by Dave Mckay
The old man wrote, but nobody couldn’t read it. The lawyer looked powerful surprised, and says: “Well, that’s strange - - and pulled a lot of old letters out of his pocket, and looked at them, and then looked at the old man’s writing, and then them again; and then says: “These old letters is from Harvey Wilks; and here’s these two’s writings, and anybody can see they didn’t write them.” (The king and the duke looked pretty foolish, I tell you, to see how the lawyer had tricked them into writing.) “And here’s this old man’s hand writing, and anybody can tell, easy enough, he didn’t write them either -- truth is, the scratches he makes can’t really be called writing at all. Now, here’s some letters from -- “
The new old man says: “If you please, let me say something. Nobody can read my hand but my brother there -- so he writes for me. It’s his hand you’ve got there, not mine.”
“Well! “ says the lawyer, “this is getting more confused as we go. I’ve got some of William’s letters, too; so if you’ll get him to write a line or two we can -- “
“He can’t write with his left hand,” says the old man. “If he could use his right, you'd see that he wrote his own letters and mine too. Look at both, please -- they’re by the same hand.”
The lawyer done it, and says: “I believe it’s so -- and if it ain’t so, they’re more the same than I’d seen before, anyway. Well, well, well! I thought we was right close to fixing this problem, but it’s gone to grass, partly. Anyway, one thing is proved -- these other two ain’t either of ‘em Wilkses” -- and he turned his head toward the king and the duke.
Well, what do you think? That stupid old man wouldn’t give in even then! Said it weren’t no fair test. Said his brother William was the worst joker in the world, and hadn’t tried to write -- he seen William was going to play one of his jokes the minute he put the pen to paper. He warmed up and went singing right along until he was really starting to believe what he was saying himself; but pretty soon the new man broke in, and says: “I’ve thought of something. Is there any here that helped to lay out my br -- helped to lay out the late Peter Wilks for burying?”
“Yes,” says somebody, “Me and Ab Turner done it. We’re both here.”
Then the old man turns toward the king, and says: “Maybe this man can tell me what was printed in ink on his chest?”
Blamed if the king didn’t have to pull himself up mighty fast, or he’d a dropped like the side of a river that the water has cut under, it took him so by surprise. But then it was a thing that was planned to make him drop, to get hit with such a solid one as that without any warning, because how was he going to know what was written on the man’s chest? He turned a little white; he couldn’t help it. It was mighty quiet in there, with everybody bending a little forward and looking at him. Says I to myself, Now he’ll give up -- there ain’t no more use. Well, did he? A body can’t hardly believe it, but he didn’t.
I think he thought he’d keep the thing up until he tired them people out, so they’d some of them go home, and him and the duke could break loose and get away. Anyway, he sat there, and pretty soon he started to smile, and says: “Hmm! It’s a very difficult question, ain’t it! Yes, sir, I can tell you what’s written on his chest. It’s just a small, thin, blue arrow -- that’s what it is; and if you don’t look closely you can’t see it. Now what do you say -- hey?”
Well, I never seen anything like that old wind bag for clean out-and-out lies.
The new old man turns quickly toward Ab Turner and his helper, and his eye lights up like he judged he’d got the king this time, and says: “There -- you’ve heard what he said! Was there any such mark on Peter Wilks’ chest?”
Both of them says: “We didn’t see no such mark.”
“Good!” says the old man. “Now, what you did see on his breast was a small P, and a B and a W, with lines between them,so:P--B--W” – and he marked them that way on a piece of paper. “Come, ain’t that what you saw?”
Both of them spoke up again, and says: “No, we didn’t. We never seen any marks at all.”
Well, everybody was angry now, and they sings out: “The whole lot of ‘em’s counterfeits! Let’s feather ‘em! Let’s drown ‘em!” and everybody was shouting at once.
But the lawyer he jumps on the table and shouts, and says: “Friends -- friends! Hear me just a word -- just one word -- if you PLEASE! There’s one way yet -- let’s go and dig up the body and look.”
That took them.
“Hooray!” they all shouted, and was starting right off; but the lawyer and the doctor shouted out: “Hold on, hold on! Hold all these four men and the boy, and bring them along, too!”
“We’ll do it!” they all shouted; “and if we don’t find them marks we’ll hang the whole gang!”
I was scared, now, I tell you. But there weren’t no getting away, you know. They were holding us all, and pushed us right along, straight for the burying ground, which was a mile and a half down the river, and the whole town at our heels, for we made noise enough, and it was only nine in the evening.
As we went by our house I wished I hadn’t sent Mary Jane out of town; because now if I could give her the wink she’d come out and save me, and blow on our robber friends.
