Trail of the Puppet Illustrated

By Jug Brown

Two friends venture into the greasy heart of the carny world in search of a magical bible to find an increasingly delusional preacher with the power to command his minions. This humorous and poignant tour takes us on a seamy search through the eccentric world of freaks and cons to find true family values. TRAIL OF THE PUPPET is the third and final book of the Chickenboy Trilogy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jug Brown
• Release date: Jul 30, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476464572

Book preview

PROLOGUE

Under the pale light of a million stars, two men waited for death. A steep hundred feet below them, the river raged.

I’m so cold. I can’t get warm. Hudson Cairn whispered. He laid face-up, eyes focused nowhere. His teeth resumed their staccato chattering. He turned his big head, crusted with dirt and blood, and with great difficulty coughed up a drop or two of saliva.

Jackson Puffi, ears ringing and adrenaline fading, felt numb, barely able to articulate his own desperate thoughts. Remorse washed over him in waves. He pulled his flannel shirt tight, hugging one knee, the other leg stretched out, kneecap swollen and immobile. He shook Hudson’s shoulder again.

Don’t fall asleep, Hudson. Stay with me. Talk to me. No response. Using the empty shotgun as a crutch, Puffi lurched to his feet and dragged himself on his one good leg to the closest pine tree. He broke off some pine boughs and covered his friend, who was motionless now on the near-frozen ground.

He shook the limp arm. He felt the thin and thready pulse. Hudson! he yelled.

An eye opened. I’m still here.

Good. Keep talking. Don’t fall asleep. They might be coming back for us. A shot of pain from his leg made Puffi sway; his vision blurred. Ow! Keep talking. Keep talking.

You gotta promise me you’ll finish this.

Puffi barely heard him. He thought back to the start: they’d been sure it was going to be candy from a baby. Hudson’s eyes were closed and he didn’t seem to be breathing. Puffi drifted, daydreaming a city street, a café, his girlfriend, a movie, a warm bed…

It wasn’t worth it.

CHAPTER 1

THREE WEEKS EARLIER

The ancient ringmaster and snake handler puffed his cheap cigar into a furious burn. Using his right hand, he opened the door and walked out of the single-wide trailer. He hoped the cigar smoke would fool the mosquitoes, but a gust of desert wind dispersed his puny smokescreen the moment he slammed the aluminum door shut behind him – and in the lull following the gust, the mosquitoes swarmed in.

Three or four insects made a whining assault on his left ear, and Leo Schmackie batted them away with the blackened fingertips of his swollen left hand. Meanwhile, a whole flock landed on the side of his neck, smelling arterial blood.

Leo smeared his attackers off with one swipe of his good hand, and looked desperately for a refuge. His destination – a battered double-wide – was three blocks away. Much too far.

Plan B: to the truck! He hobbled down the gravel walk to his repainted U-Haul. The door read:

REVEREND LEO,

THE SNAKE PROPHET

Snake handling for all occasions

Parties, revivals, county fairs

Inside, he puffed his cheroot into another fine burn, and gassed the invaders.

First it was the snakes that turned on me, he thought. Now it’s skeeters. Leo mopped his brow and savored his momentary escape. He started up the truck and began the thirty-second drive down the block to Mr. Cobb’s double-wide, the closest place with a land-line phone. He banged his bloated, blackened bad hand on the door, and brushed away mosquitoes with the intact one.

Cobb! C’mon, Cobb, open up!

The lock turned, and a very tall, stoop-shouldered vulture of a man stepped aside to admit Leo.

Damn. I’m scared, Fred. Leo sat down at the spotless kitchen table. First the snakes turned on me. And now it’s skeeters. I swear, the entire animal world sees a giant bull’s-eye on my head.

Drink?

Sure.

Jim Beam, rocks, comin’ up.

Leo smiled. He liked and trusted his old friend, the master of a thousand short cons, and the man known universally as Mr. Cobb. Only a few people knew Mr. Cobb’s first name, and even fewer dared to use it – not if they wanted to keep their skin intact.

You hungry, Leo?

Got my dinner right here. Leo took a Slim Jim jerky stick from his shirt pocket, peeled it, swizzled it through his bourbon, and sucked the drips. He took one last draw on the cigar, and replaced it in the corner of his mouth with the jerky stick.

Double Jim diet for you again, Leo?

Dinner of champions. They both smiled at this old running joke.

