Uncle Sagamore and His Girls Read online

  One or two of the ladies gasped. Then they seemed to catch on he was joking, and they swung around and glared at the Sheriff. He was beginning to turn purple.

  “Moonshinin’ is a dying art,” Curly went on. “That is, in communities that have any law enforcement. And maybe there’s something a little sad in thinkin’ of the youth of this great nation of ours growin’ up without ever earnin’ how to put down a mash or hook up a still. Why, can you imagine a whole generation of six and seven year old children so ignorant they wouldn’t even know what that copper tubing is for, for instance, or how to set up and run off a little moonshine for theirselves in back of the kitchen stove?”

  “You tell ’em, Curly!” somebody yelled. There was a lot of handclapping. “What’s the matter with that useless Sheriff?” another one yelled. “We’re for you, Curly. Put the crooks in jail.”

  Curly says, “I thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Come election day, you’ll know how to put a stop to this shameful thing.” He put away the microphone. Some of the people got back in their cars and started to drive off.

  The Sheriff was so mad he took off his hat and throwed it on the ground and kicked it. “Go back to town,” he says to Otis. “Round up twenty more men, and bring ’em out here so I can deputize ’em. We’re goin’ to take this—this stinkin’ farm to pieces foot by foot till we find that still!”

  “Yes, sir!” Otis jumped in one of the cars and took off up the hill. The Sheriff and Booger and the other two struck out toward the bottom timber on foot.

  Then I saw Murph. Him and Miss Malone was sitting in the convertible off to one side, and it seemed to me he looked kind of pale around the gills about something. I walked up to the car.

  “Hi, Murph,” I says. “I’m getting a dollar a day for shelling corn.”

  He didn’t seem to care one way or the other. “Good,” he says, like he was thinking about something else. “Beats fifteen cents a week for making license plates. Did Sagamore say where he was going?”

  “No. Just to buy hogs to eat the feed,” I says.

  Murph shook his head. “I don’t get it. I just don’t get it.”

  “Cheer up,” Miss Malone says. She had on a low-necked blue dress, and she looked real nice. “I’ve got a hunch this is going to be a political campaign they’ll still be talking about down here fifty years from now.”

  “But, look—!” Murph says. “He knows he’s got to stop Minifee. That guy’s as crooked as a corkscrew, and he’s going to frame him. I gathered from what he said that he had an idea, but good God—”

  Miss Malone took out a cigarette. “Well, you said yourself nobody’s ever been able to figure out what he’s up to until the cigar explodes.”

  “But I’m not so sure about it this time,” Murph says. “That Minifee’s a sharp operator himself. And with Sagamore making a monkey out of the Sheriff this way—Say, you don’t suppose he’s made a deal with Minifee, do you?”

  “He’d have better sense than that,” Miss Malone says. “From what I’ve seen of Curly, his own mother wouldn’t trust him.”

  “Well, it throws me,” Murph says. “I wish now I’d bet on Curly while I could still get him at three-to-five. A few more days of this, and God knows what the odds’ll be.”

  “It can’t last that long,” Miss Malone says. “He’ll have to throw the stuff out. Or actually feed it to some hogs.”

  Murph turned his head then, and saw the shed Mr. Jimerson had built. He frowned at it. “What’s that for, Billy?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Funny place for a shed, off there in the open by itself.”

  “Oh,” I told him, “that’s on account of it’s where the water pipe runs. From the spring up there on the hill.”

  “Oh, good God!” Murph says. Then he stopped and shook his head. “No. It couldn’t be. Not even Sagamore Noonan—”

  “What is it?” Miss Malone asked.

  “Nothing,” Murph says. “I must be getting punchy. Let’s go back to town.”

  They drove off. I never had figured what they was talking about. Curly left in his sound truck, and Major Kincaid and his photographer, but more people kept coming all the time. I went back to shelling corn, and after a while I got used to people staring at me. In about an hour Otis got back from town. He had four men in the Sheriff’s car, and there was three carloads of men following him. The Sheriff made a speech with a lot of ranting and arm-waving, and they took off for the timber. They searched all afternoon. Just before sundown they began to limp back to the barn. The Sheriff could hardly walk, he was so beat. He leaned against a car and took off his hat to mop his face.

