Uncle Sagamore and His Girls Read online

  Then there was all this hullaballoo when the gangsters come, and Miss Harrington got lost in the river bottom with nothing on but her G-string, and the Sheriff found the still in the spare room of Uncle Sagamore’s farmhouse. Him and Pop was away for a while after that, but the Governor pardoned them and they was home now. That didn’t set any too well with the Sheriff, so he always had his men hanging around watching for smoke and looking for fruit jars full of evidence so he could send ’em away again.*

  Anyway, it was hot out there in the sun, and in a few minutes Booger had a real sweat worked up. Otis took the shovel and spelled him for a while. The hole kept getting bigger, but they didn’t find any more jars.

  “Hell, Sam,” Uncle Sagamore says to Pop, “I don’t see no need in us standin’ here. Why don’t we set down?”

  “Sure,” Pop says. We moved over in the shade of the oak tree. Uncle Sagamore stretched out and got comfortable with his back against the trunk, sailed out some tobacco juice, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “It’s just like I always say, Sam; you can’t never tell about people,” he says. “Now, you look at them two boys, you’d swear they was borned politicians, wouldn’t you? I mean, take a long, disconnected drink of water like Booger, with his hair stuck down with chicken fat, and Otis with that cookie-duster mustache, you’d think one good diddle and a loud sneeze would kill ’em both, and here they are just workin’ away like a chain gang.”

  Otis stuck the shovel in the ground and stopped to wipe the sweat off his face. “I think we’re wastin’ time,” he says. “There probably ain’t no more buried here, the way he’s actin’.”

  Booger grabbed the shovel. “Don’t you believe it,” he says. “That’s just the sort of act the old crook’d put on to get us to quit. You ought to know—”

  He stopped all of a sudden then, and we heard it too. The shovel had hit something. “A-ha!” he says. He threw out another scoop of dirt and reached down with his hands. They lifted it out, whatever it was, and begin whooping and hollering like men that had found a four-pound diamond.

  “Well, look what he’s puttin’ it in now,” Otis says. “It’s a GI canteen.”

  We all jumped up and went to look. They was standing in the hole they had dug, that was about three or four feet across and a little over knee deep, and Otis was holding this thing in his hand. It was a canteen, all right, the aluminum kind that soldiers carry, but it was old-looking and all crusted with dirt like it had been buried a long time.

  “Say, it’s full,” Otis was yelling, real excited. He shook it and grinned at Booger. Booger grabbed it and rubbed some of the dirt off with his hands.

  “Grand Jury, here we come,” he whooped.

  Uncle Sagamore frowned, sort of puzzled, and peered at the canteen. “Why, boys, I don’t recollect ever seein’ that around here.”

  “Why, of course not,” Booger says. “Probably what happened was it sneaked in here, filled itself with rotgut likker, and then hibernated.”

  Uncle Sagamore wasn’t paying much attention. He was rubbing his jaw and looking at the canteen. “Daggone it,” he says, like he was talking to hisself. “It is sort of familiar, now that I think about it.” Then he shook his head. “But I sure can’t place it.”

  Otis took it back from Booger and started to twist the cap off. It was stuck tight. He grunted and strained, but it didn’t budge.

  “It’s likely corroded,” Booger says. “Here, let one of the men try it.” He grabbed it away from Otis and twisted till the cords stuck out on his neck. Still nothing happened.

  Uncle Sagamore went on scratching his head. “You know, Sam,” he says, “I still got a feelin’ I seen that thing somewheres—”

  “I sure don’t place it,” Pop says.

  “Here, you hold it,” Booger told Otis. “Use both hands, and let me twist the cap.”

  They both grunted, but it didn’t budge at all. They began to look mad. “Dammit,” Booger says, “how come he put it in a canteen, anyhow? For thirty years he’s been runnin’ his moonshine off in fruit jars.”

  Otis shook his head. “He probably shop-lifted it at some gov’ment surplus place.”

  Uncle Sagamore looked up real quick. “Say, that’s it!” he says to Pop. “I knowed that thing was familiar.”

  Booger and Otis stopped twisting and grunting and looked at him. Pop asked, “You mean you bought it at a surplus store?”

