Part 7 (1/2)

”You is a mind readin aintcha? A dirty mind reader, howz about that?!”

”Naw...naw, not exactly. That'd be a-sayin I didn't know what they'uz a thankin afore they thunk it. And I does, jist as I did.”

Dob was not following this line of reason too well, but there had to be fortune and favor to be tilled from the garden of folk's unspaken secrets. Any fool could see that. Weakly, very weakly, Dob heard his Nonny say pride went before a fall, but had no problem changing the subject.

”Tell me sumpin a body is thankin,” Dob pled, ”sumpin useful.”

”Thought ye weren't never gonna ask. Mizz Ollie June Walderoop--”

”Uh-yup, I knows her. Skint a hawg fer her oncet.”

”That's th'one. She thanks a panther's been gittin into her coop and snitchin her roostin guineas. They's a loose plank on the coop's backside and she figgers the panther gits in through there, but she's feelin poorly these days and ain't got the gumption to tack it shut. Now, if you was to come along with hammer and nail and fix her coop from anymore thievery, she wouldn't have the money to pay you, bein she's a elderly lady of little means. So what she would give ye fer yer trouble would be a cool gla.s.s o'cider and a waterstaint pitcher o'John ther Baptist in a stamp tin frame. See, Mizz Walderoop is had that pitcher under the bed fer over twenty year, since her daddy died, and she don't know it but he hid a hunnert dollar bill in that tin frame, behind ole John ther Baptist, an hit's jist a-waitin fer the foxy individual who might come along and cut it out.”

”H-how do ye know that?”

”There ye go again.”

Dob was supposed to thin some weeds for Sook Jackson that afternoon, so the snakes wouldn't pester her two-year-old baby. But Dob decided she would have to wait. She might pay him as much as six bits, but a hundred dollars was out of the question. He told the face in the hole to wait, the face said it would, and Dob allowed how it might be tomorrow even before his return as he laid a black gum bough over the hole at the face's request. Look sharp, he heard the face tell him, the prize was pressed betwixt Brother John and the pasteboard backing.

The face was right of course, right as rain about everything. But first Dob had to certify such mind-cracking skills. After all, it was evident this was no Master Loki buried to the neckbone.

Dob picked up clawhammer and nails from Pap Leapfeather's toolbox and was just sinking his last nail into that guinea's coop when Miss Ollie June poked her head out the back screendoor and said yoo-hoo. Dob told her he had just been wandering by and wanted her guineas to be panther-safe, even though he hadn't spied a guinea on the place, but it was his dog-dang pleasure all the same and Miss Ollie June didn't need to get out of her bed to thank him. But sure enough, she did get out of her bed. She offered him cold cider which he drank and before he knew it, Miss Ollie June was returning with a waterstained portrait of John the Baptist hip-deep in River Jordan. Sooner than later, Dob was back home where he peeled a brittle one hundred dollar note from the innards of the tin frame then tossed the leavings into the trash barrel.

”Reckon hit's a hunnert dollars. Don't look like any bill I ever seed though--” Dob told the face the next morning, as he knelt holding the strange money over the hole for inspection.

”Oopsee. My mistake.”

”Mistake--?”

”Confederated currency. Jeff Davis' frogskins. Should o'knowed. Ole Deke Walderoop never really cottoned to his war bein over, tetched he was, jist like his daughter.

”I dint see no guineas neither.”

”Ain't none. Ain't been a guinea on the Walderoop place since Ollie June was fifteen. She still sees em though. I tole ye, she thanks they's a panther gittin her guineas.”

”Daaawg, an this hyere ain't no good money then?”

”Ae from, lotsa notions floatin around in them c.o.c.kermamie noggins. We'll git a-holt of a good'n yit.”

Then the face pointed out that Schuyler and Vee Tubbs were almost fixing to move because Vee thought a haint had possession of their house. The face said that Vee was right, it was a haint, but she would settle for believing it was the monkrat they didn't know was living in their kitchen wall. You could always poison a monkrat.

