Jingo Django (6 page)

Finally I hid the whale's tooth under the pillow and crawled into bed. It would take some getting used to — being gypsy born. I hoped Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones wasn't playing some confounded trick on me. I was tired of being a puzzle to myself.

10

THE SCRIMSHAW MAP

Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones was a late sleeper and a sly fox. I used up the morning poking around, never suspecting that his name was jumping about the village like a flea in a glove.

When I returned to the Red Jacket at noon Mr. Foxhall's face was lit up like a lamp. “See there who's come to call,” he chuckled, nodding toward several men waiting impatiently for Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones to come down. “That's Judge Stockbridge chewing his cigar. His wife has told him not to return without the
artiste extraordinaire.
And the same for Doc Holliway warming his coattails at the fire.” He rattled off a few other names and added, “That's just the beginning, mark my word.”

It didn't take me long to reason out why Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones had favored our landlady with a portrait. When the villagers awoke to the news that the innkeeper's wife had had her picture painted, the judge's wife must have sputtered with envy. I reckoned the doctor's wife didn't want to be outdone by the judge's wife and had shuffled her husband off to make sure that she got
her
picture painted as well.

Even as I stood there the village banker came glowering in, followed by a country squire and an army colonel in full uniform.

When Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones made his appearance the husbands surrounded him like a pack of hounds, all yelping at once. He silenced them with a hand. “Gentlemen, please,” he said. “Allow me to order my breakfast and then, I regret to say, we must travel on.”

There was a great, mortal groan from the men, who would have to face their wives.

But Mr. Foxhall had his wits about him. “I'm sure,” he said, “that we can prevail upon Mr. Jones to enjoy our hospitality a few days longer, gentlemen — if the price is satisfactory.”

Quicker than you could count to two he appointed himself our business advisor and while Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones sat down to a late meal he collected the portrait fees in advance.

“Thunder and fury!” exclaimed Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones when the harvest of
greenbacks
and gold pieces was set before him. “I suppose I have no confounded choice but to delay our departure!”

I knew he had planned all along to remain. Oh, he was slick as an apple seed, I thought! He was not a man to offer his talents like a common peddler. Folks had turned up, hat in hand, to beg
him
for the favor of his services.

It was early afternoon before he made his first call. I followed along, carrying faceless ladies under each arm. I began to feel uneasy about fingle-fangling him into striking out for the Mexico border. Despite myself, I was coming to like him. He was dreadfully independent and considerable smart. I puffed up just walking about in his shadow.

We returned to the Red Jacket by early candlelight and the cobbler was waiting with a pair of buckskin boots. My heart leaped a beat or two. I thought I had never seen such an everlasting fine pair of boots. I could hardly believe they were meant for me. They had the fresh, new smell of tanner's oil.

“How do they fit,
chavo?”

“Capital, sir,” I smiled.

Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones nodded and paid the cobbler. Then he ordered a hot flip for himself and another glass of fresh milk for me.

I passed most of the evening strutting about in the boots and wishing I could see myself in them. I went upstairs and down, and wandered about prouder'n a game rooster. They made me feel that I was somebody else.

Then I stopped to realize that I
was
somebody else. I wasn't one of Mrs. Daggatt's orphan house brats anymore. My name wasn't Jingo — it was Django. And I was a gypsy.

When I finally went up to bed I couldn't bring myself to pull off the boots. I'd sleep in them. For all I knew gypsies always slept in their boots.

I wondered how Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones came to know so much about me. He couldn't have learned things from my pa. If he had ever met my pa he wouldn't need me along to spy him out. No, sir. They had never met. And yet he was trailing my pa like a bloodhound.

I reasoned there was some fury between them — revenge, most likely. I knew better than to ask Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones about it, or anything else. He kept his thoughts tighter'n a fist.

He might be an odd stick, but I was coming to feel closer to him than any man in sight.
He
never ordered me about like an orphan. I was certain he had noticed the whale's tooth I kept tucked away, but he asked no questions.