  “No,” Uncle Sagamore says. “Them fellers give it to me. The men from the loan company. Well sir, that must have been six, seven year ago—”

  Booger let go the canteen to wipe the sweat off his face. “Boy, I bet this is goin’ to be a good one,” he says.

  “See if you can find a rock,” Otis says. “If we hit the cap a couple of hard whacks it may jar it loose.”

  Booger bent down and started pawing around in the dirt for a rock.

  “You say they give it to you?” Pop asked. “What company was this?”

  “The Redlands Loan Company,” Uncle Sagamore told him. “From over in Waynesville, as I recollect. It was Otis sayin’ gov’ment surplus that made me remember. You see, they bought this here safe at one of them gov’ment sales—”

  “Well, what’s in it?” Pop asked. “The canteen, I mean.”

  “It’s some kind of cordial,” Uncle Sagamore says. “One of them hifalutin’, diddle-me-quick society drinks.”

  Otis frowned, like he was trying to remember something.

  “All right, here’s a rock,” Booger says. He straightened up. “Now, hold it straight up and give me room to swing—”

  Otis was still looking puzzled, and he didn’t pay any attention. He held the canteen under his arm while he lit a cigarette. “Redlands Loan Company,” he says, kind of talking to hisself.

  “Oh, hell,” Booger told him. “You’re not listenin’ to those lies of his, are you? What would a loan company be givin’ away canteens for? And besides, he ain’t never been in Waynesville.”

  “No, they was over here,” Uncle Sagamore said. “Four of ’em in a big truck, down there in my bottom timber—”

  Booger shook his head. “Boy, I can see this ’un is goin’ to be a real doozy. Hold that thing, Otis, and let me sock it.”

  He grabbed up the shovel and stuck it in the ground between them, and Otis held the canteen so the cap was resting against the handle. Booger drew back the rock. Then he stopped. “Redlands Loan Company?” he says, kind of thoughtful.

  “What was they doing down there in the bottom?” Pop asked.

  “Oh,” Uncle Sagamore says. He sailed out some tobacco juice and wiped his mouth. “Like I say, they was tryin’ to open this here safe. They had a bunch of sledgehammers and drills and stuff, and they just beat it up something terrible—”

  Booger stared at him. “Safe?” he says. His eyes got big, and he kind of stiffened up, still holding the rock.

  “They boughten it at one of them gov’ment surplus sales,” Uncle Sagamore went on, “and then when they got their papers and stuff inside it they found out the combination didn’t work, or something was wrong. Anyhow, they couldn’t get her open. They’d been writin’ back and forth to the gov’ment for a right smart spell, tryin’ to get the right combination, or get somebody to come open if for ’em, but you know how the gov’ment is—”

  “Wait!” Otis says all of a sudden, staring at Booger. “You remember? They never did find it—”

  “But how did they come to give you this here cordial?” Pop asked.

  “Oh, when they left, they just said I could have her,” Uncle Sagamore said. “They had two canteens of it, but I reckon they’d already drunk the other one before I got there. But it was awful-tastin’ stuff. Real greazy, like it was all fusel oil, and it upset my stummik somethin’ fierce. I had the gut cramps and the trots all day.”

  It was real funny then. Otis’s face turned as white as the underside of a toadstool. So did Booger’s. Neither one of ’em said anything. They just went on ge
tting whiter.

  Uncle Sagamore didn’t even seem to notice the way they was acting. He went on talking to Pop. “Likely you got to develop a taste for them fancy drinks,” he says. “Or mebbe them boys was just hoorawin’ me, figurin’ a old boll-weevil like me wouldn’t know no better. Could of been some kind of oil they was usin’ on the drills, come to think of it, the stuff was so greazy.”

  You would have thought Booger and Otis had turned to stone. They just stood there in the broiling sun, the two of ’em all wrapped around the shovel handle and the canteen. Booger’s right arm was still stuck out, where he’d drawed back the rock to hit the canteen.

  “Well, what did they call the stuff?” Pop asked.

