“What’s that?” Uncle Sagamore asked.
“Mind you,” Dr Severance says, “I wouldn’t say this
if I didn’t know I was right. But the rabbit season
closed two weeks ago.”
“No!” Uncle Sagamore says, his mouth falling
open. “Is that a fact?” He thought for a minute, and
then he clapped his hands together, and says, “Yes,
by hell, I believe you’re right. I recollect now, I
looked it up just the other day myself.”
The Diamond Bikini— 82
“Why,” Pop says, looking at the two rabbit hunters,
“they ought to of been ashamed of theirselves, ahuntin’
rabbits out of season that way. They’re no
better than common criminals.”
“It’s people like that,” Uncle Sagamore says, “that
destroy the natural resources of a country. It’s just
disheartenin’, that’s what it is. Out here, sneakin’
around and breakin’ the laws behind people’s backs.”
Dr Severance nodded. “That’s right. And as for me,
I wouldn’t have the guts to go bothering a poor
overworked sheriff with ‘em. He’s got enough on his
mind now, protecting the citizens, and looking for
live criminals.”
“Why, sure,” Uncle Sagamore says. “That’s what
makes taxes so damn high now, everybody unloadin’
his troubles on the Gov’ment and runnin’ to the shurf
with every two-bit thing that comes up. People just
ain’t got no consideration.”
“Now, that’s it exactly,” Dr Severance says. “You’ve
put your finger right on it. What if we are taxpayers?
Why should we start throwing our weight around,
and raise a big stink and demand that the sheriff
drop everything he’s doing just to come running out
here because a couple of criminals has had an
accident while they was deliberately trying to kill a
poor rabbit out of season? Especially after I caught
‘em right in the act. It makes me real happy to know
I’ve met up with a couple of public-spirited men that
see it the same way I do.”
Uncle Sagamore spat again and wiped his mouth
with the back of his hand. “Well sir,” he says, “it’s
real nice of you to say that. Now, just what did you
have in mind?”
“Why,” Dr Severance says, “I was thinking since
there’s plenty of vacant land back in here in the
trees, why don’t we just give ‘em a private burial and
forget the whole shameful thing?”
Uncle Sagamore nodded. “Why, that’s a fine idea.
Don’t know why I didn’t think of it myself.” Then he
stopped and thought about it again, and looked kind
of doubtful. “Of course,” he went on, “a thing like
The Diamond Bikini— 83
that might run into quite a little work, what with the
diggin’ an all, and I just don’t rightly see how me and
Sam could spare the time away from the crop,
workin’ practically night and day like we are.”
“Oh, I’d be glad to bear the expense of it,” Dr
Severance says. “I feel kind of responsible, since I
was the one discovered ‘em. What do you say to
maybe a hundred dollars?”
“Fine,” Uncle Sagamore says. “Fine.”
But then he stopped, like he’d just thought of
something and his face looked sad. He shook his
head. “Well sir,” he went on, “it’s a shame. A
downright shame. I thought there for a minute we
had the answer, but we just can’t do it.”
“Can’t? Why not?” Dr Severance asked.
“Well, it’s kind of a personal matter,” Uncle
Sagamore says, like he didn’t want to talk about it.
“But you see, this here land’s been in my family quite
a spell. Matter of fact, my pappy and grandpappy’s
both buried on it. And I— Well, I know it may sound
kind of silly, but to be truthful I’m afraid it might get
to weighin’ on my mind later on, thinkin’ of them
being buried in the same ground with a couple of
low-down men that’d do a thing like shootin’ a rabbit
out of season.”
“Yes, that’s right,” Dr Severance says. “It sure
might, at that.” Then his face brightened up. “But
say, just for the sake of argument, that if it did start
to bothering your conscience later on. What do you
figure it would cost to have your folks moved to a
regular cemetery?”
“Why,” Uncle Sagamore says, “I expect about five
hundred dollars.”
“Well, that sounds like a reasonable figure,” Dr
Severance says. He counted some bills out of his
wallet and handed them to Uncle Sagamore. “Six
hundred altogether.”
He sure carried a lot of money around with him. It
didn’t hardly make a dent on what was in the wallet.
I could see that even from where I was. Pop and
The Diamond Bikini— 84
Uncle Sagamore looked at what was left, and then at
each other.
