Dorothea’s sisters woke up early. Rolling out of bed with Pancho’s Officers, they went down to the riverbank to wash up before the sun came up. They thought of what to do next, hearing about the Carnies that had kidnapped Dorothea they thought that kidnapping the Owner of the Circus would be fun.
Maybe cut his eye lids off and stitch him up in a sack with wild animals, a couple Coyotes and a Bobcat. Let them fight it out. The Clowns gave them the creeps. The less clowns this world had the better, they could pick off the strays. A couple of the Indio scouts said they have been seeing strange painted faces peeking around but no tracks.
Word is its the ghosts of the Train Explosion. It could be, they were never superstitious but that is more terrifying than rapist clowns walking around with no paint so no one knows who they are.
They sneak in to see Dorothea, who is now very sick. Her wounds have become infected and the supplies to help are not in Mexico. This is now the real motive to go out and find medicine. Grabbing some weapons and horses the sisters move out.
Wary of Pershing’s Punitive Expeditionary Cavalry, they hope that they can slip in and out with out too much bloodshed. Still seeing exotic Animals on the prairie is amusing to them. Hippos of Giraffes in the rivers, Monkeys in the trees, Tigers in the lowlands. They wonder how Pancho will use his pride of Lions?
Passing a Government checkpoint of Mexican Marines, local families have their suitcases dashed to the ground, their chickens and donkeys seized and the men are beaten with rifle butts and shot when they resist. Piles of corpses fill ditches to each side of the road. In this part of Mexico it is common majority of men who did not join the Revolution are taken away to nameless graves, leaving mostly widows and fatherless children. Only Soldados will survive here.
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The girls decide to divide into snipers to the East and West, Carolota and Carmen lie in wait to cover Rosita with hunting rifles. The more incognito looking Rosita will go into town to buy medicine. This does not seem dangerous on the face of it. They had spent their entire adolescence growing up amongst this turbulent time, but the older they get the steeper the odds.
In small village they scout, there seems to be no Mexican Marines. Just the regular folk, smoking corncob pipes on porches, sweeping the board walkways and tending to horses. Making it to the local store, able to get disinfectants, alcohol and bandages.
Home free Rosita walks the opposite direction of where she came from, in case she is being watched to throw off any lurking Americano. Heading east instead a ways to get a feel if she was followed, she walks directly into a group of Carnies and Clowns encamped beside a river. In the center The Lion Tamer. Who’s eyes are bandaged behind bloody rags, gored out by Lion claws. A face mutilated but still very much in charge with an air of cruelty. She notices they have also scavenged the battle for mounted machine guns and rifles. They were armed to the teeth and looking for someone to take out their frustration on…
At nightfall Carolota and Carmen cannot find Rosita who went into town, falling back to gather the Soldaderas who left behind when The Villaistas broke camp to engage the Mexican Government Marines. Holding out hope stragglers of the Villa Cavalry has at least scouts in the area they shoot off a flare gun scavenged from a prior raid on the Marines. They hope Pancho Villa’s Northern Army will notice their absence and come to the rescue.
The 2 Sisters stay to the outskirts of the Gringo town they think is McAllen, Texas but there is no way to know for sure. Crawling thru the chaparral they hear the distorted music of a broken organ grinder from the Circus. In firelight they see their sister Rosita badly beaten but alive, tied to a mid sized sailboat. The Clowns sound very drunk but there is something that uneases them they can’t figure out about the place. They missed a group of Clowns behind them with boat roars, clubbing them unconscious.
Hours or days later Carolota is woken by Carmen. They are in a flooded stone basement, it looks like an ancient dungeon from the Conquistador era. The water is not fresh, they must be near the Sea. Looking to the walls they see dead girls at every few feet a rusty chain bolted to the wall in various states of decay.
They gasp, in the corner two glassy eyes blink, followed by the raspy laugh of a dying man. Carmen has smuggled a lighter, flicking it open she is horrified to see the bruised face of a bald clown. He says, “Don’t be afraid, we are in the same boat now.”