  “All right, men,” he says, “report here at eight o’clock tomorrow mornin’. We’re goin’ to find that still if we have to run this farm through a flour sifter.”

  Booger collapsed on a box and stared real bitter at the tubs. “There ain’t no still down there, Sheriff. We covered every foot of that bottom.”

  “I know,” the Sheriff says. “But so far we just been lookin’ where an ordinary human bein’ might hide a still. This is Sagamore Noonan. Everybody be here at eight.”

  They drove off, and after a while everybody was gone. In the morning I looked in the tubs when I came out to start shelling corn, and I saw Curly was right. There was bubbles coming up through the stuff. It sure looked like it was beginning to spoil.

  I hadn’t been at work more than a few minutes when the cars began to show up. The Sheriff seemed to have about 25 men with him this time. He looked in the tubs, cussed, and ordered the men to fan out through the timber again. By ten o’clock I counted 35 cars parked along the hill at one time, and that didn’t count the ones that had been here and gone. It seemed like everybody had to see the stuff in the tubs with his own eyes, and then they’d stand around making bets whether the Sheriff would find the still. Two men got in a fight, and Booger had to break it up. At noon the Sheriff came up from the bottom with his men. His clothes was drenched with sweat, and he looked beat.

  “There ain’t no still,” Otis says. He leaned against one of the shed stanchions like he was about to collapse, and looked at the tubs. “I don’t know what he’s up to. Maybe nobody’ll ever know. But there just ain’t no still on this place.”

  “We ain’t goin’ to give up,” the Sheriff says. “We either find it or prove to these people there ain’t any. Start searching the buildings.”

  They searched the barn, and the house, and even our trailer. They crawled through Uncle Finley’s ark. I could hear him cussing at them. Then I saw Murph. He weaved his way down through the cars in his convertible. I walked over. He looked upset. “Hey, haven’t we got a crowd?” I says. “It’s almost like when Miss Harrington got lost—”

  “You haven’t seen anything yet,” he says. “Wait till tomorrow.” He handed me the paper that was lying on the seat.

  I spread it open, and by golly the whole front page was nothing but pictures of the hog feed, and big headlines about it. There was one of me shelling corn, and one of Curly pointing to the tubs and grinning. BLOSSOM COUNTY’S SHAME, it says. There was a lot more printing that went on to the back pages. Some of the words I didn’t understand, and I didn’t try to read it all, but I could see this Major Kincaid was real worked up about the whole thing.

  “You don’t have to take our word for it,” it wound up. “Go out and see for yourself this complete breakdown of law enforcement. And then vote for the man who can clean up this mess—J. L. (Curly) Minifee.”

  “Sure looks like Curly’s goin’ to win the election, don’t it?” I said.

  “You can say that again,” Murph says. “Uh—Billy, has Sagamore been acting strange lately?”

  “How do you mean?” I asked.

  “Well, like he’d been out in the sun too much, or something?”

  “No,” I says. I couldn’t figure what he was driving at. “He seems just the same as always.”

  Just then there was a big blaring of music, an
d we looked up to see Curly’s sound truck coming down the hill. It stopped in a little open space, and Curly got out in his fancy white suit. He walked down through the cars and looked at the stuff in the tubs. Then he came over to the convertible, leaned an arm on the windshield, and grinned at the pictures on the front page of the paper.

  “The barefooted genius around today?” he asked Murph.

  “I wouldn’t know,” Murph says, sort of cold.

  “I just wanted to thank him for all his help.”

  “Why don’t you sell him some more tires?” Murph asked.

  “Oh, I aim to.” Curly lit one of his cigars, blew out the match real careful, and dropped it on the seat by Murph’s leg. “I’m not one to forget a good customer. But I guess he was kind of overrated, from the looks of it.”

  He clapped Murph on the shoulder, and went back up to his truck. Murph said a cuss word. Then we heard the loudspeakers, and looked up that way. Curly was standing on the running board of the truck with the microphone in his hand. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is Curly Minifee again. I just thought I’d stop by and see how things are going at the Noonan Brothers Old Popskull assembly plant—”

  “You tell ’em, Curly!” somebody yelled. All the people began to crowd around to listen. I saw another car pull up, and it was Major Kincaid and his photographer. The Sheriff and his men was coming up from the ark.