Dob didn't act so quickly on this one; he was still lummoxed by the shoddy rebel money the face had sent him chasing after. This time, he trudged slower up Pearlwick Road toward Tutweiller's Snoot, where he knew the Tubbs' lived. He took his time. He found Vee around back of the house in her tree swing, afraid to go inside. Schuyler Tubbs, who had done real well trading horseflesh, could be heard behind the barn chopping kindle. Vee jumped when Dob hailed her, but he eventually got her attention and told her how he was happening by and spotted a monkrat burrowing in under their kitchen. Vee leapt up and called for Schuyler, who came running and pretty soon Dob was inside the house, banging on their kitchen wall, flus.h.i.+ng out a monkrat sure enough, who met the axe-handle and its maker when Schuyler whacked it. Waiting out there under his kitchen window, Schuyler had not thought poisoning a wall-nesting monkrat was such a great idea.

Within their home, Dob heard the creak of footsteps coming down the empty stair, but ignored the echoes as he went outside to collect a five dollar reward from Schuyler's ample money clip. Vee kissed his hand. Both were happy he happened by, relieved and rejoicing in this turn of events. A monkrat, Vee kept singing, all the time it's just a sneaky old monkrat and I ain't slept a night all summer. She was still going over it as Dob skipped off down the road, counting his money. He even had enough daylight left to skeedaddle down to Sook Jackson's and thin her weeds. She only gave him four bits but Dob was feeling no pain.

”Where'd ye git the perty paper Dop?” asked Toodlem, as he laid out the crisp bills before her. She was licking mud off a spoon with an empty, mud stained bowl crooked in her arm.

”Ain't no paper, Toodlem. Is five dollars and fifty cent.”

A cat s.n.a.t.c.hed at one of the bills but Dob flung her away. He stacked the thirty pennies and two dimes and marveled at the wizardry involved in getting them. His generally dull gaze glistened in the firelight. This might not be a hundred dollars after all, but it was more than poor Dobber Magee had possessed in a lifetime. Of course, Vee Tubbs would be beginning another fretful night in her hainted house, but Dob would just be sure to steer clear of Tutweiller's Snoot for a spell.

”Papper say kitty-kitty gone takee th'train ter Memphis if'n he catch her in corncrib agin. Whudsay Dop?”

Dob didn't answer. He just swept the money into his pouch then went out on the porch to ask the moon how he should spend his riches. He had a few ideas already.

After that, Dob got industrious, going to the base of Riddle Top every morning to consult with the moonface in the hole before taking advantage of the secrets they shared. He found out that Arbus Ray Stang thought his son in-law Bucky was a liar and a thief who had stolen from him, which he had, and the moonface said Arbus Ray was thinking about shooting Bucky in the back of the head while he was shatting in the pea patch; so Dob showed up just at the proper moment to save Bucky from a bullet. Arbus Ray was plenty riled, but Bucky was thankful as you might imagine and gave Dob another cow which the moonface predicted he would. The cow was mangy and probably stolen, but Dob gave that very little consideration, selling her to a Quaker family over in Ewe Springs for twenty-five dollars. He also told the well-to-do Peabody Dawes that his daddy was thinking of cutting him out of his will and Daddy Dawes died mysteriously in his sleep the next evening before this amendment could transpire so Peabody was grateful; Dob saved a widow certain heartbreak from a sly-nosed gypsy, found an antique Britannia soup tureen where a rotten kid had hidden it from his mama and by hook or crook accrued almost forty-seven dollars before the week was out.

With this windfall, a starry-eyed Dobber Magee flexed his powers and bought himself a new porkpie hat with quail feather, a used whalebone-handled pocketknife with three blades and a corkscrew, two pairs of celluloid sungla.s.ses, too many Bibleland Comics to keep track of, a moving-picture peeper that broke when he tried to crank it, one hundred army men in a cardboard can, a polka-dot water pistol shaped like a six-shooter, plus a.s.sorted peppermints and even a new dress for Toodlem which she used as a pillow when she slept, refusing to change from her old one. Most of these he bought from w.i.l.l.y Birdwell's Mercantile Feed, Fuel & Grain, except for the pocketknife which he bought from a Van Smittle twin; but even still, those twins sat there jos.h.i.+ng and sniping with the others as he picked out every purchase. He heard the local geechee boys and geechee men making cracks behind him as w.i.l.l.y Jay rang up each carefully considered sale--even the women hid their smiles, and schoolkids mocked the sight of his jaunty porkpie with quail feather loping past their playground. It seemed that Dobber Magee's newfound wealth was everybody's business. They continued to doubt his wizardry and raised enough of a clatter for Lawson K. Leapfeather to insist he fork over something for the groceries. It didn't help that Dob was sucking on a banana chilly-pop at the time.

