Excerpt from The Last Circus by Alessandro Camp
In place of my regular monthly blog, the following is an excerpt from my upcoming novel, The Last Circus.
The riderless white horse reared up against a radiant tropical sky. Hidden in the tall grass at the base of Kettle Hill, Sergeant Wesley Evans watched with horror as a series of Mauser bullets pierced the lungs of the magnificent creature. If the horse “Link” was down, then Captain O’Neill – the Arizona cowboy riding him moments earlier – had also been hit.
The 21-year-old sergeant was only with the regiment a few weeks when Colonel Theodore Roosevelt put him in charge of his war horses. Lincoln was the best of those who hadn’t drowned when forced to swim ashore from the Navy steamer that had transported them from Florida.
Instinctively, Evans rushed to the stricken animal’s side. An artillery shell from the Spanish redoubt immediately exploded overhead but left him unharmed. Gently, he stroked Link’s muzzle in a vain effort to comfort the stricken beast. Blinded by the gun smoke, the frightened soldier felt the impact of howitzer shells hitting the horse’s body which now shielded him from certain death.
As Link’s lifeblood drained into the warm Cuban soil, Evans sensed the animal’s spirit merge with his own. Then, exhaling his last breath, Link bestowed upon his human caretaker a supernatural gift – something that would help him endure the trauma he was about to face.
From that moment during the summer of 1898, Wesley Evans would possess the ability to understand what animals around him were thinking or saying.
Above the din of the fight, Sergeant Evans heard the reedy voice of someone who had previously employed him as a stable boy in the Dakota Territory. In 1885, a wealthy but relatively unknown New Yorker named Theodore Roosevelt had come west to try his hand at ranching on the frontier. Evans, the son of a penniless preacher, had barely gotten to know the man who’d later become President of the United States. Yet, the impression he left was enough to earn an enlistment with the Rough Riders – one of history’s most storied military units.
Concealed behind the body of the dead stallion, the sergeant heard his commanding officer chide another group of soldiers hiding in the underbrush.
“If you’re not man enough to fight, then at least let my men through,” Roosevelt said.
Dressed in his signature outfit – khaki trousers, blue flannel shirt, yellow suspenders and a brown felt hat – the Colonel seemed euphoric as he charged up the hill on horseback. The blue-and-white-checkered bandana which floated behind him like a warrior’s headdress made him an easy target for Spanish sharpshooters. When Evans heard William Pollock, his Pawnee comrade, let out a war whoop, he stood ready to fight. Grabbing his carbine, he joined a ragged line of men gallantly following their commander up the hill.
No longer protected by the carcass of the dead horse, Evans was instantly struck by the Mauser fire raining down from the ridge. One of the massive bullets shattered his right femur – nearly severing his leg. In shock and bleeding profusely, he collapsed and cried out for a medic. His pleas were lost amidst the cacophony of the Army’s Gatling guns.
The battle raged on. Roosevelt ordered his troops not to stop for anyone seriously wounded or likely to die. Dozens stepped over Evans as they continued to flush the remaining Spaniards from their fortifications atop Kettle Hill.
In pain but strangely at peace, the sergeant reverently whispered the Lord’s Prayer, then slipped into unconsciousness.
Wesley Evans was not among the victorious Rough Riders who posed in the famous photograph taken on San Juan Hill. Instead, his body lay on a bloody cot waiting for a leg to be amputated by Army Surgeon Robert Church. Although the regiment had several other doctors in the field hospital, Church was the only one capable of removing a limb without killing his patient. As the harried surgeon attended other critically injured soldiers, a young nurse named Annie Laurie Wheeler kept Evans heavily sedated under a canvas tent buzzing with flies. She was one of the few women willing to accompany the American forces to Cuba despite having no natural immunity to the island’s tropical diseases.
Later that night, in a morphine fog, the wounded sergeant heard voices outside his tent. One of them was Roosevelt’s.
“Robert, my good man” he said, “We’ve already lost our good friend Bucky O’Neill. I don’t want to lose another brave man under these primitive conditions. A young sergeant named Wesley Evans is currently in your care. He worked for me on my ranch in the Dakotas, and I want him to return to his family in one piece.”
“Yes, Colonel. Ah. . . of course you know severity of the sergeant’s wound. If his leg isn’t removed quickly, it will turn gangrenous and he will surely die. He’s only alive because I personally applied the tourniquet to stop him from bleeding out.”
“Doctor, I heard you played football at Princeton,” Roosevelt remarked.
“Yes, that’s true,” Church replied quizzically.
“And, as an athlete, you no doubt witnessed a number of serious injuries that might have crippled a man for life.”
“Why, certainly.”
“I reckon most of those men – being young and otherwise healthy – fought back. None would have wanted a leg amputated if there was some other way,” the colonel said in a tone than sounded more like an order than a surgical suggestion.
“Colonel Roosevelt, this boy has suffered more than a football injury. The bullet that hit him shattered his femur in several places. He’ll never be able to walk on that leg.”
“Maybe so. But he’s a man, not a horse. I’m certain he’d rather go through life on the two legs God gave him – no matter what shape they’re in – than one made of wood.”
“I understand, Colonel. I’ll see what I can do.”
Dr. Church went back inside the medical tent where Nurse Wheeler was changing the bandages on Evans’ mangled leg. He asked how the patient was doing, and she responded, “I don’t believe he’ll make it through the night, sir.”
“Then try to keep the sergeant comfortable. He’s in God’s hands now.”
Although drugged, Evans could hear everything being said about him. Drifting in and out of consciousness, he thought he heard other voices too – but not those of the suffering men around him. What he heard seemed to come from another place – an invisible realm that was otherworldly yet somehow familiar. He could barely make out the beginnings and endings of every sentence, yet their meaning burned deep into his consciousness. Each speaker’s intonation seemed abrupt and sharp. The language was definitely not English. Nor was it Spanish. In fact, he didn’t recognize it as any human tongue. Still, he understood every single word.
“Will the boy die?” asked the first voice.
“No, now that he has the gift, his spirit has been given another chance,” said a second voice.
“Did you see how much he loved our brother Lincoln?” asked a third voice.
“Yes, and that’s why he’s really become one of us,” said the first voice.
“It was very brave of him to charge up that hill.”
“But very foolish – like most of the others with only two legs.”
One of the Spanish horses captured by the Americans was grazing next to the tent. Overhearing the conversation, he joined in: “I hope these Gringos all die of malaria.”
“Now, Pablo, that’s not very kind. Our American cousins, like Link, were made to come to this hell hole just the same as us.”
Evans agreed with the animal voices. He didn’t come to Cuba to fight or be killed. He did want to live. And by God’s grace, miraculously, he would.
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