THE GYPSY WAGON

Copyright (c) 2019 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.

The Gypsy Wagon

By R. Peterson

It was March of 1875; the sun thawed the winter’s accumulation of snow during the day. The moon kept it safe at night. The days in the mountains of Northwest America promised spring was on its way and the nights vowed it wouldn’t come.

 “Melania!” It was the third time her mother had called her. She knew she was in trouble, but she couldn’t help herself. The large rainbow trout was about to swim into the tiny enclosure she’d made in the stream with piled rocks. Melania ran down the grassy bank slipping on patches of crusty ice, sweeping the water with a branch broken from a cedar tree. The big fish was old and crafty. Just as he came to the small entrance she had made in one end of the enclosure, he turned and darted back, whipping the shallow water with his rainbow colored tail. She had to thrash the water furiously to keep him ahead of her.

Finally the old trout gave up and swam inside the tiny gate. Melania plunked a large river-stone down blocking the fish inside the circle. “Melania!” This time the shout was louder … concerted.

The five year old girl lifted her skirts to keep them from getting wet and then splashed bare foot across the stream. She turned and ran across a muddy meadow filled with wildflowers. A bright red and blue gypsy wagon with an overlapping rounded roof and a stovepipe sticking out one side stood in a clearing along with two tents. A sign that said Fortunes Read in decorative yellow letters jutted from the paneled sides.

Melania capered along, she wasn’t afraid of her mother; she knew the old witch wouldn’t stay angry for long, especially when she knew there would be trout for breakfast.

Jesska tried not to let the relief show on her face when her daughter came scampering from the willows that bordered the stream. It wouldn’t do to show her daughter how worried she became, whenever her youngest was out of sight.

“Invito e non rispondete, (I call, and you don’t answer),” she scolded. “Bring the bowls and the spoons from the wagon. The soup is almost ready. It’s getting dark. We must have everything cleaned up and ready before the men come tonight,” she smiled at her daughter, “…for the dance.”

“How are you always so sure they will come,” Melania asked as she carried five bowls toward the planks of wood her mother had made into a table. “Why were the people angry when we passed through the last town? One even threw a stone. I heard them curse us and tell us to be on our way.”

Jesska laughed. “How should I know? Maybe they thought we were Mormons. I heard the storekeeper say a large religious group went through a week ago, but we don’t have horns or tails, they must need glasses.” Then she got serious. “The men are always like that, when they have their wives at their sides. But when it gets dark they always seek out our camp. To see if we can provide the kinds of things they cannot find on their lonely farms.”

“What could they possibly want with us? Melania asked. She put her hands on her flat hips and frowned. Jesska grinned; her daughter had such a smug attitude for a five year old.

“They like to dance with pretty girls like your two cousins, Lakasera and Redonici.” She gestured to the two women, both in their early twenties, who were dragging a box to the table for a seat. “They like to have fun, and they want to look at smiling women not at the scowling faces they see at home.

“And they like other things too.” Lakasera giggled as she ladled soup into her bowl. Redonici cuffed her playfully and made a be-quiet gesture as she pointed toward Melania.

Melania pouted “I’m not a baby, why do you talk like I am? Why do you hide things from me?”

Lakasera tousled her young cousin’s hair. “Non vogliamo farvi invecchiare, (We don’t want you to grow old before your time.) Would you want to be like us so soon? Why not be a child for a few more days?”

            Jesska looked up, as her son walked from the trees into camp. He had a rusty Heywood double-barrel percussion shotgun slung over his shoulder and two rabbits tied to his belt. “So the hunter returns,” she said. “You should not have dawdled,” She pointed to the two rabbits. “They would have danced in my minestra (soup).”

            “I saw the tracks of a wolf, he has already eaten most of the coniglio (rabbits),” Parley said as he hung the carcasses from the side of the wagon and leaned his rusty weapon there.

            “Watch that it doesn’t fall,” Jesska pointed toward the gun. “Is it loaded?”

            “Of course,” Parley patted a leather bag full of gravel-shot, patches and caps. “The wolf might decide to make me his dinner.”

