Uncle Sagamore and His Girls (8 page)

Booger nodded. “Yeah. Come to think of it, what you suppose this hawg wire is for?”

Before the Sheriff could answer, a man come down the hill in a wagon. It was Mr. Jimerson, that lives out on the sand road between here and the highway. He had on a big floppy straw hat, and he looked kind of tired and dejected, like he always does. He stopped the mules in front of the shed, and they let their ears droop and went to sleep in the hot sun while he climbed down over the front wheel.

“Mornin’, Shurf,” he says. He looked at all the stuff under the shed like it didn’t make any difference to him, and then walked over and stood up one of the rolls of hog fencing.

“Now what you doin’ over here, Marvin?” the Sheriff asked.

Mr. Jimerson took out his tobacco and bit off a chew. He studied about it for a minute, and then he says, “He hawr’d me to build him a hawg-pen.”

“A hawg-pen?” the Sheriff asked. “Why, he ain’t got no hawgs.”

Mr. Jimerson spit, and shook his head. “Nope. Not fur as I know.” He kind of slouched around to the front of the barn and opened the door. He stepped in. We heard him scratching around in the hay. In a minute he come out.

“What was you looking for in there?” the Sheriff asked.

“Two-by-fours,” Mr. Jimerson says.

The Sheriff stared at him. “What?”

“He wants me to build him a shed too,” Mr. Jimerson says. “He said I’d find the two-by-fours hid under the hay inside the barn. I was jest checkin’ to be sure they was there.”

The Sheriff sighed, and sat looking down at the ground. “You see what I mean, Booger?” he says, sort of hopeless. “He ain’t got no hawgs, so he’s havin’ a hawg-pen built. And ever’thing you need to make moonshine is lyin’ right out here in the open where anybody can see it, but something perfectly harmless like two-by-four lumber is hid under the hay so people won’t know about it.”

A
LL OF A SUDDEN
he got red in the face and he jumped up and caught Mr. Jimerson by the front of his overalls. “Marvin Jimerson,” he yelled. “You tell me what the hell’s goin’ on here! What’s Sagamore Noonan up to this time—?”

Mr. Jimerson just looked at him and waited till he run out of breath. “Shucks, Shurf,” he says, kind of dejected, “you ort to know it ain’t no use askin’ anybody what Sagamore Noonan’s up to.”

The Sheriff got hold of hisself then. “I’m sorry, Marvin,” he says. He patted Mr. Jimerson on the shoulder. “My nerves is jest shot to hell. Of course you don’t know what he’s doin’. If you could figure that out, you’d be as crooked as he is.”

“Sheriff,” I said, “I think I know why the two-by-fours are hid under the hay. It’s so Uncle Finley won’t find ’em and nail ’em in the ark.”

Mr. Jimerson nodded. “That’s right, Shurf. Any lumber you bring out here, you either got to hide it or set on it.”

The Sheriff took a deep breath. “All right,” he says. “But what does he want with a hawg-pen and a shed?”

“He didn’t say,” Mr. Jimerson told him. “He jest stopped at the house early this mornin’ and hawr’d me to build ’em. Paid me five dollars.”

The Sheriff stopped him. “He’s
already
paid you? You mean Sagamore Noonan—?”

Mr. Jimerson nodded like he wasn’t quite sure he believed it either. “That’s what he done, Shurf. After he left, I talked it over with Prudy. She says there’s bound to be a trick in it somewheres, but when I takened the money to town and showed it to Clovis Buckhalter at the bank, he said it was a real five-dollar bill. So I put it in the bank, an’ Clovis give me a receipt.” He took the receipt out of his pocket and looked at it like he wanted to be sure it was still there. “You don’t reckon there’s no way he can beat me out of it now, do you, Shurf?” he asked.

The Sheriff rubbed his chin. “I don’t know of none, Marvin. But if it was me, I’d spend it as soon as I could. But whereabouts are you goin’ to build this shed?”

Mr. Jimerson pointed out in the open just up the hill from us. “Right out there somewheres. He says to line up the back corner of the house with that spring off to the left up there on the hill, and dig down, and I’d find a pipe just under the ground—”

“Pipe?” the Sheriff asked.

“Hey,” Booger says, sort of excited, “that’d be the old water supply for that still he had set up in the back room of the house. Remember?”

“By God, yes,” the Sheriff says. “What about the pipe, Marvin?”

“Why, he told me to build the shed right a-straddle of it,” Mr. Jimerson said.

“Oh,” the Sheriff says. “He wants the water for the hawgs? Is that it?”

Mr. Jimerson looked at him kind of funny. “Why, Shurf, he ain’t got no hawgs.”

The Sheriff took off his hat and mopped his forehead real slow and careful. “I mean, he wants the water for the hawg-pen?”

