Lady of the Rings
by Brandy Dewinter and Ellen Hayes
(All rights reserved)
Chapter 22 - Me Jane, Where's Tarzan When You Need Him?
Build 3
I suppose taking care of all the rubes on my carousel every night
had created some sort of protection reflex in me. Anyway, the next thing
I knew I was trying to swim upstream against the flood of panicked
humanity rapidly departing the site of the first scream.
When the crowd thinned out I came face to face, or face to trunk,
with an angry elephant cow. It's amazing how red those little eyes can
seem in the middle of all that grey flesh. She was screaming at everyone
close, her trunk rolled back into a battering ram surrounded by 3 or 4
feet of tusk on each side.
Her trainer, some guy named Bahir that I had never really talked
to, was trying to get her ear with an ankus. The hooked stick seemed to
infuriate the elephant and it was difficult to damp down on the anger
she was projecting. Under that anger, though, was pain of a most
irritating sort. The image that came to mind was that of a burr under a
saddle, though she wasn't wearing anything but a leg band and a few feet
of chain.
The sensations from the perception ring were often confusing,
especially since my mind persisted in trying to interpret them in some
combination of taste and sight and other conventional senses. Sometimes,
they seemed to trigger an unrelated image that was like a misunderstood
phrase, partially correct, but not really clear. What aspect of a burr
under a saddle was relevant to an enraged elephant?
I closed my eyes, which didn't help. Then I tried to plug my ears
against her screams, which didn't seem to make much difference either.
Whatever I was sensing, it wasn't coming in through the normal channels.
I fiddled with the damn ring like I was trying to tune in a staticky
radio, but that didn't do anything that I could tell.
Right then the elephant grabbed the ankus out of Bahir's hand and
started waving it around in the air. When the trunk unrolled from it's
fighting position, I could see some sort of sharp pebble or something
caught in a fold of it's thick skin. Well, not so thick where I saw the
pebble, near the place where her trunk ran next to a tusk.
"She's got a rock stuck in her tusk!" I yelled to Bahir.
He ignored me, too busy trying to find somewhere to hide once his
magic wand was taken from him. Those ankus things are really only a
hooked stick and not much help in controlling a couple of tons of angry
elephant who had forgotten she was supposed to be afraid of it.
I could see the damn rock from where I stood. It seemed almost to
flash in my perception once her nose uncurled, though I supposed no one
else had really noticed it. The pebble was a lot bigger than I'd ever
want to find in a shoe, about grape sized though sharp edged. It might
even have been a piece of glass from a broken bottle. No wonder it was
hurting her.
The elephant was still waving the goad stick around, but it seemed
to me that her eyes were a little less red. Then Bahir made some sort
of move and she got real angry again real quick. She kept screaming
even after he froze in place again, though it seemed to me that she got
quieter faster than she had the first time.
But no one was doing anything. It seemed patently obvious to me -
remove the rock, the elephant calms down, no problem. "She's got a rock
or something stuck in her trunk!" I screamed again, but Bahir didn't do
anything. No one did anything. Except, judging by the sounds I could
hear, a lot of people were panicking quite effectively.
"Oh, shit," I cursed, and started walking slowly towards the
elephant, holding my hands out where she could see them. "Come on,
sweetheart, I know what's bothering you..." I said calmly to her.
"What are you DOING?!?!" someone shrieked behind me, and I heard
footsteps which stopped when the elephant took two angry steps towards
me and trumpeted.
I turned my head enough to get my voice over my shoulder, and said
in a firm voice, "Shut up and leave me alone. You're scaring her."
When I turned back to her, she had her trunk in the air and was waving
the stick, but she wasn't screaming in anger any more, and she was sort
of eyeing me like she was trying to figure me out. I started walking
towards her again.
Intellectually, I knew that what I was doing was stupid. I mean,
even though you may have completely bonded with an animal, they, like
people, don't think very well when they are in pain. And sometimes they
do something while they are in pain that even they will regret later. In
one dog's case, a victim of an encounter with a porcupine, she'd bitten
me so hard I needed stitches. In this elephant's case, she might, say,
grab my head and pop it completely off my body.
But emotionally, I couldn't stand to see an animal in pain,
especially not when those monkey-fingers my species had been blessed
with could take care of the problem. Which is why I was still walking
towards her, murmuring sweet nothings in a calm voice.