Cobb poured himself a black coffee, and sat at the table. He popped open a deck of cards and riffled the deck with practiced precision. Leo admired Cobb’s apparent ease: Cobb had learned to slow down his inborn physical jitteriness, while remaining alert as an old owl.

You had to watch Cobb closely to see his constant movement – long fast walks and obsessive housecleaning, besides being the circus bookkeeper and for forty years sole owner of The Jackass Glen Hot springs and RV Court. Cobb had planned someday to make Jackass Glen a mobile home retirement village for circus and carnival folk. Three years before, he had left the road and fulfilled his vision. Word got around. The waiting list grew, and Cobb carefully screened every applicant.

The old winter circus home in Skedaddle was now a sorry lost cause; it had been destroyed by letting anybody and their problems move in. But Jackass Glen, under the vigilant Mr. Cobb, thrived. Folks could be themselves, make a little money off the Hot springs visitors. Nobody bothered anybody: there were plenty of societal misfits, but no real troublemakers. And Cobb’s double-barreled pump gun in the corner kept it that way.

I gotta use your phone. I need to call a friend in Portland.

Knock yourself out. Want me to dial for you? That arm of yours looks like a leg of lamb. You better get that looked at.

Leo picked up the receiver to dial the Portland number for Buddy Napoleon. This last month had been the worst time in his life, and he needed help. He took a bite of Jim and washed it down with a slug of Jim.

A familiar voice answered.

Buddy. It’s Leo.

Hey Leo! Long time, no see! You in Skedaddle?

No. I’m in your neighborhood, at Jackass Glen.

No kidding! You off the road?

Didn’t want to, but I had to. I can’t handle snakes any more. They hate me.

Hey, man, that sucks.

But that’s not why I’m calling, Buddy. It’s – it’s my Bible. His voice broke.

Take it easy, Leo. Just tell me what happened.

My son-in-law – fuckin’ Delroy Hall, may he burn in hell – he took it. He and Melinda had a big fight, and she threw him out to go peddle his lame street-robot act somewhere else. And he got back at her by stealing my Bible. Shit, Leo, that’s...

"Now it’s like the life force is pourin’ out of me. I’ve aged ten years in a month. That power the Bible gave me when I

touched it? It’s gone now. The animals used to love me. I never got snakebit in sixty years, ever since I got that Bible from Grandpa Arthur, but..."

He took another slug of Jim. Now my snakes can’t stand me. Old Betsy bit me last week. I’ve had her for twenty years, Buddy. She’s spent hundreds of hours draped around my neck, prettier’n a scarf. Now I’m scared to go near ’em all. If I get near the cages now, they start rattling and warning me off.

Jeez, Leo...

And that’s not all. Mosquitoes, mice, ants, cats, dogs – anything that lives and breathes has a contract out on me. The old man blinked back tears.

What’d Delroy want with your old Bible, anyway?

That’s the worst part. Nothing. He can barely even read it, and if he opened it, it might fall apart. It’s almost two hundred years old. That Bible’s mine and it only speaks to me. You gotta help me –

Well, sure. But what you need is another Bible. Hudson’s got a Bible like yours. So does his cousin Lillian, but she’s crippled. They’re powerful alone, and together I’m one hundred percent sure they can find your Bible. I’ll have Hudson call you.

I got no phone. I’m at Cobb’s. Have Hudson leave a message.

OK, man. Relax, we’ll find it.

Buddy? Don’t hang up. I got one more thing I gotta ask you.

Buddy sounded a little wary. Yeah?

If I die...

You’re not gonna die. Don’t be so dramatic.

Just listen. If I die, I want you to promise me that you’ll take my snakes back to Florida and turn ’em loose in the Everglades.

There was a long silence as Buddy contemplated the sound of forty angry Eastern Diamondbacks rattling their deadly warnings.

No fucking way, Leo.

I don’t understand. They’re all in cages. C’mon, Buddy, Leo implored. It’s a dying man’s last request.

"Request, my ass. Remember when I requested my pay, back in Chattanooga?

Chattanooga? That was a million years ago, Buddy. And anyway, I paid you.

No you didn’t. You didn’t pay anybody. You told us that Schmackie Brothers was on hard times, and we all had to suffer together, but you promised you’d make it up to us. Remember? Well, things got better, and you never paid.

Leo was genuinely thunderstruck. I’m sorry, pal. I never knew you were holding a grudge.

You never paid much attention to anyone, as I recall.

The old man sagged. Snakes, skeeters, people: they were all the same.

Forget I asked, Buddy.

Damn right I’m gonna forget you asked.