Mr. Jimerson studied about it. “Why, I reckon not. Why would anybody want water in a hawg-pen without no hawgs in it?”

The Sheriff seemed to be breathing kind of hard. He opened his mouth, but he didn’t say anything.

“That’s jest be a foolishness,” Mr. Jimerson went on, like he was having a hard time explaining it to him. “I mean, pipin’ water into a empty hawg-pen.”

“
Ffffssshhh—!
” the Sheriff says.

“And, anyway,” Mr. Jimerson says, “the hawg-pen won’t be up there nohow. It goes out there back of the barn, around that chinaberry tree.”

“Well, look,” Booger says, “he must want that water for something—”

The Sheriff got tracked at last. “
Goddammit!
” he yelled. “Let’s get out of here before we go
completely
nuts!” They went back to the car, and it dusted up the hill and out of sight.

I went on shelling corn. Mr. Jimerson took some post-hole diggers out of the wagon and went out to the chinaberry tree beyond the back end of the barn. He started digging the holes and tamping in the posts. In a little while he had ’em all set, and he unrolled the wove wire and nailed it on. It wasn’t a very big pen, about 20 feet on a side. Then he went off about fifty yards above the barn and dug around until he located the pipe. He set four posts there, longer ones that was about eight feet tall when he tamped ’em in. Then he nailed the two-by-fours around the upper ends and another one across the top for a ridgepole, and covered it with tin roofing that he found in the barn. I went up and looked at it while he was gathering up his tools. It was a kind of rickety-looking shed, but it kept the sun off you, and I reckoned it would stand up if we didn’t have a really hard wind. It was about twelve feet square.

“What you reckon he wants it for?” I asked Mr. Jimerson.

He bit off a chew of tobacco and studied about it for awhile. “Ain’t no tellin’,” he says. He got in the wagon and drove off.

When noon came I went over to the kitchen and had a baloney sandwich, and then started back on the corn again. I had two gunny sacks full now. It sure puzzled me what kind of business Pop and Uncle Sagamore could be going into to need all this stuff and a shed with a water pipe, and I wished they’d get back so I could maybe find out. In about a half hour I heard a car turn in up at the gate. But it wasn’t them. It was a beat-up old Ford. It drove on down and two men got out.

“Hello,” I says.

“Howdy,” they said. They stood there staring at all the stuff like they couldn’t believe it. Then one of them says, “Well, if that don’t beat anything I ever seen. Right out in broad daylight.”

The other one shook his head. “And that Shurf jest a-rarin’ fer a chanct to put him in jail before election. You reckon he’s lost his mind, Rupert?”

Just then another car drove down the hill. It had one man in it. He got out and stared at the stuff too. “I heered about it, but I didn’t believe it,” he said.

“What seems to be the trouble?” I asked.

None of them said anything. They looked at each other, and got back in their cars and drove off. I went on shelling corn. There was two more cars in the next hour, and all the men acted the same way. It sure was funny, I thought. Then in about a half hour Pop and Uncle Sagamore got back. They hadn’t bought anything this time, though; the truck was empty. They looked at the shed and the hog pen, and then got some buckets and started shelling corn too. I told them about the Sheriff being here, and the other people.

“Well, is that a fact?” Uncle Sagamore says.

“They sure seemed to be interested in what we was doin’,” I says. “What kind of business are we in, anyway?”

Uncle Sagamore studied about it. “Well, we’re sort of thinkin’ about a couple of things. Taxes bein’ what they are, man’s got to have several arns in the fahr jest to stay alive.”

He didn’t say any more. With all three of us working, it wasn’t long before we had five sacks of shelled corn. “That ort to do for a start,” he says. He loaded the sacks in the truck and drove off.

“Now,” Pop says. “We got to have some hot water.”

We built up a fire in the kitchen stove and put a washtub on it and filled it with water from the well. Pop said it would take more, so we started a fire around Aunt Bessie’s big washpot out in the back yard, and filled that too. It was sure beginning to look interesting. By the time the water was good and hot, Uncle Sagamore got back. They unloaded the five sacks of corn, and doggone if it hadn’t been ground up into meal.

“Now, you just stay out of the way, Billy,” Pop says. “And keep that dawg from underfoot.”

I called Sig Freed and sat down on a box and watched, trying to figure out what they was going to do. First, they set the eight wooden tubs in a row against the wall. Then Uncle Sagamore opened some of the sacks of sugar, and started measuring sugar and corn meal into the tubs while Pop brought hot water from the house. When they got the first tub full, they found an old stick and stirred it.

Just then there was a car come down the hill from the gate. It looked like one of those that had been here before, only this time there was more men in it. And right behind it was another one. They stopped in front of the barn and men started getting out. There must have been ten, at least. They all stared at Pop and Uncle Sagamore and the tubs.