“Well, I reckon that takes care of everything,”
Uncle Sagamore says. He started to get up.
Then he stopped all of a sudden, looking kind of
thoughtful, and hunkered down again. “Well sir, by
golly,” he says, “do you know what we plumb
forgot?”
Dr Severance looked at him real sharp. “Now
what?”
“The sermon,” Uncle Sagamore says. “Ain’t no man
deserves to be buried without preachin’, no matter
what he done. We just naturally couldn’t send these
two sinners to their last restin’ place without a
minister. Couldn’t even think of it.”
“Minister?” Dr Severance says. “How the hell are
we going to have a minister at a private funeral like
this?”
“Well sir,” Uncle Sagamore says. “It’s easy. Seems
like the luck is right with us all the way. It just
happens my brother Sam here is a ordained minister
of the gospel, and I know we could get him to say a
few words.”
“Hmmmm,” Dr Severance says. “That is a piece of
luck, ain’t it? And how much does his fee run?”
“Well,” Uncle Sagamore says, “as a usual thing, a
hundred dollars a head.”
“That sounds like a nice round figure,” Dr
Severance says, reaching for his wallet again.
“However, in this case,” Uncle Sagamore went on,
“seein’ as how these men died with all that sin on
‘em, right in the committin’ of a crime, so to speak,
Brother Sam might have to throw in a few extra
flourishes to get ‘em over the hump. Still and all,
though, I reckon that two hundred dollars a head
ought to just about cover it.”
Dr Severance counted out some more money and
handed it to him. “You boys are wasting your time
farming,” he says. “You got too much talent to be
rusting away out here in the sticks.”
The Diamond Bikini— 85
“Well sir, it’s downright nice of you to say so,”
Uncle Sagamore says. He stood up. “Well, I reckon
me an’ Brother Sam can take care of all the
arrangements. You figure on comin’ to the services?”
Dr Severance shook his head. “I’d sure like to, but I
thought I’d drive back down the road and see if these
boys didn’t leave a car somewhere.”
Uncle Sagamore nodded. “That’s a right smart
idea. Kind of drive it back to town, or somewhere, an’
make it easier for their families to find it.”
“That’s about what I had in mind,” Dr Severance
says. He went off up the trail.
Pop was sitting on the log, puffing on his cigar. As
soon as Dr Severance had went out of sight, he says
to Uncle Sagamore, “If these is the same bunch of
rabbit hunters I seen in town, there was three of
‘em.”
Uncle Sagamore pursed up his lips like he was
going to sail out some tobacco juice. “Three?” he
says.
“Reckon we ort to tell him?” Pop asked.
“Ain’t no call for us to go stickin’ our nose in things
that don’t concern us, Sam,” Uncle Sagamore says.
“If he don’t find no car up there, he’s going to know
it hisself.”
“But supposing he does find the car? One of these
might have the keys.”
“Well it still ain’t none of our business, Sam. We
wouldn’t want to cause him no worry, would we? A
man that pays his bills like that and minds his own
business? If he got to frettin’ about what happened to
the other one, he might even leave. We wouldn’t
want that to happen, would we?”
He looked at the wad of money he was still holding
in his hand, and Pop looked at it. Uncle Sagamore
shoved it in his pocket.
“I reckon you’re right,” Pop says. “Sure wouldn’t
want to drive away a good customer with triflin’ little
worries like that. He looks like a dude that could take
care of hisself, anyway.”
The Diamond Bikini— 86
“Sure,” Uncle Sagamore says. “Ain’t no call for us
to put in our oar, Sam. Way I look at it, he want any
advice from us he’d of asked us. And he said them
fellers was just huntin’ rabbits, didn’t he?”
“Sure,” Pop says. He got up off the log. “Well I
reckon I ort to get a couple of shovels.”
Uncle Sagamore shook his head, “Ain’t no use
makin’ hard work out of a simple job like this. We’ll
just bring the truck in here after dark, and hold the
services over at the old Hawkins place. Ain’t nobody
lived in that old tenant house for five years, an’ the
well’s dry and about to cave in, anyway.”
They started back towards the house, and as soon
as they was out of sight I skinned out too, circling up
the side of the hill to pass them before they got
home. I came out of the trees near the trailer, and Dr
Severance and Miss Harrington was just getting in
their car.