  “I see we’ve got a nice turnout today,” Curly went on with a big grin, “and that the Sheriff’s doin’ his usual good job of handling the crowds—”

  There was a big laugh, and then a lot of boos at the Sheriff. The Sheriff got red in the face, and cussed, and then he run over to one of the cars that was parked about ten yards from Curly’s truck. He climbed onto the top of it and held up his hands.

  “Listen to me, everybody!” he yelled, trying to be heard over the loudspeakers.

  Curly held up a hand to the crowd. “Wait a minute, folks; I think the Sheriff wants to say something. Maybe he’s going to tell us how to get down to the still—that is, if he’s managed to find it after twelve years.”

  “Listen!” the Sheriff yelled. “I’m gettin’ sick and tired of bein’ rawhided about this. There ain’t no moonshine bein’ made on this place. Don’t ask me what Sagamore Noonan intends to do with that junk, but there’s one thing I can tell you for sure. He ain’t makin’ whiskey out of it!”

  “Of course he ain’t,” Curly said through the loudspeakers. “Anybody can see what it is. It’s sparklin’ hog-feed. Hogs are crazy about it because the bubbles tickle their noses.”

  The crowd let out another big laugh. “Give him hell, Curly!”

  The Sheriff looked like he was going to explode. “Listen!” he roared. “I’m trying to tell you. There ain’t any still on this place. I’ve got 25 men out there that can tell you the same thing. Yesterday and today we’ve been over every foot of this farm at least twice, and we’ve searched every square yard of the adjoinin’ land for a mile on all four sides of it, and we’ve searched the buildings—”

  “Say, mebbe he’s right,” somebody said out in the crowd. “The whole thing might be a fake.”

  “Sure,” another one said. “Could be another one of Sagamore Noonan’s dirty tricks just to get everybody in a uproar—”

  “I don’t know what it is,” the Sheriff went on. “All I can tell you is that there ain’t any still here, and you can all go home and stop bein’ made suckers of by Sagamore Noonan—”

  He stopped then, and was staring up the hill. It looked like his eyes was going to pop right out of his head. Everybody else turned to look. “My God!” somebody said. Me and Murph jumped up on the back of the convertible so we could see too.

  “Oh, no!” Murph whispered.

  It was Pop and Uncle Sagamore. The truck was coming down the hill from the gate, and it was just loaded down with machinery. There was a couple of boiler things, and a big water tank, and a lot of pipe, and some more copper tubing.

  Even Curly couldn’t seem to say anything. He just stood there as goggle-eyed as everybody else. The truck come on down and stopped just at the edge of the crowd. Uncle Sagamore stepped out onto the running board and looked at all the people and then up at the Sheriff.

  “Evenin’, Shurf,” he says. “You reckon you could ask some of these fellers to move their cars so me an’ Sam can get over to that shed with our still?”

  EIGHT

  THE CROWD JUST STARED, and it was real quiet. The Sheriff’s mouth fell open. “Still?” he says, like he was strangling. “Did you say still?”

  “That’s right, Shurf,” Uncle Sagamore says. “You see—”

  The Sheriff seemed to come out of his daze then. He pointed a finger at Uncle Sagamore and barked, “All right, you’re under arrest.”

  Uncle Sagamore looked around at everybody, kind of puzzled. “Why, what for, Shurf?”

  The Sheriff smiled at the people watching, and made the crazy sign alongside his head. “I reckon it had to happen some day, after thirty years of drinkin’ his own rotgut. His mind’s give way.” Then he says to Uncle Sagamore, “You’re under arrest for makin moonshine whiskey. For possession of illegal mash. For possession and operation of an illegal still—”

  “Why, Shurf,” Uncle Sagamore says, “I ain’t operatin’ no still. You can see for yourself it ain’t even hooked up yet. And it ain’t a illegal still nohow—”

  Booger let out a groan. “Oh, God. Here we go again.”

  “You see,” Uncle Sagamore went on, “me an’ Sam’s goin’ in the turpentine business—”

  The Sheriff stared at him. “Turpentine?”

  “That’s right, Shurf,” Uncle Sagamore says. “I hear tell there’s right good money in it for a man that ain’t afraid of a little hard work. An’ with taxes the way they are—”

  “Shut up!” the Sheriff roared at him. The crowd was beginning to mutter now. One or two of the people snickered, and in the back somebody yelled, “What the hell is this? Why don’t you arrest him?”