            “Not enough meat on these bones even for a hungry wolf.” Redonici pinched the boy’s side as he sat down at the table, then she filled his bowl. Parley grinned as he reached down and patted his cousins ample behind. “Don’t worry Doni; if the wolf comes, I’ll kill him before he can eat even half of what you have.”

Everyone laughed, even Jesska as she walked toward the table.

            It was dark.  A partially covered moon, shown its pale light down on the clearing. Jesska had lighted three oil lamps, covered in bright red fabric, and they hung cheerily from the wagon. Jesska played an old broken banjo like a harp, plucking out a melody on each open string.

The first man to arrive was a wide-eyed Swedish man riding a clumsy horse that looked better suited to pulling a plow, than carrying a rider. Redonici walked out to meet him. He dismounted and stood with a red face, shyly looking at the ground and digging the heels of his boots into the frozen sod.

“Did you come here to dance, or to have your fortune told?” Redonici asked him.

“Ya, das  right,” he stammered.

“Did you bring money, or at least a chicken?” she asked him.

“A wolf went into our chickens,” he said nervously, but I’ve had these hidden in her barn.” He held out a handful of coins. Redonici plucked them all from his hand and slipped them into her dress without counting. “Hiding them from whom? From your poor wife?” she asked as she led him toward the tent. “Shame on you for what you did, and for what you’re about to do. At least your unfortunate wife will never know.” She lectured him. The Swede smiled broadly as she led him toward the tent.

A few minutes later, laughter could be heard as two men rode into the clearing. Their horses’ flanks were lathered, a sign they’d been galloped hard. The smell of alcohol filled the air. Lakasera walked out to meet the men as they spilled out of their saddles.

“Welcome strangers to our show. Are you here to dance or would you like your fortunes told?” she asked them. They staggered next to their horses. Spittle ran from one bearded man’s mouth as he looked at her. He turned his head. Light from the fire showed a scar that ran down from the top of his head and ended near his mouth. He spat brown tobacco juice, and then wiped his mouth with a dirty sleeve.

“We ain’t here to dance, and I know I’m going to end up hanged,” he chortled. His eyes swept down Lakasera’s body from her chest to her legs. “I just don’t know when.”

“If you want our special kind of entertainment, it’s going to cost you,” Lakasera said. “Did you bring silver?” The drunken man put his hands on his hips and stared at her. “Yes, as a matter of fact we did,” he said. He stood defiantly, without moving.

“Show me what you have.” Lakasera smiled at him.

“You calling me a liar?” The man reached out his hand as if to strike her.

“I’ll be calling you a dead man if you touch her.” Parley Descombey stepped from behind the wagon. He had the Heywood shotgun leveled at the man. There was a click as he pulled back one of the hammers.

“Easy now.” The man flashed a big smile. “We was just having us some fun,” he said.

“So am I,” Parley said, “and I’m the one with the gun, so I’m going to have a lot more fun than you are.” He pointed the two barrels toward the man’s chest. “Open up your coat, and let me see what you got in there. Do it now, rapidamente!”

“You just stand there, if you hanker Ben, but I’ll be God-damned if I let some gypsy mud-cock put a gun on me,” the other man blurted. A knife appeared in his hand, and he lunged toward Parley. The boy swung the barrels to the side and downward. A flash of igniting powder was instantly followed by a boom. Black smoke drifted into the night sky. There was another click as Parley swept the shotgun back on the bearded man. “You want the next toss?” he asked.

The wounded man crumpled to the ground blood seeping from his shattered knee-cap. “I’ll see you in hell for whomping my leg, you gypsy bastard!” he moaned.

The man with the scar smiled broadly, showing missing teeth. “My name is Ben McCoy; I work me a homestead, just up the river a piece. I’ve got a pretty wife and a mess of young-ins waiting for me. We was just looking to have us some fun my friend. What did you go and shoot Ed for? Why don’t you just put that old rusty hog-leg down and be sociable?”