  “Hmmmm,” Uncle Sagamore says, pursing up his mouth. “Yeller somethin’. Wait a minute—Yeller Creme de Menthe. That’s what the boss said it was—he was the one that give it to me. Big laughin’ sort of feller, always crackin’ a joke. He kept callin’ me Ebeneezer—”

  “Why you reckon he done that?” Pop asked.

  “Oh, he was just that kind of a feller,” Uncle Sagamore says. “Funnin’ all the time. But mebbe I better tell you the whole thing, how I happened to run acrost ’em, and all.”

  “Sure,” Pop says. They stretched out in the shade of the oak tree again, not paying any more mind to Booger and Otis.

  I watched ’em, though. For the life of me I couldn’t figure out what had come over them, unless maybe they’d had a sunstroke. They sure looked sick. Big blobs of sweat stuck out on their faces.

  “I shoo—I shoo—I shook it—!” Otis whispered. He closed his eyes.

  Booger happened to notice then that he was still holding the rock he had drawed back to whack the top of the canteen. He closed his eyes too, and his lips moved, but he didn’t say anything.

  “Is something wrong?” I asked them.

  It didn’t seem like they even heard me, so I sat down by Pop to hear what Uncle Sagamore was saying.

  He sailed out some tobacco juice and shifted his chew over to the other cheek, kind of settling his back against the tree to get comfortable. “Well, like I say,” he says to Pop, “it was a long time ago, mebbe six, seven year, or thereabouts. As I recollect, I’d went down there in the bottom lookin’ for that old Boomer mule I used to have. Chances are you don’t remember him—”

  Pop thought about it, and shook his head. “No, the name don’t seem to be familiar.”

  Uncle Sagamore nodded. “Well, old Boomer was one of them sensitive kind of mules that’s always gettin’ their feelin’s hurt, so ever once in a while he’d get in a pet about somethin’ I done or said, and he’d run away. He’d go down there in the bottom and hide out, and brood about it, real down on everybody. There ain’t no tellin’ what’ll happen when a mule gets despondent like that, so I’d have to go look for him.

  “Anyway, I was down there two, three mile from the house, real early in the morning, when off through the timber I heered this here kind of whooshin’ sound, like somebody closin’ a storm-cellar door. I went over that way to see what it was, and here was this big truck parked close to a slough on that old loggin’ road that used to be in there. And right on the bank of the slough was this here big safe, with four men just beatin’ hell out of it with sledgehammers and crowbars. The big outside door was already off. It was layin’ against a tree trunk about twenty feet away, all boogered up with holes drilled in it and sprung out of shape like they’d had a awful time prizin’ it off—”

  Uncle Sagamore stopped then and looked at Booger and Otis, like he’d just now noticed how odd they was acting. They hadn’t moved a muscle. Ants was crawling on ’em now, kind of sliding and swimming up through the sweat on their hands and faces, but they didn’t pay any mind.

  “Heck,” he says, “why don’t you give up on that thing? Likely the threads is corroded all to hell, and you ain’t never goin’ to get it open without you put a pipe wrench on it.”

  “It’s nuh—nuh—nuh—” Booger says, sucking in his breath. His eyes was big and staring, and it seemed like he was trying to tell us something.

  Uncle Sagamore shook his head. “I never seen such determined fellers,” he says to Pop. Then he went on, “Well, anyhow, like I say, these fellers had already prized the outside door off and was bangin’ away at the little sheet-metal one inside. I didn’t know any of ’em, but I seen right off they was in the loan business, because the sign was painted on the big door lyin’ over there by the tree. ‘Redlands Loan Company,’ it says.

  “Well, when they turned around and seen me they didn’t seem none too happy about it at first, probably figgerin’ I was goin’ to stand around and get in the way. This big one—you could see he was the boss of the outfit—come over and asked me what I was doin’ down there. So I told him about old Boomer, and how I was lookin’ for him because you just cain’t trust a mule to take no care of hisself when he gets despondent like that. So he brightened up then and clapped me on the back, and said he knowed how it was, he used to have mules hisself before he went in the loan business. Just don’t you worry, he says, old Boomer’s all right; I know he wouldn’t of done nothing desperate.

