Jingo Django

by Sid Fleischman

  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.

  “Why, lad, a whale’s tooth ain’t worth filchin’ — didn’t you know that?”

  “Then why did you come all this way to filch it?” I answered, as if it were all a mystery to me and to set his mind at rest.

  “Me and Daggatt only want it for sentimental reasons, ye might say. Aye, sentimental reasons.”

  At last the door flew open and there, gripping a candlestick, stood Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones.

  “My dear sir,” he snapped. “You must be the noisiest thief in your profession. You will do yourself a service by returning whatever you have found to lay your grubby hands on.”

  General Scurlock leveled his pistol. “You’ll do yourself a service, sir, by standing out of my way.”

  “Ah. So I see.”

  He stepped aside to let General Scurlock pass. I was certain Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones would spring into action, and held my breath. But he hardly lifted an eyebrow.

  “Do watch your footing on the stairs,” he said. “It’s dark and you’re apt to take a bad spill.”

  “Aye, I’ll be careful,” General Scurlock grinned, backing through the door. “The boy’ll tell ye I took nothing of worth to ye, so you won’t try to follow, now will ye? I can see you’ve better sense than that.”

  “You may depend upon it.”

  “I intend to shy about in the dark and you can expect a pistol ball if you show yourself before morning.”

  “Good night, sir.”

  General Scurlock gave a bemused snort, pulled the door closed and was gone. I looked at Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones with a sudden rush of disappointment. He crossed the room and lit the lamp with the flame of his candle. He was smiling.

  “We’ve got to stop him before it’s too late, sir!” I said.

  “Our visitor, I take it, was your former chimney master, General Scurlock.”

  “He’s got the whale’s tooth!”

  “That’s splendid. I expected him to turn up.”

  As I gazed at him fresh and awful thoughts started tumbling about in my head. I wondered if I could really trust Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones. He seemed perfectly satisfied that General Scurlock had made off with the treasure map. And now he occupied himself in the mere task of pulling off his boots.

  “You want him to get away!” I said.

  “Certainly.”

  My heart began to thump. “You left a trail at every crossroads for him to follow!”

  He looked up. “True. I left a trail.”

  “You’re in league with him!”

  He returned to his boots. “No. But as long as he has the whale’s tooth, Django, we can travel without having to look back over our shoulders. Did you think for a moment you wouldn’t be followed?”

  “But you admitted you left a trail!” I said.

  “A gypsy trail. General Scurlock wouldn’t know how to read it.”

  The rattle of horses’ hooves rose from below and I rushed to the window. I got the merest glimpse of the chimney master vanishing phantom-like into the night. And I thought I saw Mrs. Daggatt in the buggy beside him. I turned back to Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones with a desperate, confused feeling. He was chuckling softly.

  “The posturing, mutton-headed fool,” he said. “Bristling with idle threats.”

  “But fool enough to make off with the scrimshaw,” I said. “And heading straight to Mexico, more’n likely.”

  “I don’t doubt it. But Mexico’s a long way off, Django. I expect it’ll be a slow race.”

  “A race?”

  He pulled a pin from his waistcoat. “While you slept last night — and you will forgive me, chavo — I borrowed the whale’s tooth from under your pillow. That engraver staying with us is an exceptional fellow. He did me the service of copying the scrimshaw map on the head of this pin. I’m sure you’ll be careful not to lose it.”

  12

  THE MAN WITH THE WHITE GOOSE

  The coach was loaded up with food and fodder, and we departed the Red Jacket Inn to the crowing of roosters. It was a fine windy morning, sharp and clear, but the road was still in spring mud.

  I urged the horses on as best I could, but I believe snails could have whizzed past us. General Scurlock and Mrs. Daggatt must already be in the next county, I thought.

  “No point in hurrying the poor beasts,” Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones said, stretching out his legs like a fisherman shipping his oars. “It’s more than two thousand miles to Mexico. Plenty of time, Django.”

  “But General Scurlock’s probably streaking along like a cannon shot. He’s certain to beat us to Matamoros.”

  Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones smiled, and then laughed. “Don’t count on it, chavo. We have a capital advantage. The swaggering imbecile thinks the game’s entirely in his own hands. Consider, lad. You know it’s a race, I know it’s a race, but he doesn’t know it’s a race. So he’s not about to lame his horses by whipping them all the way to the Rio Grande, is he?”

  I perked up. Of course! General Scurlock may have darted off with the whale’s tooth, but he didn’t suspect that I was privy to its secret. Or that Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones had had the treasure map engraved on the head of a pin! That was uncommon smart of him, I thought.

  The pin was run through the pocket of my hickory shirt and I kept touching it to make sure it was still there. Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones hadn’t been able to buy a magnifying glass. The little fat man had already sold his last one.

  “We ought to be able to pick up a glass in Matamoros,” Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones said.

  “But you said you weren’t interested in adventuring after the cactus gold,” I remarked.

  “I may change my mind,” he said, knocking the mud off the soles of his boots with his walking stick. “It will amuse me to pluck the posthole treasure from under General Scurlock’s lumpy nose.”

  “And Mrs. Daggatt, too.”

  “Especially Mrs. Daggatt,” he answered, in jaunty good spirits.

  “Then we’re going partners?”

  “Splendid.”

  I gave the reins a smart shake, and I’m certain there was a smile on my face. I was sorry I had suspected him the night before of being in league with General Scurlock. He appeared to have forgotten it, and I was grateful. Then I said, “Won’t they be bound to discover we’re following along?”

  “But we’re not.”

  “I saw them, sir.”

  “You saw them in a buggy. That’s hardly a vehicle for a cross-country journey. And Mrs. Daggatt strikes me as a woman who demands every ease and comfort. They fled back to Boston — you can be sure of that.”

  Mishto! Instead of creaking along behind we now appeared to have a fine head start. “Boston, for sure,” I agreed. “She gulches down a quantity of food. They’ll have to load up an extra wagon.”

  “I rather imagine she’ll attempt to book passage on a ship with a port of call along the Gulf. New Orleans, most likely. They’ll be lucky if they don’t have to cool their heels in Boston for a month or two.”

  “Unless General Scurlock comes on alone,
” I said.

  He shook his head. “Those two don’t trust each other any further than you can throw a barn, Django. That’s obvious, isn’t it? They won’t allow one another out of each other’s sight. Not for an instant.”

  The thought made me want to laugh. Oh, it was going to be jolly having a partner, and he was owlishly wise. But I did wish the scenery would pass a mite faster. “Are you sure these are racehorses?”

  “You have my word for it,” he said.

  I was glad to see mud time pass. Day by day the roads firmed up and spring came wide-awake. The countryside leafed out, thick and green and new, and you could hear sparrows chasing about through the trees like mice.

  As the weeks wore away we covered considerable ground. Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones didn’t stop once to ply his trade. I reasoned that he chose to open his paint box only when he ran short of money, and he still had a pocketful.

  But he never failed to stretch his legs at every fork and crossroads to mark our journey. We left a gypsy trail from Boston clear to the Mississippi River. By early summer we were joggling through the dust along the river road toward New Orleans.

  The nights turned hot as a Dutch oven and we slept out, mostly. Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones was not a man to curl up on the hard ground if he could avoid it. He bought a stout fishnet in Memphis, cut it in two, and we slept in airy hammocks lashed between trees. It was pleasant listening to the bullfrogs croak and the river rush by, but some nights the mosquitoes did make you wish you were somewhere else. They stung everything but the pin in my pocket, and for all I know they bent a stinger or two on that.

  I can’t say I did much thinking about my pa. It discomposed me some that he might be lurking somewhere along the Mexico border. I’d be glad to snatch up the treasure and make a straight shirttail out of there. I hoped he wouldn’t turn up while we were about it. It was enough to chill the spine and I tried to keep my imagination in check.

  We stopped in Natchez to have the horses reshod and I remember saying to Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones, “Your cheeks are red as flannel, sir.”