Note: Disclaimed. I'm getting lazy with these.

The Most Spectacular

"Where do you think he is?" Camel asks for the third time.

"I don't fucking know, Camel, shut your trap."

"You don't think he was redlighted, do you?"

"If he was, we probably would have been chucked, too, wouldn't we?"

"You think he's on the roof?"

"I hope so," Walter replies, but he really doesn't hope for that. He just prefers imagining Jacob somewhere right now where he wasn't dead. He rises from the horse blanket and checks the interior door. The lock is open. He slides the door open and peers into the stock car, peering at the exterior door, which is closed. "I dunno if he left by choice or not," he mutters.

"What do we do?"

"Go back to sleep, I guess."

"I can't just go back to sleep!" Camel protests.

"What else am I supposed to do? Go knocking from car to car, asking if anyone's seen Jacob?"

"Well!"

"Well what, Camel? The train is moving, for God's sake. If I were more able-bodied, I'd redlight you myself, here and now, old man."

"You don't mean that."

"You bet I do." Walter settles back down on the horse blanket and Queenie settles herself into his lap. "Just try and get some shut eye, Camel."

"Easy for you to say," Camel says indignantly. "You're not the one who's missing his only friend right now. His only friend who has a concussion."

"God dammit, Camel!" Walter yells in warning. Silence falls on the cot. Queenie wags her bum in Walter's lap and smacks her lips. He scratches her neck in response.

"You think... he went to his car?"

"I hope to high hell he didn't," Walter says absentmindedly, still scratching Queenie's neck. With the condition that Jacob was in a couple hours earlier, it would be more likely he would be chucked off the train by the slightest curve in the tracks than make it to car 48. He'd been smacked so hard in the back of the head his brain must have been knocked to next Tuesday. With a concussion like that, he wouldn't have a chance climbing over the stock cars to pay August a visit. Damn fool he was if that was his plight.

"I tell him to keep calm for three more days..." Walter mutters to himself.

"Huh?" Camel calls.

"I thought I told you to go to sleep."

"I thought I made it clear that I ain't gonna!"

"Christ on crutches," Walter sighs.

"You think Jacob's gonna kill him?" Camel enquires out loud.

"I wouldn't put it past him, but I hope he isn't planning on doing that right now."

"Why not?"

"For your sake, dummy," Walter says. "If Jacob goes to do in that bastard, they'll know by tomorrow morning who did it. When that happens, Jacob either has to take a hike or hand himself over, which we know he won't do. Then you and I are royally screwed."

There's a moment's silence between them as Camel appears to digest this. Then: "Hey, Walter... you think his wife is with Jacob's kid?"

Walter closes his eyes and pats Queenie on the head. "Fucking dumbass Jacob."

There's a thunk from the stock car next door.

"That must be him," Camel says from the cot, turning his head in earnest to see.

"Keep your panties on," Walter says, but he sits up in anticipation all the same. There are heavy footfalls from next door, and within seconds Walter's heart drops through his bowels. "Oh, Jesus," he mutters.

"What?"

As Camel asks his question, the interior door slides open. Blackie is standing in the doorway.

Walter immediately stands up, Queenie leaping from his lap as he lunges for the line of trunks on the back wall. He could feel Blackie's thundering footsteps pounding into the floorboards behind him as he searches for his knife, all the while Camel hollering various curses and expletives.

Where is it where is it where the fuck is it? Before Blackie's thick hands clamp down on Walter's back, the dreadful realization strikes him that Jacob must have taken it to do his biding with August. The thought shocks him so much that he's momentarily stunned and allows Blackie to drag him off. A jockey that he doesn't recognize manhandles Camel off the cot. Blackie drags Walter into the stock car, where another man has pulled open the exterior door and several more working hands behind him have men lined up and pinned. Walter starts struggling.

"Where's the other one?" the man at the door hollers.

"Not here," Blackie replies.

"What should we do?"

"Nothing we can do," Blackie states matter-of-factually. He then wrenches Walter up into a firmer grasp and tries to keep him from kicking and swinging. The horse next to them starts to shuffle on its feet restlessly, disturbed by the scene. "Knock it off, Kinko; you're scaring the animals."

Walter yells hoarsely as he fights against Blackie. Camel behind him is wailing for his life, likely swinging his limbs helplessly against the jockey. As Walter struggles, he sees the world drop from view as the train goes over a trestle built over a valley.

"Oh Jesus no!" he blurts.

"Throw 'em now," Blackie says as he swings Walter back and lightly tosses him out the door, as if he were just a sack of potatoes.

