“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
The Diamond Bikini— 19
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.
The Diamond Bikini— 20
“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.”
The Diamond Bikini— 21
Three
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.
The Diamond Bikini— 22
“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 aburnin’
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.
The Diamond Bikini— 23
“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
The Diamond Bikini— 24
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 goldtooth
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 lardgutted
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.”
The Diamond Bikini— 25
“Oh, we wouldn’t want to put you out,” the goldtooth
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?”
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