“Crooked Elbow, Texas.”
The man broke into a barking laugh, and the chair almost slipped out from under him. I sorely wished it had. Then he squinted at Billygoat and Sunflower and shook his head.
“You don’t call those sorry-looking hay-burners horses, do you?”
“They’re racehorses, to be exact,” Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones replied.
“Racehorses. I do declare! I’m a racing man myself. Would a fifty-dollar purse interest you?”
“We never race for less than a hundred,” Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones stated firmly.
“A hundred it is, mister! You’ve got yourself a match. Two hundred would be more to my liking. Any distance, any conditions.”
Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones gazed at him with quiet scorn. “When we can spare a moment I’ll look you up.”
“I’ll be waiting,” the man barked. “Just ask for J. Cooter Williams. You won’t disappoint me, now, will you?”
“I wouldn’t think of it,” Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones said, and we walked into the hotel.
He asked for the best accommodations, as if we already had our pockets full of treasure to spend. He registered with a flourish. Then, using the same pen, he made a perfect sketch of the scrimshaw ranch house, brick by brick, window by window, and he even drew in the bees and cattle.
He showed it to the hotel man, who turned out to be the leading citizen of Crooked Elbow, Texas — Mr. Bodger.
“Do you know this place, sir?”
Mr. Bodger was a round-faced man with sideburns like squirrel tails. “Appears to be Cactus John’s old place,” he said. “About three miles upriver. Nobody living there now, and nobody wants to.”
“Why not?”
“The hornets are an unholy torment up around that bend in the river. They finally drove Cactus John out. I can’t say folks around here were sorry to see him go. We kinda sided with the hornets.”
“Not much daylight left,” Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones said. “Is there a lantern about you could spare us?”
“You’ll find one hanging out back. Help yourself.” Then he shifted expressions. “Did I hear J. Cooter Williams try to set you up to a horse race?”
“Exactly.”
“He’s never lost a race. You can’t beat that filly of his.” Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones nodded. “I appreciate your good advice, sir. But I’ve never lost a race, either.”
Cactus John’s place faced the river. Dark was coming on as we approached. The roof and stovepipe had fallen in and the adobe bricks had begun to melt away. Cotton-wood trees had sprung up everywhere like weeds. I kept my ears tuned for hornets, but all I heard were jackrabbits shooting away through the underbrush.
A sagging pole fence meandered around the property and I recollected the scrimshaw carving of a longhorn steer tied to the northwest corner post. The way Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones ciphered the map, that marked the spot to dig.
When we had found the post it had taken root and sprouted, and looked like a stunted tree.
“Hang up the lantern,” Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones said, and began to dig.
I looked on in feverish high spirits. The gold was certainly directly underfoot, but that post didn’t want to come out. The roots had most likely taken a grip on the treasure itself. I took a spell at the shovel and after a moment Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones remarked calmly, “Didn’t you say your pa was a one-legged man?”
“Yes, sir,” I replied.
“And his teeth were fairly rotted?”
“Black as tar,” I murmured.
There was a long silence. Then he said, “A man answering that description has been seen in Matamoros.”
I gazed up at him in the lantern light. “When?”
“As recently as this morning.”
My heart sank. I didn’t want to think about it. I took a tighter grip on the shovel and began digging something fierce at the roots.
The post finally loosened like an old tooth. Together we lifted it out of the ground.
I fetched the lantern and we peered down into the post-hole. I expected to see a blaze of gold pieces.
But the hole was dark and empty.
Finally I said, “Maybe we didn’t dig out the right post.”
“No,” he murmured. “We followed the scrimshaw map exactly.”
He picked up the shovel and began deepening the hole. A small breeze rustled through the cottonwood trees. I thought about my pa thumping about Matamoros on his timber leg. I wished I were a thousand miles away.
Then, in the lantern light, I saw a mark carved in the old post. I lowered the lantern.