I waved at her. I was just about to ask her if she
still wanted to go swimming, and then I remembered
that what with the accident to the two rabbit hunters
likely everybody was feeling pretty bad and she
wouldn’t want to go.
She waved back, but she looked kind of pale. Dr
Severance didn’t say anything. He just shot the car
ahead with the tires spinning. He looked real mad.
I went on over to the house and played with Sig
Freed on the front porch, and in a few minutes Pop
and Uncle Sagamore come along.
Of course I didn’t let on I’d been down there.
“Miss Harrington’s all right,” I says to Pop.
“Well, that’s good,” he says.
“I seen her drive off in the car with Dr Severance.”
Pop and Uncle Sagamore looked at each other, and
Pop took another cigar out and lit it. “I been meaning
to tell you,” he says, “I think you better quit hangin’
around so much with Miss Harrington. That anemia
might be catching.”
“Aw, Pop,” I says. “I like her. And besides, she’s
teaching me how to swim.”
The Diamond Bikini— 87
“Well, you just mind what I tell you,” Pop tells me.
Him and Uncle Sagamore went on around the house.
I got to thinking about it and in a few minutes I went
around to the back yard myself to ask him if it wasn’t
all right to go swimming with her now that she didn’t
have to hold me up any more. I couldn’t catch anemia
if she wasn’t touching me, could I? But they wasn’t
back there. I went down to the barn, but they wasn’t
down there either.
Well, I thought, maybe they went off in the woods
beyond the cornfield for something. Then I
remembered about that warm place in the lake that I
was going to ask Uncle Sagamore about, so I went
down there and took my clothes off and waded out to
look for it again.
And, by golly, it was gone too. I just couldn’t find it
anywhere. I’d marked right where it was, too. You
lined up the back end of Finley’s ark with the corner
of the front porch and waded out about eight steps
till the water was up to your hips and there it was.
Only it wasn’t. Now the water was just the same
there as it was anywhere else. It sure was funny. I
went out on the bank and thought about it while I
waited for myself to dry off, but it just didn’t make
any sense at all. Only thing it could be, I thought, is a
kind of warm spring that don’t run all the time.
It was close on to sundown, and I went back up to
the house. Pop and Uncle Sagamore had come back
from wherever they had went. Pop was slicing
baloney and Uncle Sagamore was frying it. They was
both kind of quiet and didn’t look like they would
take much to the idea of answering questions, so I
didn’t ask any.
After supper Pop said they was going to bring up
the truck and haul the tubs back down in the woods;
the leather had had enough sun for a few days. He
said they might go in to town afterwards, so not to
wait up.
I got scared lying on the front porch in the dark,
thinking about the accident the rabbit hunters had,
The Diamond Bikini— 88
but I could hear Uncle Finley snoring away in the
back bedroom so it wasn’t too lonesome.
* * *
When I woke up in the morning the sun was shining
in my face and I could see it was going to be another
fine day for fishing. Sig Freed was licking my face
and I could hear Pop and Uncle Sagamore frying the
baloney for breakfast back in the kitchen. I got up
and raced Sig Freed down to the lake to wash up.
Just as I was coming in the kitchen door I heard
Uncle Sagamore say to Pop, “Reckon he must of
found it, all right, and drove it clear out of the state.
Heard him come in about four this morning.”
Then they seen me, and looked at each other.
Uncle Sagamore started talking about the leather
business.
“Sure can’t figure it out,” he says, throwing some
more slices of baloney in the hot grease. “Couldn’t of
followed them Gov’ment instructions no closer’n I
did, and still she’s sure as hell turnin’ into soup. You
reckon we just ain’t got the right kind of climate up
here to make leather, Sam?”
“Well, it could be,” Pop says. “Or it might be the
water. Ain’t nothing we can do, though, but just keep
tryin’. Can’t give up.”
After breakfast I took Sig Freed and went up by the
trailer. The doctor and Miss Harrington wasn’t up, so
I went fishing. It was a nice day and I caught some
more perch. Along in the afternoon I saw Miss
Harrington and the doctor sitting in their chairs in
front of the trailer, but when I went up there she said
she didn’t want to go swimming today.
It was three days before she would go again. Then
Pop give me a licking when he found out about it.
“I told you to stay away from Miss Harrington,” he
says. “She’s not a well girl, and you might catch her
anemia.”