  The Sheriff held up his hands for them to be quiet. Then he glared at Uncle Sagamore. “I see. So you take that sugar and corn meal, and when you run it off it’s turpentine?”

  Uncle Sagamore looked at him kind of surprised. “Why, Shurf, I don’t think you can make turpentine that way. Leastwise, I never heard of it. You make it out of rosum. You see, you take this here rosum—”

  “Just a minute!” The Sheriff held up a hand. “Let me see if I got it all straight now. You make this turpentine out of rosum you haven’t got, and that stuff in the tubs is hawg-feed for a hawg you haven’t got—”

  “Oh,” Uncle Sagamore says. “Sam, we plumb forgot about them hawgs. We better get ’em in the pen. You bring the trough.” He stepped off the running board and went around in back of the truck and picked up two orange crates, one under each arm.

  “Ain’t they beauties, Shurf?” he said, and started over to the pen in back of the barn. The whole crowd followed him. The Sheriff climbed down from the top of his car and came too, looking like he was going to split open, he was so mad. I ran over, and got there just as Uncle Sagamore stepped over the hog-fencing and put the two crates on the ground under the chinaberry tree. He pulled the tops off, and lifted out the hogs. “My God,” somebody says, and there was a couple of snickers among the crowd that was jammed up around the pen.

  I didn’t know much about hogs, of course, but they looked kind of little and scrawny to be able to eat all that feed. If they fell in one of the tubs they’d probably drown. One of ’em went over and leaned against the tree, and the other one just sat down on his hunkers, kind of discouraged about the whole thing.

  Uncle Sagamore looked at ’em real proud, and then at the Sheriff. “We decided to git two while we was at it, Shurf. If a man’s goin’ in business, there ain’t no sense in piddlin’ around.”

  “Hadn’t you better fasten ’em down some way?” Booger asked. “They might blow away.”

  “No,” Otis says. “Th
em’s weather-vane hawgs. They always turn in the breeze so it can’t get a-holt of ’em. Only trouble is you can’t see ’em edgewise, an’ if you ain’t careful you’ll run into one and cut yourself.”

  “Why, shucks, men, them hawgs’ll fatten right up,” Uncle Sagamore says. “Matter of fact, I think we ort to give ’em a bait of feed right now, Sam.”

  “Sure,” Pop says.

  “Sagamore Noonan!” the Sheriff roared, “if you think this is a joke of some kind—”

  “Joke?” Uncle Sagamore said. “Why, Shurf, you cain’t joke with a hungry hawg. He’ll swell up an’ won’t have nothin’ to do with you for a month.”

  Him and Pop went over to the shed at the side of the barn, with the crowd still following. Pop got a bucket, and Uncle Sagamore lifted the gunny sack off one of the tubs so they could dip out some of the feed. Then he sniffed, and bent over to look closer at the stuff. “Hmmm,” he says, sort of puzzled.

  “What’s the matter?” Pop asked.

  “Why, it looks to me like it’s turnin’ sour,” Uncle Sagamore says. “Look at them bubbles, Sam, poppin’ right up to the top.”

  “By golly, you’re right,” Pop says. He dipped up some in his hand and smelled it. So did Uncle Sagamore. They looked at each other kind of worried.

  “You reckon it’s safe?” Uncle Sagamore asked.

  Pop frowned. “I ain’t sure I’d trust it. Might give ’em heartburn.”

  “Well, ain’t that discouragin’?” Uncle Sagamore says. “What you reckon we done wrong, Sam?”

  Before Pop could say anything, there was a big commotion in back of the crowd, and Major Kincaid came pushing through. He stopped in front of the Sheriff, looking mad enough to bite him. “All right, what’re you waiting for, Sheriff?” he barked, jabbing a finger at the tubs. “There’s eight tubs of mash. Right over there’s the still. Are you going to arrest these men, or not?”

  “You shut up, Kincaid!” the Sheriff roared back at him. “An’ stop telling me how to run this job. You think I’m dumb enough to fall for this? I don’t know what the hell he’s up to any more than you do, but if I arrest him he’ll be back here in less than an hour. That ain’t even a still until it’s hooked up. And when it is hooked up it ain’t illegal without there’s evidence he’s makin’ whiskey with it.”