Well, they moved along down the river road, just carrying on like wild cats; and to make it seem worse the sky was darking up, and the lightning starting to wink and jump around, and the wind started shaking the leaves. This was the most awful trouble and the most danger I ever was in; and I was lost for a plan; everything was going so different from what I had planned for; instead of being fixed so I could take my own time if I wanted to, and see all the fun, and have Mary Jane at my back to save me and set me free when the trouble come, there was nothing in the world between me and death but just them marks on old Peter’s chest. If they didn’t find them --
I couldn’t even think about it; and yet, at the same time, I couldn’t think about nothing else. It got darker and darker, and it was a beautiful time to break away from the crowd; but that big rough man had me by the wrist -- Hines -- and a body might as well try to break away from Goliath. He pulled me right along, he was in such a hurry, and I had to run to keep up.
When they got there they all crowded into the burying ground and washed over it like a wave. And when they got to where Peter was buried they found they had about a hundred times as many shovels as they wanted, but nobody hadn’t thought to bring a lantern. But they sailed into digging anyway by the light of the lightning, and sent a man to the nearest house, a half a mile off, to borrow a lantern.
So they went digging like anything; and it got awful dark, and the rain started, and the wind moved this way and that, and the lightning come faster and faster, and the thunder boomed; but them people never took no interest in that, they was so full of this business; and one minute you could see everything and every face in that big crowd, and the shovels of dirt sailing up out of the hole, and the next second the dark rubbed it all out, and you couldn’t see nothing at all.
At last they got out the box and started to take the screws out of the cover, and then such another crowding and shouldering and pushing there was, to get in close and see, as there never was; and in the dark, that way, it was awful. Hines he was hurting my wrist badly pulling so, and I think he wasn’t thinking about me at all, he was so interested in the box and the body in it.
Then the lightning let go a perfect explosion of white light, and someone sings out: “By the living lord, here’s the bag of gold on his breast!”
Hines let out a shout, like everybody else, and dropped my wrist and give a big push to force his way in and get a look, and the way I run out and headed for the road in the dark there ain’t nobody can tell.
I had the road all to myself, and I was almost flying -- at least, I had it all to myself apart from the solid dark, and the now-and-then lightning, and the sound of the rain, and the push of the wind, and the booms of the thunder; and sure as you are born I did race it along!
When
I hit the town I see there weren’t nobody out in the storm, so I never hunted for no back streets, but ran straight through the middle one; and when I started to get toward our house I looked in that direction. No light there; the house all dark -- which made me feel sorry and sad, I didn’t know why. But at last, just as I was sailing by, on comes the light in Mary Jane’s window! and my heart filled up enough to almost explode; and the same second the house and all was behind me in the dark, and wasn’t ever going to be before me no more in this world. She was the best girl I ever see, and had the most strength.
The minute I was far enough above the town to see I could make the island, I started to look sharp for a boat to borrow, and the first time the lightning showed me one that wasn’t chained I took it and jumped in. It was a canoe, and it weren’t tied with nothing but a rope. The towhead was still a long way off, out there in the middle of the river, but I didn’t lose no time; and when I come on the raft at last I was so tired I would a just fell down to blow and breathe again if I could of. But I didn’t. As I jumped on I shouted out: “Out with you, Jim, and cut her loose! Glory be to God, we’re free of them!”
Jim stepped out, and was a-coming for me with both arms open, he was so happy; but when I saw him in the lightning my heart jumped up in my mouth and I went over into the water backward; for I hadn’t remembered that he was a drowned Arab, and it almost scared the lights out of me.
But Jim fished me out, and was going to hug me and bless me, and soon, he was so glad I was back and we was free of the king and the duke, but I says: “Not now; have it for breakfast, have it for breakfast! Cut loose and let her get going!”
So in two seconds away we went a-moving down the river, and it did seem so good to be free again and all by ourselves on the big river, and nobody to trouble us. I had to run around a little, and jump up and hit my heels together a few times -- I couldn’t help it; but about the third jump I heard a sound that I knowed mighty well, and stopped breathing and listened and waited; and sure enough, when the next lightning broke out over the water, here they come! -- and just a-working their oars and making their boat fly! It was the king and the duke.
So I dropped right down on to the boards then, and give up; and it was all I could do to keep from crying.
Chapter 30
When they got on the raft the king went for me, and shook me by the neck, and says: “Trying to get away, was you, you little dog! Tired of our company, are you?”
I says: “No, my lord, we weren’t -- please don’t, my lord!”
“Be fast, then, and tell us what was your plan, or I’ll shake the insides out of you!”
“Honest, I’ll tell you everything just as it happened, my lord. The man that was holding me was good to me, and kept saying he had a boy about as big as me that died last year, and he was sorry to see a boy in such a dangerous way; and when they was all took by surprise by finding the gold, and moved forward, he lets go of me and whispers, ‘Run now, or they’ll hang you, sure!’ and I took off. It didn’t seem no good for me to stay -- I couldn’t do nothing, and I didn’t want to hang if I could get away. So I never stopped running until I found the canoe; and when I got here I told Jim to hurry, or they’d catch me and hang me yet, and said I was afraid you and the duke wasn’t alive now, and I was awful sorry, and so was Jim, and was awful glad when we seen you coming; you may ask Jim if I didn’t.”
