight, no animal in the circus knew more than Queen Sacha. She had lived a thousand cat-lives, according to some, and she knew a great deal about everything that had happened, was happening or would happen in the future of their tiny circus kingdom.

Almost as if the drivers of the two arriving trucks had overheard their conversation, the trucks pulled in, one on each side of the cages where the cats waited. As soon as the hiss of the air brakes and the roar of the giant diesel engines died out, and as soon as the humans were out of hearing, Allorah hissed out the side of the cage, attempting to catch the attention of either Jacob or Queen Sacha inside the long truck trailer.

"Hsst!"

"Who calls us?" Jacob the Elder responded in his deep, well-measured voice. "Who calls?"

"It is I, Allorah. I am with Maachlen and Dunbar, parked here next to you. Do you know where we are?"

"It is a place called Oregon. Why do you ask?"

"It is so empty, not at all like the sumptuous fairgrounds at our last stop. There are no trees as far as I can see, and it is chilly and dark."

"We are in Oregon, and will be here for about a week, I gather. Although it has been raining here for the last week, good weather is predicted for the next six days, so at least lots of people will come."

"Something is wrong with our truck, I believe," Queen Sacha suddenly interrupted. "Just in the short time we have been here, I sense the truck is starting to lean more and more. It is not unlike when one of the tires on the truck has lost its shape, only happening much quicker. Can you see what is wrong from where you are?"

Allorah quietly walked from one end of her cage to the other, carefully examining the elephant's truck from every possible angle.

"No, I cannot see...oh no! I do see. One side of your truck is sinking into the earth. The higgleybeasts are pulling you into the earth and you'll be lost to us forever..."

"Silence!" Angrily Maachlen shouldered Allorah aside with one neat twist of his torso and examined the elephant's truck which, by now, was visibly listing more and more with each passing second. "Allorah, you stop that nonsense about your imaginary higgleybeasts. Your persistence in telling those old cat fables does you no honor, nor does it help anyone." Maachlen cleared his throat a bit, and spoke up, "Queen Sacha, it appears that your truck is sinking into the ground, though from what means I cannot tell. I will attempt to summon the trainers here and perhaps they can see what this is about."

With a mighty deafening roar, Maachlen attempted to summon their human trainers, but despite repeated attempts that echoed from truck to truck, no one came, for all the trainers were all in the warm canteen tent eating their breakfast, in preparation for the opening day in a new location.

In every animal cage in the circus, it was known by one and all that the most responsible members of the animal kingdom had methods and ways of getting out of every cage in the circus without human intervention. The humans didn't know this, of course, but it was common knowledge that any of the older members of the circus could open any gate at will. Maachlen now turned, and with a deft toss of his noble head, managed to unlatch the gate at the end of the cage, thus releasing himself.

"You stay put." He growled menacingly at Allorah, who was about to follow him, a little too quickly for Maachlen's own comfort. Carefully closing the door behind himself, and padding over the moist turf, he reached the back of the elephant's truck in a few short paces of his great legs, and peered in uncertainty at the strange arrangement of latches in front of him.

"Do you know how to open this gate?" he asked Queen Sacha, inside.

"Lift up the latch, to where it points toward the sun, and it will fall down the other side. That opens the gate." Sacha said very patiently. "Be careful, as it may have some sharp edges."

In the time it took for Maachlen to move the latch with his nose, he could see that the truck was continuing to sink further and further into the muddy soil, and now it leaned even further to the right.

"There!" he finally growled softly to himself in frustration. "It is done."

First, Queen Sacha and then Jacob the Elder backed awkwardly out of the rear of their truck, by now which was leaning to the right rather severely. Jacob reached up with his massive trunk and even gave the truck a considerable shove, as if to see whether or not he could return matters to their normal state of affairs, but to no avail.

"I believe our driver parked the truck on quicksand," Queen Sacha murmured softly as if speaking to herself in the dreamlike state elephants often enter when they are sleeping." I have heard from my ancestors about such things, but I have never witnessed such myself." Turning to Maachlen, she nodded gravely. "To you, Maachlen, many thanks for saving us from an uncertain fate. It would be best if you were back safely inside your cage by the time the trainers arrive, as you know how frightened they become when one of your family gets out of the cage unannounced."

And thus it was, when the trainers stumbled back to their animal charges, having feasted on huge stacks of pancakes with big slabs of butter and maple syrup, and having drunk several huge tureens of coffee, that they found the elephant's truck now was nearly lying on its side, the victim of a sinkhole. They were somewhat startled at finding the elephants calmly standing beside the fallen truck, picking half-heartedly at what little grass there was on the flat muddy field.

In the hue and cry of gathering up the tethers of Queen Sacha and Jacob the Elder and tying them to the bumper of the fallen truck, hardly anyone paid attention to the tightly-latched cage where the great cats lay, their heads all cradled on their paws, their eyes twinkling with what appeared to be amusement as the first gray of dawn began to touch the barren landscape.

Little did the trainers know that Maachlen had become a hero, or that his name is still mentioned today, whenever the greatest and wisest of all the animals in gods animal kingdom, the elephants, gather together to discuss matters of state and recite the history of their breed back to the beginning of time.