He feels a moment of serene lightness before gravity pulls on him, making his stomach clench and his limbs flail as he plummets down the trestle. He tries to scream but the air has left his lungs from shear fright, and all that comes out is a strangled noise, the kind a man makes when he's trying to cry out in a dream and can't. He tumbles head over heels so quickly that he doesn't know where the ground is or when he'll hit it; his eyes are wide, his bladder voids itself, and his heart leaps straight out of his chest before his legs strike the slope of the hill along the trestle.

He goes tumbling down the hill, dirt filling his nose, mouth and eyes and rocks cutting his skin so quickly that his brain cannot keep up with the damage being done to his body. When he finally slows to a stop, his entire body feels numb with adrenaline; he can barely move in fear that each and every one of his bones is broken. He stares up at the cloudy night sky, panting and waiting for his mind to return to him. When he hears a wail through the night further down the trestle, he comes back to reality, and chances sitting up.

Camel is further down the hill than he is; they threw him off at the deep end. His body lay twisted in an unnatural way, a dark splatter on the rock next to his body. Further down the others were thrown, but on the other side of the trestle where the slope inclined. They wouldn't be as damaged as he and Camel.

Damaged. He looked down at Camel again. He was dead. What condition would he be in himself? He took a look at his own body. His arms were scraped and he had a nasty gash across his left forearm. When he glanced down at his legs, he felt his throat tighten as his stomach threatened to expel itself.

"Mighty Mary in heaven," Walter groaned as he looked at his twisted legs. His tibia was poking out of his left shin, snapped like a twig. He looked away, his head spinning. Oh God the pain he could already imagine the pain oh why this!

He turned his head to the side and tried not to puke on himself while at the same time trying to keep his body still. Moving would make it worse. He could hear some of the others groaning further down the trestle—hopefully they weren't in a bad way like he was. Like Camel. Shit, Walter thought alarmingly. It seemed too unreal. Camel's dead?

When he looked up again, a distant jolt shot up both his legs, and he called out in pain. It was already going to start to hurt. He glanced at his shin again—No don't look at it please!—and then back at the sky.

That fucking bastard August did this, no doubt. Him or Al, but they both came from the same shit. They came into that room looking for Jacob, and ended up tossing a dwarf and a cripple off the side of a motherfucking trestle.

"Burn in Hell," Walter shouted up to the heavens, groaning through gritted teeth as another more powerful shock ran through his legs. God, Jacob could have died tonight! He hoped now, for that dumbass's sake, that he did go pay a visit to August. He hoped he slit the swine's throat so wide his life spilled out in seconds.

"Shit!" Walter looks down the slope again, careful not to look at his legs, to see one of the others that got tossed standing over Camel's body. The guy takes his hat off and tosses it in the dirt. "Shit!"

"You okay up there?" one of the others calls up to him. Walter shakes his head from side to side, stifling a yell in his mouth. He can hear them climbing the slope up towards him; one of them turns the air blue, adding: "Look at his legs!"

Walter whines, squeezing his eyes shut. A man comes up next to him he doesn't recognize—just another working man. No other performers got tossed. "Kinko!"

"Fuck off!" Walter growls through his teeth, trying to fight another wave of pain wracking his legs. He didn't really feel like a meet and greet at the moment.

"Hey, guys! He's banged up pretty bad!" the man yells down the slope. Three other guys follow him, coming up to see.

"I'm not holding shows right now," Walter hissed, panting hard.

"No, we're gonna carry you to the closest town," he said, leaning down and inspecting Walter's legs. The others caught up to them, some standing there with dumbstruck expressions, others trying not to puke.

Walter looks up into all their faces, anger bubbling in his gut. He was in the position he usually found himself in: lower to the ground than everyone else, looking up while they looked down. Walter was taller than everyone, in a way; always having to look up made him look down on them.

"Gimmie some air, will ya?" Walter says, his eyes rolling and his voice cracking. Some of the working men gladly back off, but two stay, including the man who got there first. They kneel next to him, their hands hovering over his body. Walter's heart begins to pound.

"We have to make it so his legs don't dangle and swing," the first man said. "I'll hold his legs, you get his top half. On three—"

The moment the man slips his fingers under Walter's right leg, he screams in agony. His finger tips feel like fire and ice, and his entire leg burns from the contact. And that wasn't even the leg with the exposed bone.

"Fuck!" Walter shouted hoarsely, slamming his fist in the gravel next to him.

"This isn't gonna work," the second man says, shaking his head and looking down the slope. "Guys! We need to have a meeting!"

"The hell we do," Walter blurts. "The last thing I need is more people to look over my dead body."

"What're we supposed to do?" one of the others says. Walter counts 'em: seven working men unharmed from the trestle. Well, one of them was favouring his right side and another one of them had a limp, but they all had their bones intact. Walter was starting to get angry.