The Diamond Bikini— 89
It was another ten days before we got to go in
again, and then I had to sneak off. And that was the
day all hell busted loose.
But first there was this hullaballoo with the
sheriff’s men that got everybody excited.
The Diamond Bikini— 90
Nine
It started out like any other day. It was time to bring
the leather out of the woods for a little more sun, so
Pop and Uncle Sagamore took the truck and hauled
the tubs up to the house just after breakfast. The
stuff was all coming to pieces now and it smelled
worse than ever. There wasn’t any breeze, either, to
blow it away, so it just hung around the house
something awful. It was bubbling a little, and had a
thick scum, kind of brown and green, on it.
It made my eyes water, so I went out to watch
Uncle Finley to get away from it. He had run clean
out of boards, so he was busy pulling ‘em off one
place and nailin’ ‘em on in another, just kind of
patching, as Uncle Sagamore called it.
He kept muttering to hisself and wouldn’t talk, so
after a while I went up towards the trailer to see
what Miss Harrington was doing. She and the doctor
was sitting in the canvas chairs out in front, listening
to the little radio on the table. It was giving the
morning news. He just grunted at me, but she went
inside and got me a coke.
She was wearing a white romper suit this time, and
she sure looked nice. “Do you want to go swimming
this evening, Billy?” she asked me.
The Diamond Bikini— 91
“I’d sure love to,” I says. “But Pop might give me
another licking.”
Tell him to go fry an ice cube,” she says. “I’ll tell
you what. You meet me over there about five o’clock,
and we’ll go in anyway.”
Dr Severance gave her a dirty look and switched
off the radio. “You stay around the trailer, like I told
you. We’re not out of the woods yet.”
“Stop being such a square,” she says. “It’s been ten
days.”
Just then I looked down the hill towards the house
and saw Pop lying under the back end of the car like
he was working on it. “I’ll see you at five o’clock,” I
said to Miss Harrington, and started down that way
with Sig Freed to see what he was doing.
Just before I got there he straightened up, and I
saw he had a tin can in his hand. It looked to me like
he must have been draining some gasoline out of the
tank. He went on around the corner of the house, and
then I saw Uncle Sagamore coming up from the barn
carrying four jars.
I wondered what they was going to put gasoline in
fruit jars for, and why they needed four big ones like
that for just one little can full. I had to grab my nose
when I got down close to the tubs, but I went on and
looked around the corner of the house. It was funny
what they was doing.
There was a little table sitting in the back yard in
the shade of the chinaberry tree. Uncle Sagamore
had put the four glass jars on it, and Pop was dipping
a piece of white string in the can of gasoline. When it
was good and wet, he took it out fast and tied it
around the middle of one of the jars. Uncle Sagamore
struck a match and touched it to the string. It blazed
up and made a ring of fire around the jar for a minute
before it went out. Then they did the same thing to
the next one, with another piece of string. I watched.
There didn’t seem to be any sense to it. They kept on
till they had done it to all four of them. Then they
took off the charred string and rubbed the jars clean
with a cloth, handling them real gentle.
The Diamond Bikini— 92
I walked up behind them. “Hey, Pop,” I says, “what
you doing?”
They both whirled around, and looked at me and
then at each other. “Doing?” Pop says. “Why, uh—
we’re testing these jars. Ain’t that what it looks like?”
“Testing ‘em?” I says. “Why?”
Uncle Sagamore pursed up his lips and spit out
some tobacco juice. “Well sir,” he says, “it’s just like I
was telling you, Sam. A boy ain’t never goin’ to learn
nothin’ less’n he asks questions. Now, how would a
young boy know you don’t never send nothin’ to the
Gov’ment in jars you ain’t sure of? He got any way of
knowin’ what would happen if one of them jars
busted along the way, or after it got there? He don’t
know nothin’ about how the Gov’ment operates.”