The closer I got, the less angry she seemed, though. She didn't
put down her trunk or drop the stick, but she didn't trumpet out any
more challenges either.
"That's a good girl," I started murmuring. "I know what's
bothering you and I can fix it, if you'll let me. All you have to do is
let me help you. You'll do that, won't you old girl?"
Now I knew that she didn't understand what I was saying, but I also
knew that putting things into real words helped me to keep a consistent
tone in my voice. Some people think it's stupid to talk to animals as
though they could understand. Those people don't do well in training
animals, though. I sort of thought Bahir fell in that category. He knew
the commands to use, but he didn't really train his massive charges.
I suppose those idle thoughts were my mind's attempt to distract me
from the monumental stupidity of what I was doing. I was well balanced
and felt like I could dodge pretty quickly, but the elephant had an
almighty long reach. Eventually, I came close enough she could hit me
with a simple swing of her trunk, still loaded with the ankus.
"I'm not gonna hurt you. I'm here to help you. You know I can
help you, don't you? That's why you let me get this close. Let me take
that rock out of your mouth. Okay?"
My feet had continued their steady pace the whole time I had
approached the elephant. In my perception, the whole area around the
rock seemed to glow an angry red with pain; not the sort of desperate
pain that seemed life threatening, more like a bee sting. But I figured
it would be tender so I didn't want to pat her on the cheek or anything.
Instead, I let my left hand lightly touch the side of her trunk, well
away from the red zone that showed in my perception. I carefully arranged
the fingers of my right hand so that I wouldn't touch anything except the
rock.
"Now girl, I expect this might hurt a little. I'm going to put my
hand on your trunk a little harder so that you get used to a firm touch.
Is that alright with you?"
I took the fact that she didn't kill me as a sign of assent, and
reached carefully for the rock. She was definitely watching me out of
the eye on my side, though. By now I could see it was a rock and not
glass, but it should never have been left near any of the animals. It
had probably been in a haybale or whatever they feed these things and
gotten lodged while she was eating.
The pressure of my hand on her trunk didn't set her off, so I put
my fingers on either side of the rock. Then, before I had a chance to
think about what would happen next, I yanked the thing out of there.
She started another trumpet squeal and I could swear that I felt
her trunk moving toward me, but the sound cut off before it was truly
formed. I was out of my diving roll and headed for points elsewhere
when the funny sound registered in my mind. Looking back over my
shoulder I saw her drop the ankus thing to the ground and then look
around like she was trying to decide how she got there.
Give Bahir credit for a sense of responsibility, if not much other
sense. As soon as he had a chance at his magic wand, he walked
confidently to the elephant and picked up the ankus. Without hooking
her, he still used it to urge her to turn around and head back to her
holding area. Since that was in the other direction from where I had
ended up, I stopped to watch them leave.
I should have been watching the other way. Another elephant
grabbed me around the waist and hoisted me up into the air. This
elephant had two arms, both bigger than the trunk I had so recently
pushed against, and a lot harder.
"Missy, that was about the most ballsy thing I have ever seen,"
Ivan the Terrible hooted in that silly high voice.
"Don't call me Missy," I snarled, "and put me DOWN!" I ended up
shrieking. If I was telepathic, I would have killed everyone for miles.
I thought I'd pissed my panties when those massive arms had grabbed me,
and the reaction started me shivering.
By that time the Colonel, Sarah, Kim, and Tom Highland had all
arrived to paw at me. I know they meant well, hugging and slapping my
back and whatever, but I still didn't feel right about my new body and
having others touch me was just too much. One blow that felt entirely
too much like someone patting my rump set me off. "GODDAMMIT, DON'T
TOUCH ME!"
That got their attention. I took a deep breath and got myself
under control a bit better, but I was still shaking.
"Please," I continued in a quieter voice, "I'm just a bit shook up.
I need a chance to catch my breath."
"Me, too," Tom grinned. "I was certainly holding it when you
walked up to old Tina."
That started the crowd talking about their own experience, or their
perception of what I had done, or other elephant stories, I couldn't
sort them all out. But they left me alone for a second. The next touch
I felt was Kim, who didn't say a word, she just held her hands out as if
to hug me. The reason I didn't break her neck is that she stopped a
foot away.
I stood there and breathed for a minute, and when I opened my eyes
again, she was still there. I nodded - I could use, and stand, a hug
about now. She just wrapped her arms around my waist and squeezed.