“Look,” I said. “It’s a patrin!”
He cast a glance at the post. Then he stepped closer and we both bent down to examine the mark.
“It is, indeed,” he muttered.
I had never seen a gypsy sign exactly like it.
“Do you know what it means?” I asked.
He nodded. “It’s the mark of a thief. In short, a warning to avoid this place.”
“Do you think someone beat us to the treasure?” I muttered.
He shook his head. “The roots of that post haven’t been disturbed. I’d better make inquiries about Mr. Cactus John. I suspect now that you were correct — we’re not digging in the right place.”
We started back for Crooked Elbow.
22
THE HORNET’S NEST
Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones left me at the hotel while he hunted up the sheriff, if there was one. I went up to bed and lay awake thinking of all the square miles stretching about where the treasure might be hidden. And I thought about my pa. I wondered if he had left that sign on the fence post. He was a gypsy, wasn’t he? He’d know about patrins.
But I knew that I didn’t want to go back to Matamoros and set eyes on him. I wasn’t even certain now that Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones had brought me along just to find him. Why did he need me to point out a one-legged man with black teeth? Men like that didn’t exactly turn up by the bushel.
It was dreadful to consider that he meant to turn me over to my pa, and I kept putting that thought out my head. Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones, was my friend, wasn’t he? He wouldn’t do a confounded thing like that.
When he woke me at dawn he was clearly in excellent spirits, and I said, “You found out where the treasure is hid! Did somebody move it?”
“On the contrary, Django. Somebody moved the fence post!”
We bolted down a full breakfast at the hotel and fetched the horses. J. Cooter Williams was once again sitting on the porch with his boots on the rail.
“Howdy,” he said. “Got time for that horse race?”
“Make it noon today,” Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones said.
“What do you say to a $500 purse? Just to make it interesting.”
“Agreed, sir.”
J. Cooter Williams broke into his barking laugh and we went plodding out of town. I disliked that man and wished we could win the race, but I knew Billygoat and Sunflower couldn’t outrun a tumblebug. I calculated Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones had let his anger get the best of his common sense.
We followed the river and arrived at Cactus John’s place in about an hour. Now that it was daylight I was able to spot hornets’ nests hanging like gray cabbages in the cottonwood trees. They made me downright uneasy. Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones ignored them.
He walked here and there, getting his bearings. He squinted along one side of the fence and then along another side. Finally he counted out twenty paces back toward the ranch house, stopped, gazed about thoughtfully — and nodded.
“Throw me the shovel,” he said, and began digging.
I kept an eye out for hornets, but after a while I began to think they were overrated. Gnats in the air were a good deal more troublesome. They came and went like drifts of black smoke.
Taking turns with the shovel, we soon had a hole big enough to bury a horse. “How do you know this is the right spot?” I asked. I was melting away in the heat.
“
Because Cactus John was a thief. Keep digging. The treasure’s bound to be close by.”
I kept at it, enlarging the hole. We were well inside the fence and coming close to a cottonwood. I could see a hornet’s nest dangling overhead, and it was worrisome.
Another ten minutes in that heat and I was no longer certain I cared to dig for treasure. The handle of the shovel was soaked with sweat.
And then I struck something. I yelled out and we both got down on our hands and knees and began scraping away the dirt.
In a minute or so we uncovered a pair of fat saddlebags. The leather was dry as paper, but it held together as we unbuckled the first sack and looked inside.
“Splendid,” Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones remarked.
“First rate and a half!” I declared.
The sack was gleaming with gold pieces. They shone in our faces like mirrors.
“Cactus John wasn’t a common thief,” Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones grinned. “He was no doubt the meanest, pettiest, most astonishing sneak thief the West has ever known. He’d wait for the dark nights and then lift out his corner posts and move his fences. He was stealing land from his neighbors — a couple of feet at a time! That’s what the sheriff told me. He swore it was true — you can see for yourself it was. I paced back to where the northwest corner post must have originally stood — the fool must have uncovered these saddlebags in the night without knowing it.”