He stopped and shifted his tobacco over into his
other cheek and wiped his mouth with the back of his
hand. Then he looks at me real solemn and goes on,
“Now you take if one of them jars was to happen to
bust, you got the whole goddam Gov’ment in a
uproar. Before you know it, they’re faunchin’ around
like a pen full of hawgs after a rattlesnake, with
everybody millin’ around askin’ questions and trying
to figure out what happened. Then somebody gets a
burr under his crupper and starts a investigation, so
you got all them high-priced people tied up wastin’
time just because some pore old ignorant boll weevil
that didn’t know no better sent ‘em something in a
rickety fruit jar that wouldn’t hold together. And that
ain’t all. Right in the middle of all this hulla-balloo,
somebody discovers the Gov’ment ain’t even got a
regular fruit-jar testing department. So two more
people start a investigation to find out how come
they ain’t, and four others start a investigation to find
out how come the first two ain’t investigated this
already, and in the meantime some janitor sweeps up
the busted fruit jar and throws it out, so everybody
drops everything and come chargin’ in to investigate
and the first thing you know the whole thing’s like a
fire in a whorehouse.”
“And that makes taxes go up “ Pop says.
The Diamond Bikini— 93
“Yes, sir,” Uncle Sagamore says, “that’s exactly
what it does.”
“Oh,” I says. “Are you going to send something to
the Gov’ment?”
“That’s right.” Uncle Sagamore nodded his head.
“Me an’ Sam got to thinkin’ about what you said
about all the time we’d waste lettin’ this leather run
its course, so we figured maybe we ort to kind of
hurry the thing along a little by sendin’ some of the
juice now an’ letting ‘em see if maybe they could tell
us what was wrong. We’re goin’ to have some of her
analyzed by the Gov’ment.”
“Well,” I says, “that seems to me like the right
thing to do. Then, if they say you didn’t mix the juice
just right to begin with, you can start over with a new
batch without having to wait all that time.” I felt real
proud of myself. They’d seen I was right.
Uncle Sagamore nodded. “That’s just the way me
and Sam saw it. You got a good head on you.”
“And you’re going to ship her in those four jars?” I
ask. “You reckon they’ll need that much?”
Uncle Sagamore pursed up his lips. “Well, we don’t
rightly know just how much the Gov’ment usually has
to have for tests like this, so we figured to be on the
safe side we’d ort to send ‘em two gallons.” He
stopped and looked at me. “That strike you as about
right?”
“Yeah,” I says. “Sure. If it don’t cost too much to
ship it.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” he says. “We’ll send her
collect. Ain’t no strain about that.”
Pop got a water bucket and a dipper out of the
kitchen. Circling around to get upwind of the tubs,
because there was a little breeze beginning to blow
now, he fanned the air with his hat in front of his face
while he swished back the foam and bubbles a little
and began dipping some of the juice out into the
bucket. When he trotted back to the chinaberry tree
with the bucket full his eyes was watering and he
was choking a little.
The Diamond Bikini— 94
“Startin’ to be a little on the ripe side,” he says.
Uncle Sagamore nodded. “She does seem to be
gettin’ a little tang to her.”
Sig Freed whined and ran down towards the barn. I
didn’t blame him much. Pop got a strainer out of the
kitchen and began filling the four jars. The strainer
caught the bubbles and strips of cowhide so the
tanning juice in the jars was clear.
“Got to remember to wash them utensils out before
Bessie gets back,” Uncle Sagamore said. “She gits
provoked about usin’ ‘em for things like this.
“Hadn’t you ought to put in a couple of pieces of
the leather?” I asked. “Maybe they’ll want to analyze
it too.”
Uncle Sagamore shook his head. “No. I reckon not.
The solution’s the only thing the Gov’ment is
interested in. That’s what does the work an’ tans the
leather, an’ when they find out what I done wrong
when I mixed her up we’ll be all set.”
He picked up one of the jars real easy and held it
up to squint through it at the light.
“How is she for color?” Pop asked.
“Real good,” Uncle Sagamore says. “She just
couldn’t be better. Like a regular carmel job.”
I couldn’t see what difference the color made. You
could see it was about like weak tea but, heck, what
did the Gov’ment care about that?
Uncle Sagamore slipped a rubber ring around the
neck of each one of the jars and got ready to screw
on the caps. “Got to be sure we seal her good and
tight,” he says.
“We got just the thing out in the trailer,” Pop says.
He went through the house. In a minute he came
back with a tube of clear cement. He smeared some
on both sides of the rubber sealing ring and a little
on the edges of the caps, and they screwed ‘em down
firm, holding on to the shoulders of the jars with
their other hand. Pop threw what was left of the juice
back in one of the tubs, and washed out the bucket.