“I’m not your friend,” Parley told him. “Now wing your damn coat,” he pointed the barrel at Ben’s stomach, “I won’t ask again.”

Ben stared at him for a moment then he slowly opened his coat. Lakasera walked to the scar-faced man and pulled a 45 revolver from his pants belt. She opened the revolving chamber on the gun expertly, and spun the cylinder collecting the bullets in her hand. She walked to where Ed’s  knife lay in the dirt then tossed both the gun and the knife into the fire. Ben McCoy was furious. “That Colt pistol cost me ten dollars,” he yelled.

            “Cheap price to pay for your foul life,” Parley told him. “Now lift up your amico (friend), and ride away to hell on your horse, before I decide to way-lay you and find out what your guts look like.”

The Gypsies watched as the two men galloped into the darkness, Ed was slumped in his saddle led by Ben. When they were a safe distance away Ben McCoy reined in, and turned back. “This ain’t over, by thee Gods,” he cursed as he sat trembling on his horse, “I’ll come back and kill you all,” he vowed.

            “I’m looking forward to the party,” Parley yelled after him. He leveled the shotgun and fired into the darkness toward the fleeing men. The bare chested Swede stuck his head out of the tent. “What’s the shooting for?” he asked. “There was a dispute about money,” Parley told him.

Redonici’s hands appeared behind her customer and her husky voice could be heard soothing him. “Come back to the warm blankets Mr. Klaus Attichsen, there were plenty of coins hid in your barn, at least enough for another hour.” Klaus smiled, as she pulled him back inside.

            Lakasera used a stick to drag the gun and the knife from the fire. She grasped them with a cloth and held them up to the light. “Handles are a little scorched but they should be fine,” she said as she examined the weapons. “And as long as they think they’ve been destroyed, they are ours.” She sat them on one of the tree stump seats to cool with the handful of bullets next to them. “What is it they call us in the towns? Dirty gypsies and murdering thieves?” She looked at her hands. “Aggettivo, I’m going to wash up,” she said.

            Jesska pulled Melania back inside the wagon, where they both had been watching from the open door. Melania looked up at her mother. “You were not worried, that the man would hurt Parley were you?”  Jesska hugged her daughter close. “Your brother is very good with his gun, even though it’s old and rusted.” She opened a door in the side of the cabinet-filled wagon and removed a tiny wooden box. “But I have also used a bit of magic, to get us past these days and to our new home.” She pulled the lid off the carved box and removed a faded worn card. “This is the magic of Ombre that insures that we have safe travels.” She handed the hard paper to her daughter. Melania squinted as she tried to read the words inked on the back. “Attraver-sal strade o fiumi, non arriverà nessun danno.”

            “Attraver-so,” Jesska told her as she tousled her daughter’s hair. “Here let me show you.” She took the worn out card from her daughter and began to rub it between her fingers. Her soft voice chanted the words written on the magic paper. “Attraverso strade o fiumi, non arriverà nessun danno. Through roads or rivers, no harm will come.” Outside in the camp clearing, a shower of sparks swirled in the burning embers then rose into the night sky, like fire flies searching for a home.

Melania woke early; the sky was still dark except for a red smudge behind clouds that hung on the mountains in the eastern horizon. She dressed carefully in pants and a wool shirt, but left the coat hanging on the other side of the sleeping form, so as not to wake her aging mother. Jesska’s wrinkled hand still clutched a card from the Ombre, and Melania carefully slid it from her fingers. She gently placed it in the magical box with the others. She slipped a key, on a chain, from around her mother’s neck then locked the box inside a brightly painted cabinet before replacing the necklace. Mother knows lots of words, but she sometimes forgets things. Melania smiled, as she remembered the fish in her trap.  Like breakfast. She climbed out of the wagon. Empty medicine (whiskey) bottles, from the chest inside the wagon littered the ground. She threw a few more sticks on the fire coals before she ran toward the willows that bordered the stream.

Parley stepped from the shadows of a Cottonwood tree just outside of camp holding the shotgun. “What are you doing up aggettivo Lanie?” he asked his little sister. “I heard you and mother reading the old country words long into the night. Do you really believe there is enough magia in an old box of cards to get up early for?”