"It's okay, Kimmie. It's okay," I promised.
"Don't you ever do that again, or I'll . . ." her threat ran down
unvoiced, but I didn't need any words to know what she meant.
I was going to say something like, it wasn't that big a deal, if
you know how animals think, but then I thought better of it. What if
someone got the idea that they could do the same thing, and got killed?
So instead, I said, loudly enough to make myself heard by the crowd
around me, "Kimmie, if I ever even look like I'm thinking of doing
anything like that again, find something heavy and hit me with it."
"I will, too," she promised, but the tears in her eyes still showed
how frightened she had been.
With that to set the yardstick, the rest of the day seemed pretty
tame, thank God. The next day was a Friday, payday with no matinee.
Kimmie came by to see if I wanted to catch a ride into town, and that
got me to thinking about rides in general. I really needed my own
transportation. I had heard that the next circus stop was Charleston,
South Carolina, which was not going to get me any closer to the third
ring. By the time we finished in Atlanta, I needed some way to head
west.
I had considered flying west until my perceptions showed me that I
had gone too far, but I figured I could burn up a lot of money that way
and I'd need a car at some point anyway. It I found something decent,
I'd probably be time and certainly be money ahead unless the ring truly
was in Japan or something.
Buying one didn't look very promising, though. I looked in the
local paper and there wasn't anything that looked like it would last as
far as the boundaries of the used car lot before falling apart, at least,
not within the money that I had. A couple of phone calls informed me
that no one was particularly interested in letting me buy a car on a
credit card if I couldn't pass a credit check for a regular loan. If I
left the circus, I was out of a job, so no bank was interested in just
handing me a bunch of money. I was running out of ideas and the
overheard date for heading toward Charleston was getting closer all the
time.
Sarah had been hurt when I went off after the second ring, and got
into a fight, without ever even asking her for help. Then, when she
knew at least part of what was going on, she was a lot of help. I may
act pretty stupid at times, but I knew enough to learn from this lesson,
so I went to her.
"Sarah, do you have a minute?" I asked while she hung clothes on
the line.
"Sure, Brinny, what can I do for you?"
"Where is the circus going next?" I had to confirm the bad news.
"Charleston," she replied. "Is that a problem?"
"I'm afraid so. I need to head west from here."
I could see the question start to form on her lips, but die before
it was voiced. She knew better than to question runaways, or cling to
them, however much it bothered her that I might leave. Instead of
prying, she just waited patiently for however much explanation I might
offer.
"My parents are west of here, and I wanted to see a bit more of
the country before I have to go home. If I stay with the circus all
season, there's just too much I'll miss."
She just nodded. I couldn't tell if she was really buying my
explanation or not, but she wasn't arguing either.
Well, here goes, "I need a car, something at least reasonably
reliable. If I can work out some sort of monthly payments by credit
card, I have enough money. But they won't rent to someone under
25, and won't let you actually buy a car on a credit card."
"Have you considered a lease, dear?" she asked.
"Will they lease a car to someone my age?" I asked my own
question.
"I don't know," she admitted, "but with a little work, I think we
can get you to look old enough they'll at least talk with you."
She pulled out the neat women's suit I had worn the first time I
saw Buck Cochran. With a tight little twist in my hair and
appropriate makeup, I looked pretty close to 25. She smiled, as she
always did, but this one had a lot of sadness in it.
"Oh, Bree, it seems such a shame to try to look older. I'd give
anything to be younger, like you really are."
"Just think of it this way, Sarah, maybe I'll look the same age for
a long time. If so, then 25 isn't so bad."
"No, 25 is a pretty good age," she sighed with memories in her
eyes that I'd have liked to ask her about. Maybe they made her feel
generous.
"Tell you what, hun, you just keep that suit. I have some others,
and that one looks so nice on you that I think you should have it."
"Thanks! That would be terrific!" and when had I reached the
point where I was pleased to have feminine clothes?
But I needed the suit, so once again I accepted her generosity. By
now I could arrange my own rides into town, so later that afternoon I
was being shown into the office of a car leasing agent.
"Hello, Ms. Janeway, my name is Harold Carstairs. I understand
from our secretary that you're interested in a car?"
"Yes, I'd like something for a bit of vacation travel around the
country."