“And covered them over again!”
“Exactly. If your gypsy eye hadn’t recognized that patrin we’d still be digging thirty feet off the mark. Now, let’s get back to town. We’ve a race to run.”
We began lifting the rotting bags carefully when a voice came rumbling through the air.
“That will do, gentlemen! Aye, and thank ye both for saving us the labor!”
General Scurlock halted twenty feet away, with a cocked pistol in his left hand. Beside him in the blazing sun stood Mrs. Daggatt, and she looked mad as a whole nest of hornets.
“You!” she bellowed. “You insolent little snip! You ungrateful offcast of creation! Is this the way you repay me for raising you up a little gentleman?”
“Yes, m’am,” I said calmly.
“Trying to snatch away my treasure!”
“Our treasure, me dear Daggatt,” General Scurlock said.
She kept her baggy, scowling eyes fixed on me. “Thought to cheat me of a few comforts in my old age, didn’t you?”
“Yes, m’am,” I answered, matching her scowl for scowl.
“Come, come, Daggatt,” said General Scurlock. “Lost treasure belongs to him what finds it. Or can get away with it, eh?” He turned to Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones. “Now, sir, if you and the lad will kindly step clear I won’t be obliged to use this pistol.”
Mrs. Daggatt whipped a furious look at him. “Don’t be more of a fool than usual. Can’t you see it’s them or us?”
“On the contrary, madam,” said Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones. “We are totally unarmed. The boy and I relinquish all claim. The treasure is yours. It was far more important business that brought us to the border.”
General Scurlock gave a satisfied snort, but he kept the pistol leveled in our direction. We clambered out of the hole and they clambered in. Mrs. Daggatt was quick to lay open the gold, but the slow way her eyes took in the feast you’d think she was counting every piece.
“I believe you’ll find it all there, madam,” said Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones.
General Scurlock chuckled and addressed himself to the problem of lifting the heavy saddlebags across his shoulder.
“Me dear Daggatt, I don’t have three hands. If I can trust ye to hold the pistol I’m sure ye won’t do anything rash.”
Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones and I exchanged quick glances. General Scurlock meant to see us dead, but a trace of military pride must have kept him from shooting unarmed men. He knew Mrs. Daggatt was not a woman to balk at anything. So did I.
She took the gun in her hand as if it were the treasure itself. Slowly I reached for the fetching stick in my hip pocket. As I watched her I saw a new and treacherous gleam spring into her eyes. The way she now gazed at General Scurlock I calculated she meant to use the pistol on him as well.
“Come along, chavo,” Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones murmured, as if to say the greater the distance the better the opportunity for Mrs. Daggatt to miss.
But I stood my ground, letting the string uncoil from my stick. As General Scurlock heaved the saddlebags over his shoulder I eyed a hornet’s nest hanging directly above their heads.
In an instant I flicked out with the kidda-kosh. It whipped around the nest and I jerked back. The nest fell, split at their feet and a great roar of hornets erupted.
Then I ran. And so did Mrs. Daggatt. And so did General Scurlock, leaping madly toward the river.
When I glanced back Mrs. Daggatt had gone over the fence like a stampeding bull. And she kept going, with a cloud of hornets following along in an unholy temper.
Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones yanked me off my feet and threw me into the underbrush. We lifted our heads and watched General Scurlock wading into the river. The rotting saddlebags had already begun to break apart and now gold pieces fell like leaves from his shoulder.
He stopped short, up to his knees in the river, and his arms going like a windmill to fend off the swarm. The saddlebags slipped from his shoulder. He was howling something fierce. I thought at first it was the hornets, but he appeared to be sinking in the mud.
“Daggatt! Daggatt!” he bellowed. “Quicksand!”
I raised myself a little higher. Mrs. Daggatt couldn’t hear him. She was hopping about like a jackrabbit on the distant horizon. I looked back at the river.