I began to feel dreadful uncomfortable about leading him on a wild goose chase. He was never going to find my pa along the Mexico border, and I was tempted to tell him the truth.

I withdrew the whale's tooth and studied the scrimshaw markings. I'd be content to go gypsying about with Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones and maybe we'd find the treasure. And then maybe he'd forgive me.

But maybe he wouldn't, I thought. I was sorry he ever had trusted me. Now he had me fitted out in spandy new boots and I was repaying him with a monstrous lie. I began to worry that he'd freeze up and tell me to make a straight shirttail out of his sight.

I was mulling things over when he walked in.

“Still awake, Django?” he asked.

“I'm not sleepy, sir.”

“Boots don't belong in bed.”

“A body can't be too precious careful with thieves and scoundrels about,” I said. “I reckon I'd better keep them on day and night.”

He laughed, standing with his back to the fireplace, and I could tell he took as much pleasure in the buckskins as I did. I wanted to thank him, but the words stuck to my tongue.

“They'll last you clear to Mexico and back,” he said.

My mind made itself up, and I began pulling off the boots. “Sir,” I muttered softly, “I don't reckon you'll want me to keep these.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I humbugged you. I don't have a notion where my pa is. I made that up about his being somewhere along the Mexico border.”

He stood silently for a long time. I felt myself wither up under his blue-eyed gaze.

“Nonsense,” he snapped finally. “You didn't humbug me. You were telling the truth.”

“No, sir.”

He turned away with a fierce scowl. “What mischief is this? If you have tired of my company,
chavo,
you're free to go your own way. It's not necessary to make up lies.”

Somehow he was getting everything mixed up. I didn't want to leave him. “I'm not lying
now,”
I replied earnestly. “I was lying
before!”

He shot me a baffled look. “But your pa
is
most certainly to be found in Mexico. I have been aware of that all along. If you'd told me he was in Canada you'd have sent me on a fool's errand. I'd have been infernally put out with you.”

Suddenly
I
was feeling muddled. My pa in Mexico after all? It couldn't be.

“But, sir—”

“Take my word for it. We'll find him.”

“But I don't
want
to find him,” I blurted out.

“I can't blame you for that. If you did indeed try to humbug me you must have had good reason.”

I took a deep breath. “Yes, sir. There's treasure in Mexico and I wanted to go after it.”

A smile began to kindle itself in his eyes. “Treasure?”

“And I've got the map. It's carved in this whale's tooth.”

“Then we've both a reason to go to Mexico, haven't we?” He began pulling off his coat and seemed to dismiss the matter.

“Don't you want to see the map?” I asked anxiously.

“Decidedly not. It's entirely your affair.”

“But there's gold enough for both of us,” I said quickly. “We could go partners.”

“Partners fall out. No,
chavo.
I have riches enough in that paint box. A man's skills make up a splendid treasure and he needn't fear having them looted.”

I began to feel a little desperate. Partners might fall out, but we wouldn't, I assured myself. It would ease my conscience if he'd go shares with me. I was mortal sorry that I had tried to fingle-fangle him. He'd managed to turn things about, somehow, but it only increased my desperation. Mrs. Daggatt would have obliged me with a thrashing and I would still be stretching the truth to my own fancy. But now I was determined to finish with that brand of mischief.

“The trouble is,” I said softly, “I can't exactly make sense of my map. I'd be eternally grateful if you'd take a look, sir.”

He held out his hand and I leaped out of bed with the whale's tooth. I carried the lamp closer while he began examining the scrimshaw. River and hornets and the man's elbow. I told him how I had come by it and finally he said, “A ranch house with a fence around it hardly seems
a
proper treasure map, does it?”

“No, sir.”

“But notice the cattle grazing here and there.”

“I did.”

“Look at this longhorn steer. It's tied to a corner post. That's highly irregular.”

“Is it?” I began to feel a rising excitement. But there was still the word deeply scratched into the tooth: SOROMATAM. That was highly irregular, too.