“Yes I do,” Melania told him as she ran past, “and I’ll prove it to you when I catch you a rainbow for breakfast.”

“A rainbow? Now that would be magic,” her brother told her. “It hasn’t rained in a month.”

Melania stopped and turned to face him. “You need to read more than just books on doctoring,” she said. “A rainbow is a fish, and if you have kept the wolves and the raccoons away during the night, it’s what we will be eating in one hour.”

            “I was on guard for polecats, not raccoons,” Parley said, as his sister disappeared into the willows. He licked his lips. He could almost smell the fish frying and he remembered the German who had showed up late to have his fortune told. He looked like a poor farmer; he wore a floppy brim hat and rode a mule. He smelled of hogs and he didn’t have any money on him but he did have a small bag of salt and a larger sack of flour. There would most certainly be biscuits to go with the fish.  Lakasera would have the two bags in her tent, next to her other earnings. He checked the loads in his shotgun. Ben McCoy was probably all talk but it never hurt to be on guard when you were near a town. His stomach grumbled as he walked the perimeter of the camp, stopping to check on two old grazing draft-horses.

Melania was afraid that the large fish had jumped from its rock prison and escaped back into the stream before she saw the ever-moving tail flash color in the shadows in the under-cut stream bank. She broke several thin branches from the willows and quickly fashioned a crude net to catch the trout in.

She was wading slowly toward the embankment when she heard a sound … a low moan and shabby gasps for breath. She paused for a moment then followed the noise and moved aside several branches that hung over the water covering the lush bank. A man laid there, an old white-haired Shoshone Indian, dressed in grimy cotton pants that looked like they had never been washed. A leather band embroidered with animal teeth wrapped around the high wrinkled forehead. Colorful beads cascaded down his leather shirt.

He smelled like bear grease and cooking fires. She though he might have just died. There was now no sound coming from his throat and she couldn’t see his chest rise and fall from his breath.

She slowly and very carefully reached out her hand to touch him. She had to know. She had to know if he was just now growing cold, and the noises she heard him make, were his last in this world.

Just as she touched his weathered skin and felt the re-assuring warmth of life, his strong fingers closed on her wrist. His crumpled eyelids sprang open like traps, revealing black eyes like polished coal. “What have you done with my fish?” he asked her. Melania tried to scream but he clamped one of his huge brown hands over her mouth before she could.

“Don’t be afraid little wa’ipi.” He talked to her bulging eyes. “I’m not going to kill you for capturing my fish, he is getting old like I am … it is his time.” He smiled as he slowly released his hand from her mouth and she nodded her heard reassuring him that she would not scream.

“What are you going to kill me for?” her voice was a trembling whisper.

The old Indian relaxed his grip on her arm, satisfied that she wouldn’t try to run away. His piercing black eyes softened and became a dark grey showing milky cataracts.

            “Hawya Weda’ ta ew ah lo em bag’ … I am  Bear-who-walks-in-water. I have followed many things to their death place, after they caught my arrows and danced with my spears.” A light twinkled in the darkest parts of his eyes. “… Deer, Weda’(bear), Buffalo, the big cats who cry like women in the night” he said. “But always I turned away. I did not follow them to the Muh (moon) place.” He coughed for long seconds and drops of blackish blood appeared below his thin lips. “The days of looking away from the darkness are over, I will not kill you,” he whispered. “Your death is far away from here, many seasons from now. It will come not from an Indian knife, but from eyes that have seen too much sadness, eyes that are tired and welcome the night that never ends.”

            “How do you know these things, do you use magic too?” Melania asked him. “My mother has a box with cards; the words written on them are alive. They tell her things, like when it will rain, the name of a man who will drown, and which woman will have the next baby.”

            The old Indian sat up slowly. He reached down and rubbed his fingers on a beaded bag which hung from a leather throng around his waist. “There is magic in all things,” he said. He gestured toward the stream with one hand as he opened the bag with the other. “In the water and in the rocks that the water carves. In the sky who welcomes the sun each day, as it looks for the moon. In the trees that drink the cold water all of their lives but warm us with their fire when they die.”