He coughed up two dollars for Pap Leapfeather then asked him if he ever knew of Toodlem buying rosewater from Fritzy the drummer. Lawson called Dob a bad name and said any idget knew that that drummer pa.s.sed out rosewater samples like they were scripture and could hardly recollect the ladies he had splashed with it. Then Lawson winked at his prize bluetick and left Dob standing there with chilly-pop dripping down his arm. How about that you geechees? So Toodlem had been true to him after all.

”Tell me Dob, ye ole scutter--” the moonface was croaking down in its hole, one morning early in August.

”Whud now?” bleated Dob, behind a pair of maroon celluloid gla.s.ses. They hid his wandering eye real well.

”Ye ever wonder what them friends o'yourn is a-thankin bout ye?”

”Them boys at w.i.l.l.y Jay's store, they ain't m'friends.”

”I knowed that--”

”w.i.l.l.y Jay, Black Elam, Preacher Polk, my red heifer--Red, Mister n'Mizz Weaver, Toodlem and that nurse lady, Mizzy Jane--they's my friends. I gots lots o'friends.”

”I knowed that too. Ever thank'bout what they's a-thankin'bout you?”

”Uh--naw.”

”Hmmm.”

After he cut the red heifer's throat, Dob found himself walking along Cooly Bug Creek with a lot of blood on his s.h.i.+rt. He was headed for the Weaver's place. Don't fret, the face had said, don't fret about whether folks are talking about you behind your back. Of course they are. Folks talk about folks, that's just the way they do. Don't fret, the face said.

Matthew Birdnell--or was it Matthew's big brother Weldon?--one of them was squatting on the creek bank, ruminating as Dob pa.s.sed. ”Yeeea-there, boy, howz my dopey Dobber?” the Birdnell cracked. But Dob hurried by without a word, an awful ache growing betwixt his eyes. He had thrown away the sungla.s.ses and did not have time for know-nothings like Weldon Birdnells or Van Smittles or Boyetts or any other chucklebait from Cayuga Ridge. No goat, no goat, no goat for the likes of them. His wandering eye wasn't wandering anymore. It saw clearly the farmhouse ahead, the log cistern house and the feed pen. Somewhere far behind he heard Matthew Birdnell snorting something about how Dob could lick his podrash and like it, but Matthew was drowned out in Dob's ears by the rising h.e.l.lwind which came coursing through Auld Gap and ruffled one's disposition. A summer gale, unusual for these parts, which grew vigorous as the valleys and hollers turned deep purple.

Dob crept up to the Weaver's porch, peeked through a window. Inside, he heard nattering, cheery voices and a lit hurricane lamp threw a glimmer down the hall. He was loitering around the open window screen of their front parlor; but down at the end of the hall, within the light, was a kitchen table where Melba Weaver and her six children were taking supper. There was the clatter of dishes and silver and all seemed to be talking at the same time, in a friendly, warm sort of way that stirred something in Dob, a pang he had never felt before. For some unknown reason, this only served to stoke the th.o.r.n.y rage now noodling through Dob's brain.

He slipped off the porch, almost tumbling over his own feet as he rounded the back corner of the house--and came face to face with Mr. Ash Weaver who held six eggs, three in each hand. Mr. Weaver, short, broad-faced and full of giggles, had always been a kindly fellow to Dob. Right now he looked surprised.

”Dobber Magee! What kin I do ye fer? Ye jist caught me roustin the chickens as you kin see--”

”Uuuhm-uh--” Wrath. A festered wrath was skewering Dob's const.i.tution, but he strove to hide it. ”Uhhh--seee,I wuzza--”

”Whyn't ye come in and set supper with us,” Ash beamed, nodding toward the voices in the kitchen, not a word about the blood. ”We'd be proud to have ye.”

What about those big evil notions, Dob was asking Mr. Weaver in his head, what about the vicious, black-hearted notions that boil behind your smiling eyes Mr. Ash Weaver? The face told him plenty about such thoughts. Evil thinkings about Dobber Magee and his bride Toodlem.