He studied it for a full minute and then jumped up. “Carry the lamp over here,” he grinned, leading me to the mirror over the shaving cabinet.

When he held the whale's tooth to the mirror everything reversed itself, and the word still came out irregular.

“Matamoros,” I muttered, reading it off the glass. “It still doesn't say anything.”

“On the contrary, Django,” he replied, and I could tell he was pleased with himself. “It's a Mexican town near the mouth of the Rio Grande — notice the river. I've been there twice. All you've got to do is locate this exact ranch house somewhere out of Matamoros, dig under the northwest corner post where you see the longhorn tied, and if you don't haul up treasure someone got there first.”

He handed the whale's tooth back to me. I was stunned by the speed in which he had figured it out.

“Now put your boots back on,” he grinned. “In case you walk in your sleep.”

11

THE DREADFUL VISITOR

Matamoros! Now that I knew the treasure spot I was in a whirlwind hurry to be up and gone. But Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones appeared to have dismissed the entire matter from his thoughts. We lingered on at the Red Jacket Inn while he went about his affairs.

I cooled my heels as best I could. Travelers came and went, including a fat man who engraved the Lord's Prayer on the heads of pins. He created a great stir. The writing was so wondrously fine you couldn't see it with the naked eye, and he did a brisk business in pins and magnifying glasses.

I thought the day would never pass, nor the next. Of course I paraded about in my buckskin boots, new breeches, a hickory shirt and a sheepskin jerkin. Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones had had my orphan house rags burned as he replaced them, piece by piece.

“You'll cut a splendid figure on the frontier,” he remarked at supper.

“No, sir,” I muttered. “I expect to grow out of my clothes before we leave the Red Jacket Inn.”

He laughed. “We'll take our departure soon.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow morning,” he said, and my spirits took a mighty leap.

I left him smoking his clay pipe before the fire. I helped myself to a candlestick from the rack behind the innkeeper's counter and made my way upstairs. I meant to be awake and ready to travel at first light. I hoped he wouldn't stay up half the night and sleep till noon.

A wind had come up. I could hear a shutter banging somewhere and the inn creaked in all its joints. When I stepped through the bedroom door a sudden draft snuffed out the flame of my candle. I reckoned I had left the window open.

But
almost in the same instant a hand clapped itself across my mouth, the door was kicked shut behind me and my hair must have shot up like the quills of a porcupine.

“Not a sound, ye cheeky little savage!”

I recognized the voice at once and my heart dropped like a well bucket.

It was General Dirty-Face Jim Scurlock.

“So ye found the chimney-hid thing, did ye?” he laughed softly. “Aye, and ain't ye overjoyed to see me?”

I heard him cock a pistol and then I felt the barrel cold against the side of my head.

“Handy it over, ye pesky little maggot. The whale's tooth! Daggatt spliced two and four together and we know ye took it. Sleeping in her chimney, were ye? Aye, she found the evidence and the scrimshaw gone. She thought to double-deal me, but came to her proper senses. Oh, you and that tall gent was easy to follow. Now, where be it, eh? Speak up!”

I made a few throat sounds and it occurred to him to ease off with his hand.

“Well?”

I swallowed a gulp of air and tried to catch my wits. If I could stall him long enough maybe Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones would come striding in and I figured he was a match for anyone — even General Dirty-Face Jim Scurlock.

“You promised a ten dollar gold piece reward,” I said. “Indeed you did, sir.”

His temper shot to a boil. “I'll reward ye with an extra hole in your head!” He took my neck in one fist and began shaking me like a rattle. “Answer up, ye ungrateful, tricksy little brat!”

My teeth were clacking so that I could hardly get a word out. “Y-y-yes, sir.”

As he kept shaking me the hickory shirt loosened itself and the scrimshaw fell from my waist. It clattered bone-white to the floor. I tried to kick it away, but he was quick to slap his foot on it. He snatched it up and began to chuckle.