Excerpt

Let's say there's a traveling circus that comes through town. It's the late 1880s and you and your family live out in the middle of nowhere in the Dakotas, with the railroad as your only real source of communication.

It's not a big circus or anything—just a small one, seven wagons, in fact. More of a traveling sideshow than an actual circus. One moment it's a series of scarlet-and-gold wagon cars on the train, and the next it's almost a tent, with a pole in the center and streamers for shade spread out from it, and canvas panels blocking the spaces between wagon cars so you can't just slip through.

Even before the wagon cars get unlinked from the train, everyone knows about the circus from dusty, church-weary miles around, and they all get dressed up in their Saturday-night clothes and come to town to see what is to be seen, and hear what is to be heard—not that they'll believe a whit of it.

It's just a circus after all, not Gospel!

The ringleader (although he doesn't call himself that, he calls himself a carnival barker and laughs every time he does so) doesn't look wise or good and he certainly doesn't smell that way: he reeks of strong, musty bourbon, rancid hair grease, and some kind of underlying animal smell that isn't dog or cattle or horse or pig or raccoon, but isn't not those smells, either. His coat looks like it used to be brightly colored and his trousers look like they used to be indigo blue; he wears a Derby hat that used to have a shape other than "battered," likely, but you can't prove it by looking at it. Either he hasn't shaved or he can't, in case he nicks his weathered cheeks and all his skin just falls…off.

He's a snake oil salesman, that's obvious even at a glance.

"Step right up," he calls, standing on a platform made of wood crates, a couple of boards and an old Persian rug. He has red canvas curtains behind him and shouts through a tin bullhorn most of the time, although his voice is just as loud when he doesn't.

"Step right up and see the wonders of the frontier! Twenty-five cents each or two for a dollar! Two for a dollar? What am I saying?!"

He lifts up his hat to scratch his head and there's a chicken underneath. It squawks in offense and noisily flaps away, making the small crowd of onlookers laugh.

"What I am saying," he says, and the audience quiets itself, "is that there are wonders to be seen. Prizes galore! An evening of entertainment. All for the low low price of a dollar. Two dollars. Ten dollars. I'm getting the numbers wrong again, ain't I? Well, color me embarrassed!"

He reaches into his jacket and pulls out a silk scarf to wipe his face with—he isn't sweating—and suddenly it puffs into flame! Everyone gasps and the barker smirks.

"Is it hot in here? Tell me is it hot in here?! I don't know about you but I'm burning right up."

He shakes the flame in his hand and it turns back into a silk handkerchief. He wipes his face then tucks it back into his pocket, or tries to. Instead the handkerchief falls to the ground, twitches, and starts…crawling away!

"That's right, that's right. Only twenty-five cents a head, although it's fifty cents if you want to bring the rest of you along, too."

And then—you swear you saw it happen, although later, everyone else denies that it could have happened that way, it was only a trick—the barker lifts up his hat and his whole head comes off.

Behind him you can see the red canvas curtains hung up behind him, gold tassels and all.

You line up with the rest of them and drop your quarter in a brass spittoon, none too clean, as the barker keeps up a steady patter:

"The past! The future! And everything in between! An ape of a different color…a little bit of what I like to call fate instead of revenge…silver coins that show you can't be bought because you already bought yourself…"

He puts out a hand to stop a family trying to bring small children with them. "Excuse me, ma'am, this is not a circus for children. It's for adults only."

You don't recognize them. Their clothes are still Sunday-best bright. Must be new.

"Not for children?" the wife says, straightening her spine and getting ready to take offense.—You're a long ways out on the prairie, and there aren't too many families out here yet, at least, not in this part of the state.

The barker shrugs and pulls a handful of paper-wrapped hard candies out of his pocket and shoves them toward the children. "My regrets, my regrets. Although you can take them in, if you dare. No naked ladies, although—" He waggles his eyebrows. "—there are certain hints of them, if you take my meaning."

"I do not," the woman says stiffly. "What sort of circus is this, that doesn't cater to children? What sort of establishment is this?"

"I'll tell you what," the barker drawls, "I'll let the kiddies in for a limited exhibition only, ten cents each, but you gotta wait outside."

The crowd laughs; the wife marches away with her little family. No doubt, she'll be writing up her opinions to the editor of the Herald-Tribune.

The last you hear of them is the wife snapping, "Don't eat that!," the smack of a gloved hand against flesh, and then the wail of a child. Poor thing.

Within the circle of wagons is a sort of circular wheeled platform, upon which are tiers of benches set up in a half-circle. The barker asks that you all be seated, then steps on a pedal underneath the platform.

The whole thing turns toward the first of the wagons…

"What we have here," the barker says, "inside each and every one of these wagons, is a different type of wonder. Now, most people have an over-strict notion of what makes a wonder. Most folks are looking for something to pass the time and put them in a good mood. But that's not wonder! That's a good swig of bourbon!"

Everyone—at least, everyone who has paid their fee and who now sits on the benches—chuckles at that, and laughs harder as the barker pulls a flask out of his pocket and guzzles it, drinking it dry. In fact he shakes the last of the bourbon out of the flask and onto his tongue.

He tosses the flask into the grass under one of the wagons. "But wonder, strictly speaking, is bigger than that. It has to be something that makes you…" He flourishes his fingers. "Wonder."

A gesture toward the wagons, which all have red canvas curtains concealing what lies within.

"What we have here are seven wonders. Some of them are beautiful. Some of them are cruel. Some of them have compassion on the viewer—not too many of those. Some of them will scare you out of your pants!…and hopefully shake a few extra bits out of your pockets."

You're waiting for the next trick, but the barker seems done with magic for now: he's building the hunger for something new, you know.

"And what do these things have in common, you might ask?"

You don't. Nobody does. You find yourself impatient for him to get on with it.

He gestures toward the first of the wagons, and this time, the curtain twitches.

You all lean forward in anticipation.

The barker grins. "Not a damned thing! Let the amusements begin!"