The Diamond Bikini (3 page)

I went back and looked in the pot again. Then I felt the top of the stove. It was cold too. But I’d seen smoke coming out of the pipe. I stepped back out in the yard and looked up. By golly, there wasn’t any smoke now. But there had been. I was sure of that.

I went back in the kitchen, still trying to figure it out, and raised one of the stove lids and put my hand down on the ashes in the firebox. They was as cold as the rutabaga. There sure was some funny things happened around Uncle Sagamore’s, I thought.

I could hear Pop yelling hello again, and then calling me, so I went into the front room. It was the living-room. There was a big mud fireplace on the right, with a shotgun lying on some forked sticks up above the mantel. Most of the chairs had bottoms wove out of strips of cowhide with the hair still on. Besides the door that went out on to the front porch there was another one on the left that went into another bedroom. I looked in there before I went out. There was nobody in it. The whole house was empty. When I stepped out on the porch the smell hit me again. It seemed to be worse there than anywhere else. I ran down the steps and out by the car. Pop was there, still fanning the air with his hat and cussing bitter and disgusted like.

“Why in hell didn’t I have sense enough to go to Narragansett Park?” he says.

“Aw, Pop,” I says. “I like it here. Except for the smell.”

“Yeah, but what are we going to do? Sagamore ain’t here. He’s probably been drafted. Nobody around here except that old squirrel down there hammering boards together. Nowhere else around here we can go.”

Right behind us somebody said, “Howdy, Sam.”

We whirled around, and there was a man standing in the front door, leaning against the jamb with a shotgun hanging in the crook of his arm. I just stared at him. I couldn’t figure out how he’d got there. The house had been empty less than a minute ago. And we hadn’t heard a sound.

He was a big man, taller than Pop, and he was dressed in overalls and an overall jumper without any shirt. He had kind of small, coal-black eyes and a big hooked nose like an eagle, and his face was covered right up to his eyes with sweaty black whiskers about a quarter of an inch long. His hair was black and gray mixed, growing kind of wild and bushy over his ears, but he had a big bald spot that went from his forehead right across the top of his head. The black hair on his chest showed up past the bib of his overalls and stuck out along his neck where the jumper was open.

Those hard, shiny, button eyes seemed to be kind of grinning while they looked at us, but they made you think of a wolf’s grin. There was a big lump in his left cheek, and then without moving his head or anything he puckered up his lips and a big stream of brown tobacco juice sailed out across the porch, kind of bunched up and solid like a bullet. It came on and cleared the front steps and landed
ka-splott
in the yard.

“Visitin’?” he asked.

“Sagamore!” Pop says. “You old son of a gun.”

So that was Uncle Sagamore, I thought. But I still couldn’t figure out where he had come from, or how he’d got there in the door without us hearing him.

He put the gun down against the wall and said, “Ain’t seen you in quite a spell, Sam.”

“About eighteen years, I reckon,” Pop says. We went up on the porch and they shook hands and we all hunkered down on our heels around the door.

“Where did you come from, Uncle Sagamore?” I asked. “I was just there in the house and I didn’t see you. And what’s the man building down there by the lake? And how come you didn’t put those cowhides further away from the house?”

He turned his head and looked at me, and then at Pop. “This yore boy, Sam?”

“Yeah, that’s Billy,” Pop says.

Uncle Sagamore nodded. “Going to be a smart man when he grows up. He asks a lot of questions. He’ll probably wind up knowing more than a justice of the peace if anybody ever answers any of ‘em.”

Uncle Sagamore got up and went in the house. When he come back he had two glass jars with him, and they was full of some kind of clear stuff like water. He set one down just inside the door and handed the other one to Pop, and then hunkered down again. Pop was still fanning the air with his hat, but he didn’t say anything about the smell from the tubs.

He took a drink out of one of the jars and then handed it back to Uncle Sagamore. He gasped a little, and tears come to his eyes.

“Old well ain’t changed a bit,” he says.

They didn’t fool me any, of course. I knew it wasn’t water but I didn’t say anything.

Uncle Sagamore took the big wad of tobacco out of his cheek and threw it out in the yard. He tilted the jar up and his Adam’s apple went up and down. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. It didn’t make any tears in his eyes, though.