Then they washed off the outsides of the jars, you
The Diamond Bikini— 95
couldn’t smell it now, except what was coming from
the tubs themselves.
Uncle Sagamore went and got a cardboard box and
packed the four jars in it real careful, stuffing
wadded paper all around them so they couldn’t touch
each other and break. Pop took the box out and put it
in the back of our car.
“You goin’ to take it to the post office now?” I
asked.
“Sure,” Pop says.
“Can I go, Pop?”
“Sure, I reckon so,” he says. “Come to think of it,
haven’t you got a lot of old dirty clothes we ort to
take to the laundry while we’re goin’?”
“Yeah,” I says. “I’ll get ‘em.”
I went to the trailer and found the laundry sack
behind the printing press. It was full of my stuff and
Pop’s shorts and levis and shirts and socks and
things. Some of ‘em hadn’t been sent to the laundry
since we was at Bowie. There was a lot of ‘em. Pop
took the bag and put it in the back of the car, on top
of the box that had the jars in it.
“Maybe they’d be better on top of the clothes,”
says. “Like a cushion, so there won’t be no chance of
‘em breaking.”
“No, they’re all right,” Pop says. “We tested them
jars, didn’t we?”
“Okay,” I says. I started to climb in the back. “Are
we ready to go? Where’s Uncle Sagamore?”
Pop lit a cigar. “Oh, he’ll be along in a few minutes.
He had to run down in the bottom to see about one of
the mules.”
“Oh,” I says. “Well, why don’t we pull the car up a
little so we can get away from them tubs?”
“That’s a good idea,” Pop says. He moved the car
up the hill about fifty yards and we sat in it while we
waited for Uncle Sagamore. It was hot and sunshiny,
and I could hear that bug yakking it up out in the
trees. It was real nice, I thought, especially since we
The Diamond Bikini— 96
was out of range and couldn’t smell them tubs. The
country sure was a nice place, all peaceful like this,
and not crowded like Pimlico and Belmont Park. I
could see Dr Severance and Miss Harrington sitting
in their chairs in front of the trailer listening to the
radio. They waved at us. Pop looked up in that
direction.
“A diamond bathing suit,” he says, more like he
was talking to hisself. “Imagine that. Where do you
swim, you an’ Miss Harrington?”
“We don’t,” I says. “You told me not to, don’t you
remember?”
“Oh. Yeah, I did, didn’t I?”
He was quiet for a minute, and then he looked back
up the hill again and stirred kind of restless in the
seat. “Reckon if it’s made out of diamonds, it ain’t a
very big suit, is it?”
“No,” I said. “Just a little three-cornered patch, sort
of, and a string that goes around the middle.”
“Just one patch?”
“Yeah,” I says. “Leaves her lots of room to swim in.
It ain’t binding her at all.”
“Ho-ly hell!” he says, like he was choking on the
cigar smoke. “You’re sure there ain’t three patches?”
“No. Just one. Why? Is there usually three?”
“Oh,” he says. “I don’t rightly know. Seems like I
heard somewhere there was three, most generally.
But I reckon it don’t make no difference. You see
anything of Sagamore?”
I turned and looked down past the house and
across the cornfield, but I didn’t see him anywhere.
“Not yet.”
“Well, he’ll be along pretty soon.”
“Is something wrong with one of the mules?” I
asked.
“Well, with a mule, it’s kind of hard to tell when
something is wrong with him. But he says one of ‘em
had been actin’ kind of funny. Like something was
worryin’ him.”
The Diamond Bikini— 97
“Oh,” I says. We waited some more. And then,
when I looked down that way again, I saw a little
feather of gray smoke coming up above the trees
down in the bottom.
“Say, Pop. Something’s burning down there.”
He turned that way. “Well, by golly, so it is. I
reckon it ain’t serious, though. Likely just an old
stump or something.”
Just then there was a racket up the hill. It sounded
like a car coming along the old road in a big hurry, I
turned and got just a glimpse of it as it passed an
opening in the trees. It didn’t turn in at the wire gate,
though; it just kept on going on that road that angled
down towards the bottom. It was really moving.
“They was travelling a little like Booger and Otis,” I
says. “You reckon it was them?”
“Hmmmm,” Pop says. “I don’t know. Can’t see why
they’d be goin’ down there towards the bottom.”