He removed a small empty glass medicine bottle from his bag and a tiny silver spoon. “The glass has a voice,” he said, “as do all things.” He held the bottle up to the light of the just rising sun, and turned it around in his hand watching the colored beams reflected like a prism, shower down on the stream. “The spoon of silver makes the glass cry for its mother.” He tapped the bottle lightly near the rim and a tone sounded in the early morning air. “If you are very quiet and listen carefully,” he put a finger to Melania’s lips, “you can find the mother, when she calls to her crying child.” He tapped the bottle several times as he moved it to different places, to rocks and brush then back. Melania watched him with wide eyes. As he held the ringing bottle next to his chest, the glass beads decorating his shirt began to vibrate emitting the same tone as the bottle. “There,” he gasped. “The mother has found her daughter.”

            Melania leaned forward her mouth open in astonishment. “They make the same sound,” she said.

            “When the mother and her child find each other they must stay together forever,” the old Indian said. He ripped the beads from his shirt and stuffed them into his bag along with the bottle and the spoon. “Now go catch my fish,” he said, “and let an old man die in peace.

            Melania was watching the fish fry in the cast iron pan, constantly turning the meat to keep it from burning. Lakasera had sprinkled the trout with special spices from the cooking cabinet inside the wagon and Parley had found wild onions growing alongside the stream bed. The aroma filled the air and made the mouth water. She hadn’t told anyone about the old Indian, the bear who walks in water. He was probably dead by now, and even if he wasn’t, he seemed harmless. Melania wasn’t afraid of him, and she liked his trick with the bottle.

No one heard them approach they were just suddenly there. Eight Indians mounted on spotted horses stood in the clearing. Stripes of red and white were painted on the sides of several of their faces, and black rings circled their eyes. They were all wearing brightly colored, mostly women’s, clothing and they were armed with rifles. Gleaming blades hung from beaded belts. They looked far from harmless.

One warrior, with stands of costume jewelry cascading down his bare chest and a woman’s derby hat with dangling red ribbons perched on his head, slid from the back of his horse and stomped to the fire. He ripped off a chunk of the cooking fish, shoved the piece in his mouth and chewed. He looked casually around the camp, ignoring the Gypsies who watched him. Suddenly his eyes bulged and he spit the meat out. He viciously kicked the pan with the frying fish and onions into the fire. “Too much pepper, I told you,” Lakasera whispered to Redonici.

Jesska appeared behind Melania at the side of the wagon. Her gnarled hands clutched the shoulders of her tiny daughter. She was trembling as she looked at the savages with wide eyes, her mouth open as she shook her head slowly from side to side. Melania sniffed the air then looked up at her mother. She had never smelled fear before. “They are Indians, la mia.”

The Indian who had kicked the pan strode toward Parley who stood at the edge of the trees, holding the rusty shotgun in his hands. Uncertainty shown on his young face, there were too many. Jesska stared at her son and when he looked at her she shook her head. The Indian grabbed the rusted gun from Parleys hands. He regarded it, as if he had just touched something vile. He threw the weapon to the ground and the cocked hammer caused the gun to fire. There was a loud whinny and a shriek, as one of the grazing horses fell, blood pouring from its neck. The Indians stared at the fallen mare, one shouted “bungu lak (bad horse)” and then they all began to laugh as they slid down from their mounts.

The party of Shoshone’s rummaged through the tents, scattering clothing, as they looked for loot. They took no notice of the whites who watched them. One tall Indian with pink ribbons braided into his long grease coated hair, shoved Melania and her mother to the side, as he climbed the steps into the gypsy wagon. Darting black eyes stared from under white grease paint behind a bright red nose. He wore a woman’s blouse with the sleeves cut away and an assortment of cosmetic items combs, tins of powder and paint dangled from his neck tied together with leather string. An enameled circus lithograph on a square of tin was wrapped around his chest like a breast-plate and it showed a white faced clown with a red nose juggling wooden pins.