CHAPTER 2

Next time you gotta do that, why don’t you stick your ass out the car first? Jackson Puffi said, putting his hand out the window and directing a great blast of clean desert air into his thin face, blowing his long sandy hair back out of his eyes. He was irritated, but he suppressed it. The rules of the game called Suckah! were clear: lose your cool, lose the game, Suckah.

I can’t help it, man. When I smoke I get hungry, and then I eat too fast and get gas, said Hudson Cairn. His substantial gut was evidence that overeating wasn’t a rare occurrence in his life, but he had the height and musculature to carry it. His full beard concealed an incipient double chin while adding to his powerful appearance.

Puffi pulled out an ear bud and cocked a pale blue eye at his friend. You’re always making excuses, but the truth is you just eat too fucking much. I’m just lucky it’s a nice day and I can keep the window rolled down. Replacing the bud in his ear, he put his sneakered feet up on the dash and got back to work. "How are you? Hvordan har du det?" he recited, much louder than necessary.

Hudson groaned.

They were heading south on The Frenchglen Highway out of Burns, Oregon. On the passenger side, Puffi could look up at the dry Jackass Mountains, while Hudson could look out over the enormous Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. Spare country either way. It was a clear summer morning.

Turn here, said Puffi, pointing to the Jackass Creek Road Sign. The car climbed the hill steadily. Near the top, a large sign, Jackass Glen Hot springs and RV Court, featured a painted jackass shown from the rear, kicking. Hudson turned the old Cadillac in at the driveway.

Two lines of Lombardy poplars led them into a broad canyon. They pulled up to a long, low, deserted-looking building next to a parking lot – The Welcome Wagon. It was quiet, Puffi thought – so quiet he could hear a faint ringing in his ears, a sound that was probably there all the time, overwhelmed by the city’s din.

Hudson pounded on the metal screen door several times before he saw the note over the mailbox. If no one answers, come on down to number 3. Left fork in road. Leo.

As they drove up the left fork, they saw fields and orchards in the middle, surrounded by trailers on the left side and a crowded knot of RVs far up the right fork. A few people worked in the fields, among regularly spaced, high-spraying irrigation sprinklers.

The gravel road seemed to go on forever. The road was surrounded by trees fed by deep underground swamp water, but somehow the trees didn’t soften the fundamental bleakness of the setting.

They passed one person walking on the road. Puffi noted with some amusement that the man was walking backwards, wearing clothes that were put on backwards. Weird, but not unexpected, according to the website Puffi had viewed before they left Portland. They passed more RVs and a general store/gas station/post office/bar and grill.

A big top tent was pitched to their right. The dusty side roads to the left were studded with numbered trailers. Number three was a pale green double-wide with a well-established flower patch in front, zinnias and bluebells mostly. Off to one side was a vegetable garden with a battered truck out front.

An old man opened the door. Get in here quick. Those skeeters will eat you alive.

Puffi looked at Hudson. What skeeters?

Suckah, whispered Hudson.

The man beckoned hustled them both inside. He shut the door firmly, then brushed his hands all around his head, looking all around him, turning in a circle.

Their host was slim, medium tall, with thick silver hair combed straight back. He wore a green alligator shirt and white pants. His flattened nose sported blue and red veins, and his shrewd dark eyes were set close together. If he had been on a golf course in Florida, he would have looked like somebody’s grandfather – except for the tattooed rattlesnake circling each forearm, ending above the wrist, mouth wide open, with prominent fangs.

Can I help you boys?

Hi, said Hudson. Mr. Schmackie emailed us directions, so here we are.

I’m Leo Schmackie. The man was calm now; apparently the skeeters were gone. He held out his gnarled and blue-black hand, fingers swollen and hardened. Hudson started to reach out his hand, but hesitated.

Oh don’t mind that. I’ve been a snake handler for years. Never been bit… till recently.

Hudson shook the twisted paw gently and Puffi followed suit. It’s pretty quiet out here.

Well it ought to be – there ain’t nothin’ out here but birds, and a few people. Once in a while a car or truck passes by on the way up the hill. But most the time it’s steady quiet. Cobb has you staying near the hot springs, with the RVs and tourists. He owns a couple of trailers there for guests, and one’s yours while you’re here. This side – these trailers and doublewides – are for permanent residents, circus and carny folk.

Is there someplace to eat? Hudson asked. Puffi caught Hudson’s eye and shook his head. He remembered his friend’s suffocating flatulence in the car on