“The gold’s sinking away,” I muttered.
“So is General Scurlock.”
We watched for a while, until the swarm of hornets found more interesting business to attend to. Then we ventured closer. Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones loosened a fence pole and held it out like a fishing rod.
“The gold’s been sucked under!” he remarked. “That was very clumsy of you, General!”
General Scurlock’s lumpy nose was swelling up and red as live coals. “Save me, sir! Haul me out!”
It was about as easy as hauling a hog out of a scalding tub. Finally he was sprawled and panting at the edge of the river. A moment later he raised his head and gave us a weak little smile.
“All that treasure quicksanded, eh? How deep do ye reckon it’ll sink?”
“Clear to China,” Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones replied.
23
THE HORSE RACE
It was only when we mounted our horses that I realized I was hornet-stung, and so was Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones. He had trouble sitting his horse and I watched him ease the torment as best he could.
“I’m dreadful sorry, sir,” I said.
“Sorry? Why, you saved our lives with your kidda- kosh,” he answered.
“But now the gold is lost!”
“We don’t need it. Never did.” And unaccountably he emptied out the goatskin of drinking water.
I gazed at him in stark wonderment. It seemed a buffle-brained thing to do, the day already afire, and I was not accustomed to Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones doing buffle-brained things.
“You feverish again, sir?” I asked.
“Never felt better,” he said, with a squint of pain. He slipped off his horse to walk the rest of the way. “But I must confess I’m not in proper shape for that confounded J. Cooter Williams. I’d be obliged, Django, if you’d run the competition for me.”
I tugged at the green diklo knotted about my neck. “You’re feverish for certain.”
“What gives you that notion?”
“You poured out all our drinking water.”
He nodded. “I did. In order to win the race.”
By the time we reached Crooked Elbow my mouth was so dry I could have spit cotton. It was past noon, and the whole town seemed to have turned out for the occasion. I wished we
would just keep moving. The only thing we were going to win in that race was a monstrous horse laugh.
Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones led the way straight to the hotel. J. Cooter Williams watched us approach, guzzling beer in the shade of the porch. His polished boots were still propped on the rail. You’d think he was a hotel statue someone put out in the morning and took in at night.
“That man was born tired and brought up lazy,” Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones said. “I don’t think he’s well thought of. Look at the crowd watching us. Unless I miss my guess they’d like to see us beat him.”
It was true. The faces along the boardwalks seemed uncommonly warm and friendly. But they didn’t look especially hopeful. Just kind of sad about the whole thing.
“You’re late,” J. Cooter Williams smiled. “I was beginning to figure you were all talk and no horse race.”
“You figured wrong,” Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones said.
J. Cooter Williams barked out a laugh and rose to his feet. “Then what are we waiting for? There’s my filly tied to the rail and rarin’ to go. How far do you want to race?”
I gazed at the filly, a silky chestnut that had the look of harnessed lightning.
“Merely to the end of the street and back,” said Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones.
J. Cooter Williams’ face sagged. “That ain’t much of a race, mister.”
“You’ll find it long enough. As I recall, you said any distance and any conditions.”
“I said it then and I say it now. Put up your money.”
“One moment,” Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones remarked.
“That takes care of the distance. I’ll hold you to two conditions.”
“Take six,” J. Cooter Williams laughed. “Why, both your horses together couldn’t outrace a bull-maggot!” Then he pulled a heavy purse out of his shirt and tossed it to a loose-jointed man wearing the tallest hat I ever saw. “Sheriff, you hold the stakes. There’s my five hundred cash dollars. Count ’em. I want this all done legal.”
I came close to giving out a great sigh of relief. We couldn’t race. We didn’t have a cent to put up.
But I hadn’t counted on Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones. “Mr. Bodger,” he called. “May we exchange a few private words with you.”
Jingo Django Page 10
