Uncle Sagamore and His Girls (3 page)

It was real funny then. Otis’s face turned as white as the underside of a toadstool. So did Booger’s. Neither one of ’em said anything. They just went on getting whiter.

Uncle Sagamore didn’t even seem to notice the way they was acting. He went on talking to Pop. “Likely you got to develop a taste for them fancy drinks,” he says. “Or mebbe them boys was just hoorawin’ me, figurin’ a old boll-weevil like me wouldn’t know no better. Could of been some kind of oil they was usin’ on the drills, come to think of it, the stuff was so greazy.”

You would have thought Booger and Otis had turned to stone. They just stood there in the broiling sun, the two of ’em all wrapped around the shovel handle and the canteen. Booger’s right arm was still stuck out, where he’d drawed back the rock to hit the canteen.

“Well, what did they call the stuff?” Pop asked.

“Hmmmm,” Uncle Sagamore says, pursing up his mouth. “Yeller somethin’. Wait a minute—Yeller Creme de Menthe. That’s what the boss said it was—he was the one that give it to me. Big laughin’ sort of feller, always crackin’ a joke. He kept callin’ me Ebeneezer—”

“Why you reckon he done that?” Pop asked.

“Oh, he was just that kind of a feller,” Uncle Sagamore says. “Funnin’ all the time. But mebbe I better tell you the whole thing, how I happened to run acrost ’em, and all.”

“Sure,” Pop says. They stretched out in the shade of the oak tree again, not paying any more mind to Booger and Otis.

I watched ’em, though. For the life of me I couldn’t figure out what had come over them, unless maybe they’d had a sunstroke. They sure looked sick. Big blobs of sweat stuck out on their faces.

“I shoo—I shoo—
I shook it—!
” Otis whispered. He closed his eyes.

Booger happened to notice then that he was still holding the rock he had drawed back to whack the top of the canteen. He closed his eyes too, and his lips moved, but he didn’t say anything.

“Is something wrong?” I asked them.

It didn’t seem like they even heard me, so I sat down by Pop to hear what Uncle Sagamore was saying.

He sailed out some tobacco juice and shifted his chew over to the other cheek, kind of settling his back against the tree to get comfortable. “Well, like I say,” he says to Pop, “it was a long time ago, mebbe six, seven year, or thereabouts. As I recollect, I’d went down there in the bottom lookin’ for that old Boomer mule I used to have. Chances are you don’t remember him—”

Pop thought about it, and shook his head. “No, the name don’t seem to be familiar.”

Uncle Sagamore nodded. “Well, old Boomer was one of them sensitive kind of mules that’s always gettin’ their feelin’s hurt, so ever once in a while he’d get in a pet about somethin’ I done or said, and he’d run away. He’d go down there in the bottom and hide out, and brood about it, real down on everybody. There ain’t no tellin’ what’ll happen when a mule gets despondent like that, so I’d have to go look for him.

“Anyway, I was down there two, three mile from the house, real early in the morning, when off through the timber I heered this here kind of whooshin’ sound, like somebody closin’ a storm-cellar door. I went over that way to see what it was, and here was this big truck parked close to a slough on that old loggin’ road that used to be in there. And right on the bank of the slough was this here big safe, with four men just beatin’ hell out of it with sledgehammers and crowbars. The big outside door was already off. It was layin’ against a tree trunk about twenty feet away, all boogered up with holes drilled in it and sprung out of shape like they’d had a awful time prizin’ it off—”

Uncle Sagamore stopped then and looked at Booger and Otis, like he’d just now noticed how odd they was acting. They hadn’t moved a muscle. Ants was crawling on ’em now, kind of sliding and swimming up through the sweat on their hands and faces, but they didn’t pay any mind.

“Heck,” he says, “why don’t you give up on that thing? Likely the threads is corroded all to hell, and you ain’t never goin’ to get it open without you put a pipe wrench on it.”

“
It’s nuh—nuh—nuh—
” Booger says, sucking in his breath. His eyes was big and staring, and it seemed like he was trying to tell us something.

Uncle Sagamore shook his head. “I never seen such determined fellers,” he says to Pop. Then he went on, “Well, anyhow, like I say, these fellers had already prized the outside door off and was bangin’ away at the little sheet-metal one inside. I didn’t know any of ’em, but I seen right off they was in the loan business, because the sign was painted on the big door lyin’ over there by the tree. ‘Redlands Loan Company,’ it says.