“By the way,” Pop says, “there was a couple of airplane spotters up on the hill as we come in. Looking down this way with field glasses.”

“Wearin’ white hats?” Uncle Sagamore asked.

“Yeah,” Pop says. “And one of ‘em had a gold tooth. Looked like fellers that was real pleased with themselves.”

Uncle Sagamore nodded, sort of solemn. “That was some of the shurf’s men. Real hard-workin’ fellers, always frettin’ about forest fars. They spend a lot of time up there watching for smoke.”

“They ever find any?” Pop asked.

“Well, sometimes,” Uncle Sagamore says. “Once in a while an old stump will catch afar from lightnin’ or something down there in my bottom timber. By God, they never miss her, neither. They come oozin’ out of the bushes from every direction like young’uns to a fish fry.”

He took another drink out of the jar, and kind of chuckled. “Other day there was an old rotten log a-burnin’ down there, and you know some careless idiot must of left twenty, thirty sticks of dynamite lyin’ around pretty close to it. Probably been shootin’ stumps, or something. Anyway, just about the time all these courthouse far-eaters come a-chargin’ in through the bushes she started lettin’ go. Damned if them fellers didn’t just about clear off a whole acre of new ground for me, gettin’ out of there. Never seen men could tear down so much brush tryin’ to get their feet headed in the same direction.”

Pop took another drink out of the jar. “Sure gives a man a comfortable feeling,” he says, “to know his law officers is on the job like that, looking after things.”

“That’s right,” Uncle Sagamore says. “Matter of fact, they’ll be down here any minute now.”

Just then there was a loud racket up the hill where the wire gate was. It sounded like a car had run through the gate without bothering to open it first. Then we saw the car. It was plunging and bouncing down the hill like Nashua running over cheap horses in the stretch. There was a big cloud of dust boiling up behind it, and every once in a while it would hit a bump and go three feet in the air. They sure was in a hurry.

“Been meanin’ to take a fresno and smooth that road down a mite for them boys,” Uncle Sagamore says, watching them buck down the hill. “Sure is hell on us taxpayers, the way they tear up County cars gettin’ in and out of here.” He stopped and shook his head. “Just never seem to get around to it, though, with all there is to do.”

While he was talking he reached the jar back in through the door and traded it for the one that was inside. “Guess the boys might want a little dram with us,” he says. He handed the new jar to Pop, just like he had the other one. “I’d be careful about lettin’ any of her go down,” he says, “She might have a little croton oil in her.”

“Oh,” Pop says. He tilted his head back and took a swig, but he didn’t seem to swallow. I asked them what croton oil was, but when they didn’t say anything I remembered Uncle Sagamore didn’t like to answer questions.

Just then the car put on its brakes and the tires screamed. It slid about thirty feet and come to a stop under the tree. Uncle Sagamore looked up like he’d just noticed it for the first time, took the jar away from Pop, and put it down on the floor to one side of him where it was out of sight from in front. The two men that had been looking for aeroplanes got out and started towards us. The smell hit ‘em and they started to sputter and choke and wave the air with their hats, but they kept coming, kind of grinning at each other.

Uncle Sagamore reached out a hand and moved the shotgun a little, like he didn’t think it had been standing just right before. “Come on up and set, boys,” he says.

They come on up the steps. The gold-tooth one was tall and skinny and had a nose nearly as big as Uncle Sagamore’s, and a long jaw, like a horse. His hair was kind of a buttery color, clipped off close along the sides of his head and real long on top and slicked down with hair oil. The other one was skinny too, but he wasn’t as tall. He had dark wavy hair and one of them fancy moustaches that look like they’d been painted on your upper lip with a fountain pen. His sideburns come way down on his jaw.

They both had wise grins on their faces.

They fanned the air with their hats, and the gold-tooth one says, “Sorry we broke down your gate, but we was in a hurry to get here before you could drink any more of that well water. Wanted to warn you there’s been a lot of typhoid going around.”

“Well sir, is that a fact?” Uncle Sagamore says.