"I see," he mused, looking me over in a way that was simultaneously
irritating and somehow flattering.
"I'm sorry that I have to ask you this, but how old are you?"
Well, this didn't last long. "Nineteen."
The surprise showed on his face, along with an even more . .
intrusive . . look. This was followed by disappointment as obvious as
his interest.
The explanation followed in a too-short moment, "I'm sorry, but
we don't lease cars to people under 25."
"Isn't there something you could do?" I asked with a smile. Then
I had to laugh at myself. I had actually tried to put a little flirting
into that smile, some sort of offer that would have been worse than death
to me a few weeks before. God, how far I'd fallen. At least I realized
it in time to stop myself from something really disastrous. Instead, I
stared down at my hands, fiddling with my rings for a moment while I
waited for him to tell me just how silly I'd been.
For once, I was lucky and he didn't pick up on whatever stupid
offer my smile might have been trying to convey. Instead, his eyes had
a sort of unfocused look, as though he were deep in thought. I didn't
know whether to interrupt him or not. After a while that I'm sure seemed
longer than it was, his eyes cleared and he looked at me directly.
"There may be a way," he began. "We have a family lease program
and younger drivers are allowed to drive the family cars. What sort of
car were you interested in?"
"Well, it's really my first car, and I was hoping for something
sporty." Maybe this would work.
His grin closed that off in a heartbeat, though, "No, I'm afraid
not. I'd never get a 'sporty' car past our account managers. You'll
have to pick a family car."
"What's a family car?"
"Well, we have minivans, and station wagons," he offered.
I'd sooner walk! My disagreement must have shown on my face,
because he continued with barely a pause, "Or maybe a four-door sedan?"
Still walking, as far as I was concerned. I was not going to have
my first car be some sort of old fart land yacht. I'd go steal something
first. I just shook my head.
"Hm, the only other vehicles in the family category are the so-
called Sport Utility Vehicles," he explained.
"You mean, like a Jeep?" I asked. I might be able to live with a
Jeep.
He nodded, then got on to his side of the deal, "How much of a
budget do you have to work with?"
I offered him the gold credit card, without comment. After the
incident with the airline ticket, I wasn't sure just what Andreas would
let me get away with.
Carstairs put the card through a reader and called up some sort of
credit check. He was looking disappointed again.
"Do you have insurance already, or will that need to be part of the
package?"
"It will need to be included," I admitted.
"Hmm," lots of disappointment now. I tuned in on his aura to get
a better feel for what was happening. Surprisingly, it was just about
all disappointment, not discouragement. He was more worried about
not getting much of a commission that not getting any deal at all.
"We only have four vehicles that will fit within your budget," he
announced. "Two are Ford Explorers, one is a Jeep Cherokee, and
one is a GMC Jimmy. Any preferences?"
I was about to ask to look at the cars, or trucks, or whatever you
call those things, when I remembered I'd dressed for success, not for
crawling around under cars. With the sigh I'd learned so well in the
last month, I asked if we could just look at all of them, maybe take a
ride.
He nodded and stood up. His intrusive glance swept down from
my short skirt to my pantyhose and heels, appreciation warring with
concern in his expression. I decided to cut him off before he made
some comment that would really irritate me.
"I know, I'm not really dressed for 'Sport Utility Vehicles' but I
was hoping for something else, like I said. Let's just take a look at
them for now, and if I see something I like, I'll come back for the real
test drive."
"Okay," he replied. "I'll just go get the keys."
It came to me while he was walking off that maybe at least one
thing wasn't so different for men and women after all. The salesladies
in the fancy boutiques invested a lot of wasted time for every real
customer, and this lease agent looked like he did the same. Clothes
shoppers and car shoppers looked a lot more than they bought.
The walk to where the SUVs were parked was mercifully short. I
still didn't like those heels. At least the four he had offered were
reasonably close together.
I ruled out the Jeep while we were still 50 feet away. The rust
cancer had rotted out the wheel wells and part of the panels below
the doors. The two Explorers looked the best, so I pointed at one of
them.
"Would you start it up, please. It's too hot to get into before the
air conditioner cools it off a bit, especially in these clothes."
He nodded and crawled inside himself. The first Explorer was out
of the running before he finished cranking. A cloud of blue smoke
showed major internal injuries. The wind blew the smoke forward along
the truck and he got a look chagrin as it swirled between us. My head
shake was hardly necessary. He was shutting it down immediately.