Jim said it was so; and the king told him to shut up, and said, “Oh, yes, as if I should believe that!” and shook me up again, and said he thought he should drown me. But the duke says: “Let go of the boy, you crazy old man! Would you a done any different? Did you ask around for him when you got loose? I don’t remember it.”
So the king let go of me, and started to talk against that town and everybody in it. But the duke says: “You better, by a long way, give yourself a good talking to, for you’re the one that’s most to blame for what happened. You ain’t done a thing from the start that had any smartness in it, apart from coming out so cool and confident with that blue-arrow mark. That was smart -- it was one of the best things I’ve ever heard; and it was what saved us. For if it hadn’t been for that they’d a locked us up until them two English men’s bags had come -- and then -- prison for sure! But that trick took ‘em to the burying ground, and the gold done us an even bigger kindness; for if those crazy people hadn’t all let go of holding us and pushed forward to get a look we’d be sleeping with ties around our necks tonight -- ties made to last as long as we lived -- and longer too.”
They was quiet a minute -- thinking; then the king says, kind of like there weren’t any great meaning to it: “Hmm! And to think, we thought the slaves robbed it!”
That made me start shaking a little!
“Yes,” says the duke, kind of slow and with a lot of meaning to it, “We did.”
After half a minute the king says slowly: “At least, I did.”
The duke says, the same way: “Not to disagree, but it was I who did.”
The king kind of pulls himself up, and says: “Look here, Bilgewater, what are you trying to say?”
The duke comes back quickly with: “When it comes to that, maybe you’ll let me ask, what was you trying to say?”
“Maybe I don’t know what I’m trying to say!” says the king, not meaning a word of it. “Maybe you was asleep, and didn’t know what you was doing.”
The duke pulls himself up now, and says: “Oh, stop the foolishness; do you think I’m stupid? Don’t you think I know who put the money in that box?”
“Yes, sir! I know you know, because you done it yourself!”
“It’s a lie!” -- and the duke went for him.
The king sings out: “Take your hands off! -- let go of my throat! -- I take it all back!”
The duke says: “Well, you just own up, first, that you did hide that money there, planning to leave me one of these days, and come back and dig it up, and have it all to yourself.”
“Wait just a minute, duke -- answer me this one question, honest and fair; if you didn’t put the money there, say it, and I’ll believe you, and take back everything I said.”
“You old robber, I didn’t, and you know I didn’t. There, now!”
“Well, then, I believe you. But answer me only just this one more -- now don’t get angry; didn’t you have it in your head to take the money and hide it?”
The duke never said nothing for a little while; then he says: “Well, I don’t care if I did, I didn’t do it, anyway. But you not only had it in mind to do it, but you done it.”
“I wish to die if I done it, duke, and that’s honest. I won’t say I weren’t going to do it, because I was too; but you -- I mean someone -- got in ahead of me.”
“It’s a lie! You done it, and you got to say you done it, or -- “
The king was having trouble breathing, so he shouts out: “’Enough! -- I did it!”
I was very glad to hear him say that; it made me feel much easier than what I was feeling before. So the duke took his hands off and says: “If you ever again say you didn’t take it, I’ll drown you. It’s well for you to sit there and cry like a baby -- it goes with the way you’ve acted. I never seen such an old pig for wanting to eat up everything -- and I a-trusting you all the time, like you was my own father. You should a been feeling mighty guilty to stand by and hear it put onto a lot of poor servants, and you never said a word for ‘em. It makes me feel stupid to think I was soft enough to believe such foolishness. I can see now why you was so enthusiastic about making up the difference -- you wanted to get what money I’d got out of The King’s Foolishness and one thing or another, and take it all!”
The king says, shyly, and still having trouble breathing: “Why, duke, it was you that said we could make up the difference. It weren’t me.”
“Dry up! I don’t want to hear no more out of you!” says the duke. “And now you see what you got by it. They’ve got all their own money back, and all of ours but for a coin or two. Go along to bed, and do
n’t you difference me no more differences, long as you live!”
So the king went quietly into the tent and took to his bottle to make himself feel better, and before long the duke took up his bottle; and so in about half an hour they was as close as robbers again, and the drunker they got the lovinger they got, and went off a-snoring in each other’s arms. They both got powerful drunk, but I could see the king didn’t get drunk enough to argue that he didn’t hide the money-bag after that. That made me feel easy and safe. Then, when they got to snoring, we had a long talk, and I told Jim everything.
Chapter 31
We didn't think it safe to stop again at any town for days and days; kept right along down the river. When those two robbers believed they was out of danger, they started to work the villages again. First they done a talk against drinking; but they didn’t make enough for them both to get drunk on. Then in another village they started a dancing-school; but they didn’t know no more how to dance than a kangaroo does; so the first step they made the village people jumped in and stepped them right out of town. They tried missionarying, and doctoring, and telling the future, and a little of everything; but they couldn’t seem to have no luck. So at last they was all out of money, and just sat on the raft as she sailed along, thinking and thinking, and never saying nothing for half a day at a time, and awful sad and hungry.