“Well, when they turned around and seen me they didn’t seem none too happy about it at first, probably figgerin’ I was goin’ to stand around and get in the way. This big one—you could see he was the boss of the outfit—come over and asked me what I was doin’ down there. So I told him about old Boomer, and how I was lookin’ for him because you just cain’t trust a mule to take no care of hisself when he gets despondent like that. So he brightened up then and clapped me on the back, and said he knowed how it was, he used to have mules hisself before he went in the loan business. Just don’t you worry, he says, old Boomer’s all right; I know he wouldn’t of done nothing desperate.

“His name is Charlie, he tells me, and he’s the president of the company. That’s how come he was carryin’ the gun, this here pistol he had stuck in the waistband of his britches. It was in the by-laws to protect the stockholders’ investment any time they had to move the safe from one place to another. So then he called one of the other men over and handed him the gun. ‘Ebeneezer here has lost his mule,’ he says. ‘You go out there in the timber with him and help him find it. And hurry back.’

“I told him that was real neighborly of ’em, but naturally I wouldn’t even dream of takin’ up their time. Just go right ahead with your job, I says, and don’t put yourself out none for me. We both set down, and I asked him if this wasn’t a lot of trouble to go to just to get a safe open, had they lost the key or something?

“Well, he tells me, I’d put my finger right on the root of the trouble. That’s when he explained about how they’d got the safe from the gov’ment surplus and how they couldn’t get it open again after they’d put all their money and papers in it. They’d been writin’ to the gov’ment about it for four or five months, but never got no satisfaction, so they decided the only thing to do was to break it open and get their stuff out and then buy another one.

“Just about this time the other three fellers finally beat the inside door loose and they started takin’ everything out of the safe and puttin’ it in some cloth bags they had. It sure was a lot of money. They took the crowbars and rolled the safe and the big door off into the slough, because like this here Charlie says if there was anything he couldn’t stand it was city people that went off and left a lot of litter scattered around when they was out in the country. They loaded the cloth bags and all the tools in the truck and was ready to go. Then one of ’em nodded at me and says, ‘What about the hay-shaker?’

“‘Well, men,’ Charlie says, ‘I was thinkin’ about that. It seems to me we do owe Ebeneezer something for the use of his land, so why don’t we give him the rest of the cordial?’

“The others thought it was all right, so they showed it to me. It was on the other side of the truck, in a little pasteboard box that had a folded blanket lyin’ in the bottom of it. There was another canteen on the ground, but it was empty.

“I told ’em I’d be real proud to take it if they was sure they could spare it, and just what was it, anyhow? So this Charlie tells me it’s genuwine imported Yeller Creme de Menthe.

“‘Well sir,’ I says, ‘is that a fact?’

“‘So you’ve heard of it, have you?’ he says to me.

“Well, I didn’t want to let on I was just a old peckerwood that didn’t know nothin’ about them hifalutin’ drinks, so I told him sure, I heard of it plenty of times.

“‘Then you know what they say about it,’ he tells me. He winks and digs me in the ribs with his elbow. ‘You dawg you,’ he says. ‘Look out, gals, here he comes.’

“Then all of a sudden he stopped and his face got serious. ‘Wait a minute,’ he says. ‘Men, we forgot about something. We can’t give this cordial to Ebeneezer. Why, it’s against the law. This is a dry county.’

“Well, the others agreed he was right. Then Charlie snapped his fingers and says, ‘I got it. If we was to sort of go off and forget this stuff, Ebeneezer might just accidentally find it—’

“‘Why, sure,’ the others says, ‘that’d be all right.’

“So Charlie grinned and clapped me on the back, and got in the truck with ’em. ‘Just wait’ll we get clear out of sight,’ he says, ‘and she’s all yours.’”

Uncle Sagamore stopped talking then and looked at Booger and Otis. “You know, Sam,” he says, “I never seen such determined fellers in my life. They’re still strainin’ to get that there thing open.”

Well, it didn’t seem to me like they was trying to open it at all. I couldn’t make much sense out of what they was trying to do, unless it was just hold onto it. It was kind of like Booger was wanting to pass it to Otis and step back, and Otis was wanting Booger to take it so he could step back, but neither one would let go. The sweat made their faces shine like they was covered with oil.

“Well, how did the stuff come to be buried out here?” Pop asked.