“Maybe they seen that smoke. Uncle Sagamore
says they keep a sharp lookout for forest fires.”
Pop took a puff on his cigar. “Reckon that might be
it, at that. Well, they’ll likely put her out. Ain’t no
cause to worry.”
He kept on looking towards the timber, and in a
minute Uncle Sagamore came out of it on the far side
of the cornfield. He was walking pretty fast. He went
in the back of the house, and then come on out the
front just like he’d walked straight through, but when
he came out he had on a pair of shoes. The shoes
wasn’t laced, though, and he didn’t have on a shirt.
He didn’t believe in dressing up much to go to town.
The black hair on his chest stuck up above the bib of
his overalls, and it was all sweaty when he walked up
to the car and got in the front seat with Pop.
Pop started the car. “That mule all right?” he asks.
“Mule?” Uncle Sagamore asked. “Oh. Sure. Looks
in pretty good shape. He was just sulkin’, I reckon.”
“That was likely it,” Pop says.
“Mules is a lot like women,” Uncle Sagamore went
on. “They get to thinkin’ about some triflin’ thing that
The Diamond Bikini— 98
happened ten, fifteen years ago, an’ then they brood
about it for a while and go into a sull an’ won’t have
nothin’ to do with you for weeks. An’ the hell of it is
you ain’t got no idea what they’re poutin’ about.”
“I reckon that’s right,” Pop says. He eased the car
up the hill, taking it slow and easy across the bumps.
Uncle Sagamore got out and opened the wire gate.
We went through and he got back in. We started up
the sandy road through the pines. Just before we got
to the top of the hill the car stalled. It just stopped
right in its tracks.
“Well,” Pop says. “Why you reckon it did that?”
“Sure is funny.” Uncle Sagamore says. “Mebbe you
better try the starter.”
Pop ground on the starter, but nothing happened.
He pulled out the choke and ground some more. It
didn’t start.
I looked over his shoulder. “Hey, Pop,” I says. “I
see the trouble. Looks like the key ain’t turned all the
way on.”
“Of course it’s turned on,” Pop says.
“But, look—”
“Damn it,” Pop barks at me. “I tell you the key is all
right.” He went on grinding on the starter, with the
choke pulled all the way out.
“But, Pop—”
“Will you hush about that key?” he snaps at me.
“Look—” He took hold of the key, and sure enough it
did turn a little. It hadn’t been quite all the way on,
just like I told him.
“Well, I’ll be dad-burned,” he says.
“Well sir, the fool thing,” Uncle Sagamore says.
“Who would of thought that?”
Pop pushed on the starter again, “Well, we’ll go
now.” The engine turned over, but nothing happened.
It wouldn’t start.
“I think you got it flooded,” I says.
“Something’s sure wrong,” Pop got out. Then Uncle
Sagamore opened his door and got out too. Pop
The Diamond Bikini— 99
raised up the hood, and they stood looking at the
motor.
“Reckon there could be something wrong amongst
all them wires?” Uncle Sagamore asked. “Such a
passel of ‘em in there, man wouldn’t never know if
they was hooked up right.”
I didn’t bother to get out. You could see what was
wrong. He’d been turning the motor over all that
time with the switch of the choke pulled out, and he’d
flooded her. As soon as it set for a few minutes it’d be
all right. Funny Pop couldn’t figure that out; he knew
a right smart about motors as a rule. But it was all
right with me. It was nice there, all sunshiny and
warm, with the little breeze whispering through the
tops of the pines. I just sat there with my feet on the
bag of dirty clothes and wondered if we’d get back in
time so I could go swimming with Miss Harrington. I
sure hoped so.
Just then there was the sound of another car
coming up the road behind us, coming real fast like
whoever it was was in a big hurry. They threw on the
brakes and slid to a stop in the ruts right behind us. I
got out to see who it was. And doggone if it wasn’t
Booger and Otis in the sheriff car.
They got out, one on each side. They had on their
white hats, pushed back on their heads kind of freeand-
easy like, and their gun-belts, with the bone
handled guns hanging down on their right leg. They
both had on a little short khaki jacket and a black tie,
and they looked real spruce. There was a kind of grin
on their faces, like they’d both thought of the same
joke at the same time. Booger’s gold tooth just
shined.