“Evenin’, men,” Uncle Sagamore says, and then didn’t pay any more mind to them. He went on measuring out corn meal and sugar.

One or two of the men nodded, but they all stayed back like they was nervous about getting too close.

“Didn’t I tell you?” one of them said, kind of whispering. He was the one called Rupert that had been here earlier.

Another one shook his head. “Now I reckon I seen ever’thing. What you suppose he’s up to? It jest couldn’t be—”

“Why don’t you ask him?” somebody else said.

“Hell, you think I’m crazy? You ask him.”

They all looked at each other, but it didn’t seem like any of them wanted to bother him with any questions. Pop and Uncle Sagamore filled up another tub and stirred it, and started on the third one. And just then another car shot through the gate up by the sand road. We all looked up. You could tell it was one of the Sheriff’s cars by the way it was traveling.

“Oh-oh,” one of the men says, “here he comes.”

They all moved back a little, and stood watching. Pop and Uncle Sagamore didn’t pay any attention; they just went on working. The car slid to a stop. Booger and Otis was in the front seat, and the Sheriff was in back. They all jumped out.

“My God,” Booger says.

Otis had a kind of nasty grin on his face. “Got him right in the act,” he says.

The Sheriff looked at the tubs and nodded, like he was real pleased. “Evenin’, men,” he says to the men that was standing back watching. Then he hitched his thumbs in his gunbelt the way they do in the movies, and kind of strutted over to where Pop and Uncle Sagamore was leaning over the tub. “Sagamore Noonan,” he says, “you’re under arrest.”

Uncle Sagamore looked around. He’d been so busy he hadn’t seen ’em drive up. “Why, howdy, Shurf,” he says. “Drag up one of them boxes and set a spell.”

The Sheriff threw out his chest, and snapped, “Never mind—”

“Take a breather, Sam,” Uncle Sagamore says to Pop. “Likely the Shurf wants to do a little politickin’, what with the election comin’ on, and all. And the least a man can do is take a interest in the gov’ment.”

“Why, sure,” Pop says. He dipped a finger in the stuff in the tub to see if it was warm enough. “Like I always say, if folks’d get out an’ vote, the way they ort, things wouldn’t be in the sorry mess they’re in—”

The Sheriff cussed real loud. “You’re under arrest! Both o’ you!”

Uncle Sagamore looked at him, sort of shocked. “Arrest? Why Shurf, whatever for?”

Booger and Otis snickered. “What for, he says. Oh, brother!” All the men was still watching, just fascinated.

The Sheriff pointed a finger at the tubs and barked at him. “For them three tubs of mash, that’s what!”

“Mash?” Uncle Sagamore looked puzzled. Then he brightened up. “Oh,” he says, “you must mean our hawg feed.”

“
Hawg feed?
” The Sheriff’s face started to get red. Then he took a deep breath and seemed to get hold of hisself. He pointed real cold toward the sacks of sugar. “I see. So you’re makin’ hawg feed out of three thousand pounds of sugar?”

Uncle Sagamore nodded. “Along with some corn meal, o’ course, to give her a little body. You see, me an’ Sam’s kind of experimentin’ in the scientific hawg-fattenin’ business—”

“Come on,” Booger says to the Sheriff, “let’s take the old crook in an’ lock him up. We don’t have to listen to another one of them fairy tales, do we?”

“Wait a minute, boys,” the Sheriff says. “Wait a minute. I still smell somethin’ rotten here. I been through this too many times, and I don’t like the signs.”

Uncle Sagamore didn’t seem to pay any mind to all this. He sat down on one of the boxes and crossed his legs. “Set down, Shurf,” he says, “an’ we’ll tell you about this here idea we had. Bein’ in the gov’ment, so to speak, you’re likely interested in new industries around the county, an’ me an’ Sam sure ain’t the ones to want to keep it a secret an’ hawg all the profits—”

“Oh, good God,” Otis says.

“How I got wind of it in the first place,” Uncle Sagamore went on, “was one day I happened to be lookin’ at one of them wimmin’s magazines of Bessie’s. You know, that’s full of stuff on how to primp up an’ catch a husband, or if you already got one, how to keep him home nights an’ off the neighbors’ back fences, with all them there hair-frizzlers an’ fancy underdrawers an’ corset doo-dads. Well, anyhow, I run onto this picture of this here real fat lady. An’ it seems like she wasn’t havin’ no fun at all. She’d got so hefty across the britchin’, wasn’t nobody would even think of marryin’ her. But right next to this ’un was another picture of the same lady, except that by golly this time she was ga’nted down to skin an’ bones, an’ she was happy as a dead hawg in the sunshine because the woods was full of young bucks just a-hankerin’ to get at her. An’ it went on to say how she done all this was just by cuttin’ down on the sweetenin’. Seems like it was too much sugar that made her get fat.