“Oh,” Uncle Sagamore says. “Well, after they got across the bottom, I unscrewed the cap and takened a sip to see what it was like. But like I say, it was horrible-tastin’ stuff, kind of oily and hot, and it upset my stummick somethin’ terrible and give me the scours. So when I got back to the house I put a couple of pieces of charcoal in it and buried it out there, figurin’ that might filter out some of the fusel oil.”

“Hmmm,” Pop says. “Seems like that ort to of mellered it some. You ain’t tried it since?”

Uncle Sagamore shook his head. “No. To tell the honest truth, I plum forgot about the daggone stuff till the boys dug it up just now—”

I looked at Booger and Otis then, and I could see they had finally made up their mind what they wanted to do about the canteen they were holding. They wanted to put it down.

They was bending their knees real slow, kind of sliding down the handle of the shovel and holding the canteen out and down so they could set it on the pile of loose dirt at the edge of the hole. You’d think it was full of gold or diamonds, the way they handled it.

But they run into trouble. The top end of the shovel handle slipped inside Booger’s jumper and started running up his right sleeve. They hung up and couldn’t go any further. They strained down with their arms and stared at the dirt like it was a jillion miles away, when actually it wasn’t any more than three inches at the most. So then in a minute they started sliding back up the handle again. But the end of it didn’t quite come out of Booger’s sleeve, so when they eased down again they wound up the same way. The whole thing looked silly to me, because anybody could see all they had to do was let go the canteen and drop it, but somehow they couldn’t figure that out. They rested a minute and went back up. They swayed one way, and then the other, with Booger kind of lifting his shoulder up and down, but he still couldn’t get the handle out of his sleeve. It was just like they was dancing together.

Uncle Sagamore got up. “Shucks, boys,” he says. “Let me give you a hand. Where’s that there rock you had? Likely if I hit her a couple good whacks on the cap—”

They’d almost reached the end of another down stroke, but when they saw him get up they just froze. Their eyes got bigger and bigger, like they was going to pop right out of their heads.

“
Duh—duh—duh—
” Booger says, kind of sucking in like you do when somebody splashes cold water on your back.

Uncle Sagamore reached out and took the canteen out of their hands, and started looking around for the rock. They just stood there staring at it like they couldn’t even believe they wasn’t holding it any more. It didn’t look like either one of them could move.

“Oh, here she is,” Uncle Sagamore says. He bent down and picked up the rock, where Booger had dropped it.

They moved then. They went about fifteen feet the first jump, and the shovel went flying when the handle slid out of Booger’s sleeve. They sailed into the car and it shot into reverse. It slammed back into the pile of fireplace wood by the oak tree and crumpled the right rear fender, and then it come forward in a big curve. In nothing flat it was up the hill by the wire gate, and out of sight in the trees.

Uncle Sagamore looked after them and shook his head. “Hmmm,” he says. He sat down on the pile of dirt with the canteen across his knees. Pop came over and watched him. He sort of flinched when Uncle Sagamore drew back the rock, and then grinned and shook his head.

Uncle Sagamore pounded on the cap two or three times and then twisted and it come right off. He took out his chew of tobacco, tilted the canteen back, and had a long drink. Then he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and passed the canteen to Pop.

“I kind of figgered they might be up there,” he says. “Election year, they take a real interest in whatever you’re doin’.”

“Sure looks that way,” Pop says. He took a drink. “By the way, I reckon this was the empty one?”

“Oh,” Uncle Sagamore says. He put the chew of tobacco back in and shifted it around in his cheek. “It was empty, all right. I found it down there by the slough a couple year ago. We had a real dry summer and the water got purty low, and doggone if here wasn’t that Redlands Loan Company safe stickin’ up out of it with the door blowed all to hell. Police’d been lookin’ for it for years. The slough filled up again when the fall rains started, so I reckon nobody else ever did see it.”

Pop nodded. “Well, they say it’s right touchy stuff.” Uncle Sagamore reached for the canteen. “Well, I sure wouldn’t want to fool with it, after seein’ the door of that safe. But don’t worry about it. I warshed the canteen out with branch water before I filled her.”

*
THE DIAMOND BIKINI by Charles Williams, Gold Medal #S607, Sept. 1956

W
ELL, IT WASN’T MORE
than about an hour till here come the Sheriff hisself. He was madder than a wet cat.