"Listen, gentlemen, the only thing we can do is get help," one with a bushy red beard says. Walter vaguely recognizes him—Marvin or something. "Find someone in the nearest town."

"The nearest town could be days out," the first argues, "maybe where the train is stopping."

"To hell with that," someone else blurts. "I ain't goin' anywhere near that damned train again."

"No, hold up. I think there's some shanty town around here somewhere, we could go there and—hey, where're you goin'?"

"I'm fuckin' out of here," someone down the hill calls back.

"What about this guy? Come back here, you good for nothing—argh!"

"Listen, we gotta find shelter sometime, right? We split up, look for a town. Bill and me'll go after the train and see if that town is close enough to get someone."

"I want revenge," the second man says, his voice watery. "I want to bash in that bastard's skull and make him taste his own—"

"Someone mighta beat you to it," Walter mutters and gasps, already feeling thick waves of pain come over him.

"You sure?" the first man asks.

"No, but—ah, to hell with it. Go after the train, give those fuckers what's comin' to them."

"No way, no way," some man mumbles, "no way I'm goin' back to the folks that redlighted me. I'm out."

"Anyone else comin' with us to the train?" the first man says. "The rest of ya better be lookin' for a doctor to come get Kinko here—"

"Call me Kinko one more time and I'll swipe that face off your head!" Walter yells, the force of his shout sending jolts down his legs. He winces and growls against the pain.

"Right, well... this man needs help," he says, correcting himself. "You all best be finding help if you ain't comin' back with us."

"I'm takin' care of my own hide first."

A few men start to step down the hill away from them. Marvin stays behind with the first two. "I'm comin' with ya," he says, nodding his head, his voice trembling with rage.

"Right, Ki—um... sir," the first says, bending down to be in Walter's line of vision. "We're gonna go after the train, and we'll be back as soon as we can."

Walter grabs hold of his overalls, holding him close. "If they're still alive, you give 'em what they deserve."

"We'll take down the whole fuckin' circus," the second man declares. "We'll kill him and his business."

"Don't do anything—stupid," Walter spits out.

"We'll take care of ourselves," the first says. "You hang tough. Someone'll be back as soon as we can."

As bitter and angry as Walter was, he felt a brief glimmer of hope, and really did hope that they would be back for him soon. He nods with a wince in his face, and the three of them take off across the hill and follow the trestle up to the other side. Walter tips his head up as high as he can without lifting his body and hurting his legs, and he watches them until they disappear from view.

In less than an hour, Walter is delirious. The temperature had dropped several degrees over the past while, and now his body was wracked with shivers. His legs had been throbbing with pain almost from the time the working men had left him. He could no longer sit up enough to look down the length of the trestle to see Camel's body, and it made him ache. It really meant he'd never see the bastard again, alive or dead. For he was sure he'd die where he lay.

He thought about Jacob—if that baby Marlena was carrying was his, he'd better plan his every move, right down to his gait and how he combed his hair. He thought about his mother, selling him to the circus so many years ago, both thankful and bitter. But most of all, he thought of Queenie. If she wasn't okay, there was no point in living. Most people would think he was insane for being so attached to a dog, but he didn't think too highly of most people, so he could give a shit about what they might think. When he thought he lost Queenie those few weeks ago, he'd been dipped into a pit of despair he could barely endure. If he were to lose her again, he really couldn't take it.

He remembered picking her up on impulse. They were stopped somewhere in Nebraska, some quiet old town without much business, but some business at that. It was a year or two just before the Great Crash, when business was booming and even the shit towns had money to spend. There was a kid sitting on the steps of his house near the train station with a box full of puppies—25¢ each, scribbled in crayon, punctuated with tear stains. The poor kid was crying even when people weren't considering taking one of his precious pups off his hands. When Walter bought the last Boston Terrier, the kid was irate. He didn't want to sell the dogs, but his momma had forced him to. So Walter took the most docile puppy of all (docile for a Terrier) and left the kid with his bitter quarter.

She got her name for taking over Walter's car the moment she got there. She pissed all over the damned room—on Walter's trunks, on his cot, on his equipment, on one of his prized books. But he never considered selling her off. She was Queen of the Car, and he never wanted to let her go.

Either Uncle Al never noticed Walter had a new bunk mate, or he didn't care—no word was ever mentioned about the puppy that was wreaking havoc in Walter's car. The dog didn't disturb the animals in the stock car over either, so August never bitched about it neither. Queenie was his only friend in that place—sure, he had drinking buddies, but Queenie was the only one he could love at any given time; the others were usually only at a tolerable level.