They looked at each other again like they was going to bust out laughing, in spite of the awful smell. “Sure is,” the moustache one says. “And you know, the shurf told us just this morning, he says you boys be sure to bring in a sample of water from Sagamore Noonan’s well so we can have it analyzed. Sure as hell wouldn’t want Sagamore to come down with that typhoid.”

While he was talking he eased around a little so he could see the jar sitting at Uncle Sagamore’s side. He watched it like he was thinking of some big joke he wanted to remember.

“Well sir, that’s real nice of the shurf,” Uncle Sagamore says. He looked at Pop. “It’s just like I was telling you, Sam. You take a lot of them goddam lard-gutted politicians settin’ around on their fat in the courthouse with both hands in the taxpayer’s pocket, they don’t do nothing to earn their money; but these shurf’s boys is different. Now you take them, they’re out protectin’ the poor taxpayer, the way they ort to be, lookin’ out for airplanes and forest fars and frettin’ about this here typhoid and watchin’ him through field glasses so he maybe don’t fall down and die of sunstroke while he’s out here workin’ from sunup to dark to pay his taxes and keep the trough full for ‘em. Makes a man downright proud to know they’re on the job like that. So you boys just go on out there and draw up a bucket of that water and I’ll see if I can find an old fruit jar or something you can put her in.”

“Oh, we wouldn’t want to put you out,” the gold-tooth one says, and grins. “We’ll just take that jarful you got settin’ there by your hip. That’ll be plenty for the grand jury—I mean, the health department—to analyze.”

“Oh, you mean this one?” Uncle Sagamore says. He brought the jar out. “Why, boys, this ain’t well water.”

“It’s
not?”
The two sheriff’s men were so astonished they looked at each other again. “Imagine that! It’s not well water.”

“Why, no,” Uncle Sagamore says, “this here is a kind of remedy I seen advertised in one of them magazines. “Do You Feel Old at Forty!” it says, and here was this picture of this purty girl without much on in the way of clothes, and it goes on to say how you can get yore pep back and start shinin’ up to the gals again if you been kind of losin’ it lately, so I figure I ort to try me a little of it.”

“Well, what do you know?” the gold-tooth one says. “And they sent it to you in a fruit jar, just like moon—I mean, well water?”

“Uh—not exactly,” Uncle Sagamore says. “You see, you kind of make her up yourself. They send you this powder, whatever it is, and you mix it right at home. There may be just a teensy smell of alcohol about it, but don’t let that fool you. It’s just because the only thing I had to dissolve it in was some old patent medicine of Bessie’s.”

“Well, imagine that!” the moustache one says. “A little smell of alcohol. Who would have suspected a thing like that?”

The gold-tooth one picked the jar up and held it under his nose. The other one looked at him.

“Can’t smell nothing with that stink out there,” he says. “But, hell, we know what it is.”

“I tell you it’s just a remedy, boys,” Uncle Sagamore says. “You wouldn’t want to take that in to the health department. They’d laugh at you.”

“Who do you think you’re kiddin’?” the gold-tooth one says. “But just to make sure it’s evidence—” He tilted the jar up and took a swig out of it. He choked a little.

“How about it?” the other one asked.

The gold-tooth one looked kind of puzzled. “I don’t know. Strong enough to be moon, all right. But it’s got a little funny taste. Here, see what you think.”

The moustache one looked a little doubtful. Then he says, “Well, hell, he was drinkin’ it.” So he tilted it up and swallowed.

He looked kind of puzzled too.

“See,” Uncle Sagamore says. “I told you. It’s just a remedy. But you boys is kind of young to be usin’ it. You don’t want to blame me if you start chasin’ the gals around like banty roosters after a pullet when you get back to town.”

The gold-tooth one still looked a little doubtful. “You can’t kid me,” he says. “I know moon when I taste it.” But he thought about it for a minute and then took another drink.

“Well, I don’t know,” he says. “It would be kind of silly if we took it in and it
was
medicine.”

“You ought to know better than to believe anything Sagamore Noonan says,” the moustache one told him. “Here. Let me have it again.”

He took another one too. But he couldn’t seem to make up his mind either.

