Buttercup Read Online Free Page B

His search always turned up nothing. Hunting for a colored woman in a travelling carnival was harder than he could have foreseen. Each time he came close, the carnival moved on.
    Not tonight.
    Tonight, he’d find her and no matter what they thought, she was not going to leave his side.

    ***
The train car was hers. She’d decorated it as such. Her costumes were lined up on hooks from a thin macramé rope run across the front of the car. She’d sewn each and their sparkling adornments by hand. Posters from her favorite shows were tacked to the walls. Benny, the strong man , was also an artist. He made the best posters of her. Amidst Sylvester’s things were gifts from men vying for her time. She loved the music boxes mostly. Some even gave hats or rhinestone necklaces. Nothing too extravagant for a carnival Negress, still they were hers and hers alone.
    Tiny allowed it. He thought it good for business to have regular customers.
    He would even grant a private show or two. But the rules were to never be broken. Lone Wolf was on hand to make sure no one dared. The rule for all was 'look but do not touch.' Buttercup no longer knew the pleasures of a man. Not after Silvio Garelli.
    Of all of the parts of the carnival, here in her train car with Sylvester is where she felt safe. No more forlorn nights on a cold cot in a ratty tent.
    She’d earned the right to her own.
    Buttercup rose from her chair. She tightened the sash to her robe and picked up Sylvester’s things. He slept in her bed. His light snore told of a day of frolicking and mischief. After dropping his britches and hand sewn shirts in a basket nearest the vanity, she fetched the paper that a townie had left behind.
    Her time was short. She could already hear the grunts and shouts of the rousties who pitched the game tents. Soon they’d be calling for her.
    But she would make time for this. Buttercup turned up the flame on the kerosene lamp just a tad to make the lettering rise.
    ‘BLOODSHOT AT IT AGAIN!’ the headline read.
    Buttercup dropped to her knees before her chest of secrets. Reading, she held to every word in print. The article proclaimed that Silvio had made away with an undisclosed bounty in a spray of bullets. It also asserted that his band of thieves were terrorizing good citizens while emptying the banks of their meager holdings. She turned the page. Her heart leapt to her throat when the only picture they had of him, a jail-shot, greeted her.
    Silvio scowled at the photographer, his glare dark and menacing.
    But it mattered little. He was ever so handsome. Unruly waves of black hair, dark eyebrows brooding over the dreamiest pair of jeweled eyes set his face like that of a portrait. Buttercup traced her fingers over his image.
    The anger was there too. A hate filled glare at the photograph told of his bloodthirst for revenge. He was not the boy she knew. This man, this thief and killer was far from the man she wished he’d be, despite what became of him because of her. The date on the paper was yesterday. The city of Jefferson was only sixty-five miles east. She pressed her lips together, secretly wondering. How close?
    “Della! Tiny says an hour.” A hard bang on her train car door followed. Sylvester rolled on his side. Della expelled a deep sigh. She lifted the lid to her cedar chest; there she tucked the newspaper inside underneath the bible and a journal she kept as a girl. Silvio was not to be.
    She’d accepted that painful truth long ago. Della rose from her knees and joined Sylvester on her bed, made softer by pillows. Holding him before a show always made her suffering ease.

Chapter Two
Six Years Earlier
    1932 Kentucky –A Dancer’s Dream and A Bootlegger’s Scheme
    “Della!” Lady Joyce screeched. “Della!”
    “Coming! I’s right here!” Della said, throwing open the train car door. Held tightly in her small hands was a large tin of tepid water. The flimsy door swung shut behind her with a smack. In the back, Lady Joyce