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Sometimes the older circus performers would sit around a fire in the middle of a disorganized circle made up of poorly pitched tents and run down trailers. They would laugh while spitting hot dogs and cheap marshmallows on stripped green sticks and talk about the good old days until the night grew as old as they were, and the laughter faded into mumbling about those good old days. Younger performers would sneak around the edges, after being told without room for argument that they weren’t allowed to join the fun. They would sneak in just close enough to hear the stories and maybe snatch a couple bottles of beer with young, dextrous fingers to share with friends.
Beyond the ring of half-dressed people under the age of fifty were a few stragglers, very young performers or general circus hands who did little more than act as targets in acts or carry the two old tigers their raw meat dinner.
Clint Barton wasn’t even in the third ring. He was farther than that, choosing to spend his evenings away from the tangle of half drunks and the stink of day old performing sweat. He would wait until everyone was too occupied to notice the youngest of their number slipping out of the protective glow of firelight and hanging paper lanterns. It wasn’t hard, unless Barney was in a foul enough mood to sit at the edge of the fire and glare at anyone who tried to act too friendly towards him. Luckily, Barney was slung under the Strongman’s arm with a firm grasp on a bottle of alcohol.
Circus performers weren’t invited to spend their days inside the town limits, so they always pitched their meagre belongings into a loose approximation of a dirty neighborhood, far enough away that rowdy townspeople wouldn’t get the idea that a bunch of homeless gypsies were easy game for late night heckling. Clint scuffed the bottoms of his worn sneakers as he meandered along a dirt road they had followed coming into town. He had a flashlight in his pocket, but he left it off, preferring to walk under the light of a half moon that barely lit the pockholes in the road and jutting rocks.
At fourteen, Clint wasn’t afraid of much. He was old enough to think he could handle anything that came his way, alone enough to be aware of how to take care of himself, and smart enough to know how to handle the knife he had tucked into his belt. But fourteen year olds still listened to the stories that the older performers told and believed them. Clint had stayed around just long enough to hear one of the lion trainers snap, as well as a drunk man could, about a time when the men in one town had driven them out with pitchforks and guns after the mayor thought the “dirty” performers were sleeping with the town’s gentle ladies. The trainer -- a man nearing his seventies with a giant, grey beard he braided with worn ribbons he claimed came from his “conquests” -- announced that the mayor was only half right, since the performers had only slept with half the available women.
An overactive imagination took the words “pitchforks and guns” and turned them into demons with red-painted faces and black eyes and Clint felt his heart race when he heard the dull break of old twigs in the sparse woods that edged either side of the dirt road. His hand went to his knife and he stopped moving. He scurried as quietly as he could to the edge of the road, towards the trees, trying to sink into the shadows of the thin trees that would do little to hide him if someone had a light. The snap had come from the opposite side of the road, and he sank down to the ground to make himself as small as he could. Clint peered hard into the darkness to look for human-shaped shadows between the trees.
There were three more snaps in sharp succession that had Clint drawing his knife and flipping it open, careful to keep it low and away from the moonlight that could give away his position to the source of the noise. He swallowed hard, feeling like a thick rope was choking the breath from him. He put his free hand up to his neck to be sure it was just his imagination. A prickling at the base of his spine made him whip around to see if there was anyone sneaking up behind him. His imagination flashed a quick warning of a demon in front of him as soon as he turned his head. He couldn’t help the frightened noise that welled up in his throat when he snapped his head back around as fast as he could.
The road in front of him was still clear of fire-wielding, black-eyed demons. He reached for his flashlight but stopped. Light would only give him away. He pulled his arms in close but kept his legs out of the way, in case he needed to slash at something with his knife. He sat for a long time, long enough that his knees started to hurt from being folded into such a small position. There hadn’t been another snapping twig sound, but his heart refused to slow its thunderous beating. The crickets still chirped happily from the long grass.
He rose to his knees, carefully holding the knife defensively while he looked around, trying to keep his eyes on everything at once. He stood, pressing back against the tree, and hoping that in the shadows he would look like the ripple of vines and moss and not a too-thin child. His lungs felt starved for air that his shallow, scared breaths were denying it. He took a deep, quiet breath and felt his muscles bunch together before he had even decided on a plan of action.
There was a snap. Too close, too loud.
Clint shot away from the tree and down the road as fast as he could, trying not to look back. His eyes wide open to be sure he would see if a demon jumped in front of him, even though the wind from his speed stung and made his eyes water. When he reached the ring of trailers and tents he dove into the protective walls that his imagination made of the fortune teller’s dream catchers and the Muslim acrobat’s Evil Eye charms. The fire was still high; the younger performers were still rowdy. A few of the old men had fallen asleep where they sat, tipped forward over their crossed legs with snores rattling in their chests. Barney was challenging the Strongman to a battle of wits that they would both lose but claim to win. He felt his heart slow and, after a moment, turned to look back into the darkness. He thought he saw one of the shadows move, slithering like a giant snake back down the dirt road.
He slept in the fortune teller’s tent and she didn’t ask him why, only gave him one of her charms to hold and hummed songs in a language he didn’t understand. Barney didn’t come looking for him until morning.