  “His name is Charlie, he tells me, and he’s the president of the company. That’s how come he was carryin’ the gun, this here pistol he had stuck in the waistband of his britches. It was in the by-laws to protect the stockholders’ investment any time they had to move the safe from one place to another. So then he called one of the other men over and handed him the gun. ‘Ebeneezer here has lost his mule,’ he says. ‘You go out there in the timber with him and help him find it. And hurry back.’

  “I told him that was real neighborly of ’em, but naturally I wouldn’t even dream of takin’ up their time. Just go right ahead with your job, I says, and don’t put yourself out none for me. We both set down, and I asked him if this wasn’t a lot of trouble to go to just to get a safe open, had they lost the key or something?

  “Well, he tells me, I’d put my finger right on the root of the trouble. That’s when he explained about how they’d got the safe from the gov’ment surplus and how they couldn’t get it open again after they’d put all their money and papers in it. They’d been writin’ to the gov’ment about it for four or five months, but never got no satisfaction, so they decided the only thing to do was to break it open and get their stuff out and then buy another one.

  “Just about this time the other three fellers finally beat the inside door loose and they started takin’ everything out of the safe and puttin’ it in some cloth bags they had. It sure was a lot of money. They took the crowbars and rolled the safe and the big door off into the slough, because like this here Charlie says if there was anything he couldn’t stand it was city people that went off and left a lot of litter scattered around when they was out in the country. They loaded the cloth bags and all the tools in the truck and was ready to go. Then one of ’em nodded at me and says, ‘What about the hay-shaker?’

  “‘Well, men,’ Charlie says, ‘I was thinkin’ about that. It seems to me we do owe Ebeneezer something for the use of his land, so why don’t we give him the rest of the cordial?’

  “The others thought it was all right, so they showed it to me. It was on the other side of the truck, in a little pasteboard box that had a folded blanket lyin’ in the bottom of it. There was another canteen on the ground, but it was empty.

  “I told ’em I’d be real proud to take it if they was sure they could spare it, and just what was it, anyhow? So this Charlie tells me it’s genuwine imported Yeller Creme de Menthe.

  “‘Well sir,’ I says, ‘is that a fact?’

  “‘So you’ve heard of it, have you?’ he says to me.

  “Well, I didn’t want to let on I was just a old peckerwood that didn’t know nothin’ about them hifalutin’ drinks, so I told him sure, I heard of it plenty of times.

  “‘Then you know what they say about it,’ he tells me. He winks and digs me in the ribs with his elbow. ‘You dawg you,’ he say
s. ‘Look out, gals, here he comes.’

  “Then all of a sudden he stopped and his face got serious. ‘Wait a minute,’ he says. ‘Men, we forgot about something. We can’t give this cordial to Ebeneezer. Why, it’s against the law. This is a dry county.’

  “Well, the others agreed he was right. Then Charlie snapped his fingers and says, ‘I got it. If we was to sort of go off and forget this stuff, Ebeneezer might just accidentally find it—’

  “‘Why, sure,’ the others says, ‘that’d be all right.’

  “So Charlie grinned and clapped me on the back, and got in the truck with ’em. ‘Just wait’ll we get clear out of sight,’ he says, ‘and she’s all yours.’”

  Uncle Sagamore stopped talking then and looked at Booger and Otis. “You know, Sam,” he says, “I never seen such determined fellers in my life. They’re still strainin’ to get that there thing open.”

  Well, it didn’t seem to me like they was trying to open it at all. I couldn’t make much sense out of what they was trying to do, unless it was just hold onto it. It was kind of like Booger was wanting to pass it to Otis and step back, and Otis was wanting Booger to take it so he could step back, but neither one would let go. The sweat made their faces shine like they was covered with oil.

  “Well, how did the stuff come to be buried out here?” Pop asked.

  “Oh,” Uncle Sagamore says. “Well, after they got across the bottom, I unscrewed the cap and takened a sip to see what it was like. But like I say, it was horrible-tastin’ stuff, kind of oily and hot, and it upset my stummick somethin’ terrible and give me the scours. So when I got back to the house I put a couple of pieces of charcoal in it and buried it out there, figurin’ that might filter out some of the fusel oil.”