“Well, take her in if you just got to,” Uncle Sagamore says. “But you might as well set and visit a spell. Ain’t no hurry.”

“No, we’ll just run along,” they says. “This was all we was after. Didn’t want you to catch that typhoid.” They started to turn around.

Uncle Sagamore lifted the shotgun down kind of absent-minded and set it across his knees. He broke it, lifted the shells out and looked at them like he wanted to be sure they was really in it, and then slid ‘em back in and closed the gun again. He was sliding the safety catch back and forth, just to be doing something, the way a man scribbles with a pencil while he’s talking on the telephone. They watched him. The moustache one licked his lips.

“Sure you boys can’t set a spell?” Uncle Sagamore asked. “No use you rushin’ off in the heat of the day.”

They stopped. The gold-tooth one says, “Uh—well—”

“That’s the trouble nowadays,” Uncle Sagamore went on. “People just don’t take the time to be neighborly. Come a-chargin’ in here like a highlifed shoat to save a man from comin’ down with that typhoid, and then before he can hardly thank ‘em for what they done they get another burr under their crupper and go tearin’ off to hell an’ gone to save some other pore taxpayer from something. Man was to just set once in a while he’d live longer.”

The two sheriff’s men looked at each other again and then out at the car like it had suddenly gone a long way off and they wasn’t sure they could make it that far in the hot sun. They kind of oozed down on the steps, still watching Uncle Sagamore and looking into the end of the shotgun. “Well, I reckon there ain’t no great hurry, come to think of it,” the gold-tooth one says.

“Now you’re talkin’,” Uncle Sagamore says. He took the old plug of tobacco out of his pocket, rubbing it on his overall leg to get off some of the lint and dirt and roofing tack that was sticking to it, and bit off a big chew.

“Want to make you acquainted with my kin-folks,” he went on. “This is my brother Sam and his boy. Sam’s in the investment business in New York. Sam, say howdy to the shurf’s boys. The high-pockets one with the chicken fat in his hair is Booger Ledbetter, and the other one, with that kiss-me-quick moustache, is Otis Sears.”

“Howdy,” pop says.

“Howdy,” Booger says.

“Howdy,” Otis says.

Nobody said anything else for a minute or two. We all just sat there hunkered down looking at each other. I was on one side of Uncle Sagamore and Pop was on the other, and the two sheriff’s men was on the top step, in front of us. I could hear that bug going buz-z-z-z out in the trees again. Then a little breeze come along and the smell got awful. The sheriff’s men fanned harder with their hats.

“You boys warm?” Uncle Sagamore asked.

“Well, not exactly,” Booger says. “It’s just that smell. Get’s sort of rank at times.”

“Smell?” Uncle Sagamore asked. He looked at them kind of puzzled, and then at Pop. “You smell anything, Sam?”

Pop quit waving the air with his hat. “Why no,” he says, surprised like. “What kind of a smell?”

Uncle Sagamore looked back at Booger and Otis. “You sure you boys ain’t just imagining it? Where does it seem to be coming from?”

“Why, I thought from the tubs over there,” Booger says.

“You don’t mean my tannery, do you?” Uncle Sagamore asked.

“Well—uh,” Booger says, looking at the end of the shotgun again. “I thought there was a sort of smell coming from over there, but maybe I was wrong.”

“Sure is funny,” Uncle Sagamore says. “I ain’t noticed a thing, myself. But I’m glad you boys mentioned it; reminds me it’s time for them two on the end to dreen a little. They been soakin’ for nine days now, and I better hang ‘em up. I’ll be right back.”

He got up with the shotgun under his arm and walked over to the end of the porch. He stepped down and lifted the old cowhide out of the end tub with a stick and threw it over the clothes line, kind of spreading it out. Then he took the next one and spread it on the line too. They began to drip brownish water onto the ground.

They was bad enough before, but now when they was out in the air it was awful. They was only ten or twelve feet away, and with the air circulating around ‘em. I could feel my eyes watering and my breath choking up in my throat.

Booger and Otis was looking a little sick. They would breathe real slow and easy, and fan with their hats, and then they’d look at Uncle Sagamore and quit fanning and just try not to breathe any more than they had to.