Uncle Sagamore straightened up and looked at
them, and then he grinned kind of sheepish. “Well
sir, by golly,” he says, “if it ain’t the shurf’s boys,
Sam. You recollect Booger and Otis, don’t you?”
Pop looked at Uncle Sagamore, and Uncle
Sagamore looked at Pop, both of ‘em like they was
uneasy about something and trying not to let on.
Then Pop swallowed like he had something stuck in
The Diamond Bikini— 100
his throat and said, “Why, sure I do. I’m real proud to
see you boys again.”
Booger and Otis walked on around the car real
slow, not saying a word. When they got in the road in
front of it they just stood there with their thumbs
hooked in the gun-belts. They looked at each other in
a way that made you think they was going to bust out
laughing any minute, but then their faces got real
serious.
“Why—uh—you having a little trouble, Mr.
Noonan?” Booger asked, real anxious. He didn’t
mean Pop, though, because he was looking at Uncle
Sagamore.
But before Uncle Sagamore could say anything,
Otis says, “Why, Booger, I do believe Mr. Noonan’s
car has broke down.”
Booger looked amazed. “Well, is that a fact?” he
asked. “Now, ain’t that a embarrassing thing to
happen? I mean, right at a time like this.”
Otis nodded his head real solemn. “It sure is,” he
says. “But ain’t he the lucky one we come along so
we could help him?”
Uncle Sagamore pulled his right foot out of his
shoe and used his big toenail to scratch his other leg
with. He looked down at the ground. “Shucks, boys,”
he says. “I don’t reckon it’s nothin’ very serious.
Likely me an’ Sam can get her goin’, an’ we wouldn’t
want to put you boys out none, you bein’ busy an’ all.
I think you can get around us all right, by just pullin’
out of the ruts.”
Booger and Otis stared at each other, like they was
horrified just even thinking about it. “Go off and
leave you broke down like this? Why, Mr. Noonan, we
wouldn’t dream of it,” Otis says. “Good heaven,
Booger, how many times you reckon the sheriff has
told us? Boys, he always says, any time you can be of
any help to Mr. Noonan, you just pitch right in there
and give him a hand. Mr. Noonan’s a taxpayer, Otis
he tells me. I know for a fact his taxes is paid in full
right up through 1937.”
The Diamond Bikini— 101
Uncle Sagamore took out his big red handkerchief
and mopped his face, and then rubbed it around on
top of the bald spot on his head. “Well sir, you boys
make me feel real proud, talkin’ like that, an’ it’s
downright neighborly of you to offer to help, but me
an’ Sam ain’t in no hurry an’ we’d be just mortified at
causin’ you any sort of trouble.”
Booger held up a hand. “Not another word, Mr.
Noonan. Not—another—word. Pu-leese! What kind of
men you think is in the sheriff’s department, if they
can’t help out a fine up-standin’ citizen like you when
they see him in trouble?” He stopped then and looked
at Otis. “I say there, Mr. Sears, you know a little
something about motors, don’t you?”
“Why, yes, Mr. Ledbetter, a little,” Otis says.
Booger nodded. “Well, that’s fine. Now. What
would you says might be causin’ the trouble?”
Otis put his chin in the palm of his right hand and
sort of frowned. “Hmmmm,” he says. “Now this here
is just a guess, mind you, but offhand I’d say they’s a
pretty good chance it’s a plugged gas line.”
“Well, is that a fact?” Booger asked. “Now. Where
would you start to look for a thing like that?” Otis
scratched his head and looked real thoughtful. “Well,
there’s a number of places she might be clogged up.
We might look in the trunk, or under the back seat,
or in the upholstery, or even underneath, along the
frame.”
“But wait a minute,” Booger interrupts him.
“Wouldn’t you need a search warrant to go poking
around in somebody’s car like that?”
“Why, shucks, no, I wouldn’t think so,” Otis says.
“Not to look for a clogged gas line.” He turned to
Uncle Sagamore. “Ain’t that your opinion, Mr.
Noonan?”
Uncle Sagamore mopped his face again. “Why-uh-”
He says.
“Why, of course not,” Otis says. “It’d just be silly. A
neighborly gesture like that?”
The Diamond Bikini— 102
So they walked along on each side of the car.
Booger come to the back door I had left open when I
got out. He stuck his head in and hefted the bag of
clothes.
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