Buttercup Read Online Free PDF

barely three feet tall, with stubby little fingers and short arms, he proclaimed himself to be the smallest ringmaster in the world. On some days, he was management, then ringmaster, barker or a diplomat to offer patch-money to pay off the nasty sheriffs that wanted to shut down the hooch tents.
    Tiny may have been small, but his control over the Carnies was long. He could be mean and violent if pushed. Lone Wolf was his fist and the other carnies his muscle. Della had seen that side of his anger once and it scared her to death.
    “She’ll be fine. If’in it gets out of hand, we’ll protect her. You know that.”
    Lady Joyce looked over at Della, her large brown eyes welling with tears. Joyce was quite a striking woman. Plump with big breasts and hips, her hair was always platinum white from the peroxide shampoos. Her skin was ghostly pale and her eyes blue as rainwater. When she was dolled up and on stage, men would pay sometimes more than a dollar to touch her.
    And when she took the customers into her train car, she could score as much as ten dollars from a dustbowl of a town like the one they were trapped in for the night.
    She was Della’s idol, mother, advisor, and on days she wasn’t liquored on meanness, her friend.

    “She aint ready,” Joyce said, her voice broken with emotion. “She shouldn’t.”
    Della suspected that the problem was the crowd coming in for the night. Whites in the South were particularly nasty. Once a man waited behind Lady Joyce’s train car near Della’s tent after the show. He had hoped to barter some time alone with the hoochie-coochie starlet. He found Della instead, attacked her, and then tried to drag her off to the woods. Tiny and the other carnies got him good though. Carnie justice.
    Thanks to that mean bastard, the Carnival can’t ever travel to northern Mississippi again. And that’s when Tiny’s rule was made into law. No man, carnie or otherwise, was to ever touch Buttercup.
    “I’s fine. I can do the show, and if they don’t like it then I don’t care.” Della stood up proudly. She was eighteen. Grown by all standards but still the baby of the group. She wasn’t a virgin either. She gave her cherry away to a townie when she was fifteen and did it once more for an ace behind Tiny and Lady Joyce’s back. She didn’t like doing what she called 'the pokie'. It felt like nothing between her legs. But she liked the attention. Problem remained that if Tiny or Joyce ever found out they’d skin her alive. Of that she had no doubt.
    “Settle down, Buttercup. We all know what you can do.” Tiny waved her off. He patted Joyce’s thigh once more. “You rest. If you want to see to her, have Lone Wolf carry you in the tent. Otherwise, it’s Buttercup tonight.”
    Joyce sighed. Tiny’s word was law. No one questioned it. Not even Joyce if the matter was decided. Tiny reached for his cane, a whittled walking stick made of old oak. Della grabbed it and handed it over. His dwarfed legs weren’t working for him as well as he’d like. He made his way to the train car door, stooped to pick up his hat, and sat it on his round head. He cast them one more parting glance. “You come on down in half an hour. Joyce, make sure she wears yellow. She’s our Buttercup after all.”

    Della smiled. “Thanks, Tiny!”
    She closed the door behind him. Before turning, she could feel Joyce’s’ eyes on her. “What is it? What’s so different from me performin'
    with ya, than without ya?”
    Joyce scooted back into her pillows, several dropping to the floor.
    She grunted, putting down her cigarette for a fan. “The difference is that you gettin’ to like it too much. I should’ve never let you on. You coulda’
    done the trapeze like Tiny wanted, or read them cards like Adeline. Hooch dancin’ ain’t just about rolling those brown hips of yours or turnin’ a few in the back of a train car, which I better neva’ catch you doin!” She wagged the fan at Della, then popped it