One of the Indians barged from a tent with his hands overflowing with cheap costume jewelry. He dropped the glass necklaces and trinkets to the ground, as he looked around. He stalked toward Lakasera and violently ripped her ruffled blouse off from her, ignoring her naked breasts. He carefully scooped the jewelry from the ground onto the lacy cloth then tied the corners together in a bundle. He tossed the package to another Indian, who had led the remaining draft-horse away from its thrashing partner, and was tying bags of loot to the animals back.

A shriek came from inside the wagon and the carved door banged open. The Indian covered in clown face paint, stumbled through the door walking backward. He fell down the two metal steps but did not take his eyes off the inside of the wagon. “ Dainah (man) ta ney laks,(demon) bia’isa! (wolf) Ala’ala! (devil)” he yelled. The other seven Indians immediately lifted their weapons to their shoulders, looking for enemies.

A tomb-like silence filled the camp. The popping of embers in the fire sounded like far off lightning.

            A voice from the path, that led through the willows to the stream, broke the silence. “He is afraid of the tiny box in the wagon. He says it is a house where many Laks (devils) sleep.”

Bear-Who-Walks-In-Water slowly staggered into the camp, each step seemed to take great effort. The other Indians ignored him, but crowded around the one who had fallen from the wagon. One pock faced man poked the barrel of his rifle toward the swinging door and pushed it open. The Indians stared into the shadows inside the red house on wheels. The cabinet on the wall stood at an odd angle. The splintered wood door hung from one hinge. Light from the fire reflected off  the Ombre box, as it sat on a shelf untouched, amidst the destruction inside the torn and ravaged room. The Shoshone warriors in the clustered group began to talk among themselves in low murmurs.

            “They think that they should kill you all, and burn the moving house, so that the devil-box does not follow them,” Bear-Who-Walks-In-Water said, as he held his shaking hands to the flames. “I like this fire you have made, it helps the pain in my fingers,” He gazed around the camp looking closely at each wooden box. “I like whiskey too, so do they, maybe if you give us some of your whiskey, we will forget about the magic in your wagon.”

            “Parley, bring out the bottles of patent medicine from inside the wagon.” Jesska called to her son.

            “Which ones?” Parley asked, as he cautiously moved past the savages.

Jesska looked at the group of Indians each still holding his rifle ready to shoot. “avere fretta (hurry) all of them,” she said.

Parley lugged a wooden crate from the wagon then sat it on the ground and opened the lid. He took out a square bottle with a cork stuck in the top and handed it toward the Indian closest to him. The man shoved him out of the way, then reached in and took his own bottle from the box. He pulled the cork from the glass container and drank in large gulps. He paused for a moment as he stared at the ground then he made a grunting noise and took another swig. The Indians moved forward, and all began to take bottles from the box.

            An hour later, the savages lay tangled together, sprawled around the camp. Glass fragments littered the ground. The empty bottles had all been smashed against the rocks that bordered the fire. The warriors were hardly able to stand, but each still clung to a rifle.

Jesska moved past them unnoticed and climbed up into the wagon. When she returned the magia box was clutched in her hands. The Indians eyes grew wide as she approached each one and made as if to open it. There was pandemonium as the group found their legs and bounded toward their horses. They abandoned the loot strapped to the draft-horse and thundered away just as the sun was setting.

Bear-Who-Walks-In-Water smiled at the Gypsies as he began to slowly walk alone toward the setting sun. “There is magic in Muh (moon), in Dabai (sun) , in this bottle … and in everything,” he said as he drank the last drops of medicine. The empty square-glass jar slipped from his fingers and fell to the ground. He didn’t notice as he disappeared into the willows.

Melania helped her mother carry the un-opened Ombre box back inside the ravaged wagon. Thunder rumbled in the mountains to the east, and a wind came up and forced the willows to bow to the tiny stream.  The Descombey family of Gypsies began to clean up the litter from the day, in the bucketing rain that promised a rainbow, when it was finished with them.

TO BE CONTINUED ….