The only other friend he had made since was Jacob. And although he'd never consider them on friendly terms, he had high praise for Marlena, especially after the angel brought back his Queenie to him. But Jacob had been forced into his life like a wedge that didn't fit, and the guy went out of his way to help him, even after Walter had been a miserable bastard to him. Jacob... God, he hoped the silly bastard got out with his life.

The sun was rising now, but it only seemed to get chillier. Walter's head felt light and puffy, and the searing in his legs was intense, but somehow distant.

"You know what, Camel?" Walter hollered hoarsely. "I was starting to like you, as ungrateful as you were."

Yeah, well, I never liked you, you miserable cunt.

Walter chuckled, wincing at the pain it caused his legs. He hadn't been able to feel his toes for a while, but he dared to give them a wiggle anyway. Nothing.

"I can't feel my feet. How's your head?"

Right sore, if I do say so. Can't think straight.

"I'll get you some whiskey when we catch up. That'll straighten you out."

They fell silent again. Walter tried turning his head to his left, but he could only turn his neck so far. To his left was the trestle, to his right, a shallow valley scattered with rocks and bushes. The sun was rising just to the right of the field. "Hey, Camel... I didn't mean it earlier when I said 'off-load Camel'. Or when I said I'd redlight you myself. I didn't really think of it like that."

I know. I was just bein' a pain is all.

"Yeah, you were." Walter coughs and clears his throat in order to cover up the yelp that slips past his lips. "God damn, where are they?"

Probably helping themselves to a drink at the watering hole.

"Ah, working men. All you guys do is drink."

All you performers do is bitch!

"Ha!" Walter began laughing, not caring that it shot daggers of pain through his legs. "Can't argue with that."

Walter... do you think my son would've taken me back?

"'Course he was. I said I talked to him, didn't I?"

You don't know my family. They don't think too highly of me.

"I couldn't imagine why."

I wan't good to them. 'Miserable old drunk' was the last thing my ex-wife said to me. My son was eight. Last impression of his old man was him bein' chased out of his own home.

"Well... my mother didn't think too highly of me, either. Sold me to the circus when I was a teenager. Used the money to hire a hand on the farm, I think. At least she told me she was gonna do that."

Women. Who needs 'em?

"Yeah. Seems to be the source of misery for every man I've met."

Well... I hope Jacob's all right.

"Yeah, I'm sure he is."

Walter?

"Yeah?"

I gotta go now. But I'll see you soon, all right?

"Hey, where you goin'?"

Silence. Walter craned his neck up to try and peer down the slope at Camel, but to no avail. He lay frozen for a moment, then lowers his head back onto the gravel. Right. Camel's dead.

Walter couldn't feel part of his thighs anymore by this point. He stared up at the sky, watching as the stars started to fade from view with the coming light. It looked like it was going to be a nice day.

"Well, at least I'll get to sunbathe while I wait," Walter mutters to himself with a chuckle. He closed his eyes—just to rest them a bit, they feel too dry and heavy—and he sighs contently. He wishes Queenie was there to snuggle into him.

"Just over the trestle," Marvin said to the doctor behind him. He had two assistants with him, carrying a stretcher and a bag of equipment. Bill had stayed behind with Jack at the circus meet with the other working men to devise a plan. They needed to make sure everyone was on board with setting the animals loose—it was a risky operation, and some innocent people could get hurt. Some people wouldn't agree with it. But when it came to thinking of that bastard Al, everyone had different opinions on it.

"What condition was he in when you left him?" the doctor asks.

"Yellin', cursin', spitiin', that sorta stuff."

"He was responsive, then?"

"If that means conscious, then yeah."

As they near the trestle, Marvin runs the last bit of distance and stands at the top of the hill. Camel looked like an insignificant spec, the blood on the rock next to him dried black. Kinko was further away and smaller, but Marvin felt he could see the dwarf clear as day.

"Hey, Kinko! Hang in there, we got some help!" Kinko doesn't respond. Must be asleep. Marvin takes off down the slope, not waiting to see if the doctor is following him. He runs past poor old Camel's corpse and takes off up the other hill towards the performer. When he is about ten feet away, Marvin slows, his face falling and his step slowing.

Kinko's mouth is hanging open, his eyes half closed, his body eerily still.

Marvin hadn't seen a dead body up close before. There was Camel, but he never got close. He'd always been told dead people just look like they're sleeping. Looking at Walter, he knew he wasn't sleeping. It was as if he was missing something vital from his body. Marvin felt instantly sick and turned to the side to spill his stomach's contents onto the gravel.

"Dead?" the doctor calls from the other hill.

"Yeah, dead," Marvin says. He stares at Kinko. I'll make damn sure they pay, he promises, nodding his head. He hopes that wherever Kinko is, he can hear him.