James Axler – Road Wars

Rajah belied his age and frailty, giving vent to a deafening roar as he was goaded down the ramp from his cage by Julie. His head turned from side to side, along the rows of watching men and women, as if he were in the process of selecting his lunch.

Balthazar and Rosa came close behind him, though the three big cats ignored one another.

“How does she train them?” Ryan asked.

Katie answered. “Mostly done when we bought them. Mainly tamed, but you still don’t get careless and ever turn your back on them. Not even old Rajah.”

Ryan had seen a number of performing bears, sorry, decrepit, flea-ridden creatures with collars of rusting iron that had worn septic wounds around their scrawny throats. Clawless and toothless, they would “dance,” while being jabbed with a spiked prod or flicked with a barbed whip.

Trader had once violently lost his temper with a smiling young teenager in Kansas who had an animal that was barely alive. Trader had first put a merciful bullet through the head of the wretched bear and then stripped the youth and had the collar welded around his neck. He used the electric prod to make him jig and caper, weeping and begging for mercy, until be finally collapsed unconscious, feet pulped and bleeding.

Ellie’s performance with the tiger and the two lions was nothing like that. It wasn’t really very much like a traditional animal act at all.

The fact that these lethal creatures were free, unchained and not behind bars, gave a frisson of genuine danger to the proceedings. The knowledge that at any moment the tiger or either of the lions might break free of Ellie’s control and run bloodily amok throughout the crowd provided an edge of danger that you could almost taste, salty and hot.

Nell was leaning against one of the wags, her shoulder touching Ryan. She was plucking at some of the loose strands of satin thread on her knives, vivid orange, turquoise, crimson and cobalt.

“You should travel with us, Ryan,” she said, watching her mother. “You and J.B. here. We could all have us some real nice times together.”

“All?” Ryan said.

Nell grinned, the pink tip of her tongue darting out between parted lips. “Sure,” she breathed. “All of us.”

He felt himself becoming aroused at the thought of the nest of tangled limbs, closing his eye for a moment to try to wipe away the vision.

Ellie was kneeling in the center of the open space, by a rugged pear tree, while Rajah levered his front paws, rather slowly and painfully, onto her shoulders from behind. Balthazar, snarling softly to himself, lay across her lap, while Rosa, her flanks heaving as she breathed, stood directly in front of the helpless woman and opened her enormous jaws.

“Everyone real quiet, please!” Julie called.

The chartering and nervous laughter died away. The only sound in the stillness was the large scar-faced man striking a match on the sole of his boot to light a fat black cigar.

Ellie leaned forward, one hand on either side of her face, to hold back the great flood of raven hair. Ryan wasn’t certain, but he thought he detected the glint of metal in her left hand, as though she were gripping some kind of small knife.

Just in case.

Rosa’s jaws opened wider, the green incurious eyes staring past its mistress, seeming to focus on the tall figure of the barkeep, who shifted nervously, the jackbox tinkling softly as he caught it with his foot.

Ryan found himself holding his breath, aware of the horror that would result if something went wrong.

Ellie leaned farther forward, submissively, until her head was completely within the framing jaws, the curved, cruel teeth brushing at her face. For a few heartbeats she held the pose, the group looking like the living embodiment of some heroic Victorian piece of commemorative statuary.

When she finally broke away, slapping the big lioness affectionately on the side of the neck, the crowd broke into a great roar of applause.

The fur-coated buffalo hunter waved his cigar in the air. “Easy. It’s a trick. Mangy fuckers wouldn’t even bite a shrimp in half.”