The second Explorer started up without any telltale signs of it's
own. It looked pretty good actually. No significant rust. No frills,
but a basic equipment package that would be reasonably easy to live
in on a long trip. I was about to suggest a ride, but something was
bothering me.
I felt like my teeth were hurting, a sort of fingernails on the
blackboard sensation. Opening my mind to perceptions aided by the ring,
the sensation got even more intense. Something was wailing in agony
inside that engine. It began to move into the painful range, and I
motioned Carstairs to turn it off.
"Are you okay?" he asked. My distress must have been obvious in my
face.
"There's something wrong with that car," I declared. "Something
internal, like a bad bearing or something."
"How did you know?" he demanded, then looked like he wished
he could retract his words. He'd been trying to offer me a lemon!
It was as well for him that I didn't know any real magic 'works'
yet, because the look I gave him for his deceit would have had him
eating flies for the rest of his life, the slimy toad. I just turned
away. I didn't have any more time for this scam.
"Wait, Ms. Janeway, please," he asked. I was going to ignore
him, but I looked back for just a second at his words, with my aura
senses still on high, and saw sincerity in his emotions.
So I paused, looking over my shoulder but still headed away. He
jumped into the opportunity with both feet.
"I'm sorry," he started. "I should never have tried to pass that
one off on you. We didn't know about the problem when we took it in
and my manager told me I had to try and get rid of it. I'd have been
fired if I hadn't shown it to you, but it's still not right. Don't go,
though, before you look at the Jimmy."
I had written off the Jimmy in my mind, putting it in the category
of the Cherokee, too beat up to be worthwhile. At his plea, though, I
walked over to give it a better look.
Someone had used it for off-roading. There were small dents and
dings all over the grill from brush or branches, some of which had
taken the surface paint and exposed the primer coat. The Georgia sun
had caused more of the paint to fade as well, so cosmetically it was
not a pretty sight.
Carstairs was trying to sell, now, "This one is the only SUV in the
group with four-wheel drive. It's a couple of years older than the
others, but it runs really good."
He cranked it up, and I waited for some other warning sensation to
start wailing in my mind. And waited. The engine rumbled quietly,
more power than the others evident in the deeper tones, but nothing
seemed to be hurting. I walked around it, all my senses on high, but
there didn't seem to be any problems beyond the surface cosmetics.
"In all honesty, this is the best deal," he promised. "Most people
are put of by the cosmetic problems, but those are only surface dings.
There's no rust, and it has the best engine." Like I was going to
believe him anymore. But I had to admit, I couldn't find anything
seriously wrong with it.
Sensing my wavering with perceptions of his own, Carstairs tried
to push things to a conclusion. "These four are all that fit within your
budget. The Jeep is the newest, but you saw the rust. The two
Explorers both have engine problems. The Jimmy is the oldest, but
aside from cosmetics, it's the best of the bunch. I think you'll be
happier with it than with anything else you'll find."
He was probably right. I didn't know if my "professional" look
had gotten me in the door, but right then I was really regretting my
skirt and heels. On the other hand, if I couldn't drive it in 'girl'
clothes, I'd need something else, anyway. Something told me that my
need for feminine frills wouldn't go away when I left the circus.
I was still mad enough that I didn't speak to him, but I gave him a
little wave to get him to slide over, and climbed into the driver's seat
myself. It wasn't easy. I had to step up on the little ledge below the
driver's door, pivot carefully to get my wide butt on the seat, then
swing my legs in without giving old Harold more of a show than he
deserved. Thank you, Kim, for showing me how this was done the first
time you climbed into a pickup. I made it and we went for a test
drive.
The Jimmy was actually in pretty good shape. The seats were
covered in fabric, not vinyl and weren't cracked or anything. The
four-wheel drive worked as advertised, or at least, shifted as advertised
with no particular difficulty. I didn't take it for a mud bath or
anything, but my senses told me the various transmissions were
working as they should. The biggest problem was that it was going to
be a bit of a gas hog with the bigger engine and more complicated
power train. Still, as Carstairs said, it was the best of the lot.
And so, Andreas bought me a car, or actually an SUV, and it was
only a lease, but his credit card was getting the bill. I guess I'd have
to put off getting my Porsche until after I'd gotten even with the sorry
SOB, but this was better than walking.
(
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